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AUTHOR 
 
 FITZ PATRICK, WALTER 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 GREAT CONDE AND THE 
 PERIOD OF THE FRONDE 
 
 PLACE: 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DA TE : 
 
 1873 
 
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 Fitz Patrick, Walter. 
 
 The Great Conde and the period of the Fronde. A his- 
 torical sketch. By Walter Fitz Patrick ... London, T. C. 
 Newby, 1873. 
 
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 1. Cond4, Louis ii de Bourbon, prince de, called le Grand Cond^, 1621- 
 1C§6. 2. Fronde. 3. France— Illst— Louis xiv, 1G43-1715. 
 
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 THE GREAT CONDE 
 
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 THE PERIOD OF THE FRONDE. 
 
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 THE GREAT CONDE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE FRONDE. 
 
 A HISTORICAL SKETCH. 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER JIITZ PATRICK. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
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 THE GREAT CONDE AND THE 
 PERIOD OF THE FRONDE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The House of Bourbon is descended from a 
 younger son of St. Louis. Charles of Bourbon, 
 Duke of Yen dome, who died in the year 1536, 
 left three sons — Anthony, Duke of Vendome, who 
 by his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret became 
 King of Navarre ; the Cardinal of Bourbon, whom 
 the Catholic League afterwards proclaimed Ejug 
 of France in opposition to his nephew, Henry lY. ; 
 and Louis, first Prince of Conde. Louis embraced 
 the reformed tenets, and was the leader of the 
 Huguenot party in the rehgious troubles which 
 broke out in France after the death of Henry II. 
 He was an ambitious and turbulent prince of great 
 courage and some capacity, but his fortunes paled 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
 614 
 
 
 ^ 
 
h 
 
 before the splendid genius of Francis Duke of 
 Guise. He was about to be led to the block in 
 1559, when the sudden death of King Francis II., 
 throwing the reins of government into the hands 
 of the Queen-mother, Catherine de Medici, gave 
 him life and liberty. In 1562 he was defeated 
 and taken prisoner by Guise at the battle of 
 Dreux. After the assassination of the Great 
 Duke by Palliot, an emissary of Admiral Coligni, 
 while he was besieging Orleans in the following 
 year, Conde again recovered his freedom, and held 
 a leading position in the State until he was de- 
 feated and killed at the battle of Jarnac in 1569. 
 The son of Louis, Henry, second Prince of 
 Conde, was brought up in his father^s faith, in 
 intimate association with Jeanne d'Albret, and 
 her son, the young Prince of Beam, who succeeded 
 to the kingdom of Navarre at his mother's death 
 in 1572. Henry of Conde shared the fortunes of 
 his cousin after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
 and during the early part of the wars of the 
 League. He especially distinguished himself at 
 the battle of Courtias in 1587. A few months 
 after this victory he died at St. Jean d'Angely. 
 The circumstances surrounding his death excited 
 strong suspicion of foul play on the part of his 
 wife Charlotte, daughter of the Duke of la Tre- 
 mouille. She was accused of poisoning her lius- 
 
 1^ 
 
 band in order to prevent his discovering her adul- 
 tery with a page named Belcastel, of which her 
 condition was Hkely to afford conclusive evidence; 
 and after a trial on this charge before a Huguenot 
 tribunal at St. Jean d'Angely, was condemned to 
 death. Being with child, she was respited pend- 
 ing her accouchement, and imprisoned in a tower 
 of the town, where later in the year she gave birth 
 to a son. In the meantime the Parliament 
 of Paris, claiming exclusive jurisdiction over 
 criminals of her rank, declared the sentence of 
 death invalid on account of the incompetency of 
 the court, and, as on the death of Henry III. in 
 the same year the acknowledged princes of the 
 blood, the Prince of Conti, the Count of Soissons, 
 and the Cardinal of Bourbon, were Catholics; 
 the Huguenots, reluctant to injure the claims of 
 the princess's child as next heir to his cousin, 
 Henry IV., allowed the judgment to remain dor- 
 mant. The princess, however, remained a prisoner 
 till 1595, when Henry IV., firmly seated on the 
 French throne, feeling dissatisfied at the tur- 
 bulent proceedings of the Court of Soissons, an- 
 nulled the sentence of death. Although Henry had 
 made no secret of his own conviction of her guilt, 
 he granted Madame de Conde a new trial before 
 the Parliament of Paris. The High Court de- 
 clared her innocent, whereupon the King acknow- 
 
 B 2 
 
ex 
 
 ledged her son as firs^ Prince of the blood, and 
 caused him to be educated at St. Germain in the 
 Catholic Faith. 
 
 The 16th century undoubtedly forms one of the 
 most important epochs in the history of the world. 
 Never, at any other period, has the human mind 
 been more deeply stirred by questions of more 
 tremendous moment; no other period has produced 
 a greater number of extraordinary characters. 
 But exactly in proportion to the vehemence of the 
 strife which convulsed the leading nations of 
 Europe, its passions, noble and ignoble, warped 
 and clouded men's minds, and prevented their 
 always estimating justly the characters of their 
 leaders. The gods of the popular worship, as seen 
 through the turbid haze of party enthusiasm, en- 
 throned on lofty pinnacles, and radiant with 
 undying glory, occasionally prove, in the clear 
 atmosphere of historical truth, mean and grovel- 
 hng idols, having fronts of brass and feet of clay. 
 With perhaps one exception, there is no pubhc 
 character of great mark that bears worse the 
 strong light which modern research has thrown 
 upon the 16th century than Henri Quatre, to 
 whom flatterers have given the much-abused title 
 of The Great. The exception is Queen Elizabeth 
 of England, whose real character is so vividly 
 presented to us in the confidential correspondence 
 
 h 
 
 of the singularly able aj^d crooked statesmen, 
 who, in their own interests, propped her throne, 
 and were the sport and the victims of her cunning 
 hypocrisy and capricious humours. Vain, false, 
 cruel, crafty, inconstant, and sordidly avaricious, 
 joining much that is most repulsive in the rioting 
 passions of a fierce and gross masculine nature 
 to the most unloveable failings of her own i 
 the coarse ferocity and ruthless temper of F . . ^ 
 YIII., to the fickle selfishness of a coquf ' te, and 
 the caressing guile of a tigress — these traits of 
 Elizabeth's character are apparent, even from the 
 reluctant evidence of modern historians of her own 
 party. But we find scarcely a trace of the glorious 
 intellect, not a glimpse of the greatness of soul, 
 which popular fancy has attributed to the last of 
 the Tudor sovereigns. 
 
 In truth, Henry's claims to the lofty titles 
 which sectarian prejudice and national vanity have 
 lavished on him rest on as slender foundations. 
 He had the restless energy, the buoyant spirit, 
 and the brilliant — if somewhat boastful— courage 
 characteristic of the Gascons, with a sagacious 
 sense and a strong love of his own interests, un- 
 clouded and unfettered by any motive or restraint, 
 except the ephemeral chains woven by an in- 
 satiable propensity to gallantry. He had a plea- 
 sant wit, frank and familiar manners, not always 
 
ti 
 
 free from deceit, and, wlien his interests or his 
 passions did not arouse wliat was tyrannical in his 
 disposition, an easy good nature, which was prone 
 to degenerate into weakness. What perhaps has 
 contributed most to his wide popularity is the say- 
 ing attributed to him, that he wished every French 
 peasant to have a fowl boiling in his pot. This is 
 one of those sounding sentiments of visionary 
 benevolence which captivate the minds of men, 
 especially of Frenchmen ; and which, if it had 
 expressed in any degree the policy of their ruler, 
 would have entitled him to the gratitude of his 
 subjects. But it was merely a gush of cheap 
 philanthropy which he exemplified by loading his 
 impoverished kingdom, desolated by the wars of the 
 League, with excessive taxation, in order to extort 
 the means of indulging his costly vices, and of 
 plunging unwiUing Europe, without any just pre- 
 text, into a desperate conflict, an earlier unchain- 
 ing of the fiendish passions and the unutterable 
 woes of the Thirty Years' War. 
 
 But circumstances were singularly favourable 
 to Henri Quatre. The last three kings of the 
 house of Valois, his predecessors and contem- 
 poraries, were among the least estimable of 
 French sovereigns. The brilliant sceptre of 
 Francis I. had descended to the vile brood of 
 Catherine of Medicis, the sickly and feeble-minded 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 Francis II. ; Charles IX., whose brief and unhappy 
 life was a restless condition of morbid self-torture, 
 passing at intervals from the sullen frenzy of 
 brooding suspicion to the wild frenzy of unbridled 
 rage ; Henry III., the most infamous of mankind. 
 Before Henry IV. was entitled to claim the 
 succession to the French crown, the family of 
 Lorraine-Guise, the most illustrious on the splen- 
 did roll of French nobility — ^perhaps the most 
 illustrious in modern annals — which had furnished 
 two generations of champions and martyrs to the 
 Catholic cause, the grand figures of the men 
 towering above a race of giants, the women peer- 
 less in beauty, in cultivated intellect, and in the 
 noble fortitude that vanquishes misfortune, had 
 been robbed of its strength and its glory by the 
 hands of assassins. A branch of the house of 
 Lorraine, in comparison with which even the 
 royal race of Capet was mean, the Guises traced 
 back their august lineage through a long line of 
 warrior princes to the Imperial figure of Charle- 
 magne. By one of those strange revolutions 
 which time brings about, the house of Lorraine, 
 deriving its origin from the great Frank who 
 re-established the Roman empire of the west — 
 after many centuries of inferior, though not 
 obscure, sovereignty — had risen again to the 
 summit of greatness in three generations of 
 
8 
 
 Roman Emperors, when the Imperial fabric 
 crumbled beneath the sword of a conqueror 
 greater even than Charlemagne. Francis, Duke 
 of Guise is, bv universal consent, one of the most 
 splendid and stainless characters in history. He 
 possessed in a superlative degree all the qualities 
 that attract admiration and love, and his life was 
 a noble example of pubHc and private virtue. 
 His six brothers stood in repute second only 
 to him. The Cardinal of Lorraine, besides be- 
 ing renowned throughout Europe as a theolo- 
 gian and a scholar, was the most profound, vigor- 
 ous, and accomplished statesman France has 
 produced, with the exception of Cardinal Richelieu. 
 Nor were the women of the family inferior to the 
 men. For courage, capacity for government, 
 virtue, and beauty, Mary, wife of James V. of 
 Scotland, had no equal among the princesses of 
 her time. The brilliant and engaging qualities, 
 the ardent attachment to their faith, the deep 
 mutual affection binding its members together in 
 unwavering fidelity, the extraordinary majesty and 
 beauty of person, worthy of its Imperial origin 
 and Imperial spirit, that distinguished the entire 
 family, gave it an indisputable pre-eminence which 
 is recognised with an admiration rising to wonder 
 in the diplomatic correspondence of the period. 
 The son of Francis, Henry Duke of Guise, if of 
 
 A 
 
 9 
 
 a character less lofty and pure than his heroic 
 father, rivalled him in military and political genius, 
 m the strength of his rehgious convictions, and in 
 the splendour of his personal gifts. It is in 
 reference to him that the Duchess of Retz, the 
 most accomplished and fastidious lady of the 
 court of Catherine of Medicis, and by no means a 
 partial critic, says, " Those princes of the house of 
 Lorraine have so noble and majestic a mien that 
 in comparison to them, all other men appear ple- 
 beian and common." But when Henry of Guise 
 fell in the hour of his triumph, perfidiously mur- 
 dered by Henry II., as his father had been cut 
 off in his career of victory by an assassin suborned 
 by Coligni, the house of Lorraine-Guise and the 
 Catholic cause fell under the leadership of the 
 self-seeking and sluggish Mayenne. To Mayenne 
 Henri Quatre was as superior as he was inferior 
 to either Duke of Guise. At the very beginning 
 of the struggle between them, when the chances 
 of success seemed decidedly on the side of the 
 Catholic League, Pope Sixtus V. said that the 
 Bearnais must win, because he spent less time in 
 bed than Mayenne did at his meals. In fact, 
 when Henry had once made up his mind to conform 
 to the Catholic faith, the issue of the conflict was 
 no longer doubtful. And when France had again 
 become united, and the religious passions of the 
 
 B 5 
 
10 
 
 time began to cool down, the religious element 
 wliicli liad been tbe essential feature of the Civil 
 War was gradually lost sight of, or purposely dis- 
 regarded in favour of the political element which 
 had been an accident. The old national spirit of 
 rivalry to Spain, which had been overpowered for 
 a time by a still stronger sentiment, revived in all 
 its former intensity. The ex-Huguenot leader was 
 forgotten in the gallant king who had freed France 
 from the domination of Philip II. National 
 vanity, personified in later times by Voltaire, has 
 invested the only sovereign of the disastrous period 
 of French history that followed the death of Henry 
 II. — whose character or capacity was not con- 
 temptible—with all the qualities that should adorn 
 a sage and a hero. 
 
 Whether we regard Henry IV. from an intel- 
 lectual or a moral point of view, his claims to 
 greatness do not bear investigation. His talents 
 as a ruler were not more than respectable. In the 
 beginning of his reign, when his council was com- 
 posed of men of but ordinary ability, and not 
 always of ordinary integrity, his affairs fell into a 
 state of frightful confusion, with which he was 
 utterly unable of himself to grapple. It was only 
 when he virtually surrendered the two great de- 
 partments of the administration to two very able 
 men — ^Villeroy, the most expert of politicians ; 
 
 h 
 
 11 
 
 and Sully, stern, frugal, and unscrupulous, whose 
 one rule of conduct was devotion to the interests 
 of his master — that his government exhibited 
 skill in diplomacy, or order in finance. And the 
 most anxious cares of Sully were caused by the 
 unkingly folHes and caprices that constantly 
 thwarted the great minister's labours. 
 
 The mihtary talents of Henry were not of a 
 high order. It is true that he won great renown 
 as the victor at Arques and Ivry. And so far as 
 the heroic spirit of a leader determines the fate of 
 battles, he deserved his renown. But, besides 
 that, whatever of warlike skill existed at the time 
 in France, and perhaps at no period was French 
 generalship at so low an ebb, had enlisted unr* -^r 
 the royal banner, Henry had on his side the sloth, 
 the indecision, and the incapacity of his opponent, 
 Mayenne. When pitted against the Duke of 
 Parma, the contrast between the royal ^' Captain 
 of Horse '^ and the consummate Spanish general 
 was ludicrous. The ease with which the great 
 master of war, although sinking under a mortal 
 illness, twice led his small army from the Nether- 
 lands into the heart of France, baffling with the 
 calm contempt of superior science every effort of 
 the French King to retard his movements or 
 compel him to fight, and, without a blow, raising 
 the sieges of Eouen and Paris ; his astonishing 
 
12 
 
 feat of carrying his troops^ wliicli, during one of 
 tlie paroxysms of his disorder, had been shut up 
 without supplies and without apparent possibility 
 of escape, in an angle of the Seine, near Eouen, 
 across the broad and rapid river, in the face of his 
 amazed foes, without the loss of a single man or a 
 single gun ; and the deliberate skill with which, 
 when he had accomplished his objects, he slowly 
 marched back again into Flanders, the whole 
 chivalry of the kingdom following on his track in 
 helpless rage and mortification, inflicted greater 
 humiliation on the French arms than the loss of 
 two pitched battles. 
 
 The moral character of Henry was despicable. 
 The facility with which he changed his belief, as if 
 it was merely a garment, outraged even the lax 
 public morality of that age. Tlie more distin- 
 guished leaders of the Protestant party through- 
 out Europe, however eminent for parts and for 
 force of will, were not, as a rule, influenced by 
 deep religious convictions. As in the case of 
 Maurice of Saxony, probably the ablest of them 
 all, their religion was a part of their policy. They 
 were statesmen who regarded the vehement theo- 
 logical ferment, that stirred in the minds of their 
 followers, as a vigorous power, which, if skilfully 
 directed, might achieve empire. But though for 
 the greater part unencumbered with scruples. 
 
 J 
 
 13 
 
 they generally maintained in their outer conduct 
 a decent show of conformity to the opinions and 
 feelings of their adherents. Henry, however,, 
 with a cynical levity peculiar to himself, habitually 
 adapted his creed to his interests. And to this 
 shameless disregard of obligations, the most 
 sacred amongst men, which enabled him to take 
 full advantage of the sentiment of hereditary 
 right, so strongly cherished by Frenchmen at that 
 time, he owed his success, far more than to his 
 political or military abilities. When established 
 on the throne, his personal conduct as a ruler was 
 seldom shaped in consonance with any standard 
 of high principle or enlightened statesmanship. 
 When he was not tyrannical he was weak. He 
 was always selfish. The most sacred motives of 
 justice and of honour, the longest and most bril- 
 liant services, weighed as nothing in his mind in 
 comparison With the policy or inclination of the 
 moment. He was easily moved to tears, to bursts 
 of hysterical emotion at a grief that touched him- 
 self. He would weep piteously in recounting 
 what he suffered from some ludicrous freak of a 
 coquettish mistress. But he was incapable alike 
 of large-minded benevolence, or of a generous 
 and lasting attachment. 
 
 With the exception of the old Marshal Biron, 
 who had died for his cause, no one had done more 
 
14 
 
 to seat Mm on the throne than the Marshals son, 
 the Duk6 of Biron. They had long been sworn 
 comrades and brothers-in-arms. Biron was vain 
 and irritable. Eightly or wrongly^ he entertained 
 the belief that his services had not been sufficiently 
 recompensed; that others less deserving had been 
 preferred to himself. Smarting under a sense of 
 injustice^ he gave ear to the perfidious counsels of 
 a secretary, and while commanding an army 
 against the Duke of Savoy, allowed himself to be 
 drawn into a treasonable correspondence with the 
 enemies of France. The negotiations, however, 
 were still incomplete when he was struck with 
 remorse, and, repairing to Lyons, confessed his 
 treason to the King. Henry, taken by surprise, 
 fell on his old friend^s neck in a passion of tears, 
 and granted him full pardon. After the termina- 
 tion of the war, Biron, who had retired to 
 his government of Burgundy, received an invita- 
 tion from the King to repair to Fontainebleau. 
 The missive contained the royal pledge that no 
 harm should befal him. The Duke, contrary 
 to the advice of his friends, went up to Court. 
 He was received by Henry with a gush of 
 tender affection, but after a few days, during 
 which his movements were closely watched, he 
 was suddenly arrested, and despite of pardon 
 and pledge, was arraigned before the Parlia- 
 
 . 
 
 15 
 
 ment of Paris for the crime which had been 
 condoned at Lyons, sentenced to death, and be- 
 headed on the Place de Greve. It is true that 
 Henry, who was keenly sensitive to the horror 
 which this tyrannical act provoked throughout 
 Europe, and to the feelings of indignation and 
 distrust which it aroused in the French nobility, 
 afterwards alleged, in his own justification, that 
 proofs of new treasons on the part of Biron had 
 come to light, and that the Duke's obstinacy in 
 refusing to confess his guilt was the sole cause of 
 his ruin. But Biron was entrapped by means of 
 a formal pledge of safety sent to him by his 
 sovereign when in full possession of all the evi- 
 dence. He denied to his last breath the additional 
 accusations, which rested on the unsupported 
 testimony of his secretary and tempter, a man of 
 infamous character, who had been bought, if not 
 suborned, by the Duke of Sully. And the only 
 really weighty charge preferred against the Duke 
 at his trial, that which determined the judgment of 
 the High Court, related to the acts which he did not 
 deny, and for which he pleaded his sovereign's 
 pardon. Unfortunately for himself, in his reliance 
 on the King's faith, he had scorned the prudent 
 advice of the Constable Montmorenci to demand 
 an official pardon under the Great Seal, which 
 could have been produced in evidence ; and the 
 
 
16 
 
 remorseless policy of Stilly, whichj aimed by a 
 terrible example to strike dismay into the haughty 
 and turbulent nobles who treated him with open 
 disdain_, worked on the jealous fears of Henry, 
 and rendered Biron's confidence in his master 
 fatal to himself. 
 
 Many other well-known incidents of his reign 
 indicated, though in a less tragical way, how 
 greatly, where the claims of past service and tried 
 friendship clashed with a present purpose, Henry 
 was prone to the ignoble vice of ingratitude. 
 
 But it is in his relations with the fairer half of 
 his subjects which formed not the least important 
 feature in the history of his reign, and brought 
 him into disgraceful collision with his young kins- 
 man, the Prince of Conde, that the true character 
 of this king is most clearly seen. In truth, it is 
 difficult to conceive two human beings more 
 essentially different than the Henri Quatre of 
 Romance, the soul of chivalry, the wise and mag- 
 nanimous sovereign, the idol of the brave and the 
 fair, and the Henri Quatre, mean-spirited, tyran- 
 nical, jealous, infatuated, supremely ridiculous, 
 who has been sketched by the friendly pens of 
 Sully, the Princess of Conti, Bassompierre, and 
 others, among his most intimate associates. The 
 slave of his passion for the sex, he seems never to 
 have succeeded in gaining the love or respect of a 
 
 17 
 
 woman. It is not easy to say whether his mar- 
 riages or his liaisons reflect more discredit on 
 himself, or were more prolific of troubles to the 
 
 State. 
 
 His first wife, the beautiful and accomplished 
 Margaret of Valois, had been deeply attached in 
 early life to Henry, Duke of Guise. Charles IX., 
 her brother, incited to a frantic jealousy of his 
 great subject by the arts of her second brother, 
 the Duke of Anjou, threatened to kill Guise with 
 his own hand if he persisted in a suit in which 
 his affections were engaged ; and is said to have 
 resorted to personal violence to compel his sister 
 to a union which she loathed. Despising and 
 detesting a husband who took her for poHtical 
 convenience, and then in order to secure freedom 
 in the pursuit of his pleasures, accorded her 
 similar liberty of conduct, Margaret abandoned 
 herself to shameless excesses. The marriage, 
 irregular in itself, and endured with repugnance, 
 proved unfruitful. Henry afterwards wrung from 
 Margaret, when her kindred were all dead, and 
 her friends alienated by her misconduct, a consent 
 to a divorce, by threatening her with a public 
 trial for the profligacy at which he had connived. 
 
 His second wife, Mary of Medicis, was a woman 
 of high spirit and quick temper. The open 
 insults passed on her by her husband and hi? 
 
18 
 
 imperious mistress, the Marchioness of Vemeuil, 
 who publicly challenged the validity of her mar- 
 riage, provoked her beyond endurance. The 
 Court was torn by angry contentions. Domestic 
 grievances generated dangerous political cabals, 
 and the almost daily task of allaying the mutual 
 animosities of the king, his wife and his mistress, 
 severely taxed the patience and skill of Sully. 
 Sounds of recrimination and violence frequently 
 burst from the royal apartments. On one occasion 
 Henry rushed undressed from his wife^s bedchamber 
 to complain to Sully that she had struck him in the 
 face, and to concert measures with his minister 
 for obtaining another divorce. So notorious were 
 the quarrels of the royal pair, that on the assassi- 
 nation of the King, the crime was popularly 
 attributed to the joint contrivance of Mary of 
 Medicis and her former rival, the Marchioness of 
 Verneuil, whom common thirst for revenge was 
 supposed to have united for his destruction. 
 
 The lives of Henriette de Balzac, Marchioness 
 of Yerneuil, and Gabrielle d'Estrees, Duchess of 
 Beaufort, belong to history. Both regarded Henry 
 with indifference ; both were reluctantly induced 
 to accept a disgraceful position under pressure 
 of a scandalous abuse of the royal authority, 
 tempered by distinct promises of marriage. 
 Grabrielle loved and was betrothed to the hand- 
 
 19 
 
 some Duke of Bellegarde, one of the great 
 Catholic nobles who had remained faithful to 
 Henry III. and after that monarch's death, loyally 
 supported the Beamais as legitimate king. Belle- 
 garde, in the unreserved freedom of fanuliar 
 intercourse, indiscreetly boasted to his sovereign 
 and friend of Gabrielle's unrivalled beauty ; and 
 as Henry affected scepticism on the subject, in- 
 vited him to come and see her. Henry came, saw, 
 and was conquered. He immediately forbade the 
 marriage, exiled the Duke, silenced the remon- 
 strances of the lady's friends with threats of 
 vengeance, and by every ungenerous and every 
 unholy means which profligacy could suggest or 
 arbitrary power compass, compelled her to consent 
 to his wishes. She bore her chains for years, 
 doing constant violence to her better nature and 
 her inclinations, in consequence of his pledges to 
 make her queen of France and legitimate her 
 children. If ever Henry entertained anything 
 approaching to genuine regard for a human being 
 it was for Gabrielle d'Estr^es. Her death, after 
 horrible and protracted agonies, which seized 
 her at the end of a banquet given to her on 
 Thursday in Holy Week by the celebrated Zamet, 
 a low-born Italian proteg^ of Catherine of Medicis, 
 who, making the crimes and vices of the most 
 infamous court of modem Europe the stepping- 
 
20 
 
 stones of liis fortune, had risen to be the greatest 
 usurer and pander of his time, seemed to over- 
 whelm her lover with grief. Henry declared, in 
 a touching epistle to his sister, which was stained 
 with his tears, that his heart was for ever broken ; 
 that it lay buried in his mistresses tomb. But 
 when Sully, immediately afterwards, suggested to 
 him that Gabrielle's death released him from the 
 embarrassing consequences of the frequent pro- 
 mises of marriage he had made to her, he at once 
 became cheerful. All the circumstances attending 
 Gabrielle^s death pointed to a foul murder. She 
 had repeatedly exclaimed, in piteous tones, that 
 she was poisoned. Although in a dying state, 
 she had insisted, with the desperate pertinacity of 
 extreme terror, on being removed from Zamet's 
 house. Yet Henry stifled all inquiry, continued 
 his patronage to the ill-famed but convenient 
 Italian, and, before three weeks had expired, was 
 using all the resources of force and fraud to win 
 the person of Henriette de Balzac. 
 
 Henriette was a clever and brilliant coquette. 
 She knew that the King was on the point of 
 obtaining from the Pope the long-sought-for 
 annulment of his marriage with Margaret of 
 Valois; and she aspired to be Queen of France. 
 Her connexions were high and powerful ; and, 
 before she would accept Henry's proposals, she 
 
 21 
 
 exacted from him a written promise, regularly 
 attested, to make her his wife on condition that 
 she bore him offspring within a year. She per- 
 formed her part of the compact. He violated his 
 without scruple ; compelled the surrender of the 
 compromising document by force ; but was 
 unable to prevent the outraged feelings of the 
 lady and her kindred from raising up formidable 
 troubles against his own peace and that of his 
 kingdom during the remainder of his reign, or 
 the shadow of illegitimacy from resting on his 
 children by Mary of Medicis. The whole history 
 of his relations with his two mistresses ; his selfish 
 tyranny; his doting weakness; the tricks they 
 played him ; their futile efforts to throw off a 
 wearisome vassalage ; his maudlin tears and his 
 tragic airs ; his ever restless jealousy, displaying 
 itself now in mean espionage, now in acts of 
 oppression towards suspected rivals ; his total 
 want of faith and honour; the incredible self- 
 abasement with which he sacrificed his dignity as 
 a man, and his duties as a sovereign, in vain efforts 
 to propitiate his angry mistresses ; even when 
 softened down in the partial pages of his pane- 
 gyrist Sully, would be infinitely amusing, if they 
 did not form one of the most astonishing and 
 humiliating^pictures of human infirmity that the 
 world has known. 
 
22 
 
 But his conduct towards liis young cousin, tlie 
 Prince of Conde, stamps Henr/s memory with 
 even deeper dishonour. In the early part of the 
 year 1609, there appeared at Court, in a ballet 
 given by Mary of Medicis, a young lady, then 
 about sixteen, of incomparable grace and beauty ; 
 Charlotte, youngest daughter of the Constable 
 Montmorenci. The portraits of her that exist are 
 disappointing 3 but it is clear from the enthusiastic 
 description of Cardinal Bentivoglio, and other 
 less grave chroniclers of that time, that nature 
 had endowed her with extraordinary gifts of 
 person and mind. The brilliancy of this new 
 star dazzled the Court ; and Henry, whose amorous 
 temperament was unchilled by the frosts of nearly 
 sixty winters, found his heart in a flame. Char- 
 lotte had been brought up in almost complete 
 seclusion by her aunt, Diana of France, Duchess 
 of Angouleme, at Vincennes ; but the fame of 
 her charms had spread abroad, and before she 
 reached her thirteenth year, her father had been 
 importuned with the most splendid offers for her 
 hand. He had rejected them all curtly ; but now, 
 to the astonishment of every one, and of no one 
 more than the fortunate object of his choice, he 
 proposed her as a wife, with an enormous dower, 
 to the Marquis of Bassompierre, the most brilliant 
 of adventurers, whose attractive qualities had 
 
 1 1 
 
 23 
 
 taken by storm the eccentric old Constable's 
 heart. 
 
 Bassompierre was a cadet of a poor family of 
 the second order of nobility in Lorraine; his 
 father had been in the service of Henry, Duke of 
 Guise. About ten years before this time, he had 
 made his appearance at the Court of France, a 
 stripling of twenty, without money or interest. 
 But he was one of the handsomest and wittiest 
 men of the age, adorned with all the graces and 
 accomplishments of a perfect courtier — brave, 
 amiable, and politic. His shining qualities soon 
 won for him a distinguished place in the favour 
 of the King, who made him the companion of all 
 his parties of pleasure ; and it is a strong testi- 
 mony to his tact and prudence, that he was not less 
 the favourite of Mary of Medicis. Without pos- 
 sessing any patrimony, he rivalled in magnificence 
 and profusion the greatest nobles of the kingdom. 
 The means of his extravagance were supplied 
 chiefly by his extraordinary luck at play. He re- 
 lates in his memoirs that at the ceremony of the 
 baptism of the royal children in the year 1606, his 
 dress cost fourteen thousand crowns, an enormous 
 sum at that time. When he gave the order to 
 his tailor his whole fortune amounted to seven 
 hundred crowns, but by the end of a month he 
 had won enough to pay for the habit, and to 
 
 m 
 
 M ' 
 
24 
 
 purcliase a diamond-liilted sword, wluch completed 
 
 his costume. 
 
 Tlie King, seemingly over-joyed at the good 
 fortune of his boon companion, at once assented 
 to the marriage. But the connexions of the proud 
 house of Montmorenci were furious, and conspired 
 to break it off. Henry^s passion for the young 
 beauty was the talk of the whole Court, and they 
 sought in the King^s weakness the means of ac- 
 comphshing their design. It was privately repre- 
 sented to him that the handsome, fascinating 
 Bassompierre would infalhbly win Charlotte^s 
 affections; that the contemplated union would be 
 the death-blow of his own hopes. Before the day 
 fixed for the nuptials, Henry, one morning before 
 rising, summoned his favourite to his bedside. 
 With abundance of sighs and tears, he confided 
 to the astonished lover, as his dearest friend, his 
 guilty designs upon this friend^s affianced bride. 
 In pathetic accents, he confessed his love for 
 Charlotte, and his intention to reserve her to be 
 the comfort and solace of his old age. He said 
 that if the match proceeded, he and Bassompierre 
 would be certain to quarrel ; that he was re- 
 solved to introduce the young lady into his own 
 family by giving her in marriage to the Prince of 
 Conde, who, caring nothing for women, and de- 
 voting all his hours to the chase, would not be a 
 
 25 
 
 bar to his happiness. The sudden clouding over 
 of the splendid fortune which had dawned upon 
 him, for a few moments overwhelmed Bassom- 
 pierre with grief and despair. But he reflected 
 that ineffectual opposition would only ruin all his 
 prospects in life. Recovering himself quickly, he 
 repHed, with the best grace he could, that he had 
 long passionately desired an opportunity of evinc- 
 ing his devotion and gratitude to his master ; an 
 adequate occasion now presented itself, and he 
 gladly sacrificed all his happiness in life to pro- 
 mote his sovereign's felicity. Henry embraced 
 the unfortunate courtier tenderly, and forthwith 
 commanded the marriage of Mademoiselle de 
 Montmorenci with the Prince of Conde. 
 
 The young Prince and the Constable both de' 
 murred. The former was of a very shy reserved 
 temper, and was painfully sensitive regarding the 
 cloud that rested on his birth. The King's 
 notorious admiration of the young lady excited 
 his distrust ; but a threat of imprisonment in the 
 Bastille frightened him into acquiescence. An in- 
 come of one hundred thousand livres was settled on 
 liim by the Crown, and the marriage was celebrated 
 at Chant illy. A few days afterwards, the Prince 
 and his wife were ordered to appear at some Court 
 festivities; and Henry, discarding all the restraints 
 of decency, openly displayed his passion for the 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
26 
 
 Princess in the most extravagant fasliion. He 
 indulged in such juvenile foUies ; he played such 
 fantastic pranks, decked out in scented collars and 
 gorgeous satin sleeves ; he pubhcly raved in such 
 wild, incoherent raptures, that Charlotte fondly 
 believed his love for her had deprived him of 
 reason. Her husband, frantic with rage and 
 shame, ordered her to leave the Court; Henry 
 ordered her to remain. Then came scandalous 
 scenes of recrimination between the kinsmen, and 
 tyranny on the part of the King. He stopped 
 Condi's income, reproached him with the illegiti- 
 macy of his birth, and deliberated about shutting 
 hiTn up in the Bastille. 
 
 At length, through the interference of the Con- 
 stable, the Prince was able to remove his wife to 
 the Chateau of Muret in Picardy, and place her in 
 charge of his mother. Charlotte does not seem 
 to have entertained a very hvely sense of grati- 
 tude for her husband's efforts in her behalf. 
 Henry had calculated rightly that the union was 
 not likely to be cemented by conjugal affection. 
 She was pleased by the admiration she excited, and 
 shuddered at the gloomy solitude of Muret, and 
 the uncongenial companionship of her mother-in- 
 law. Her royal adorer followed her in hot pursuit. 
 On St. Hubert's Day the two Princesses came 
 forth to witness a great^ hunt in honour of the 
 
 27 
 
 festival. Charlotte's attention was soon attracted 
 by a piqtieur, with a long beard and a large patch 
 over one of his eyes, who was stationed at a little 
 distance, with two dogs in a leash, and gazed 
 upon her intently. A closer scrutiny enabled her 
 to recognise the King under his disguise. The 
 Princesses afterwards repaired for luncheon to a 
 neighbouring chateau ; and Henry, by the conni- 
 vance of the hostess, feasted his eye^ on the object 
 of his adoration through a small hole cut in the 
 tapestry of the saloon. He then rashly shifted 
 his position to the window of an opposite apart- 
 ment, and began gesticulating like a madman. 
 But the Dowager Princess caught sight of him, 
 carried off her charge in great indignation, and 
 informed her son of the Kiag's pursuit. 
 
 Conde saw that his only safety lay in immediate 
 and secret flight from the kingdom. He pre- 
 tended to his wife that he was about to return 
 with her to court, for the accouchement of Mary 
 of Medicis, in obedience to a royal summons; and, 
 placing her, all joyful, in a coach, surrounded by 
 his retainers, took the road to the Low Countries. 
 The vehicle broke down on the journey; but Cond^, 
 allowing the princess scarcely a moment for re- 
 pose, made her mount behind him on a pillion, 
 and riding th(^ whole of a wild November night 
 through torrents of rain, succeeded in placing her, 
 
 c 2 
 
28 
 
 half dead with cold and hunger, and devoured by 
 chagrin, beyond the reach of his venerable rival. 
 
 The rapidity of his flight saved him from an 
 unexpected danger. At the beginning of 
 the journey the guide, suspecting its object, 
 despatched his son in all haste to Paris to inform 
 the King. The messenger arrived late at night 
 at the Louvre, while Henry was at play with some ' 
 of his courtiers. When the news was whispered 
 in his ear he started up in great agitation, and 
 caUed Bassompierre aside. " Mon ami/' he said, 
 " I am lost. Our man has lured his wife into a 
 wood either to murder her or carry her off." He 
 then rushed off to his wife's bedroom, and sum- 
 moned all the ministers to attend him. Mary of 
 Medicis had a few days before given birth to a 
 daughter, and was still an invaUd. When Sully 
 arrived from the Arsenal, in very bad humour at 
 the untimely disturbance of his slumbers, he found 
 Henry pacing his wife's room with disordered air 
 and incoherent mutterings, like a man distracted. 
 The ministers stood in a row against the wall con- 
 founded and aghast, proffering contradictory 
 counsels, all of which the King ordered to be 
 immediately carried out. The poor Queen was 
 looking on from her bed, a helpless spectator of a 
 scene which was in itself one of the grossest out- 
 rages that could be offered to her. Henry, rushing 
 
 29 
 
 up to Sully, told him what had happened, and was 
 coolly upbraided by the virtuous and grim-visaged 
 minister for not having shut up the Prince in the 
 Bastille. Then orders were despatched to the 
 garrisons on the Flemish frontier for the arrest of 
 the fugitives ; and so rapidly were these commands 
 conveyed that Conde did not cross the frontier a 
 moment too soon. 
 
 The Archduke Albert, son of the Emperor 
 Maximihan II., and his wife Isabella, daughter of 
 Philip II. of Spain, were at this time joint 
 Sovereigns of the Low Countries. It was known 
 to them that the French monarch had completed 
 his formidable preparations for a war against the 
 house of Austria; and therefore the appeal which 
 the French Prince addressed to them for protec- 
 tion, on entering their dominions, was extremely 
 embarrassing, as being likely to furnish a pretext 
 for aggression. However, chiefly through the 
 influence of Isabella, permission was accorded to 
 Conde to place his wife under the charge of his 
 brother-in-law, the Prince of Orange, at Brussels; 
 and after some difficulty and delay he was allowed 
 to repair thither himself. Henry sent de Praslin, 
 the captain of his Guards, and afterwards the 
 Marquis of Coeuvres, on special missions to 
 the Flemish Court, to persuade his injured 
 •cousin to return with his wife; and in case of 
 
30 
 
 refusal, to proclaim Hm a traitor, and require the 
 surrender of tlie exiles from tlie Arcliduke under 
 threat of war. Cond^, proving deaf to solicitation 
 and menace, Coeuvres demanded an audience of 
 the Flemish Sovereigns, and insisted in peremp- 
 tory terms that the Princess at least should be 
 delivered up to him. The Archduke Albert 
 politely excused himself from separating a wife 
 from her husband ; but the spirit of Isabella the 
 Catholic, flashed out in the response of the Arch- 
 duchess. " I think," she said, " such a demand a 
 very ludicrous and unusual article in the instruc- 
 tions of an ambassador. I am a Spanish woman, 
 and do not deem myself obliged to act as pander 
 to the unrighteous passions of your King." 
 Without waiting for a reply she turned her back 
 on the rebuked Coeuvres, and left the room. The 
 French envoy then, with the connivance of the 
 young Princess, arranged a plan for carrying her 
 off from the Hotel of the Prince of Orange. The 
 plot was skilfully contrived, and would probably 
 have succeeded had it not been betrayed by Mary 
 of Medicis to the Flemish Embassy at Paris. The 
 result was that the Archduchess, under pretext of 
 doing honour to her guest, invited her to take up 
 her abode in the Royal Palace, and assigned her 
 apartments adjoining her own. The grief and 
 mortification of Madame de Cond^ were great. 
 
 31 
 
 Henry was frantic. He had Conde attainted and 
 sentenced to death as a traitor by the Parliament 
 of Paris. He wrote with his own hand intem- 
 perate despatches to his representatives at foreign 
 Courts, in which, to the especial amusement of his 
 own subjects, he expatiated in the bitterest terms 
 on the mutinous spirit and the ingratitude of the 
 first Prince of the Blood. And so threatening 
 were his demonstrations against the Flemish 
 Government that Cond6 found it expedient to 
 retire to Milan, leaving his wife under the guar- 
 dianship of the true-hearted Isabella. When her 
 husband had departed, Chariotte, at the instigation 
 of the French agents— who were allowed free 
 access to her— signed a petition to the Pope for 
 the dissolution of her marriage. It must be said 
 in her favour that the Prince's disposition and 
 appearance were eminently fitted to repel the 
 affection of flattered young beauty ; and that she 
 was led to beheve that, should her suit prove 
 successful, Henry would repudiate Mary of Medicis 
 and make her Queen. But the murder of the 
 French monarch by Ravailla<;, on the 14th of May, 
 1610, in one of the narrow streets of Paris, dis- 
 pelled her ambitious day-dreams. This tragic 
 event— otie of the strangest fulfihnents known of 
 the predictions of astrologers— secured the peace 
 
Pi 
 
 i 
 
 32 
 
 of Europe for another decade. Though he had 
 not issued any declaration of war, Henry, when 
 he fell, was on the eve of setting out to execute 
 the ambitious and somewhat quixotic designs he 
 had laboriously and, as he thought, secretly matured 
 for the destruction of the house of Austria. He had 
 concluded alliances for the partition of the expected 
 spoils with Savoy, Venice, and the Protestant 
 States of Northern Germany. Two large and 
 well-appointed French armies only waited the 
 word of command to march into Germany and 
 Italy; and the enormous treasure amassed by 
 Sully's oppressive measures of finance was suffi- 
 cient to support an obstinate struggle. Patriotic 
 French writers have lamented this monarch's un- 
 timely fate as a national calamity, in having 
 delayed the ascendency which, fifty years later, 
 their nation acquired in Europe. But it was most 
 fortunate for France that her part in a great 
 European conflict was deferred for twenty years. 
 The Spanish infantry was still invincible. Neither 
 Henry nor any of his generals was at all capable 
 of coping with Spinola ; nor was there, as yet, a 
 Gustavus Adolphus in the North to scatter the 
 disciplined armies of the Emperor. The founda- 
 tion of French supremacy required a more 
 favourable conjuncture of circumstances, and the 
 
 83 
 
 agency of splendid and daring genius; the political 
 genius of Cardinal Richelieu, and the military 
 genius of the Great Conde. 
 
 After the death of Henry TV., Cond6 returned 
 to France, and played a prominent part in the 
 troubles that agitated the Regency of Mary of 
 Medicis. He was a prince of considerable ability, 
 and of a sagacity almost unerring to discern, 
 amidst the turmoil of faction, the course most 
 conducive to his own interests. Inheriting a very 
 scanty patrimony, the great purpose of his life, of 
 his habitual adulation of a strong government, 
 and his habitual caballing against one which was 
 weak, was the accumulation of wealth and digni- 
 ties. And so skilfully did he steer his fortunes 
 amidst the political shoals and quicksands of the 
 perilous times in which he lived, so sedulously did 
 he shift his sails for every favourable breeze, and 
 so well was a grasping ambition seconded by 
 economy which bordered on parsimony, that, long 
 before his death, he held conjointly many of the 
 greatest posts in the kingdom, and had amassed 
 a colossal fortune. 
 
 His prudence, however, was not always able to 
 ward off the reverses which chequer even the most 
 successful careers. In 1616 he was arrested at 
 the Louvre, by order of Mary of Medicis, and 
 flung into the Bastille; from which fortress he was 
 
 c 5 
 
34 
 
 afterwards transferred to the Castle of Vincennes. 
 Up to tliis time, tlie feud witli his wife liad been 
 festering ; her suit for a divorce was still pending 
 in the Ecclesiastical Courts. But the Princess no 
 sooner learned that misfortune had overwhelmed 
 her husband than she hastened to his side. Com- 
 passion awakened in her breast the true instincts 
 of a wife, and taught her to cherish ties she had 
 striven with such impatience to rend asunder. 
 The Regent would only permit her access to the 
 Prince on condition that she remained to share 
 his captivity. She consented to this sacrifice 
 without a murmur, and, burying her youth and 
 beauty for three years to brighten the gloom of 
 his prison, won as much of his regard as it was 
 possible for a woman to win. 
 
 Of several children, who were the fruit of this 
 reconciliation, the eldest surviving son, Louis of 
 Bourbon, Duke of Enghien, was born on the 7th 
 September, 1621 . His constitution was originally 
 exceedingly feeble ; but judicious nurture in the 
 pure air of the Castle of Montrond in Berri 
 strengthened it to such a degree, that in after life 
 he was capable of bearing the most extraordinary 
 fatigues. From his early childhood there were 
 discerned in him flashes of the quick genius and 
 the haughty temper that characterised his man- 
 hood. In the Jesuit College at Bourges, where 
 
 35 
 
 > 
 
 he was educated, he is said to have excelled aU his 
 companions in scholastic and scientific attain- 
 ments, as well as in manly accomplishments. The 
 house which he inhabited in the town, built by 
 Jacques Coeur, the famous financier of the reign 
 of Charles VII., was a magnificent rehc of feudal 
 architecture, and bore on its front in letters of 
 stone the motto of the minister, '' A coeur vaillant 
 rien impossible,'' No doubt this noble sentiment fed 
 the aspiring fanciesof the future hero. In the year 
 1639, when yet but eighteen years old, Enghien 
 was summoned to take part in public affairs. The 
 " Thirty Years' War '' was raging in Germany. 
 France, under the guidance of Cardinal Richelieu, 
 had alUed herself with Sweden against the 
 Emperor and, later on, with Holland against 
 Spain. The Prince of Conde, whose craving for 
 mmtary distinction far exceeded his military 
 capacity, having obtained the command of the 
 French army of RoussiUon, delegated the govern- 
 ment of Burgundy to his son. In the following 
 year, the young Duke made his first campaign 
 under Marshal La Meillerai, in Flanders, with 
 great distinction. On returning to Paris, he went . 
 to Ruel to visit Cardinal RicheHeu. 
 
 This great minister was now at the summit of 
 power and glory. He had apparently trodden out 
 the last embers of opposition in France. All 
 
36 
 
 classes, from the King to the peasant, bowed to 
 his resistless will. His colossal schemes of policy 
 had already been crowned with splendid success. 
 At home, he had crushed with an iron hand the 
 military republic which the Huguenots had estab- 
 lished in the heart of the kingdom, and shattered 
 the feudal dominion of the great nobles. Abroad, 
 the fortunate star of the house of' Austria had 
 grown pale in the blaze of his genius. He had 
 heard much of Enghien's ability. To test it, he 
 engaged him for several hours in a discussion on 
 the most difficult questions — religion, war, politics, 
 government ; and his reported comment on the 
 conversation is so flattering to his visitor, that the 
 very warmth of the panegyric suggests doubts as 
 to its authenticity. He is said to have remarked 
 to his favourite Chavigny, that Enghien would be 
 the greatest man of his time, perhaps of any 
 time, in all things. It is certain, however, that 
 the young prince made a most favourable impres- 
 sion on him. It was a great object of his ambition 
 to ally his family with the royal blood of France. 
 The Prince of Cond^, with the keen instinct of 
 self-aggrandisement peculiar to himself, divined 
 this wish, and humbly besought the all-powerful 
 minister to consent to a marriage between his 
 niece Claire de Maill^ Breze and Enghien. Claire, 
 who was but thirteen years old, and child-like for 
 
 ^li 
 
 37 
 
 her age, inspired Enghien with a feeling of con- 
 temptuous aversion. But the reluctant bridegroom 
 did not dare to offer remonstrance, and, notwith- 
 standing the tender years of the young lady, the 
 marriage was celebrated in the King's chapel in 
 
 February, 1641. 
 
 The year following Enghien accompanied Louis 
 13th in the successful campaign which added 
 Roussillon to the French crown. When the armies 
 had retired into winter quarters, he became, it ia 
 said, the chief actor in a ludicrous interlude, 
 which furnishes an amusing illustration of the 
 remarkable ascendency of Richelieu. 
 
 In passing through Lyons, on his return to the 
 capital, he had neglected to pay his respects to the 
 Cardinal Archbishop of the city, who was the 
 brother of the Prime Minister. The latter, when 
 Enghien next went to visit him at Ruel, inquired 
 after his relative ; and the Duke was obliged to 
 confess his sin of omission. Richeheu made no 
 remark at the moment, but afterwards mentioned 
 the slight in angry terms to the Prince of Cond^. 
 The Prince, terrified to the last degree, ordered 
 ' his son instantly to repair the neglect; and 
 Enghien, in obedience to the paternal injunction, 
 started off without delay to Lyons— a journey 
 of two hundred leagues, over execrable roads, 
 rendered almost impassable by the rains of 
 
38 
 
 autumn. The Arclibishopj having been sea- 
 sonably forewarned of tbis pilgrimage, seized, 
 perhaps, with more than usual compassion for 
 his hungry flock, or anxious to escape so much 
 honour, considerately set out for Marseilles. Here, 
 at the utmost verge of the arch-diocese, he re- 
 ceived his distinguished visitor with a truly edify- 
 ing humihty. When Enghien had returned to 
 Paris from his penitential mission, Richelieu, 
 labouring under a second access of fraternal soli- 
 citude, renewed his inquiries ; but on learning 
 from such an excellent authority as the son of the 
 First Prince of the Blood that the Archbishop 
 was in perfect health, he appears to have recovered 
 his wonted composure. 
 
 At the end of the same year the great Cardinal 
 died, worn out by the attacks of an excruciating 
 malady. On his death-bed he recommended 
 Cardinal Mazarin to Louis XIII. as his successor ; 
 and Mazarin, in order to secure his unstable 
 position by the powerful support of the House of 
 Conde, obtained for its young heir the command 
 of the army which was opposed to the Spaniards 
 on the Flemish frontier. Enghien, having thus 
 attained the great object of his young ambition, 
 set out early in the year 1643 for the scene of 
 action, a field on which he was to reap immortal 
 glory. 
 
 39 
 
 The empire which the Spaniards reared during 
 the 15th and 16th centuries, was, perhaps, the 
 most splendid and far-spreading that the world 
 has ever seen. It comprised the most beautiful, 
 flourishing, and civilized regions of Europe. It 
 spread over rich and extensive islands, breathing 
 the fragrance and bright with the glowing vege- 
 tation of a tropical clime ; some of which, until 
 the close of the 15th century, had slept in virgin 
 beauty, still fresh from the hand of Nature, in 
 the embrace of an unknown ocean. Aud beyond 
 this ocean it extended over boundless reahns of a 
 new world, the wealth and magnificence of which 
 were hardly exaggerated by popular fancy that 
 pictured them paved with gems, flowing with 
 rivers of gold, realising the enchanted dreams of 
 Eastern poets. Every sea of which the enter- 
 prise of Europe had made a pathway was subject 
 to Spanish sway. It was the Castilian who first 
 uttered the proud boast that on the dominions of 
 his sovereign the sun never set. Profound states- 
 manship and consummate military skill were the 
 architects of this splendid fabric 3 as they had built 
 up other vast empires long crumbled into dust. 
 In truth, not even Rome, in her palmiest days, 
 produced, within an equal period, a larger number 
 of great public men than the Spanish Monarchy 
 could show during the glorious reigns of Ferdinand 
 
 r 
 
A 
 
 40 
 
 and Isabella tlie Catholic, Charles I., and Philip 
 II. Standing out in brighter radiance from the 
 illustrious throng, are the undying forms of 
 the Emperor-King, Gonsalvo of Cordova, Chris- 
 topher Columbus and Hernan Cortes, Cardinals 
 Zimenes and Granvelle, Alva and Pescara, Don 
 John of Austria, the type of Christian heroism, 
 Alexander Farnese, the type of the finished 
 warrior and statesman. And Spain can point with 
 pride to what Rome never possessed, a splendid 
 original literature and a splendid school of art. 
 
 But, in addition to the genius for command, and 
 the practical energy which are common in a greater 
 or less degree to all conquering races, there was 
 in the Spanish Monarchy a peculiar and vital 
 element, which constituted at once its strength 
 and its idiosyncrasy. This was the spirit of 
 enthusiasm, rehgious and romantic, which had 
 informed its growth, and which vivified its matu- 
 rity. For more than eight centuries the peninsula 
 had been the battle-ground of the Crescent and 
 the Cross, the theatre of a long crusade. In the 
 7th century the Arabs crossing over from Africa, 
 overturned the kingdom of the Goths, and 
 estabUshed on its ruins the magnificent Empire of 
 the Western Caliphs. Christianity and Gothic 
 freedom, driven from the plains, retired into the 
 Northern Sierras, and throned in these " eternal 
 
 41 
 
 palaces of nature," breathed indomitable valour 
 into generations of heroes, who descended year 
 after year to maintain a desperate struggle for 
 their country and their God. From the day on 
 which the standard of Don Roderick was cloven 
 down on the banks of the Guadelete, to that on 
 which the standard of Ferdinand and Isabella 
 floated by the side of the Cross from the walls of 
 the Alhambra, the Holy War raged with Uttle in- 
 terruption. During this long period the sublime 
 frenzy, bom of burning faith and restless daring, 
 which, seizing at intervals, like an intermittent 
 fever, on colder nations of Europe, had whitened 
 the plains of Asia Minor, and the Syrian and 
 African deserts, with the bones of myriads of 
 warrior-pilgrims, was in the Spaniard but the 
 natural pulsation of life. His whole career was a 
 combat for glory and the Cross. In him the 
 spirit of chivaby found its grandest and purest 
 embodiment. He lived in an ideal world— in the 
 charmed land of Romance. Even the common 
 incidents of war, touched by the magic hues of 
 his fancy, were invested with an unreal aspect ; 
 while his bold, imaginative temperament, kindled 
 by peril and exalted by faith, indued him with 
 power to accomplish, in his long struggle with the 
 Moors, feats which read on the sober page of 
 history like the myths of heroic fable. And after 
 
42 
 
 Grenada had fallen before tlie arms of Ferdinand 
 and Isabella, this adventurous spirit and this fervid 
 zeal sought out and found a wider field of action. 
 Little bands of warriors, bearing the banner of 
 the Cross, launched out upon the bosom of a 
 trackless ocean, and discovered and conquered for 
 Catholicity and Spain reabns richer and more 
 vast than had mocked the dreams of Alexander. 
 It was soon apparent, too, in European warfare, 
 that no other troops could withstand the shock of 
 battalions, in which the fierce enthusiasm of the 
 crusader, curbed by a perfect discipHne, had mel- 
 lowed into the calm feeling of invincibility in- 
 spired by a hundred victories. Wherever the 
 Spaniards fought they conquered; and in fi% 
 years after the downfall of Grenada they had won 
 the most splendid empire that the world had seen 
 since the Goth had scaled the Alps, and the Hun 
 had stalled his war steed in the palaces of Ca3sar. 
 The great empires of the earth have each had 
 a pecuhar mission : each has been an instrument 
 fashioned by a Divine hand for the achievement 
 of some special design, accomplished by the force 
 of its own natural development. The events of 
 the 16th century called into play, in all their 
 vigour, the characteristic genius and the matured 
 energies of the Spanish monarchy. 
 
 The 16th century was for the Catholic church 
 
 43 
 
 a period of marvellous peril, and still more mar- 
 vellous triumph. Century after century had the 
 storms of the world raged in wild fury around 
 the chair of Peter ; but never since the terrible 
 times when the Christian slave slunk tremblingly 
 at night from out of the marble palaces of Im- 
 perial Rome, to worship amidst the bones of 
 martyrs in the gloom of the Catacombs, had ita 
 deep foundations been assailed by so rude a tem- 
 pest. At once, from every point of the horizon, 
 the wide ruin burst upon it. North, South, East, 
 and West, hereditary foes, or revolted subjects, 
 the Christian and the Infidel, conspired its over- 
 throw. In Germany, the Reformation, arising 
 like a wintry torrent which leaps forth from a 
 scanty spring and gathers volume as it rushes on 
 rolled its turbid tide over the greater part of 
 civilized Europe, until its baffled waves surged 
 against the impassable barriers of the Alps and 
 the Pyrenees. In the East, Solyman the Magni- 
 ficent, the greatest of the able and warlike line 
 that filled the throne of Mahomet II., conquered 
 Hungary, captured Rhodes, and avowed the 
 design of planting the standard of the Prophet on 
 the Palatine. From the South, Barbary Corsairs 
 ravaged with impunity the beautiful shores of 
 Campania, and swept shrieking peasants into 
 captivity from beneath the walls of Rome. At 
 
11 
 
 44 
 
 one time it seemed well-mgh certain, humanly 
 speaking, that victorious Protestantism must 
 trample the Papacy under foot. For a con- 
 siderable period, it was probable that the lapse of 
 a single year might see the Crescent glittering 
 above the ruins of St. Peter's. But to tha 
 CathoHc the event of this mortal conflict only 
 furnished another proof of the weakness of human 
 power, and the folly of human policy, when 
 directed against a supernatural institution, built 
 and sustained by Divine hands. It confirmed his 
 belief that there is in the bosom of Catholicity a 
 spring of immortal life which neither external 
 force nor internal corruption can destroy. The 
 sacrilegious hand that would break up the foun- 
 tain causes it to flow in purer and more abundant 
 channels. Gaudy weeds, nourished by the foul 
 breath of the world, may, indeed, for a time, 
 mantle and choke it with their rank luxuriance ; 
 but the keen blast of adversity shrivels them up, 
 and the living waters leap forth again, bright and 
 joyous, an eternal source of youth and vigour. 
 The Church, quivering in every member, but 
 aroused from a fatal lethargy by the shock of so 
 many enemies, armed herself with her keenest 
 weapons. The efforts of her faithful children first 
 stemmed, then rolled back the tide of destruction 
 that had threatened to overwhelm her. And in 
 
 45 
 
 this terrible struggle her foremost champions in 
 spiritual warfare, as on the field of battle, were 
 Spaniards ; the great Spanish monarchy was her 
 right arm and her shield. At the danger of the 
 Church the old crusading spirit which had so 
 often kindled the Spaniard's blood into fire leaped 
 with electric power through every rank, from the 
 peasant to the King. Spain drove back Protest- 
 antism in France and the Netherlands, and gave 
 the mightiest impulse to the great Catholic re- 
 action, which advanced with victorious banner to 
 the borders of Scandinavia. From her ports went 
 forth the illustrious Captain and the bulk of the 
 great Armada that shattered the Ottoman power 
 at Lepanto. And it was a Spaniard, at once the 
 truest representative of the religious spirit of his 
 race, with its lofty enthusiasm, its disciplined 
 strength, and its indomitable energy, and the 
 grandest religious figure of modern times, who 
 founded the order of Jesus, the history of which 
 is the history of the triumphs and the reverses 
 of the Catholic Church in every region of either 
 hemisphere. 
 
 Between this great monarchy, from its earliest 
 consolidation, and the neighbouring kingdom of 
 France, there had existed an intense national 
 rivalry. At first the conflict was not unequal. 
 The struggles of the two nations for superiority 
 
46 
 
 deluged a large part of civilized Europe witli blood, 
 and especially desolated tlie classic land of Italy, 
 wliere genius, drinking at perennial fountains of 
 inspiration, has in every age crowned the inde- 
 structible beauty of nature with imperishable 
 garlands. But, after a time, the preponderance 
 of Spain became unquestionable. Her vast re- 
 sources, the profound policy of her rulers, the con- 
 summate ability of her generals, the disciplined 
 valour of her troops, filled the rest of Europe 
 with a well-founded fear that she would achieve 
 universal dominion. In the obstinate and often- 
 renewed warfare the power of France was crippled 
 by memorable reverses at Pavia and St. Quentm. 
 The Huguenot convulsion which followed the 
 death of Henry II. prostrated her at the feet of 
 her hereditary foe. But after the death of Philip 
 II. of Spain his throne was occupied by a de- 
 generate line, and the influence of a pure 
 despotism, administered by weak and corrupt 
 hands, was apparent in the rapid decay of his 
 empire. The liberties of CastHe cloven down 
 under the regency of Cardinal Zimines at the 
 battle of Villalar, the liberties of Arragon crushed 
 by PHHp II., had never been permitted to bud 
 forth again. The old crusading spirit was now 
 out of date. The monarchy had accomplished its 
 peculiar mission; the great Catholic reaction had 
 
 \ 
 
 47 
 
 spent its force. There no longer existed within 
 the state either a strong vital principle or a re- 
 generating element. With the hardy love of 
 adventure, born of popular freedom and elevated 
 by religious zeal, the lust of conquest had also 
 passed away. The riches of Mexico and Peru 
 enervated the iron energies which a world in arms , 
 could not subdue. And when the mighty genius 
 of Richelieu, having stifled anarchy at home, 
 directed the united strength of France to 
 humble her old rival, it was seen how languid 
 was the life-current that animated a colossal frame; 
 how rapidly the powerful empire of Philip II. was 
 collapsing into a nerveless mass, terrible only in 
 the prestige of former glories. Still, however, the 
 superb monarchy preserved its vast proportions. 
 Internal revolution or foreign aggression had, as 
 yet, scarcely torn a gem from the haughty diadem 
 of Spain and the Indies. The fairest regions of 
 Europe, the realms subdued by Cortez and 
 Pizarro, where the soil teemed with precious 
 stones and the rivers flowed over sands of gold, 
 remained subject to its sway. Castilian pride and 
 prowess still awakened emotions of hatred and 
 fear in every known region of the globe. 
 
 The Spanish army which Enghien was charged 
 to oppose consisted of twenty-seven thousand 
 veteran troops under the command of Don Fran- 
 
48 
 
 Cisco de Melo, an experienced general. De Melo 
 had laid siege to Rocroi, a frontier town of con- 
 siderable strength, embosomed in the forest of 
 Ardennes. It was the key of the province of 
 Champagne, and its capture would open the road 
 to Paris. The young duke marched with twenty- 
 two thousand men to relieve the place; and 
 neither the news of the death of Louis XIII., 
 which reached him on his way, with positive orders 
 from the Government not to risk a battle, nor the 
 cautious counsels of the old Marshal THopital, 
 who had been appointed to restrain his well-known 
 impetuosity, checked the rapidity of his move- 
 ments. He was determined to fight at all hazards. 
 The Spaniards had pitched their camp on an 
 uneven plain of small extent, surrounded on all 
 sides by woods and marshes, and crowned by the 
 beleaguered fortress. Their position, which could 
 only be approached through a narrow defile, was 
 naturally almost impregnable. But De Melo was 
 himself too anxious for battle to avail himself of 
 his advantages of ground for the purpose of de- 
 fence. Confiding in the superior numbers and 
 the tried valour of his troops, and well informed 
 of the critical state of affairs in Paris, he had re- 
 solved to terminate the war by a decisive blow. 
 He therefore permitted the French army to pour 
 without molestation through the narrow pass, and 
 
 49 
 
 encamp on a small eminence fronting his own 
 position. Evening was closing in, and both sides 
 prepared for a decisive battle at break of day. 
 
 Marshal THopital, terrified at Enghien's rash- 
 ness in exposing his troops to the assault of a 
 superior enemy in a position in which defeat was 
 destruction, earnestly besought him to draw back 
 while there was yet time. But the duke, sur- 
 rounded by young French nobles as eager for 
 glory as himself, and having the support of 
 General Gassion, the most able and enterprising 
 of his lieutenants, peremptorily over-ruled his 
 mentor's opposition. He had determined to re- 
 turn to Paris a conqueror or a corpse. On the 
 other side, De Melo unwisely refused to await the 
 arrival of General Beck, who, with a detached 
 wing of his army, was hastening back to his aid. 
 
 The night was cold and dim, but soon the whole 
 plain blazed with watch-fires, which flung a ruddy 
 blush on the lowering heavens, the sombre foliage 
 and the white walls of the besieged town. As the 
 night roUed on, the scene was one that, even in 
 the mind of a war-worn veteran, might well have 
 awakened feelings of solemn awe. The majestic 
 woods ranged around in a sylvan amphitheatre, 
 here frowning in dense masses, here standing out 
 gaunt and spectral in the flickering light, looked 
 down mournfully on that tranquil plain, so soon 
 VOL. I. T. 
 
50 
 
 to be rent by the fury and strewn with the wrecks 
 of war, to become the grave of a great empire ; 
 but where now the death-hke stillness resting on 
 the armed hosts, and sadly suggestive of the 
 deeper and more appalling silence that would close 
 the strife of the morrow, was rendered palpable 
 rather than broken by the mighty respiration of 
 profound slumber, floating in a drowsy hum upon 
 the air, or the occasional boom of a cannon from 
 the distant ramparts, echoing in dying thunder 
 through the leafy aisles of the forest. And in 
 addition to the sobering influence which the 
 mournful magic of that scene and hour would 
 naturally fling over the unseared mind of a general 
 of two and twenty on the eve of his first battle, 
 there were special anxieties incidental to Enghien's 
 situation sufficient to disturb the composure of 
 the most veteran captain. He was about, with 
 inferior forces, and, contrary to the advice of his 
 oldest officers, to fight a battle on which the 
 safety not only of his army but of his country 
 depended. Opposed to him were generals grown 
 grey in war, on ground selected by themselves ; 
 and above all he had to confront the renowned 
 Spanish infantry, those famous tercios who, since 
 the days of the Great Captain, had been the terror 
 and admiration of the world. On their serried 
 ranks the stormiest wave of battle had hitherto 
 
 51 
 
 broken in vain. No foeman had ever seen their 
 backs. They had driven the Arabs from the 
 mosques of Cordova ; they had shivered the idols 
 in the temples of the Incas ; they had crushed the 
 great Lutheran League at Muhlberg; they had 
 tamed the pride of Islam on the banks of the 
 Danube. Often before had the flower of French 
 chivalry recoiled from their iron columns like 
 raging surf from a rugged cliff. Whenever 
 hitherto the battle had wavered, the shock of the 
 tercios, united as one man, had turned the tide. 
 For a century and a half they had been invincible, 
 and in truth it needed extraordinary genius or 
 extraordinary incapacity to outweigh so much 
 disciplined valour. 
 
 But the mind of the young hero, naturally 
 somewhat hard and selfish, was as undisturbed as 
 if it had found in peril its proper element. Fhng- 
 ing himself on the ground by a watch-fire, he was 
 soon buried in such profound slumbe^ that his 
 attendants aroused him with difficulty at break of 
 day. Before the dawn of the 20th of May, 1643, 
 both armies were drawn out in battle array. The 
 formation of both was that usual at the time ; the 
 strength of the cavalry was disposed on the wings, 
 the strength of the infantry in the centre. 
 
 On the right wing of the French, Enghien com- 
 manded in person, with Ga-ssion as second in 
 
 D 2 
 
52 
 
 53 
 
 command. In place of a helmet he wore a hat 
 adorned with large white plumes. Marshal 
 THopital led the French left. Baron d'Espenan 
 the centre, and Baron de Sirot the reserves. 
 This last general was a Burgundian, famous 
 throughout the army for his boast that in each 
 of three pitched battles he had encountered a 
 king, and had borne away as trophies of his per- 
 sonal prowess the hat of Gustavus Adolphus, the 
 scarf of the King of Poland, and the pistol of the 
 King of Denmark. 
 
 The right of the Spanish army, composed 
 mainly of German horse, was led by Don Fran- 
 cisco de Melo. The Duke of Albuquerque, a dis- 
 tinguished officer, was stationed on the left with 
 the Walloon Cavalry. The tercios were in the 
 centre ; their renowned leader, the Count of 
 Fuentes, oppressed by age and infirmities, reclined 
 on a litter in the midst of his veteran bands. De 
 Melo, taking advantage of the hollow and wooded 
 ground that separated the hostile camps, placed 
 a thousand musketeers in ambush, with orders to 
 fall on Enghien^s flank and rear in the heat of 
 
 the fight. 
 
 The trumpets having sounded, the battle began 
 simultaneously on both wings. Enghien, having 
 penetrated the tactics of his adversary, made a 
 detour to the right, cut in pieces the musketeers 
 
 . 
 
 who lay sheltered in a copse-wood, and then 
 dashing forward with the rapidity of a whirlwind, 
 charged the Spanish left in front and flank. 
 Albuquerque^s Walloons were borne down by the 
 impetuosity of the attack, and scattered over the 
 plain like withered leaves drifting in the blasts of 
 autumn. On the other wing, De Melo, with equal 
 vigour and success, drove PHopitaPs squadrons 
 from the field ; routed Espenan^s infantry ; cap- 
 tured all the French artillery ; and then fell with 
 fury on the reserves. The situation appeared so 
 desperate that several of his officers urged Baron 
 Sirot to fly, assuring him that the day was lost. 
 " No,^' replied the Burgundian, " the day is not 
 lost, for Sirot and his comrades have yet to fight.^' 
 But notwithstanding the most heroic efforts, the 
 French reserves, pressed on all sides, began to 
 waver, and disastrous rout seemed inevitable along 
 the whole line. 
 
 Tidings of the critical state of the battle were 
 brought to Enghien, while he was still in hot pur- 
 suit of Albuquerque's cavalry. It was a moment 
 to test decisively the capacity of a leader. But 
 Enghien, like Julius Caesar, was born a great 
 general. One flash of inspiration showed him the 
 road to victory, one mighty impulse of impetuous 
 valour carried him to the goal. Gathering to- 
 gether his squadrons, he led them at full gallop 
 
 I ri 
 
54 
 
 55 
 
 behind tlie Spanish centre, and hurled them Hke a 
 thunderbolt against De Melons rear. The shock 
 and the surprise of an assault from warriors who 
 appeared to have started out of the earth, were 
 irresistible. Rider and horse went down in the 
 crash of this terrible onset. The French cavalry 
 cleft like an iron wedge through the midst of the 
 enemy ; then, wheeling right and left, rode them 
 down in masses. The plain was strewed with the 
 broken ranks. De Melo's whole wing was 
 shattered to pieces, and the General, casting away 
 his baton of command, saved himseK with diffi- 
 culty by the speed of his horse. 
 
 But the battle was not yet over. It still re- 
 mained to vanquish the Spanish infantry which, 
 drawn up in a solid square, had hitherto stood 
 motionless, haughty and menacing, but calm in 
 the heroic pride of a hundred triumphs, a dark 
 cloud charged with the lightning of war. Enghien 
 surveyed these stem warriors for some time with 
 admiration mingled with anxiety; but while he 
 hesitated to attack them, information reached him 
 of the approach of General Beckys division. It was 
 clear that he had no more time to lose. Having 
 first ordered a furious cannonade with all his guns, 
 to break in pieces the serried hues of the enemy, 
 he collected his cavalry into one mass and threw 
 it on the Spanish square. The Spaniards remained 
 
 
 motionless till their assailants had come to within 
 fifty feet ; then their ranks opening, vomited forth 
 a hissing torrent of flame and death that swept 
 away the French by entire squadrons. So terrible 
 was the carnage and confusion in the French 
 ranks, that a charge of the German or Walloon 
 horse must have totally changed the fortunes of 
 the day. But these were already far away from 
 the field, and Enghien rallied his men with extra- 
 ordinary promptitude. Again and yet again the 
 French artillery thundered, and in the pauses 
 of the cannonade, the French cavalry charged 
 with the most brilliant courage into the gaps 
 which the shot had torn, roused to the highest 
 pitch of enthusiasm by the example of their young 
 leader, who rode in the foremost line, his white 
 plumes floating above the thickest of the fight, a 
 foam-streak cresting the red wave of battle. Again 
 and a third time the choicest troops of France were 
 scattered in frightful disarray, or fell in heaps, 
 mowed down by the iron tempest that burst from 
 that fatal square. It was then that the Count of 
 Fuentes showed with what grandeur a noble 
 spirit can rise superior to the infirmities of the body, 
 and the pangs of death itself. Broken by years 
 and sickness, and covered with wounds, the old 
 General continued, with serene fortitude, to issue 
 his orders from the Utter that was soaked with his 
 
56 
 
 blood, and to sustain Ms old companions in arms 
 by voice and example. The brave tercios, girdled 
 by their rampart of fire, sternly closed up their 
 thinning ranks after each furious onset, and again 
 awaited, with unfaltering resolution, the shock of 
 the foe. 
 
 At last Enghien bringing up all his forces, 
 horse, foot, and artillery, assailed the Spaniards 
 on every side. But the Spanish ofiicers now saw 
 that further resistance could only result in useless 
 slaughter. Their best men had fallen ; Fuentes 
 was expiring of his wounds ; and there was no 
 longer a hope of succour. The fugitive cavalry, 
 meeting in its flight the advancing troops of 
 General Beck, had communicated to them its own 
 panic, and hurried them along in such headlong 
 rout, that all the cannon and baggage of the 
 division was abandoned to an unseen enemy. The 
 Spanish ofl&cers, therefore, expressed by signs a 
 wish to surrender. Enghien, overjoyed, advanced 
 alone to accept their submission. But the Spanish 
 soldiers, mistaking his friendly gestures for hostile 
 signals, received him with a terrible volley of 
 musketry. He escaped by a miracle. The French, 
 enraged at this seeming perfidy, rushed forward to 
 avenge it, and numbers fell before the exertions 
 of the ojfficers on both sides could stay the slaughter. 
 The surviving Spaniards surrendered. 
 
 57 
 
 Such was the victory of Rocroi, one of the most 
 glorious and decisive in history. It was the 
 death-blow of the great Spanish monarchy. The 
 renowned tercios, so long its prop and pride, were 
 here annihilated. A Spanish officer, on being 
 asked after the battle what had been their strength 
 in the morning, answered with a mournful pride, 
 "You have only to count the dead and the 
 prisoners.'' Spain henceforth was unable to main- 
 tain the leading position which for more than a 
 century she had held. From the battle of Eocroi 
 dates that decided military superiority of the 
 French which has more than once menaced the 
 independence of Europe. 
 
 D O 
 
58 
 
 59 
 
 l\ 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 After this great victory, Enghien proposed to 
 over-run Flanders, which lay open to invasion. 
 But the boldness of the project was distasteful to 
 the Council of State, then distracted by the 
 dissensions that preceded the elevation of Cardinal 
 Mazarin to the supreme conduct of affairs ; and 
 he was compelled to restrict his operations to the 
 seige of Thionvillc, one of the strongest fortresses 
 in Europe, which commanded the coui^se of the 
 Moselle to the gates of Treves. The fall of this 
 important town, after a stubborn defence, termi- 
 nated the campaign. Anne of Austria, overjoyed 
 at splendid successes which had established her 
 Regency with so much eclat ^ heaped favours on 
 the young conqueror. She gave him the govern- 
 ment of Champagne and the town of Stenay ; and 
 at his request, Gassion, his able though somewhat 
 impracticable lieutenant, received a Marshal's 
 baton. 
 
 The extraordinary career of Gassion, one of the 
 greatest soldiers France has produced, deserves a 
 brief notice. Alone of the celebrated generals 
 who created the military power of Louis XIV., he 
 owed nothing of his success to birth or family in- 
 terest. Valour and capacity raised him when still 
 young, in spite of unusual personal and political 
 disadvantages, from the grade of a private soldier 
 to that of Marshal of France. He was the son 
 of a President of the Parliament of Pan. His 
 father destined him for the legal profession, but 
 at the age of fifteen he ran away from home and 
 enUsted. His bravery and good conduct soon 
 won commendation ; but the rude independence 
 of his character, and his strong attachment to the 
 Huguenot faith, coupled with his plebeian origin, 
 opposed an almost insuperable bar to his advance- 
 ment. Fortunately for him he attracted the notice 
 of Cardinal Richelieu, whose eye was ever quick 
 to discern merit, and who was indulgent to here- 
 tical opinions when they did not menace the wel- 
 fare of the State. The Cardinal, admiring the 
 military talents and the rough frankness of the 
 young Gascon, gave him his confidence and esteem, 
 pushed him on to high commands, and was fond 
 of comparing him to his celebrated countryman, 
 Bertrand de Guesclin. He used to add that 
 Gassion was free from the coarseness that sullied 
 

 60 
 
 tlie splendid qualities of Charles Y/s famous Con- 
 stable. Though Gassion obtained his Marshal's 
 baton upon the recommendation of Enghien, his in- 
 subordination afterwards provoked a quarrel with 
 his imperious commander. Incapable of flattery or 
 even of discretion^ he gave mortal offence to Car- 
 dinal Mazarin by publicly deriding the all-powerful 
 minister's pretentions to military knowledge ; and 
 there is but little doubt that long before his death 
 he would have fallen into complete disgrace, had 
 his genius been less remarkable, or less necessary 
 to the State. He was killed in 1647, while be- 
 sieging the small town of Lens, and, as has been 
 well remarked by a native historian, " France in 
 gaining a hamlet lost a hero." 
 
 During Enghien's absence at the siege of Thion- 
 ville, his young wife was delivered of a son. He, 
 who only the previous year might have been seen 
 playing at children's games in the saloons of the 
 capital, returned to them with the most glorious 
 name in Europe, and found all Paris at his feet. 
 
 There has never existed in any other country of 
 Europe a condition of society approaching in in- 
 tellectual brilliancy and extravagant debauchery, 
 that of the French capital during the Regency of 
 Anne of Austria. Never before or since has there 
 been seen collected together such versatile genius, 
 such sparkling wit, such spiritual beauty adorned 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 61 
 
 with every charm except virtue, such coarse 
 frivolity, such reckless ferocity, such universal 
 and shameless laxity of principle. The melan- 
 choly and austere character of Louis XIII. ; his 
 long estrangement from his wife, which banished 
 gaiety and pomp from the silent halls of the 
 Louvre, and the iron rule of his Minister had ex- 
 ercised a stifling influence on French society. 
 RicheHeu himself was a most munificent friend of 
 literature and the fine arts, and delighted in 
 brilliant festivals and pageants. He loved to 
 assemble aU who were distinguished or attractive 
 in the magnificent halls of the Palais Cardinal, or 
 at Ruel, where every form of costly and refined 
 enjoyment charmed the fancy and gratified the 
 most fastidious taste. But ever engrossed with 
 the cares of government and the active direction 
 of military operations, his occasional example was 
 insufficient to counteract the effects of a state of 
 continual foreign and domestic strife, a harsh and- 
 cheerless court, and a sternly repressive rule. The 
 young, beautiful, and accomplished Marchioness of 
 Rambouillet had indeed already formed the 
 celebrated circle which for purity of tone, com- 
 bined with the highest charms of cultivated in- 
 tellect, and feminine grace, has never been rivalled. 
 In the saloons of the Hotel Rambouillet might be 
 seen, amidst a dazzhng crowd of minor luminaries. 
 
62 
 
 Voiture ; Corneille^ now at the summit of his fame ; 
 Moliere, La Fontaine, Boileau, who had already 
 achieved their first laurels; Bossuet rising into 
 celebrity, and, later on, Pascal. But the standard 
 of thought and refinement in this circle was too 
 high for any but the choicer spirits of the time, 
 and its influence did not touch the general mass 
 of the high-bom and wealthy. 
 
 At the commencement of the Regency, how- 
 ever, Parisian society, relieved from the frigid 
 asceticism of Louis XIII., and the iron pressure 
 of Richelieu, burst forth with a wayward vigour 
 and a wild hcentiousness, which went on increas- 
 ing in force and extravagance till they culminated 
 in the frantic excesses of the Fronde. The Court 
 presented an appearance of festivity and splendour 
 unknown since the palmy days of Catherine of 
 Medicis. Brilliant, beautiful, and dissolute women, 
 the Duchess of Chevreuse, the Duchess of Mont- 
 bazon, the Princess Palatine, and others belonging 
 to the highest rank of nobility, who had been 
 forced into exile or obscurity in the previous reign, 
 reappeared in Paris, and threw open their saloons, 
 in which the strife of love, of politics, of vanity, 
 of cupidity, raged without restraint. It was an 
 age of extraordinary characters. The most cele- 
 brated personages of either sex who illustrated 
 the times of Louis XIY. grew up, or were matured. 
 
 I 
 
 63 
 
 amidst the bold license in which the social and 
 political life of France rioted during the regency 
 of his mother. The young hero of Rocroi found i 
 himself, on his return to the capital, the central 
 figure of intoxicating scenes, which flattered his ' 
 self-esteem and stimulated his passions. Loaded 
 with honours and caresses by the Regent and 
 Cardinal Mazarin, idolized by his own family, 
 courted and followed on every side by those who 
 were themselves objects of adulation, disliking 
 and despising his wife, he plunged into the dissi- 
 pations which spread their allurements before him, 
 with all the ardour of his fiery nature. The queens 
 of beauty and fashion welcomed the young hero 
 with their brightest smiles ; and there gathered 
 around him, as their natural chief, a brilliant band 
 of debauched young nobles, many of whom after- 
 wards became famous. De Grammont, Bussy, 
 Rabutin, Marsillac, better known as La Roche- 
 foucault, Chatillon, and his brother Coligny. 
 Boutteville, renowned in later years as Duke of 
 Luxembourg, Turenne, were constantly seen in 
 his train. His person and bearing were weU 
 adapted to sustain the admiration excited by his 
 great achievements. He was above the middle 
 stature, was perfectly weU-made, and excelled in all 
 graceful and manly exercises. He had a magni- 
 ficent head. , Large blue eyes, bright and piercing 
 
64 
 
 as those of an eagle, and an aquiline nose lent to 
 his countenance a singular character of command. 
 His mouth, which was too large, and expressed the 
 harshness and want of sensibility which disfigured 
 his disposition, detracted from the haughty beauty 
 of his face ; but the vivacity of his glance and 
 the sparkling gaiety of his conversation, soon 
 caused its disagreeable effect to be forgotten. 
 There was something great and lofty in his 
 whole appearance and demeanour, which dis- 
 covered, even to a stranger, a proud and indomi- 
 table soul. 
 
 The family of Conde consisted of the old 
 Prince and Princess ; Enghien with his wife and 
 son ; a daughter, Anne Genevieve of Bourbon, 
 two years older than the Duke ; and a second son, 
 his junior by eight years. 
 
 Mademoiselle de Bourbon, one of the loveHest 
 women of the age, was married to the Duke of 
 Longueville, a nobleman old enough to be her 
 father, but of great hereditary possessions and 
 influence, who represented an illegitimate branch 
 of the royal line, and one of the most worthy of 
 the national heroes, the famous Count Dunois. 
 Her beauty consisted not so much in perfection 
 of feature, as in that combination of colouring 
 and expression, of tender grace and soft brilliancy, 
 which is most potent over the hearts of men. It 
 
 ^1 
 
 65 
 
 was impossible, according to the confession of a 
 lady who was her contemporary and not her 
 friend, to see her without loving and wishing to 
 please her. The mild radiance of her blue eyes, 
 rich and lustrous as a turquoise, the dazzling bloom 
 of a complexion in which the lily and the rose 
 were exquisitely blended ; the masses of golden 
 hair that crowned her loveliness, as with a glory, 
 the delicate symmetry of her form, and an undu- 
 lating grace which made its movements the poetry 
 of motion, ravished the eyes of the beholder, like 
 an angelic vision. Her personal attractions were 
 enhanced by wit, talent, and considerable ac- 
 complishments. Her brothers were attached to 
 her with passionate devotion, and the most dis- 
 tinguished young nobles of the Court ardently 
 contended for her favour. But her conduct had 
 been above reproach, until a tragical incident 
 which occurred at this time changed the whole 
 tenour of her life. 
 
 During the summer of 1643 the struggle for 
 power between Anne of Austria's old allies, the 
 party of the ancient noblesse, under the leader- 
 ship of Madame de Chevreuse and the young 
 Duke of Beaufort, grandson of Henry lY., and 
 the party of Cardinal Richelieu, of which the 
 Prince of Conde and Cardinal Mazarin were chiefs, 
 convulsed the Court and city. The Princess of 
 
 I 
 
66 
 
 Conde and Kichelieu's accomplished niece, the 
 Duchess of Aiguillon, gave efficient support to 
 the cause to which family interest linked them ; 
 but the vast majority of the great ladies of the 
 capital were vehement partizans of the feudal 
 party, popularly known as the " Importants/' 
 Conspicuous amongst these ladies for bold and 
 dazzling beauty, and for resolute audacity which 
 scorned the restraints of prudence, was the young 
 Duchess of Montbazon, wife of the aged Governor 
 of Paris, who was father of Madame de Chev- 
 reuse, by an earlier marriage. Magnificent dark 
 hair and eyes, a brilliant complexion heightened 
 by art, and a majestic figure, commanded for 
 Madame de Montbazon the admiration and homage 
 of the whole Court. Beaufort was a passionate 
 and favoured lover of hers ; and even the Duke 
 of Longueville wore her chains. The fresher 
 charms, the more exalted rank, the spotless fame 
 of Madame de Longueville, her reputation in the 
 fastidious circle of the Hotel Rambouillet, and 
 her quiet contempt for attractions which borrowed 
 so largely from art, excited Madame de Mont- 
 bazon^s jealousy and anger. Not content with 
 enticing to her feet the husband of her rival, she 
 resolved to blast her name. One evening two 
 letters were picked up in the crowded saloons of 
 the Hotel de Montbazon, and carried to the hostess. 
 
 r 
 
 67 
 
 No one approaching to claim them, the Duchess 
 glanced over their contents, and proposed to read 
 them aloud for the amusement of her guests. 
 They were anonymous epistles from a lady 
 to her lover, reproaching him for his coldness, 
 and his ingratitude for past favours. The Duchess 
 having finished the reading, amidst laughter, 
 coarse jests, and satirical conjectures regarding 
 the writer, declared that the letters were in the 
 handwriting of Madame de Longueville, and that 
 they had been dropped by Count Coligny, who 
 had just quitted the apartment. This statement, 
 though a mere calumny, as was made manifest 
 shortly afterwards by the voluntary confession of 
 one of the real lovers, was quickly circulated in 
 whispered confidences by frail sisters, and with 
 rude jibes and merriment by the Duke of 
 Beaufort and his boisterous companions. In 
 the heated state of the political atmosphere, the 
 springing of a mine beneath the city could not 
 have filled it with greater tumult and dismay than 
 did the broaching of this slander. The House of 
 Conde and its powerful connexion prepared to 
 right the injured lady, if necessary, by the force 
 of arms. Enghien, then before Thionville, des- 
 patched a challenge to Beaufort, and, without 
 waiting for the Regent's permission, set out for 
 Paris to avenge his sister. The allies of the 
 
es 
 
 Houses of Vendome^ Guise and Montbazon, in 
 short the whole party of the Importants, rallied 
 around the vindictive Duchess. The capital 
 would have been deluged with blood had not the 
 Eegent promptly intervened and treated the 
 quarrel as an affair of State. She sent a mes- 
 senger to stop Enghien, with the assurance that 
 she assumed to herself the duty of vindicating 
 the honour of a Bourbon princess ; and then com- 
 manded Madame de Montbazon to deliver up the 
 letters to her, and to make a public apology to the 
 Princess of Conde. The Duchess was forced to 
 submit. The letters were read aloud at Court by 
 Cardinal Mazarin, and then committed by Anne of 
 Austria to the flames. Madame de Chevreuse, on 
 behalf of her step-daughter, and Mazarin on the 
 part of the Queen, met in a room of the Louvre, 
 and, after a wrangling discussion of many hours, 
 agreed on the terms in which reparation was to 
 be made. On the appointed day Madame de 
 Montbazon, attended by Beaufort and a splendid 
 train of cavaliers, repaired to the Hotel de Conde, 
 where all the world of Paris was assembled. The 
 written apology, which she was to read aloud, was 
 pinned, as previously agreed, to the inside of her 
 fan. The princess, the living type of calm 
 dignity and aristocratic pride, and still adorned 
 with much of the peerless beauty which had thrown 
 
 h 
 
 69 
 
 half Europe into confusion, awaited her unwHling 
 visitor in State at the furthest end of the crowded 
 saloon, with Cardinal Mazarin at her side as repre- 
 sentative of the Regent. The Duchess slowly 
 advanced towards them with an air of insolent 
 levity; pronounced the words in mocking tones; 
 and then, surrounded by her briUiant escort, swept 
 in superb disdain from the room. The deliberate 
 insult of this proceeding aggravated the original 
 offence; and the Princess obtained permission 
 from the Queen to absent herself from every 
 place of resort where she might be forced to 
 endure the presence of her fair enemy. As Madame 
 de Conde, by her rank, lofty character, political 
 influence, and close intimacy with Anne of 
 Austria, was in reahty, though not in name, 'the 
 second lady in France, this arrangement excluded 
 the Duchess of Montbazon from society on aU 
 occasions of Court festivity or State ceremonial. 
 Deeply mortified she determined to resist. 
 
 The most fashionable place of public resort at 
 that time in Paris was a pleasure garden, caUed 
 the ^' Jardin Renard,^^ close to the Seine, at the 
 bottom of the Tuileries Gardens. It was the 
 custom of the high world to repair thither on 
 summer evenings after the promenade on Cours 
 la Reine, and solace themselves with feasting, 
 music, and flirtations. The Duchess of Chevreuse 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 iiri 
 
i 
 
 70 
 
 one evening invited the Queen and tlie Princess 
 of Conde to sup with her in this garden. As 
 they approached the pavilion reserved for them 
 Madame de Montbazon came forth from it to 
 receive them. The princess was about to retire, 
 but the Queen requested Madame de Chevreuse 
 to induce her step-daughter to withdraw. But 
 this self-willed lady flatly refused, and persisted 
 in accosting Anne of Austria, who waved her off 
 with an angry gesture, and quitted the Garden. 
 The Regent dearly loved dainty cheer ; and her 
 wrath was not diminished on hearing how the 
 Duchess, after her departure, had seated herself, 
 in high spirits, and feasted on the delicacies pro- 
 vided for the royal party. On the following day 
 the rebellious beauty received an order of banish- 
 ment from Paris, and her exile was speedily 
 followed by the ruin of her faction. When 
 Enghien returned to Court, Beaufort was a pri- 
 soner at Yincennes; but, at his instigation. 
 Count Coligni challenged the Duke of Guise, 
 who was accused, though apparently with injus- 
 tice, of having been concerned in disseminating 
 the slander about Madame de Longueville. Not- 
 withstanding the severe laws against duelling, 
 enacted by Cardinal Eichelieu, the combatants 
 met at three o'clock in the afternoon in the centre 
 of the Place Royale, then the most fashionable 
 
 71 
 
 quarter of Paris. After a few passes, Coligni fell, 
 mortally wounded. At a window over-looking 
 the scene might be discerned a half-concealed 
 form of exquisite grace, agitated by powerful 
 emotion ; a face of almost seraphic beauty clouded 
 over by anxiety, and terror, and despair. It was 
 Madame de Longueville watching the encounter, 
 and the mortal agony of her champion, the ill- 
 starred victim of the baffled vengeance of her 
 family, and his own fatal passion. The unhappy 
 notoriety which attached to her on account of 
 these events had a most disastrous influence on 
 Madame de Longueville's subsequent career. 
 
 With politics, Enghien meddled little during 
 the lifetime of his father. It was a field for which 
 his natm'al disposition did not fit him. He had 
 neither the patience, nor the tact, nor the steadi- 
 ness of purpose required for political success. 
 Brought up in great awe of his father, who had 
 grown grey in intrigue, he submissively bowed 
 to the old Prince's experience in matters of State 
 policy ; and Cond^ lost none of his opportunities, 
 as President of the Council of State and chief 
 prop of Cardinal Mazarin, for advancing the 
 interests of his house. The Princess was the 
 bosom friend of Anne of Austria. Wholly 
 devoted to her glorious son, she strove to forward 
 even his unreasonable aims and caprices with un- 
 
 i! 
 
 1 
 
72 
 
 tiring ardour. War and pleasure — the perils and 
 liardsliips of a bloody and brilliant campaign, 
 followed by the soft and turbulent delights of 
 Parisian society^ chiefly filled up the four years of 
 his life that followed his first memorable achieve- 
 ment in arms. 
 
 In the spring of 1644, France had armies on 
 foot against the Spaniards, in Italy, on the 
 Flemish frontier, and in Catalonia, which had re- 
 volted from the Spanish crown ; and in Germany 
 against the Emperor and the Elector of Bavaria. 
 The army of Flanders would naturally have fallen 
 to Enghien had not the Duke of Orleans, the 
 King^s uncle, and Lieutenant-General of the 
 Kingdom, jealous of the renown of his young 
 cousin, suddenly claimed the command. Enghien, 
 therefore, to his intense mortification, found him- 
 self condemned to inaction at the head of a few 
 thousand men on the borders of Luxembourg, 
 until the disasters of the French arms in Gefmany 
 called him to a sphere more worthy of his genius. 
 
 In November of the preceding year the Ba- 
 varians and Imperialists, under their famous 
 generals. Count Mercy and John of Worth, had, 
 though inferior in strength, fallen on the army of 
 Marshal Kantzau, at Teutlingen, put it to complete 
 rout, captured its commander and his chief oflBcers 
 while they were at dinner, and all its artillery and 
 
 73 
 
 baggage. The French Court dispatched Viscount 
 Turenne to repair this great misfortune. Turenne, 
 the younger brother of the Duke of Bouillon, was 
 ten years older than Enghien, and had greatly 
 distinguished himself in Italy. Notwithstanding 
 all his efforts, he was only able to collect, in the 
 spring of 1644, about ten thousand of Rantzau^s 
 men, demoralised by defeat, wretchedly equipped, 
 and in want of all necessary stores. Mercy, with 
 fifteen thousand men, laid siege to Fribourg, in 
 the Briesgau, and the French General, unable to 
 offer any effectual opposition, appealed to Cardinal 
 Mazarin for reinforcements. Thereupon Enghien 
 was ordered to march into Germany with ten 
 thousand fresh troops, and assume the chief 
 command. 
 
 When the young Duke joined Turenne, he found 
 that Fribourg had surrendered, and that Mercy 
 had intrenched himself in an apparently impreg- 
 nable position before the town. The campaigns 
 that followed between Enghien and Mercy have 
 especial interest, because never probably before 
 or since have the merits of the French and Ger- 
 man soldiers been so fairly tested. The armies, 
 though small, were of the best quality, and not 
 unequal in numbers. The Germans were aU 
 veterans, trained in the Thirty Years^ War. In 
 the opposite camp was the flower of the French 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 E 
 
74 
 
 nobility, whicli for splendid military qualities has 
 never in any age or country been surpassed. 
 The commanders were, in tbe highest military 
 sense, representative men. Mercy belonged to 
 the greatest school of German generals, and was 
 himself unrivalled in the thoughtful skill which 
 used to the utmost advantage the stubborn valour 
 of his troops. Enghien excelled all French 
 generals in rapid insight, in heroic daring, and in 
 the faculty of kindling and keeping alive in his 
 men the '^ French fury " to which the martial 
 renown of his nation is so largely due. And, if 
 his rash genius was to some extent sustained by 
 the calm science of Turenne ; on the other hand, 
 the caution of Mercy was stimulated and rendered 
 fruitful by the brilliant audacity of John of 
 
 Worth. 
 
 The German army occupied a small plain on 
 the summit of a mountain, three sides of which 
 were thickly wooded, and surrounded by still 
 loftier eminences shaggy with dense forests. The 
 fourth side had a gentler slope, which was clothed 
 with vineyards, and broken by low walls and 
 abattis of felled wood ; these, as well as the forti- 
 fications that crowned its crest, were held in force 
 by Mercy's troops. On the left of the position, a 
 deep and narrow defile wound through the wooded 
 heights. The mouth of this ravine was strongly 
 
 75 
 
 barricaded, and its steep sides afforded cover to 
 bodies of picked marksmen. The rear of the 
 German camp rested on the town of Fribourg, 
 Turenne, judging this entrenched post to be im- 
 pregnable, urged Enghien to turn it and compel 
 the Germans to evacuate it by cutting off their 
 supplies. But the young Duke, listening only to 
 the suggestions of his courage, resolved, in order 
 to retrieve the honour of the French arms, to carry 
 it by storm. He directed Turenne, with part of 
 the army, to force the defile and take the enemy 
 in flank ; while he, with the remainder, assailed 
 him in front. 
 
 In order to allow time for Turenne to execute 
 his circuitous movement, the attack was deferred 
 until about five o'clock in the afternoon of the 
 3rd of August. The main body of the French 
 climbed the mountain, through the vineyards, 
 under a terrible fire; carried obstacle after obstacle 
 with the greatest heroism ; and reached the en- 
 trenchment on the summit. But here, worn out 
 by the previous struggles, and disheartened by 
 the formidable appearance of the works before 
 them, they wavered and fell back. Enghien 
 galloped to the front, threw himself from his horse, 
 put himself at the head of the regiment of Conti, 
 and flinging his baton of command into the midst 
 of the Bavarian camp^ led his men to the assault. 
 
 E 2 
 
76 
 
 Inspired with resistless ardour, by the example of 
 their general, they carried the redoubt, after 
 frightful, carnage ; and when the night closed in, 
 were masters of the enemy^s last line of defence. 
 In the meantime Turenne had been slowly win- 
 ning his way against almost insuperable obstruc- 
 tions. Just as decisive results were about to 
 reward his efforts, darkness, ushered in by torrents 
 of rain and a furious storm, compelled him to 
 pause. The French generals, uncertain of the 
 extent of each other's progress, impatiently 
 awaited the morning light to renew the conflict. 
 But when day broke they discovered that their 
 skilful antagonist, under cover of the tempestuous 
 night, had quietly withdrawn his army to a still 
 stronger position on the Black Mountain behind 
 
 the town. 
 
 The following day, the 4th of August, was spent 
 by the French in recovering from their fatigues, 
 and by the Germans in completing their defences. 
 On the 5th, as Enghien was engaged with Tm-enne 
 in making dispositions for a second attack, 
 another of his oflacers. Baron Espenan, discon- 
 certed all his plans by commencing the action 
 without orders. The fight was maintained the 
 whole day with extraordinary obstinacy, but in 
 the end the French were repulsed on all sides 
 with prodigious slaughter. The heaps of dead 
 
 77 
 
 and dying that covered the field, recklessly 
 sacrificed in ill-judged assaults, filled the humane 
 heart of Turenne with grief. But Enghien, with 
 the selfish levity and the contempt for human suf- 
 fering which have left the darkest blot upon his 
 fame, jestingly remarked that " one night of 
 Paris would repair the loss." His force, how- 
 ever, was so much weakened that, after watching 
 the German position for three days, he prepared 
 to follow the original advice of Turenne, and by 
 making a detour, cut off his antagonist from 
 Wurtemburg. But Mercy penetrated his designs; 
 and fearing to be starved among the mountains, 
 sacrificed his artillery and baggage, and withdrew 
 his army with little loss through the passes of the 
 Black Forest. 
 
 Though the glory of this series of desperate 
 battles, known as the three days of Fribourg, was 
 equally shared by the hostile generals and armies, 
 all the soUd advantages fell to the French. 
 Within a few weeks after, Phillipsburg, Worms, 
 Oppenheim, Mayence, Landau, Manheim and 
 other important places surrendered to Enghien 
 or Turenne ; and then the Duke returned to the 
 dissipations of Paris, leaving the chief command 
 in Germany with his able lieutenant. 
 
 Enghien's sojourn iu the capital during the 
 winter of 1644-5 was marked by a violent attach- 
 
78 
 
 ment he conceived for Madamoiselle Yigean^ a 
 young lady distinguished by good sense and 
 mental accomplishments rather than by beauty. 
 Her virtue being proof against his solicitations, 
 he formed the extravagant project of repudiating 
 his wife and elevating the new object of his 
 passion to the vacant dignity. The scheme was 
 betrayed by Madame de Longueville to the Prince 
 of Conde, who, greatly enraged, used effectual 
 means to nip it in the bud. So violent, however, 
 was Enghien^s passion that when compelled to 
 part from Mdlle. Vigean by the renewal of 
 hostilities in the spring of 1645, he is said to have 
 swooned away from grief. 
 
 The year 1645 opened with signal disgrace for 
 the French arms in Germany. Turenne, after 
 Enghien's departure, had obtained several im- 
 portant advantages ; but while in winter quarters 
 at Mariendal, he suffered himself to be surprised 
 by Count Mercy and John of Werth, who des- 
 troyed or captured nearly his entire army, and 
 all its baggage, guns, and military chest. Never 
 was there seen more complete discomfiture. 
 Turenne, without losing heart, applied himself, 
 with the patient energy and the fertihty of re- 
 source in which he excelled all other generals 
 of his time, to repair this great disaster; but 
 before he could collect the means of striking a 
 
 79 
 
 blow the French Government again sent Enghien 
 to supersede him in the command. The Duke 
 brought with him a reinforcement of eight 
 thousand men, and used every artifice to draw 
 the enemy into a decisive battle. But the great 
 Bavarian General, having selected a position on 
 the plains of Nordlingen, with the tactical 
 judgment in which he had no superior, and 
 carefully fortified it, would only fight on his own 
 ground. 
 
 Two hills arise, at a short distance from each 
 other, out of the plain ; one, rather precipitous, 
 was called the Weinberg ; the other had a gentler 
 slope, and was crowned by the old Castle of 
 Allerheim. At the entrance of the narrow valley 
 that divided them, nestled the village of Allerheim. 
 Mercy had drawn up his infantry in three lines 
 across the mouth of the valley, -and protected 
 them with strong entrenchments. His right 
 wing, under General Glen, held the Weinberg. 
 The ImperiaUst cavalry, under John of Werth, 
 was massed on his left around the Castle of 
 Allerheim. Extensive works covered every assail- 
 able point of the position, which, formidable by 
 nature and art, and defended by fifteen thousand 
 excellent troops, seemed to defy attack. Enghien 
 had only eighteen thousand men. His infantry 
 were inferior both in numbers and quality to that 
 
80 
 
 of his opponent, and Turenne strove earnestly to 
 dissuade him from hazarding an engagement on 
 such unequal terms. But confident in his genius 
 and fortune, and having no hope of enticing 
 Mercy to less disadvantageous ground, the Duke 
 drew up his army for battle. He directed 
 Turenne with the left wing to carry the Weinberg, 
 while Marshal Grammont with the right wing 
 opposed John of Worth, and the Count of Marsin, 
 with the centre, assailed the village of Allerheimr 
 A strong force of horse and foot was stationed 
 in the rear, under the Count of Chabot, as a 
 reserve. 
 
 The French infantry under Marsin attacked the 
 village, which was the key of the German position, 
 with great fury, and succeeded in penetrating into 
 the main street. But from the houses on either side, 
 from the church steeple, and from the loop-holed 
 walls of the cemetery, the Bavarian musketeers 
 poured on them a murderous fire. Marsin fell 
 badly wounded. His division, maintaining the 
 struggle to the last with unavailing gallantry, was 
 almost annihilated; and fresh regiments sent 
 to its support under the Marquis of la 
 Moussaye shared the same fate. Then Enghien 
 led up the remainder of his infantry, in person, to 
 restore the battle. Mercy, who till now had been 
 calmly watching the progress of the fight, could not 
 
 81 
 
 restrain his joy on seeing Enghien^s movement. 
 " God,^^ he cried, " has turned the heads of the 
 Frenchmen; they are rushing to defeat;" and put- 
 ting himself at the head of his reserves he advanced 
 to repel this new assault. The combat now raged 
 with ten-fold fury ; the carnage was horrible. 
 The rival generals, carried away by emulation, 
 fought in the melee within a hundred yards 
 of one another. Enghien had two horses killed 
 under him, and three wounded ; his hat and 
 clothes were riddled with bullets, and he was 
 slightly wounded in the thigh and arm. He 
 did all that the energy and valour of one man 
 could accomplish ; but he had attempted impos- 
 sibilities. The wrecks of his infantry, swept back 
 from the village by the Bavarian onset, broke and 
 fled in wild confusion. Mercy was killed in the 
 moment of victory, cheering on his troops; but 
 the French centre was utterly destroyed. 
 
 Meanwhile the fate of the day in other parts of 
 the field had been hardly less adverse to Enghien. 
 John of Worth, charging down from the Castle 
 of Allerheim, routed the right wing of the French, 
 and took Marshal Grammont prisoner. He then 
 fell on the reserve, defeated and dispersed it, 
 killed its commander, Chabot, and, hurried away 
 by the ardour of pursuit, chased the fugitives for 
 miles over the plain. On the left wing, Turenne 
 
 E 5 
 
 I 
 
82 
 
 tad partly scaled the Weinberg, but was held in 
 check by General Glen. Nothing could be more 
 unpromising than the prospect that presented 
 itself at this moment to Enghien. The right 
 centre and reserve of his army were gone ; and 
 the left, clinging with difficulty to the side of 
 a steep hill, was in momentary danger of being 
 hurled back by superior numbers, or taken in the 
 rear. Even an able general, in such circum- 
 stances, might well have Hmited his plans to the 
 saving from destruction of the still unbroken 
 remnant of his forces. 
 
 But far different was the conception that 
 occurred to the daring genius of the Duke. 
 There was still left to him a small body of Hessian 
 infantry, and a handful of cavalry. Putting him- 
 self at the head of these, he charged up the 
 Weinberg and threw himself on Glen's men, 
 already fully occupied by the attack of Turenne. 
 The Germans, shaken by the impetuosity of this 
 sudden onslaught, gave ground. Enghien pressed 
 on, resistless ; flung them down into the valley in 
 headlong flight, and, following on their track, dis- 
 persed them completely, and took their general 
 prisoner. He then surrounded the village of 
 Allerheim. The victorious Bavarian infantry, 
 deprived of their leader, and bewildered by the 
 sudden turn of the battle, surrendered without a 
 
 83 
 
 blow. When, a few moments later, John of 
 Werth returned, in all the confidence of assured 
 success, to complete the destruction of his foes, he 
 found the battle irretrievably lost. Never was 
 there seen such a triumph of happy fortune and 
 inspired audacity. Had Mercy lived, had John 
 of Werth returned by a shorter route, had the 
 Bavarians defended Allerheim, nothing could 
 have saved the French from a terrible defeat. 
 And no other general but Enghien could have 
 plucked victory from such complete discomfiture. 
 Napoleon, in his military criticisms, while censur- 
 ing severely the temerity of the French com- 
 mander in attacking such a position with forces 
 ' so inadequate, has expressed the warmest admira- 
 tion of his conduct in the fight. It was in refer- 
 ence to Enghien's heroic pertinacity, in persevering 
 with his left wing at Nordlingen, after the rest of 
 his army had been swept away, that the great 
 Emperor used the following memorable words : — 
 ^^The glory and honour of his country's arms 
 ought to be the first and highest consideration 
 with a general who engages in battle. The safety 
 and preservation of the army is only the second. 
 But it is also in that same audacity and obstinacy, 
 which the honour and glory of his country's arms 
 demand, that the safety and preservation of the 
 army is found. In a retreat, besides the honour 
 
I 
 
 84 
 
 of his country's arms, he will often lose more than 
 in two battles — a reason never to despair while 
 brave men remain around the standards. By this, 
 victory is obtained ; by this, it is merited/' 
 
 So great was the slaughter of the French at 
 Nordlingen that for several days Enghien could 
 not collect fifteen hundred infantry. Count 
 Mercy was buried on the field of battle. The in- 
 scription on his tomb was not unworthy of the 
 warrior — " Sta Viator : heroem calcasJ* 
 
 This was also the last battle of John of Werth, 
 who retired from it unmolested with his victorious 
 horsemen. He was the most brilHant and enter- 
 prising of all the great German soldiers of his 
 time. As a leader of cavalry, ho had no equal. 
 Like Gassion, he owed nothing to birth or fortune ; 
 his great quahties alone had raised him from the 
 ranks of the ImperiaHst army to the highest 
 command. He was especially famous for the 
 daring and success with which he effected sur- 
 prises. The secresy and skill of his plans were 
 only matched by the force and rapidity of his 
 blows. More than one hostile generaPs reputa- 
 tion was shattered -, more than one hostile army 
 was aroused from false security to utter destruc- 
 tion by the irresistible onset of John of Werth, 
 falling like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. And 
 his splendid talents were enhanced by a purity of 
 
 85 
 
 character and a lofty disinterestedness which shone 
 brighter from being placed in contrast with the 
 spirit of rapine and the lawless brutality so con- 
 spicuous in most of the renowned commanders of 
 his age and country. 
 
 When he had sufficiently rested and reorganised 
 his shattered forces, Enghien laid siege to Heil- 
 bronn ; but the fatigues and excitement he had 
 undergone induced a brain-fever which brought 
 him to the brink of the grave. He was carried 
 in a litter to Phillipsburg, and profusely bled, 
 under which treatment he recovered slowly, and 
 was unable to take any further part in the cam- 
 paign. Illness and loss of blood had the effect of 
 extinguishing his passion for Mile. Vigean. The 
 burning ardour of his addresses to her during the 
 previous winter sank, on his return to Paris, at 
 once, without any premonitory gradations, to re- 
 pelUng coldness ; and in her grief and chagrin at 
 this unlooked-for fickleness, she retired into a 
 convent and took the veil. 
 
 All parties in Germany were now thoroughly 
 exhausted by the fierce warfare which had deso- 
 lated the land for more than a quarter of a century; 
 and the negotiations for a general peace, which 
 had been prosecuted fitfully at Munster since 
 1643, were renewed in a more earnest spirit. 
 Hostilities languished during the year 1646, but 
 
V 
 
 86 
 
 were not interrupted. Turenne, at the head of 
 the French army^ pursued a successful career, 
 but the campaign was not marked by any great 
 battle. 
 
 In Flanders the Duke of Orleans, elated by the 
 capture of Corutras in the preceding campaign, 
 again claimed the command, and Enghien, im- 
 patient of inaction, volunteered to serve under his 
 incapable cousin. His bold schemes of conquest 
 were unpalatable to the timid mind of the Lieut.- 
 General, and the army sat down before Mardyke. 
 The young Duke was the soul of the operations, 
 pressing the siege with extraordinary vigour, and 
 courting danger at every opportunity with his 
 usual recklessness. On one occasion, having 
 passed the whole night in the trenches, he was 
 refreshing himself in his tent with a party of 
 friends, when an alarm was given that the garri- 
 son had made a sally, slaughtered the French 
 gunners, and destroyed the works. Enghien, 
 without waiting to put on his armour, rushed 
 forth, followed by his companions, and attacked 
 the enemy sword in hand. He must inevitably 
 have been killed or taken had not Bussy Rabutin 
 galloped up to his assistance with his company of 
 light horse. Bussy found him laying about him 
 with fury, and covered with the blood of his foes. 
 The Spaniards were ultimately driven back into 
 
 87 
 
 the town, but not until they had made prodigious 
 havoc amongst the young French nobility. 
 
 The Spanish generals in the Netherlands, hav- 
 ing at length drawn together their forces, advanced 
 with confidence to raise the siege, despising the 
 incapacity and irresolution of the Duke of Orleans. 
 But hardly had the hostile army appeared before 
 the French lines when it vanished, unaccountably, 
 in the night. Enghien next morning followed in 
 pursuit, and having with his own hand captured a 
 young Spanish officer, demanded of him the cause 
 of this sudden retreat. The Spaniard, wholly un- 
 suspicious of the rank of his captor, answered 
 simply that the Spanish commanders had heard 
 that the Duke of Enghien was in the French camp. 
 Mardyke, being thus abandoned to its fate, sur- 
 rendered ; and Orleans, satiated with victory, re- 
 turned to flaunt his laurels before the admiring 
 eyes of the good citizens of Paris. So intoxicated 
 was this vain prince with his achievement in this 
 and the preceding campaigns — achievements 
 chiefly attributable to the assistance of Marshal 
 la Meillerai and Enghien —that, quite unconscious 
 of the ridicule provoked by such a comparison, he 
 assumed the glorious surname which the admi- 
 ration of antiquity had conferred on the son of 
 Antigonus, and signed his letters Gaston Polior- 
 cetes. 
 
88 
 
 The capture of Dunkirk had long been an ob- 
 ject of ardent desire to the French nation, but the 
 difficulties of the enterprise had hitherto deterred 
 any French general from attempting it. No 
 sooner, however, was Enghien free to act for him- 
 self, than he marched against the place. Not- 
 withstanding the apparently insuperable obstacles, 
 natural and artificial, that impeded his operations, 
 the efforts of two Spanish armies, each equal in 
 strength to his own, and the gallant resistance of 
 the garrison, by skill and patience he compelled 
 the city to surrender. The news was received in 
 Paris with joy and wonder. " I think," wrote 
 Voiture to him, " if you undertook it you would 
 catch the moon with your teeth." This import- 
 ant conquest brought the campaign of 1646 to a 
 close. 
 
 The course of this year had wrought a moment- 
 ous change in Enghien^s position. During the 
 summer his brother-in-law, the Duke of Breze, 
 whom Cardinal Richelieu had made High Admiral 
 of France, was killed in a naval engagement off 
 the coast of Tuscany. Enghien immediately 
 claimed the post, and his pretensions were sup- 
 ported by the whole influence of his family. But 
 weighty considerations, public and private, de- 
 termined the Government to refuse his demand. 
 The House of Cond^ already engrossed a dangerous 
 
 89 
 
 share of authority in the kingdom. The old 
 prince, besides his governments of Burgundy and 
 Bern, held the offices of President of the Council 
 and Grand Master, together with various minor 
 appointments conferring emolument and power. 
 The Duke, his son, was Governor of Champagne, 
 possessed the strong frontier town of Stenay, and 
 was the idol of the army. To confer on a young 
 warrior, whose ardent genius would even now 
 scarcely brook the slightest control, and who was 
 so near the throne, the supreme command of aU 
 the sea forces of the country, would be a fatal 
 blunder on the part of the Regent. More- 
 over, Cardinal Mazarin meant to use the great 
 ^office now vacant, at once to fortify his political 
 position, and to promote his schemes of family 
 ambition. He contemplated a close alliance with 
 the House of Vendome, which stood at the head of 
 the party of the great nobles with which he was at 
 variance. A matrimonial union between the young 
 Duke of Mercceur, heir of Vendome, and one of 
 his nieces, was the object of his secret aspirations ; 
 and the splendid dower of Admiral of France 
 would bridge over the social chasm that separated 
 the daughter of an obscure Italian gentleman from 
 the grandson of Henry lY. In order to soften as 
 much as possible her denial of Enghien^s request, 
 Anne of Austria announced her intention of as- 
 
90 
 
 Burning to herself the vacant post, under the title 
 of Superintendent of the Seas. But the resent- 
 ment which the refusal called forth from the 
 whole family of Conde was none the less violent. 
 The Duke stormed and pressed his demand with 
 intemperate urgency ; and Conde, irritated out of 
 his usual prudence, used menacing language, and 
 withdrew in high anger to his Government of 
 Burgundy. The Kegent met this outburst with 
 spirit ; but Mazarin quailed, and by submissive 
 entreaties induced Conde to return to Court in 
 order to negotiate an arrangement. Three days 
 after his arrival at Chantilly the old Prince died. 
 Although not distinguished either for shining 
 talents or for integrity of character, his death at 
 this conjuncture was a public calamity. France 
 could have better spared a far greater man. His 
 clear and penetrating intellect, his long experience, 
 his great sagacity, even the selfishness which 
 rendered him cautious, the authority which his 
 rank, wealth, and knowledge of the business of 
 the State gave him, and above all the restraining 
 influence which he alone exercised over his fiery 
 and wayward son, would have been invaluable to 
 the government in the stormy times that were fast 
 approaching. Starting in life a dependent on 
 the bounty of Henry IV., he left to his successor 
 an income of one million livres — enormous in that 
 
 91 
 
 age. Anne of Austria had conferred on him the 
 vast possessions of the House of Montmorenci, 
 forfeited to the Crown at the execution of the last 
 Duke in 1632. If the portrait we have of him from 
 the pen of Madame de Motteville, as he figured at 
 the Court of the Regent, ugly and uncleanly, with 
 red eyes, matted beard and greasy hair, at all cor- 
 responds with his appearance in his youth, there 
 is some excuse for the unconjugal bearing of the 
 fair Charlotte of Montmorenci. Indeed, the 
 Marchioness of Rambouillet used to say that the 
 princess only passed two happy days with her 
 husband — the day of her marriage, which raised 
 her to a place in the royal family of France, and 
 "the day of his death, which restored to her liberty. 
 The Queen and Cardinal Mazarin, in order to 
 remove all traces of dissatisfaction from the mind 
 of the new Prince of Conde, and to bind him 
 completely to their interests, hastened to anticipate 
 and to surpass in lavish concessions his reasonable ; 
 expectations of Court favour. He was made| 
 Captain- General of the Armies of France, and! 
 invested at once with all the offices and employ- ! 
 ments held by his father, with the single stipula- . 
 tion that he should discontinue his opposition to 
 the arrangement which left unfilled the place of 
 High Admiral. The Government of Champagne 
 was given to his younger brother, the Prince of 
 
92 
 
 Conti. Conde, at the age of twenty-five, was not 
 only the most renowned personage, but the most 
 powerful subject in Europe, with unbounded 
 opportunities of achieving all greatness to which 
 the legitimate ambition of a subject can aspire. 
 But though at first evidently overcome by the 
 unexpected generosity of the Regent, he did not 
 long remain satisfied. Extravagant projects of 
 personal ambition began to fill his mind. Con- 
 tinually followed by the flower of the young 
 French nobility, who imitating on all occasions 
 the haughty bearing and imperious manners of 
 their chief, obtained the nickname of Petits Maitres, 
 now used to express very different qualities ; see- 
 ing his boldest enterprises crowned by fortune, 
 and his will a law to all around him, subjection 
 even in its lightest and most splendid form was 
 becoming irksome to him. He proposed to 
 Mazarin to conquer Franche Compte, then a 
 Spanish province, at his own charge, and retain 
 it as an independent sovereignty. But the Car- 
 dinal, knowing well that the Prince would be a 
 far more dangerous neighbour to Louis XIY. than 
 the King of Spain, evaded comphance. This 
 refusal led to renewed bickerings, which went on 
 increasing in bitterness till Conde was induced, in 
 the spring of 1647, to take the command of the 
 French army in Catalonia, where two generals of 
 
 93 
 
 distinction, Marshal la Mothe Houdincourt and 
 the Count of Harcourt, had lately met with signal 
 reverses. 
 
 Many of the leading incidents of the Princess 
 operations this year are recorded with inimitable 
 felicity in the lively memoirs of Count Gram- 
 mont, who with many other brilliant and dissolute 
 Petits Maitres, accompanied their leader into 
 Spain. When Conde arrived at Barcelona, the 
 citizens, seeing a youth with long hair, simply 
 attired in black, did not conceal their contempt. 
 It became a general subject of complaint amongst 
 them that the French Government had sent them 
 a student and not a general. But when after a 
 few days the Prince rode forth through the city 
 magnificently dressed and followed by a splendid 
 suite, they at once recognised the hero, and re- 
 ceived him with the utmost enthusiasm. He 
 found his army in a deplorable state of inefficiency, 
 in want of food, ammunition, and the means of 
 transport. Nevertheless, he marched without 
 delay against the town of Lerida, which had lately 
 repulsed the Count of Harcourt from its walls^ 
 with disgrace. 
 
 Lerida, the Herda of the Eomans, looking on 
 the country which was the scene of Julius Caesar^s 
 celebrated campaign against the lieutenants of 
 Pompeius, was not a place of great strength. 
 
94 
 
 But the Spaniards have always, even in their most 
 degenerate days, been formidable behind stone 
 walls ; and the town had for its commander Don 
 Gregorio Brito, an old Portuguese officer of some- 
 what whimsical character^ but of rare merit. The 
 French general, filled with presumption on account 
 of so many victories, and despising the place and 
 its old-fashioned governor, began the siege with 
 an insolent display which would have ill become 
 its triumphant close. He opened the trenches in 
 person, at the head of his own regiment, to the 
 music of twenty-four violins ; and afterwards 
 passed the evening in revelry amidst the works. 
 Brito made no sign until night had fallen ; then 
 sallying forth under cover of a terrific fire from 
 the cannon on the ramparts, he swept the trenches, 
 destroyed the labours of the French engineers, 
 and drove back the besiegers in confusion to their 
 camp. The next morning he sent his crest-fallen 
 antagonist a complimentary message, with a 
 present of iced fruit, regretting his inability to 
 return the serenade in consequence of his want of 
 vioHns, but assuring the Prince that if the music 
 he had provided the night before had proved 
 agreeable, he would endeavour to keep it up so 
 long as the French did him the honour to remain 
 before Lerida. The eccentric Portuguese was a 
 man of his word. He did not leave the besiegers 
 
 95 
 
 a moment's repose, and repulsed all their assaults 
 with fearful slaughter. His vigorous sallies, the 
 rocky nature of the soil, the want of proper 
 engineering tools, and other necessary supplies, 
 protracted the siege until the tardy approach of 
 a Spanish army, and the scorching heat of 
 summer, with its train of diseases, forced even 
 Conde, almost beside himself with rage and cha- 
 grin, to resign all hope of success. When the 
 relieving force of the Spaniards appeared, he 
 drew off his troops, sadly reduced by sickness 
 and the sword. His reverse, the first he had yet 
 experienced, was bitterly mortifying to him, 
 especially when he learned that the wits of Paris 
 were diverting themselves at his expense. People 
 had been so accustomed to consider him invincible, 
 that his defeat was magnified far beyond its real 
 importance, and his reputation suffered in pro- 
 portion. He tried every expedient to bring the 
 Spanish general to a battle, but the latter pru- 
 dently kept his men in a strong position, protected 
 by the guns of Lerida. Indeed, it is said that 
 the King of Spain never wrote to him without 
 adding as a postscript, "■ Above all things take 
 good care never to engage in battle with that 
 presumptuous youth.'' The campaign ended 
 without any other military event worthy of note. 
 It was during the siege of Lerida that the famous. 
 
96 
 
 or rather infamous, revel of La Yalliere furnished 
 a horrible picture of the reckless and ferocious 
 gaiety of the young French nobles. The Chevalier 
 of la Yalliere, a Marechal de .Camp of high lin- 
 eage, being on duty, in the beginning of June, at 
 the quarters of Marshal Grammont, invited the 
 celebrated Bussy Rabutin, and three other young 
 officers, named Brabantane, Breteche and Jumeaux, 
 to dine with him at the mouth of the trenches. 
 Seeking relief from the tedium of camp life, the 
 guests assembled some hours before the appointed 
 time. Breakfast was served to them, and the 
 Prince's band enlivened the repast with military 
 music. The part of the trenches where they 
 were, pierced through the walls of an old church- 
 yard. Brabantane and Breteche, moved by a 
 diabolical spirit of pleasantry, entered through the 
 breach, tore off the stone cover of one of the tombs, 
 and dragging forth a recently buried corpse, 
 wrapped in its grave-clothes, made it dance to 
 the sound of the violins. After amusing them- 
 selves in this way for some time, their companions 
 prevailed on them to restore the dead body to its 
 resting-place. The party passed several hours 
 after dinner in what Bussy Rabutin acknowledges to 
 have been a great debauch, singing the ribald songs, 
 compounded of blasphemy and licentiousness, then 
 in vogue at Paris. In the midst of the Bacchan- 
 
 97 
 
 alian uproar the Marquis of la Trousse arrived to 
 go the round of the works with La VaUiere before 
 reheving him at his post. The latter started up, 
 teUing his friends not to disturb themselves as he 
 would return immediately. La Trousse was ac- 
 customed, in a spirit of bravado which he mistook 
 for heroism, to walk on the outside of the trenches, 
 and thus expose his person, without any rational 
 object, to the enemy's fire. La YalHere, not to be 
 out-done in folly, followed his companion's ex- 
 ample, and had hardly gone a few paces when his 
 skull was shattered to pieces by a ball. His 
 guests, quite unmoved by the news, continued 
 their revel, with the exception of Jumeaux, who 
 rushed off to ask the Prince for a post that had 
 been held by his friend. The incidents of this re- 
 volting banquet, almost incredible as they appear 
 to us, would not at that period have challenged 
 particular notoriety, had not the calamities that 
 overtook most of the actors in the hideous scene, 
 and the popular belief that the outraged remains 
 were the body of a saint, awakened unusual 
 curiosity and horror. The conduct of the officers 
 does not, however, appear to have been made a 
 subject of official comment, or to have ehcited any 
 mark of disapprobation from Conde or the Regent. 
 The check he met with before Lerida did not 
 tend to soothe the irritation which the Prince had 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 7 
 
98 
 
 99 
 
 cherished against Cardinal Mazarin on account of 
 imaginary grievances ; and the destitute condition 
 of the French army in Spain, which had been a 
 main cause of his ill-success, furnished him with a 
 juster ground of anger. His complaints on his 
 return to Court were loud and vehement ; but his 
 support was too necessary to the government in 
 the difficulties and dangers that now beset it, to 
 permit the Eegent or the Minister to show offence 
 at his language. Mazarin, bending as was his 
 wont before the storm, strove to propitiate his im- 
 perious protector by flatteries and submission, 
 and by straining to the utmost, in desperate ex- 
 pedients, the crippled resources of the monarchy 
 in order to place the army of Flanders, which 
 Conde chose for himself, on an efficient footing for 
 the campaign of 1648. 
 
 The position of France was now extremely 
 critical. A long and costly war, and a corrupt ad- 
 ministration, had ruined the finances and impov- 
 erished the people ; and ill-advised measures of 
 taxation had aroused an opposition in the capital 
 formidable for its character and its strength, and 
 every day growing in iafluence and intensity. The 
 government could no longer obtain the most 
 needful supplies. The State was threatened with 
 paralysis. And during Conde^s absence in Spain, 
 the Archduke Leopold had carried everything 
 
 before him on the Flemish frontier. He was now- 
 preparing to invade Picardy at the head of a well- 
 appointed army. A decisive victory could alone 
 avert from France the disgrace of invasion, or a 
 humihating peace. 
 
 Conde, having generously advanced out of his 
 own revenues the funds required to complete the 
 equipment of his army, set out to oppose the Arch- 
 duke, who lay with eighteen thousand men, in- 
 cluding the veteran bands of the despoiled Duke 
 of Lorraine, on the borders of Picardy. But 
 hardly had the first movements of the campaign 
 begun, when Anne of Austria recalled him to 
 Paris to advise her how to resist the urgent de- 
 mands of the Parliament. During his absence 
 Leopold entered France, and having pubhshed an 
 insulting manifesto offering a reward for the dis- 
 covery of the French army, sought for everywhere 
 in vain and supposed to be lost, laid siege to the 
 town of Lens. Conde hastened back with fourteen 
 thousand men and eighteen guns, to reheve the 
 place, but only arrived to see it surrender to the 
 enemy, who then took up a strongly entrenched 
 position under its walls. The Archduke calculated 
 that the impetuous temper of his antagonist would 
 impel him, notwithstanding his inferiority in 
 numbers, to assault the Spanish lines. But Cond^ 
 had not fought the desperate battles of Fribourg 
 
 F 2 
 
 
100 
 
 and Nordlingen, and been repulsed with disgrace 
 from the walls of Lerida, without learning the 
 prudence which had alone been wanting to him of 
 the quahfications of a consummate general. Instead 
 of the rash tactics, hardly redeemed by extra- 
 ordinary genius from the reproach of f oolhardiness, 
 which had marked his previous campaigns, he put 
 in practice a manoeuvre, not more bold than 
 masterly, for the purpose of enticing the enemy 
 from his fortified camp. 
 
 Breaking up his own encampment in open day, 
 he retired slowly over the undulating plain which 
 stretched away from Lens, and which he had 
 carefully studied. Marshal Grammont led the 
 French van ; the Prince followed with the main 
 body, and the Marquis of Noirmoutier, with a 
 strong force of cavaby, brought up the rear. On 
 seeing the retrograde movement of the French, 
 General Beck, with the troopers of Lorraine, 
 issued from the Spanish lines to harass their re- 
 treat, and charging the rear guard, threw it into 
 disorder. Reinforcements arrived for Noir- 
 moutier, but Beck, also supported from his own 
 side, continued to gain ground, till at length the 
 Archduke, thinking the decisive moment had 
 come for destroying the whole French army, 
 advanced with all his forces into the plain. 
 Meanwhile Cond^ had drawn up his infantry and 
 artillery upon a gentle eminence, and had sent 
 
 101 
 
 orders to Grammont to return at full speed. 
 In order to release his rear guard, now sorely 
 pressed, and to gain time for the Marshal to come 
 up, he charged the enemy in person at the head 
 of aU his remaining cavalry. But one of those 
 unaccountable panics, to which even the best 
 troops are subject, seizing his men while in full 
 career, they suddenly wheeled round and galloped 
 back to seek shelter behind their guns. The 
 Archduke and Beck followed up their advantage 
 with such vigour that, notwithstanding the firm 
 bearing of Conde's infantry and gunners, and his 
 own desperate efforts to rally the fugitives, the 
 battle was almost lost, when Grammont ap- 
 peared. Then the fortune of the day turned. 
 The Marshal, charging with his usual impetuosity, 
 checked the victorious progress of the Lorraine 
 horse. Conde only required a short respite to 
 re-form his squadrons, restore their confidence, 
 and lead them back into the fight with the martial 
 fury which no enemy had ever yet been able to 
 withstand. The troops of Spain and Lorraine 
 fought with the most determined gallantry. The 
 Archduke performed the part of an able general 
 and a brave soldier. General Beck more than 
 sustained his high renown; but when he fell, 
 mortally wounded, his men, disheartened by his 
 loss, relaxed their efforts and were driven from 
 
102 
 
 the field. Leopold escaped with difficulty by 
 a precipitate flight; all his infantry, artillery, 
 and baggage were captured. The victory of the 
 French was the most complete of any in that age. 
 Conde, as usual, had exposed himself to the 
 greatest dangers. Two of his pages were 
 knied at his side during the battle; but his 
 greatest peril was incurred when the pursuit was 
 over. Meeting Grammont as they both were 
 returning in the evening to the French camp, he 
 rode forward to embrace the Marshal. Their 
 horses, which had been perfectly docile 
 during the day, no sooner drew together than, as 
 if possessed by furies, they rushed upon each 
 other, and strove to tear each other to pieces. A 
 timely pistol shot through the head of the Mar- 
 shal's charger saved both riders from being 
 frightfully lacerated. 
 
 The victory of Lens was the crowning glory of 
 France in the long and exhausting struggle to 
 which Cardinal Eichelieu had challenged the house 
 of Austria; it brought the Thirty Years' War 
 to a close. Spain indeed, having concluded a 
 separate truce with Holland, refused to be included 
 in the treaty of WestphaHa ; but, crippled in 
 power, and destitute of allies, her feeble and 
 desultory efforts could not have been prolonged, 
 had not the internal troubles of France afforded 
 
 103 
 
 her a breathing time, and eventually enlisted in 
 her support the most terrible of her foes. Hardly 
 had the battle been won when Conde was sum- 
 moned to lead his victorious army against the 
 insurgent city of Paris. The Civil War of the 
 Fronde, a conflict unique in the voluminous annals 
 of faction, had broken out in France. In order 
 to render it intelligible, it is necessary to pass in 
 brief review the state of the kingdom during the 
 reign of Louis XIII. and the earlier years of the 
 Kegency of Anne of Austria. 
 
104 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The history of the reign of Louis XIII. of 
 France is in all important points the history of the 
 rule of Cardinal Eichelieu. The royal authority, 
 during the first twelve years of that reign, had 
 fallen into a state of impotency and contempt 
 unknown, except for a short period preceding and 
 succeeding the death of Henry III., during the 
 previous century and a half. The relations of the 
 great nobles of the kingdom to their sovereign 
 bore a much nearer resemblance to the feudal 
 anarchy that had existed before the reign of 
 Louis XI., than to the loyal obedience which up- 
 held the brilHant despotism of Francis I. The 
 wars of the League had restored much of their 
 ancient power. Henry lY., in bringing the long 
 religious strife to a close, found it necessary to 
 make concessions to his potent subjects. Catholic 
 and Huguenot, which stripped the crown of a 
 great part of its authority. At his death, Mary 
 of Medicis, assuming the Regency during the 
 
 105 
 
 minority of her son, a sickly boy only nine years 
 old, dismissed Sully, Yilleroi, and the other ex- 
 perienced ministers of her husband, and delivered 
 the reins of government into the hands of her 
 low-born and rapacious Italian favourite Concini, 
 whom she created Marshal of France and Marquis 
 of Ancre. The Princes of the blood, the great 
 Catholic nobles, the powerful Huguenot connexion, 
 indignant at the rule of an insolent upstart, and 
 counselled by the discarded ministers, plunged 
 into revolt, wrung humiliating concessions from 
 the Regent— who sacrificed the interests of her 
 son to her blind partiality for Concini's wife — 
 and kept the kingdom for years in constant tur- 
 moil. No sooner was one Civil War appeased by 
 lavish grants than another broke out in some rival 
 
 interest. 
 
 At length, in the year 1617, the young King, 
 
 at the instigation of a gentleman of his household, 
 named De Luynes, who had acquired complete 
 mastery over the feeble and suspicious mind of his 
 sovereign by his aptitude in the childish amuse- 
 ments—the snaring of small birds, the carving of 
 little shrines, the painting of little pictures, the 
 beating of drums— in which Louis delighted, 
 ordered Vitry, Captain of his Guards, to arrest 
 Concini, giving special instructions for the use of 
 force in case of resistance. Vitry was a wiUing 
 
 F 5 
 
106 
 
 and nnscrupulous instrument. The bait of a 
 MarshaPs baton was dangled before his eyes by 
 De Luynes ; and without troubling himself about 
 the formality of resistance on the part of his 
 victim, he despatched Marshal D'Ancre in the 
 court-yard of the Louvre. Louis, throwing up a 
 window, applauded the deed. Vitry was made 
 Marshal of France and Duke. De Luynes, created 
 Duke and Peer, Prime Minister, and ultimately 
 Constable, was endowed with the enormous 
 wealth of the unhappy Italian, and with the 
 matchless diamonds of the Italian's more un- 
 happy wife, who was beheaded as a sorceress on 
 the Place de Greve. To crown the fortunes of 
 the aspiring favourite he espoused Marie de 
 Eohan, only daughter of the Duke of Montbazon, 
 then seventeen years old, the most beautiful, 
 witty, wayward, and supremely fascinating 
 woman of her time. His two brothers, obscure 
 gentlemen, were also made Dukes and Peers, and 
 obtained endowments suitable to their new rank. 
 The queen-mother was deposed from power, and 
 exiled to the castle of Blois. 
 
 In addition to extraordinary personal advan- 
 tages, De Luynes possessed gracious manners, 
 and a singularly amiable disposition, which dis- 
 armed envy, and won all hearts; but he was 
 utterly destitute of the qualifications needed to 
 
 107 
 
 cope with the evils which oppressed the State. 
 His ambition was limited to the quiet enjoyment 
 of the splendid position to which the royal favour 
 had raised him, and for this end he laboured, 
 though with only partial success, to conciliate 
 hostile interests. His chief danger, however, 
 arose not from any inimical combination, but 
 from the fickleness of his sovereign. The angry 
 disgust which, after a few years, seized the jealous, 
 moody mind of Louis at the astonishing spectacle 
 of sudden greatness, which was the work of his 
 own hands, must have proved fatal to the whole 
 family of De Luynes had not the Constable's death, 
 at the end of the year 1621, prevented his inevit- 
 able disgrace. The post of prime minister being 
 now vacant, Mary of Medicis resumed her old 
 empire over the mind of her son. The first use 
 she made of her recovered influence was to obtain, 
 much against the King's incUnations, a seat in 
 the Privy Council, and a Cardinal's hat for her 
 Chancellor, Jean Armand Duplessis de Eichelieu, 
 Bishop of Lueon. Then began that extraordinary 
 career which changed the face of France and of 
 
 . Europe. 
 
 Whoever would know what the genius and 
 energy of one man can accomplish, for the power 
 and glory of a State, should study the history of 
 France during the twenty years' administration of 
 
108 
 
 109 
 
 Cardinal Eichelieu. In 1622 the provinces and 
 strong towns of the kingdom were parcelled out 
 as Governments, many of them held by hereditary 
 tenure, among the Princes of the Blood and the 
 high nobility, who appointed and removed all 
 subordinate functionaries at their own pleasure. 
 In Brittany the Duke of Vendome, in Guyenne 
 the Duke of Epemon, in Languedoc the Duke of 
 Montmorenci, in Champagne the Duke of Nevers, 
 in Burgundy the House of Lorraine-Guise, sur- 
 rounded by populations attached to them by 
 habits of obedience or feudal ties, could, from 
 behind the walls of numerous strongholds, bid 
 defiance to the King. In the West and South 
 the Huguenot community claimed nearly all the 
 rights of an independent State. They refused 
 submission to the royal mandates until these were 
 ratified by their own Synod, and made treaties of 
 alliance with foreign powers upon equal terms. 
 Many of the most potent houses in France, Eohan, 
 La Force, Bouillon, La Tremouille, Chatillon, 
 Sully, were still of their body. Their powerful 
 mihtary organisation, and the possession of for- 
 tresses of great strength, enabled them to brave 
 with impunity the anger of the Government, which 
 their turbulent spirit constantly provoked. It 
 was only in the previous year that Louis and the 
 Constable de Luynes, at the head of all the 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 military force the Crown could muster, were re- 
 pelled with disgrace from the Huguenot town of 
 Montauban. In case of need La Eochelle gave easy 
 access to the succours of England; and the Duke 
 of Bouillon's independent principality of Sedan 
 threw open France on the side of the Netherlands. 
 In the East and South, the Spanish provinces of 
 Franche Compte and Roussillon, and the dominions 
 of the Duke of Lorraine, thrust like wedges through 
 the frontier, and breaking up the integrity of the 
 kingdom, were a perpetual menace to its security, 
 and afforded support and refuge to malcontent 
 nobles. Ever-recurring revolts, vexatious ex- 
 actions and restrictions, paralysed industry and 
 commerce. Innumerable feudal courts, possessing 
 independent and conflicting jurisdictions, ham- 
 pered the dispensing of justice. The roads were 
 covered with robbers and assassins ; nowhere was 
 there any security for life or property. Even in 
 Paris, in addition to the King's Courts, the 
 Archbishop, the Abbess of Montmartre, the 
 Grand Prior, the Abbot of St. Germain, and a 
 number of noblemen exercised separate judicial 
 rights. The safety of the capital was confided to 
 forty-five decrepit watchmen; and crimes, at 
 which humanity shudders, were daily perpetrated 
 in the streets. Such was the internal condition 
 of the kingdom. Abroad its influence was at the 
 
no 
 
 lowest ebb. Never had the House of Austria 
 been more united or triumphant. The strength 
 of the great Spanish Monarchy, though waning, 
 was still unbroken; and its prestige was far 
 greater than its strength. In Germany the 
 Emperor, Ferdinand II., aided by his able ally, 
 Maximilian of Bavaria, was acquiring a position 
 of power and preponderance, for which Charles 
 V. had striven in vain. France, weakened by 
 her own internal dissensions, could only look on 
 m impotent anger, while an absolute supremacy in 
 Europe was passing, almost without a struggle, 
 into the hands of her ancient foes. 
 
 It was the ambition of Cardinal Richelieu to 
 bring into subjection the unruly forces that dis- 
 tracted the kingdom, and make them elements of 
 national strength ; to build up from the chaotic 
 materials of antiquated feudalism a powerful and 
 united monarchy, which might dispute the supre- 
 macy of the house of Austria in Europe. Few 
 men ever were gifted in a more eminent degree 
 with all the qualifications of a great ruler. He 
 had splendid genius, prescient and fruitful, capable 
 of conceiving and elaborating the most stupendous 
 designs ; a judgment which was never dazzled by 
 chimerical schemes; energy and resolution to 
 which nothing was impossible. Modest, supple, 
 affable, haughty, stern, unrelenting, according to 
 
 111 
 
 circumstances, he seemed to combine in himself a 
 variety of characters ; to be able to summon up at 
 his will the most opposite qualities in aid of his 
 ambition. Nothing was too vast, nothing too 
 minute, for the grasp of his intellect. No circum- 
 stance, which had even a remote bearing on his 
 policy, was too insignificant for his care. While 
 transacting all the more important business of a 
 great kingdom seething with agitation, and in- 
 volved in complicated foreign relations, and at 
 the same time personally directing an arduous 
 campaign, he could find time to pen elaborate 
 instructions ' for the guidance of some newly- 
 appointed Court official. Clear-sighted in his 
 aims, he pursued them with inexhaustible fertility 
 of resource and unfaltering determination. As 
 has been remarked by Bussy Rabutin, a compe- 
 tent and contemporary observer, from whom the 
 foregoing estimate of Richelieu's capacity and 
 character has been largely borrowed, it is 
 difficult, when gazing on the noble features lit up 
 by refined intellect and gracious benignancy 
 which still live on the canvas of Philippe de 
 Champagne, to understand his terrible reputation. 
 In truth, ho was by nature mild and placable. 
 But the imperious necessities of his policy ; the 
 unscrupulous plots of princes and nobles, in con- 
 cert with the foreign enemies of the realm, against 
 
112 
 
 liis power and life^ for selfish ends; the treachery 
 and ingratitude with which his benefits were so 
 often repaid ; and doubtless^ in some measure, the 
 fierce passions which wait upon a perilous career 
 of triumphant ambition, led him occasionally 
 to temper justice with an exceptional severity, 
 which wore the odious complexion of tyranny. 
 With the doubtful exception, however, of the 
 Duke of Montmorenci, whose life was justly for- 
 feited for open rebellion, supported by foreign 
 powers, there is not one of the so-called victims 
 of Richelieu whose character or designs deserve 
 the slightest sympathy. Nor were any of his acts 
 tainted with the perfidy and ingratitude which 
 marked the conduct of Henry IV. and Sully 
 towards the Duke of Biron. 
 
 It is curious to note how sectarian prejudice 
 brands as crime in the great Cardinal what it 
 lauds as virtue in the great Huguenot Duke. 
 Historians who extol to the skies the wisdom and 
 patriotism of Sully depict Richelieu in the darkest 
 colours as a tyrannical oppressor. Yet the policy 
 of the two ministers was essentially identical. 
 The depression of the great nobles and the 
 Huguenot league at home, the depression of the 
 house of Austria abroad, were the cherished aims 
 of Sully— great noble, and Huguenot though he 
 was — as they afterwards became the cherished 
 
 113 
 
 aims of Richelieu. Both ministers laboured for 
 the same ends; the difference was that the second 
 brought to the work a far bolder genius and a 
 
 stronger will. 
 
 If Richelieu was a redoubtable enemy, he was 
 the most constant and generous of friends. For 
 ability and devotion in his service, he thought no 
 praise excessive, no recompense too splendid. And 
 his government had one characteristic which dis- 
 tinguishes it honourably, not only from all con- 
 temporary governments, but from the govern- 
 ments of all other leading States of Europe down 
 to quite recent times. This was the entire 
 absence of religious intolerance. A devout be- 
 liever in the creed of the Church, in which he 
 held exalted rank, and in an age when religious 
 animosities were running high, he knew no dis- 
 tinction of belief in the service of the State. He 
 made war on the Huguenots, not as a dissenting 
 sect, but as a political community, possessed of 
 exceptional privileges which they abused to the 
 detriment of the kingdom. The use he made of 
 their complete subjugation was to place them in 
 all respects on an equal footing with the Catholics. 
 The Dukes of Bouillon and Schomberg and 
 General Gassion commanded French armies under 
 his administration, and the last two enjoyed his 
 entire confidence. It is a striking satire upon the 
 
114 
 
 value of the claims to our admiration advanced 
 most boldly by writers of eminence on behalf of 
 communities of men^ and accepted by these com- 
 munities themselves with the most complacent 
 confidence ; a curious example of the irony of 
 history, that the principle of religious freedom, 
 which Protestant nations always made their 
 peculiar boast, and almost always repressed by 
 cunning systems of savage intolerance, one of 
 which, framed by the most powerful and free of 
 them all, has been described by a great Protestant 
 writer, as '^ more terrible than the ten Christian 
 persecutions,'^ was practised in Catholic France 
 alone, during that part of the seventeenth century 
 when the kingdom was absolutely governed in 
 succession by a French and an Italian Cardinal, 
 Eichelieu and Mazarin. 
 
 Eichelieu only shares the common fate of all 
 great men who have been successful, and whose 
 careers have brought them into collision with 
 powerful interests, in having his merits depre- 
 ciated by envy, and his defects exaggerated by 
 malignity. There is nothing, perhaps, in history 
 which gives a more painful shock to a generous 
 mind than the revelation of the infirmities of a 
 glorious spirit, of petty and degrading feelings 
 harboured in a lofty soulj except it be the hideous 
 joy with which baser natures gloat over and dis- 
 
 115 
 
 tort failings which disfigure natures, in other 
 respects God-like, into some resemblance to them- 
 selves. Eicheheu's opponents, vanquished in 
 political strife, have taken a dastardly revenge for 
 his superiority in their memoirs. It may freely 
 be admitted that neither as a statesman nor as a 
 man was he by any means perfect. The irregular 
 grandeur of his character cast gigantic shadows. 
 As a ruler, his policy struck not only at excessive 
 privileges, but at legitimate rights ; its tendency 
 was to crush political freedom as well as anarchy. 
 It may be said in extenuation that this is the fault 
 of strong governments in periods of disorder and 
 transition ; that considering the times and the 
 country in which he lived, and the work he 
 had to accomplish, it was almost inevitable ; that 
 anarchy is more fatal to liberty than tyranny itself. 
 He was one of the most generous and enlightened 
 patrons of men of genius ; one of the most zealous 
 fosterers of literature and the fine arts that ever 
 lived; yet his treatment of the illustrious Corneille 
 seems to have been inspired by resentments of 
 jealous vanity which would have dishonoured a 
 starving poetaster, which betray kinship with the 
 meanest passions of his countryman, Voltaire. The 
 amusing story in the Memoirs of the Count of 
 Brienne, in which the powerful minister is de- 
 scribed as having been beguiled by Madame de 
 
116 
 
 Chevrense into dancing a saraband in appropriate 
 trappings of green velvet, castanets, and silver 
 bells, in order to win the love of Anne of Austria ; 
 and the equally circumstantial accounts of his mid- 
 night interviews in masquerade with the celebrated 
 Marion de L'Orme, would seem to show that he 
 discarded alike personal dignity and professional 
 decency in the pursuit of pleasure. But it must 
 in fairness be taken into account, that these anec- 
 dotes emanate from his deadly enemies at one of 
 the most corrupt and unscrupulous periods of 
 modern history; that they did not appear till 
 after his death, when authoritative contradiction 
 had become impossible ; and that they all want im- 
 partial confirmation. Anne of Austria, in her un- 
 reserved revelations, many years afterwards, to 
 Madame de Motteville, of the incidents of her 
 married life, does not appear to have known any- 
 thing of the story of the saraband. With every 
 deduction which justice can claim on account of 
 errors and shortcomings, Richelieu will ever rank 
 among the master spirits of the world; and of the 
 many illustrious public men who have adorned 
 France, and who were strictly Frenchmen, there 
 are few indeed who can boast a purer, not one 
 who can boast a more splendid fame. 
 
 The difficulties inherent to the gigantic task, 
 which Richelieu set himself to accomplish, were 
 
 117 
 
 aggravated by weakness or perverse opposition in 
 quarters from which he might naturally have ex- 
 pected the most strenuous support. Louis XIII., 
 shy, ill-educated, consumedby morbid melancholy, 
 deeply but gloomily religious, a prey to constantly 
 recurring fits of illness which brought him to the 
 brink of the grave ; devoted to unkingly, if inno- 
 cent pursuits ; incapable of governing by himself, 
 yet sensitively jealous of the appearance of control; 
 and easily influenced through his pecuHar tastes ; 
 his smouldering impatience of political tutelage, 
 and his conscientious scruples, could only be ruled 
 by the nicest art and the firmest temper. There 
 were in the Minister's favour, the King's des- 
 potic tendencies, passion for military distinction, 
 shrinking disgust under the burthen of State 
 cares to which he felt himself unequal, and above 
 all the enormous faults of his own enemies. 
 Though RicheHeu soon succeeded in inspiring his 
 Sovereign with admiration and awe, these, and 
 not affection, formed the link that bound them 
 together to the end. 
 
 Louis had been married at the age of fourteen, 
 through the policy of Mary of Medicis, to Anne 
 of Austria, eldest daughter of Philip III, of Spain, 
 bom in the same year as himself. Seldom has 
 there been a more uncongenial union. Anne was 
 beautiful, proud with more than traditional pride 
 
118 
 
 of her race and country^ fond of admiration and 
 gaiety, daring, clever, and unscrupulous. The 
 cold temperament of her husband, his joyless 
 mood, which found its chief solace in singing dreary 
 ditties of his own composing, and in prolonged 
 fits of sullen musing, filled her with disgust. 
 Her forced subjection, first to the ascendency of 
 De Luynes, and afterwards to the control of the 
 Queen-mother, excited her bitter indignation. 
 The precarious health of her husband, by con- 
 stantly inspiring her with fallacious hopes of 
 release from irksome ties, prevented her schooling 
 her haughty humour into the submission and the 
 show of sympathy which would have given her 
 dominion over his mind. And after a time 
 the unbounded influence of the brilliant and dis- 
 solute Duchess of Chevreuse fortified her rebeUious 
 spirit and corrupted her heart. 
 
 Kicheheu, on assuming the direction of affairs, 
 whether, as his detractors relate, prompted by a 
 frantic passion, or, as is more probable, by motives 
 of policy and good-feeling, strenuously endeavoured 
 to win the young Queen's favour. But Anne, 
 counselled by Madame de Chevreuse, rejected his 
 advances with scorn, and openly proclaimed her- 
 self his foe. No sooner had his genius asserted its 
 supremacy in the royal councils, no sooner had his 
 pohcy begun to unf oldi tself, than they naturally 
 
 119 
 
 provoked fierce, wide-spread and stubborn antago- 
 nism. As the immediate and obvious effect of his 
 measures was to increase the authority wielded 
 by himself, he seemed to the great majority of 
 Frenchmen, while really working out, in the 
 interests of France and of civilization, an inevitable 
 political and social revolution, to be merely obey- 
 ing the tyrannical impulses of an insatiable per- 
 sonal ambition. The great Catholic nobles, the 
 Huguenot confederacy, the Princes of the Blood, 
 encouraged by the open or secret support of 
 England, Spain, and Lorraine, arrayed themselves 
 against his projects. His old patroness, Mary of 
 Medicis, exasperated at the independent attitude 
 towards herself, which the responsibilities of his 
 position compelled him to assume, conceived for 
 him a furious hatred, which he tried in vain to 
 appease by submission, and even by tears. In 
 concert with her daughter-in-law she urged her 
 younger son, Gaston, Duke of Orleans, to form 
 leagues with foreign powers against the throne of 
 his brother, and the life of the Minister, the 
 scheme of the confederates comprehending the 
 marriage of Anne and Gaston in the probable 
 event of the King's death or deposition. Her 
 importunities, assailing him in periods of sickness 
 and mental prostration, wrung from Louis more 
 than once a solemn pledge to dismiss the Cardinal 
 
120 
 
 from his councils. But tlie fortune and the in- 
 domitable will of Eichelieu triumphed over all 
 foes and all obstacles. The Huguenots, though 
 aided by the whole power of England, saw their 
 strongholds captured and their dangerous pri- 
 vileges abohshed. The Princes of the Blood, and 
 the great nobles, stripped of their governments, 
 hereditary fief s, and independent principalities, 
 expiated their treason by death, outlawry, or 
 imprisonment. Mary of Medicis, driven from 
 France, died in exile at Cologne, in want of the 
 necessaries of life. Gaston of Orieans, discredited 
 by the incapacity, cowardice and treachery, that 
 caused the destruction of his accomplices in a 
 succession of abortive conspiracies, lost the power 
 of doing harm. Anne of Austria having forfeited 
 for everthe regard and respect of her husband by 
 the scandalous levity of her conduct, her anxiety 
 to marry his brother, and her treasonable cor- 
 respondence with the enemies of the kingdom, 
 was subjected to the most humihating restraints, 
 and barely escaped destruction by throwing her- 
 self on the Cardinal's mercy. With Louis himself 
 the relations of his Minister at last bore a strong 
 resemblance to those which had existed between 
 the Mayors of the Palace and the degenerate 
 Sovereigns of the Merovingian dynasty ; but the 
 blood shed in the field and upon the scaffold 
 
 121 
 
 cemented not only the ephemeral authority of the 
 Cardinal, but also the aggrandised and enduring 
 authority of the House of Bourbon. Abroad, the 
 subsidies, and afterwards the armed intervention, 
 of France, enabled Gustavus Adolphus, and the 
 Protestant chiefs who succeeded him in com- 
 mand, to crush for ever the power of the Emperor; 
 while the conquest of Roussillon and Lorraine, the 
 revolt of Catalonia, and the occupation of Savoy, 
 attested the humihation of Spain. Even the grave 
 could not conquer the strong spirit of the great 
 Cardinal. It ruled the councils of France long 
 after the wasted body, its earthly tenement, worn 
 out as a sword wears through its scabbard, had 
 become dust. His dying wishes were more im- 
 plicitly obeyed than ever was the political testa- 
 ment of a King of France. The statesmen whom 
 he had formed continued after his death to direct 
 the Government ; and Cardinal Mazarin, whom on 
 his death-bed he recommended to Louis as his 
 successor, followed, though with unequal steps, in 
 the political path of his master. 
 
 The character of Cardinal Mazarin, who is 
 justly entitled to a foremost place among great 
 modem statesmen, was cast in a very different 
 mould from that of his illustrious predecessor. 
 Crafty, with the deep and subtle craft of an Italian 
 poUtician, wary and insinuating, rather than enter- 
 
 VOL. I. . a 
 
122 
 
 123 
 
 prising and bold, he trusted more to wiles than to 
 vigorous action, and never resorted to force, for 
 the compassing of an object, tiU he had exhausted 
 all the arts of persuasion and intrigue. He was 
 a master of all the learning and the accomplish- 
 ments of the time. His knowledge of foreign 
 politics was at once extensive and profound. He 
 possessed rare gifts of eloquence and perspicuity 
 in speaking and writing. Having exquisite 
 natural taste, carefully cultivated by study and 
 travel ; being adorned in an eminent degree with 
 personal grace and beauty, and with brilliant and 
 agreeable quahties of mind ; and blending in his 
 manners the stately gravity due to a Spanish 
 education, with the deferential courtesy of his 
 Italian breeding, he had no rival in Europe as a 
 finished diplomatist. As an adept in deceit, and 
 in the whole dark^science of state-craft, he perhaps 
 has seldom been surpassed. But for a statesman 
 of the so-called Machievellian school, he had two 
 great defects. He wanted the ruthless will which 
 marches to its goal without pity and without re- 
 morse; and he was deficient in the power of 
 simulating honesty or of recognising that quality 
 in others. Of a disposition gentle almost to 
 timidity, he was apt to over-reach himself by 
 finesse ; and his habit of calculating too exclu- 
 sively on the baser motives of human actions led 
 
 him sometimes into fatal blunders. Intercourse 
 with him sooner or later infallibly awakened in 
 friend and foe an uncomfortable feeling of being 
 cheated. Without possessing the lofty range or 
 the force of genius that distinguished Richelieu, 
 his mind, though liable to be clouded by self- 
 interest and by passing fears, was remarkable for 
 acuteness, for the prescient sagacity of its views, 
 for marvellous fertility of resource, and for a 
 patient tenacity of purpose irresistible as destiny 
 itself. " Time and I against any other two^^ was 
 his favourite maxim. He seldom, if ever perhaps, 
 postponed his private ends to the good of the 
 State, but he generally shaped them in harmony 
 with what he believed to be the public advantage. 
 He belonged to the school of statesmen who held, 
 or at least acted as if they held, that peoples were 
 made for Kings ; and in the main he carried out, 
 by a feebler and more demoralising policy, the 
 system of Government which he inherited from 
 his predecessor. Although under the dominion of 
 avarice, the meanest of aU vices, and in a Minister 
 like Mazarin, with despotic principles, unbounded 
 opportunities, and a low standard of political 
 morality, one of the most hurtful to a people, its 
 influence was somewhat tempered by his love of 
 magnificence and refined enjoyments, and his 
 splendid patronage of the fine arts. He merits 
 
 G 2 
 
 I 
 I 
 
124 
 
 the high praise of being the most clement of 
 rulers. There is no other example in history of a 
 minister of such insatiable ambition, guided by 
 such arbitrary maxims, pursued and proscribed for 
 so many years with such unscrupulous malignity, 
 such furious rancour, and ultimately so triumphant 
 over all his enemies, who treated his adversaries 
 with equal forbearance, and so consistently shrank 
 from dipping his hands in blood. 
 
 The origin of Mazarin was obscure ; his father, 
 of Sicihan extraction, having been steward in the 
 household of the great Eoman family of Colonna. 
 The young Gulio, bom in 1602, was sent for his 
 education to the University of Alcala, in Spain. 
 On his return to Rome, the interest of his patrons 
 obtained for him a commission in the Papal Army. 
 But although he never lost his military tastes, he 
 soon rehnquished the profession of arms for a 
 career better suited to his genius. His skill in 
 literary composition having attracted the notice of 
 the Cardinals Barberini, nephews of the reigning 
 Pontiff, Urban YIII., they took him under their 
 protection ; and charmed by his versatile capacity 
 and his amiable disposition, advanced him to im- 
 portant diplomatic employments in Italy and 
 France. His new profession brought him, in 
 the year 1630, during the Mantuan war, into 
 contact with Cardinal Richelieu, who appreciating 
 
 125 
 
 his great abiHties and his engaging qualities, 
 loaded him with marks of esteem and affection. 
 Mazarin happened to be in Paris ia the year 1639 
 on a confidential mission from the Papal See, when 
 the sudden death of Father Joseph de Tremblay 
 deprived Richelieu of his most able and trusted 
 councillor. The powerful minister fixed upon the 
 Papal Envoy as the person best qualified to supply 
 the loss, assigned him apartments in the Palais 
 Cardinal, obtained for him the red hat which had 
 been destined for the famous Capuchin, and 
 admitted him to his entire confidence. Mazarin 
 was especially useful to his benefactor as a medium 
 of communication with the King and Queen. His 
 gentle pliancy, and deferential bearing, soothed 
 the jealous and irritable temper of Louis. His 
 insinuating manners and perfect knowledge of the 
 Spanish tongue won him the regard of Anne of 
 Austria, now reduced to isolation by the death or 
 banishment of nearly all her adherents. 
 
 On the death of RicheUeu the position of his 
 followers was eminently precarious. The exist- 
 ence of the King had long held by a thread. It 
 was impossible that life could flicker much longer 
 in his emaciated frame; and his children were 
 still infants. The statesmen of the school of the 
 late minister, men of great ability and eager 
 ambition, who had been absolutely devoted to 
 
126 
 
 their patron, not only represented a policy odious 
 to the great body of the nation, but had in many 
 cases excited the personal enmity of the Queen, 
 and of the great nobles of the realm. The House 
 of Conde, aggrandized in an extraordinary degree 
 by its alliance with Cardinal Eichelieu, was their 
 chief support; but the character of the Prince 
 was proverbially shifty and self-seeking. It 
 seemed as if the poKtical structure reared by their 
 master with such a bold and skilful hand would 
 topple down in ruin on their heads. Louis, even 
 while the impression of the solemn death-bed 
 interview which terminated the momentous, ever 
 varying, but never-broken relations which had 
 bound him and his great minister together for 
 twenty years, was still fresh on his mind, had dis- 
 played singular ingratitude and want of feeling. 
 When the CardinaPs death was reported to him, 
 not caring to dissemble his joy at being released 
 from the servitude which he had neither known 
 how to throw ofi nor to support with dignity, he 
 exclaimed ^^ I am at length a king.^' For a few 
 weeks he seemed to enjoy his liberty, and the 
 appearance of directing in person the government 
 of the kingdom. In order, apparently, to con- 
 vince his subjects that the severity which had 
 hitherto distinguished his reign was solely due to 
 the counsels of the deceased prelate, he granted 
 
 
 127 
 
 an amnesty for political offences. Princes of the 
 Blood and great nobles, long entombed in dun- 
 geons, or forced to eat the bitter bread of exile, 
 again thronged the Royal ante-chambers at St. Ger- 
 main. Every day added to the returned swarm of 
 illustrious proscribed, who, gathering in excited 
 groups, scowled with hatred and scorn at the 
 adherents of the late minister, decked out in the 
 dignities of which they had been despoiled; 
 watched with ill-dissembled hope the manifest 
 tracings of death upon the countenance of their, 
 sovereign ; and crowded in noisy homage around 
 Anne of Austria, their old accomplice in treason, 
 and the destined instrument of their triumph and 
 revenge. The leading figure among these haughty 
 malcontents was the young Duke of Beaufort, 
 second son of the Duke of Vend6me, and grand- 
 son of Henry IV., brave, handsome, rash, pre- 
 sumptuous, without capacity or conduct, but 
 popular and high in the favour of the Queen. 
 
 To the dangers he shared in common with his 
 colleagues was added, in the case of Mazarin, the 
 odium nearly always provoked by the rapid eleva- 
 tion of a foreign adventurer of obscure extraction. 
 The difficulties of his situation could only be sur- 
 mounted by the exercise of all his art. Policy 
 and his natural disposition suggested the same 
 course of action. He set himself to attract friends 
 
 f 
 
 '■■■•■■■■••■lAi^- 
 
128 
 
 and disarm foes, by humility of deportment, by 
 flattering caresses, and by constant offices of 
 kindness. Naturally incHned to luxury and mag- 
 nificence, be adopted a style of living plain even 
 to meanness. He took pains to conceal bis influ- 
 ence in the King's councils, and affected a wish 
 to be permitted to retire to Rome. He paid 
 obsequious homage to rank and power, and did 
 not disdain to propitiate the most insignificant 
 court official. His efforts to win the favour of 
 the Queen, though secret, were unremitting. 
 Nor was Anne of Austria, now in the ripe splen- 
 dour of her voluptuous beauty, and aspiring to 
 be Regent with absolute power, insensible to the 
 charm which personal graces and delicate flattery 
 lent to the councils of the astute politician. 
 
 Within five months Louis XIII. followed Car- 
 dinal RicheHeu to the grave. When he felt his 
 end drawing near, he summoned Mazarin and 
 Baron Chavigny, the ablest and best beloved of 
 Richelieu's poHtical pupils, to assist him in pre- 
 paring an Edict of Regency to regulate the 
 government of France during the minority of 
 his son. Mazarin prudently held aloof as much 
 as possible from the discussions in the Council of 
 State, resigning the lead to the bolder Chavigny, 
 by whose advice a solemn Declaration of the 
 King's will was drawn up, and formally registered 
 
 129 
 
 by the ParHament of Paris. To this settlement 
 Louis exacted public oaths of obedience from his 
 wife, from the great judicial and administrative 
 bodies of the Capital, and from the principal 
 personages of the realm. Ancient precedent and 
 the necessities of the time compelled him, notwith- 
 standing the well-founded distrust and disHke 
 with which he regarded his wife and his brother, 
 to appoint the one Regent and the other Lieu- 
 tenant-General of the kingdom. But he vested a 
 controlling power in a Council of Regency, com- 
 posed, in addition to the Duke of Orleans, of the 
 Prince of Cond6, Mazarin, Chavigny, and his 
 father BouthilUer, and the Chancellor Seguier. 
 
 The conduct of the Queen at this juncture was 
 marked by all the perfidy of which her husband 
 so often and so bitterly complained, and by a 
 degree of political skill for which no one, with 
 the exception perhaps of Richelieu, had hitherto 
 given her credit. Knowing well that her own 
 popularity, the passions of the great nobles, and 
 the strong reaction that had already set in agaiust 
 the repressive system of the late minister, would 
 sweep away the unusual restrictions imposed upon 
 her by the King's testament, and, counselled by Ma- 
 zarin to temporise, she took the required oath with 
 cheerful alacrity, and with earnest protestations 
 of devotion and gratitude. In order to guard 
 
 G 5 
 
 i 
 
 -— ^-■^■^ --.j.^l-; i 
 
 "■ '""• ~-^"^-- 
 
 X* 
 
130 
 
 herself against the cabals of the Duke of Orleans, 
 who had publicly questioned the legitimacy of her 
 children; and to escape from the position of being 
 merely the head of a turbulent and rapacious 
 faction, of dependence on her old partizans, with 
 whose poHtical views she no longer sympathised, 
 she formed a secret league for mutual support 
 with the Prince of Cond^, the mainstay of Eiche- 
 Keu^s friends, and the mortal enemy of the House 
 of Vend6me. The event fully justified her pru- 
 dence and foresight. On the death of Louis 
 XIII., the Duke of Beaufort and his party, treat- 
 ing the Edict of Regency, and the Council of 
 Regency with contempt, carried Anne in triumph 
 to Paris, amidst the acclamations of the people, 
 as absolute ruler of the realm. The Lieutenant- 
 General and the Council, influenced by Conde, 
 who had been gained over, and by Chavigny, 
 whose sagacity divined the necessities of the 
 situation, determined upon a voluntary abdication 
 of their functions. In a few days Louis XIY., 
 then five years old, held his first Bed of Justice. 
 Orleans, with ill-dissembled reluctance, announced 
 to the High Court of Parliament the resignation 
 of himself and his colleagues in the Government, 
 and proposed to invest the Regent with unlimited 
 authority. Conde signified his approval. A 
 decree was passed amidst the greatest enthusiasm 
 
 
 131 
 
 by which the magistrates annulled the wiU of 
 Louis XIIL, which they had so recently afl&rmed 
 with equal unanimity. Orleans was again created 
 Lieutenant- General of the Kingdom by the 
 Regent; and the members of the Council of 
 Regency, with Conde as President, continued to 
 hold their posts at her pleasure. 
 
 Anne of Austria had now attained the fruition 
 of her hopes. But the exultation of success was 
 soon sobered by the difficulties of her new posi- 
 tion. She found herself between two irreconcilably 
 hostile parties, each of which had contributed to 
 promote her ambition. The one composed of the 
 House of Conde, the connexions of Richelieu, the 
 experienced statesmen and able soldiers he had 
 raised around the throne, represented victory and 
 the humihation of the house of Austria abroad, 
 and the plenitude of the royal authority at home. 
 These urged her to recollect only that she was 
 mother of the King of France, to observe the 
 treaty engagements of the kingdom sealed on 
 many a glorious field of battle, and to preserve in 
 undiminished splendour the inheritance of her 
 son. The other party, consisting of the majority 
 of the great princes and nobles, her own old con- 
 federates, backed by the Church and by popular 
 feeling, peremptorily demanded immediate peace 
 without regard to existing alliances and public 
 

 132 
 
 faith, with the other Catholic powers; the restora- 
 tion of the forfeited dominions and feudal powers 
 of the depressed nobles; the confiscation of Eiche- 
 lien's wealth, the degradation of his family and 
 adherents, and the reversal of his policy. The 
 very first acts of her authority as Regent revealed 
 to her the inevitable dangers that beset her course. 
 On her return to the Louvre from the Palace of 
 Justice she had appointed several of her old ad- 
 herents to seats in the Council of State, and made 
 one of them, the Bishop of Beauvais, Prime 
 Minister. But she also commissioned a confidential 
 agent to ofier Mazarin, who since the death of 
 the king had secluded himself in his dingy lodg- 
 ings, professing to his friends ignorance of the 
 intrigues on foot, and despondency regarding hia 
 own prospects, the post of Vice-President of the 
 Council. And in observance of her secret en- 
 gagements with Conde, an intimation was con- 
 veyed to Chavigny,Boutliillier, and the Chancellor 
 Seguier of her desire that they should retain their 
 offices in the Ministry. Beaufort and his friends, 
 almost beside themselves with amazement and 
 anger, immediately assailed her with clamorous 
 remonstrances, which she endeavoured, with only 
 partial success, to satisfy by representing to them 
 the necessity of temporising until she had acquired 
 some knowledge of public affairs. They only con- 
 
 1 
 
 133 
 
 sented to wait until their mistress had the support 
 of the presence and counsels of Madame de 
 Chevreuse, whose return from her long exile in the 
 Netherlands was daily expected, before, as they 
 openly declared, transferring to themselves all the 
 offices and governments which had been usurped 
 during the late reign by the adherents of the new 
 political system, and all the vast possessions ac- 
 quired by the family of Cardinal Richelieu. The 
 character and career of the extraordinary woman, 
 upon whose return to Court such momentous 
 issues seemed to hang, call for something more 
 than a mere passing notice. 
 
 When the Duke of Luynes found himself 
 suddenly raised from obscurity and indigence to 
 the highest rank, and unbounded wealth, by the 
 favour of Louis XIII. and the plunder of the un- 
 fortunate Concinis, his first care was to add lustre 
 and strength to his new position by an alliance 
 with one of the great families of France. The 
 unrivalled charms, sparkling wit, and imperious 
 spirit of Marie de Rohan, only daughter of the 
 Duke of Montbazon, had, just then, burst upon 
 the Court of France in a dawn which gave 
 dazzling promise of the transcendent power which 
 afterwards set the world in a flame. De Luynes, 
 with the support of the King, sought Marie^a 
 hand in marriage. In order to promote his suit. 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
134 
 
 he laid at the feet of the proud young beauty the 
 magnificent diamonds of the Marchioness d'Ancre, 
 said to exceed in value those in the possession of 
 any other European subject, and the office of 
 Superintendent of the Queen^s Household, the 
 greatest which a woman could hold under the 
 French Crown. The handsome person and win- 
 ning manners of the favourite made an impression 
 on Mademoiselle de Rohan's heart ; his splendid 
 offers dazzled her ambition, and she accepted hia 
 hand without reluctance. But her elevation at 
 Court was opposed by an angry cabal. The 
 young Queen resisted an appointment which 
 placed at the head of her household a self-willed 
 beauty but a year older, and of more brilliant 
 attractions than herself. The Duchess of Mont- 
 morenci and the haughty Spanish dames who 
 had hitherto formed Anne's estabUshment, re- 
 fused to acknowledge the new Superintendent, and 
 Louis had to exert the royal authority with some 
 harshness, to make his will obeyed. Marie lived 
 happily with her husband, and up to the time of 
 his death, supported his interests with the 
 courageous fidelity which was the finest feature of 
 her character. During the first year of her 
 widowhood, the miscarriage of Anne of Austria, 
 caused by a fall while romping with Madame de 
 Luynes in the long gallery of the Louvre, led to 
 
 135 
 
 the dismissal of the Duchess and her banishment 
 from Court. A few months after her disgrace she 
 married the Duke of Chevreuse, youngest son of 
 Henry Duke of Guise, who had been murdered at 
 Blois. This great alliance procured her recal to 
 Court and her re-appointment to high office about 
 the person of the Queen. In other respects her 
 second marriage was unfortunate. Chevreuse, 
 who had degenerated from his illustrious race in 
 everything except personal beauty, was sunk in 
 sloth and pleasure. The Duchess, neglected by 
 her husband, threw off all moral restraint, gave 
 free rein to her bold and wayward spirit, and with 
 qualifications for success which have seldom been 
 equalled, launched out upon that stormy career of 
 intrigue in love and politics, which soon made 
 her the most famous woman in Europe. 
 
 The coldness which had at first existed between 
 Anne of Austria and the young Superintendent 
 of her household gradually gave place to feelings 
 of confidence and affection. Madame de Chevreuse 
 espoused the quarrels of her mistress, who keenly 
 relented the precedence allowed to the Queen- 
 mother by the jealous distrust of the King, with 
 the passionate ardour of her nature. Richelieu, 
 then rising rapidly in power, conceived for her a 
 profound admiration which nothing was ever able 
 to extinguish. He spared no effort to win her 
 
 ( 
 
 f 
 I 
 
136 
 
 over to his interests. But she treated his ad- 
 vances with galling mockery^ turned him into 
 ridicule with the Queen^ and was the soul of every 
 conspiracy that troubled his administration. A 
 large share of the faults and the unhappiness of 
 Anne of Austria^s married life must be attributed 
 to the evil influence of Madame de Chevreuse. 
 She encouraged the Queen in her ill-judged course 
 of political cabal, and domestic contumacy. In 
 concert with her lover. Lord Holland, she was the 
 promoter and confidante of the Queen's liason 
 with the Duke of Buckingham; and bore a prin- 
 cipal part in the celebrated midnight revels in the 
 gardens of the Louvre and at Amiens which cast 
 dishonour on the throne of France. She was the 
 most active member of the conspiracy of the 
 Prince of Chalaisforthe assassination of Richelieu 
 and perhaps of the King, and the marriage of 
 Anne of Austria with the Duke of Orleans. 
 Chalais, betrayed and deserted by Orleans and 
 his other associates, was sustained in prison, and 
 even to the foot of the scaffold, by her fearless 
 devotion. Her multiplied offences naturally pro- 
 voked the indignation of Louis XIII. He would 
 have shut her up in the Bastille, but at the Car- 
 dinal's intercession, she was exiled for a few 
 months to her chateau at Dampierre, and then 
 permitted to retire to the Court of the Duke of 
 Lorraine. 
 
 f < 
 
 137 
 
 The Minister, however, soon found that the im- 
 placable Duchess was a more formidable foe in 
 exile than at the Court of France. Wandering 
 restlessly from one country to another, impelled 
 by vanity, ambition and hatred, she compelled 
 sovereigns and statesmen of the most opposite 
 views and character to confess the power of her 
 fascinations andbecome accomplicesin her schemes. 
 Men and women, the most virtuous and the most 
 abandoned, alike found points of irresistible 
 attraction in the curiously chequered nature of the 
 brilliant Frenchwoman. Admired and feted at the 
 Courts of Madrid, London, Brussels, and Nancy, 
 she raised up enemies everywhere against the 
 French Government, and knit together powerful 
 foreign confederacies to aid the efforts of domestic 
 insurrection. She and her party would have seen 
 with joy the troops of Spain and Lorraine pene- 
 trate into the heart of France from the East, 
 while the English advanced victoriously from the 
 Huguenot fortresses in the West, so that the suc- 
 cessful invasion should hurl the detested Cardinal 
 from power. 
 
 Yet in the very midst of their mortal duel it 
 seemed as if Richelieu and Madame de Chevreuse 
 suddenly agreed to bury their animosities and 
 unite their interests. After the final discomfiture 
 of the caballings of Mary of Medicis, at the very 
 moment when she was exulting in assured success. 
 
1 
 
 138 
 
 on the memorable " Day of Dupes/' the Cardinal 
 made the Marquis of Chateauneuf Keeper of the 
 Seals. Chateauneuf was a favoured lover of the 
 Duchess. Delighted at his advancement, and 
 anxious to witness his good-fortune, she offered 
 her friendship to Eichelieu. The Minister, ever 
 willing to convert her into a friend, induced the 
 King to permit her to return to the French 
 Court, and to have unrestricted access to Anne of 
 Austria. But the plots against his administration 
 were continued without interruption ; and after a 
 time he discovered that Chateauneuf, who had given 
 a strong proof of devotion by presiding at the trial 
 of his early benefactor the Duke of Montmorenci, 
 debauched by his mistress, was betraying the 
 secrets of State to Anne of Austria, and habitually 
 reviling himself with the grossest license of accu- 
 sation and invective. The treacherous Keeper of 
 the Seals was condemned to perpetual imprison- 
 ment, under harsh restrictions, in the citadel of 
 Angouleme. Madame de Chevreuse was ordered 
 to retire again to Dampierre, and strictly forbidden 
 to hold communication with the Queen. 
 
 Nothing daunted by ill-success, she continued 
 her intrigues with foreign powers; and journeying 
 up to Paris disguised as a peasant-woman, held 
 secret interviews with Anne of Austria in the 
 Convent of Val de Grace. The spies of the Cardinal 
 
 139 
 
 detected these stolen visits of his fair enemy. The 
 Duchess was hurried away from Dampierre to a 
 melancholy chateau in the gloomy depths of a 
 vast forest near Tours ; and, what she resented as 
 unpardonable malice on the part of the Minister, 
 was committed to the rigorous control of her 
 husband. Eichelieu, however, soon relented to 
 her expostulations, permitted her to live at Tours, 
 where she completely captivated the simple old 
 Archbishop, and supplied her liberally with 
 money. She remained at Tours carrying on secret 
 correspondence with the Queen, and with Spain, 
 Lorraine, and the banished nobles, until the 
 detection of her treasonable intrigues by Richelieu 
 placed the life of Anne of Austria herself at hia 
 mercy. Then the Duchess, justly fearing that she 
 had exceeded the utmost limits of forbearance, 
 resolved to fly the country. Leaving Tours in her 
 coach, as if for an afternoon drive, she attired her- 
 self in the dress of a cavalier, sent back the equipage, 
 with the blinds drawn down, by a circuitous route, 
 and mounted a horse which had been stationed at 
 a convenient point caparisoned for a journey. Her 
 splendid jewels, the bequest of her first husband, 
 were committed, on the road, to the charge of the 
 young Prince of Marsillac. Riding post, without 
 attendants, she traversed the southern provinces 
 of France, meeting with ludicrous adventures. 
 
 i 
 
140 
 
 from which she extricated herself with peculiar 
 gaiety and sang-froid, and finally crossed the 
 Pyrennees in safety. But although received at 
 the Courts of the powers hostile to France with 
 almost regal honours, Madame Chevreuse, a true 
 Frenchwoman, pined amidst the most splendid 
 scenes of foreign capitals for the delights of 
 Parisian society. After a short time, she made 
 fresh overtures with the view of obtaining per- 
 mission to return to France. The Cardinal, always 
 indulgent to his beautiful enemy, and no longer 
 fearing her influence over the Queen, required 
 from her only submission, and a promise of amend- 
 ment. But Anne of Austria, who now had her 
 own reasons for dreading the presence of her rest- 
 less friend, secretly contrived the means of putting 
 a stop to the negociations. 
 
 At the time of Richelieu^s death, the Duchess 
 'had been six years in exile ; years of disappoint- 
 ment and chagrin, which made sad havoc in the 
 peerless charms, which thrice that period of active 
 intrigue had touched only to improve. And the 
 event which might have been counted on as the 
 termination of her wanderings, seemed likely to 
 render them eternal. Louis XIII. specially ex- 
 cepted her from the amnesty he granted for 
 political offences, and by his last testament con- 
 demned her to perpetual banishment from the 
 
 141 
 
 French Court. When the Parliament of Paris 
 had annulled this will, the Eegent, with apparent 
 cordiality, but real reluctance, despatched missives 
 of recal to her old ally, then the guest of the 
 Archduke Ferdinand, at Brussels. The Duchess 
 and the Flemish Court, confident of her un- 
 bounded empire over the mind of Anne of Austria, 
 and believing that her return to France would be 
 immediately followed, notwithstanding the recent 
 victory of Eocroi, by the entire reversal of 
 Eichelieu^s political measures, publicly manifested 
 undignified exultation. In council with her 
 Spanish friends she mapped out the future policy 
 of France, and accepted their premature gratitude 
 for an advantageous peace with a gracious con- 
 descension which was untroubled by a single 
 doubt. Departing from Brussels attended by the 
 whole Court, welcomed along her route by the 
 Flemish and French authorities with extraordi- 
 nary public honours, she slowly pursued her 
 triumphal progress towards Paris, disdainful of 
 the ominous warnings transmitted to her through 
 common friends by her irritated mistress, of the 
 revolution which circumstances had wrought in 
 the Regent's feelings and opinions. 
 
 It must be admitted that the party of great 
 nobihty and their foreign allies had apparently 
 strong grounds for satisfaction at the change of 
 
142 
 
 government in France. Few even amongst those 
 most experienced in tlie crooked ways of political 
 life entertained a doubt as to the side to which the 
 Regent would incline. She was known to have 
 lent her sanction to most of the plots formed in 
 the late reign by the feudal party, in concert with 
 her brother the King of Spain ; plots which did 
 not always respect the crown, perhaps the life, of 
 her husband. She was, notoriously, the bosom 
 friend of the most active spirit of that party; and 
 even in exile Madame Chevreuse had continued, 
 seemingly to the very last, not only to inspire the 
 councils of her friends, but to rule the heart of her 
 mistress. In the long struggle for power, Anne, 
 as she and her partizans loudly proclaimed, had 
 received at the hands of RicheHeu and his creatures 
 not only great injuries, but insults devised with 
 ingenious malice to outrage her feelings as a queen 
 and a woman. She had been more than once 
 rescued from terrible perils, provoked by her im- 
 prudence, by the self-immolating fidelity of de- 
 voted adherents. Proud of her lineage and of her 
 beauty, imperious and self-willed, courageous even 
 to temerity, quick and apparently tenacious in her 
 feelings, Anne did not seem one who could find it 
 easy to forget an obhgation or an injury. It was 
 natural that her accession to sovereign rule should 
 make the followers of the late Minister tremble 
 
 143 
 
 for their safety ; that her tried partizans whom 
 the prisons had disgorged, or who had flocked 
 around her from banishment, should exult in anti- 
 cipation of the signal vengeance and the splendid 
 rewards with which the haughty daughter of the 
 Caesars would requite so much devotion and so 
 many wrongs. Moreover, Anne was a Spanish 
 Infanta, warmly attached to her brother, the 
 Cathohc King, in whose interests she had 
 more than once betrayed her adopted country; 
 warmly attached to the Catholic faith, although 
 she might occasionally temper the severity of her 
 religious principles by laxity of practice. The 
 ties of family and religion bound her to dissolve 
 the unholy league, which to the scandal of 
 Christendom, a Prince of the Church had 
 formed with heretical powers, in order to check 
 the triumphant march of CathoHcity in Germany. 
 But there were causes, some unsuspected at 
 that time, some not suJSiciently taken into account, 
 which operated so as, in a great measure, to falsify 
 the hopes and fears to which her assumption of 
 the Regency had given birth. Her real nature 
 was a sealed volume even to her most intimate 
 friends. Not even the sharp-witted Duchess of 
 Chevreuse seems to have harboured a suspicion 
 of the strong-willed ambition and the deep 
 duplicity which lay at the foundation of the 
 
144 
 
 character of tlie seemingly pliant beauty, so 
 greedy of admiration, and so prone to levity, of 
 all whose rash escapades in love and politics, of 
 whose most secret moments she had been long the 
 confidante. And, during the last five years of his 
 rule, Anne, unknown to all her friends, appears 
 to have been in intimate, though carefully con- 
 cealed, alliance with Cardinal Eichelieu. At that 
 terrible juncture of her life, when the Cardinal, hav- 
 ing discovered that his military plans were betrayed 
 and his secret negociations foiled by her treachery, 
 charged her with high treason in the Council of 
 States; when the faithful agent of her poHtical 
 crimes. La Porte, was seized and flung into a 
 dungeon of the Bastile, where his constancy would 
 probably be tested by the rack; when, in an 
 agony of despairing terror, she besought the 
 Prince of Marsillac to carry her out of France ; 
 when the beautiful and virtuous Mademoiselle 
 de Hautefort, throwing to the winds, with the 
 noblest self-devotion, the love of the King, her 
 own safety, and, what she valued far more, 
 her reputation, in order to rescue her mistress 
 from destruction, penetrated into the Bastile, dis- 
 guised as a soubrette, to communicate with La 
 Porte, whose heroic fidelity extorted a warm tribute 
 of admiration from the baffled minister ; and 
 when all these efforts, and even her own wanton 
 
 145 
 
 perjury in the Holy Eucharist were of no avail 
 against the clear proofs in the Cardinal's 
 possession, Anne threw herself on Richelieu's 
 mercy, and purchased safety by unconditional 
 submission. She continued to be the object of 
 the ardent loyalty of her old friends, who con- 
 fided to her all their plots. There is a good 
 reason to believe it was from her the Cardinal, 
 oppressed by the gloom of mortal illness and 
 approaching disgrace at Tarascon, received the 
 mysterious packet which enabled him to crush the 
 conspiracy of Cinq Mars, and finally estabhsh his 
 power. 
 
 Richelieu, on his pg-rt, rendered the humiliating 
 restrictions which Louis XIII. imposed on his 
 wife less intolerable, and promoted her inte- 
 rests. Aided by a seasonable storm, which 
 drove the King for a night's shelter to 
 his wife's apartments in the Louvre, the only 
 habitable portion of the Palace, he brought about 
 a renewal of conjugal relations, which had been 
 interrupted since the conspiracy of the Prince of 
 Chalais. This reconciHation resulted in the birth 
 of a Dauphin after a barren nuptial of twenty 
 years. We have the Queen's own public testimony 
 to the effect that had the great minister survived 
 Louis XIII. she would, if possible, have added to 
 his power. Mother of a king and ruler of a 
 
 VOL. I, H 
 
146 
 
 miglity kingdom she had no longer the views and 
 interests of the neglected childless wife^ encom- 
 passed by the creatures and oppressed by the 
 domination of a triumphant enemy. The point of 
 most moment to her was no longer a question of 
 persons^ but a question of State policy ; not so 
 much whether one of two rival factions should 
 prevail, as whether the absolute authority of the 
 King should be estabhshed on the wrecks of the 
 feudal system, or the over-grown power of the 
 nobles should again overshadow the throne. And 
 it required a very short experience of governing 
 to teach her that to break with the experienced 
 pohticians of Kichelieu^s party would be to throw 
 the kingdom, at a perilous crisis, into inex- 
 tricable confusion. Mazarin and Chavigny held 
 in their hands the threads of a net -work 
 of political schemes which embraced half of 
 Europe. They alone possessed the ability and 
 knowledge of affairs required to steer the vessel 
 of the State through the perils of a period of 
 foreign war and internal transition. The feudal 
 party, long ostracised, and for the greater part 
 incapable, lost no opportunity of displaying 
 equal ignorance and presumption. Their swelling 
 self-conceit and fussy incompetency soon won for 
 them the nickname of " The Importants.^' The 
 Marquis of Chateauneuf, the only able and ex- 
 
 147 
 
 perienced statesman they could boast, broken by 
 twelve years of solitary imprisonment, and pro- 
 scribed by the fierce enmity of the House of 
 Conde for the part he had played in the tragic 
 downfall of the last Duke of Montmorenci, sought 
 only a tranquil retreat at his country house of 
 Montrouge. Their ostensible leader, the Bishop 
 of Beauvais, was, in the words of Cardinal de 
 Betz, ^^a mitred fool ;" ^^an idiot of idiots.'' And, 
 in addition to the disadvantages suggested by a 
 comparison of persons, to hand over to the 
 Importants the reins of Government would be 
 to goad into revolt an able and powerful party, 
 headed by the wily Conde and his heroic son, and 
 to undo the labours of Cardinal Richelieu. Thus 
 new motives, born of new political circumstances, 
 had gradually estranged Anne of Austria from 
 her old friends. Another consideration, springing 
 from softer emotions, and perhaps equally potent, 
 had also begun to influence her conduct. The 
 various ability and political knowledge of 
 Mazarin, his handsome person, graceful man- 
 ners, and absolute devotion to 'her personal 
 interests, untrammelled by French associations 
 or sympathies, enchained her understanding and 
 her heart. 
 
 Still the event of the struggle was long doubtful. 
 It is evident from Mazarin's secret memoranda 
 
 H 2 
 
148 
 
 how great and how protracted were his fears and 
 his uncertainty. When Madame de Chevreuse 
 arrived m Paris she was received kindly, though 
 somewhat coldly, by the Regent; the feudal 
 party, still supported by the popular re-action, 
 and numbering in its ranks the great majority of 
 the clergy, nobility, and magistrates, and all 
 Anne's favourite ladies, ranged itself under her 
 banner. Had she played her cards with judgment, 
 and consented to temporise in consideration of the 
 difficulties of her mistress's position, she might, 
 perhaps, have ultimately won the game. Old 
 associations of friendship and service, the in- 
 fluence of reHgion, and the ties of family, the 
 claims of gratitude and the dread of dishonour, 
 were brought to bear, in all their force, on the 
 Queen's mind by advocates to whose remon- 
 strances, venerable character, or proved devotion 
 gave almost irresistible weight. Anne would 
 gladly have made considerable sacrifices in order 
 to reconcile the rival factions and propitiate her 
 old friends. She cheerfully abandoned to their 
 hatred Chavigny, to whose counsels she attributed 
 the last testament of her husband. Chavigny had 
 beenMazarin's earliest friend and patron in France, 
 and the two statesmen had continued up to this 
 time bound to each other in close friendship ; but 
 the Cardinal connived without compunction at 
 
 149 
 
 the disgrace of such a formidable competitor. 
 He also, by the Queen's desire, made repeated 
 overtures to Madame de Chevreuse for a union of 
 interests, offering in return splendid advantages 
 for herself and her friends. But the imperious 
 Duchess, not deigning to inform herself of the 
 real character of the Regent, or of the changes 
 which time and circumstances had wrought during 
 her six years of exile, spurned his advances, and 
 insisted, as a preliminary act of justice, on the 
 immediate restoration of Chateauneuf to the high 
 office he had forfeited. Mazarin, however, had 
 made up his mind to retire from France rather 
 than accept such an able and unscrupulous 
 colleague. And the Princess of Conde, whose 
 wise counsels and tried friendship had just weight 
 with the Regent, declared that the restoration of 
 the late Keeper of the Seals to a leading post in 
 the Government would alienate from it the 
 support of her husband and son. 
 
 When Anne of Austria's positive refusal to recall 
 Chateauneuf opened the eyes of the Importants to 
 the altered state of her relations with them, their 
 astonishment and fury knew no bounds. They 
 overwhelmed her with the most bitter reproaches, 
 with threats and insults. The Court rang with 
 their angry complaints, not less distasteful to the 
 Queen because in a measure well-founded, and 
 
150 
 
 with obscene jests which made her blood boil. 
 She had become the poHtical pupil of Mazarin, 
 and the private conferences which she held late 
 into every night with her handsome mentor, scan- 
 dalised her friends, and furnished his opponents 
 with a fertile theme for scurrilous lampoons. The 
 insolent freedom and even rudeness of the Duke of 
 Beaufort, who on one occasion went so far as to 
 turn his back on her with a contemptuous gesture, 
 before the whole Court ; the arrogant lectures of 
 the Duchess of Chevreuse ; and the hostile atti- 
 tude of the rest of the party gradually stifled her 
 natural feelings of compunction for the line of 
 policy she found it her interest to pursue. 
 
 Mazarin shaped his conduct with incomparable 
 art, and turned every circumstance to the best ac- 
 count. The quarrel between the Duchesses of 
 Longueville and Montbazon, breaking out at a 
 seasonable moment, linked the House of Cond6 
 more firmly to his cause, and enabled him with 
 Becurity to deal his adversaries a blow from 
 which they never recovered. Madame de Chev- 
 reuse and Beaufort, rendered desperate by defeat 
 and the exile of Madame de Montbazon, and un- 
 able to dislodge their wily antagonist by less 
 criminal means, contrived a plot for his assassi- 
 nation. The Cardinal, well served by his spies, 
 narrowly escaped with his life, and used the oppor- 
 
 151 
 
 tunity to bring matters to a crisis. Kepairing to 
 the Council of State, he demanded permission 
 from the Regent to retire to Eome, unless she 
 valued his services sufficiently to protect him from 
 the malice of his enemies. He was warmly sup- 
 ported by the Prince of Conde, who detested the 
 House of Yend6me. The Regent, now com- 
 pletely devoted to him, and weary of the insolence 
 of the *' Importants,^^ agreed to sustain him by 
 decisive measures. By her command, Beaufort 
 was arrested at the Louvre, and shut up in the 
 fortress of Yincennes. The Duke of Vendome, 
 Madame de Chevreuse, and, later on, even Madame 
 de Hautefort, whose romantic loyalty and noble 
 character adorn the pages of history and fiction, 
 were banished from Court. The simple Bishop of 
 Beauvais being no longer required to act as a 
 screen to the favourite, was sent to his diocese. 
 The most perilous services in the late reign, and 
 the most humble submission to the new Govern- 
 ment were not sufficient to atone for honest con- 
 sistency and want of political foresight. The 
 ingratitude of Anne of Austria was complete ; the 
 policy of RicheHeu triumphed, and Cardinal 
 Mazarin took the helm as acknowledged Prime 
 Minister. 
 
152 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 The first few years of Cardinal Mazarines ad- 
 ministration, if not unruffled by occasional storms, 
 were on the whole sunny and tranquil. The im- 
 pulse which the mighty genius of EicheHeu had 
 given to the State machine,carried it along smoothly 
 for a long period after his death ; and the milder 
 policy of his successor rendered its pressure less 
 galling. The nation, reUeved from the iron grasp 
 in which it had writhed for twenty years, breathed 
 again with something of the rapture of recovered 
 freedom. There was little open opposition. The 
 Regent was gracious, profuse in her bounties, and 
 popular. A witty courtier, commenting on the 
 general satisfaction, declared that the French 
 language was reduced to the five words, ^^ The 
 Queen is so good." The Minister was prudent 
 and concihating. The Court was splendid, and 
 the arms of France were crowned with unprece- 
 dented glory. The vigour and decision with 
 which the Importants had been quelled, caused 
 
 153 
 
 the temporising state-craft of Mazarin to be as- 
 cribed to magnanimity and not to weakness. 
 
 Madame de Chevreuse alone of the Minister's 
 foes stood forth in active opposition, undaunted 
 and implacable. Banished to her country-house 
 in Touraine, she resumed her treasonable corres- 
 pondence with Spain, which in less fortunate days 
 had been so zealously promoted by the Regent. 
 But she soon found that she could not hope from 
 the vigilant rancour of an ungrateful mistress, or 
 the insensible heart of the Italian Cardinal, the 
 partial indulgence she had so often experienced 
 from Richelieu. A secret agent of the Govern- 
 ment arrived at Tours to conduct her, as a state 
 prisoner, to the Castle of Angouleme. The daring 
 spirit which years before had borne her from 
 the same spot, in the guise of a handsome young 
 cavalier, in adventurous flight across the Pyrennees, 
 animated her still ; but the generous enemy who 
 had supplied the funds for her romantic enter- 
 prise no longer existed. Penniless, but carrying 
 concealed in her girdle the famous Cincini 
 diamonds, she escaped from her house at night in 
 disguise. Her daughter, a young girl of singular 
 courage and beauty, was her only companion. 
 The fugitives set out on foot for the coast of 
 Brittany, braved extraordinary hardships, perils, 
 and fatigues, and succeeded in reachiag St. Malo. 
 
 H 5 
 
154 
 
 The kindness of a Breton nobleman provided 
 them with passages on board a ship bound for 
 England; but the vessel was captured by an 
 English man-of-war in the service of the ParHa- 
 ment^ and the Duchess being recognised as a 
 friend of Queen Henrietta Maria, was carried a 
 prisoner to the Isle of Wight. It was proposed 
 to deliver her up to the Regent. Fortunately for 
 her, one of her old admirers. Lord Pembroke, 
 was Governor of the Island, and he allowed her 
 to depart for the Low Countries. The ill-starred 
 wanderers reached Dunkirk in a lamentable 
 plight, destitute of the commonest necessaries. 
 The Duchess had only left her the mortifying 
 resource of imploring the compassion of her old 
 friend, the Archduke, from whom she had parted 
 amidst such triumphal pomp, and with such mag- 
 nificent promises, little more than a year before. 
 Fallen and cheerless in themselves, and still sadder 
 by contrast, were the fortunes of Madame de 
 Chevreuse in her third exile from France. The 
 political influence which formerly had made her 
 an honoured guest at the greatest Courts of 
 Europe, had in a large measure gone from her ; 
 and time and disappointment had dimmed the 
 joyous sparkle of her wit, and the lustre of her 
 radiant beauty. She took up her residence at 
 Liege, pouring forth furious, but unheeded de- 
 
 ( 
 
 155 
 
 nunciations against Mazarin, or eating away her 
 heart in sullen anger, until the return of troubled 
 times restored her to her beloved Paris ; to that 
 life of reckless gaiety and restless intrigue which 
 she loved so well. 
 
 Isolated cases of caballing like this of Madame 
 de Chevreuse had, however, Httle effect on the 
 general tranquillity of the kingdom. These were 
 afterwards known as '^ the fair days of the 
 Regency.^^ 
 
 But the golden calm that glittered on the sur- 
 face of events was delusive and transitory. Be- 
 neath it were at work all the elements of confu- 
 sion ; ill-defined, uncertain and oppressive au- 
 thority; co-ordinate and conflicting claims and 
 jurisdictions; the just resentments that spring 
 from the constant violation of the rights of indi- 
 vidual liberty and of property ; the less just but 
 more fierce resentments of depressed privilege, 
 balked ambition, and exasperated pride; poli- 
 tical and social corruption ; and, underlying all, a 
 vast writhing mass of helpless and hopeless 
 misery. It was an age of transition. The whole 
 mechanism of society was deranged. There was 
 a want of harmony among the orders, a want of 
 stabihty in the institutions of the State. The 
 feudal system had been overthrown, but its ruins 
 heaped everywhere in massive obstruction cum- 
 
 <( 
 
156 
 
 bered the land. The strong monarchical constitu- 
 tion which Richelieu had built up, he wanted 
 leisure in his gigantic struggle with the House of 
 Austria to consolidate and complete. The interests 
 and pretensions he had crushed down began, as 
 the memory of his rule grew fainter, to assert 
 themselves again. Nor were these all of a cha- 
 racter prejudicial to the State. Not only the 
 selfish ambition of the great nobles, but also the 
 ancient policy and patriotic aspirations of the 
 Parliaments of the Kingdom, and more especially 
 of the Parhament of Paris, aimed at confining 
 the royal prerogative within strait er limits. 
 
 Until the 15th century the Kings of France 
 had derived nearly the whole of their ordinary 
 revenues from the royal domains. To supply the 
 extraordinary expenses of Government, taxes were 
 voted by the three Estates of the realm, and with 
 one exception were levied in equitable proportions 
 upon all classes. The exception was a direct tax 
 called " la tailley" which fell exclusively on the 
 Third Estate, the nobles being exemptedf rom it in 
 consideration of the peculiar military obligations 
 imposed upon them by the feudal system. Even 
 the taille, however, could not be raised without 
 the consent of the three Estates. Charles YII., 
 by the assistance of the nobles, obtained from 
 the nation, then smarting from the calamities that 
 
 157 
 
 resulted from the English wars, the captivity of 
 John, and the madness of Charles YI., the right 
 of levying the taille by his own authority, in 
 order to afford his people more effectual protection. 
 As has been remarked by De Tocqueville, one of 
 the ablest of modem French writers, this fatal 
 concession was the origin of most of the political 
 evils which have since afflicted France. In the 
 beginning the taille amounted to no more than 
 twelve hundred thousand hvres, and was scarcely 
 felt. But the French Kings soon increased it ten- 
 fold, and tacked on to it four other taxes, each of 
 them as onerous as itself. The command of this 
 large revenue enabled the Sovereign to maintain a 
 standing army, which made him absolute ruler of 
 the kingdom, and to dispense with the aid of the 
 three Estates ; the nobles conniving at innovations 
 which increased their privileges and Hghtened 
 their burdens, but prepared the way for universal 
 servitude. 
 
 As the growing monarchy burst asunder its 
 feudal trammels, the Convocation of the States- 
 General came to be regarded as an extraordinary^ 
 and it generally proved an ineffective remedy for 
 the perils or disorders of the kingdom; as a 
 humihating confession which every ruler shrank 
 from, of scandalous misgovemment, or national 
 calamity. In ordinary times the necessary work 
 
158 
 
 of legislation and finance was accomplished by 
 means of Royal Edicts issued from the Council 
 of State and registered in the first judicial court 
 of the kingdom, the Parliament of Paris. 
 
 The proceeds of partial taxation soon proving 
 insufficient to supply the ever-increasing expendi- 
 ture of the Government, new resources were found 
 in the creation and sale of innumerable public 
 offices, which clogged every department of the 
 administration. These offices, carrying with them 
 special privileges, chiefly of immunity from the 
 taille, were eagerly purchased by the rich inhabi- 
 tants of the towns. The evils and the confusion 
 produced by the multiplication of useless func- 
 tionaries were enormous. Eicheheu was said to 
 have swept away one hundred thousand of these 
 offices, but they soon sprang into existence again 
 out of the necessities of the State. It was a 
 favourite financial expedient of needy rulers 
 arbitrarily to abolish posts which had been 
 conferred for life, and almost immediately to 
 re-establish in order to sell them again; the 
 process being repeated until the strange avidity 
 with which the French citizen sought after 
 a place in the Administration was over- 
 powered by the dread of confiscation. The 
 Government also, whenever it was able, contracted 
 loans at ruinous interest, which, however, was 
 
 159 
 
 seldom paid. In fact, the Kings of France shrank 
 from no means of procuring supplies, no matter 
 how dishonourable or desperate, which might 
 enable them to avoid calling together the Estates 
 of their realm. 
 
 The increase of the King's prerogative was 
 pecuKarly oppressive to the commonalty. The 
 clergy had their own assemblies, and their special 
 privileges. To them and to the nobles, who 
 were exempt from direct taxation, who had 
 been relieved at the expense of the poorest 
 class of the population from the equiva- 
 lent obligations of military service imposed on 
 them by the old feudal constitution, who mono- 
 polised pubHc honours and employments, and 
 possessed immunities which few sovereigns had 
 either the wish or the power to infringe, the 
 change was of little moment. But the Third 
 Estate, which bore the weight of the public 
 burthens, being deprived of the old constitutional 
 means of representing their grievances and com- 
 pelling redress, and being shut out from pohtical 
 life, found themselves without a voice in the State 
 or a share in its prizes, exposed to the capricious 
 tyranny of irresponsible power, and ground down 
 by arbitrary exactions. 
 
 In this deplorable condition the Third Estate 
 found occasional^ though generally unsuccessful. 
 
160 
 
 champions, in the Parliaments or High Courts of 
 Justice of the realm. There were eight of these 
 great judicial bodies, the Parliament of Paris and 
 seven provincial ParHaments; and with the inferior 
 Courts they numbered forty thousand magistrates. 
 The magisterial offices were acquired by purchase, 
 conferred considerable dignity and emolument, 
 especially in the capital, and were held for life. 
 The Duke of Sully had, at the suggestion of a 
 subordinate financier named Paulet, introduced a 
 custom, by which the magistrates, in consideration 
 of paying to the Crown an annual tax, called " le 
 droit annuel" or "la Paulette," amounting to a 
 sixtieth part of the original purchase-money, 
 obtained the privilege of disposing of their posts, 
 like other property, by will, or in case of intestacy, 
 of securing the reversion of them to their natural 
 heirs. This privilege was granted for periods of 
 nine years, renewable at the pleasure of the King; 
 and, though the termination of a period might 
 sometimes furnish occasion for an extraordinary 
 demand upon the purses of the magistrates, no 
 desire had been shown by any minister to extin- 
 guish a custom which, if strange, worked well, 
 because it was in harmony with the genius of the 
 people. It was not uncommon to find members 
 of the same family holding magisterial appoint- 
 ments for several succeeding generations. In 
 
 161 
 
 this manner was formed a nobility of the robe, 
 sprung from the bourgeois class, of high legal 
 training and culture, renowned for its indepen- 
 dence and integrity, possessing considerable 
 influence, not only on account of its elevated 
 character and functions, but also of its popular 
 sympathies, and illustrating the annals of France 
 by many splendid examples of learning, courage, 
 and virtue. 
 
 The Parliament of Paris held pre-eminence 
 among the judicial bodies of the kingdom. It 
 was the final Court of Appeal and the Bongos own 
 Court, where he held Beds of Justice and caused 
 his edicts to be registered. It counted among its 
 members the Princes of the Blood and the peers 
 of the realm, and had jurisdiction over them. In 
 the Palace of Justice it possessed an august 
 temple worthy of its venerable dignity. Around it, 
 in the same spacious edifice, clustered four inferior 
 Courts, of Inquests, Kequests, Aids, and Accounts, 
 which, on occasions of great public or professional 
 interest, its First President was accustomed to 
 convoke for the purpose of general deliberation. 
 In troubled periods, when the Executive was 
 weak, and particularly during a Royal minority, 
 it frequently asserted its freedom, and refused to 
 give by registration the force of laws to oppressive 
 or unpopular mandates of the Crown. It claimed 
 
162 
 
 the right of freely discussing the edicts it was 
 called upon to register^ and of rejecting those it 
 disapproved. But, in the eyes of the Sovereign, 
 it was the duty of Parliament to register all his 
 edicts, and its liberty of dissent was limited to a 
 barren right of remonstrance, which he was always 
 free to disregard. He was accustomed to repress 
 its opposition by holding a Bed of Justice and 
 causing the obnoxious decree to be entered upon 
 the journals in his presence ; by imprisoning re- 
 fractory members; and even by banishing the 
 whole body to some provincial town. Richelieu, 
 in order to annihilate its pretensions, compelled 
 the Parliament of Paris to register a decree de- 
 claring its own incompetency to meddle with 
 affairs pf State. But on the death of Louis XIII., 
 the Regent, seeking support from all quarters, had 
 revived the ambitious hopes of the members of the 
 High Court by submitting, contrary to Mazarin's 
 advice, her husband^s political testament to their 
 judgment, by accepting unrestricted authority 
 ^ from their hands, and by promising to be guided 
 on all occasions by their counsels. The Parlia- 
 ment of Paris indeed claimed to be, by ancient 
 usage, the guardian of the Sovereign during his 
 minority ; and its members, though animated by 
 patriotic sentiments and full of zeal for the 
 interests of their order, were generally governed 
 
 163 
 
 by a spirit of wise moderation, and of deep reve- 
 rence for the Royal authority. But the inferior 
 Courts, to the offices of which less responsibility 
 and less consideration attached, contained many 
 magistrates of more turbulent and ambitious tem- 
 per, who were strongly stirred by the awaken- 
 ing of popular freedom iu a neighbouring country. 
 The bold spirit of iuquiry and innovation which 
 found voice in the subordinate chambers, insensibly 
 stimulated the views of the higher magistrates. 
 Encouraged not only by its relations with the 
 Regent, and the internal situation of France, but 
 also in some degree by the example of resistance 
 to tyrannical power which England was at that 
 time exhibiting, the Parliament of Paris was not 
 indisposed to seize a favourable occasion of re- 
 straining the abuses of the prerogative, and at the 
 same time of vindicating and augmenting its own 
 political importance. 
 
 The discontent of the great nobles of the feudal 
 party and their numerous adherents amon^ the 
 lesser nobility was a pregnant source of danger, 
 not only to the tranquillity, but to the welfare 
 of the kingdom, because they were actuated mainly 
 by sordid motives, and acknowledged m^ their 
 public conduct no principle of patriotism or jus- 
 jbjce. An unusual combination of circumstances, 
 skilfully turned to account by the arts of Mazarin, 
 
164 
 
 rendered them unable during many years to arise 
 from tlie political quagmire into whicli tliey had 
 been precipitated by their own folly and the 
 vigour of the Eegent. The policy of Richelieu 
 had destroyed much of their ancient power. Their 
 proceedings at the commencement of the Regency 
 had discredited them in the eyes of the nation. 
 For the first time during a long period in the his- 
 tory of France they were totally bereft of ,the 
 support of the Princes of the Blood. Their old 
 chief, the Duke of Orleans^ now Lieutenant- 
 General of the realm, but with little real authority 
 or influence, was absolutely ruled by his favourite 
 the Abb^ la Riviere, whose services Mazarin had 
 purchased by the promise of a Cardinal's hat. With 
 La Riviere's assistance, Monsieur was alternately 
 terrified and cajoled by the Regent into a docile 
 acquiescence in all her measures. The House of 
 ' Conde, gorged with offices and radiant with glory, 
 steadily supported a system which gratified all its 
 wishes. The princes of Yendome, banished or 
 imprisoned, sought by abject submission and by 
 a family alliance with the all-powerful minister, 
 to recover the advantages they had lost. Stripped 
 of their dignities, cast off by the Regent, forsaken 
 by their natural leaders, and depressed by a long 
 series of disasters, the party of the old nobility 
 were reduced to a state of passive dissatisfaction. 
 
 165 
 
 Mazarin had weakened them still further by play- 
 ing upon the selfish aspirations of their leading 
 members in separate negotiations, and by keep- 
 ing alive the hopes of all with occasional favours, 
 and unbounded promises. But the multitude of 
 claims far exceeded his inclination or his power 
 to concede; and the discontent of the feudal 
 party, though impotent for the present, was the 
 more dangerous because sustained by brilHant 
 talents and courage, and leavened by extraor- 
 dinary political and social profligacy. 
 
 The century of faction and civil war which 
 followed the death of Henry II. completely de- 
 moralised the upper classes of French society. It 
 killed patriotism and public spirit ; and generated 
 a condition of poHtical turpitude for which a par- 
 allel can scarcely be found in any other country 
 or period of modern history. Its effect on private 
 morality was equally disastrous. Scoffing im- 
 piety, which held nothing sacred among the living 
 or among the dead, which profaned with impartial 
 ribaldry the mysteries of the altar and the tomb ; 
 coarse debauchery, which ostentatiously violated 
 the decencies of life; assassination by open violence 
 and secret poisoning, were frightfully prevalent. 
 The trade of the poisoner was associated with 
 traffic in spells, and the detestable charlatanism 
 of sorcery; blasphemous unbelief, and diaboli- 
 
 /V . /T 
 
166 
 
 cal superstition going hand-in-hand. Duelling, 
 wHcli Richelieu had sternly repressed, grew after 
 his death into wholesale butchery. Chastity ex- 
 cited so much contempt, that women of strict virtue 
 affected vice, in order to escape disagreeable criti- 
 cism. The most brilliant epochs of French history 
 have been generally characterised by sensuality, 
 in which the magic garb of graceful refinement 
 softened what was repulsive, and heightened 
 every charm. The period of which we are treat- 
 ing was illustrated not only by the glory of arms, 
 but by unsurpassed intellectual activity; but 
 notwithstanding the decorum that reigned in her 
 own household, the Hcentiousness of the Court of 
 Anne of Austria was grossness itself. The noble 
 examples of virtue that adorned the age only 
 deepened the contrast presented by the general 
 corruption. At a time of avowed scepticism per- 
 vading every sphere and every relation of life, of 
 contempt of all laws, human and divine, there 
 were many of both sexes, in positions most ex- 
 posed to the contagion, who were governed by a 
 spirit of faith, of noble self-sacrifice, and of chiv- 
 alrous fidelity worthy of the ages of the Crusaders. 
 It was the time of St. Vincent de Paul, who most 
 of all men brought divine charity to hallow and 
 console human misery; and nowhere did the 
 words and works of the venerable teacher fall 
 
 167 
 
 upon a more fruitful soil than in the fashionable 
 world of Paris. It was the time of the '^ divine 
 Arthenice,'^ and her circle of the Hotel Ram- 
 bouillet, which for purity of tone, not less than 
 splendid versatiHty of genius and all the charms 
 of refined society, is without a rival in ancient or 
 modem civilization. But it was still more the 
 time of the poet Scarron and of Ninon de FEnclos, 
 whose saloons were temples of fashion, where wit 
 and beauty, genius and Christian virtue itself, 
 were prostituted in the service of atheism and 
 obscenity. 
 
 Perhaps the most extraordinary sign and effect 
 of the deterioration of manners was the easy tole- 
 ration practised on points regarding which women, 
 at least, are usually most sensitive ; the throwing 
 down of the social barriers which ordinarily 
 separate women of good and of evil repute. The 
 affectionate wife of the godless and debauched, 
 though not ungenerous buffoon, the intimate 
 companion of the shameless courtezan, was a 
 young lady of spotless reputation, whom piety 
 and strict principles, even more than her un- 
 doubted beauty and accompKshments, afterwards 
 raised, under the name of Madame de Maintenon, 
 to the most splendid throne of the world. Bussy 
 Rabutin, who used his rare wit to season disgusting 
 licentiousness and outrageous impiety, was the 
 
168 
 
 cherislied correspondent of Madame de Sevigne. 
 Mademoiselle de Hautefort, whose whole life was 
 sublime in its self-sacrificing virtue, was the 
 bosom friend of Madame de Chevreuse. When 
 the distinctions which women of unblemished 
 character are accustomed to preserve with the 
 greatest tenacity were so utterly confounded, it 
 was not to be expected that their frail sisters 
 should, in their conduct, pay morality the homage 
 of outward decorum. An amusing instance of 
 this absence of restraint, even in the highest 
 circles of Parisian life, may serve as an illustra- 
 tion of the prevalent tone of morals. The co- 
 adjutor Archbishop of Paris, the celebrated Paul 
 Gondi, afterwards Cardinal de Eetz, neither whose 
 remarkable ugliness nor sacred profession pre- 
 vented his acquiring a dubious eclat for conquests 
 over the fair, had been for some time notoriously 
 the lover of the Princess of Guemin^e. Unhappily 
 for the lady^s repose. Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, 
 a younger, more captivating, and equally frail 
 beauty, seduced the heart of the inconstant pre- 
 late. The fickleness of a gay Archbishop was 
 not a circumstance so uncommon at the time as 
 to provoke more than passing comment ; and had 
 the Princess dissembled her chagrin, and quietly 
 consoled herself by taking another lover, or by 
 making the most of those that remained to her. 
 
 169 
 
 her disappointment would have been speedily for- 
 gotten. But the perfidy of the coadjutor appears 
 to have converted the dove-Hke tenderness of 
 Madame de Guemin6e into all the rage of the vul- 
 ture. Meeting him soon after his desertion of 
 her in a fashionable saloon, in a transport of 
 jealous anger she flung a foot-stool at his head, to 
 the intense amusement of a brilliant assemblage 
 of his flock, who had the happiness to witness the 
 scene. 
 
 Debauched, factious, rapacious, and impoverished, 
 with out principle and without fear, the feudal 
 party only awaited an opportunity and a leader to 
 plunge the realm into confusion in the hope of 
 turning the public misfortunes to their own ad- 
 vantage. *~ 
 
 Such an occasion as they sought could hardly 
 fail to arise sooner or later from the well-founded 
 and increasing discontent of the middle and lower 
 classes, and from the inevitable mistakes which 
 the Regent and Mazarin, both foreigners, both 
 imperfectly acquainted with the institutions and 
 character of the people they ruled, would commit 
 with greater frequency and more fatal results, as 
 their course became obscured by gathering 
 troubles. The bourgeois and the peasants, whose 
 industry fed a war of unprecedented severity and 
 costliness, and the pomp of an extravagant Court, 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
170 
 
 were cmslied beneatli a weight of arbitrary tax- 
 ation, whicli became more intolerable every day. 
 France bad for many years maintained four or 
 five separate armies in tbe field, besides paying 
 large subsidies to Sweden ; and still tbe stubborn 
 spirit of tbe House of Austria was unsubdued. 
 Agriculture languished everywhere from the inces- 
 sant drain upon the flower of the male population ; 
 large districts were waste and depopulated; manu- 
 factures and trade were slowly perishing under 
 exorbitant imposts ; and the commonalty execrated 
 a war equally opposed to their national interests 
 and their religious sympathies. The misery of 
 the peasants was aggravated by the cruel rapacity 
 of the Royal Inten dents and the wealthy financiers, 
 who farmed the public revenues and fattened on 
 the general ruin. As Omer Talon, the eloquent 
 Attorney General in the Parliament of Paris, 
 said, in representing their condition to the Queen, 
 " They only possessed their souls because a soul 
 could not be sold by auction.'^ Their groans and 
 prayers, though loud and piteous, were listened 
 to in silence. But though the cries of the help- 
 less and famished people might be treated with 
 indifference, the jealous pohcy which had led 
 Mazarin to exclude from a share in the govern- 
 ment the most able and experienced of the states - 
 men who had been formed by Richelieu, gradually 
 
 171 
 
 involved him in troubles, and raised up against 
 him antagonisms which it was impossible for him 
 to disregard. 
 
 On the dismissal of Chavigny and his father, 
 Bouthillier, from their ofiices of Secretary of State, 
 in the early days of the Regency, the Cardinal 
 had filled the vacant places with two creatures of 
 his own — Le Tellier, a Frenchman, a diHgent and 
 submissive subordinate, became Secretary for 
 Foreign Relations, and Particelli, a Siamese ad- 
 venturer, better known by his French title of the 
 Chevalier d'Emery, was placed over the finances. 
 Few historical characters have been sketched by 
 more skilful hands, few have come down to us 
 pourtrayed in darker colours than the Chevalier 
 d' Emery. Able, courageous, and witty, but 
 luxurious, dissolute, rapacious, cruel, faithless, 
 and cynical, he made a jest of all moral obliga- 
 tions, and with reckless scorn openly mocked at 
 the miseries aggravated by his corrupt adminis- 
 tration. The proceeds of the existing taxes, how- 
 ever burdensome, were insufficient to satisfy the 
 calls upon the royal exchequer. Instead of ren- 
 dering these taxes more productive by removing the 
 frightful abuses of collection, which impoverished 
 at once the Treasury and the people, Emery 
 only thought of confusing inextricably the public 
 accounts in order to hide his own peculations, and 
 
 I 2 
 
172 
 
 perhaps those of Mazarin. As it was impossible 
 to wring further supplies from the ruined peasants, 
 he applied his mind to the discovery of some new 
 process of extortion which might be brought to 
 bear on the wealthy citizens of Paris. Searching 
 among the ancient statutes of the realm, he dis- 
 interred from the dust of ages obsolete enact- 
 ments, the revival of which promised to accomplish 
 his ends. One, passed about a hundred years 
 before, in the reign of Henry II., to prevent the 
 extension of the city of Paris, and long fallen into 
 disuse, placed whole quarters of the capital at the 
 disposal of the Crown. Emery took immediate 
 steps to put it into execution. The inhabitants 
 of some of the most wealthy regions of Paris re- 
 ceived orders to demolish their houses, or to re- 
 deem them by payment of enormous fines. The 
 rage and consternation of the Parisians knew no 
 bounds. They appealed for protection to the 
 Parliament, and this body remonstrated with the 
 Regent against the act of confiscation contem- 
 plated by her ministers. Anne of Austria, un- 
 mindful of her repeated professions of deference 
 to the advice of the magistrates, and of the 
 cautious councils of Mazarin, repelled this inter- 
 ference with a haughty scorn which would have 
 appeared harsh in Richelieu himself. But the 
 tumults that shook the capital scared the Cardinal. 
 
 173 
 
 In conjunction with the patriotic Chief President 
 of the High Court, he prevailed on the Regent to 
 assent to a compromise. The obnoxious edict 
 was withdrawn, and the Municipal Council of 
 Paris voted a subsidy to replenish the exchequer. 
 This extraordinary supply, however, only 
 enabled the Government to tide over the financial 
 difficulties of the current year. The charges of 
 the war, the profuse magnificence of the Court, 
 the corruption of the administration, underwent 
 no diminution as the exhaustion of the country 
 increased ; and Emery, in order to meet the grow- 
 ing deficiencies of the revenue, again and again 
 brought forward measures for the purpose of ex- 
 tracting money from the rich inhabitants of the 
 capital. He still continued to take from the well- 
 stored armoury of finance, which his researches 
 had discovered, the rusted weapons of past legis- 
 lation, because by reviving imposts which at some 
 time had received the sanction of the Parliament of 
 Paris, which, though dormant, had never been 
 repealed, he hoped to avoid the opposition which 
 might attend demands for the registration of new 
 fiscal enactments. Some of his expedients, such 
 as a forced grant from the notables of Paris, were 
 simply extortion. Others, as the imposition of 
 octroi duties, were in themselves defensible. But 
 all were harshly and arbitrarily enforced, and aU 
 
174 
 
 were resisted witli animosity, which deepened and 
 widened every day. 
 
 At the beginning of these disputes one or other 
 of the inferior courts of justice was most fre- 
 quently the organ of the popular discontent, the 
 High Court of ParHament giving a general sup- 
 port to the authority of the Eegent. The office 
 of First President of the High Court, an office 
 pre-eminent in dignity and authority in the French 
 judicial system, was at this time filled by perhaps 
 the greatest magistrate that even Monarchical 
 France, which ranked an unrivalled line of illus- 
 trious magistrates among its chief glories, ever 
 produced. This was Mathieu Mole, a man of high 
 wisdom, spotless integrity, unexampled courage, 
 and iron will ; a profound jurist, a master of grave, 
 earnest eloquence, and of polished irony ; moderate 
 in his views, a firm supporter of the throne and 
 the laws, and an enlightened advocate of popular 
 rights. Mole — Conservative by habit of mind, 
 and the jealous guardian of the privileges of his 
 court, which the impatient spirits who had sway 
 in the subordinate courts showed a disposition to 
 invade — for some time firmly resisted the pressure, 
 and repressed the pretensions of the inferior 
 chambers. If the Regent had been wise, she 
 would perhaps have found safety for her govern- 
 ment in the dissensions of the magistracy. But, 
 
 175 
 
 incensed at the license of speech permitted in the 
 Court of Inquests, she arrested some of its presi- 
 dents and councillors, and flung them into prison. 
 This despotic proceeding aroused agaiust her the 
 esprit de corps, which was perhaps the strongest 
 sentiment among the French magistrates. The 
 companies, united by common danger, forgot their 
 disputes. Convoked by Mole, they unanimously 
 protested against the Queen's arbitrary act, and 
 demanded the release or trial of the prisoners. 
 The haughty disdaiu and the fierce menaces with 
 which the Regent repelled what she termed their 
 presumption, only heightened their irritation. 
 The state of the kingdom and the progress of 
 events daily furnished them with new motives for 
 strict union. The infancy of the King, the abase- 
 ment of the feudal party and absence of its lead- 
 ing members, the abuse of the royal authority by 
 the foreigners, who monopolised its functions, the 
 spreading spirit of resistance, seemed to invite the 
 Parliament of Paris to assume the position it had 
 long coveted, that of constitutional organ of the 
 national wants and wishes, controlling the legisla- 
 tive and financial powers of the Crown. 
 . This aim had no positive sanction, though it 
 might find some colourable pretexts, in the ancient 
 usages of the realm. The Parliament was a 
 judicial body, and the political functions which it 
 
176 
 
 sought to exercise belonged of riglit to the States- 
 General. But the States had not assembled since 
 the early part of the century, and they met only 
 at the pleasure of the Crown. The old feudal 
 checks on the prerogative had been swept away. 
 The High Court was distinguished above all 
 existing public bodies in the kingdom by ancient 
 dignity, disciplined vigour, legislative and judicial 
 authority, and a higher and wider representative 
 character. The disorders of the realm, and the 
 confidence and veneration of the people, lent the 
 motives and character of patriotism to its secret 
 ambition. Baser motives, it is true — love of 
 intrigue, self-interest, and private rancour — were 
 at work among its members, as well as among 
 the members of the subordinate courts. Dis- 
 appointed pohticians, who had no sypapathy with 
 its aims, secretly stimulated its action^^jDhavigny, 
 Chateauneuf, and the Coadjutor De Retz, three 
 men of first-rate ability, each of whom was equal 
 to the greatest employments, and all of whom 
 were jealously excluded by Mazarin from the ad- 
 ministration, possessed numerous adherents in 
 the Chambers, and silently promoted opposition to 
 the Government for the purpose of overthrowing 
 the Prime Minister. The Coadjutor especially exer- 
 cised a large and an increasing influence amongst 
 the younger and more factious members y But 
 
 177 
 
 the majority of the High Court and the most re- 
 spected magistrates steadily followed the lead of 
 their First President, who, even when reluctantly 
 lending his sanction to perilous and irregular 
 steps, was swayed by a paramount sense of public 
 duty ; whose upright and steadfast mind was 
 equally proof against seductions of popular ap- 
 plause or the terrors of popular fury, and the 
 violence or blandishments of the Court. 
 
 The dangers that threatened the Government 
 from the opposition of the Parliament of Paris, 
 trifling at first, but more menacing every year, 
 were greatly aggravated by the deficiencies and 
 the errors of Cardinal Mazarin. The business of 
 foreign relations, which he retained under his own 
 immediate control, and for which he possessed 
 unrivalled qualifications, was conducted with ad- 
 mirable skill and vigour. But his consciousness 
 of the peculiar difficulties of his position as Prime 
 ^linister, working upon a temper not naturally 
 bold, rendered the internal poKcy of the Govern- 
 ment feeble and undignified. His knowledge of 
 the laws, the customs, the institutions, and even 
 the language of the kingdom, was at this time ex- 
 tremely imperfect. He had no stand-point in the 
 State except the favour of the Regent. His love 
 of power had deprived him of the assistance of any 
 French statesman on whose capacity, experience, 
 
 I 5 
 
178 
 
 and sincerity lie could rest witli confidence. Like 
 a blind man groping along a strange and difficult 
 pathj a perpetual fear of incurring some unknown 
 peril infected liis mind with a fatal irresolution as 
 to the steps he should pursue. Haunted by 
 chimerical terrors, he was in a great measure un- 
 aware of the real dangers that encompassed him. 
 His favourite political maxim, that selfishness in 
 its narrowest sense is the universal motive of 
 Human actions, was a feeble safe-guard against 
 the rising passions of a stormy age. And in his 
 partiality for finesse, he could not even allow this 
 cardinal principle of his system free play. Re- 
 luctant to part with a talisman to which he 
 ascribed such potent influence, he kept an object 
 of desire dangling before the eyes of some 
 opponent whom he purposed to conciliate until, 
 at length, disappointment produced incurable irri- 
 tation. His poHcy was to avoid present dangers 
 and to pave the way for the action of his trusted 
 ally, Time, by cautious steering and temporising 
 
 expedients. 
 
 The haughty Austrian blood of the Regent sug- 
 gested to her a very different line of proceeding. 
 She remembered in what abject submission the 
 Parliament of Paris had cowered before Richelieu ; 
 how it had seen Mary of Medicis, the Princes of 
 the Blood, and the greatest nobles of the realm, 
 
 \ 
 
 179 
 
 imprisoned, exiled, condemned to death by irregu- 
 lar special commissions, without daring to utter a 
 protest. And she took no pains to conceal her 
 anger and contempt at the presumption which 
 now assailed the throne with remonstrances on 
 behalf of a few turbulent councillors, mere 
 pitiful canaille. Had she followed the promptings 
 of her own judgment while the imperious spirit 
 of the late Cardinal still informed the administra- 
 tion and awed the realm, she might probably 
 have crushed opposition in the bud. But she 
 constantly allowed herself to be swayed from her 
 convictions of the necessity of ruling with a strong 
 hand by the timorous counsels of her minister. 
 The result was a halting and uncertain policy, the 
 most dangerous of any. The scornful words and 
 the violent acts of the Queen, explained away in 
 Bugared phrases by the Cardinal, and followed by 
 ungracious concessions, encouraged and inflamed 
 the opposition of the magistrates and the citizens, 
 and exposed the Government to contempt. 
 
 The animosity with which the Parisians re- 
 garded him was intensified by singular want of 
 foresight on the part of Mazarin, who, laying 
 aside, as his position became more secure, the 
 prudence that had governed the beginning of his 
 career, insulted the public distress by displaying 
 in magnificent buildings, and in ostentatious 
 
180 
 
 luxury, tlie enormous wealtli he had abeady 
 amassed. At the time of the downfall of the 
 Importants, Anne of Austria, anxious to escape 
 from the sad memories and the discomforts of the 
 Louvre, had removed her Court to the splendid and 
 spacious palace which Kichelieu had built and had 
 bequeathed to his sovereign. The recent attempt 
 on his life, and her constant need of his guidance 
 in affairs of State, did not perhaps permit her to 
 see in its full extent the imprudence she committed 
 in assigning her favourite a suite of apartments 
 adjoining her own. The Cardinal, safely installed 
 in the Palais Eoyal, and with uncontrolled com- 
 mand of the public revenue, indulged without 
 restraint his sumptuous and refined tastes. The 
 most renowned artists of Italy, architects, painters, 
 musicians, were invited to embellish and delight 
 the French capital. The art collections of his 
 native land, an almost inexhaustible and as yet 
 unspoiled treasury of genius, were ransacked to 
 satisfy the luxurious wants of a minister, who 
 united faultless judgment to boundless resources. 
 Statues, pictures, cabinets, vases, the most sub- 
 lime and exquisite achievements of Italian masters, 
 arriving day after day at the Palais Eoyal, ex- 
 cited the wonder and envy of the Parisians. 
 Contiguous to, and as if in rivalry of Richelieu's 
 noble pile, there soon arose, under the skilful 
 
 181 
 
 hand of the great French architect. Mansard, from 
 the midst of vast and beautiful gardens, a fitting 
 home for so many artistic gems ; the superb pro- 
 portions of the Palais Mazarin, rich externally in 
 various hues of sculptured marble, and decorated 
 within by the brilhant pencils of the greatest 
 painters of the time. The prodigious sums 
 squandered in operatic entertainments, hitherto 
 unknown in France, to which the Cardinal invited 
 the Court, excited loud murmurs of public in- 
 dignation. The unwise ostentation which paraded 
 before all eyes the colossal private fortune that 
 grew apace with the beggary of the Treasury, 
 the wretchedness of the people, and the needs of 
 the State, was sure to provoke the Nemesis that 
 waits upon insolent prosperity. Three young 
 damsels, the first migration of the celebrated 
 nieces of Mazarin, arriving from Eome in the 
 middle of 1647, to be educated under the care of 
 Anne of Austria, afforded new point to the furious 
 tirades of the Parisians. Ehyming lampoons— of 
 which the Mazarinades by the Abbe Scarron were 
 the most famous— witty, obscene, audacious, and 
 truculent, in which the Eegent, Mazarin, and the 
 Mazarinettes, aspersed with the grossest license, 
 were held up to public hatred and contempt, 
 began to be chaunted in the streets and under the 
 windows of the palace. The placable and subtle 
 
 w 
 
182 
 
 Cardinal, with his tortuous policy and his gentle 
 expedients, found that, without avoiding the fierce 
 enmities that had been aroused by the vigorous 
 despotism of his predecessor, he had made him- 
 self the object of popular scorn. 
 
 It was in this unfavourable state of public 
 opinion that the Government felt itself compelled 
 by the exigences of its position to send for registra- 
 tion to the Parliament of Paris new financial decrees, 
 necessary in order to provide for the expenditure 
 of the year 1648. Every year the task of Em^ry 
 had become more difficult and more odious. The 
 methods in which he could exercise his perverted 
 ingenuity diminished through an inevitable pro- 
 cess of exhaustion, as the public exasperation 
 grew more vehement. But it seemed to the Queen 
 and Mazarin, that the peculiar constitution of the 
 French Magistracy now gave them a fortunate ad- 
 vantage over the Parhament, which afforded effec- 
 tual means at once of repression and of extortion. 
 The period of nine years, during which the Magis- 
 trates, through the payment of the Paulette, pos- 
 sessed an absolute property in their offices, expired 
 with the year 1647. Therenewalof the lease, though 
 rendered almost a matter of form by the custom of 
 fifty years, was an act of the Sovereign's favour. 
 The Government preserved an ominous silence on 
 the subject. As an additional safeguard against 
 
 183 
 
 the dreaded opposition of the High Court, it was 
 determined that the financial edicts should be 
 secretly prepared in the Council of State, and pre- 
 sented for registration in a Bed of Justice. 
 
 The holding of a Bed of Justice for the purpose 
 of suppressing unwelcome discussion was the most 
 odious and absolute exercise of the royal prerog- 
 ative. The King went in state to the Palace of 
 Justice, and peremptorily ordered his edict, of 
 which only the title was read out, to be entered 
 on the journals in his presence. The theory on 
 which this arbitrary stretch of authority rested, 
 was that the wisdom and piety inherent in Kings 
 of France shaped even their most apparently un- 
 just decisions, by suggesting to them motives of 
 high and beneficent pohcy inscrutable to less 
 gifted mortals. But the special attribute of 
 divinely enlightened judgment in the affairs of 
 State, with whatever colour of probabihty it 
 might be credited to a Saint Louis, or even to an 
 ordinary monarch of mature understanding, could 
 hardly be seriously predicated by the most devoted 
 loyalty of a child of nine years. The boy-king per- 
 formed his part, and departed amidst the respectful 
 silence of the Parliament. When it was found that 
 the new edicts, besides other measures of spoliation, 
 created twelve additional offices of Masters of 
 Requests, exposed for sale in the ordinary way. 
 
184 
 
 and greatly diminishing tlie value of those already 
 existing, the uproar in the Court of Requests was 
 loud and angry. An intimation from the Govern- 
 ment that the privilege of the Paulette would bo 
 granted to the members of the inferior Chambers, 
 the exception in favour of the High Court being 
 one of Mazarines over-subtle strokes of finesse, 
 only on the payment of four years' income of their 
 appointments into the Exchequer, rendered the 
 tumult general. The Parliament, true to its 
 order, refused to separate its interests from those 
 of the other Courts, and in defiance of the 
 Regent's menaces, annulled the objectionable 
 clauses of the Royal edict. Anne of Austria, 
 furious at this unprecedented contempt of the 
 Sovereign's own act, retracted her concessions in 
 regard to the Paulette, arrested several of the 
 more obnoxious Councillors, and threatened the 
 High Court with summary vengeance. But 
 private wrongs acted as a powerful incentive to 
 patriotic zeal. The Parliament, undaunted, 
 threw down the gauge of battle by passing the 
 celebrated Decree of Union of the 13th of May, 
 1648, which convoked all the Chambers in the 
 Hall of St. Louis to deliberate for the reformation 
 of the realm. 
 
 This bold measure struck the Cardinal with 
 dismay. By his instructions, the Chancellor 
 
 185 
 
 Seguier sent a conciliatory message to the Palace 
 of Justice. " Tell the Chancellor," replied Mol^, 
 ''that we shall no longer permit our private 
 interests to remain at the mercy of a Controller 
 General, or trust the administration of the realm 
 to a foreigner." The Regent was now beside her- 
 self with amazement and anger. The cautious 
 counsels of her minister began, too late, to fill her 
 with distrust. She flung four more of the magis- 
 trates into the Bastille ; and she sent Guin^gaud, 
 Under Secretary of State, to the Palace of Justice 
 with an order in Council canceUing the Decree of 
 Union, and directing that it should be torn in hia 
 presence from the Parliamentary Register and 
 replaced by the decree of cassation. Guinegaud, 
 arriving with an armed escort, was received by 
 the excited magistrates with a running fire of 
 taunts and revilings, and compelled to retreat 
 in confusion without having accomplished his 
 mission. Then the Regent, incensed to the last 
 degree, commanded Mol6 and his colleagues to 
 appear on the morrow at the Palais Royal and 
 deliver up the leaf of their Register containing the 
 obnoxious decree. The Parliament, after a sharp 
 debate, resolved to obey the Queen's summons to 
 the Palace; but their decision on the question 
 of surrendering the coveted leaf was expressed 
 in the energetic words of the First President, 
 
186 
 
 " Nee possumus, nee debemus,^' On the following 
 day the Kegent, with the young King by her side, 
 surrounded by the great officers of the Crown, and 
 by an unusual parade of miHtary force, ascended 
 her throne in the State apartments of the Palais 
 Royal to receive the submission of the Parliament. 
 The courtiers, not doubting the result, exulted 
 with quiet malice over the approaching spectacle 
 of humiliation. But when Mol^, conspicuous by 
 his magnificent head and his long white beard, 
 announced the decision of the Chamber, this 
 serene placidity was torn by conflicting emotions. 
 The most violent counsels were discussed, but the 
 prudent advice of Mazarin, which found a secret 
 echo in the hearts of many of the loudest de- 
 claimers, prevailed. The magistrates were warned 
 of the chastisement they would incur by further 
 contumacy in a solemn lecture from the Chancellor, 
 which the Queen greatly enlivened by fitful ex- 
 plosions of uncontrollable passion, and were then 
 permitted to depart in safety. They proceeded 
 without delay to carry out the Decree of Union by 
 holding the first meeting of all the Chambers in 
 the Hall of St. Louis. 
 
 It is necessary to bear in mind the principles 
 and the characters of the Regent and Cardinal 
 Mazarin in order to appreciate the disturbed, yet 
 dissimilar feelings with which they received the 
 
 187 
 
 news of this deliberate act of defiance. Both of 
 them were unable to understand the meaning of 
 popular rights. In the eyes of both absolute 
 monarchy was the only just and legitimate form 
 of Government, and opposition in any shape, or 
 upon any pretext, was rebelhon. But the mind 
 of Anne of Austria, incapable of fear, and filled 
 with contempt for the plebeian magistrates, was 
 occupied only with thoughts of vengeance ; while 
 the Cardinal was only too keenly alive to the 
 perils of the situation. '' God grant me patience," 
 Anne would exclaim ; " the Cardinal is too easy j 
 he will ruin everything by always sparing and 
 propitiating his enemies.'' "You, madame,'' 
 Mazarin would retort, " are like a young recruit ; 
 you fight, but you know not your danger." In 
 fact, the Parliament occupied a position of great 
 advantage. They were strong in the cordial 
 sympathy of the provincial parliaments, in the 
 universal discontent, and in the enthusiastic sup- 
 port of Paris. The great nobles alienated from 
 the Government beheld its difficulties with satis- 
 faction. Orleans, feeble and fond of popularity, 
 could not be relied on. In Conde, in whom Anne 
 of Austria recognised a spirit congenial to her 
 own, lay, notwithstanding his continual bicker- 
 ings with Mazarin, her chief dependence. But 
 the Prince, with ill-appointed and mutinous 
 
188 
 
 troops, had Ms hands full on the Flemish frontier. 
 The taxes for the year could not be levied. The 
 treasury was empty. Large arrears of pay were 
 due to the armies and to the officers of the Court. 
 The Queen had to pledge her jewels and to borrow 
 money from the Dowager Princess of Cond^, in 
 order to defray the current expenses of her house- 
 hold, and to pay the Royal Guards, the only 
 mihtary force she could oppose to an outbreak of 
 the capital. 
 
 Turning, in her distress, to a minister who had 
 administered with ability the arbitrary system of 
 Richelieu, and fallen from power through his 
 perfidy for her, which she had fitly repaid by 
 ingratitude, the Regent summoned Chateauneuf 
 from his retreat at Montrouge, and asked his 
 assistance. But the wily old ex-keeper, finding 
 that he was expected to take the chestnuts out of 
 the fire for Mazarin, declined the responsibility, 
 and counselled concessions. She then secretly 
 invited Cond6 to Paris to save the Crown. The 
 Prince, who had left his army in presence of the 
 superior force of the Archduke Leopold, could 
 only advise her to temporise until the conclusion 
 of the campaign. Sick at heart, and having no 
 further resource, she accepted the Decree of 
 Union. 
 
 The committee appointed by the United Cham- 
 
 189 
 
 bers, of which M0I6 was chairman, distrusting the 
 Regent^s sincerity, lost no time in framing and sub- 
 mitting for her sanction a constitution of twenty- 
 seven articles. One article abolished the office of 
 Royal Intendant, and diminished the impost called 
 '^ la taille,^^ which pressed so heavily on the pea- 
 sants. A second prohibited, under penalty of death, 
 the levying of new taxes, except such as might be 
 imposed by edicts registered after full discussion 
 and free consent, by the Parliament of Paris. A 
 third article restrained the Crown from creating 
 new judicial or financial offices without the con- 
 sent of the Parliament. By a fourth it was pro- 
 vided that no Frenchman should remain in prison 
 longer than twenty-four hours without being 
 taken before his legal judges— a provision equiva- 
 lent to the Habeas Corpus Act, passed at a later 
 period iq England. These were the more impor- 
 tant points of this famous constitution. It will be 
 seen that it not only swept away a financial system, 
 fertile in fraud, oppression, and injustice, but that 
 it lopped away the most monstrous abuses of the 
 royal prerogative ; the power of compelHng de- 
 crees to be registered without examination in 
 Beds of Justice, and tlie power of arbitrarily 
 arresting any subject, however blameless, and 
 detaining him in prison during the Eling^s plea- 
 
 sure. 
 
190 
 
 The reforms embodied in the new constitution 
 were resisted by the Government with the greatest 
 pertinacity. The suppression of the Royal Inten- 
 dants touched itj to borrow the words of the 
 Coadjutor De Retz, " in the very apple of the 
 eye/^ These functionaries, who farmed the col- 
 lection of the taxes, covenanted to pay a fixed 
 sum into the Treasury, and wrung immense pro- 
 fits from the famine-stricken people. They were 
 in the habit of advancing the stipulated amount 
 at the beginning of each year. The Government 
 was already indebted to them for large loans 
 which it had nott he means of repaying, and was 
 in the direst need of additional advances. But 
 the magistrates were not to be moved by argu- 
 ment or expostulation, and the Intendants fell. 
 Mazarin, by an unworthy breach of faith, accepted 
 with alacrity the proposal of the incensed Parlia- 
 ment to reheve the State by cancelling its liabiHties 
 to the discarded financiers, who were branded as 
 public robbers. In order further to appease 
 popular hatred, Em^ry was dismissed from the 
 post of Controller General, and exiled from Paris. 
 
 The Eegent also, after long demur, and in a 
 manner that left no doubt of the insincerity of the 
 concession, partially allowed the articles upon 
 taxation, and freedom of discussion and suffrage. 
 But it was impossible to obtain her assent to the 
 
 191 
 
 provision against arbitrary imprisonment. She 
 declared she was ready to brave every peril rather 
 than suffer the prerogative to be robbed of its 
 brightest jewel. In violation of her recent 
 pledges, she again brought the young King to 
 the Palace of Justice to command the registration 
 of the accepted articles in a mutilated form, which 
 destroyed their efficacy; and to prohibit the fur- 
 ther meetings of the United Chambers in the Hall 
 of St. Louis. At the same time, with the view of 
 rendering this arbitrary proceeding palatable, the 
 privileges of the Paulette were renewed uncondi- 
 tionally for another period. But the Parliament, 
 justly indignant, treated the royal edict with con- 
 tempt; and matters would have come to a crisis had 
 not the Duke of Orleans, whose gracious manners 
 and popular bearing during the late discussions, in 
 which he frequently represented the Crown, won 
 him universal favour, been induced by Mazarin to 
 implore a short adjournment of the pohtical de- 
 bates in the Hall of St. Louis, as a mark of regard 
 towards himself. 
 
 It was perfectly clear, however, to both sides that 
 no compromise was possible. Only a decisive vic- 
 tory could end the conflict. The Regent regarding 
 the unexpected assault of the Parliament upon the 
 undoubted, though tyrannical prerogatives of the 
 Crown as flagrant treason, and naturally resenting 
 
192 
 
 the advantage it had taken of the embarrasments 
 of the Government in order to usurp a character 
 and powers foreign to its constitution and its 
 functions, eagerly expected an opportunity of 
 striking a blow which might vindicate the royal 
 authority and quell for ever such insolent preten- 
 sions. On the other hand. Mole and his colleagues, 
 moved by patriotic indignation at seeing the pubHc 
 miseries aggravated by the misrule of foreign 
 adventurers, were determined to destroy for ever 
 the abuses of authority that scourged the country; 
 to pursue their present advantage to the utmost, 
 in order to wring from the Regent a full and 
 formal concession of all their demands. And it 
 must be admitted that their proceedings, though 
 irregular, were fully justified by the circumstances 
 of the time. The fall of the great feudal houses 
 had removed the chief restraint upon the authority 
 of the King. It was no longer in the power of 
 any one order of the State to compel the Sovereign 
 to call together the States General ; and a union 
 of the orders for that purpose, separated as the 
 nobles and the higher clergy were from the Third 
 Estate, by peculiar privileges and interests, and 
 by the contempt of dominant race, could only be 
 brought about by some overwhehning crisis of 
 pubhc affairs. The superior dignity and con- 
 sideration it enjoyed in the State, the impartial 
 
 193 
 
 position it held as the chief guardian and exponent 
 of the laws, its ancient traditions as the cou- 
 rageous defender of the rights of the subject, the 
 crying evils of misgovemment, and, above all, the 
 loud call of public opinion, had imposed on the 
 Parliament the lofty and perilous duty of finding 
 a remedy for the disorders of the kingdom. 
 Guided hitherto by a few wise, resolute, and high- 
 principled statesmen, the propositions of reform 
 it had submitted were equitable and moderate, 
 laying the foundations of secure and well-ordered 
 freedom, without unnecessarily trenching on the 
 power and dignity of the Crown. The Parlia- 
 mentary leaders saw that Anne of Austria and 
 her minister were not to be trusted. They dis- 
 cerned, too, with patriotic insight, what the astute 
 Cardinal and his imperious mistress could not see 
 in their imperfect acquaintance with the real con- 
 dition of France, and perhaps would not see if 
 they could, that the political atmosphere was full 
 of the signs and portents of an approaching con- 
 vulsion. The country had gradually drifted into 
 that unhappy condition in which change appears 
 to all classes to mean improvement. The nobles 
 ardently desired a state of confusion which would 
 promote their own selfish aims. The bourgeois 
 class, incensed by misgovemment, and stirred by 
 the sound of the revolutionary tempest that had 
 VOL. I. K 
 
194 
 
 swept over England, were ripe for revolt. The 
 peasantry having tasted the bitterest dregs of 
 misery had nothing further to fear. Only prompt 
 and ample concessions on the part of the Crown 
 could now avert from the kingdom the calamities 
 of civil war. 
 
 It is at such periods of general discontent that 
 men of bold, unscrupulous genius appear promi- 
 nently on thepolitical stage, and, rousing the 
 passions of a nation into tumult, are borne to 
 greatness on the mighty wave of popular opinion. 
 There was not now wanting a man of this stamp 
 in France, one of the most skilful and accom- 
 plished artificers of faction that the world had 
 ever seen; a powerful but sombre spirit, whose 
 deHght it was to ride on the whirlwind and play 
 with the Hghtnings of political convulsion, to rule 
 in fierce triumph the wild forces of anarchy; 
 who, to serve his own ambition, collecting all the 
 heterogeneous and discordant elements of disaffec- 
 tion in France, marshalled them against the 
 Government in uncongenial association under the 
 celebrated name of the Fronde. This was Paul 
 Gondi, afterwards Archbishop of Paris and 
 Cardinal de Eetz. Gondi was bom of the ducal 
 house of De Retz, which derived its origin from a 
 Florentine banker, who had come to France in the 
 train of Catherine of Medicis, and whose family 
 
 195 
 
 had been enriched and raised to the highest rank 
 of French nobility by the partial favour of 
 Charles IX. Nature had formed him for the 
 profession of arms ; but, being a younger son, 
 family interests compelled him to enter the 
 Church. During the latter part of Richelieu's 
 life, the little Abbe de Retz became notorious for 
 his amours, his duels, and his active participation 
 in plots for the assassination or overthrow of the 
 minister. The Cardinal, although he seems to 
 have regarded the turbulent priest with a feeling 
 of misgiving similar to that which had sharpened 
 Sulla's aversion for Julius Caesar, to whose early 
 character and career those of De Retz bore a 
 striking resemblance, dealt leniently with him ; 
 and, after the death of Louis XIII., to whom he 
 was odious, the young Abb^ was appointed by 
 Anne of Austria Coadjutor to his uncle, the Arch- 
 bishop of Paris. This dignity, which secured to 
 him the reversion of the Metropolitan See, and 
 gave him a recognised position in the State, was 
 only^the first step in the ladder of his ambition. 
 He aspired to tread in the footsteps of Richelieu 
 / ^^^to become Cardinal and Prime Minister of 
 France. Pursuing this object, he assiduously 
 cultivated the favour of the Regent, and sought 
 to fling over her the dangerous spells of his lively,^ 
 wit and his brilliant fancy, until Mazarin, discerning | 
 
I 
 
 196 
 
 a dangerous rival^ frustrated his schemes by skil- 
 fully throwing an air of ridicule around the pre- 
 tensions of the gay but ill-favoured prelate. He 
 then changed his tactics. Seeing clearly that 
 Mazarines hold upon the mind and heart of Anne 
 of Austria was not to be shaken, and that his own 
 way to greatness lay over the ruined fortunes of 
 the subtle Italian, he set himself to raise such 
 troubles in the kingdom, and to acquire for him- 
 self such a control over them, as would drive his 
 antagonist from the helm, and render his own 
 political services indispensable. ^His splendid 
 eloquence, which filled to overflowing the 
 Cathedral of Notre Dame, his well -simulated zeal 
 for rehgion and for the interests of his diocese, 
 his unremitting ministrations among the poor of 
 his flock, his profuse liberalities — to supply which 
 he borrowed enormous sums — won for him com- 
 plete sway over his clergy, and over the citizens 
 and the populace of the capital. Endowed with 
 extraordinary genius, devoured by restless ambi- 
 tion, unfettered by moral restraints, possessing in 
 an unrivalled degree the talents of a demagogue 
 — the dangerous faculty of swaying multitudes, 
 and moulding their fickle passions to his own 
 purposes — sustained by a resolute audacity and a 
 readiness of resource equal to every emergency^ 
 he secretly bent all the great powers of his mind, / 
 
 197 
 
 and used all the expedients of his art, to kindle, 
 and, at the same time, rule in his own interests 
 the nascent spirit of disaffection. Proceeding 
 with wary steps, he preserved amicable relations 
 with the Queen and the Prime Minister. He 
 kept up confidential communications with Conde, 
 with the discontented nobles, with Madame de 
 Chevreuse in exile, with the most violent and 
 therefore most popular members of the Chambers, 
 whom he moved at will through the ascendency 
 of a superior mind, and his influence over the 
 meaner citizens ; sounding the thoughts of all, 
 and making the designs of each subservient to 
 his own. Besides the leaders of Parisian demo- 
 cracy and the factious councillors with whom he 
 held carefully-concealed conferences at the Arch- 
 bishop^s residence, he maintained intimate rela- 
 tions with plotters of a more dangerous character. 
 Such were Fontrailles, Montresor, St. Ibal, men 
 of infamous lives and desperate fortunes, the 
 inferior agents in all the schemes for the assassi- 
 nation of Richelieu, whose whole existence had 
 been a dark conspiracy against the public welfare. 
 Nobles themselves, these men gave the Coadjutor 
 command over numbers of the inferior nobility, 
 needy and debauched adventurers, who, for the 
 slightest hope of personal advantage, were ready --n 
 to throw themselves into any enterprise, no matter^ 
 
198 
 
 ^ow perilous or criminal. A confirmed libertine, 
 and though one of the* ugliest and most un- 
 graceful men in France, enjoying the favours of 
 the most celebrated beauties of the time, J)e Retz 
 had the art of making his mistresses zealous 
 agents in his schemes. At the same time the 
 most devout women in Paris, charmed by his 
 fervid preaching, and his ostentatious charities, 
 trumpeted his virtues, everywhere, with credulous 
 enthusiasm. And yet, notwithstanding his many 
 vices and his reckless selfishness, De Eetz would 
 probably have made one of the most admirable 
 ministers France ever possessed. His mind had 
 been enlightened and enlarged by deep study of 
 the great writers of antiquity, whom he often 
 rivalled in the elevation of his thoughts, and the 
 elegance of his style. He was a profound observer 
 of the men and the events of his own time, and 
 he was probably the only French statesman, not 
 of plebeian blood, who knew the value of popular 
 rights, and had a genuine sympathy with 
 rational freedom. ^ His ambition, though un- 
 scrupulous, was "not altogether ignoble. He 
 loved France ; he beheved that he was the most 
 capable to guide her destinies, and he aspired to 
 link his name with her greatness. Had he suc- 
 ceeded in grasping firmly the helm' of affairs, like 
 Julius Caesar, the great model upon whom he 
 
 199 
 
 formed his life, he would perhaps have blinded 
 the world to the crimes and follies of his youth 
 by the splendour of his later career. 
 
 The Duke of Bouillon, a political leader of the 
 highest rank, who played a part only second in 
 importance to that of De Eetz in the drama of 
 the Fronde, was by birth a sovereign prince, and 
 one of the greatest nobles of France; and by 
 nature a remarkable man in an age fertile in extra- 
 ordinary characters. His father, Henri de la 
 Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne, chief of 
 a powerful and ancient family in the South of 
 France, and one of the most valiant captains of 
 Henry of Navarre, had obtained from his sovereign 
 in recompense for his services the hand of Char- 
 lotte de la Marck, heiress of the Duchy of Bouillon, 
 and of the independent principality of Sedan. His 
 wife dying without issue, he married again, the 
 sister of Prince Maurice of Nassau, who, after the 
 death of the Duke of Parma, was esteemed the 
 greatest general of his age. From this illustrious 
 alliance sprang two sons, the subject of this 
 sketch, and his still more famous brother, Marshal 
 Turenne. The youth of Bouillon had been cradled 
 in intrigue, and his powerful intellect had been 
 precociously matured by the stimulating atmo- 
 sphere of political strife in which the mighty 
 spirit of Kichelieu lived and ruled. An aristocrat 
 
 
200 
 
 of the purest type, and a Huguenot chief, there 
 was scarcely a conspiracy against the great minis^ 
 ter in which Bouillon had not borne a principal 
 part; but his ahnost impregnable fortress of Sedan, 
 conveniently situated on the confines of the 
 French and Spanish dominions, afforded him a 
 secure refuge in reverse. He was at length 
 arrested at the head of his troops when in com- 
 mand of a French army in Italy, for complicity 
 in the treason of Cinq-Mars, and was allowed by 
 Eichelieu, at the earnest intercession of the Prince 
 of Orange, to ransom his Hfe by ceding Sedan to 
 the French Crown. Since the period of this com- 
 pulsory sacrifice, all his energies had been vainly 
 directed to recover his forfeited territory, or 
 obtain an equivalent grant of lands or money. 
 Long cozened by Mazarin with illusory hopes, 
 seK-interest and resentment urged him to espouse 
 the popular cause. Few men of his time were so 
 ^^g^7 gifted by nature with the qualities that 
 achieve success in a turbulent age. He was cool 
 skilful, and far-seeing. He had at command an 
 unstudied yet artful eloquence, equally potent to 
 convince a council of statesmen or to sway a 
 popular assembly. His abilities for civil affairs 
 were of the first order ; his military talents were 
 little inferior to those of his illustrious brother. 
 At a subsequent period of his life, during the 
 
 
 201 
 
 exile of Cardinal Mazarin from France, he became 
 the chief adviser of the Regent, and his prema- 
 ture death relieved the Cardinal of a most for- 
 midable rival. Although his general policy was 
 deeply leavened by the selfishness that character- 
 ised his age and his order, he displayed on many 
 occasions noble and generous qualities which do 
 not always survive in a mind, no matter how fine 
 and chivalrous its original feelings, which from 
 infancy has breathed the tainted air, and been 
 nurtured amidst the seething passions of a corrupt 
 and factious era. 
 
 The gallant and accomplished Prince of Mar- 
 sillac, better known by his later title of Duke of la 
 Rochefoucault, was another great noble who 
 played a brilliant part in the Fronde, of which 
 he has left us such a vivid picture in his "Memoirs. ^^ 
 Although yet young, he had been the ablest of 
 the party styled the " Importants," with the 
 exception of Chateauneuf. But the cynical 
 temper and the fastidious hauteur already ob- 
 served in the future author of " The Maxims " 
 detracted from his qualifications as a political 
 leader. At the time of the downfall of his party 
 he had deliberately forfeited the distinguished 
 favour of Anne of Austria, due to him for 
 chivalrous devotion at a season of great peril, and 
 splendid prospects of employment, rather than be- 
 
 K 5 
 
202 
 
 tray his principles or desert his old friend Madame 
 de Chevreuse. He occasionally appeared at Court 
 after his partial disgrace^ but was treated by the 
 Eegent with coldness and neglect ; and he amused 
 the leisure to which her ingratitude condemned him 
 by literary pursuits, and by noting keenly the 
 course of events. Like Bouillon, la Eochefoucault 
 knew nothing of the lofty and Catholic sentiment 
 of patriotism that animated Mole. A proud de- 
 scendent of the Frankish conquerors, the great 
 majority of the nations were only to him the de- 
 scendents of the vanquished Gauls ; Frenchmen, 
 indeed, by name, but of an alien and inferior race, 
 doomed to perpetual exclusion from high political 
 or mihtary trust, to wear for ever the badges of 
 subjection. Obedience to the King, within the 
 limits imposed by fidelity to his order and to his 
 friends, was his rule of public duty. Following 
 this narrow law of political conduct, he had 
 generously rejected the splendid offers of Richeheu 
 through friendship for Anne of Austria, and those 
 of Anne of Austria through friendship for Madame 
 de Chevreuse. His' mortal foe, De Retz, accuses 
 him of habitual deceit, masked by a show of can- 
 dour ; and he himself acknowledges that he used 
 the affection of the beautiful Madame de Longue- 
 ville to further his political designs. But nojman 
 of his party who took part in the troubles of the 
 
 \ 
 
 w 
 
 
 203 
 
 ■t™6J^s_governed_bj^ a higher sense of honour, 
 or was less swayed by selfish devotion to purely 
 personal ends. His birth, his principles, his dis- 
 posiBon,~ should ^ve made him the prop and 
 iimament of the throne ; in the strange confusion 
 of the political world his brilliant qualities and even 
 'his loyal character made him a tower of strength 
 to faction. 
 
 Gaston, Duke of Orleans, occupies an unenvi- 
 able eminence among those pubHc men, without 
 strength or dignity of character, upon whom the 
 unhappy accident of birth or circumstance thrusts 
 a greatness that only serves to expose, in the 
 strongest light, failings to which the pitiless finger 
 of history directs the everlasting contempt of 
 mankind. He was the only brother of Louis 
 XIII., and had been till near the close of that 
 sickly and unpopular monarches reign heir pre- 
 sumptive to the French Crown. The spoiled 
 darling of his mother, Mary of Medicis, the hope 
 of France in her impatient writhings under an 
 iron despotism, and possessing, in a considerable 
 degree, the external graces and the superficial 
 accomplishments which adorn a Court, and win 
 popular applause, a very moderate share of 
 political virtue and capacity would have ensured 
 to him the second place in the kingdom in influence 
 as weU as in rank. But no advantages of fortune. 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
204 
 
 no indulgent partiality of kis countrymen, could 
 supply an utter absence of sterling worth, or 
 shield a nature so frivolous from just discredit. 
 Throughout his life, he appears to have been 
 incapable of forming an independent resolution, 
 or of consistently adhering to any line of con- 
 duct, no matter how obviously conducive to his 
 own interests, which the influence of a stronger 
 mind had forced him to adopt. Morally, perhaps 
 physically, a coward, his notorious falseness re- 
 sulted from excessive timidity rather than from 
 r natural depravity. He was cursed with a restless, 
 though impotent, love of faction, without being 
 ^f^ gifted with the quahties which render faction 
 formidable. The fatuity with which he suffered 
 himself to be hurried into rash and criminal enter- 
 prises was on a par with the vacillation which in 
 the hour of action paralysed his faculties and 
 wrecked the efforts of his friends, and with the 
 abject meanness by which he avoided the conse- 
 quences of his folly. Ever the dupe of his own 
 egregious vanity, ever shamelessly semle to the 
 caprices or guilty ambition of some designing 
 favourite, whom he as shamelessly betrayed at the 
 approach of danger, he had lent to every con- 
 spiracy against his brother^s authority the sanction 
 of his support, and had invariably sacrificed his 
 accomplices to his own safety. He abandoned 
 
 205 
 
 his mother, and the gallant nobles who were ever 
 but too ready to respond to his call, to the ven- 
 geance of Richelieu, with the selfish indifference of 
 a mind for which secure infamy alone had no 
 terrors. Louis XIII. extended to him to the 
 last an indulgent forbearance, which was probably 
 prompted as much by disdain as by natural par- 
 tiality; but no ties of affection, gratitude, or honour 
 could bind his fickle disposition. He only ceased to 
 trouble the State when he had sunk so low in 
 public esteem as to be no longer able to inspire 
 trust, and when the strong arm of Richelieu had 
 struck down all whose support could lend impor- 
 tance to his opposition. After the annulling of 
 his brother's will had shorn his office of Lieutenant 
 General of the kingdom of nearly all its indepen- 
 dent powers, Orleans remained in the condition of a 
 political cypher, until the breaking out of new dis- 
 sensions in the State afforded fresh scope to his 
 feverish incapacity. It then appeared that years, 
 without bringing him wisdom, had confirmed and 
 given a ludicrous development to his constitutional 
 timidity. In every difficulty he shrank from com- 
 mitting himself to a definite line of conduct, as a 
 child shrinks from the goblin terrors with which 
 its fancy peoples a darkened chamber; and he 
 resorted to a somewhat similar mode of escape, it 
 being his habit, when importuned for a decision, to 
 
 
I 
 
 206 
 
 bury himself for days together in bed, until the 
 danger had passed away. Yet, notwithstanding 
 an impotence and a craven selfishness of char- 
 acter, which could not fail to provoke scorn, 
 Gaston, throughout the greater part of his life, was 
 eminently popular. His manners, gracious and 
 affable, captivated the multitude. His restless 
 craving after importance, combined with an uneasy 
 consciousness of real insignificance, inclined him 
 to assume an air of patronage towards the popular 
 party ; and he was gifted with a natural flow of 
 eloquence, which, when not checked by unworthy 
 fears, charmed the turbulent passions of a revolu- 
 tionary age. His talents and his defects, his royal 
 birth and his high office, to which the course of 
 events might restore all its original authority, 
 rendered him a formidable, though treacherous 
 tool for the hands of an able demacrocrue. 
 
 The advantages of a close union with Orleans 
 di"a not escape De Retz, when he had relinquished 
 the hope of supplanting Mazarin in the Regent's 
 favour. Before long the versatile genius and the 
 resolute will of the Accomplished prelate had 
 secretly acquired a hold, unprecedented in 
 strength and duration, on the fickle mind of the 
 Lieutenant General ; an ascendency fraught with 
 grave pohtical consequences. 
 
 The extraordinary escape of the Duke of 
 
 207 
 
 Beaufort from the high donjon keep of the 
 Castle of Vincennes set loose another an- 
 tagonist of the Government, whose opposition 
 appears to have been anticipated by the 
 Cardinal with nervous apprehension. The mental 
 calibre of Beaufort was not by any means 
 powerful ; but alone of the House of Vendome 
 he had inherited the enterprising spirit and the 
 popular manners of his grandfather, Henry IV. 
 He was the hero of the populace, and especially 
 of the fishwomen of Paris, and a rigorous im- 
 prisonment of five years had exasperated, to the 
 last degree, his old animosity against Mazarin. 
 Some remains of former partiality for her hand- 
 some young champion, some feeling of remorse 
 for the terrible fate which had overtaken his 
 headstrong folly, led the Regent to receive the 
 intelligence of his flight with equanimity. She 
 resisted the pressing advice of her minister to 
 have him pursued to his father's chateau of Anet, 
 whither he had retired. Beaufort, finding himself 
 unmolested in his retreat, opened communications 
 with his old confederates and with De Retz, im- 
 patient for any enterprise which promised him the 
 excitement of bold action and revenge. 
 
 In a society so pregnant with elements of dis- 
 cord, and containing men so able and so willing 
 to set them in a blaze, a spark was sufficient to 
 
 I 
 
208 
 
 cause a dangerous conflagration. A stretch of 
 authority, rash and ill-timed, but by no means 
 novel, on the part of the Regent, lit up the civil 
 war of the Fronde ; so called in sarcastic allusion 
 to the conflicts waged with slings and stones by 
 the boys of Paris outside the city walls. During 
 the short suspension of political discussions at the 
 Palace of Justice, which had been conceded with 
 great reluctance to the earnest solicitations of the 
 Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Chatillon arrived 
 in Paris, bringing intelligence of Condi's great 
 victory at Lens. The Queen was transported with 
 joy, not so much on account of the defeat of the 
 Spaniards, as because she thought that the moment 
 had arrived for quelling the opposition of the 
 magistracy by a decisive blow. Contrary to the 
 opinion of Mazarin, who wished to await the ex- 
 pected coming of the Prince with a strong military 
 force, she determined, in her fierce impatience, to 
 brook no further delay in making some of the 
 more factious presidents and councillors belong- 
 ing to the extreme party of the Chambers, who 
 shaped their proceedihgs in avowed emulation of 
 the Parliamentary leaders in England, feel the 
 weight of her anger. The most obnoxious of 
 these was an old councillor named Broussel, 
 poor, honest, of slender capacity, and Repubhcan 
 opinions, whose violent harangues and simple life 
 
 209 
 
 attracted the love and admiration of the lowest 
 class of citizens. These revered him as a model 
 of patriotic virtue, and styled him their father. 
 The foolish old man, when spouting sedition, was 
 merely the mouth-piece of the Coadjutor. As 
 often as it suited the policy of the scheming pre- 
 late to increase or give a new direction to the 
 agitation of the public mind, he secretly inspired 
 Broussel with the ideas he wished to have venti- 
 lated in the Palace of Justice. 
 
 The 26th of August, the day appointed for a 
 religious service at Notre Dame, in pubKc thanks- 
 giving for the success of the French arms, was 
 fixed upon in private conclave at the Palais Royal 
 for the coup d^&tat. The King and the Regent, at- 
 tended by the whole Court, proceeded in state to 
 the Cathedral, the regiments of Guards lined the 
 way, and were massed at convenient points along 
 the route. The Parliament, the municipal authori- 
 ties, and the other civil or ecclesiastical corpora- 
 tions of the capital were present in their robes of 
 ceremony. The Coadjutor, assisted by a crowd 
 of prelates blazing in the splendour of religious 
 pomp, ministered at the altar, chaunted the Te 
 Deum, and consecrated the captured standards; 
 and at the conclusion of the service the royal 
 cortege returned quietly to the Palace. So well 
 had the design of the Regent been cloaked by her 
 
210 
 
 placid serenity, and by the benevolent professions 
 of the Cardinal, that even the lynx-eyed vigilance 
 of the Coadjutor was lulled to rest. The first cir- 
 cumstance that awakened suspicion was the un- 
 usual spectacle of Comminges, Lieutenant of the 
 Swiss Guards, whose duty it was to precede his 
 sovereign, lingering in the church after the King's 
 departure. The ominous news was whispered 
 from bench to bench. A panic seized the ranks 
 of the Parliament. They rushed forth pell-meU 
 through all the doors, and in the struggle and 
 confusion the magistrates, marked out for the 
 vengeance of the Government, effected their 
 escape, with the exception of the President Blanc- 
 mesnil, who was hurried off to Vincennes. Com- 
 minges then went, preceded by a coach and a 
 strong escort, in search of Broussel, who lived in 
 a mean house, in a narrow squalid street by the 
 river. The old councillor had absented himself 
 from the religious ceremony, and was found in 
 his dressing-gown and slippers at dinner with his 
 family. Terror at the sight of the King's Lieu- 
 tenant deprived him of speech or motion, and he 
 was dragged off by Comminges, somewhat un- 
 ceremoniously, and flung into the coach. But in 
 the meantime an old female domestic had rushed, 
 with shrieks and wild gestures, to an open window' 
 and filled the air with her cries, '' To the rescue 
 
 211 
 
 of Broussel, the Father of the People." The 
 bargemen from the neighbouring wharves, and 
 the whole ragged population, male and female, of 
 the dingy alleys which crowded the quarter, 
 roused by her appeals, swarmed forth in fury, 
 armed with every weapon their rage could find. 
 Stones, brickbats, and domestic utensils rained 
 upon the escort. The carriage was smashed to 
 pieces ; but after a series of desperate combats, 
 Comminges, by the timely succour of a fresh 
 body of guards, was enabled to carry off his 
 prisoner to St. Germain. 
 
 The blow by which the Eegent hoped to crush 
 sedition in the Chambers had now fallen, though 
 with only partial success ; but the consequences of 
 this act of violence were far different from what 
 she had anticipated. In her blind anger she saw 
 not, and recked not, how thoroughly the whole 
 body of society was quickened by the restless dis- 
 content which tossed and frothed on the surface ; 
 that the blatant demagogues whom she had seized 
 were but puppets moved by the secret agency of 
 skilful hands. Hardly had she tasted its delights 
 when she was rudely awakened from her dream of 
 vengeance by the armed hand of revolt. In an 
 incredibly short time all Paris was in arms. 
 Insurrection bristled in every street, and the tide 
 of the living sea, forcing its impetuous way over 
 
 I 
 
212 
 
 the feeble obstacles that only excited its rage, 
 choked up all the avenues of the Palais Royal! 
 De Retz, taken completely by surprise, and de- 
 sirous of keeping on good terms with the Eegent, 
 set out on hearing of the commotion, without even 
 takmg time to put off his episcopal vestments, 
 from the Cathedral to the Palace. On the Pont 
 Neuf he saw Marshal la MeiUerai with a handful 
 of mounted guards beset by an angry mob, led 
 on by BrousseFs terrible old woman servant, and 
 in imminent peril of being flung over the battle- 
 ments into the river. The Marshal, in self-defence, 
 had shot a porter, and the bleeding body excited 
 the fury of the porter's comrades. The appearance 
 of the Coadjutor somewhat calmed the tumult. 
 Borne, amidst vociferous cheers, over the heads 
 of the crowd, he knelt down in the mud and 
 administered to the dying man the consolations 
 of religion. Then, mounting the parapet of the 
 bridge, he harangued the multitude, rescued the 
 Marshal from their hands by promising to inter- 
 cede with the Regent for Broussel, and proceeded 
 to fulfil his mission, tlie vast throng kneeling for 
 his benediction. 
 
 The Archbishop found Anne of Austria boiling 
 with indignation. Contemning the clamour of in- 
 solent canaille, and suspecting the ambitious pre- 
 late—whose influence over the lower classes of Paris 
 
 213 
 
 had been maliciously brought to her recollection, 
 with injurious comments, by Mazarin — of fostering 
 the outbreak, she received his advice and his 
 proffers of service with fierce displeasure and 
 menacing gestures, which all her powers of dis- 
 simulation were unable to control. She scoffed 
 at his representations of danger, and declared that 
 rather than release her prisoners she would strangle 
 them with her own hands. At length, unable any 
 longer to retain the slightest appearance of com- 
 posure, she swept disdainfully from the presence 
 chamber, and slammed the door of the little 
 adjoining room to which she was accustomed to 
 retire. The courtiers, though really uneasy, 
 flattered the mood of their mistress. Some 
 openly mocked at the astonished prelate; some 
 paid him ironical compliments on his popularity 
 with his flock ; some imitated the cries of 
 BrousseFs beldame. De Retz, though incensed 
 and alarmed at the demeanour of the Queen, 
 yielded to the urgent entreaties, and even gentle 
 violence of Orleans and Mazarin, who shuddered 
 at the peril, and issued forth again with La 
 Meillerai to pacify the iusurgents. 
 
 The Marshal, who was a man of impetuous 
 temperament, having mounted his horse, galloped 
 among the crowd, brandishing his sword and shout- 
 ing ^' Long live the King, liberty for Broussel." 
 
 I 
 
 1*1 
 
214 
 
 The people in the distance, unable to catch his 
 words, and mistaking his intentions, overwhelmed 
 him and his escort with a shower of missiles. The 
 soldiers fired with deadly efPect, and pursued the 
 flying multitude to an open space called the 
 Croix de Trahoir, where they were swallowed 
 up by converging torrents of the insurgents. In 
 the meanwhile De Retz had been seized, and 
 carried along with joyous shouts by a mud- 
 grimed body of his admirers into the melee, 
 where the blow of a stone, behind the ear, felled 
 him to the ground. As he lay partially stunned, 
 an infuriated ragman presented a pistol to his head 
 in order to blow out his brains. With admirable 
 presence of mind he exclaimed, '' Hold, wretch ; 
 ah ! if your father only saw you.'^ The ragman, 
 shocked at the idea of killing his father^s friend 
 looked at his victim, recognised the Archbishop, 
 and, stricken with horror at the crime he had been 
 about to commit, uttered penitential howHngs. 
 The multitude, attracted by the cries, hurried 
 eagerly to the spot, permitting La Meillerai a 
 second time to escape. Tenderly raising De Retz, 
 they bore him back to the palace "to tell Madame 
 Anne the will of the people.^^ 
 
 The Coadjutor again pressed upon the Regent 
 the necessity of conceding the popular demands, 
 and was warmly supported by la Meillerai, who 
 
 215 
 
 bore grateful testimony to the great and perilous 
 services De Retz had rendered the Crown, and to 
 the irresistible force of the insurrection. But Anne 
 of Austria, more enraged than ever, and confirmed 
 in her unjust suspicions by the evident sway the 
 Coadjutor exercised over her rebellious subjects, 
 repaid his exertions with bitter reproaches, and 
 rejected his counsels with scorn and defiance. The 
 vague promises which terror extorted from the 
 Cardinal he knew to be worthless. Making the 
 most of these, however, and assisted by the 
 promptings of hunger and the approaching 
 night-fall, he prevailed on the majority of the 
 insurgents to disperse. Then, faint with fatigue, 
 long fasting, and the pain of severe contusions 
 on his head and side, he returned to the Archi- 
 episcopal Palace. 
 
 When De Retz reached home, his mind became 
 a prey to the most gloomy emotions ; the evident 
 disKke of the Regent woimded his vanity, and 
 dashed down the ambitious hopes he had founded 
 on her former favour ; her resentful distrust, so 
 ungrateful, and so unfounded in the present emer- 
 gency, cut him to the soul, and filled him with 
 dark forebodings. As he tossed restlessly on his 
 couch, racked by anguish of mind and body, one 
 of his friends, arriving from the Palais Royal, 
 brought him intelligence that the Court was 
 
 li 
 
216 
 
 flushed with extravagant exultation at the rapid 
 dispersion of the insurgents, and that his own 
 adventures during the day had been an accept- 
 able theme of jest and sarcastic comment at the 
 ^ Regent's suppeh Later on, a message was brought 
 to him from Marshal la Meillerai warning him to 
 provide for his safety, as it had been determined 
 to exile him to Quimper, to shut up Broussel in 
 the citadel of Havre, and to banish the Parliament 
 to Montargis. Starting up with an oath, he 
 inveighed against the folly and ingratitude of 
 the Court, and vowed before the following night 
 to have all Paris at his feetj 
 ( The capital was divided into sixteen sections 
 m each of which the substantial citizens were 
 regularly mustered and trained to arms, under 
 officers chosen by themselves. The Eegent and 
 Mazarin, in their ignorance of the disposition of 
 the middle classes, relied with confidence on the 
 loyalty of the Municipal Guards, and had issued 
 directions to them to assemble for the defence of 
 order on the following day. In fact, although 
 the burghers had assumed arms to protect their 
 houses from pillage, they had hitherto remained 
 inactive spectators of the movement to rescue 
 Broussel. But the commanding officers of the 
 principal quarters, and still more their wives, 
 were devoted to De Retz ; and the citizens H 
 
 \^ 
 
 Mj> 
 
 !U 
 
 ^ ' v>\ 
 
 ^^j^\yshj^ ^^ 
 
 
 
 217 
 
 [generally, while anxious to protect their property 
 '^from the rabble, were full of zeal for the Parlia- 
 ment and of hatred for Cardinal Mazarin. The 
 Coadjutor sent for some of the leading inhabi- 
 tants of the different sections, painted in the 
 darkest colours the designs of the Government, 
 and arranged with them the plan of a general in- 
 surrection. Then issuing forth at midnight, in 
 the dress of a cavalier, he traversed the streets, 
 rousing up his adherents in the chambers, and 
 troubling the air with sinister rumours and vague 
 alarms of approaching danger. At the same 
 time his numerous aides-de-camp among the 
 inferior nobles— the dark brood of social corrup- 
 tion, skilled from long practice in all the arts of 
 sedition— penetrating in the guise of artizans the 
 dens of poverty and crime in the neighbourhood 
 of Notre Dame, and flitting about the watch-fires 
 on the Quai des Orf evres, where bands of despera- 
 does bivouacked for the night, howling and dancing 
 around the flames, spread disquieting reports re- 
 garding the fate of Broussel, and incited the 
 populace to rescue or avenge him. Having laid 
 the train and lit the match^ De Retz returned 
 home to await the explosion. 
 
 The tocsin rang out in loud peals through the 
 different quarters. The alarmed citizens, rushing 
 forth at the summons, learned with indignation 
 VOL. I. ^ 
 
r 
 
 218 
 
 from their leaders the perfidious projects of the 
 detested ItaHan, and hastened to range themselves 
 under the civic banners. The motley population 
 of the poorer regions streamed forth again; some 
 brandishing the implements of their crafts, some 
 carrying broken match-locks, some clad in tar- 
 mshed cuirasses, decorated with half-effaced 
 emblems of the Holy League, or dragging along 
 rasty pikes that had done service at Agincourt 
 Strong chains were drawn across the entrances of 
 the streets, and barricades were piled up at every 
 pomt of advantage. At five o'clock the Parlia- 
 ment assembled, decreed the arrest of Comminges 
 and his accomplices, and the impeachment of the 
 mmisters ; and resolved to proceed m a body to 
 the Palais Royal, to demand the release of their 
 colleagues. 
 
 In the meantime tlie ChanceUor Seguier had 
 been summoned at an early hour to the 
 Palace, where he received from Mazarin a 
 written mandate, with orders to deliver it without 
 delay to the Parhament. His brother, the Bishop 
 of Meaux, and his beautiful daughter, the Duchess 
 of SuUy, on being informed of the hazardous 
 nnssion entrusted to him, insisted on accompany, 
 ing hmi to share his danger. Their coach was 
 stopped, amidst hostile manifestations at the first 
 barricade. The ChanceUor, resolute to dischai-ge 
 
 219 
 
 his duty at all risks, and hoping to accomplish the 
 journey to the Palace of Justice unmolested on foot, 
 alighted, and sent the carriage with his brother 
 and daughter to await his arrival at the Hotel de 
 Luynes. The Bishop and his niece found the man- 
 sion silent and closely-barred, and as they were 
 still knocking for admittance, they perceived 
 Seguier flying towards the Court-yard for his 
 life, closely pursued by a savage mob. A sleepy 
 woman-servant, moved by the cries and prayers of 
 the Duchess, gave the fugitives entrance, and had 
 barely time to show them a closet concealed in the 
 pannelling of the hall, when the outer doors were 
 burst in by the rabble with triumphant yells. 
 The insurgents searched all the apartments, fired 
 up the chimneys, and sounded the wainscoating 
 with the butt-ends of their muskets, venting 
 their rage in frightful threats and imprecations. 
 The Chancellor, believing that his last hour was 
 come, confessed to the Bishop of Meaux, and pre- 
 pared to meet his fate. But before his pursuers 
 were able to discover his hiding-place, they were 
 dislodged by the attack of a body of the Swiss 
 Guards, whom Marshal la Meillerai led to his 
 rescue. The unhappy objects of the popular fury, 
 having already tasted of the bitterness of death, 
 set out again, under the protection of the troops, 
 to encounter the baffled vengeance of their assail- 
 
 L 2 
 
220 
 
 ants. The mob, rallying in the streets, charged 
 the escort, and riddled the carriage with a volley of 
 musketry. The Duchess, struck by a bullet, fell 
 insensible into her father's arms. But the Swiss 
 fought their way gallantly through the press, and 
 succeeded in placing the Chancellor and his 
 family — more dead than ahve — within the shelter 
 of the Palais Eoyal. When Anne of Austria 
 awoke at nine o'clock, it was to learn that the 
 spent commotion, which she had contemptuously 
 compared, on the preceding night, to a fire of straw, 
 had burst forth again in universal and skilfully- 
 organised revolt ; that more than twelve hundred 
 barricades, surmounted by the banners of her 
 loyal companies, raised their menacing forms 
 on every side of the Palace ; and that one hundred 
 thousand citizens were in arms to wrest the popu- 
 lar magistrates from her grasp. 
 
 The danger that gathered round the Regent, 
 far from appalling her, only exasperated her 
 pride. In vain the Governor of Paris, and such 
 of the city authorities as remained faithful to 
 their trust, rushing pale and breathless into her 
 presence, in disordered and stained apparel 
 which bore evidence to the perils they had 
 encountered, warned her that the excited people 
 were ready to trample her guards under foot, and 
 to tear down the palace stone from stone. In vain 
 
 221 
 
 Orleans, Mazarin, and the crest-fallen court iers, 
 with tears in their eyes, implored her to yield. In 
 vain Mole and his colleagues, who had marched in 
 long procession from the Palace of Justice through 
 the insurgent hosts, entreated her to save the 
 reahn from the catastrophe in which conflicting 
 passions were about to plunge it. She vehe- 
 mently reproached the First President with the 
 seditious conduct of the Parliament, and de- 
 nounced against it a vengeance which should be 
 memorable to all succeeding times. Tears of rage 
 and scorn gushed from her eyes at the pusillani- 
 mous desertion of her Council. But her own 
 resolution never faltered ; she declared she would 
 never yield to the dictation of vile canaille. One 
 ray of hope flashed across her gloomy meditations 
 as she sat aloof in her little grey chamber — as her 
 usual retiring room was called — calm upon her . 
 brow, fury and almost despair in her heart. In- 
 stinctively recognising in the formidable move- 
 ment that so suddenly confronted her the master 
 hand which had organised and impelled it, she sent 
 for the Coadjutor. De Eetz replied that he was 
 her Majesty's very humble servant, but that the 
 injuries he had received, in her service, on the 
 previous day rendered him unable to leave his 
 
 bed. 
 
 In the meantime the Parliament had set out, on 
 their return to the Palace of Justice, in order to de- 
 
222 
 
 223 
 
 liberate on the Eegent's answer to their petition. 
 The magistrates were soon stopped and questioned 
 by the ferocious populace, and being unable to 
 announce the release of Broussel, had a narrow 
 escape of being torn to pieces. Several of them 
 casting away their robes, fled for their lives. 
 Mole, incapable of fear, bore with undaunted 
 composure the violence and insults, for which he 
 was the especial mark. But, though unmoved at 
 his own danger, he saw with patriotic anguish 
 that the safety of the city, and even of the 
 monarchy were at stake; and he slowly re- 
 traced his way to the Palais Eoyal, determined to 
 break, by a supreme effort of his iron will, the 
 unbending obstinacy of the Regent. Entering her 
 presence again, he addressed her in words of stem 
 remonstrance, to which her ears had long been 
 unaccustomed. His passionate energy, the 
 agonised apprehension for the fate of his young 
 Sovereign that shook his intrepid nature, struck 
 her dumb, and quelled her haughty spirit. In 
 the lurid light whiqh his burning eloquence threw 
 upon the picture of impending ruin, she at length 
 saw the terrible peril of the State. The Princesses 
 of the Blood, and the ladies of her household, 
 chilled with terror to the marrow of their bones 
 flung themselves at her feet and besought her to 
 have pity on them. The unfortunate Queen of 
 England, a penniless outcast in her native land. 
 
 mournfully seconded their prayers, assuring Anne 
 that the civil war which had laid her husband's 
 throne in the dust had not worn such a terrible 
 aspect, at the beginning, as this insurrection now 
 presented. The cries and imprecations that rose 
 nearer and more threatening in the air, told her, 
 in language that could no longer be mistaken, 
 that the stormy wave of revolution was fast sap- 
 ping the foundations of the throne. She felt the 
 sceptre of Regency trembling in her grasp ; she 
 saw the crown tottering on the youthful brow of 
 her son ; and, burning with shame and indig- 
 nation, yielded to inexorable necessity. Royal 
 carriages were despatched to bring back the 
 liberated magistrates to their homes. The whole 
 capital, frantic with joy, flocked to swell the 
 triumphal entry of Broussel. The Parliament 
 gave him a public reception, and then, on his 
 proposal, decreed that the citizens should lay 
 down their arms, and demolish the barricades. 
 In a few hours the vast multitudes had quietly 
 dispersed, traffic flowed again without impedi- 
 ment through its myriad channels, and every 
 vestige of the revolt had disappeared. The 
 whole struggle, so furious and so brief, rose and 
 fell as if it were some magic spectacle that had 
 started into life and vanished at successive waves 
 of an enchanter's wand. This was the first act of 
 the strange drama of the Fronde. 
 
 i 
 
224 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The rude lesson she had received from the popular 
 party which she held in such contempt, without 
 altering Anne of Austria^s determination to up- 
 hold with a high hand all the arbitrary preroga- 
 tives of the Crown, taught her the value of 
 Mazarines prudent counsel not to attempt a blow 
 at the Parliament until the presence of Conde, 
 with his troops, enabled her to strike with decisive' 
 effect. All her hopes of triumph and revenge 
 now rested on the Prince. The empire which the 
 Cardinal had established over her mind and her 
 affections was not, indeed, sensibly impaired. 
 But she began almost involuntarily to distrust 
 gentleness so little in unison with her own fierce 
 passions; to doubt whether he possessed force 
 and decision of character sufficient to oppose re- 
 volutionary violence. The rank, the principles, 
 the ^ imperious nature, the unrivaUed military' 
 genius, and the repeated pledges of the victor of 
 Lens led her to count upon him with confidence 
 as the surest support and avenger of her outraged 
 
 225 
 
 authority. Dissembling her feelings in order to 
 gain time to concert a plan of operations with the 
 Prince, she sent again for De Retz, upon whom 
 the success of the outbreak seems to have acted 
 as a sovereign restorative, received him with flat- 
 tering professions of penitence and esteem, and 
 requested him to pay the equally contrite 
 Cardinal a visit of reconciliation. The Coadjutor 
 found the minister in familiar conference with 
 Broussel, heaping civilities on the bewildered old 
 councillor, and was welcomed with open arms. 
 But his political insight was too keen to be de- 
 ceived a second time by the fair appearances of 
 the Court. He saw that the struggle between 
 the Regent and the Parliament— between Mazarin 
 and himself— was only beginning. ] Distrusting 
 the ability of the magistrates to withstand the 
 Government, he secretly laboured with all his 
 energy and skill to build up a mighty auxiliary 
 confederacy of great nobles and popular leaders, 
 of which he had already laid the foundations, and 
 by means of which he intended to hurl his Italian 
 rival from power, and to mount into his vacant 
 
 seat^ 
 
 r^trange to say, the chief of the Fronde, who 
 figured in his schemes, who was to give the new 
 coalition cohesion and irresistible force, was the 
 same personage on whom the Regent relied toi 
 
 L 5 -^ 
 
226 
 
 <^h it to pieces. The splendid genius of Conde 
 had kindled in the mind of De Eetz an ardent 
 admn-ation, which the exasperation of disappointed 
 hope, envenomed by a long and unsparing inter- 
 change of mjuries and insults, was never able to 
 extmguish. It was no secret to him how angrily 
 the Pnnce chafed at the poUtical ascendancy of 
 Mazarm, and he had artfully fed this impatient 
 humour by opening before Conde^s ambition the 
 prospect of unbounded sway during the minority 
 of the Kmg, if he would rid the kingdom of the 
 low-born foreigner who monopohsed the Regent's 
 favour. With unscrupulous art, he secretly 
 fomented the pubHc hatred and distrust of the 
 Govermnent. Every day new rumours of hostHe 
 projects on the part of the Regent, some of them 
 ot the wildest extravagance, but all greedily de- 
 vom-ed by popular credulity and suspicion, and 
 aU catching some colour of probabihty from the 
 advance of troops towards the capital, provoked 
 formidable tumults. On one occasion the Parisians 
 were thrown into a paroxysm of terror by a report 
 that the Queen of 'Sweden had arrived with an 
 army of Amazons to avenge her sister sovereign. 
 Eveiy day ribald Mazarinades, and caricatures 
 equaUy witty and coarse, depicting the amorous 
 relations of Anne of Austria and her minister 
 were flung upon the seething capital from' 
 
 227 
 
 secret presses, to feed its rancorous and 
 prurient humour. When the Regent went to 
 visit a favourite convent or church, insulting 
 verses, loudly chaunted by dishevelled de- 
 mireps, assailed her ears. Her hours of re- 
 pose were disturbed by continual alarms. 
 Mazarin no longer dared to stir from the Palace. 
 Distracted by apprehensions, he was incapable of 
 giving his mistress advice, except to urge her de- 
 parture from a scene of so much danger and dis- 
 comfort. But she bided her time with the 
 patience of deep hatred. When she considered 
 her preparations sufficiently advanced, she sent 
 the young King and the Cardinal quietly from the 
 city, covered their retreat with admirable coolness, 
 and then retired in open day to Ruel, the country 
 house of the Duchess of Aiguillono. There she 
 summoned Conde to ioin her. 
 
 The first step Anne of Austria took, when beyond 
 the reach of popular sedition, left the magistrates 
 without a doubt regarding the nature of her in- 
 tentions. This was to order the arrest of Chavigny 
 and Chateauneuf . Both of these statesmen, and 
 especially Chavigny, were known to cultivate 
 intimate relations with prominent members of 
 the Parliament, and were objects of Mazarin's 
 jealous aversion. Chavigny was shut up in the 
 Castle of Yincennes, of which he had long been 
 
• I 
 
 228 
 
 governor; Chateauneuf, less obnoxious to the 
 Regent, was exiled to the province of Berri. 
 Ihe Parhament, restrained by Mol^ in obser- 
 Tance of the pledge that had been given to 
 Orleans, and renewed to the Regent when 
 Bronssel was set at liberty, had for some weeks 
 torbome discussion upon the disputed prerogative 
 of arbitrary arrest, with a tacit understanding of 
 corresponding forbearance on the part of the 
 Government. But the arrest of Chavigny and 
 Chateauneuf, universally attributed to the per- 
 fidious counsels of the Cardinal, produced an 
 explosion of rage in the Palace of Justice which 
 swept away every tendency to moderation. The 
 High Court returned the blow by passing a 
 resolution to deliberate on its decree passed in 
 1622, after the murder of Concini, which forbade 
 foreigners to accept office in France upon pain 
 of death. It dispatched the First President, at 
 the head of a deputation, to Ruel, to request the 
 Regent to return to Paris with the Kincr and 
 either to set the prisoners free or bring them to 
 trial. The deputation was also commissioned to 
 mvite the Princes of the Blood to attend a sitting 
 of the Chamber, at which the thorny question of 
 arbitrary imprisonment was to be discussed. 
 
 The envoys were received by Anne of Austria 
 at a public audience. Conde had arrived at Ruel • 
 
 J 
 
 229 
 
 had been welcomed with joyful pride by the 
 Queen, with humble deference by the Cardinal, as 
 the saviour of the Monarchy; and had renewed 
 his professions of devoted loyalty. Orleans was 
 seemingly full of zeal in her cause. Supported by 
 the chiefs of the House of Bourbon she laughed 
 the demands of the magistrates to scorn. The 
 Princes also rejected their summons with menaces 
 and disdain. Hopeless of a pacific solution, the 
 deputation returned to Paris to assist in taking 
 measures for the defence of the city. 
 
 But the somewhat extravagant manifestation of 
 loyalty by Orleans and Conde, which had driven 
 the magistrates to despair, cloaked much secret 
 hesitation, and an under-current of private 
 intrigue. The representations of De Retz had 
 borne fruit in the Prince's mind; and the im- 
 pressions of former conferences were deepened in 
 a stolen visit, which he now paid the Coadjutor at 
 Notre Dame. Although from principle a firm 
 supporter of the throne, to which he stood in 
 near succession ; and although regarding the 
 political pretensions of councillors of Parliament, 
 and the factious violence of the Parisian rabble 
 with as much amazement, anger, and con- 
 tempt as Anne of Austria herself, it was neither 
 his interest nor his wish to establish the foreign 
 favourite in the seat of Richelieu. The part which 
 
 , 
 
 .(. ■»„■ -^ ^z- 
 
 111 lilt iWtiiii ■ ■r'"^"^—-^-^-— - '^■"^ 
 
 1. 
 
230 
 
 Anne designed for him, that of executing the 
 pohcy shaped in the brain of her able minister, 
 presented to his mind in every odious and humiU-' 
 ating aspect by the taunts of the keen-witted 
 Parisians, revolted his pride. His famUy ex- 
 perience taught Mm to appreciate the suggestion 
 of De Retz, that the recognition of the principle 
 of individual liberty, which the Parliament de- 
 manded, might hereafter prove a safeguard for 
 himself. When, therefore, the Regent, at the 
 next sitting of the Council of State, having 
 expatiated with acrimony on the rebelhous spirit 
 of the capital, confidently appealed to Conde to 
 reduce it to submission, to her intense astonish- 
 ment and mortification, instead of returning a 
 ready assent, he started difficulties, spoke of 
 concihation, and ended by offering himself as a 
 mediator between the Crown and the Parliament 
 Orieans, greatly relieved by this unexpected tm-n 
 of affairs, promptly gave his voice for peace. No 
 othermember venturing to advocate a policy which 
 seemed too bold for the fiery Prince, Anno of 
 Austria broke up the' meeting in silent indig- 
 nation. 
 
 V 
 
 A resort to the sword for the purpose of cutting 
 the political knot being now out of the question 
 Orleans and Cond^ were authorised as representa ' 
 tives of the King to discuss tenns of accommoda^ 
 
 i 
 
 231 
 
 tion with the Presidents Mole and De Mesmes, 
 the delegates of the Parliament. The Presidents 
 again submitted for acceptance the articles passed 
 by the United Chambers in the Hall of St. Louis. 
 Those confering on the High Court a partial 
 control over the finances and freedom of debate, 
 already allowed in a maimed form by the Regent, 
 were admitted without much difficulty. But 
 upon the article securing to every Frenchman 
 the right of being interrogated by his legal 
 judges within twenty-four hours after his arrest, 
 she was as unyielding as ever. Though rendered 
 almost powerless by the desertion of the Lieutenant- 
 General and the other Princes of the Blood, she 
 fought the battle of the prerogative single-handed, 
 with stubborn resolution. Mazarin, however, see- 
 ing in the ebullitions of arrogant temper which 
 continually troubled Conde^s intercourse with the 
 Parliamentary delegates, the presage of a speedy 
 change in his policy, excited all his influence to 
 induce his mistress to temporise. He soothed her 
 scruples with assurances that a short experience 
 of the insolence of the Parisian demagogues would 
 drive the imperious Prince into the extremity of 
 antagonism to the popular cause ; that, even at 
 the worst, the King, on attaining his majority, 
 would not be bound by the acts of the Regency. 
 Slowly yielding to the arguments of her far-seeing 
 
232 
 
 minister, Anne of Austria offered to concede im- 
 munity from arbitrary imprisonment to the 
 magistrates, reserving the irresponsible dominion 
 of the Crown over the princes and nobles. But 
 Mole and De Mesmes, worthy champions of a 
 beneficent principle, would not consent that any 
 Frenchman, however high, or however mean, 
 should be excepted from its protection. 
 
 On the 24th of October, 1648, all the articles 
 passed in the Hall of St. Louis, embodied in a 
 Declaration drawn up by Mol6, were accepted 
 without reserve by the Regent, after one of those 
 ternble mental conflicts which rage only in strong, 
 passionate natures, and ever leave beliind them 
 indelible traces of their fury. This celebrated 
 Declaration was a noble charter of constitutional 
 freedom, throwing, so far as was possible in the 
 circumstances of that particular time, over the 
 liberty and the property of Frenchmen, the shield 
 of a legal guarantee; a noble monument to the en- 
 lightened patriotism, and the lofty courage of the 
 great magistrates who framed it. On the same 
 day the Treaty of Westphalia, concluded at 
 Munster by securing the depression of the House 
 of Austria, and the independence of the minor 
 German States, elevated France to the leading 
 place in Europe, and consecrated the triumph of 
 Richelieu's foreign policy. It was a day memor- • 
 
 
 233 
 
 able in the history of France, and memorable in 
 the life of Conde ; which should have linked his 
 name in imperishable renown with the freedom, 
 as well as with the greatness of his country. 
 Happy would it have been for his fame had he 
 continued to restrain his fiery genius to the paths 
 of national glory and national felicity. Happy 
 would it have been for France had she devoted 
 but a small part of the energy and talent, of the 
 blood and treasure, squandered in efforts to ex- 
 tend her supremacy abroad, to preserve and 
 develop constitutional liberty at home. 
 
 The Treaty of Munster and the Declaration of 
 October 24 were celebrated by public rejoicings, 
 and by all the outward signs of a general reconcilia- 
 tion. The King and the Regent returned to Paris. 
 Chavigny and Chateauneuf regained their liberty, 
 and the Parliament silently receded from its 
 menacing attitude towards Cardinal Mazarin. 
 But the interval of partial tranquillity that followed 
 was a period of passive hostility rather than of 
 peace. Mortified pride and baffled vengeance 
 consumed the heart of the Regent. She made 
 httle secret of the grief and abhorrence with 
 which she viewed the concessions wrung from 
 her, or of her determination, at a more favourable 
 juncture, to free the royal authority from such 
 ignominious fetters. The unexpected desertion 
 
234 
 of Conde especiaUy gaUed her. She never 
 
 at Euel had nveted for ever the ascendancy of 
 Mazarm over her n.ind and her affections. The 
 W td t"!!""'' ^^ ''**^^ -P--- taught 
 
 cWd to share her power during the minority 
 o her son. Mazann was her creature, bou.d to 
 her by every bond of gratitude and hope; whose 
 poht,cal existence was inseparable from herl^ 
 
 whose marvellousabilityand sustainingsympathies' 
 were absolutely enlisted in her service 
 
 The frank co-operation of Conde, however, was 
 
 bhng her md:gnatxon, she employed all her art to 
 wm him from his connexion with the popular partv 
 -d continually assailed his self-love' ^th/aS: 
 2 tokens of regard and confidence. The Car- 
 dnal hstened to all the Prince's wishes with 
 reverential submission. But this policy of com- 
 plaisance soon brought Amie of Austria into angry 
 collision with the Duke of Orleans, and led toLr 
 -^eivrng a fortifying proof of the unpopu- 
 lanty of her Government. 
 
 Conde^s brother, the Prince of Conti, a youth 
 of stunted growth, physical and mental, and of a 
 timorous nature, had shown a predilection for an 
 ecclesiastical career. It was the interest of the 
 
 235 
 
 head of the family to encourage this desire ; the 
 august dignities and the rich benefices in the 
 Church which would reward the piety of a 
 Prince of the Blood being treated, under the 
 dispositions of their father^s will, as equivalent 
 to the large revenues settled on the younger son, 
 should he elect to remain a layman. Conde, 
 therefore, asked the Regent to transfer to Conti 
 the nomination for a CardinaPs hat, which had 
 long been promised to the Abbe la Riviere, the 
 reigning favourite of the Lieutenant- General. 
 Anne of Austria complied with this request with- 
 out hesitation, and offered to compensate La 
 Riviere by making him Archbishop of Rheims. 
 But the aspiring Abbe, looking upon an arch- 
 bishopric as a splendid exile, scornfully rejected 
 the proposal, and openly reproached Anne with in- 
 gratitude for his exertions in keeping his master 
 steady to her cause. Orleans, goaded on by his 
 YTife and daughter, hotly espoused his favourite^s 
 quarrel. In an angry interview at the Palais 
 Royal, he came to an open rupture with the Re- 
 gent ; and he retired from Court. Anne of Austria 
 at first treated his ill-humour with indifference; but 
 no sooner had the news of the quarrel spread 
 over Paris than all the great nobles, and all the 
 popular leaders, thronged to the Luxembourg to 
 offer their support. When the Lieutenant-General 
 
 m 
 
 ^ I 
 
236 
 
 appeared in the streets, the people crowded round 
 his coach, filled the air with acclamations, and 
 ^ oudly urged him to seize the King and depose 
 the Eegent. Consternation filled the Palais 
 Koyal. The Eegent sent her incensed brother-in- 
 law the most pressing entreaties for a reconcilia- 
 tion which he curtly rejected. Cond^, alone of 
 ^e Court, was in a state of supreme satisfaction. 
 He doubled the guards at the Palace, and de- 
 nounced Orleans and La Eiyiere as traitors. In 
 the height of the public agitation, the Duke 
 stricken by a sudden panic at his own popularity' 
 and at the display of military force, betook him- 
 self to bed, and refused to hold any further commu- 
 nica^ionwith Anne of Austria. She, in her alarm 
 regarded his feigned illness as a pretence to cloak 
 the workings of a formidable conspiracy. En- 
 trenched in the Palais Eoyal or the Luxembom-^ 
 each jside expected the attack in mortal terror' 
 This ludicrous situation might have found a 
 tragical issue had not La Eiyiere, appalled by the 
 danger of being crushed to pieces in the shock of 
 such mighty forces, sought a private interview 
 with the trembling Mazarin. A few words of 
 explanation led to an arrangement. A seat in the 
 Pnvy Council, and the renewed promise of a red 
 hat appeased the wrath of the favourite. Monsieur 
 bemg assured that the peril had blown over, and 
 
 237 
 
 that his importance was sufficiently vindicated, 
 condescended to accept the Eegent's explanations, 
 and restored the appearance of public tranquillity 
 by again attending the Court. 
 
 The undisguised preference of the Parisians for 
 his cousin, whom he despised, and their want of 
 appreciation of his own services, cooled Conde's 
 favourable disposition towards the Constitutional 
 party. As Mazarin had predicted, one or two 
 visits to the Palace of Justice converted this 
 coldness into bitter enmity. The suspicious bear- 
 ing of the Eegent, and the arts of the Coadjutor, 
 kept alive a general feeling of uneasiness, which 
 found expression in the exaggerated statements 
 and the irritating language of the democrats of 
 the Chambers. Condi's imperious tone, and dis- 
 dainful manner in repressing the factious cavillings 
 which invaded every department of the State, and 
 even the household of the young King, in search 
 of grievances, often fictitious or frivolous, pro- 
 voked defiant and insolent retorts from some of 
 the younger magistrates, which lashed him into 
 fury. It was in vain that De Retz, who watched 
 the fluctuations of his mind with anxiety, repeated 
 every argument, which, by convincing his judg- 
 ment, or stimulating his ambition, might pTiTtllt 
 hi8 serving the interefU of Cardinal M(utarin. 
 Bred up in dMp TiOMfilion for royalty, liia 
 
236 
 
 appeared in the streets, the people crowded round 
 his coach, filled the air with acclamations, and 
 loudly urged him to seize the King and depose 
 the Regent. Consternation filled the Palais 
 Royal. The Regent sent her incensed brother-in- 
 law the most pressing entreaties for a reconcilia- 
 tion, which he curtly rejected. Cond^, alone of 
 the Court, was in a state of supreme satisfaction. 
 He doubled the guards at the Palace, and de- 
 nounced Orleans and La Riviere as traitors. In 
 the height of the public agitation, the Duke, 
 stricken by a sudden panic at his own popularity, 
 and at the display of military force, betook him- 
 self to bed, and refused to hold any further commu- 
 nication with Anne of Austria. She, in her alarm, 
 regarded his feigned illness as a pretence to cloak 
 the workings of a formidable conspiracy. En- 
 trenched in the Palais Royal or the Luxembourg, 
 each .side expected the attack in mortal terror. 
 This ludicrous situation might have found a 
 tragical issue had not La Riviere, appalled by the 
 danger of being crushed to pieces in the shock of 
 such mighty forces, sought a private interview 
 with the trembling Mazarin. A few words of 
 explanation led to an arrangement. A seat in the 
 Privy Council, and the renewed promise of a red 
 hat appeased the wrath of the favourite. Monsieur, 
 being Assured that the peril had blown over, and 
 
 237 
 
 that his importance was sufficiently vindicated, 
 condescended to accept the Regent's explanations, 
 find restored the appearance of public tranquillity 
 by again attending the Court. 
 
 The undisguised preference of the Parisians for 
 his cousin, whom he despised, and their want of 
 appreciation of his own services, cooled Condi's 
 favourable disposition towards the Constitutional 
 party. As Mazarin had predicted, one or two 
 visits to the Palace of Justice converted this 
 coldness into bitter enmity. The suspicious bear- 
 ing of the Regent, and the arts of the Coadjutor, 
 kept alive a general feeling of uneasiness, which 
 found expression in the exaggerated statements 
 and the irritating language of the democrats of 
 the Chambers. Cond6's imperious tone, and dis- 
 dainful manner in repressing the factious cavillings 
 which invaded every department of the State, and 
 even the household of the young Eang, in search 
 of grievances, often fictitious or frivolous, pro- 
 voked defiant and insolent retorts from some of 
 the younger magistrates, which lashed him into 
 fury. It was in vain that De Retz, who watched, 
 the fluctuations of his mind with anxiety, repeated 
 every argument, which, by convincing his judg- 
 ment, or stimulating his ambition, might prevent 
 his serving the interests of Cardinal Mazarin. 
 Bred up in deep veneration for royalty, his 
 
238 
 
 haughty soul could not brook alliance with 
 the low-bom demagogues who had bearded him 
 m the Parliament. j^-Mj name/' he said, -is 
 Loms of Bourbon, and I do not wish to shake the 
 Crown/' Had he consulted sound pohcy, and his 
 own dignity, he would have curbed his indigna- 
 tion, and co-operated with the patriotic Mole in 
 upholding the Declaration of October 24, in 
 opposing alike the excesses of faction and of 
 authority. With his position and prestige this 
 course was not merely feasible, it was the course 
 most consonant with his own honour and advantage. 
 But entrusted from his earhest youth with the 
 supreme conduct of the greatest undertakings ; 
 having from the very first bound fortune to his 
 chariot-wheels ; being accustomed to see his wiU 
 a law to all around him, he had never acquired 
 the habits of self-control and reflection, or the 
 steadiness of purpose which come from wrestling 
 with difficulties. His glorious intellect and his 
 clear judgment were the sport of unruly passions, 
 often as short lived as they were violent^^ 
 friend Marshal Grammont, a staunch adh'^ek^of 
 the Court, represented to him, while stiU swayed 
 by mtemperate anger at the language of a few 
 obscure Councillors, that by a^^complishing the 
 designs of the Eegent, he would command her 
 gratitude for ever, and place himself in a position^ 
 
 239 
 
 Cto become the arbiter of the Minister's fate, 
 i^urried along by wayward and unreasoning 
 humours, he not only broke off his relations with 
 the Coadjutor, but hastened to abet Anne of 
 Austria with all the ardour of selfish ambition and 
 revenge, in crushing the Parliament and tearing 
 up the Charter so recently extorted through his 
 connivanceA 
 
 The sanction of the Lieutenant General of the 
 realm was necessary for the use of military force 
 against the Capital. The mind of Orleans was 
 still estranged from the Regent by the irritation of 
 scarcely-healed grievances ; his pride was swollen 
 by his unbounded popularity with the citizens ; 
 and the tortures of a severe attact of gout ren- 
 dered him unusually testy. But Anne of Austria, 
 in assiduous visits to his sick couch, exerted the 
 feminine blandishments and the force of will which 
 had so long held him in control. The treacherous 
 Duke, after a few uneasy mental pangs, not only 
 betrayed the confiding affection of his faithful 
 Parisians, but entered cordially and even eagerly 
 into the Regent's project to chastise them with 
 famine and the sword. Conde proposed, in secret 
 council at the Palais Royal, that the Court should 
 retire to the Arsenal, which adjoined the Bastille, 
 and thence issue a decree of exile against the 
 Parliament. If the magistrates offered resistance. 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
240 
 
 lie undertook to enter the city at the head of his 
 troops, sweep the streets with his artillery, and 
 clear the Palace of Justice at the point of the 
 bayonet. This bold plan of operations, which 
 promised prompt and decisive success in the 
 hands of a great soldier, was warmly approved 
 by the Kegent. But Orleans and Mazarin were 
 terrified at the risks of discomfiture in a street 
 fight. Anne of Austria, reluctantly yielding to 
 their timid remonstrances, agreed to resort to 
 the slower, though, in reaUty, more hazardous, 
 measure of a blockade. 
 
 In the meantime De Retz had not been idle. 
 The alienation of Conde, and the embarrassed 
 demeanour of Monsieur warned him of the danger 
 that was brewing. Having no faith in the ability 
 of the Parliament to resist the Government, sup- 
 ported by the greatest general of the age and the 
 soldiers of Lens, he had succeeded in banding 
 together the chiefs of the great aristocratic houses 
 in a secret league ; and he treated for assistance 
 with the Archduke Leopold at Brussels, through 
 Madame de Chevreuse. The Princes of Vendome, 
 the Dukes of Bouillon, Elboeuf , and Longueville, 
 the Prince of MarsHlac, with their aUies and 
 dependents in the provinces, were prepared by 
 his address to draw their swords for the Parlia- 
 ment. He and they were guided by animosity 
 
 241 
 
 -and interest to a common goal, the destruction of 
 Cardinal Mazarin, and perhaps the deposition of 
 the Regent, by means of an armed confederacy, 
 ostensibly organised for the defence of the Decla- 
 ration of the 24th of October. But in order to 
 secure the stability and the harmonious action of 
 the league against the jealous rivalries of so many 
 proud magnates, it was necessary to place at its 
 head a Prince of the Blood. Cond^, whose 
 adhesion to it was a cardinal point in his policy, 
 had broken through his meshes. Orleans had 
 also abandoned the Parliament. It seemed more 
 than doubtful whether the timid Conti could be 
 induced to venture into open opposition to his 
 fiery brother. - 
 
 Revolving this difficulty in his mind, De Retz 
 went one day to visit Madame de Longueville. 
 The beautiful and accomplished Duchess was at 
 that time on very bad terms with the Regent, and 
 with her elder brother. She was devoured by an 
 ambitious fancy to shine in the sphere of politics. 
 But, although brilliant and cultivated, she was 
 not formed of sufficiently stem stuff for the rdle 
 she coveted. Plastic under the influence of love, 
 as clay in the hands of the potter, her opinions 
 were swayed by her affections, and whoever en- 
 grossed her heart also governed her mind, and 
 directed the current of her ideas in the channel of 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 M 
 
242 
 
 his own interests. With the Eegent, she had 
 never been a favourite. Anne of Austria found 
 the lauguishing airs of the spoUed beauty, and 
 hel xsprit of the Hotel Rambouillet insufferable, 
 and delighted in inflicting on her petty mortifica- 
 lions. Conde was said to have never forgiven 
 her for revealing to his father the fooHsh project 
 he had formed of marrying MademoiseUe Vigean. 
 His conduct towards her at this period was singu- 
 larly harsh and unf eeUng. He treated her political 
 pretensions with pitiless ridicule, and publicly 
 inveighed, in unmeasured terms, against her gal- 
 lantries, counselling her husband to shut her up 
 for Hfe in one of his castles. Madame de 
 Longueville therefore lived retired from the Court 
 in sullen discontent. Her younger brother Conti 
 worshipped her with ahnost idolatrous love. Her 
 husband, though not in the most intimate rela- 
 tions with her, was blessed with an indulgent dis- 
 position which rendered him incapable of treating 
 her with severity. Already dissatisfied with the 
 Government for refusing him the custody of the 
 fortresses of Havre and Pont de 1' Arche in Nor- 
 mandy, the sarcasms of the Prince, upon the sub- 
 ject of his wife's infidehty, only served to wound 
 his pride, and embitter his resentment. It needed 
 but a few artful hints, thrown out without ap- 
 parent purpose by the Coadjutor, to conjure up 
 
 243 
 
 before Madame de Longueville^s imagination a 
 dazzling vision of triumphant ambition and grati- 
 fied vengeance. The prospect that arose before 
 her of dividing the allegiance of France with Anne 
 of Austria as Queen of the Fronde, of at once 
 baffling her imperious brother, and wounding him 
 where his pride was most exquisitely sensitive, by 
 arraying against him the members of his own 
 family in league with the demagogues of the 
 capital, filled her with joy which no words could 
 paint. She embraced the subtle prelate's schemes 
 with rapture, engaged to remain behind in Paris, 
 in the expected contingency of the Regent's de- 
 parture, and pledged herself for the adhesion of 
 Conti, of her husband, and of the Prince of Mar- 
 sillac, to the cause of the Parliament. 
 
 De Retz found an equally enthusiastic and still 
 more energetic ally in the Duchess of Bouillon. 
 For the rare combination of beauty, bewitching 
 grace, winning manners, and lively talents, this 
 charming conspirator had few rivals ; and she was 
 distinguished besides by the unusual characteristic 
 of unblemished fidelity to her husband. Her ani- 
 mosity towards Anne of Austria was intense, in 
 consequence of the Regent having betrayed to 
 Cardinal Richelieu the secret of the conspiracy of 
 Cinq-Mars, which cost Bouillon his principality of 
 Sedan, and had nearly cost him his head. By 
 
 M 2 
 
 !| 
 
244 
 
 birtli a subject of Spain, Madame de BouiUon 
 maintained close relations with the Court of 
 Brussels, of which she had been vne of the 
 brightest ornaments. Brave, ardent, self-sacri- 
 ficing, and full of resources, she schemed, plotted 
 and even coquetted with untiring energy, in 
 concert with her lord, for the purpose of obtain- 
 ing the satisfaction of his claims. She now es- 
 tablished an intimate political liason withDe Retz, 
 who, while confessing in his memoirs the power 
 of her fascinations, bears unimpeachable testimony 
 to her singular virtue. 
 
 It was not in the nature either of Anne of Aus- 
 tria or of Cond6 to sleep upon a bold resolution de- 
 liberately adopted. They acted with a promptitude 
 and secrecy which disconcerted the Coadjutor, 
 and weU-nigh frustrated all his plans. The mea- 
 sures resolved upon at the Palais Eoyal were veiled 
 with profound dissimulation. Orleans, carefully 
 guarded by La Riviere, now in close alliance with 
 Mazarin, did not drop a hint of what was coming 
 even to his wife. Cond6 was equally reticent 
 with his idolised mother, whose existence was 
 bound up in his. At the customary pubUc re- 
 ceptions on New Year's Day, 1649, the gracious 
 demeanour of the Regent was the subject of general 
 comment and congratulation among the members 
 of the High Court. On the 5th of January 
 
 245 
 
 Marshal Grammont entertained the Court. Anne 
 of Austria passed the evening at the Palais Royal 
 in pleasant conversation with her household. 
 Vague rumours, that had somehow got afloat, of 
 her intended flight from the Capital, appearing to 
 disquiet some of her ladies, she made them a sub- 
 ject of mirth, mocking, in merry humour, at the 
 absurd fears of the Parisians. At her usual hour, 
 dismissing her retinue, she retired to bed. When 
 all was quiet, after midnight, she rose again, 
 roused up a few confidential attendants, and 
 ordered the King and his brother to be dressed. 
 Leading her sons by the hand, she left the palace 
 by a secret staircase, traversed the gardens, and 
 entering a coach that waited at a private entrance, 
 drove through the city gates, and halted at a short 
 distance without the walls. In the meantime 
 Orleans, Conde, and Mazarin quitted the Hotel de 
 Grammont together on foot. The Cardinal re- 
 paired without delay to join his mistress. Orleans, 
 proceeding to the Luxembourg, awoke his wife, 
 who received his commands to prepare for a 
 journey in a very refractory spirit. Cond6 went 
 to his family hotel, called up his mother and wife, 
 and dragged the reluctant Conti out of bed. By 
 three o'clock in the morning all the Royal family, 
 with the exception of Madame de Longueville, 
 who, pleading pregnancy, had refused to stir. 
 
-ms^^fmmmsr^m 
 
 i»v.i "Kil W**l" 
 
 246 
 
 were assembled together, in no very sociable 
 temper, in the Regent's capacious coach, on their 
 way to St. Germain. 
 
 The weather was bitterly cold. In the narrow 
 domestic economy of that time, the King of 
 France, though master of many spacious palaces, 
 seems to have possessed only one complete set of 
 furniture. When he changed his residence, that 
 which ho left was dismantled and deserted ; and 
 the Royal moveables accompanied the Court in 
 huge baggage-waggons. No preparations having 
 been made at the Chateau of St. Germain, for fear 
 of exciting suspicion, the Royal party found it desti- 
 tute of food, of fuel, and of the common necessaries 
 of habitation. The resources of the little neigh- 
 bouring village were inadequate to supply their 
 simplest wants. A few mattresses, one of which 
 Orleans appropriated to himself, and a small 
 quantity of the humblest faro were procured 
 with difficulty. Bread rose to famine prices. 
 Straw was sold at a fabulous rate. The wood, 
 hastily cut in the forest, was green, and would 
 not bum. During the first twenty-four hours 
 after their arrival the majority of the ladies and 
 gentlemen, so hastily torn from their luxurious 
 quarters in Paris, fasted, shivered, and watched 
 in the damp and desolate rooms. 
 
 Anne of Austria, before quitting the Palais 
 
 247 
 
 Royal, had addressed letters to the great public 
 bodies of the capital and the leading members of 
 the nobility, charging the Parliament with trea- 
 sonable designs against the King's person. The 
 nobles were ordered instantly to repair to St. 
 Germain, and it was announced that the Royal 
 Armies were marching on the capital. The news 
 spread like wildfire, throwing the populace into a 
 paroxysm of rage and terror. Armed mobs seized 
 the city gates, took possession of the waggons that 
 were bearing away the King's effects, and would 
 have pillaged the Palais Royal and the Palais 
 Mazarin had not the Parliament placed these 
 buildings under the charge of its own officers. 
 The sight of crowds of panic-striken courtiers, 
 choking up all the avenues of exit in their hurry to 
 escape to St. Germain, added to the popular exas- 
 peration. But the majority of the magistrates 
 and substantial citizens were chilled with dismay. 
 The desertion of Orleans, who had promised 
 to defend them against the evil practices of 
 "Madame Anne," particularly depressed them. 
 Yet such was the affection which the false Duke 
 inspired, that while a Decree of the High Court 
 forbade the removal of a single article from the 
 Royal palaces or the Hotel Mazarin, carriages 
 bearing the arms of Monsieur were allowed pas- 
 sage through the gates without question. 
 
 
mmmm 
 
 248 
 
 The desponding fears that weighed down the 
 Parisian middle class filled De Retz with appre- 
 hension . All the confederate nobles, with the excep- 
 tion of the Duke of Bouillon, were still in the pro- 
 vinces, busy with their preparations for the coming 
 struggle. Bouillon was proud, wary, and almost 
 morbidly jealous of his shadowy dignity of 
 sovereign prince. Suspecting trickery, and dis- 
 daining the companionship of greasy citizens, he 
 listened to the explanations of the Coadjutor in 
 very bad humour, refused to commit himself by 
 any overt act in the absence of a Prince of the 
 Blood, and even showed some disposition to repair 
 to Court. Madame de Longueville received the 
 disheartened prelate in tears. She had just 
 been apprised that her irresolute husband,, 
 on his way up from Normandy to join her, had 
 stopped at St. Germain. It was agreed that ^ she 
 should send the Marquis of Noirmoutier with 
 letters to him and the Prince of Conti. De Retz. 
 seeing in the evident desire for an accommodation 
 that pervaded the minds of the magistrates, and 
 in the absence of his high-bom allies, the possible 
 collapse of his schemes, began to think of his own 
 safety. He had received orders to attend the 
 Court, and he now thought it prudent to feign 
 obedience. Setting out with great pomp from 
 Notre Dame, he proceeded slowly through the y 
 
 249 
 
 most crowded streets, and, with tears rolling down 
 his dejected face, showered his benedictions on 
 the crowds who were attracted by his equipage. 
 The people clamoured, and stopped his horses ; 
 but he besought them, in tones of anguish, not 
 to expose themselves to the wrath of incensed 
 majesty by arresting his journey, and detaining 
 him to share their perils. His words had the 
 desired effect. The postillions were dragged 
 from their seats, the horses were unharnessed, 
 and De Retz, elevated on a dray, was escorted 
 back in triumph to his palace by a body-guard of 
 shrill-tongued viragoes, while a band of sister 
 furies shrieked and danced around the burning 
 fragments of his coach. On reaching home, he 
 addressed a submissive letter to the Regent, de- 
 ploring his inability to obey her commands .J 
 
 While the Chambers still hesitated between sub- 
 mission and defiance, a letter arrived in the King's 
 name, exiling the Parliament to Montargis. The 
 High Court, having been forewarned of its contents, 
 resolved that out of respect for the Royal Autho- 
 rity the mandate should be deposited, unopened, 
 in their Registry; and despatched Omer Talon 
 and the other law officers of the Crown to learn 
 from the Queen the names of the false accusers, 
 who had calumniated her loyal companies. The 
 deputation was compelled to halt before it reached 
 
 M 5 
 
250 
 
 St. Germain ; was kept waiting for several hours 
 of an inclement night, on the top of a bleak hill, 
 exposed to a violent snow storm ; and was then 
 sternly denied audience. This injurious treatment 
 of their envoys showed the incensed magistrates 
 that there only remained to them disgraceful sub- 
 mission or vigorous resistance. Casting aside 
 their irresolution, they issued a decree declaring 
 Cardinal Mazarin a public enemy, and the author 
 of all the disorders of the realm, and denouncing 
 against him the penalties of outlawry if found 
 within the kingdom after the expiration of eight 
 days. 
 
 Having lifted up the gage of battle, the High 
 Court convoked a great council of all the nota- 
 bilities of Paris to consider measures of defence. 
 The meeting was attended by the Duke of Mont- 
 bazon. Governor of the City, the Provost of the 
 Merchants, and every person eminent in his public 
 or private capacity, with the exception of the 
 Duke of Bouillon, and the Military Governor, 
 Marshal la Mothe Houdincourt, who declined to 
 declare themselves, unless countenanced by a 
 Prince of the Koyal Family. 
 
 The burgher guard, with its reserve of partially 
 drilled artizans, numbered about twenty thousand 
 men. But the prosperous middle-aged tradesmen, 
 who chiefly composed it,. not being physically 
 
 I 
 
 251 
 
 M 
 
 well adapted for feats of active warfare, it was 
 decided that this force should be employed in the 
 defence of the gates and ramparts, and of public 
 order ; and that an army of fourteen thousand 
 foot and five thousand horse, of more mettlesome 
 materials, should be levied for offensive operations. 
 In order to provide funds for the campaign, the 
 Parliament issued orders to the collectors of 
 revenue throughout the kingdom to pay the pro- 
 ceeds of the taxes into the Hotel de Ville. It also 
 imposed a house-tax on the Capital ; every mansion 
 with a porte-cochere being assessed at one hundred 
 and fifty francs, shops and the meaner habitations 
 at thirty francs each. The magistrates contributed 
 with extraordinary generosity, and the Coadjutor 
 undertook to equip and maintain a regiment at 
 his own expense. 
 
 These bold proceedings produced a signal effect 
 both at Paris and St. Germain. The citizens 
 were roused from their despondency to the 
 highest pitch of ardour. The Regent was wild 
 with anger; but Mazarines spirit quailed. He 
 had no real friends even amongst the courtiers, 
 who, finding that the hostile decrees launched 
 against him, breathed respectful loyalty to the 
 sovereign, began to give him cold looks, and to 
 whisper to each other, that his was the malign 
 influence that troubled the peace of the realm. 
 Many of the nobles, who, although secretly dis- 
 
252 
 
 affected, had gathered around the Regent, plucked 
 up courage to avow their true sentiments. The 
 example was set by the Duke of Elbocuf, a Prince 
 of the house of Lorraine. Quitting the Court in the 
 open day, he entered Paris, offered himself to the 
 Parliament as their General, and was welcomed 
 with acclamations. 
 
 This event was by no means pleasing to De 
 Retz. He now felt certain of the speedy arrival 
 of Conde and Longueville ; and the aspiring aims 
 and sudden popularity of the Lorraine Prince 
 threatened to mar his schemes. He spent the 
 day in spreading abroad sinister reports that 
 Elboeuf was an agent of the Regent. After he 
 had retired to rest, word was brought to him that 
 the chiefs he so impatiently expected were vainly 
 seeking admittance at one of the city gates. They 
 had galloped off from St. Germain in the evening, 
 but the burgher guard, ignorant of the intrigues 
 of the Coadjutor, naturally looked upon the brother 
 and brother-in-law of Conde as enemies, and planted 
 a cannon against them. The rejected leaders passed 
 many hours in a forlorn condition, exposed to the 
 double danger of being blown to pieces by the insur- 
 gents, and of being captured by a detachment of 
 the royal troops. At length De Retz, arriving 
 with old Broussel, with great difficulty persuaded 
 the suspicious citizens to give them entrance. 
 
 It was now four o'clock in the mornings 
 
 253 
 
 The Coadjutor carried Conti to the Palace of 
 Justice, to offer his services to the Parliament. 
 Conti's rank rendered this step equivalent to a 
 demand of the supreme military command. But 
 the timid boy, already scared by the responsibili- 
 ties of his novel position, was dismayed by a chilling 
 reception from the magistrates. The First Presi- 
 dent had just prevailed on the Chamber, despite 
 the vehement opposition of the Coadjutor's 
 friends, to elect Elboeuf General. The great 
 magistrate suspected the correspondence of De 
 Retz with the Archduke Leopold. He entirely 
 distrusted the support of the feudal magnates, 
 whom he knew from experience to be ever ready 
 to sacrifice the public interests to their own. 
 It was the policy of the Parliament to maintain in 
 its integrity the authority of the Crown within the 
 limits marked out by the Declaration of October; 
 to defend it from the assaults of discontented 
 nobles and interested agitators in league with the 
 enemies of the kingdom. In order that the High 
 Court might not be pushed beyond the legitimate 
 bounds of self-defence, or compromised by schemes 
 abhorrent to its principles, it was of the utmost 
 importance that its General should be a servant 
 loyally obedient to its wishes j not a master who 
 would use it without its consent for the promo- 
 tion of ulterior ends. Elboeuf, in open antagonism 
 
 P 
 
254 
 
 with De Retz and the feudal party, promised to 
 be far more amenable to Parliamentary control 
 than Conti, who was their puppet. When, there- 
 fore, Elboeuf, in reply to his rivaPs challenge, 
 boldly declared he would never resign the dignity 
 conferred on him, he was greeted with loud ap- 
 plause, and the crest-fallen Conti retired in dis- 
 comfiture. 
 
 The gravity of the crisis was fully recognised 
 by the Coadjutor and his allies. None of the 
 aristocratic chiefs would consent to serve under 
 Elboeuf. They held Council in the Hotel de 
 Bouillon to concert measures for compelling the 
 High Court to rescind its appointment, and for 
 cowing the obnoxious General into submission. 
 Bouillon, roused from his sullen lethargy by the 
 remonstrances of De Retz, consented to take an 
 active part in the proceedings. 
 
 The Parliament assembled at an early hour on 
 the following morning, the elated Elbccuf sitting 
 in pride of place by the side of the First Presi- 
 dent. Conti entered alone, and quietly took his 
 seat. Shortly afterwards the Duke of Longue- 
 ville, who was not a peer of France, craved 
 audience, and was conducted to a place. In a 
 short speech he placed all the resources of his 
 Government of Normandy at the service of the 
 Chamber, and announced that his wife and 
 
 255 
 
 children were about to take up their abode in 
 the Hotel de Ville as hostages for the fidelity of the 
 Prince of Conti and himself . His words created 
 an extraordinary sensation. Before the agitation 
 had time to subside, the -Duke of Bouillon slowly 
 entered the Chamber, leaning on the shoulders of 
 two gentlemen, with great parade of gout. In a 
 few blunt sentences, he declared that he would 
 joyfully defend the cause of the Parliament under 
 such an illustrious prince as Conti. His speech 
 called up Elboeuf in hot assertion of his rights. 
 Accusation and retort were freely bandied about. 
 In the midst of the uproar. Marshal la Mothe, 
 Military Governor of Paris, arrived, and offered to 
 draw his sword for the Parliament under the banner 
 of a Prince of the House of Bourbon. The excite- 
 ment was now so great that Mole requested all 
 the contending chiefs to withdraw, until the 
 magistrates had deliberated on the proposals they 
 had just heard. 
 
 While this scene was being enacted in the 
 Palace of Justice, the Coadjutor was busy unfold- 
 ing the second part of the sensational drama he 
 had so skilfully contrived. Entering the coach of 
 Madame de Longueville, which had conveyed her 
 husband to the Chamber, he carried its fair owner 
 and the Duchess of Bouillon, each dressed with 
 studied negligence and accompanied by her chil- 
 
254 
 
 255 
 
 with De Retz and the feudal party, promised to 
 be far more amenable to Parliamentary control 
 than Conti, who was their puppet. When, there- 
 fore, Elboeuf, in reply to his rivaFs challenge, 
 boldly declared he would never resign the dignity 
 conferred on him, he was greeted with loud ap- 
 plause, and the crest-fallen Conti retired in dis- 
 comfiture. 
 
 The gravity of the crisis was fully recognised 
 by the Coadjutor and his allies. None of the 
 aristocratic chiefs would consent to serve under 
 Elboeuf. They held Council in the Hotel de 
 Bouillon to concert measures for compelling the 
 High Court to rescind its appointment, and for 
 cowing the obnoxious General into submission. 
 Bouillon, roused from his sullen lethargy by the 
 remonstrances of De Eetz, consented to take an 
 active part in the proceedings. 
 
 The Parliament assembled at an early hour on 
 the following morning, the elated Elboeuf sitting 
 in pride of place by the side of the First Presi- 
 dent. Conti entered alone, and quietly took his 
 seat. Shortly afterwards the Duke of Longue- 
 ville, who was not a peer of France, craved 
 audience, and was conducted to a place. In a 
 short speech he placed all the resources of his 
 Government of Normandy at the service of the 
 Chamber, and announced that his wife and 
 
 children were about to take up their abode in 
 the Hotel de Ville as hostages for the fidelity of the 
 Prince of Conti and himself . His words created 
 an extraordinary sensation. Before the agitation 
 had time to subside, the -Duke of Bouillon slowly 
 entered the Chamber, leaning on the shoulders of 
 two gentlemen, with great parade of gout. In a 
 few blunt sentences, he declared that he would 
 joyfully defend the cause of the Parliament under 
 such an illustrious prince as Conti. His speech 
 called up Elboeuf in hot assertion of his rights. 
 Accusation and retort were freely bandied about. 
 In the midst of the uproar. Marshal la Mothe, 
 Military Governor of Paris, arrived, and offered to 
 draw his sword for the Parliament under the banner 
 of a Prince of the House of Bourbon. The excite- 
 ment was now so great that Mole requested all 
 the contending chiefs to withdraw, until the 
 magistrates had deliberated on the proposals they 
 had just heard. 
 
 While this scene was being enacted in the 
 Palace of Justice, the Coadjutor was busy unfold- 
 ing the second part of the sensational drama he 
 had so skilfully contrived. Entering the coach of 
 Madame de Longueville, which had conveyed her 
 husband to the Chamber, he carried its fair owner 
 and the Duchess of Bouillon, each dressed with 
 studied negligence and accompanied by her chil- 
 
 4 
 
256 
 
 dren, to the Hotel de Yille, and presented them as 
 voluntary hostages to the vast multitude that 
 crowded the Place de Greve. The sight of two 
 young and beautiful Princesses, holding aloft two 
 beautiful children, and irresistibly attractive in 
 the artful disorder of their attire, surrendering 
 themselves as pledges for the good faith of their 
 husbands, at the head-quarters of the city, took 
 the hearts of the Parisians by storm. The men 
 shouted till they were hoarse ; the women wept 
 for joy, and the popular enthusiasm soon found 
 an echo in the deliberations at the Palace of 
 Justice. The majority of the magistrates re- 
 pented of their engagements with Elbocuf . The 
 insinuations sown broadcast by the Coadjutor, and 
 which were not altogether unfounded, had borne 
 fruit, and seriously damaged the reputation of the 
 new General. He himself, daunted by the powerful 
 confederacy so suddenly arrayed against him, 
 lowered his tone of confident self-assertion, and 
 evinced a disposition to compromise his claims. 
 Conti, though imbecile, deformed, and a dwarf, 
 was a Prince of the JBlood, whose rank gave dignity 
 and strength to opposition. It was clear that by 
 rejecting him the Parliament would forfeit the 
 assistance of the territorial magnates, whose mili- 
 tary knowledge and provincial influence must avail 
 much in a prolonged struggle against the Eegent, 
 
 257 
 
 and would provoke dangerous popular tumults* 
 The perils attending his election were compara- 
 tively remote, and might be warded off ; the perils 
 attending his rejection were certain and immediate. 
 These considerations more than counterbalanced 
 the arguments of the First President. The High 
 Court, after long deliberation, passed a decree 
 appointing Conti Commander-in-Chief; Elboeuf, 
 Bouillon, and Marshal la Mothe, Generals ; Beau- 
 fort, Marsillac, and Normoutier, Lieutenant- 
 generals of the armies of the Parliament. 
 Longueville departed for Normandy, to raise 
 troops, leaving his wife, to her intense deHght, 
 installed at the Hotel de Ville, ruling with undis- 
 puted sway as Queen of the Fronde. 
 
 The defection of Conti and Longueville burst 
 like a thunder-clap on Anne of Austria and the 
 Cardinal. It threw Conde into transports of 
 fury. He sought to relieve his feelings by 
 parading a miserable hunchback, sheathed in 
 gilded armour, before the whole Court, as the new 
 Generalissimo of the Fronde ; and, by strenuous 
 efforts, to cut off the supplies of the capital, and 
 such of its defenders as their exemplary prudence 
 suffered to come within his reach. But his small 
 army of fourteen thousand men was inadequate 
 to seal up all the avenues of a populous city. 
 Until the expected junction of the army of Ger- 
 
258 
 
 many, under Turenne, he could do no more than 
 occupy the more important posts in the vicinity of 
 Paris, and send detachments of cavah*y to scour 
 the adjacent country. 
 
 The amazement that seized the minds of the 
 Regent and her crafty minister at the powerful 
 combination, which seemed to have sprung out of 
 the earth to confront them, was the most flatter- 
 ing homage to the creative genius of De Retz. 
 His bold and profound scheming had proved more 
 than a match for the wary subtlety of his rival. 
 The Cardinal trembled at the unforeseen dangers 
 which had risen like a lion in his path, and still 
 more at others more terrible, of which he now 
 discerned the advancing shadows. But Anne of 
 Austria, exasperated to a greater degree than ever 
 against her ancient friends, the Importants, 
 breathed only vengeance. A royal proclamation 
 declared the princes and nobles who should not 
 immediately retire from Paris guilty of high 
 treason. Even this, however, did not check the 
 epidemic of desertion from the Court, and every 
 day saw new and powerful accessions to the in- 
 surgent ranks. 
 
 The Generals of the Parliament, with the ex- 
 ception of Conti, whose constitutional infirmities 
 unfitted him for warfare, and Bouillon, who held 
 the dignity in contempt, laboured incessantly in 
 
 259 
 
 drilling and organizing the city levies. The 
 arrival of the Duke of Beaufort and the Prince of 
 Marsillac infused fresh activity into the mihtary 
 preparations. The presence of the former noble- 
 man was especially welcome to the Coadjutor. As 
 he says himself, he wanted a ^^ phantom to hide 
 behind ^^ in his manipulation of the Parisian 
 populace ; and he could not possibly have found 
 any one more suitable for his purpose than a 
 grandson of Henry lY., whose gallant bearing 
 and familiar use of their idiom made him the idol 
 of the lower classes, and whose vanity and slender 
 capacity made him a pliant tool. Popularity, 
 even in its sweetest moments, has its penalties. 
 The career of the Duke was well-nigh brought to 
 a premature close, on the day of his return to the 
 Capital, by the too vehement caresses of the ladies 
 of the fish-markets. 
 
 Notwithstanding the exertions of their leaders, 
 the operations of the Parliamentary forces were 
 far more fruitful of laughter than of glory or 
 advantage; their martial enthusiasm within the 
 walls being alloyed with a lamentable excess of 
 discretion in the field. The first enterprise under- 
 taken by the Generals was the attack of the 
 Bastille. The Governor, being unprovided with 
 the means of defence, intimated his intention not 
 to offer resistance ; but a military spectacle was 
 
260 
 
 arranged for the encouragement of the citizen 
 troops. A few cannons, charged with powder, 
 opened fire against the walls. The guns of the 
 fortress thundered in equally harmless defiance. 
 The Duchesses of Longueville and Bouillon, 
 arrayed in habits of blue, the colour of 
 the Fronde, profusely sprinkled with golden 
 slings, came and seated themselves on chairs in 
 the neighbouring gardens of the Arsenal. Sur- 
 rounded by a sling-spangled body-guard of daring 
 young cavaliers, they exposed themselves freely to 
 danger, within range of the hostile ramparts, and 
 regaled themselves on sweet-meats with cheerful 
 composure. When the garrison had made a 
 sufficiently heroic defence, it capitulated, and 
 marched out with all the honours of war. 
 
 A few days after this notable achievement a 
 large body of the citizens saUied forth with great 
 bravery of equipment, under Marshal la Mothe, 
 to seize St. Denis. At their approach, two hun- 
 dred Swiss Guards advanced from the village. A 
 panic instantly seized the Parisian braves. With- 
 out firing a shot, they turned and fled in the 
 wildest confusion, and never halted till they found 
 themselves safe within the city gates. They were 
 received by their fellow citizens with shouts of 
 derision. Lampoons, squibs, caricatures, cele- 
 brated their prowess. The exploit of the regi- 
 
 261 
 
 ment of the Coadjutor and titular Archbishop of 
 Corinth, which had borne away the palm in the 
 race of cowardice, was termed by the irreverent 
 Parisians "the first of the Corinthians.'^ The 
 public amusement was heightened by the explana- 
 tion of the Generals, who announced that their 
 troops had only retired out of profound respect 
 for the royal flag. This laudable sentiment long 
 remained sufficiently powerful to render the civic 
 cohorts proof against the ridicule of their friends. 
 Every day one or other of the chiefs led out a 
 strong force to protect the convoys of provisions 
 required to feed the Capital. A distant glimpse 
 of a few of Condi's horsemen usually had the 
 effect of sending back the doughty champions of 
 liberty in breathless terror to the city gates ; and 
 the woeful plight of the burgher exquisites who 
 had gone forth bedizened with the gaudiest ex- 
 travagance of military foppery, bruised by falls in 
 the muddy ditches, and grievously wounded by 
 the brambles that had impeded their flight, 
 kindled inextinguishable mirth amongst the 
 laughter -loving populace. Gaiety reigned supreme, 
 and pointed its shafts with impartial freedom. 
 One day at a crowded meeting a dagger was seen 
 sticking from the pocket of De Eetz. " Behold,^' 
 exclaimed the Duke of Beaufort, to the dehghted 
 throng, "the breviary of our Archbishop V The 
 
262 
 
 cavalry of the city, raised and maintained by the 
 tax on the larger houses, was called the Cavalry 
 of the " portes cocheres'' and was popularly 
 described as being ''More horse than foot, in 
 order the better to run away from the enemy." 
 Every evening the Duchess of Longueville held 
 high festival in the Hotel de Yille. The superb 
 building, shining forth a huge mountain of light, 
 was thronged by all who were distinguished or 
 notorious in the capital. Every variety of the 
 motley Parisian life was represented there. The 
 flower of the high nobility, redolent of the delicate 
 fragrance of the Hotel Rambouillet, or the reeking 
 odours of godless saloons, venerable ecclesiastics, 
 foul-tongued scoffers, dignified presidents of Par- 
 liament, vulgar demagogues, fastidious prudes, 
 flaunting courtezans, jostled each other at every 
 Btep in the overflowing rooms. The ludicrous 
 disasters of the day lent a keener edge to wit, and 
 a more delicious zest to enjoyment. Music and 
 dancing flung around their voluptuous spells, and 
 an occasional council of war, at which the Duchess 
 presided, attested the provident cares of the chiefs. 
 The square outside, packed with a dense multi- 
 tude, rang with the blare of trumpets, sounded 
 by Conti's orders, to breathe martial fury into 
 the souls of the citizens. This nightly fan- 
 farronacky and the daily exertion of conducting a 
 
 263 
 
 foraging expedition to one of the city gates, and 
 receiving it on its return, comprised the services 
 rendered by the Prince as Commander-in-Chief. 
 The military peals were varied by the more . con- 
 genial strains of a Mazarinade, or by a stirring 
 harangue delivered by some popular orator from 
 the balcony of the Hotel de Ville. 
 
 In the midst of these scenes of grotesque 
 excitement, which lapped her in an elysium of 
 flattered vanity, the political labours of Madame 
 de Longueville were interrupted by her accouche- 
 ment. But this unseasonable event proved the 
 occasion of her crowning triumph. The day of 
 the child's baptism was observed as a public 
 festival. The rite, administered by the Coadjutor, 
 was surrounded with extraordinary pomp. The 
 City of Paris and the Duchess of Bouillon stood 
 sponsors; the infant, Charles Paris, was borne 
 back from the church in triumphal procession 
 and then exposed, in a magnificent cradle, on the 
 steps of the Hotel de Yille, to the enthusiastic 
 homage of the rabble. 
 
 The ludicrous incidents of the war, however 
 were varied by sterner episodes, although even 
 these were not without ridiculous features. The 
 village of Charenton, a post of great importance 
 for securing the entrance of supplies into the 
 Capital, had been occupied by three thousand of 
 
264 
 
 tlie flower of tlie Parisian army, under the com- 
 mand of tlie Marquis of Clanlieu, a gallant soldier. 
 Conde, seizing witli savage joy the opportunity of 
 striking a terrible blow^ rushed down upon the 
 village with five thousand foot and three thousand 
 horse. He directed his friend, the Duke of 
 Chatillon, to storm the place with the infantry, 
 while he pushed forward in person, at the head of 
 the cavalry, in the direction of Paris to cover the 
 assault. The garrison, stung by the shame of 
 past disgraces, fought with desperate resolution. 
 Quarter was neither asked nor given. Chatillon 
 and Clanheu fell at the head of their men in the 
 hottest of the fight ; and, after an hour's fearful 
 carnage, Charenton was carried. One insurgent 
 officer, the Marquis of Coignac, escaped by spring- 
 ing on a large fragment of ice, which floated him 
 down the Seine into the city; the rest of the 
 defenders were put to the sword. Blackened heaps 
 of smouldering ruins, thickly strewn with charred 
 corpses, and soaked in blood, alone remained to 
 tell the story of .gratified vengeance. Before the 
 attack began, Elboeuf, having received timely 
 intimation of Condi's purpose, assembled twenty 
 thousand of the municipal bands to succour 
 Claulieu. But the sight of the redoubtable Prince, 
 watching their tardy evolutions at the head of his 
 cavalry, caused the hearts of the citizens to sink 
 
 265 
 
 within them. De Eetz, booted and spurred, a 
 Bword at his side and pistols in his holsters, and 
 Madame de Longueville, who, still ailing, had risen 
 from her couch to distribute azure scarves with 
 her own fair hands, vainly essayed to raise their 
 spirits. Honour pricked them on, but discretion 
 held them back. Elboeuf, perplexed and inca- 
 pable, held a council of war, wherein it was 
 resolved that, considering the impetuous valour of 
 the Parisian troops, an attempt to dislodge the 
 foe must result in the loss of valuable citizens, 
 and the lamentations of their wives. Rather than 
 incur the risk of such calamities, the tender- 
 hearted General sounded a retreat. Clanlieu was 
 abandoned to his fate, and Conde, glutted with 
 slaughter, was left in undisturbed possession of 
 
 the field. 
 
 A few days after the storming of Charenton, the 
 Duke of Beaufort led out a numerous force to pro- 
 tect the return of the Marquis of Noirmoutier, who 
 had coUected in the neighbourhood of Paris a large 
 herd of cattle. A train of shrieking amazons from 
 the fish-markets accompanied their hero to the 
 gate,vowinghorribleretaliationuponallwhoshould 
 
 daro to assail him. The insurgents soon came into 
 collision with a body of cavalry under Marshal 
 Grammont. Beaufort fought like a lion at the 
 head of his men; though wounded and disarmed 
 
 N 
 VOL. I. 
 
266 
 
 he gallantly maintained tlie battle, and after a 
 stiff contest, botli sides retired. Some fugitives, 
 however, carried exaggerated rumours of his 
 danger into Paris. Immediately thirty thousand 
 of the lower classes, men, women, and children, 
 armed with spits, brooms, and every homely 
 weapon they could snatch up in haste, rushed 
 forth to the rescue of the King of the Markets. 
 They found him at a considerable distance from 
 the walls quietly awaiting the coming up of the 
 convoy. Transported with joy at his safety, the 
 fish-hags threw themselves upon him in a species 
 .of Bacchanalian frenzy, almost stifled him and 
 his horse in their embraces, and then squatting over 
 the adjacent fields watched patiently for several 
 hours, to shield him from further peril. At last 
 Noirmoutier, having luckily eluded the vigilance 
 of Conde's skirmishers, made his appearance; and 
 then, with wild laughter and tears and extra- 
 vagant gambols, the vast cortege returned to 
 Paris, soldiers, populace, and cattle mingled 
 together in inextricable confusion. A charge oi 
 the Koyal troops must have ended in a fearful 
 massacre. 
 
 The ridicule provoked by their inglorious ex- 
 ploits, the grief daily renewed by the spectacle of 
 their damaged finery, the ruin of their trade, the 
 pressure of taxation, the increasing dearth of pro- 
 
 267 
 
 visions, soon thoroughly disgusted the substantial 
 burghers with the war. Their feelings were shared 
 by the majority of the Parliament. Abhorring 
 the very name of rebellion, and armed only in 
 legitimate defence of the Declaration of October, 
 Mole and his friends were scared by the tragic fall 
 of royalty in England, and learned with misgiving 
 that their Generals had entered into a secret com- 
 pact not to disband their troops until the personal 
 demands of each had been fully satisfied. Intelli- 
 gence of this favourable change of disposition was 
 privately conveyed to Mazarin by the Municipal 
 Authorities, who, though compelled to temporise 
 with the insurrection, had remained staunchly 
 loyal. 
 
 The Government, on its side, was urged by the 
 most powerful motives to seek an accommodation. 
 Several of the provincial ParKaments had espoused 
 the quarrel of the Parliament of Paris, and 
 launched Decrees of banishment against the 
 Cardinal. Numerous towns and fortresses 
 throughout the kingdom had declared for the 
 Fronde. The public taxes, diverted from the 
 royal treasury, supplied the Dukes of Longueville, 
 La Tremouille, and other potent insurgent nobles 
 with the means of raising armaments for the rehef 
 of the Capital. The greater part of the military 
 force, which the peace of Munster had promised 
 
 N 2 
 
268 
 
 to place at the disposal of the Regent, had either 
 disbanded or mutinied for want of pay, or was 
 dispersed to curb the disaffection* of the provinces. 
 The dubious conduct of Viscount Turenne caused 
 serious uneasiness at Court. It was known there 
 that this great General was listening to the solici- 
 tations of his brother, to lead back the army of 
 Germany against Conde. It was also known that 
 the Archduke Leopold, eagerly watching his op- 
 portunity to extort favourable conditions of peace 
 for exhausted Spain, meditated marching a power- 
 ful force over the naked frontier. The investing 
 body was not only insufficient to capture Paris, 
 but was exposed to be overwhelmed by the con- 
 verging attacks of superior armies. The angry 
 clouds that hurried up in gathering ruin from 
 every point of the political horizon made Cardinal 
 Mazarin tremble for France ; the hostile Decrees of 
 so many of the great judicial bodies made him 
 tremble for himself, and in his nightly conferences 
 with his mistress, he was the strenuous advocate 
 of peace. He represented to Anne of Austria 
 that an implacable prosecution of hostilities would 
 arm the Generals and demagogues of the capital 
 with a pretext for crushing the loyal majority of 
 the High Court, or forcing it into an aUiance with 
 Spain ; would light up throughout the entire 
 kingdom the flames of civil war, and must result 
 
 269 
 
 in delivering over the realm as a spoil to its 
 foreign and domestic enemies, or in rendering 
 the victorious Conde military dictator during the 
 minority of her son. On the other hand, a tem- 
 porary compliance with the demands of Mole 
 and his party, demands more than once con- 
 ceded, and which might be again revoked, 
 would cut the ground from under the 
 traitorous nobles and re-establish her authority 
 upon the support of the Parliament. The 
 prospect of seeing herself and her cherished 
 minister at the mercy of her discarded friends, 
 the ^^ Importants," aided by the troops of her 
 brother, or puppets of the imperious Conde, 
 was intolerable to Anne of Austria. While she 
 listened, half convinced, to Mazarines counsels, 
 a warning voice, eloquent in all the force of tragic 
 experience, fell upon her ear. The unhappy 
 Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, had remained 
 behind in her cheerless solitude at the Louvre 
 after the departure of the Court. One day, in 
 the depth of the unusually severe winter, De 
 Retz found her without food or fire, shivering by 
 the bed-side of her daughter, who was unable to 
 rise on account of the extreme cold. The sight 
 of a great Queen, the daughter, sister, and aunt of 
 a King of France, destitute of the necessaries of 
 life in the principal palace of her royal race, 
 
270 
 
 touched the not ungenerous heart of the Coadjutor^ 
 and he obtained for her a liberal provision from 
 the Parliament. Shortly afterwards the news of 
 the judicial murder of her husband plunged the 
 ill-fated lady in anguish and despair. In her 
 desolation she implored her sister-in-law to be 
 wise in time^ and to beware of arousing, by 
 arbitrary acts, the ferocious passions of an in- 
 furiated people. 
 
 The gravity of the situation also sobered Conde, 
 hitherto the fiercest advocate of repression. He 
 felt convinced that he had done enough to com- 
 mand the lasting gratitude of the Regent, who 
 loaded him with marks of affection, constantly 
 styling him her third son ; and he was not insen- 
 sible to the glory of again giving peace to France. 
 The result of this revulsion of feeUng at St. 
 Germain was, that the deliberations of the Coad- 
 jutor and his military aUies were disturbed by the 
 unwelcome intelligence that a royal herald, bear- 
 ing letters for the High Court, had presented 
 himself at the city gates and demanded audience. 
 In the present temper of the citizens, the opening 
 of communication between the Court and the 
 Parliament was fraught with ruin to the personal 
 projects of the insurgent leaders. De Retz, ever 
 fertile in resource, hit upon an ingenious mode of 
 averting the danger. He hinted to Broussel that 
 
 271 
 
 as heralds were sent only to sovereign princes 
 and rebels, the present mission was a perfidious 
 device of Cardinal Mazarin to entrap the ParHa- 
 ment into a confession of high treason. This 
 plausible theory, greedily accepted and confidently 
 expounded by Broussel and his democratic friends, 
 had the expected effect of filling the majority of 
 the magistrates with distrustful fears. But Mole 
 adroitly foiled the Coadjutor with his own weapons. 
 Acquiescing in the validity of the plea against 
 receiving the King^s missive, he carried a resolu- . 
 tion that the law officers of the Crown should be 
 deputed to St. Germain to explain to the Regent 
 that jealous loyalty and not disrespect prompted the 
 refusal. The Attorney- General, the eloquent and 
 patriotic Omer Talon, and his colleagues, discharged 
 their commission with zeal and prudence. Their 
 excuses were graciously listened to by the Regent. 
 They learned that the royal letter had only exacted 
 the retirement of the Parliament for one day to 
 Montargis, as the price of a general amnesty ; and 
 their rose-coloured pictures on their return of the 
 benevolent dispositions of the Court, fostered the 
 growing desire of peace. 
 
 A premature agreement between Anne of 
 Austria and the Parliament of Paris, which left 
 Mazarin Prime Minister of France, must topple 
 down the ladder of intrigue which De Retz had 
 
272 
 
 constructed witli so much secret toil and skill to 
 form his own ascent to power. The time was come 
 when, in order to inspirit his partizans and to baffle 
 the efforts of the peace party, it was necessary for 
 liiTn to play a bolder game ; to unmask the deeper 
 and more dangerous operations of his policy, to 
 which the revolt of the Capital was meant to serve 
 as an introduction. The civil war now passed into a 
 graver and sterner phase. The laughable incidents 
 and the gay frivolity, which had given it the clia- 
 racter of a glittering comedy, disappeared. The 
 splendid phantoms that had been paraded 
 to attract the popular favour faded away into 
 the background, and the interest centred in 
 the real actors. The jealousy of the Prince of 
 Marsillac had severed the intimate relations of 
 Madame de Longueville with the Coadjutor— and 
 shortly afterwards a dangerous wound, which the 
 Prince received in a sally, bereft her also of hia 
 support. Nature had not formed her for the 
 rough career of a revolutionary heroine. The 
 Hotel Eambouillet, with its refined pleasures and 
 its circle of briUiant adorers, was her proper 
 sphere. The timid Conti, still less at ease amidst 
 the rude famiharities and the violent passions of a 
 Parisian mob, instead of being a prop, leant on her 
 for protection. Chagrined and dispirited she 
 retired into privacy ; and the Hotel de Bouillon, 
 
 273 
 
 whither the Coadjutor repaired every day to con- 
 fer with the Duke and his energetic wife, became 
 the head quarters of the Fronde. 
 
 De Retz and Bouillon, by far the ablest men and 
 the most sternly in earnest of the insurgent party, 
 were thoroughly in accord as regarded the policy of 
 overthrowing the existing Government. But 
 their different political views and personal aims 
 caused a divergence of opinion as to the means 
 that should be adopted to accomplish this purpose. 
 Bouillon opposed Cardinal Mazarin as the leading 
 representative of a system which triumphed by 
 his own abasement, and the abasement of his 
 order. He sought to be re-established in his 
 sovereign dignity, and his forfeited territory of 
 Sedan, to aggrandize his family connexions, and, 
 as a more remote object of desire, to restore the 
 feudal power of the nobles. Contemning public 
 rights, other than those of the higher orders of 
 the realm, chafed by the pretensions of the 
 Chambers, and by association with plebeian gowns- 
 men, having no sympathy for the grievances of the 
 Third Estate, he wished to coerce the Parliament 
 and rule the Capital by the terror of organized 
 mobs ; to invite the Spanish army of Flanders to 
 co-operate with the troops of Turenne, the pro- 
 vincial levies of the territorial magnates, and the 
 Parisian forces in dictating terms to the Crown. 
 
 N 5 
 
274 
 
 He had hitherto held himself aloof from active 
 participation in the war, wrapping himself up in 
 haughty isolation until the preparations of the 
 Archduke, of Turenne, and of his aristocratic 
 confederates were sufficiently matured to enable 
 him to assume a position corresponding to his 
 claims. He now proposed to cast aside the cause 
 of the Parhament and the constitution of October 
 as a worn-out garment, to crush the opposition of 
 the loyal magistrates, and, strong in his potent 
 aUiances, to confront Anne of Austria as an equal 
 competitor for the possession of France. The 
 other Generals coincided in his views. 
 . De Eetz hated Mazarin as a personal rival. 
 Having no longer any hope of supplanting his 
 enemy in the favour of the Regent, he sought to 
 drive him from the kingdom by the force of a 
 popular movement deriving its sanction from the 
 venerable authority of the Parliament, which 
 would bear himself on its crest to the direction of 
 affairs. In order to endue this movement with the 
 power, energy, and ^prestige necessary to overturn 
 a long-estabhshed and successful administration, 
 he had drawn into it discontented ambitions of 
 Princes of the Blood and feudal chiefs, which 
 only partially approved themselves to his con- 
 victions ; and he even desired the intervention of 
 the Spaniards so far as it could be made subser-j 
 
 
 275 
 
 ( vient to his main object. But it was counter to 
 his views to destroy the authority of the great 
 judicial body which was the chief pillar of his own 
 ambition; which, by countenancing the revolt, 
 raised it from a mere outbreak of faction into a 
 patriotic assertion of national rights> clothed it 
 with the strength of justice and legality, and 
 enlisted in its support the active sympathies of 
 the middle classes. It was equally contrary to 
 his intentions, by any rash step, to place himself 
 beyond the pale of Parliamentary protection, a 
 safe object for the vengeance of the Regent. As 
 wary as he was bold, he was the soul of the* re- 
 bellion, and yet carefully guarded his own security^ 
 fHe moved all the springs of the Fronde without 
 letting his hand be too conspicuous. Through 
 Beaufort he ruled the populace of Paris. Through 
 Bouillon and the other Generals he guided the 
 military operations and the Spanish intrigues. 
 Through Broussel and other popular demagogues 
 he swayed the deliberations of the Chambers. 
 But while bringing all the moral influences he 
 could command to inflame and extend the civil 
 war, and to shape the action of the Parhament in 
 a course of uncompromising resistance, he pro- 
 tected the magistrates from seditious violence, 
 and regulated his steps by their decisions^ 
 r^It was clear, however, to both of these exj, 
 
276 
 
 perienced leaders, that unless the fainting spirits 
 ^f the Parisians could be raised by an immediate 
 prospect of external aid, the struggle against the 
 Government must collapse. The great provincial 
 nobles still required time to complete their arma- 
 ments. Turenne, thwarted by the opposition of 
 Baron d^Erlach, Colonel of the Swiss, had not yet 
 ventured on a public declaration of his intentions. 
 Alliance with Spain would be spumed by the 
 Parliament with horror. But it occurred to the 
 Coadjutor that it might be possible, by a surprise, 
 to trick the High Court into an appearance of 
 friendly communication with the Archduke 
 Leopold, which, by feeding the war fever in 
 the Capital, and by incensing the Kegent, must 
 cast new obstacles in the way of an accom- 
 modation. 
 
 The Archduke had recently accredited a skilful 
 agent to De Retz and Bouillon, a monk named 
 Arnulphini, furnished with a number of blank 
 forms signed by Leopold, and vnth a formal letter 
 of credence to the Duke of Elboeuf, to be used 
 according as the two leading chiefs might see fit. 
 This envoy, acting in concert with the Coadjutor, 
 now assumed the name and garb of Don Joseph 
 de Illescas, a Spanish cavalier, and presented the 
 letter. Elbceuf, who was vain and presumptuous, 
 received the Archduke's communication as a 
 
 277 
 
 flattering^ mark of distinction. With an air of 
 mysterious importance, that was highly diverting 
 to the contrivers of the intrigue, he invited his 
 military colleagues and De Retz to a conference at 
 his hotel, and introduced to them the pseudo am- 
 bassador. In the afternoon of the same day, the 
 Prince of Conti announced, from his place in the 
 Chamber, that the Archduke Leopold, having been 
 offered most advantageous terms of peace by 
 Cardinal Mazarin, who wished to have his hands 
 free to oppress the Parliament, had not only re- 
 fused to abet the designs of the proscribed 
 minister, but had dispatched a special envoy to 
 crave audience of the High Court. The Prince 
 concluded by divulging the arrival of Don Joseph 
 de Illescas, and proposing that he should at once 
 be heard. The motion was listened to by the 
 majority of the Chamber with alarm and indig- 
 nation. The President de Mesmes, hurried away 
 by patriotic anger, poured a torrent of invective 
 upon the head of the unmoved Coadjutor. In the 
 unguarded rush of his passion, he let fall a phrase 
 which wounded the self-love of the magistrates. 
 De Retz promptly interrupted his assailant, and 
 in a happy retort carried the Chamber so com- 
 pletely with him, that the loyal majority, yielding 
 to the clamour, reluctantly consented to grant the 
 envoy audience. 
 
278 
 
 279 
 
 Arnulphini immediately presented himself, for- 
 tified by credentials and letters, which De Retz 
 had manufactured with the help of the Archduke's 
 signatures. He informed the magistrates that 
 his master, out of respect for their illustrious body, 
 the legal depository of the royal authority during 
 the minority of Louis XIV., had declined to coun- 
 tenance Cardinal Mazarin; that the Archduke 
 was ready to treat for peace with France at any 
 place the Parliament should appoint, and in the 
 meantime placed twenty thousand troops at its ser- 
 vice. Having finished his harangue, he delivered 
 his letters, and by the order of the First President 
 was conducted from the Chamber. By this time 
 the cloud of passion which obscured the judgment 
 of the assembly had passed away, and been fol- 
 lowed by a re- action of patriotic fears. Mole, 
 seeing his advantage, proposed that a deputation 
 should carry the letters to St. Germain, and inform 
 the Regent that the Parliament had not presumed 
 to deliberate on, or even to open them without the 
 royal permission. A decree to this effect passed 
 without opposition, and the Coadjutor found his 
 bold artifice foiled, a second time, by the calm 
 decision of the First President. 
 
 The failure of this clever imposture exasperated 
 the Generals. Bouillon urged the Coadjutor to 
 excite a popular commotion, to arrest, and imprison 
 
 Mole, and the principal men of the hostile party, 
 and to join in a letter demanding armed assistance 
 from the King of Spain. But De Retz, knowing 
 that the Spanish alliance was the rock upon which 
 •the most powerful confederacies against Richelieu 
 had foundered, and that the destruction of the 
 independence of the Parliament would be the 
 shipwreck of his own fortunes, resolutely refused 
 his assent. '' All things,'^ he said, ^^ with the 
 Parliament ; nothing without it.^' The Generals, 
 therefore, were obliged to restrict themselves to 
 negotiating with the Court of Brussels, on their 
 own responsibility, and to sending pressing 
 messages to their provincial allies to hasten their 
 movements. 
 
 The Coadjutor's stratagem, though baffled in 
 the Chamber, was not without its effect at St. 
 G ermain. Anne of Austria, irritated by the public 
 audience granted to her brother's envoy, listened 
 to the explanations and excuses of Mole and his 
 colleagues with impatience. The entreaties of 
 the First President, seconded by the advice of 
 Orleans, Conde, and Mazarin, wrung from her 
 with difficulty a peevish consent to a conference, 
 in which terms of agreement might be discussed. 
 She privately made it an absolute condition that 
 the Cardinal's position of Prime Minister should 
 not be questioned. On the other hand, she pro- 
 
 / 
 
280 
 
 mised to allow a daily supply of provisions to 
 enter the Capital, where the populace, pinched by 
 the approaches of famine, showed a disposition to 
 repeat the revolutionary excesses of their fathers 
 in the days of Bussy le Clerc and the '' Sixteen/' 
 Armed with this concession, the First President 
 returned to Paris, and treating with calm scorn 
 the ferocious threats of the dregs of the popula- 
 tion, who were subsidised by Bouillon, persuaded 
 the High Court to accept the conference. The 
 Generals again proposed to assassinate or seize 
 him, and to kindle an insurrection ; and again De 
 Eetz steadily withstood their pressure, and the 
 more dangerous assaults of the Duchess of 
 
 Bouillon. 
 
 The presidents Viole and Coigneux, leaders of 
 the extreme party, were associated with Mole and 
 De Mesmes to represent the Chamber at Euel, the 
 seat of the negotiations. The principal members 
 of the CouncH of State attended on behalf of the 
 Crown. But the conditions insisted on by the 
 Regent were found to be as haughty and severe as 
 if she were imposing the harsh law of the con- 
 queror on prostrate rebels. They exacted the 
 exile of the High Court to Montargis, and the 
 suppression or curtailment of its newly acquired 
 privileges. It was impossible for the magistrates 
 to accept a humiliation which involved the sur- 
 
 281 
 
 render of the principles embodied in the Declara- 
 tion of October. But Anne of Austria, jealous 
 of the dignity of the Crown, and submitting with 
 ill-humour to the temporising poHcy of her Council^ 
 could not be induced to relax her demands. The 
 negotiations came to a dead-lock, and after many 
 days of barren discussion it seemed as if the con- 
 ference was about to terminate without result. 
 
 While the delegates were wasting their hours 
 in fruitless debates, the course of events had 
 wrought a complete change in the character and 
 prospects of the Civil War and in the temper of 
 the Capital. Turenne, crossing the Ehine at the 
 head of his army, had issued a proclamation in 
 which he assumed the title of Lieutenant- General 
 of the King's army in the service of the Parlia- 
 ment, and had set out on his march for Paris. 
 Before the citizens recovered from the first 
 fever of joyful excitement into which this news 
 had thrown them, messengers from Normandy 
 announced the advance of the Duke of Longue- 
 ville, with ten thousand men, on St. Germain, to 
 capture the King and the Regent. Fast upon the 
 heels of Longueville's couriers came others from the 
 south to herald the arrival of a still more numerous 
 force under the Duke of La Tremouille. A second 
 agent, despatched by the Archduke Leopold, 
 having concluded a secret treaty with the Generals, 
 
282 
 
 the enterprising Marquis of Noirmoutier had 
 departed for Brussels to hasten the invasion of 
 the Spaniards. And in order better to co-operate 
 with the movements of his allies, Bouillon led out 
 fourteen thousand of the best of the Parisian 
 troops to an entrenched camp at Yillejuif, in 
 the angle formed by the junction of the Seine 
 and Marne — a position which Conde pronounced 
 to be unassailable. The agitation of the populace 
 rose to frenzy. The inflexible severity of the 
 Eegent, and the toleration extended to Cardinal 
 Mazarin, alienated the middle classes. The party 
 of the Coadjutor obtained the upper hand in the 
 Chambers, and the Parliament resolved, by a 
 large majority, to cancel the powers of its dele- 
 gates, and recall them from Ruel. 
 
 The intelligence that reached him from the 
 Capital filled the patriotic heart of Mole with 
 grief for the calamities impending over the 
 monarchy. An intercepted copy of the treaty 
 concluded by Bouillon and his colleagues with the 
 King of Spain, which was communicated to him by 
 the Regent, excited in his breast poignant feelings 
 of shame and indignation, ^e had, up to this time, 
 scrupulously avoided any recognition of Cardinal 
 Mazarines presence at Ruel, but now all other con- 
 siderations were lost in an over-mastering purpose 
 to save the State from the machinations of traitors. 
 
 283 
 
 With his friend De Mesmes, who shared his views, 
 he repaired at midnight to Mazarines lodgings, and 
 told the astonished Minister that, having received 
 intimation that their commission would be revoked 
 on the following day, they were prepared to risk 
 their lives, and sign without further delay any treaty 
 which he might dictate. It was for the Ministers' 
 interest to grant such conditions as would justify 
 their act to the Parliament, and enable them to 
 defeat the practices of the confederate lords ; but^ 
 whatever he might determine, their part was 
 chosen. Mazarin, fully appreciating the peril of 
 the situation and the magnanimity of the magis- 
 trates, summoned Orleans and Conde, and wrote out 
 the draft of a new treaty. In whatever touched the 
 dignity of the Crown this document was studi- 
 ously exacting ; but the concessions were as large 
 as he could hope to extort from the Regent. The 
 banishment of the Parliament to Montargis was 
 commuted to a visit to St. Germain ; its political 
 discussions were subjected to a temporary res- 
 traint ; the Government reserved to itself the 
 right of borrowing money for its present necessi- 
 ties j but the Declaration of October the 24th 
 was explicitly confirmed, and a general amnesty 
 was guaranteed. With the draft in his pocket, 
 the Cardinal started off for St. Germain, and 
 after some hours returned with it, signed by 
 
284 
 
 the Regent. M0I& and De Mesmes wept for joy 
 —and even Coigneux and Viole, scared by the 
 Spanisli treaty, affixed their names without hesi- 
 tation. The signatures were scarcely dry when 
 messengers arrived with the decree of the High 
 Court annulling the powers of its representatives. 
 Mole displayed the treaty in triumph, and returned 
 to Paris, amidst the hootings and execrations of 
 the rabble, conscious of his danger, and prepared 
 to devote his life for his country. 
 
 The Parhament, though strongly adverse to a 
 compromise with the Regent, which left Cardinal 
 Mazarin at the helm of affairs, had adjourned in 
 order to give its First President a hearing before 
 coming to a decision. The Generals were deter- 
 mined to use all means to prevent the ratification 
 of the treaty. At an early hour of the morning 
 Paris exhibited all the signs of feverish agitation. 
 The seditious cries and the lowering looks of the 
 groups, restlessly forming and dissolving in the 
 places of public resort, gave ominous presage of a 
 political tempest. . At seven o'clock the members 
 of the High Court were in their places, and M0I6 
 read out the minutes of the proceedings at Ruel. 
 The reading was frequently interrupted by angry 
 cries and insolent comments, which swelled at its 
 conclusion into a tumult of frantic denunciation. 
 Conti rose, and in gentle tones reproached the 
 
 I 
 
 285 
 
 First President with perfidiously betraying the 
 interests of the Generals, who were abandoned by 
 the treaty to the vengeance of the outlawed 
 Minister. Bouillon followed, saying curtly, that 
 all he asked of the Chamber was a passport to 
 quit the kingdom, since Mazarin was to be re- 
 established in his abuse of the royal authority. 
 The deafening clamour and the wild gesticulations 
 which applauded this artful speech had only 
 partially subsided, when a muffled roar, making 
 itself audible above the din, announced the pre- 
 sence of an excited multitude in the Place de 
 Greve. Conti, rising again, repeated his com- 
 plaints against the First President for concluding 
 a peace without his participation. Then M0I6, 
 unable longer to restrain his indignation, started 
 to his feet with flashing eyes, and in a voice of 
 thunder, which subdued the uproar, and arrested 
 universal attention, addressed the Prince — ''What, 
 Sir,'' he exclaimed, " you ask why we concluded 
 peace without your participation ? We did so to 
 circumvent the pernicious, traitorous, and mur- 
 derous designs of yourself and your colleagues. 
 While we were at Ruel,'' he continued, turning to 
 the assembly, "our self-styled protectors were 
 neo-ociating with the enemies of France. You,'' 
 he said to Conti and Bouillon, '' sent the Marquis 
 of Noirmoutier to the Archduke. Your letters. 
 
286 
 
 which we have read, summoHed the Archduke to 
 France, and dehvered this fair reahn to the ravages 
 of a foreign enemy. You give us such allies 
 without our consent. Can you wonder that we 
 repudiate and resent such an indignity V The 
 Chamber listened spell-bound in incredulous 
 amazement. " We took this step/' faltered the 
 disconcerted Conti, with white lips, " by the advice 
 of certain members of this august Court.'^ " Name 
 them, name them,'' thundered Mole, ''and we 
 will arraign and sentence them as criminals guilty 
 of high treason." His vehement words were 
 echoed back by a storm of applause. The magis- 
 trates, revolting from their position of dishonoured 
 dupes, gave free rein to their patriotic resentment. 
 The treaty was about to be voted by acclamation, 
 when a wild clamour of shrieks and yells resounded 
 from the outer hall, and the terrified ushers, 
 rushing into the Chamber, implored the Duke of 
 Beaufort to come forth and address the mob. 
 Armed ruffians, in Bouillon's pay, led on by a 
 lawyer named Deboisle, had invaded the Palace 
 ' of Justice, loudly demanding Mole's head. 
 
 Beaufort was instantly surrounded by a band 
 of viragoes, bereft, by a life of lawless de- 
 pravity, of all but the form of their sex, who 
 insisted on tearing the First President Umb from 
 limb. While he held these furious women in 
 
 287 
 
 parley, the multitude behind burst open the side 
 doors, and with horrible imprecations rushed into 
 the galleries of the Chamber. Part of the balus- 
 trade, yielding to the pressure of the crowd, 
 crashed down upon the trembhng magistrates, 
 and increased their terror and confusion. Mole 
 alone remained calm and undaunted. " Never," 
 says De Retz, '' did I behold such sublime intre- 
 pidity as was displayed by M. Mole. Not a 
 feature quivered, and he exhibited indomitable 
 firmness, and presence of mind almost super- 
 natural." The members gathered round their 
 President, and implored him to quit the building 
 by a door behind the throne, which gave access 
 to his official residence. '' The Court never hides 
 itself," he repHed. '' If I knew that my death 
 was certain, nothing should induce me to fly. 
 Would not treason be encouraged ? Would not 
 the rabble seek me in my own house, if I was 
 guilty of such cowardice ?" And he strode forward 
 proudly towards the grand entrance. De Retz, 
 moved by generous admiration, threw himseK in 
 the President's path, and besought him at least to 
 wait until he endeavoured to disperse the rioters. 
 '' Then, my good lord," said Mole, in bitter scorn, 
 " speak the merciful word quickly." The Coad- 
 jutor, disregarding the injurious insinuation which, 
 in the present instance, was undeserved, mounted 
 
288 
 
 on a bench and harangued the rabble, but was 
 answered with jeers and laughter, and discharges 
 of musketry. He then went to seek Deboisle. 
 M0I6, disdaining even the appearance of hesita- 
 tion, refused to tarry longer, and advanced with a 
 few faithful friends to the head of the principal 
 Btair-case. De Ketz flew to his side, and Bouillon, 
 ashamed and alarmed at the excesses of his 
 partizans, followed the Archbishop's example. 
 The mob, drunk with fury, set upon them with 
 indiscriminating violence. Bouillon was felled to 
 the ground and trampled under foot by his own 
 adherents. De Retz, in warding off a dagger- 
 thrust from the President's breast, was wounded 
 in the hand. A ruffian put a loaded musket to 
 Mold's head. " When you have killed me,'' said 
 the illustrious magistrate, with unflinching com- 
 posure, ''I shall only need six feet of earth!" 
 His undaunted bearing and noble presence struck 
 even the frenzied wretches, who thirsted for his 
 blood, with awe. Despite themselves, they aUowed 
 him to descend thfe steps; his friends placed him 
 in the carriage of one of the Generals, and he 
 reached his house in safety. 
 
 Early on the f oUowing morning Mole was agam 
 
 in his place, with the treaty of Ruel in his hand. 
 
 ^ The terrible scene of the previous day had left a 
 
 yivid impression of horror on the minds, even of his 
 
 289 
 
 • opponents in the Chamber. Conti, under whose 
 superior rank his colleagues had sheltered them- 
 selves, sick from fright, was unable to leave his 
 bed. The other Generals earnestly deprecated a 
 renewal of mob violence, and declared their de- 
 sire to use only the weapons of legitimate argument ; 
 and the Provost of Paris mustered the Burgher 
 Guard to protect the deliberations of the High 
 Court. In an able speech, Bouillon vaunted the 
 overwhelming military strength of the confederacy, 
 pledged himself to raise the siege of Paris, and 
 to expel Mazarin from France. But the alarm 
 inspired by the Spanish treaty lent irresistible 
 weight to the eloquence of Mole. The Chamber 
 struck out the humiliating clause which imposed 
 on it a penitential journey to St. Germain, and 
 whatever else infringed the rights conceded by the 
 Declaration of October, but accepted the re- 
 mainder of the treaty by a large majority. The 
 First President was again deputed to obtain the 
 Regent's assent to the required modifications. 
 
 No intelligence from Viscount Turenne had 
 reached Paris for several days. The uncertainty 
 that rested on his movements determined the 
 military chiefs not to throw away an opportunity 
 of serving their interests by peaceful negotiations 
 with the Regent ; accordingly they sent, through 
 Mole, a formidable schedule of demands for them- 
 VOL. I. ^ 
 
I 
 
 290 
 
 selves and their friends. Anne of Austria glanced 
 scornfully over tins liuge catalogue of exactions, 
 wliicli implied a complete change in the distribu- 
 tion of political power, and then threw it aside, 
 as if for future consideration. But a third envoy 
 from the Archduke arriving with intelligence that 
 ten thousand Spaniards had entered Champagne, 
 the Generals resumed their defiant attitude ; the 
 High Court again resounded with denunciations 
 of Cardinal Mazarin ; and his imputed vices were 
 publicly scourged in fresh lampoons impregnated to 
 the highest point with virulence and wit. The re- 
 newed confidence of the war party was unex- 
 pectedly dashed, however, by a piece of news 
 which reached the Hotel Bouillon while De Retz 
 and the Spanish envoy were dining, in high 
 spirits, with the Duke and Duchess. 
 
 When Turenne's ambiguous proceedings first 
 awakened the suspicions of the Government, the 
 Cardinal had secretly sent a large sum of money 
 and the commission of General to the Baron 
 d'Erlach, with instructions to frustrate any 
 treasonable practices on the part of his superior 
 officer, by discharging the arrears of pay due to 
 the troops, and assuming the supreme command. 
 These precautionary measures proved the salvation 
 of the Government. The army, which w^s mainly 
 composed of German mercenaries, won over by the 
 
 291 
 
 golden arguments of d'Erlach, declared, after a few 
 marches on the French territory, for the Regent 
 and Conde. Turenne, abandoned by all except a 
 few personal attendants, narrowly escaped arrest by 
 a precipitate flight into Germany. The Spanish 
 force ravaging Champagne, on hearing of this 
 defection, beat a rapid retreat into Flanders. 
 
 The game of the Fronde was evidently played 
 out for the present. Baffled and isolated, the 
 confederate lords were under the necessity of 
 acquiescing, with what grace they might, in the 
 restoration of tranquillity. Bouillon, in announcing 
 to the Parliament the failure of his hopes, declared, 
 with some dignity, on behalf of the Generals, that 
 their demands upon the crown were prompted by 
 the necessity of protecting themselves against 
 Cardinal Mazarin, and that they were ready to 
 relinquish all personal claims, if the banished 
 minister retired from France. Notwithstanding 
 this show of disinterestedness, the Cardinal found 
 them all eager to engage in his favourite political 
 game of secret intrigue and corruption. He 
 carried on a separate negotiation with Conti and 
 Madame de Longueville, with Bouillon, and with 
 Madame de Montbazon, who still, in spite of time 
 and absence, reigned without a rival over the 
 heart of the Duke of Beaufort. The noble 
 character and devoted loyalty of Mole gave just 
 
I 
 
 292 
 
 weight to his counsels, and he succeeded in per- 
 suading the Regent to ratify the treaty of Ruel, 
 as modified by the Parliament. The leaders of 
 the feudal party availed themselves of the amnesty^ 
 and, with the exception of Beaufort, presented 
 themselves at court to make their submission. 
 Out of consideration for Conde, Conti obtained 
 the stronghold of Damvilliers in his Government 
 of Champagne, with Marsillac for Lieutenant, 
 enjoying the emoluments ; and Longueville was 
 promised possession of Pont de TArche, the key 
 of Normandy. Bouillon, the most dangerous 
 conspirator and the deepest in guilt, had to content 
 himself with a vague assurance that his claims 
 would be examined at some future time. Madame 
 de Montbazon, whose greed was insatiable in 
 ministering to her luxurious pleasures, was pro- 
 pitiated by the gift of a large sum of money ; and 
 some favours were conferred on Noirmoutier and 
 other staunch partizans of De Retz. The Coad- 
 jutor shaped his .own course with his usual judg- 
 ment. The prudence and foresight which had 
 preserved him from the formal guHt of high 
 treason, saved him now from the humihation of a 
 public act of submission. He retired to the 
 privacy of his palace, with the declared intention 
 of occupying himself exclusively with his episcopal 
 duties ; and although he sent to the Regent loyal 
 
 293 
 
 ^ assurances of his unalterable devotion, he declined 
 tr visit the Court, or in any way to recognise 
 Mazarin as Prime Minister. By this line of 
 conduct he maintained his credit with the 
 Parisians, and avoided compromising his political 
 
 aims. 
 
 In the beginning of April peace was proclaimed 
 
 in the Capital ; the armies of the Fronde were 
 disbanded ; and affairs appeared to resume their 
 normal condition. But the fierce animosities 
 from which the conflict had sprung, and those 
 which it had engendered, though smothered, 
 were scarcely allayed. Society was still agitated 
 by the after-swell of the revolutionary storm. 
 Anne of Austria, mortified at the failure of her 
 pohcy, distrustful of the temper of the citizens, 
 and deeply galled by the insults and the defiance so 
 freely flung at herself and her cherished minister, 
 refused to enter the impenitent city, and swept 
 by it with her whole Court to pass the summer at 
 Compiegne. 
 
 END OP VOL. I. 
 
 T. C. Newby, 30, Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, London. 
 
MR. NEWSY'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 lii;- 
 
 In 1 Vol. Price 7s. 6d. A cheaper Edition of 
 
 THE SPAS OF GERMANY, 
 
 By THOMAS MORE MADDEN, M.D., 
 
 Examiner in Midwifery in the Queen's University in Ireland, 
 Physician to the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, and Author of " Change 
 of Climate, ' &c. 
 
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COLUMBIA TTX 
 
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THE GREAT CONOfe 
 
 ▲HD 
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE FRONDE, 
 
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 THE GREAT CONDE 
 
 K^ 
 
 AND 
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE FRONDE. 
 
 A HISTORICAL SKETCH. 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER FITZ PATRICK. 
 
 VOL. IL 
 
 London : 
 T. CAUTLEY NEWBY, PUBLISHER, 
 
 30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. 
 
 1873. 
 
 [all rights resebved.] 
 
^ i/ 1/, 3 3 
 
 V=2 
 
 THE GREAT CONDE AND THE 
 PERIOD OF THE FRONDE. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 7^/^3-// 
 
 Amidst the majestic solitudes and tlie sylvan 
 pleasures of her delightful retreat, Anne of 
 Austria found grateful repose from the fierce 
 strife in which the preceding twelve months of 
 her Eegency had been passed. The Court was 
 joyous and brilliant ; the beauty, accomplishments, 
 and modest graces of Mazarines eldest nieces, 
 Laura Mancini and the Countess Martinozzi, who 
 appeared for the first time as members of the 
 Queen's circle, brightened it with charms which 
 owed nothing of their lustre to meretricious art. 
 The amnesty stipulated in the treaty of Ruel, by 
 re-opening France to illustrious exiles of the high 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 B 
 
 76144 
 
 
nobility, gave additional splendour to the royal 
 retinue. The Duke of Vendome, returning from 
 his long sojourn in Italy, repaired to Compeigne 
 with his eldest son, the Duke of Mercoeur; and 
 even Madame de Chevreuse, notwithstanding her 
 recent treason at Brussels, ventured ba^k to her 
 beloved Paris. Anne of Austria, incensed by a 
 Btep which she regarded as a new act of defiance, 
 ordered the Duchess to quit the kingdom. But 
 the mandate was almost immediately revoked in 
 deference to the remonstrances of the First Presi- 
 dent Mole ; and the Kegent, softened by a penitent 
 letter of submission, allowed her old friend to re- 
 appear at Court, and even to resume some of 
 the privileges of a favourite. 
 
 The tranquillity of Compeigne, however, waa 
 soon disturbed by the breaking out of dissensions 
 between Conde and the Cardinal. The Prince 
 had naturaUy expected that his birth, his gemus, 
 and the great services he had rendered the Crown, 
 would entitle him to the lead in the Council of 
 State. But he found, to his indignation and dis- 
 gust, that, peace being re-established, he was 
 reduced to play a part subordinate to that of the 
 Minister. The popular sarcasm, which designated 
 him Mazarines Captain of the Guard, cut him to 
 the quick, and an event occurred which blew up 
 
 ii 
 
 
 a 
 
 into a fierce blaze the smouldering fire of his 
 jealous resentment. The Duke of Yendome, a 
 cowardly and incapable Prince, pining for the 
 sunshine of Court favour, from which he had been 
 BO long banished, proposed a marriage between 
 his eldest son and Laura Mancini. Mazarin 
 eagerly grasped at an illustrious alliance which 
 had long been floating in his ambitious dreams. 
 Mercoeur fell captive to the charms of the beauti- 
 ful Itahan. The Regent warmly promoted the 
 match; and the CardinaFs dower to his niece,- 
 the post of High Admiral of France for yend6me, 
 with succession to his son, and an enormous sum 
 of money, was not unworthy the rank of her 
 intended husband. But the House of Yendome, 
 the fruit of Henry lY.'s amour with Gabrielle 
 d'Estrees, and exalted by the prodigal favour of its 
 progenitor to an equal footing with the legitimate 
 Princes of the Blood, had always been regarded by 
 these, and especially by the Conde family, with 
 scorn and hatred. The great dignity which the 
 Reo-ent was now about to confer on its inglorious 
 chief, out of complaisance for her Minister, she 
 had frequently refused to the brilliant services of 
 the Prince ; and he thought he discerned a perfi- 
 dious design, on the part of the Court, to depress 
 his power, and to restore, at the expense of his 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 just claims, the fallen greatness of a rival family. 
 The Dowager Princess, after the peace of Ruel, 
 had reconcHed her children. Madame de Longue- 
 viUe had recovered her hold upon the affections 
 of her fiery brother. Smarting under the cuttmg 
 disdain with which the Regent had received her at 
 St Germain, the Duchess now worked so ^rtfuUy 
 upon Condi's passions, that, giving free rein to his 
 wrath, he publicly denounced the marnage, and 
 all who were in any way parties to it, in outrageous 
 terms of menace and insult. And although the 
 alarmed Minister pretended to abandon the project 
 of alliance witn Venddme, Hs haughty protector 
 quitted Compeigne in high dudgeon, and retn-ed 
 to his Government of Burgundy. 
 
 Conde's departure left in the mind of the 
 Eegent a sense of inexpressible reUef, but the 
 position of pubUc affairs made his support mdis- 
 pensable to the Government. The state of the 
 Capital was far from satisfactory. The well-dis- 
 posed inhabitants mourned the depression of trade, 
 and the desolate aspect of deserted palaces and 
 mansions ; the evil-disposed saw with regret that 
 the Regent and her Minister were beyond their 
 reach. De Retz, Beaufort, and their partizans 
 fomented the general discontent. The Cardinal 
 was again freely assaUed in the Chambers, and m 
 
 
 .. 
 
 virulent brocliures. The Duke of Orleans re- 
 turned to the Luxembourg amidst extravagant 
 demonstrations of popular delight. Vast multi- 
 tudes thronged forth to meet him, weeping with 
 joy, and pressing eagerly to kiss his feet -, and all 
 the public bodies came to offer him their homage. 
 Cond6 paid a flying visit to the Capital, and 
 although he had found a malicious pleasure in 
 spreading the belief that it was his habit, during 
 the war, to feast on the ears of the fat burghers 
 he had killed or taken, his dauntless bearing as 
 he traversed, unattended, the crowded thorough- 
 fares, elicited applause. But an empty coach 
 bearing Mazarines aims, sent into the city to 
 test the temper of the population, was smashed 
 to pieces by the mob ; and some of the Regent's 
 servants who ventured to show themselves in the 
 streets, in the royal liveries, were cruelly beaten. 
 Anne of Austria, naturally incensed by these 
 evidences of hostile feeling, gave ungracious 
 answers to the deputations that arrived from 
 Paris, in rapid succession, to entreat her to return. 
 The pressure, however, of financial difficulties, 
 which the Parliament refused to consider during 
 the absence of the Court, and the re-appearance 
 of Conde at Compeigne in an amiable mood, after 
 a time, rendered her more compUant. . The Prince, 
 
Hi 
 
 appeased by the Minister's submission, and dis- 
 liking tbe principles, tbe tactics, and tbe chief 
 heroes of the Fronde, pledged himself to conduct 
 the Court in safety to the Palais Royal. 
 
 Under his protection the Eang, the Regent, and 
 the Cardinal set out from Compeigne in the middle 
 of a sultry August. Through one of those sudden 
 revolutions of pubhc feeling, which have made 
 the fickleness of the French people proverbial, 
 their entry into the Capital was an extraordinary 
 triumph. The loyal enthusiasm of the citizens 
 was only equalled by their considerate delicacy. 
 Everything that could suggest the slightest recol- 
 lection of past troubles, even the chains which at 
 that time guarded the entrances of the streets, 
 were carefully removed from view. Strangest of 
 all. Cardinal Mazarin, whom every day for years 
 the Parisians had loaded with curses and insults, 
 found himself, as he sat at one of the doors of 
 the King's coach, a popular idol. Wherever he 
 passed he heard nothing except the language of 
 adulation. The sinister-looking outlaws of society, 
 who herded in the foul dens in the neighbourhood 
 of Notre Dame, proved false to their Archbishop ; 
 the fish hags were unfaithful to Beaufort in their 
 clamorous admiration of the handsome Cardinal* 
 At the opposite door of the coach Cond^ sat, with 
 
 iron countenance, noting the capricious humour 
 of the rabble in silent disdain. The evening was 
 far advanced before a slow progress of many hours 
 in the stifling heat, through the choked streets, 
 brought the Sovereigns to the Palais Royal. The 
 noble halls of Richelieu blazed with light, and 
 were thronged to suffocation by every person of 
 eminence, Mazarinist or Frondeur, in Paris. Even 
 De Retz and Beaufort, borne along in spite of 
 themselves by the rushing tide of loyal re-action, 
 were there to offer reluctant homage. In the 
 view of this splendid assembly, Anne of Austria, 
 radiant with joy, turned to Cond6 with tearful 
 eyes, and pledged her eternal crratitude for the 
 services he had rendered the King. So strong 
 did she feel herself, in the overwhehning revulsion 
 of popular favour, that she proffered De Retz the 
 option of resigning his Coadjutorship or paying a 
 visit of reconciliation to the Cardinal. The dis- 
 comfited prelate— on whom vexation at the sur- 
 prising turn of affairs brought a serious illness- 
 bowed before the storm, had a most affectionate 
 conference with his complacent rival, and then 
 retired to the precincts of Notre Dame to watch 
 warily, until the rapid mutation of public feeling 
 offered another opportunity of hurling him from 
 power. 
 
8 
 
 Conde was now Arbiter of France. His posi- 
 tion was such; so favourable a concurrence of 
 circumstances seconded bis ambition^ that had he 
 used his advantages with ordinary wisdom his 
 power might have become as stable as it was vast. 
 In re-establishing the Court at the Palais Royal, 
 he had redeemed his pledges to the Regent, and 
 was now free to pursue an independent course. 
 His reconciliation with his sister secured to him 
 the undivided allegiance of all the members and 
 connexions of his family, and enlisted in his per- 
 sonal interests Bouillon, Turenne (whom he com- 
 pelled the Regent to pardon), Marsillac, and other 
 powerful chiefs of the feudal party. He held in 
 his hands the balance between the contending 
 factions in the State, and it was evident to all that 
 the scale into which he threw his sword must pre- 
 ponderate. 
 
 To the Government his support was absolutely 
 essential in the dangers that beset it. The ex- 
 uberant loyalty that greeted the return of the 
 sovereigns to Paris seemed to have evaporated in 
 the heat and tumult of the long summer day. 
 Madame de Chevreuse, rendered prudent by re- 
 verses, but still preserving her political fire and 
 address, had infused new life into the Fronde, and 
 brought it under the control of her intriguing 
 
 9 
 
 spirit. Weaving her spells around the feeble 
 mind of Orleans, she gradually detached him from 
 Anne of Austria; while the witcheries of her 
 beautiful and profligate daughter held fast the 
 Coadjutor in amorous toils. The defection of the 
 Lieutenant-General could only be supplied by a 
 firm alliance with Conde ; and had the Prince/ 
 following in the footsteps of his father, steadily 
 sustained the Regent and her Minister, there was 
 hardly any concession which he might not have 
 obtained from their gratitude or necessities. 
 
 Jt was also open to him, by taking his stand 
 with Mole on the Declaration of the 24th of 
 October, to which he had twice given his sanction, 
 to become the guardian of good government, and 
 public rights, against the excesses of authority and 
 of faction ; and, discarding mere personal or party 
 aims, to guide the destinies in serving the highest 
 interests of France. This would have been the 
 course most consonant with his glory, his dignity, 
 and an enlightened appreciation of his own 
 
 advantage. 
 
 It was possible for him, as a third alter- 
 native, to drive Cardinal Mazarin from the 
 kingdom, and boldly to seize ihe reins of Govern- 
 ment. This was the course urged upon him by 
 De Retz. Any one of the three lines of policy, 
 
 B 5 
 
10 
 
 resolutely and consistently pursued, must almost 
 certa'nly have insured to him for many years a 
 commanding position in the State. But his 
 career offers a memorable example of the per- 
 nicious effect of early and dazzling success, even 
 upon a nature endowed with noble qualities, and 
 with the rarest intellectual faculties. His splendid 
 genius, gifted with such unerring vision, so fruit- 
 ful of rapid and daring combinations in war, 
 seemed bewildered and stricken with sterility in 
 the strife of poHtics. It became the sport of his 
 capricious passions and wayward impulses ; equally 
 bereft of the vivifying light of patriotic principles, 
 and of the resolute sagacity to shape out and 
 pursue a line of vulgar ambition. Listening now 
 to his sister and De Retz, now to the Regent, he 
 veered about a hundred times in a day, in a state 
 of perplexity and vacillation that amused and 
 astonished friends and foes. 
 
 Madame de Longuevillo was unwearied in her 
 efforts to draw him over to the Fronde. She art- 
 fully induced him to test the sincerity of the 
 Regent's professions by claiming the fulfilment of 
 a promise, made after the treaty of Ruel, to hand 
 over Pont de 1' Arche, the key of Normandy, to his 
 brother-in-law. Anne of Austria and Mazarin 
 both declined to surrender this stronghold to the 
 
 7 
 
 ^' 
 
 11 
 
 Governor of the province, for reasons of State. 
 The Prince pressed his suit with violence, and at 
 length, exasperated by repeated refusals, grossly 
 insulted the Cardinal. At the conclusion of a 
 stormy interview, he shook his fist in the Minis- 
 ter's face, gave him a fillip on the cheek, and 
 rushed from the room shouting, with ironical 
 laughter, " Adieu, Mars.'' Intelligence of this 
 unseemly quarrel soon reached the Coadjutor, 
 exalting him on the wings of hope to the pinnacle 
 of triumphant ambition . The darling scheme, over 
 which he had long brooded, of a coalition of great 
 nobles and popular magistrates, headed by the 
 hero of Rocroi and Lens against his Italian rival, 
 was about at length to assume shape and consis- 
 tency. Hastening to the Hotel de Cond^ he 
 offered the Prince the support of the Fronde, and 
 was received with open arms. The great majority 
 of the nobles thronged to range themselves under 
 the most briUiant warrior of the age ; and Orleans, 
 wheedled by Madame de Chevreuse, gave a feeble 
 countenance to the new confederacy. Mazarin's 
 downfall seemed assured. The Palais Royal was 
 deserted, and the Regent was devoured by vex- 
 ation and resentment. But she knew the Prince 
 better than he knew himself, and, fortified by a 
 deep purpose of ultimately vindicating the royal 
 
 ^ 
 
12 
 
 authority, she had the art to dissemble the hatred 
 with which his conduct inspired her. Sending 
 for the Duke of Orleans, sh,e commissioned him to 
 offer Conde Pont de TArche for his brother-in- 
 law, and to propose a conference for the complete 
 arrangement of the Princess differences with her 
 
 Minister. 
 
 Conde had already committed himself to the 
 Coadjutor, and had allowed the Prelate to com : 
 promise himself and his friends by a hostile 
 attitude towards the Government. But his 
 pride was soothed by the submission of Anne 
 of Austria and the penitent pleadings of the Car- 
 dinal; and his instinctive aversion from the 
 Fronde, a conspiracy, as he termed it, of " petti- 
 coats and alcoves," was not lessened by familiar 
 intercourse with its chiefs. Without consulting 
 his new allies, or paying the slightest regard to 
 their interests, he closed with the offers of the 
 Eegent. Lenet, a councillor of the Parliament of 
 Dijon, the able and faithful partizan of the House 
 of Conde, and La Riviere, as representative of 
 the Duke of Orleans, who had assumed the office 
 of mediator, conducted the negotiations with 
 Mazarin, who was not in a position to resist any 
 demand. In a few hours a secret treaty was 
 drawn up and signed by the Regent, Conde, 
 
 13 
 
 Mazarin, and La Riviere. In consideration of 
 frank and thorough co-operation with the Court, 
 the Prince was not only invested with the entire 
 control and patronage of the army, but was 
 accorded a veto on all civil or ecclesiastical appoint- 
 ments, and on the matrimonial alHances which 
 the Cardinal might desire for his nieces. The 
 conditions of this agreement were carefully con- 
 cealed from Orleans, whose military functions as 
 Lieutenant- General of the kingdom it transferred 
 to his cousin ; La Riviere, in his anxiety to secure 
 for himself the next nomination of the Crown to a 
 seat in the conclave, not having scrupled to betray 
 the interests of his too-confiding master. When 
 De Retz and the Marquis of Noirmoutier, arrived 
 by appointment at the Hotel de Conde to ex- 
 change, on the part of the Fronde, the formal 
 ratifications of its new alliance with the Prince, 
 they gathered with dismay, from his embar- 
 rassed apologies, that he had used them to serve 
 his ends and then abandoned them. Madame 
 de Longueville, notwithstanding the cession of 
 Pont de TArche to her husband, did not spare 
 angry reproaches for the inconstancy of her 
 brother. Her disappointment, however, passed 
 like a summer cloud over their affectionate re- 
 lations. But although the Coadjutor and his 
 
 I • 
 
14 
 
 friends professed to rejoice at having been instru- 
 mental in obtaining for Cond^ satisfaction for his 
 grievances, a bitter sense of having been duped 
 and cast aside rankled in their minds, and pre- 
 pared a signal retribution for his perfidy. 
 
 Anne of Austria had thus, by humiliating 
 sacrifices, dissolved the only combination she 
 would have been unable to resist. But she found 
 Conde's friendship the most intolerable oppres- 
 sion. His exactions for himself or his adherents 
 threatened to reduce the power of the Crown to 
 the merest shadow. And his exactions were less 
 offensive than the manner in which he enforced 
 them. His temper, naturally aspiring and 
 haughty, had become inflamed by uninterrupted 
 prosperity to an extravagant pitch of pride ; and 
 the unbridled arrogance that foimd a distempered 
 delight in provoking quarrels, raised up enemies 
 against him in every quarter. The Prince of 
 Marsillac having taken a fancy to claim the 
 privilege of a tabouret at Court for his wife — per- 
 haps in order to make amends to her for his 
 infidelities — Conde supported his pretensions with 
 such overbearing vehemence that the great body of 
 the nobles, throwing themselves into the question of 
 a petty distinction with as much ardour as if the 
 very existence of their order was at stake^ protested 
 
 15 
 
 against the claim in tumultuous meetings, which 
 became a serious peril to the Government. Some 
 deputies despatched by the Parliament of Bordeaux 
 to complain of the unjust proceedings of the Duke 
 of Epemon, using some expression that grated on 
 Conde's ear, he threatened to cane them'to death. 
 To the ParUament and people he represented the 
 imperious insolence of military force. In the 
 mere wantonness of his presumptuous humour, he 
 planted in Anne of Austria's own bosom the sting 
 of an insult which it would be hardly in the nature 
 of the meekest and lowliest of women to forgive. 
 The Regent still retained much of her old fond- 
 ness for admiration, and the younger courtiers were 
 accustomed to do homage to her beauty in piteous 
 sighs, and in poetic effusions breathing the ardour 
 of a consuming passion discreetly tempered by 
 despair. One of the wits most in her favour, the 
 Uttle Marquis of Jarze, half-crazed by vanity 
 and the approving smiles with which his mistress 
 rewarded his sallies, conceived the idea that she 
 was in love with him. Revealing his good for- 
 tune in confidence to Conde, he offered to supplant 
 Mazarin in return for the Prince's friendship. 
 Cond6, though highly amused at the little Mar- 
 quis's self-conceit, promised secresy, and accepted 
 his services ; and then, impelled by the spirit of 
 
16 
 
 mischief which possessed him at this period/ pub- 
 licly flouted the Cardinal upon the subject of the 
 Regent's inconstancy. Anne of Austria at first 
 treated the matter with ridicule. At lengthy irritated 
 by her Minister's evident discomposure, and by the 
 irreverent jests of his tormentor, she drove her 
 infatuated adorer from her presence, with oppro- 
 brious epithets that made his blood tingle with 
 shame, and deprived him of his lucrative appoint- 
 ment of captain of her guards. The crestfallen 
 Jarze resorted for consolation to Conde, who 
 after laughing heartily at his victim's discomfiture, 
 had the audacity to pass on the Regent the unpar- 
 donable affront of insisting that her discarded 
 admirer should be reinstated in his post. 
 
 Mazarin was the favourite butt of Condi's biting 
 sarcasms, the object on which he never tired 
 heaping contumely. The wily Italian, in whom 
 the meekness of the dove was tinctured in no 
 inconsiderable degree with the guile of the ser- 
 pent, bore the scoffs and jeers of the Prince with 
 well-simulated patience. Nevertheless he was 
 secretly contriving a terrible revenge. The 
 Regent and he were goaded by indignities, and 
 even. by the instinct of self-preservation, to crush 
 their tyrant. A necessary step towards this end 
 was to isolate the Prince completely, and particu- 
 
 
 # 
 
 17 
 
 larly to raise up an impassable barrier between 
 him and the Fronde. They were seasonably 
 aided in their designs by one of those extra- 
 ordinary impostures characteristic of the time, 
 which nearly all sprang in grotesque complete- 
 ness from the teeming brain of the Coadjutor. 
 
 After the peace of Ruel the Government, with 
 the consent of the Parliament, had declared itself 
 bankrupt, and postponed, for a year, payment of 
 the interest on a loan which had been chiefly sub- 
 scribed by the citizens of Paris. The fundholders 
 submitted murmuringly ; but the Government 
 breaking faith with them again, when the deferred 
 payments fell due, they were loud in their com- 
 plaints, and elected representatives, who were 
 termed Syndics, to press their claims. The most 
 notable of the Syndics was Guy Joly, an intimate 
 friend of De Retz, a physician, wit, and dema- 
 gogue, whose amusing memoirs, erudite and flip- 
 pant, reveal much of the secret intrigue, and 
 reflect in vivid colours the popular feeling 
 of the time. The Coadjutor, eager to em- 
 barrass the Court and Mole, who now 
 strenuously laboured to smooth the difficulties 
 of the Administration, fomented the rising 
 sedition. In order to rouse the people to 
 arms, he concocted an impudent plot in which 
 
18 
 
 Joly was the chief actor. The Syndic, attired in 
 a coat thickly padded and tested to be bullet-proof, 
 came forth for an airing on Cours la Reine, the 
 fashionable promenade. A pistol shot was fired 
 into his coach ; but a party of his friends, who, 
 by a fortunate coincidence, were at hand, rushed 
 to his rescue ; and a wound on his shoulder, which 
 had been carefully inflicted the day before, was 
 dressed by a sympathising surgeon. In a few 
 hours all Paris rang with the narrow escape of 
 their champion from the assassins of the Court, 
 and the public excitement was at fever heat. 
 Mazarin promptly saw and seized the opportunity 
 of turning the delusion of the citizens to ad- 
 vantage. 
 
 The Regent informed Cond6, with looks arid 
 tones betraying grave anxiety, that the Cardinal 
 had received intelligence of a conspiracy to murder 
 him, as he went to sup with the Duke of Gram- 
 mont, in revenge for the attack on the Syndic. 
 The Prince, always brave, even to rashness, de- 
 clared his resolution to face the danger. Yielding, 
 however, to Anne's entreaties, he agreed to prove 
 it by sending his coach with the blinds drawn 
 down, but accompanied by his usual retinue, across 
 the Pont Neuf . When the equipage appeared on 
 the bridge, the Marquis of Bouillaye, quondam 
 
 
 19 
 
 General of the Cavalry of the portes cochereSy still 
 in outward seeming a noisy Frondeur, in reality a 
 secret agent of Mazarin, galloping up with an 
 armed band, searched it, killed one of the attend- 
 ants, and then fled the kingdom. While the 
 Prince's mind was a prey to the angry suspicions 
 suggested by the antecedents of the mad-cap 
 Marquis, the Cardinal produced fabricated evi- 
 dence that Bomllaye had been the instrument of 
 De Retz and Beaufort. Cond^ fell blindly into 
 the snare. Spuming the repeated solicitations of 
 the maligned noblemen for a hearing in their own 
 defence, he preferred against them, in the High 
 Court, a charge of assassination, which the law 
 officers of the Crown had instructions to press. 
 Political morality was at so low an ebb that the 
 accusation obtained general credence. The ad- 
 herents of the accused, dismayed by the fierce 
 wrath of the Prince, and the alleged strength of 
 the proofs in possession of the Government, fell 
 from them. Beaufort, in despair, proposed to fly 
 from Paris ; but the Coadjutor, whose clear intel- 
 lect was never clouded by fear, attended in his 
 place to confront his traducers. He found him- 
 self shunned by all as if he were stricken with the 
 plague; but he was sustained, not only by the 
 consciousness of innocence, but by the possession 
 
 \ 
 
20 
 
 of a document secretly forwarded to him, as he 
 afterwards discovered, by order of the Eegent, 
 which set forth, not only the heads of the indict- 
 ment about to be laid by the Attorney General, 
 but also the nature of the evidence on which it 
 rested. To the unscrupulous state-craft of 
 Mazarin, France owed the organization of a body 
 of official spies, a baneful legacy of his rule, which 
 long remained an odious feature in the system of 
 French police. These spies were wretches con- 
 victed of the most atrocious crimes, to whom 
 immunity and protection were guaranteed in 
 return for infamous services. Some of them 
 now were the witnesses for the Crown. When 
 De Eetz, with the rhetorical skill of which 
 he was a master, exposed the inherent impro- 
 babilities of the alleged conspiracy, and then 
 sketched the past lives and present functions 
 of the miscreants, stained with the darkest 
 hues of guilt, upon whose unsupported testimony 
 it was sought to convict the Coadjutor Archbishop 
 of Paris, and the grandson of Henry IV., of a 
 detestable crime, indignation and amazement 
 seized the Chamber. A unanimous decree of 
 acquittal was only averted by the declarations of 
 the First President and the law officers that more 
 trustworthy evidence was forthcoming. 
 
 21 
 
 Conde was as much taken ab^k as any one by 
 the revelations reflecting on the chara^jter of the 
 Crown witnesses. False pride, however, impelled 
 Hm to pursue his suit, although he showed his sense 
 of its injustice by offering, if the Coadjutor would, 
 as a mark of deference to him, retire from Paris 
 for three months, to acknowledge the prelate's 
 innocence. But De Retz, now zealously cham- 
 pioned by the whole force of the Fronde, flung 
 back insult for insult, and defiance for defiance ; 
 and the rage of the hostile factions threatened 
 every moment to deluge Paris with blood. While 
 Conde, delivered up by his headstrong passions, a 
 helpless victim to Mazarines craft, opened an im- 
 passable gulf of hatred between himself and the 
 Fronde, he continued with reckless arrogance to 
 provoke the vengeance of the Court. At the 
 moment when his quarrel with the Coadjutor and 
 Beaufort was charged with the deadliest rancour, 
 a daring outrage upon the royal authority filled 
 up to overflowing the measure of his offences 
 
 against the Regent. 
 
 The most splendid prize in the matrimonial 
 market of France, at this time, was the Duke of 
 RicheHeu, the grand nephew and inheritor of the 
 peerage and the enormous wealth of the Great 
 Minister ; a timid, impressionable youth of nine- 
 
22 
 
 teen or twenty, who lived at Kuel under tlie strict 
 tutelage of his strong-willed aunt, the Duchess of 
 Aiguillon. The Duchess, although of irreproach- 
 able life herself, had affianced her ward to 
 Mademoiselle de Chevreuse. Among her most 
 intimate friends was Madame de Pons, a 
 clever and charming widow of thirty, sister to 
 Mdlle. Vigean, who had been the object and 
 victim of Conde's capricious fancy. The irre- 
 gular features and the bewitching graces of person 
 and manner of Madame de Pons were happily 
 eignified in her soubriquet of the " ugly Venus/' 
 The young Duke found himself enslaved by the 
 covert arts of this fascinating widow ; but the 
 reverential awe with which he regarded his aunt, 
 and the circumstance that her consent and that of 
 the Regent were necessary for the vahdity of a 
 marriage, seemed to oppose an insuperable barrier 
 to the wishes of the lovers. In this difficulty 
 Madame de Pons had recourse to the Duchess of 
 Longueville. Of the numerous dignities be- 
 queathed by the late Cardinal to his nephew the 
 most important was that of Governor of Havre de 
 Grace, the strongest fortress in France. As it 
 was of the highest moment to the House of Cond^ 
 that this great stronghold should pass from the 
 keeping of the Duchess of Aiguillon, a devoted 
 
 23 
 
 servant of the Regent, to the keeping of one of its 
 own adherents, Madame de LongueviUe warmly 
 espoused the projects of her friend. At her insti- 
 gation, Conde invited his young kinsman to pass 
 the day with him at a country house near Paris. 
 Madame de Pons happening, by the merest accident, 
 to arrive there at the same time, the authority of 
 the Prince, who took the whole responsibihty on 
 himself, and the charms of his mistress, overcame 
 Richelieu's scruples. The marriage was celebrated 
 by Condi's private chaplain, and the newly wedded 
 pair started off, without a moment's delay, to take 
 possession of Havre. Cond6 also despatched an 
 officer of his own to the same destination, with in- 
 structions, should any messenger of the Regent, 
 outstripping the dilatory progress of the lovers, 
 reach the fortress before them, to fling him into 
 the sea and burn his despatches. 
 
 The same afternoon the Prince returned to 
 Paris, and afterwards presented himself, beaming 
 with self-satisfaction, at the Regent's evening 
 lev6e. Anne of Austria was already aware of 
 his morning's work, Richelieu having snatched 
 a moment to write a few penitent lines to his 
 aunt. Smothering her resentment, she coldly 
 remarked to the Prince, that the marriage would 
 probably be annulled on account of its illegality. 
 
24 
 
 He replied, insolently, that a marriage contracted 
 in his presence was indissoluble. Anne then retired 
 to her little grey chamber, consumed by vexa- 
 tion. As she sat brooding over the means of 
 delivering herself from the daily humiliations that 
 stung her proud spirit to madness, Madame 
 d'Aiguillon rushed into the room, and Ringing 
 herself at her feet implored justice. Shortly 
 afterwards Madame de Chevreuse arrived, and, 
 with flashing eyes, demanded vengeance for the 
 injury offered to her daughter. The two ladies 
 urged the Regent to arrest Conde, and Madame 
 de Chevreuse tendered the vigorous support of the 
 Fronde. The practicability of freeing themselves 
 from the yoke of their tyrant, by means of an 
 alliance with the Coadjutor and his party, had of 
 late been anxiously pondered by the Regent and 
 Cardinal Mazarin. Anne, therefore, joyfully 
 grasped at the offer of her old friend, and in- 
 trusted her with a note inviting De Retz to a secret 
 interview. On the following night the Coadjutor, 
 in the dress of a cavaHer, was introduced into the 
 Palace by a private entrance, and remained 
 closeted for some hours with the Regent and the 
 Cardinal. The fiery prelate panted for revenge 
 on the false friend who assailed his honour and his 
 life with such unjust virulence. But his passions 
 
 25 
 
 f 
 
 did not render him forgetful of his own interests, 
 or those of his friends. A Cardinals hat for 
 himself, the post of High Admiral of France for 
 the Duke of Vendome, with the reversion to the 
 Duke of Beaufort, the restoration of Madame 
 de Chevreuse's old lover Chateauneuf to his for- 
 feited office of Keeper of the Seals, a large sum 
 of money for the ever-needy Madame de 
 Montbazon, and other favours for less prominent 
 adherents of the Fronde, were gladly conceded as 
 the price of his assistance. On these terms he 
 pledged to the Regent his loyal co-operation with 
 Mazarin for the overthrow of their common 
 oppressor. 
 
 To accomphsh this aim in safety required all the 
 skill of the two deepest political schemers of the 
 age. The great power of Cond^, who governed 
 by himself or his adherents one-half of France, 
 and who possessed the entire control of the army ; 
 the dazzHng prestige that invested him ; the vast 
 following of young nobles, whose swords were 
 ever ready to leap forth in defence of their heroic 
 chief ; and his own daring genius, which, always at 
 the touch of danger, flashed out in its native 
 splendour, rendered their enterprise one of extra- 
 ordinary danger. Night after night the Coad- 
 jutor went to the Palais Royal in disguise, to 
 
 VOL. II. c 
 
26 
 
 confer with tlie Minister. More than one warn- 
 ing of these mysterious meetings, veiled though 
 they were by ingenious precautions, reached the 
 Prince. But his haughty confidence in himself, 
 his profound contempt for Mazarin, and the im- 
 penetrable duplicity of the Cardinal, effectually 
 bhnded him to his peril. Besides, he had taken 
 measures which he considered sufficient to render 
 him secure of timely information, in the event of 
 the Court meditating any serious project agamst 
 his liberty. He knew that the Begent could not 
 venture to arrest him without the consent of the 
 Lieutenant-General of the reahn ; and it was 
 notorious that Orleans had no secrets from the 
 AhU la Riviere. Conde had attached this aspir- 
 inff ecclesiastic to his interests by ceding to him 
 the nomination to the dignity of Cardinal, which 
 had been granted to the Prince of Conti; and as 
 the Abbe was bound to his master by an oath of 
 secresy, Cond^ persuaded Orleans to cancel the 
 obligations in all matters relating to himseH. The 
 reassuring reports of his new ally contributed to 
 throw him off his guard, and to make him deaf to 
 the entreaties of his mother, sister, and the keen- 
 sighted Mar sillac, that he would abstain from attend- 
 
 ing the meetings of the Council of State. But he 
 was leaning on a broken reed ; La Riviere was no 
 
 27 
 
 longer in a position to do him service. The Regent 
 had revealed to Madame de Chevreuse the parti- 
 culars of the secret treaty concluded with Conde. 
 The Duchess used the information to detach the 
 affections of Orleans, already somewhat alienated 
 by the Abba's want of zeal in furthering his at- 
 tempts on the chastity of one of his wife^s Maids 
 of Honour, from the faithless favourite. Left 
 without protection, Gaston yielded to the energetic 
 pressure of his sister-in-law and the cajolery of 
 the Duchess, and gave an unwilling assent to the 
 arrest of his cousins. 
 
 It was at length determined in midnight con- 
 clave to seize Conde, Conti, and Longueville, at a 
 sitting of the Council of State, specially convened 
 for the consideration of a subject in which they 
 were all interested. On the morning of the 
 appointed day, the project had almost been 
 frustrated by a curious accident. Conde, contrary 
 to his custom, perhaps somewhat uneasy at the 
 rumours which reached him, made an early call at 
 the Palace, and suddenly entered the Cardinals 
 cabinet, while Lyonne, Under Secretary of State, 
 was making out the order for his arrest. Mazarin, 
 however, received his visitor with an unruffled mien, 
 and having distracted his attention to indifferent 
 subjects until Lyonne had shuffled away the danger- 
 
 c 2 
 
11 I 
 
 m 
 
 28 
 
 ons document amongst some other papers, is said 
 to have played ofi on his unsuspecting yictmi a 
 practical joke, the sly maUce of ^hich was emi- 
 nently characteristic. When the Prince was about 
 to leave, the Cardinal, suddenly assummg a joyous 
 air as if he had just recollected somethmg 
 agreeable, mentioned that the police had tracked 
 t^ an obscure lurking-place a principal agent m 
 the late plot for his assassination. It was expected, 
 Mazarin added, that as this man could make 
 revelations of a character to criminate the Fronde 
 leaders, a rescue would be attempted; it seemed 
 advisable, therefore, that the Prince should sign 
 an order for a body of troops to escort prisoners 
 to the fortress of Vincennes. Conde, bummg 
 with still unslaked animosity against De Retz and 
 Beaufort, gave the order with alacrity, and thus 
 became the unconscious instrument of his own 
 
 captivity. . 
 
 In the afternoon the three brothers arrived 
 
 together at the Palais Royal to attend the Council 
 
 of State, while their mother was closeted with the 
 
 Re<^ent. These ladies had been for more than twenty 
 
 yeMS on a footing of intimate affection ; and now, 
 
 alarmed by the suspicions afloat, the old Princess 
 
 had come to the Palace, expecting that if danger 
 
 threatened her children, she would read some 
 
 ill 
 
 29 
 
 indication of it in the demeanour of her old friend. 
 But Anne of Austria, schooled in many trials, was 
 a mistress of dissimulation. She entered with 
 easy famniarity into a confidential conversation 
 with the Princess, dismissing her with an afiec- 
 tionate adieu, only when the time was ripe for an 
 act of vengeance that would crush her and her 
 whole family. Cond^ had hardly entered the 
 CouncH Chamber when Guitant, captain of the 
 Regent's Guards, made his appearance. The Prince 
 had a strong regard for the staunch old soldier, 
 and, thinking that he came to solicit some favour, 
 turned towards him with a gracious air; where- 
 upon Guitant whispered the nature of his errand. 
 Condfe, amazed and indignant, cried out to his 
 brothers, "We are arrested !" and demanded to 
 see the Regent. But an interview being denied, 
 he submitted with dignity to his fate. Conti 
 wept bitterly, and LongueviUe's agitation de- 
 prived him of speech, and almost of motion. 
 The prisoners were taken by a dark passage to the 
 gardens of the Palace. "THs," said Cond^ 
 suspiciously, " strongly savours of the States of 
 Blois." "No, monseigneur," replied Gmtant; 
 " if that were the case I should not be concerned 
 in it" At a private door, opening from the 
 Gardens into the Rue RicheHeu, one of the royal 
 
30 
 
 carriages, surrounded by the escort Conde had 
 ordered out, was in attendance. The faces of some 
 of the soldiers, his old comrades in arms, were 
 famihar to him, and, perhaps, with a view of test- 
 ing their devotion to their favourite leader, he 
 said, " This, my friends, is not the Battle of Lens/' 
 But the soldiers, though expressing in their coun- 
 tenances vivid emotions of grief and sympathy, 
 were obedient to discipline, and the cavalcade 
 started at a rapid pace for Vincennes. On the 
 road the breaking down of the coach in the pitchy 
 darkness of a January evening seemed to afford 
 the prisoners a chance of escape, but it was found 
 impossible to corrupt or elude the stem vigilance 
 of Guitant. During the journey, Conde displayed 
 a calm intrepidity which contrasted strongly with 
 the abject bearing of his companions; and on 
 arriving at Vincennes, finding that, through dread 
 of awakening suspicion, no preparation had been 
 • made for his reception, he flung himself on the floor 
 of his chamber and passed twelve hours in unbroken 
 sleep. Conti and Longueville, shivering from fear 
 or fever, watched through the dreary night in 
 profound despair. 
 
 In Paris, on the report of their hero's arrest, a 
 body of young noblemen, led by the Duke of 
 Rohan and the Count of Boutteville, assailed the 
 
 31 
 
 Convent of Valde Grace in order to obtain posses- 
 sion of Mazarin's nieces, who resided there ; and 
 afterwards attempted to raise a popular msurrec- 
 tionby proclaiming that the Duke of Beaufort 
 had been again incarcerated at Vincennes. But the 
 Cardinal had provided for the safety of his young 
 kinswomenby removing them to the Palais Roya ; 
 and De R^tz promptly allayed the nsmg tumult 
 in the streets by sendingforthBeaufort to parade 
 the town on horseback, decorated with his well- 
 known white plume. When the real facts became 
 known the public anger gave place to exultation. 
 The streets rang with the sounds of rejoicing and 
 the sky was red with the glare of bonfires, 
 courtier and citizen uniting with emubus 
 enthusiasm to celebrate the downfall of that 
 insolent despotism which had been the object of 
 their common hatred and fear. Orleans on re 
 covering from the agony of terror into which the 
 fierce determination with which the Regent wrung 
 from him a scared consent to Conde's impnson- 
 n.ent, had thrown him, and being apprised of her 
 success, whistled carelessly, and said, ihe 
 K.gent has made a good haul of the net-she has 
 captured a fox, a monkey, and a lion." 
 
32 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 The bold and skUful stroke of the Government, in 
 arresting Cond^ and his brothers, exposed it ta 
 two formidable dangers — a hostile decree of the 
 Parliament of Paris in vindication of the violated 
 Declaration of October, and an armed revolt of 
 the nimierous and powerful adherents of the im- 
 prisoned Princes throughout the provinces. From 
 the former peril it was saved by its alliance with 
 the Coadjutor. The partizans of the Court and 
 of the Fronde cordially uniting their forces, the 
 High Court sanctioned, by an immense majority, 
 the illegal proceeding of the Regent as an excep- 
 tional act, imperatively demanded by the public 
 welfare. Almost alone, the First President Mole, 
 whose clear, firm mind, unshaken by gusts of 
 passions and unwarped by the sophistries of state- 
 craft, remained ever true to the principles of 
 justice, stood forth as the champion of the con- 
 
 I 
 
 33 
 
 stitution, of which he was the principal author 
 But his voice was drowned in the tumult of 
 popular delirium, and he was only able to ofier by 
 his sad and stern aspect, among the joyous crowds 
 that thronged the Palais Royal, a mute protest 
 acrainst the abuse of the royal prerogative. It is 
 in Prance especially that the French proverb is 
 true " Nothing succeeds like success." 
 
 The Government was not equally fortunate m 
 its attempts to avert a civil war, by seizmg the 
 persons of Conde's leading adherents then 
 Assembled in Paris. A feeling of shame, mingled 
 perhaps with contempt, restrained the Regent and 
 Lr minister from dealing harshly with the two 
 Princesses of Conde, the Dowager, Anne of Aus- 
 tria's old and tried friend, the younger, niece of 
 Mazarin's great benefactor. The sorrowing ladies 
 were allowed to retire with the little Duke of 
 Enghien to Chantilly. But every precaution which 
 policy and vengeance suggested was used to insure 
 the capture of Madame de Longueville andthemili- 
 tary chiefs. All of them, however, having timdy 
 intLation of their danger, contrived to elude 
 pursuit. Bouillon and his brother T^e, dis- 
 Rising themselves as boatmen, escaped down the 
 iXeLthe darkness of the nighty The Duke 
 
 repaired to his estates in Auvergne. Turenne took 
 
34 
 
 refuge in Conde's frontier town of Stenay, wliere 
 lie raised the standard of revolt in the name of 
 the imprisoned Princes. The Count of Boutteville, 
 a young cadet of the House of Montmorenci, 
 deformed in person and of depraved life, but 
 already exhibiting promise of the military genius 
 which long afterwards made all Europe ring with 
 the renown of the Marshal Duke of Luxembourg, 
 fled to Burgundy, and called that province to arms. 
 The Regent was particularly eager to secure the 
 person of Madame de Longueville, whose insolent 
 rivalry during the siege of Paris, and the subse- 
 quent dictatorship of Cond^, had provoked her 
 deepest resentment. Upon the arrest of her 
 husband and her brothers, the Duchess received a 
 message commanding her instant attendance at 
 the Palais Royal. She feigned comphance, and 
 with the assistance of her friend, the Princess 
 Palatine, found a temporary retreat at a mean 
 house in the suburbs. In the night the Prince of 
 Marsillac carried her off into Normandy, of which 
 province Longueville was governor. But Cond^^s 
 imprisonment was a blow so sudden and unex- 
 pected, that it left his party completely paralyzed; 
 and before the scattered leaders had time to 
 organize their forces, or frame any connected 
 scheme of resistance^ the rapid and vigorous 
 
 35 
 
 measures of the Oovemment completed their dis- 
 comfiture. 
 
 The periods of internal convulsion which 
 chequer the progress of even the most prosperous 
 nations, resemble those bleak and dismal wastes 
 that occasionaUy sadden the traveller's eye amidst 
 a rich expanse of blooming landscapes. History 
 reads us no more emphatic lesson, than that stable 
 institutions are absolutely essential to the well- 
 being of a State. It repeats in every age its 
 mournful warning, that anarchy is a scourge armed 
 with every variety of evil, moral, intellectual and 
 physical; destroying the legitimate supremacy 
 of religion and of reason; enthroning the 
 basest passions on the eternal seat of 
 justice; rending the most sacred and tender 
 bonds of social Uf e ; extinguishing letters, arts, 
 and sciences in blood and tears ; sowing the 
 dragon's teeth of human misery, wherever its 
 reign extends. But in the compulsory union, yet 
 ceaseless conflict, of antagonistic elements, which 
 is the universal law of life, in the mysterious and 
 often apparent, inconsistent chain of cause and 
 effect, in which human events are hnked, evil is 
 ever the companion and the occasion of good. 
 When the fountains of the great deep of human 
 intelligence, long sealed in restless slumber, are 
 
 
36 
 
 breakihg up, and society is riven by the throes of 
 some momentous revolution, from the strife of 
 warring forces is born genius, whose high mission 
 is to construct and to redeem; to mould the 
 chaos into new forms of social life ; to educe from 
 disorder new systems of polity. Even when 
 anarchy is merely a war of selfish instincts, the 
 seething up through the shattered crust of society 
 of the corruption that ferments at its heart, it has 
 always features that reclaim it from utter hideous- 
 ness. In the life of a polished and well-ordered 
 community, evil and good are rarely brought into 
 strong contrast. Under its placid surface heroic 
 virtue, as well as colossal vice, lies hidden and un- 
 suspected. But the troubles that stimulate into 
 portentous activity the basest passions of human 
 nature, also afford an incitement and a field to its 
 noblest qualities. Herbs of healing power 
 flourish by the deadliest plants. Sweet flowers 
 bloom, and living rills gush forth in the most 
 savage desert. And from amidst the crimes and 
 miseries of mankind spring up great deeds and 
 immortal virtues, to shed light and beauty and 
 consolation ; divine seeds that blossom into golden 
 harvests long after the memory of the desolate seed 
 time has passed away. Thus the spirit of chivalry, 
 the glory of mediaeval Europe, and the soul of 
 
 
 37 
 
 Christian heroism, which flung such a pure and 
 softening radiance over the grim terrors of feudal 
 barbarism, still survives, to inform, however im- 
 perfectly, the gross materialism of modern civiU- 
 
 zation. 
 
 This tendency of calamitous times, to develop 
 latent strength and goodness of character, finds 
 its most striking manifestations in the finer 
 nature of woman. Every country has furnished 
 examples of women, often of fragile frame and 
 shrinking delicacy, cradled in the lap of refined 
 luxury, so that even the breezes of summer seemed 
 to visit their cheeks too roughly, who kindled by 
 the fire and endued with the sublime power of some 
 lofty purpose, have displayed a patient courage, 
 a fertility of resource, even a capacity of physical 
 endurance that shame the strength and intellect of 
 man; who have lived and died marvels and 
 mysteries to his grosser sympathies. The annals 
 of no other land are so rich in records of feminine 
 worth, so illumined by the splendour of feminine 
 achievements as those of France. And even the 
 sordid passions and ignoble contentions of the 
 Fronde produced heroines whose exploits lend to 
 that barren struggle an enduring interest. 
 
 The escape of Conde's leading adherents from 
 Paris only stimulated the Regent to more vigorous 
 
38 
 
 efforts to crush the scattered forces of insurrection 
 before they gathered to a head. Troops were in- 
 stantly despatched to reduce the provinces of 
 which the imprisoned princes had been governors. 
 The towns of Champagne and Burgundy opened 
 their gates without resistance to the Duke of 
 Vend6me, now High Admiral of France and 
 Governor of Burgundy, and propped in his new 
 fortunes by the betrothal of his son, Mercocur, to 
 Olympia Mancini. Only the fortress of Belle- 
 garde, into which the Count of Boutteville had 
 thrown himself with a body of gentlemen, defied 
 the royal arms in the eastern part of the kingdom. 
 The province of Berri accepted its new governor, 
 the Count of St. Aignan, with equal facility, the 
 cause of Conde being upheld there only in the 
 almost impregnable castle of Montrond. 
 
 In the meantime, Anne of Austria, with all the 
 energy which offended authority and personal re- 
 sentment could call forth in an imperious nature, 
 had pursued Madame de Longueville into Nor- 
 mandy. Kendered insensible to fatigue or priva- 
 tion by the ardour of her feelings, she passed 
 almost the whole of each day on horseback. 
 Mazarin and the Court, unable to keep pace with 
 her movements, followed more leisurely in the 
 rear. Rouen and other important towns surren- 
 
 39 
 
 dered to her first summons, and Madame de 
 Longueville, hunted from place to place, sought 
 shelter at Havre from the Duchess of Richelieu. 
 But this artful lady, in whom gratitude was evi- 
 dently a lively expectation of future benefits, 
 seizing the opportunity of purchasing by her pre- 
 sent services the recognition of her marriage by 
 the Regent, repulsed her unfortunate friend from 
 the gates, and even made a merit of allowing her 
 to continue her flight. Marsillac had departed 
 some time before to raise his vassals in Poitou, 
 and the forlorn fugitive threw herself into the crag- 
 built castle of Dieppe. This last refuge also 
 failed her. On the approach of the royal forces, 
 the Governor declared his inability to hold out the 
 place, and the citizens of Dieppe were deaf to her 
 eloquent appeals to them to arm in its defence. 
 It was a dark and tempestuous night, wild even 
 beyond the terrible experience of that ii^on-bound 
 coast. The storm howled dismally around the 
 mist-clad turrets of the castle, and the sea, rolling 
 in mountainous billows, broke in thunder at its 
 base. One of two courses was open to the Duchess ; 
 either to brave the fury of the elements, or to 
 throw herself on the mercy of the Regent. She 
 did not for a moment hesitate in her choice. 
 Having first made a general confession to a priest. 
 

 %ii 
 
 40 
 
 she left the castle by a private outlet, and pro- 
 ceeded on foot along the coast, accompanied by a 
 few attendants, to a small port about two leagues 
 distant, where a foreign vessel, in which she had 
 secured a passage, lay at anchor. The little party 
 toiled along their broken way, through the pitchy 
 darkness which clothed in deeper horror the 
 terrors that encompassed them. They were 
 beaten by the fierce tempest and by the drifting 
 spray, and were guided only by the hoarse roar of 
 the raging surf, and the forked lightnings which, 
 flashing through the gloom, lit up into fitful 
 splendour the wild sublimity of the scene. On 
 reaching the harbour they found two small boats, 
 which had been hired to take them to the ship. 
 But even the hardiest sailors of the coast, daunted 
 by the perilous aspect of the sea, refused to venture 
 out. The entreaties of the Duchess and the 
 promise of a large reward at length prevailed. 
 One of the crew carried her in his arms through 
 the surf, and placed her in a boat. But she was 
 ahnost instantly dashed from it by the rush of 
 waters, and it was at the imminent risk of their 
 own lives that the gentlemen of her suite, plunging 
 into the foam, rescued her, when half-drowned, 
 from the breakers. On recovering consciousness 
 she was eager to renew the attempt, but aU her 
 
 41 
 
 eloquence and Uberality failed to induce the sea- 
 men to consent. The f oUowing day she concealed 
 herself, and in the night, the wind having lulled, 
 was just putting off from the shore, when one of 
 her friends gaUoped up with information that the 
 captain of the vessel, in which she was about to 
 embark, ha^ taken an enormous bribe from 
 Cardinal Mazarin to deliver her up. After this 
 narrow escape, she wandered along the sea shore 
 for fifteen days, disguised in male attire and beset 
 by dangers and privations. She succeeded at last 
 in obtaining a passage under a feigned name, 
 which belied her sex, from Havre to Holland m 
 an English ship. From Holland she proceeded 
 to Stenay, where there is reason to fear she soon 
 forgot her vows of penitence in the society of 
 Viscount Turenne. 
 
 Turenne has been pronounced by the highest 
 judges one of the most consummate masters of 
 the art of war that any age or country has pro- 
 duced. His qualifications for command were m a 
 manner hereditary. His maternal uncle, Prmce 
 Maurice of Nassau, had been endowed by nature 
 with miUtary genius still more splendid than his 
 own • his father had been one of the most dis- 
 tinguished captains of Henry IV, The interest 
 of his powerful family opened to him, at an 
 
42 
 
 unusually early age, opportunities of display- 
 ing the talents whicli rendered him illustrious. 
 Whether from deficiency of knowledge or of 
 enterprise, the greatness of the difficulties, or the 
 blind caprice of fortune, his first campaigns were 
 rarely successful. At the battle of Mariendal he 
 suffered the greatest disgrace that can befal a 
 general, in allowing his army to be surprised, and 
 almost annihilated by Count Mercy and John of 
 Werth. But subsequent study and experience so 
 developed and matured his extraordinary natural 
 ability, as to advance him in the judgment of 
 Napoleon to the very foremost place among 
 modem strategists. It was pecuHar to him 
 of famous commanders, that years lent fire to his 
 temperament while perfecting his skill. As he 
 grew older he grew more enterprising, and his 
 latest operations were at once the most faultless 
 and the most brilliant. His was not the genius of 
 Conde, which at its very first dawning burst forth 
 into dazzling effulgence. Its rising was obscured 
 by shadows, but as it slowly climbed its starry 
 pathway the mantling vapours were dissipated by 
 its expanding radiance, leaving it to set in the 
 fulness of glory. Conde^s genius, fervid and 
 daring, flashed out with the light of inspiration in 
 the tumult of battle, confounding and destroying 
 
 48 
 
 his foes by some prodigy of tactics at the very 
 moment when their triumph seemed assured 
 The genius of Turenne displayed its patient 
 energy and its unbounded resources to most ad- 
 vantage amidst the discouragement and the dis- 
 organization of defeat. A single victory which, 
 indeed, rather deserves the name of a conquest, 
 placed the young hero of Rocroi upon the pmnacle 
 of fame. His great rival reached the same proud 
 eminence by a slow and toilsome, but not less 
 certain progress. Turenne was of middle stature 
 powerfully and rather clumsily built, and adorned 
 with few of the graces of a Court. His features, 
 strongly marked, even to harshness, wore a 
 habitual expression of melancholy, which his thick 
 and contracted eye-brows almost deepened into 
 aloom. His ordinary demeanour betrayed a want 
 of ease and self-confidence, which appeared to 
 indicate irresolution of character. But though 
 modest almost to a fault, and constitutionaUy 
 cautious, no man in trying emergencies arrived 
 more rapidly at a decision, or adhered to it more 
 tenaciously. He was cheerful, gentle, sincere; 
 simple in his tastes, generous and hospitable; a 
 warm friend and a placable enemy. His capacity 
 for government, although less exercised, was not 
 inferior to his capacity for war. He had been 
 
44 
 
 brought up in the Huguenot faith, to which his 
 family had given some of its bravest champions. 
 During the earlier part of his career, whilst a 
 member of the briUiant but profligate military 
 party, of which Conde was the hero and chief, he 
 did not entirely escape the taint of fashionable 
 vices. In later life, religion reckoned him amongst 
 her most fervent votaries. Catholicity amongst 
 her most illustrious converts. In truth, he became 
 one of the choicest specimens of a great and good 
 man, of genius purified and exalted by virtue. 
 
 The beautiful and ambitious Duchess of 
 Bouillon had been prevented from being the com- 
 panion of her husband's flight by an advanced 
 state of pregnancy. The Eegent harshly ordered 
 her to be arrested on the day, and almost at the 
 hour when she was confined in child-birth. The 
 only solace vouchsafed to her, in the languor of 
 illness and the solitude of a rigorous constraint, 
 was an occasional visit from a daughter who had 
 been separated from her, a child about nine years 
 old. One evening, as the little girl was leaving 
 her mother's chamber, a sentinel preceding her 
 with a torch to light the way through the dim 
 ante-rooms, the Duchess crouching down followed 
 close behind, and contrived to secrete herself in a 
 cellar. From this dismal asylum she was dragged 
 
 45 
 
 through an air-hole by her maids. Her friends, 
 without losing a moment, provided her with the 
 means of escape from Paris; and she was on the 
 point of setting out for Auvergne, when word 
 was brought to her that her daughter had been 
 stricken with the small-pox. No personal con- 
 sideration could sever the tender mother from the 
 couch of her suffering child. The agents of 
 Government, with the keen instincts of their caU- 
 ing, found the Duchess watching by her daughter's 
 piUow, and flung her into the Bastille. 
 
 But the highest example of feminine worth was 
 afforded by the young Princess of Conde, who, 
 caUed forth by the misfortunes of her husband 
 from comparative obscurity and contempt to play 
 a great part on the political stage, became, through 
 native force and beauty of her character, the 
 wonder and the admiration of the age. Her life, 
 Bince her inauspicious nuptials, had been passed 
 in meek endurance of unprovoked wrongs. 
 After Richelieu's death, Condi's aversion to the 
 child who had been forced upon him as a bride, 
 countenanced by the open disdain of his proud 
 family, manifested itself in studied neglect. For 
 the contemptuous dislike of her husband, which 
 neither her love, her gentle virtues, nor her 
 patient submission had power to soften, and the 
 
46 
 
 indignities heaped upon her by his haughty 
 kindred, the young Princess found but a poor 
 recompense in the dreary isolation of a barren 
 greatness, shorn of honour and uncheered by 
 sympathy. But hers was one of those noble 
 natures which great trials, instead of crushing, 
 strengthen and purify. At a time when the 
 manners of the majority of her sex in Paris might 
 be truly described as chartered Ubertinism, and 
 notwithstanding conjugal wrongs sufficient to 
 irritatethemost forbearing of women, her character 
 was unsulUed by the faintest breath of slander. 
 Indeed, her chastity was the theme of general 
 and, most frequently, derisive comment. But even 
 the few who appreciated the modest virtues that 
 bloomed on the monotonous surface of her joyless 
 Hf e, never suspected the deep rich mine that lay 
 concealed beneath, waiting for the rude hand of 
 calamity to lay bare its treasures. 
 
 Around the Princesses at ChantiUy there 
 assembled a little court of noble ladies, the most 
 distinguished of whom was Angelique de Mont- 
 morenci, the beautiful Duchess of ChatiUon. 
 Some years before, Conde, then at the zenith of 
 his fame, had loved AngeHque passionately. The 
 young Duke of Chatillon, who; inflamed with aa 
 deep and a more legitimate affection, was a suitor 
 
 47 
 
 for her hand, viewed with alarm the advances of 
 Buch a formidable competitor. He knew but of 
 one way to disarm the rivaby that menaced hia 
 happiness, which was to reveal his own attach- 
 ment in confidence to the Prince. Conde, with a 
 generosity rare at that profligate period, sacrificed 
 his passion to friendship. He not only discon- 
 tinned his attentions, but he aided his rival to 
 carry off the prize, and afterwards reconciled the 
 lady's family, who were his own maternal relatives, 
 to the marriage. After Chatillon's death, at the 
 battle of Charenton, Conde renewed his suit with 
 the Duchess. It was coldly received. But when 
 reverses had darkened the proud fortunes of the 
 hero, when the eagle was caged in the donjon of 
 Vincennes, Angelique, touched with pity, devoted 
 herself to solace his mother's grief and to pro- 
 mote his Hberation. 
 
 The party at ChantiUy was soon joined by the 
 able and faithful Lenet. Communications were 
 then opened with the partizans of the Princes 
 throughout the country, and with independent 
 members of the Parliament of Paris who resented 
 the infraction of the Declaration of October as a 
 fatal blow to public liberty. Anne of Austria had 
 hastened from Normandy, with her son and Car- 
 dinal Mazarin, to press the siege of Bellegarde, 
 
II 
 
 48 
 
 wliere the Count of Boutteville made a stout 
 defence. The restoration of the Marquis of 
 Chateauneuf to his old place of Keeper of the 
 Seals, the grant of the reversion of the post of 
 High Admiral to the Duke of Beaufort, and the 
 flatteries and promises lavished on the Coadjutor, 
 secured for the present the aUegiance of the 
 Fronde and the tranquillity of Paris. But 
 the absence of the Eegent and her Minister 
 fi-om the centre of Government, allowed oppor- 
 tunibies of poHtical intrigue, which the in- 
 defatigable Lenet strove to turn to account. The 
 young Princess at first had little weight in the 
 councils at ChantiUy. She was regarded as an 
 intruder into the family of Bourbon, as a feeble 
 girl without capacity or high instincts to 
 qualify her for the direction of State affairs. 
 Lenet was the first to discern glimmerings of a 
 lofty spirit and superior talents through the veil 
 of her timid reserve. His schemes were paralyzed 
 by the irresolution and avarice of the Dowager 
 Princess, whose courage was broken, and whose 
 natural faihngs were morbidly developed by age 
 and misfortune. Foreseeing that Claire, especially 
 if accompanied by her son, would play a much 
 more important part in a civil war, he constantly 
 lent her encouragement and support. 
 
 49 
 
 Plotting, however, was not the sole occupation 
 of the fair conspirators at ChantiUy. Golden 
 threads of pleasure were interwoven in the sombre 
 tissue of intrigue. The Chateau, crowning scenery 
 of bewitching beauty, surrounded by gardens laid 
 out with exquisite taste, and graced by the pre- 
 sence of young and lovely women, became the 
 secret resort of gallant gentlemen from all parts 
 of the kingdom. The Dowager Princess, with 
 the majestic remains of that peerless beauty which 
 had so nearly set all Europe in a flame, still pre- 
 served undiminished a sparkling wit, and the 
 charm of conversational powers not less remark- 
 able than her beauty. Many an amusing anecdote 
 of her royal lover, relieving gloomier recollections 
 of the terrible Richelieu, was now drunk in from 
 her lips by a brilliant circle of dehghted Hsteners. 
 In the fervid heat of noon, ladies and cavaliers 
 dispersed themselves through the dehcious shades 
 of embowering foliage, weaving the bright fancies 
 of youth and passion, as they lounged in luxurious 
 indolence in perfumed arbours, which the faint 
 breath of orange trees, and the cool murmurs of 
 gleaming fountains made paradises for a Sybarite. 
 At eventide, when a gentle breeze awaking fanned 
 the earth with its fragrant wings, they strolled in 
 laughing groups by the borders of the lake. The 
 
 VOL. II, ^ 
 
50 
 
 51 
 
 vivid flash of wit, the genial play of humour, the 
 gorgeous dreams of fancy, the Ught jest, the 
 stinging epigram, the soft magic of love, eloquent 
 in bright smUes and chivalrous homage, threw a 
 sunshine over the cares of faction, and lent a 
 deeper speU to that enchanting landscape, which 
 spread away, radiant and ever various, beneath the 
 stately promenoirs of Chantilly. 
 
 This chequered Ufe of conspiracy and pleasure 
 was brought somewhat abruptly to a close. 
 Secret reports from Paris informed the Regent, 
 then at Dijon, that Chantilly had become a focus 
 of rebelUon. She despatched a gentleman of the 
 King's household, named De Vouldy, to arrest the 
 Princesses, and to escort the younger to Chateau- 
 roux, a stem and isolated old castle, belongmg to 
 Conde in Berri. The sudden occupation of the 
 neighbouring villages by detachments of the royal 
 troops gave the fair ofienders at Chantilly wammg 
 of their danger, and, with the assistance of Lenet, 
 they concerted an ingenious plan of operations to 
 defeat the intentions of the Regent. 
 
 The Dowager Princess, feigning severe illness, 
 retired to her bed. Claire, who, when the alarm 
 was given, was confined to her's by fever, arose 
 and concealed herseU with the little Duke of 
 Enghien. Her plaxie was taken by Miss Gerbier, 
 
 a young Englisli lady of her household, whose 
 resemblance to her mistress was sufficient to de- 
 ceive a not very intrusive observer, in the 
 gloom of a sick chamber. A gardener^s son was 
 dressed to represent the Duke of Enghien. De 
 Youldy, on producing the Regent^s warrant, was 
 introduced with the most anxious precautions into 
 the bed-chambers of the Princesses, and so well 
 did the pretended invahds perform their parts 
 that he was thoroughly deceived. He naturally 
 shrank from unnecessary harshness towards pri- 
 soners whose rank, sex, and condition of health, 
 claimed respectful forbearance. Contenting him- 
 self with making arrangements to visit them in 
 person at short intervals, he left them in com- 
 parative freedom. Towards midnight, Claire, 
 accompanied by her son, disguised as a girl, and 
 by a few ladies, stole from the chateau. At the 
 outskirts of the forest the party found a capacious 
 coach and six, of sober colour, which had been 
 stationed there to receive them by the care of 
 Lenet. They entered at once, and set off for the 
 Castle of Montrond, travelling as the family of 
 Madame de Tourville, the Princesses first Lady of 
 Honour. Their safety was watched over by a 
 mounted escort of gentlemen, who, in order to 
 avoid observation, travelled in pairs, each detach- 
 
 D 2 
 
52 
 
 ment stopping at a different inn, and suppressing 
 all recognition of the others. On reaching Paris 
 a change of horses was obtained from the Hotel 
 de Conde, and the fugitives continued their journey 
 southwards, halting only at the houses of assured 
 friends, when rest and food were absolutely 
 necessary. They crossed the Loire at a ferry 
 opposite the chateau of the Duke of Sully, grand- 
 son of the great minister, who had passed more 
 than forty years in this retreat, having survived 
 Cardinal Richeheu. As Claire waited on the bank 
 for the coach to be ferried over, sitting, in order 
 to disarm suspicion, on Lenet's knee, she was 
 recognised by a servant from the chateau. The 
 Duke courteously offered her hospitality and 
 succour, but dreading the risk of delay, she 
 pressed forward, and, after an exhausting journey 
 of three days and nights, reached Montrond in 
 
 safety. 
 
 The Castle of Montrond crowned the summit 
 of a precipitous cliff which arose in the angle 
 formed by the junction of the rivers Cher and 
 Marmaude. Towering high from the centre of an 
 extensive plain, it commanded the little town of 
 St. Amand, which lay nestling at its feet, and one 
 of the most beautiful and fruitful regions of 
 France. Nature and art had combined to render 
 
 . 
 
 53 
 
 the place almost impregnable. Three sides of the 
 cliff, furrowed by chasms, were washed by a deep 
 and rapid current. The fourth side was girdled 
 by three lines of strong fortifications, the outer- 
 most of which could only be approached by a 
 single narrow pathway hewn in the rock. An 
 abundant spring of pure water gushed forth on 
 the summit, fertilizing a considerable extent of 
 pasturage. It was a stronghold in which a small 
 garrison, well supplied with ammunition and pro- 
 visions, might have defied with impunity a power- 
 ful army. But the Princess found it on her 
 arrival so destitute of defenders and of the means 
 of defence, that, notwithstanding its strength, it 
 afforded but an insecure refuge from the anger of 
 the Regent. 
 
 Meanwhile the comedy of Chantilly was suc- 
 cessfully played out. Every day De Vouldy 
 visited his prisoners, politely assured himself of 
 their safety, and awaited their convalescence in 
 complete security. Rumours of the flight of the 
 younger Princess having reached Mazarin, a 
 second messenger was despatched to Chantilly 
 from the Court. But De Vouldy laughed to 
 scorn the uneasiness of the Government. The 
 young lady, he averred, was never longer than a 
 few hours out of his sight. His eyes were only 
 
> 
 
 54 
 
 opened to the deception that had been practised 
 on hiniywhen the Dowager Princess, having allowed 
 sufficient time to elapse for her daughter-in-law^s 
 journey, escaped by night to Paris, attended by 
 Madame de Chatillon. 
 
 The Chambers having adjourned for vacation, 
 the old Princess concealed herself for ten days in 
 the house of a friendly Councillor of Requests. 
 On the morning of the re-assembhng of the Par- 
 liament she went with Madame de Chatillon to the 
 Palace of Justice, holding in her hand a petition 
 to the High Court that the article against arbitrary 
 arrests in the Declaration of October, 1648, 
 might be enforced. Standing at the outer door, for 
 a long time she vainly solicited each member as 
 he came in to advocate her cause. At length a 
 patriotic magistrate, named Deslande Payen, said 
 he should not be prevented by fear from doing 
 his duty, and took charge of the petition. At the 
 instance of the First President Mole, a day was 
 appointed for its consideration, and Madame de 
 Conde was assigned a temporary residence under 
 the protection of the Court. 
 
 The Palais Royal and the Fronde were still in 
 the first transports of their strange alliance, and 
 the coalition employed every art and strained every 
 effort to defeat the motion. The Duke of Orleans, 
 
 55 
 
 who represented the Crown, during the Regent's 
 absence in Burgundy, went to the Palace of 
 Justice, accompanied by De Retz and Beaufort, 
 to cast the weight of his personal influence into 
 the scale of authority. They found the old 
 Princess awaiting their arrival in the entrance 
 hall. Throwing herself at their feet, with tearful 
 supplications, she implored their compassion. 
 Orleans escaped from her in haste, muttering 
 some incoherent excuses ; Beaufort could not utter 
 a word; ''and as for me,'' says De Retz, '' 1 
 almost died of shame." Deslande Payen sup- 
 ported the prayer of his client with abihty and 
 courage. The magistrates found themselves in a 
 position of peculiar embarrassment. They had 
 gone to all lengths, even so far as to plunge the 
 kingdom into civil war, in defence of the principle 
 of the liberty of the subject invoked by their sup- 
 pliant. To suffer this principle, when the ink of 
 the treaty solemnly affirming it was scarcely dry, 
 to be openly violated without even a protest, was 
 to pass the most severe condemnation on them- 
 selves. They must stand convicted before all 
 France either of unjustifiable rebellion or of a 
 servile betrayal of the national interests. But the 
 odious despotism of Cond^ was stiU fresh in every 
 memory— still filled every heart with hatred and 
 
i 
 
 56 
 
 with fear. And strong personal and party ani- 
 mosities overbore, in the minds of the majority, 
 higher considerations of patriotism and justice. 
 De Ketz and his satellites inveighed against the 
 insolent tyranny of the great enemy of popular 
 rights. The Duke of Orleans, in an artful speech 
 of affected moderation, deplored the necessities of 
 the time which compelled him to oppose the im- 
 mediate liberation of his cousins, as being fraught 
 with danger to the State. To clinch his argu- 
 ments, he produced an intercepted copy of a treaty, 
 which Madame de Longueville and Turenne had 
 concluded with the Spaniards. The sight of this 
 treasonable document quieted the conscience of 
 the Assembly, by seeming to afford the justifica- 
 tion which it felt that the course it was resolved 
 to follow needed. The petition was rejected by a 
 large majority. The old Princess, however, chiefly 
 through the interposition of Mol^, was permitted 
 by the Eegent to retire to the country seat of the 
 Duchess of Chatillon. The proud spirit that had 
 borne her up amidst the misfortunes of her married 
 life, amidst the ruin of her illustrious house, 
 when her husband seemed hopelessly estranged 
 from her, when her gallant and accompHshed 
 brother, the last Duke of Montmorenci, perished 
 on the scaffold, sank under the calamities that 
 
 ■ 
 
 57 
 
 overwhelmed her children. Crushed by a weight 
 of grief and despair, which all the tender solicitude 
 of Madame de Chatillon was unable to lighten, 
 she soon found refuge from her sufferings in the 
 
 grave. 
 
 While these events were passing in Paris, the 
 younger Princess, assisted by the able and 
 energetic Lenet, was striving against almost in- 
 superable difficulties to put Montrond in a state 
 of defence. The Castle was destitute of resources 
 of every kind, and Claire soon learned that mis- 
 fortune has a gorgon aspect which turns the hearts 
 of friends into stone. Her father, the old Marshal 
 Brez6, famous throughout the kingdom for his 
 eccentric and somewhat cynical habits, had died 
 in the early part of the year. On his death-bed 
 he exacted an oath from his principal officer, 
 Dumont by name, to hold the strong town of 
 Saumur, of which he had long been Governor, in 
 the interest of his daughter. Claire's first step 
 on reaching Montrond was to communicate with 
 Dumont and with the Prince of Marsillac, who 
 had just succeeded to his patrimonial title of Duke 
 of la Rochefoucault. The Duke assembled all his 
 retainers, upon the pretext of celebrating his 
 father's obsequies, and marched towards Saumur. 
 But news meeting him on the way that Dumont, 
 
 D 5 
 
^ 
 
 68 
 
 seduced by Mazarines bribes, had betrayed his 
 trust, he was obliged to disband his forces, and 
 retire to the Chateau of Yerteuil. The old 
 Princess of Cond6, whose many admirable qualities 
 were sullied by the vice of avarice, distracted by 
 anguish and terror, refused to unlock her hoards. 
 The powerful connexions of Conde and Breze, 
 believing the cause of the imprisoned Princes 
 hopeless, hastened to make their peace with the 
 Eegent, and in reply to their young kinswoman's 
 solicitations for succour, counselled submission. 
 She could see from the battlements, the new 
 Governor of Berri, the Count of St. Aignan, a 
 creature of Mazarin, prowling around the Castle 
 with a strong body of horsemen, as if meditating 
 hostilities. After a while, intelligence arrived of 
 the surrender of Bellegarde, the last remaining 
 possession of her husband in Burgundy. The 
 condition of her affairs seemed utterly desperate 
 even to her staunchest supporters. But she bore 
 bravely up against disaster and defection. " Her 
 trust,'' she said, '' was in God, the protector of 
 innocence." 
 
 Brightening prospects gradually justified the 
 young Princess's confidence. Sums of money, 
 raised by the sale or on the security of her 
 father's effects, were secretly expended in 
 
 59 
 
 procuring munitions of war. Many of the 
 late defenders of Bellegarde stole across the 
 country, and threw themselves into Montrond. 
 The neighbouring gentry sent in supplies of pro- 
 visions under cover of the night. And what was 
 of the greatest moment, the Regent and Mazarin, 
 having their hands full in other quarters, and de- 
 spising her as an adversary, allowed themselves to 
 listen to her excuses, conveyed in a letter full of 
 pathos and submission, which deprecated Anne of 
 Austria's anger, and the hostile proceedings of St. 
 Aignan. Accepting her plea that she had sub- 
 stantially obeyed the royal mandate in retiring to 
 Berri, the Government imprudently instructed St. 
 Aignan to suffer her to remain unmolested during 
 her good behaviour. It soon had reason bitterly 
 to repent its error. The gentry of Berri, who 
 now flocked openly to pay her their respects, cap- 
 tivated by the natural charm of her manners and 
 conversation, became enthusiastic in her cause. 
 Every day noble volunteers arrived from all parts 
 of France to swell the garrison of Montrond. In 
 order not to arouse suspicion, most of these were 
 quietly quartered in the village of St. Amand, or 
 distributed through the neighbouring chateaux. 
 Finally the Dukes of Bouillon and La Roche- 
 foucault sent her word that they had concerted a 
 
60 
 
 plan of operations, and were ready to take the 
 field at the head of their vassals, if she would join 
 them with her son. 
 
 It was resolved in the Princess's Council, of 
 which the leading members were Lenet and 
 Count Coligni, that she should embrace without 
 delay the proposal of the Dukes. A great hunting 
 party was proclaimed, and upon the pretext of 
 sport, the partizans of Conde, in Berri, were sum- 
 moned to meet at Montrond. When the guests 
 had all assembled in the great hall of the castle, 
 the gates were locked, and Claire entered the 
 apartment, leading the little Duke of Enghien by 
 the hand. Nature had endowed her with few of 
 the external attributes with which fancy loves to 
 adorn a heroine. Her figure, though graceful and 
 well-proportioned, was diminutive ; her features, 
 pleasing and intelligent rather than striking, not- 
 withstanding the soft fire of her eyes, were defi- 
 cient in regularity; her manners on ordinary 
 occasions were remarkably gentle and unobtrusive. 
 But her insignificant frame was informed by a 
 noble spirit which, when stirred by deep emotion, 
 lit up her countenance into singular beauty, and 
 touched her tongue with irresistible eloquence. 
 And now when, pale and weeping, but with the 
 light of heroic courage flashing through her 
 
 61 
 
 tears, she recounted in pathetic language the 
 woes and wrongs of her husband and her son, and 
 told her moved listeners that she was about to 
 confide to the keeping of their honour the Castle 
 of Montrond, the wreck of the fortunes of a 
 Prince, but yesterday the strength and glory of 
 France, to-day the impotent victim of a per- 
 fidious foreigner, the assembled warriors, elec- 
 trified by her words, sprang to their feet as one 
 man, and swore to die in its defence. 
 
 Tearing herself away with difficulty from a 
 scene of frantic enthusiasm, Claire, attended by 
 Lenet, Coligni, and a small train, left Montrond 
 on the night of the 8th of May, and started upon 
 her journey. She rode on a pillion behind Coligni, 
 who, to disarm suspicion, gave out at each halting- 
 place on the route that she was a rich heiress 
 whom he was carrying off into the wilds of Au- 
 vergne. This pretext sufficed in that adventurous 
 age to obtain for him general sympathy and assis- 
 tance. They crossed the Cher and afterwards the 
 Allier, eluding the rapid pursuit of St. Aignan 
 climbed by rocky paths the steep mountains of 
 Chantal, and on the 14th of May reached the 
 camp which the Dukes had pitched near the village 
 of Anglar. As the Princess rode along the Hnes 
 of burnished steel and tossing plumes, drawn up to 
 
62 
 
 receive her, there arose in a mighty shout, a war- 
 cry which shortly afterwards re-echoed through- 
 out France, '' Long hve the Princes and down 
 with Mazarin.'' She was conducted in a species of 
 triumphal procession to Bouillon's ancestral seat, 
 the Chateau of Turenne. 
 
 The Duke entertained his fair guest with 
 
 princely hospitality. He accorded her sovereign 
 
 honours. Fetes, balls, masquerades, crowned the 
 
 day with pleasure and dethroned the night. But, 
 
 with the chief personages, revelry was but the 
 
 mask of political intrigue, furnishing occasions 
 
 for drawing together the neighbouring gentry. 
 
 Whilst apparently engrossed by festivity the 
 
 Princess and the Dukes laboured incessantly in 
 
 secret council to organize a formidable revolt. 
 
 They sought to enhst the support of the great 
 
 Huo-uenot connexion of the south-west, which, 
 
 until shattered by: the blows of Richeheu, had 
 
 often successfully defied the whole power of the 
 
 Crown. But their most anxious care was to 
 
 induce the Parliament and citizens of Bordeaux 
 
 actively to espouse the cause of the Princes. In 
 
 order to understand this solicitude, it is only 
 
 necessary to keep in view the political condition 
 
 of the state. At that period of selfish turbulence, 
 
 the countenance of one of the High Courts of 
 
 63 
 
 Justice was essential to the success of an insurrec- 
 tion. These great magisterial bodies were the 
 sole barriers that protected the mass of the 
 population from the despotism of the Crown, and 
 in their pubhc conduct might be recognised some- 
 thing of the spirit and dignity of the laws of 
 which they were interpreters and guardians. 
 Unlike the factious nobles who took advantage of 
 the • disorders of the kingdom to eke out their 
 slender revenues by rapine, who obeyed only the 
 ever varying impulses of individual cupidity or 
 caprice, the Parliaments were ever consistently 
 united in the defence of their common privileges, 
 and frequently joined in vindicating public 
 liberty and national interests. The honourable 
 contrast which their fidelity to their order and 
 their patriotism afforded to the political profligacy 
 of the nobility, and their origin among the great 
 unprivileged class, secured to them the attach- 
 ment and veneration of the people. Wealthy 
 burghers, who paid but a grumbling obedience 
 to a Royal Edict, donned helmet and loosed purse- 
 string with alacrity at the appeal of a Parliament. 
 An insurrection inaugurated with such auspices 
 lost in the popular eye the darker hues of re- 
 belHon, and was, in a manner, hallowed by the 
 sanction of public justice. 
 
64 
 
 The house of Conde and the city of Bordeaux 
 were bound together by hereditary ties of pro- 
 tection and gratitude. The captive Prince him- 
 self had laid the citizens under obligations. They 
 viewed his downfall with regret, and were moved 
 by a generous compassion for his wife and son. 
 Domestic grievances of their own strengthened 
 this feeling of sympathy. They groaned under 
 the insolent exactions of the Duke of Epernon, a 
 rapacious and profligate nobleman, whom, in 
 opposition to their repeated remonstrances, 
 Mazarin upheld in his mis-government of 
 Aquetaine on account of the suit of his son, the 
 Duke of Candale, for the Countess of Martinozzi, 
 the Cardinal's beautiful niece. Thus, at this 
 critical juncture, the second city of the kingdom, 
 already biassed in her favour by ancient associa- 
 tions and personal attachment, was goaded by 
 oppression to take up arms in the Princess's 
 
 cause. 
 
 Claire and her council, on receiving certain 
 intelligence of the favourable sentiments of the 
 citizens of Bordeaux, determined to assemble all 
 their forces without delay and march upon the 
 city. This resolution was executed with celerity 
 and vigour. Messages flew through the adjacent 
 provinces summoning the partizans of the im- 
 
 65 
 
 prisoned Princes to assemble in arms, and the 
 call was promptly obeyed. From the rugged 
 mountains of Auvergne ; from the golden plains 
 of Languedoc, consecrated to poetry and love > 
 from the vine-clad slopes of Gascony, gallant 
 nobles poured to the common rendezvous, girt 
 with numerous and warlike vassals, all wearing 
 over their armour scarves of ^^ Isabelle.'' This 
 badge of the insurgents derived its origin and its 
 name from an incident sufficiently ludicrous in 
 itself, and curious, as being perhaps the last 
 historical illustration of one of the customs of 
 more pious times. In the year 1601, the Arch- 
 duchess Isabella, Sovereign of the Netherlands, 
 besieged Ostend, which had revolted from the 
 Spanish rule, with a powerful army. The cannon 
 of the Spaniards soon battered down the defences 
 of the town ; yawning breaches invited an assault; 
 and the Archduchess, in the fervour of her 
 enthusiasm and to stimulate her troops, rashly 
 vowedthat she would not change her linen tiU 
 the place had fallen. She found to her mis- 
 fortune that she had sadly under-rated the 
 stubborn valour of the Flemings. The garrison, 
 with deplorable want of consideration, made a 
 most obstinate resistance. Successive storming 
 parties were repulsed with prodigious slaughter. 
 
66 
 
 The shattered ramparts, manned by determined 
 patriotism, were proof against all the resources of 
 military science and skill, exhausted by the com- 
 passionate gallantry of the most chivalrous and 
 veteran army of Europe. The siege was turned 
 into a blockade, and three long years had passed 
 away before the patient vigilance of the besiegers 
 famished the citizens into submission. Isabella, 
 being a devout Catholic, kept her vow, at a sad 
 sacrifice of personal comfort, and of the lustre of 
 her linen. As may be imagined, her ladies were 
 plunged into profound despair. They anxiously 
 sought the most appropriate means of testifying 
 their sympathy. Even courtly flattery, even 
 Spanish loyalty shrank from the inconveniences 
 of a strict imitation. But they suggested an 
 expedient which afforded at once a touching and 
 an unobjectionable expression of grief, which 
 invested the fair mourners with all the interest, 
 without involving any of the misery of martyrdom. 
 All the ladies of the Flemish Court had their 
 linen dyed a pale yellow. This jaundiced tint 
 became the rage, the magic of fashion gave it 
 beauty, its origin gave it a name, and Cond^ 
 raised it to poHtical significance, by adopting it as 
 his particular colour. 
 
 At the head of a small but well-appointed army 
 
 67 
 
 the Princess rapidly descended the Dordogne. 
 The Duke of Epernon sent his brother, the Cheva- 
 lier de la Valette, with a strong force to oppose 
 her, and a battle was fought near the village of 
 Montclar. The Royalists were routed and driven 
 from the field, leaving their standards, baggage, 
 and military chest in the hands of the insurgents. 
 The victorious troops continued their march to the 
 famous chateau of Courtras, which had been in- 
 herited by the Princess on the death of her 
 brother, the Duke of Breze. Here it was deter- 
 mined to await fresh advices from Bordeaux. 
 Summer now rejoiced in the exquisite freshness 
 of its early bloom. The country around the 
 chateau, the scene of the defeat of the Duke of 
 Joyeuse by Henry of Navarre, was crowned with 
 majestic woods, which opened in long shadowy 
 vistas upon an enchanting variety of landscapes, 
 resplendent with the glowing hues of the South. 
 Mountains now stem and bare, now waving with 
 verdure ; gently swelling slopes clothed with vine- 
 yards and olive-groves ; golden valleys through 
 which the tributaries of the Dordogne wandered 
 like veins of silver, grouped in ever-changing 
 forms of beauty, charmed the eye. In this 
 region of delight war smoothed his rugged front, 
 and laid aside all his ferocity. The Duke of Boml- 
 
68 
 
 Ion, violently smitten by the attractions of Miss 
 Gerbier, who had contrived to rejoin her mistress, 
 set an example of gallantry which gave a tone to 
 the whole army. The sweet forest glades, upon 
 whose flower-enamelled sward Titania might have 
 loved to gambol with her fairy court, resounded 
 with the mirth of less ethereal revellers ; and occa- 
 sionally some Orlando might be seen carving the 
 memorials of his passion on the venerable trees, 
 the mangled witnesses of his raptures or despair. 
 
 Tidings of an unfavourable character quickly 
 terminated this brief season of dalliance. The 
 Parliament of Paris, on receiving intelligence of 
 the outbreak of civil war, had proclaimed Bouillon 
 and La Rochefoucault public enemies. The 
 Dukes of la Force, St. Simon, Tremouille, and 
 other influential Huguenots, upon whose co-opera- 
 tion the insurgents had counted, refused to move, 
 or declared for the Government. Lavie, Advocate- 
 General of the Parliament of Bordeaux, had been 
 sent down from the Court to keep the city to its 
 allegiance, and was vigorously supported by the 
 municipal authorities. An adverse reaction 
 swayed the Parliament. This body had been 
 willing to harbour and defend persecuted fugi- 
 tives, the wife and son of their benefactor. But it 
 hesitated to incur the manifold perils which it 
 
 69 
 
 foresaw must result from admitting into the city 
 a victorious Princess, surrounded by a devoted 
 army, commanded by turbulent and unscrupulous 
 noblemen who had been declared traitors by the 
 highest judicial authority of the kingdom. The 
 mass of the citizens, however, filled with unreason- 
 ing hatred of Epernon and Mazarin, did not share 
 the wise apprehensions of the magistrates. But 
 their leaders found it necessary to temporise. 
 Messages from her principal adherents urged the 
 Princess to enter Bordeaux without delay, un- 
 attended by the Dukes or by any armed escort. 
 Responding to these invitations, she crossed the 
 Garonne in an open boat, accompanied only by her 
 son and her ladies. When she reached the port 
 the guns of several hundred vessels thundered 
 forth their welcome. The whole population of the 
 city poured forth to receive her, and bore her in 
 triumph along streets spanned by festive arches, 
 gay with the streaming banners of many nations, 
 and strewn with flowers, to a palace which had been 
 prepared for her residence. 
 
 Early on the following morning, Claire, attended 
 by a vast crowd, went to the House of Parlia- 
 ment and petitioned the assembled magistrates to 
 espouse her cause. The debate on her petition was 
 stormy and protracted. But the tide of opinion 
 
70 
 
 was flowing strongly in favour of a neutral poUcy, 
 when tlie Princess rushed into the Chamber, lead- 
 ing her little son by the hand, and beautiful in the 
 Bubhme agony of maternal woe. She was re- 
 ceived with deep respect, and at once accorded a 
 hearing. The grief and love of a mother inspired 
 her language. She said she had brought her son 
 to the Parliament of Bordeaux a supphant for 
 justice and for protection against Mazarin. He 
 alone of his house was at liberty ; he was only 
 Beven years of age ; his iUustrious father was in 
 irons ; his ancestors had been their protectors ; 
 would they not have compassion on his tender m- 
 nocence which represented so much glory and so 
 many misfortunes ! Here emotion choked her 
 voice, and the little Prince, casting himself upon 
 his knee, exclaimed, "Be a father tome, gentle- 
 men, for Cardinal Mazarin has deprived me 
 of mine." An appeal* so touching would have 
 melted more flinty hearts than those which beat 
 in the bosoms of the Gascons. Many of the 
 magistrates wept aloud, and the President, in a 
 broken voice, entreated the Princess to withdraw, 
 in order that the discussion might be resumed. 
 Still the Parliament, strong in its sense of public 
 duty, shrank from embarking in a rebellion. It 
 was proposed to adjourn the debate, and a mes- 
 
 71 
 
 sage was sent to the Princess, requesting her to 
 return to her Palace. But she refused to leave 
 the building while the question at issue remained 
 undecided ; and the angry murmurs of the multi^ 
 tude which, agitated by fierce passion, surged 
 through the outer hall, warned the Chamber of 
 the danger of procrastination. At length a decree 
 was passed, by a small majority, that ''the 
 Princess of Conde and the Duke of Enghien 
 might reside in the town under the safe-guard of 
 the laws." The result was such as the more 
 prudent councillors had foreseen. Bouillon and 
 La Kochefoucault entered Bordeaux without ask- 
 ing permission. At their instigation the mob 
 attacked and pillaged the house of Lavie, intending 
 to take his Hf e ; but he was fortunate enough to 
 escape from their fury in disguise. With the 
 connivance of the majority of the citizens, the 
 Dukes gradually introduced their soldiers into the 
 town, and having thus gained complete command 
 of it, the Parliament was irretrievably committed 
 
 to a civil war. 
 
 It was fortunate for the inhabitants of Bordeaux 
 that they were not exposed alone, and still unpre- 
 pared for defence, to be crushed by the whole 
 power of the French Crown. At the moment 
 when they raised the standard of insurrection, a 
 
72 
 
 73 
 
 formidable invasion burst across tbe nortbern 
 frontiers, and divided tbe forces of tbe monarcby. 
 Long and abnost incredible mal-administration, 
 and tbe exbausting efforts of tbe " Tbirty Years' 
 War/' bad reduced tbe great Spanisb monarcby 
 to tbe last degree of prostration. Its treasury 
 was bankrupt ; its arsenals were empty ; a few un- 
 armed vessels of war tbat lay rotting in its silent 
 dockyards, a few ragged and famisbed regiments, 
 ill-disciplined, and worse led, represented tbe in- 
 vincible Armadas and tbe superb armies of 
 PbiHp II. But CastiHan pride bad spurned tbe 
 terms of tbe peace of Munster ; and an alluring 
 prospect bad now opened upon tbe Spanisb 
 Government of recovering, in a few montbs, from 
 distracted France, all tbat bad been lost in ten 
 disastrous campaigns. Conde, a name above all 
 otbers of fear and woe to Spain, was in a Frencb 
 dungeon, and tbe Soutbern provinces bad risen in 
 arms in bis cause. Tbe next in renown of living 
 generals, tbe skilful Turenne, bad arrived at tbe 
 Court of Brussels, commissioned by a powerful 
 Frencb party to proffer alliance and solicit aid. 
 Even Spanisb apatby was roused to turn to account 
 circumstances wbicb promised sucb sweet revenge 
 and sucb splendid advantages. Tbe wbole force 
 of tbe Low Countries advanced into Cbampagne, 
 
 under tbe Arcbduke Ferdinand and Turenne. 
 Mazarin, emulating tbe military as well as tbe 
 literary and artistic tastes of Eicbebeu, reserved 
 to bimself tbe glory of repelling tbis inroad ; and 
 despatcbed Marsbal la Meillerai, a brave and 
 skilful commander, witb a strong body of troops, 
 to quell tbe Soutbern rebelHon. 
 
 A struggle, memorable in tbe annals of Bor- 
 deaux, now began. Tbe royal forces assailed tbe 
 town vigorously from witbout, wbile faction and 
 tumult, secretly fomented by Bouillon and La 
 Eocbefoucault, wbo were incensed by tbe un- 
 concealed aversion in wbicb they were beld by tbe 
 Parliament, raged witbin its walls. But tbe 
 citizens, full of courage and ardour, admirably 
 organised and admirably led by tbe Dukes, not 
 only repelled tbeir assailants in several sharp 
 conflicts, but won brilliant* success in offensive 
 operations. Epemon having seized and fortified 
 the Island of St. George, a post of great advan- 
 tage above the city, a body of new levies, trained 
 by Bouillon, stormed the works and made prisoners 
 tbe Chevalier de CanoUes and a garrison of three 
 hundred men. And the prudence, winning man- 
 ners, and unbounded popularity of the young 
 Princess were constantly employed, with the 
 happiest results, in restoring order and healing 
 
 R 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 E 
 
74 
 
 75 
 
 dissensions. Tlie greatest difficulty she had to 
 encounter was want of money. Her resources, 
 and the resources of the Dukes had been com- 
 pletely drained by their first great effort. Wealthy 
 adherents, on whose contributions she had relied, 
 failed her at the last moment. The Parliament 
 had, as yet, given her only lukewarm support; and 
 arbitrarily to tax the citizens, already staggering 
 under the burdens of the war, was too odious an 
 expedient to be thought of. But the army was 
 without pay. In order to extricate herself from 
 her embarrassments, she, by the advice of her 
 council, concluded a treaty of aUiance with the 
 King of Spain. The sanction of the Parliament 
 to this treasonable proceeding was despaired of, 
 but the Dukes, with the view of involving the 
 magistrates in its consequences, persuaded her 
 to give public audience to Don Joseph Ozorio, 
 the Ambassador sent to her by his Cathohc 
 
 Majesty. 
 
 This hazardous step had well-nigh led to a 
 catastrophe. The magistrates, although carried 
 along by the popular torrent, had, from the be- 
 ginning, regarded with dishke and apprehension 
 the presence and conduct of the Dukes. This 
 last act of defiance effectually roused their 
 national spirit into energetic opposition. They 
 
 were the champions of their country's hberties, 
 not the abettors of its hereditary enemies. Far 
 from faUing into the trap laid for them, they 
 passed a decree of outlawry against the Am . 
 bassador and all who favoured him. The un- 
 compromising condemnation of the Parliament 
 irritated the Princess's Council, and especially 
 stung the haughty soul of Bouillon. He was 
 skilled, in an unusual degree, in the more 
 dangerous arts of a demagogue, in stirring up 
 the foul dregs which, is times of political disorder, 
 rise from the secret cfiverns of society to float and 
 fester on its surface, thet'igns and agents of public 
 calamity. He now wielded the weapons of sedition 
 with terrible effect. 
 
 On the second day after that on which the ob- 
 noxious decree was passed, an armed mob, breath- 
 ing vengeance, surrounded the Palace of Justice. 
 The Parliament, seeing itself in imminent danger 
 of being massacred, sent pressing messages to 
 Bouillon and La Rochef oucault, imploring them to 
 still the tumult they had raised ; but the Dukes 
 refused to interfere. An appeal was then made 
 to the Princess, who had been left in ignorance 
 of the commotfon. She instantly hurried to the 
 scene of danger. Her appearance somewhat 
 calmed the fury of the multitude ; and, passing 
 
 E 2 
 
76 
 
 througli a lane hedged by dense masses of human 
 beings, whom senseless rage had changed mto 
 wild beasts, she entered the House of Assembly, 
 and entreated the magistrates to rescind their 
 decree. These brave men scorned to purchase 
 their lives at the price of dishonour. She returned 
 to the mob and besought it to disperse. The 
 mob replied by an angry roar of imprecation and 
 menace, hoarse and confused as the raving of the 
 sea. While she vainly tried argument and sup- 
 plication, the measured tramp of a military force 
 announced the advance of the city train-bands to 
 rescue the magistrates. In a few moments the 
 cries and the crash of a fierce conflict rose upon 
 the air. The horrors of a fratricidal struggle, per- 
 haps the destruction of the city, were averted by 
 an act of subhme courage on the part of the 
 Princess. Turning to her attendants, she bade 
 those who loved her follow her, and threw herself 
 between the hostile ranks. A hundred swords, 
 some of them already crimsoned with blood, 
 clashed around her; but the humane feeling that 
 rendered her fearless, seemed to render her invul- 
 nerable. The combatants, touched by her prayers 
 and her self-devotion, paused. A moment^s res- 
 pite was sufficient to allow outraged reason to 
 resume her empire ; to allow the fearful conse- 
 
 77 
 
 quences of their suicidal frenzy to flash upon the 
 minds of all. Claire skilfully seized this moment 
 of horror and remorse, and persuaded the repentant 
 multitude to disperse quietly to their homes. On 
 the following day Don Joseph Ozorio departed from 
 Bordeaux ; and, as the pressure of hostilities began 
 to be felt, the Parliament, alarmed for the safety 
 of the city, gave the Princess more cordial support, 
 and sent deputies to solicit the intervention of the 
 Parliament of Paris. 
 
 Meanwhile the Regent and Cardinal Mazarin 
 had advanced into Champagne to oppose the 
 Archduke Ferdinand and Turenne. But the 
 campaign was bloodless. The military talents of 
 the great French General were rendered of no 
 avail by the slow incapacity of the Archduke and 
 the deplorable condition of the Spanish army. 
 Having wasted some weeks in fruitless demonstra- 
 tions, the Spaniards retired ingloriously across 
 the frontier. 
 
 The Minister was now at liberty to turn his 
 whole attention to domestic troubles. The revolt 
 of Bordeaux was hourly assuming a more alarm- 
 ing aspect for the Court. The eyes of the whole 
 kingdom were rivetted by the extraordinary 
 spectacle of a young Princess, without the slightest 
 poHtical knowledge or experience^ hitherto an 
 
78 
 
 object of compassion or of contempt in the exclu- 
 sive circles to whicli she was known, suddenly, as 
 it seemed, endowed by the spirit of love with all 
 the attributes of Minerva, leading conquering 
 armies, ruling councils of astute politicians, sway- 
 ing popular assemblies, in a cause that appealed 
 most directly to the sympathies of every French- 
 man—the cause of a wife and mother, in arms to 
 save her young son, to extricate her illustrious 
 husband from the toils of a crafty foreign adven- 
 turer. The tide of public feeling, ever subject to 
 rapid changes among a sensitive and high-spirited 
 people, had set in strongly in her favour. The 
 adherents of the Princes, lately cowed and power- 
 less, were raising their heads in all parts of the 
 kingdom. The alliance between the Court and 
 the Fronde was growing cold, and De Eetz ap- 
 peared to have accomplished the miracle of fixing 
 in his own interests the unstable purposes of 
 Gaston of Orleans. The Parliament of Paris gave 
 a fraternal welcome to the deputation from the 
 Parliament of Bordeaux, and showed a decided 
 disposition to take part with the citizens against 
 the Duke of Epemon. There was little doubt 
 but that the other great judicial bodies of the 
 kingdom would follow the lead of the Parliament 
 of Paris. Mazarin saw that the rebellion was a 
 
 79 
 
 flame which, if not promptly extinguished, would 
 consume him. Collecting all available reinforce- 
 ments, he put himself at their head, and reaching 
 Guienne by rapid marches, assumed the direction 
 of the war. The Queen, taking with her Made- 
 moiselle de Montpensier as a hostage for the 
 fidelity of the Lieutenant-General, followed at a 
 little distance the movements of the army. 
 
 The first operation of the Cardinal was to lay 
 siege to the Castle of Yayres on the Dordogne. 
 Its commander, a valiant bourgeois of Bordeaux, 
 named Kichon, made an obstinate defence, but the 
 place fell, through the treachery of one of the 
 garrison. In order to strike terror into the in- 
 surgents, Mazarin ordered Richon to be hanged 
 as a traitor. He also gave directions that the 
 Chateau of Yerteuil, in Poitou, the ancient and 
 magnificent seat of the Dukes of la Rochef oucault, 
 with its unique literary and artistic treasures, and 
 its proud historical memorials, should be burned 
 to the ground. It was among the most cherished 
 recollections of the illustrious family of La 
 Rochef oucault that the Emperor Charles Y. had 
 been entertained at Yerteuil, and had said on 
 parting from his host, "he had never entered a 
 house which showed more of grandeur, courtesy, 
 and virtue." The present Duke, himself one of 
 
 l^ 
 
80 
 
 81 
 
 tlie brighest ornaments of Ms line, received tlie- 
 tidings of his irreparable loss with composure, 
 merely remarking that it was another sacrifice for 
 the adorable Madame de Longueville. But the 
 barbarous policy of the minister had a precisely 
 opposite effect from that intended by its author. 
 The indignation it aroused bound together all 
 classes in Bordeaux in cordial union for the de- 
 fence of the city; and it provoked instant reprisals. 
 The tears and prayers of the Princess saved the 
 three hundred prisoners, captured in the Island of 
 St. George, from the vengeance of the populace, 
 but a council of war unanimously decreed the 
 immediate execution of the Chevaher de CanoUes- 
 The popular manners and brilliant social qualities 
 of the unfortunate Canolles had made him a 
 general favourite. Being allowed free range of 
 the town on parole, he was the soul of all festive 
 gatherings, and the news of his sentence was 
 brought to him while feasting in gay abandon 
 with a party of friends. He heard the announce- 
 ment with a smile, believing it to be a jest. 
 Claire strove hard to ob tain for him a reprieve, or 
 at least a short respite from his doom, hoping to 
 contrive his escape from the city. But her Council 
 was inexorable, the stem laws of war and the 
 public anger imperatively demanding a victim* 
 
 The Chevalier was led out to death without even 
 being permitted to see a minister of religion. 
 The people would not suffer such unprofitable 
 delay ; they said that, " being a Mazarin, he must 
 necessarily be damned." 
 
 The Duke of Bouillon also ordered the demoli- 
 tion of the country house of the Archbishop of 
 Bordeaux. These vigorous measuresof retaliation 
 not only put a stop to military executions, but 
 seem to have arrested the unfinished work of 
 destruction at Verteuil. 
 
 The Royal Army next attacked the Island of 
 St. George. The garrison, consisting of twelve 
 hundred picked men, finding themselves cut off 
 from communication with Bordeaux by batteries, 
 which Marshal la Meillerai planted along the 
 banks of the Garonne, lost heart, and surrendered 
 after a feeble resistance. All the approaches of 
 the city were now in possession of the RoyaUsts. 
 The Bordelais had made incredible efforts to 
 put their town in an efficient state of defence. 
 The impediments were, in truth, such as only the 
 most resolute and persevering courage could 
 overcome. A very short time had sufficed to 
 show the value of the vaunting professions of 
 Spain. The absolute ruler of the magnificent 
 empire upon which the sun never set was unable 
 
 E 5 
 
!♦ 
 
 82 
 
 to aid tliem with a single musket or a single 
 doubloon. Their military chest was empty. The 
 Princess had pawned her last jewel. The pay of 
 the army was months in arrear. The ancient for- 
 tifications of the city had crumbled into ruin. 
 Skilled engineers and the material of war were 
 wanted for the creating and the arming of new 
 ramparts. But the extraordinary popularity of 
 the Princess, the enthusiasm and high military 
 qualities of the Gascons, the energy and example 
 of the Dukes, and, more than all, the fertile 
 genius of Bouillon, supphed every deficiency. 
 
 The weakest point in the approaches to the 
 city, and the most exposed to attack, was the 
 Faubourg St. Surin, leading to the gate of 
 Dijcaux. This Faubourg was formed by one or 
 two open streets, and contained the Archbishop^s 
 palace, and the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre, 
 said to have been built by the Emperor Gallienus. 
 Bouillon, seeing the danger of allowing it to be 
 occupied by the Royalists, spared no pains in for- 
 tifying it ; and he was seconded by the citizens 
 with untiring zeal. The whole population, with- 
 out distinction of rank, age, or sex, turned out to 
 labour at the works. Claire, her ladies, and the 
 little Duke of Enghien shared the toils and 
 dangers of the meanest citizen. Defences sprang 
 
 83 
 
 up as if by enchantment. The streets were closed 
 by strong barricades. The buildings on either 
 side were converted into fortresses, loop-holed 
 and garrisoned. Practised marksmen swarmed in 
 the adjacent vine-yards ; and out of a heap of 
 rubbish accumulated before the gate of Dijeaux, 
 Bouillon, with admirable skill, constructed a half- 
 moon. 
 
 As the Duke had foreseen. Marshal la Meillerai, 
 renowned for success in sieges, selected the 
 Faubourg St. Surin as the chief point of attack. 
 Choice troops, with strong supports, advanced to 
 the assault, under the eye of Cardinal Mazarin. 
 A withering fire in front and flank staggered the 
 foremost columns, but, quickly re-forming under 
 cover of their artillery, they charged the barricades. 
 They were met with equal resolution, and for many 
 hours the combat raged, furious with all the mer- 
 ciless fury of civil war. Through the ruined 
 amphitheatre, through the crashing vine-yards, 
 through the shattered barricades, the crimson tide of 
 battle rolled and ebbed. Soon a thick pall 
 of smoke, rent by flashing bolts of death, and 
 lurid with the glare of burning houses, partially 
 shrouded the horrors of the scene. But the ring- 
 ing volleys of musketry, the tramp and clash of 
 charging ranks, the fierce cries of the combatants. 
 
84 
 
 85 
 
 the groans of the dying, blent together in all the 
 maddening tumult of battle, pierced the sulphur- 
 ous war-cloud, and bore tidings to the women 
 and the old men, who with straining eyes and 
 ghastly faces crowded every roof and steeple of 
 the city, of the stern animosity and varying for- 
 tunes of the fight. On this bloody day the Gas- 
 cons well maintained their ancient renown. They 
 repulsed with terrible slaughter six successive 
 assaults of the Eoyal troops, the soldiers of Rocroi 
 and Lens, trained to victory by Cond^ and Turenne. 
 And never did the Gascon annals, rich as they are 
 in great deeds of arms and in lives of famous 
 captains, embalm the fame of leaders more worthy 
 of a gallant people. Wherever the danger 
 gathered thickest, wherever the spirit of the 
 defenders, oppressed by superior numbers, was 
 seen to flag, wherever their closing ranks rushed 
 with new ardour upon the foe, there, conspicuous 
 to all, animating and sustaining all, was the 
 impetuous courage of La Rochefoucault, or the 
 serene intrepidity of Bouillon. It was only in 
 the evening, when, thinned by carnage and faint 
 with toil, that an overwhelming onset of fresh 
 troops drove back the Bordelais into their town. 
 On the following day La Meillerai pushed his 
 operations against the half -moon before the gate 
 
 of Dijeaux. It was a feeble out-work, only six 
 feet high, and hastily constructed out of a dung 
 heap. But its defence illustrated well the old 
 Spartan n^axim, that courage is stronger than 
 stone walls. Day after day carefully chosen 
 storming parties, thrown by the Marshal against 
 this frail barrier, were flung back in utter rout, 
 leaving pyramids of their slain as ghastly monu- 
 ments of the indomitable valour of the citizens. 
 After thirteen days of incessant fighting it became 
 evident to the Royalist generals that, in order to 
 reduce the city speedily, it would be necessary to 
 resort to a bombardment. 
 
 But Cardinal Mazarin was naturally averse to 
 extreme measures ; and he knew that, in destroy- 
 ing such a flourishing commercial mart, he would 
 deal a fatal blow at the prosperity of France, and 
 heap everlasting odium upon himself. The critical 
 situation of his affairs, however, rendered an 
 immediate termination of the civil war of the 
 last moment to him. Turenne, beating and out- 
 manoeuvering two French Marshals, had made a 
 rapid march, at the head of a body of cavalry, 
 upon Vincennes, with the design of surprising 
 the castle and releasing the Princes. Gaston of 
 Orleans, who, as Lieutenant General of the King- 
 dom, had remained in the direction of affairs at 
 
 I 
 
86 
 
 87 
 
 Paris, removed his cousins in time. But instead of 
 transferring them to Havre, as the Court desired, 
 he placed them in the Castle of Marcoussy, which 
 belono-ed to the Count of Entragues, an adherent 
 of his own. The Regent and Cardinal Mazarm 
 learned, with equal mortification and alarm, that 
 their prisoners had passed from their control. 
 Orleans had become the mere puppet of the 
 Minister's most dangerous rival, De Retz ; and 
 the custody of Conde made the factious and weak- 
 minded Duke arbiter of France. The Parliament 
 of Paris had sent deputies to mediate between the 
 Government and the Parhament of Bordeaux, and 
 was hourly faUing into a less compHant mood. 
 The Spaniards were again in strength on the 
 northern frontier. A resort to the extremities of 
 war, and a prolonged siege, seemed alike to bo 
 fraught with disastrous consequences for the 
 Cardinal. " The affair," he said, " was a thistle 
 which pricked on every side.'' He extricated 
 himself from his dilemma with great address. 
 
 In feigned deference to the authority of the 
 Parliament of Paris, he allowed their commis- 
 sioners to open negotiations with the citizens of 
 Bordeaux, and to intimate that he was disposed 
 to grant favourable terms of peace. The Borde- 
 lais, on their part, were well incHned to an 
 
 honourable accommodation. The struggle had 
 already overtaxed their resources. They felt 
 their inability to sustain, single-handed, a pro- 
 tracted contest against the Crown ; and the aid 
 which they had been led to expect from the Duke 
 of la Force and other powerful neighbours had 
 failed them. But what influenced them most was 
 the consideration that the vintage season had set 
 in. A Httle longer delay, and the whole of the 
 year's produce of the vineyards, in which their 
 wealth consisted, would be spoiled. An honour- 
 able reluctance to fail in their engagements with 
 the Princess and the Dukes alone caused them to 
 hesitate. But Claire and her Council, with great 
 magnanimity, voluntarily released them from their 
 pledges, and requested them to consult only their 
 own interests. The Gascons were incapable of 
 abusing this generosity. To insist on the libera- 
 tion of the Princes would be useless, but the 
 envoys despatched by the city to the royal camp 
 were instructed to guard the interests of its allies 
 as jealously as its own. The magistrates from 
 Paris assumed the functions of arbitrators, and, 
 after a few conferences, a treaty containing the 
 most indulgent conditions for the insurgents was 
 signed. It stipulated that the Princess should 
 enjoy all her revenues unmolested, and should. 
 
88 
 
 moreover, for her security, be allowed to garrison 
 Montrond witli one hundred and fifty men at tlie 
 public expense ; that the confederate nobles should 
 be received into favour, and restored to the 
 estates, honours, and employments they had pos- 
 sessed at the breaking out of the war ; and that a 
 general amnesty should be proclaimed. It was 
 also agreed, but in order to save the dignity of the 
 Crown, by a secret article, that the Duke of 
 Epernon should be recalled, and a Governor, ap- 
 proved by the citizens, appointed in his stead. 
 Thus ended the famous war of Bordeaux. 
 
 The Princess and the Dukes immediately pre- 
 pared to quit the city in which they had won so 
 much renown. Before her departure Claire dis- 
 tributed all her remaining funds for the relief of 
 the wounded and destitute officers of her party. 
 The Parliament, as a public mark of the love and 
 veneration of the citizens, redeemed, and by then- 
 afiectionate importunity, forced her to accept the 
 jewels she had pawned during the difficulties of 
 the war. She was privately assured that, when 
 the grapes had been gathered in, Bordeaux would 
 again declare in favour of her husband. The 
 whole population escorted her to the beautiful 
 gaUey presented to her by the city, in which she 
 was to ascend the river on her way to Courtras. 
 
 89 
 
 As the fairy vessel, bounding over the bright 
 waters of the Garonne, bore her weeping from the 
 scene of her glory, farewell cheers, mingled with 
 sobs and loud lamentations, spoke the grief and 
 love of the Gascons. 
 
 On her voyage she was met by Marshal la 
 Meillerai, who invited her to pay a visit to the 
 Kegent, at Bourg, a village at the mouth of the 
 Dordogne, where the Court had resided during 
 the siege. She consented, though with reluctance. 
 She was ill and dispirited; she knew the haughty^ 
 \mf orgiving temper of Anne of Austria ; but she 
 scrupled to cast away even the faintest chance of 
 serving her husband. The whole Court crowded 
 forth to see the heroine it had so lately despised, 
 and with whose fame all France was ringing. 
 The Eegent received her in a private audience, at 
 which the young King, Mademoiselle de Mont- 
 pensier, and Cardinal Mazarin were present. 
 Mademoiselle de Montpensier has left ^s in her 
 memoirs a graphic, but most unfriendly descrip- 
 tion of what passed. With ungenerous malice, 
 she ridicules the woe-stricken appearance and the 
 negligent toilette of the young Princess. But 
 the unconcealed partiality of the " Grande 
 Mademoiselle'' for Conde, led her to dislike and 
 disparage Conde's wife ; and more impartial ob- 
 
90 
 
 servers bear testimony to tlie gentle dignity and 
 affecting demeanour of the object of her jealous 
 scorn. Without deigning to notice Mazarin, 
 Claire knelt before the Regent, humbly entreating 
 that her husband might be restored to liberty. 
 Anne of Austria returned a cold and somewhat 
 ungracious answer, and the interview terminated. 
 The Cardinal immediately afterw^ards paid Claire 
 a visit, and met with a chilling reception. He, 
 however, had long and confidential discussions 
 with Bouillon, La Rochefoucault, and Lenet on the 
 state of pubhc affairs, but could not be induced 
 to give a definite pledge to release the captive 
 Princes. During these fruitless negociations the 
 Princess resumed her interrupted journey to 
 Courtras, whence, after a short delay, she pro- 
 ceeded to Montrond. The party at Bourg soon 
 separated. The Court moved forward for the 
 public entry of the sovereigns into Bordeaux. 
 Bouillon retired to Auvergne, and La Rochefoucault 
 turned his steps to Poitou, to mourn over the 
 blackened ruins of his venerable chateau. 
 
 It is not often that the critical judgment of 
 posterity ratifies the verdict of contemporary 
 enthusiasm so completely as in the case of the 
 young Princess of Conde. History affords few 
 examples of such sterling and various excellence 
 
 91 
 
 as aaire de Maill6 Breze exhibited during her 
 brief appearance on the political stage. Her 
 cause was the most sacred of all causes for a 
 woman, and was politically just; the imprison- 
 ment of Conde, however criminal his conduct, 
 being manifestly illegal. Of her measures to 
 vindicate it, that which alone at that anarchical 
 period was open to censure, the Spanish alliance, 
 must fairly be ascribed to the overruling influence 
 of her council. Wherever her own noble nature had 
 free play, her actions excite only admiration. Her 
 modest wisdom, her unselfish courage, her mar- 
 vellous eloquence, her magnanimous spirit, ever 
 soaring above the rage of ignoble passions, and 
 the conflict of petty interests, her womanly 
 virtues, softening with their tender poetry the 
 horrors of civil war, blooming so freshly and 
 sweetly in the unwholesome atmosphere of a 
 corrupt society, and the cold shadow of conjugal 
 neglect, combine to form one of the brightest and 
 loveliest of those pictures of feminine worth upon 
 which the eye lingers with delight, amidst so 
 much that is tawdry and so much that is repulsive 
 in the long dim galleries of history. 
 
92 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 We left Conde^ Conti, and Longueville in the 
 prison fortress of Yincennes on the night that 
 followed their arrest. Their imprisonment wa3 
 of the severest character. They had for jailor 
 the Sieur de Bar^ a rude, harsh soldier, who 
 guarded them with the most jealous vigilancOj 
 having pledged his word to the Eegent to stab 
 Cond^to the heart rather than permit him to escape. 
 Seven soldiers kept watch over them night and 
 day, the descent of the Duke of Beaufort from the 
 same donjon keep into the moat beneath, a feat 
 which had been supposed to require the wings of 
 a bird, showing the need of extraordinary pre- 
 cautions. The entertainment provided for them 
 by the Regent was of the most frugal description. 
 They were required to supply themselves with 
 everything beyond the bare necessaries of life at 
 their own charge. Conde angrily refused to give 
 
 93 
 
 any orders to his steward, saying he would rather 
 starve. When his resolve was reported to the 
 Regent, she said, with sarcastic composure, " Let 
 him starve then,^* and for some days the Princes 
 lived on the coarse prison fare. But Longueville, 
 who was not a hero, and did not feel called upon 
 to assume the character, soon tired of aggravating 
 the hardships of his lot, and undertook, much to 
 Conde^s secret satisfaction, the office of caterer. 
 Intelligence of the condition of the prisoners oc- 
 casionally got abroad through a physician named 
 Dalence, who was permitted to pay them periodical 
 visits. Conti passed his days and nights in prayer 
 and lamentation. Longueville, when not racked 
 by gout, was generally moody and silent, sunk 
 in the torpor of despair. Conde sang, swore, 
 heard mass, played at battledoor and shuttlecock, 
 dined with an excellent appetite, and reared 
 flowers. When Conti asked in piteous tones for 
 the " Imitation of Christ,'' Conde shouted for an 
 imitation of the Duke of Beaufort. One day 
 during the war of Bordeaux, Dalence found the 
 elder Prince cultivating pinks on the terrace of the 
 donjon, and narrated to him the events of the 
 siege. ^^ Who would have believed,'' said the 
 hero of Rocroi, " that my wife would wage war 
 while I watered my garden !" 
 
94 
 
 The friends of tlie prisoners, and especially 
 MadamedeLongueville, were unceasingly occupied 
 
 in contriving the means of their escape and secret 
 methods of communication. The crown pieces 
 which the Kegent permitted her captives to receive 
 for play, were scooped out, and made vehicles of 
 intelligence. Bottles of wine, with false bottoms, 
 served the same purpose. A crutch destined to 
 support the feeble steps of Conti contamed a 
 rapier for his warlike brother. The chief agent 
 of Madame de LongueviUe was Gourville, one of 
 the most extraordinary of the many emment adven- 
 turers who achieved political distinction m that 
 eventful age. Gourville had begun life as a lackey 
 of the Duke of la Rochef oucault, and had risen from 
 this menial station to be the confidential secretary 
 and councillor of his ambitious and keen-witted 
 master. His advancement allowed him scope forthe 
 display of capacity, courage, and adroitness which 
 soon won for him an unrivalled reputation m the 
 conduct of difficult and hazardous enterprises; 
 and his curious memoirs give us pictures of the 
 personages and events of the time hardly inferior 
 in interest and value to those of La Rochef oucault 
 himself. During one of his visits to the neigh- 
 bourhood of Yincennes, Gourville found means to 
 gain over three of the seven soldiers who guarded 
 
 95 
 
 Conde. It was arranged that on a certain Sunday 
 afternoon, while De Bar was attending Vespers, 
 the Prince and his accomplices should fall on the 
 four other guards, disarm and gag them, and, by 
 means of a rope, descend into the castle moat. 
 Gourville undertook to have a body of horsemen 
 in readiness to receive the fugitives and convey 
 them to a place of safety. This was not a more 
 difficult achievement than the escape of the Duke 
 of Beaufort. But on the eve of its proposed execu- 
 tion one of the soldiers who had been suborned was 
 seized with remorse. Entering a church in Paris, 
 he delivered a paper containing hints of the plot to 
 a priest engaged in one of the confessionals. The 
 priest at once forwarded the document to the Coad- 
 jutor, whose lynx-eyed suspicion divined the truth. 
 Without losing a moment he caused the guards 
 at Yincennes to be changed, and sent .Beaufort to 
 scour the adjacent country with a strong force of 
 cavalry. Though thus mysteriously baffled, Gour- 
 ville was not disheartened. He had almost 
 matured another promising scheme for the hbera- 
 tion of the captives, when their sudden removal 
 to Marcoussy disconcerted his plans. 
 
 Marcoussy was a strong and commodious castle, 
 seated on an island in the middle of a lake within 
 a few leagues^ distance of Paris. It was here that 
 
96 
 
 Henry lY. tad wooed Henriette d'Entragues, 
 to whose family the castle belonged. Being a pri- 
 vate residence as well as a fortress, it allowed 
 greater facilities of escape than Vincennes, and the 
 Princes, though still attended by De Bar, found 
 themselves under less severe restraint. Their 
 friends did not fail to avail themselves of this 
 favourable change of circumstances. A Marechal 
 de Camp, named Arnaud, caused a boat to be con- 
 structed of boiled leather, which, admitting of 
 being rolled up in a small compass, might be con- 
 veyed to the shore of the lake without attractmg 
 observation. He engaged to paddle across m the 
 nicht to the base of the castle wall. The fidelity 
 of °a soldier of the garrison had been corrupted ; 
 and, with this man's assistance, the Princes were 
 to slay the other guards as they slept, and 
 let themselves down into the boat. A strong 
 party of armed gentlemen, and the means of a 
 rapid flight to Conde's town of Stenay, awaited 
 them on the opposite shore. The preparations for 
 this daring enterprise were completed, and it was 
 on the point of being executed, when the hopes 
 of the prisoners were again dashed by the unex- 
 pected arrival of the Count of Harcourt with an 
 order for their instant removal to the Citadel of 
 Havre. 
 
 97 
 
 The unbroken silence in which the Regent and 
 Cardinal Mazarin were received by the inhabitants 
 of Bordeaux, on the occasion of their public entry 
 into that city, after the termination of the war, 
 offered little inducement to them to prolong their 
 absence from the Capital, where the perilous con- 
 dition of affairs urgently demanded their presence. 
 Turenne and the Spaniards had again invaded the 
 Northern Provinces. The independent action of 
 the Duke of Orleans, in transferring his cousins 
 to Marcoussy, and in opening unauthorised nego- 
 tiations with the Archduke Leopold, and the 
 recent hostile attitude of the Parliament of Paris, 
 furnished the Government with grave causes of 
 anxiety and alarm. The Regent, thinking that 
 she saw the hand of the Coadjutor in the un- 
 friendly proceedings of Orleans and the Magis- 
 trates, was deeply incensed against that prelate, 
 and hurried back to repair the evils effected by 
 his policy. She was detained on the way for some 
 weeks by a dangerous illness, but, when suffi- 
 ciently recovered to resume her journey, she 
 wrote to the Lieutenant- General, inviting him to 
 meet her at Fontainebleau. De Retz and Madame 
 de Chevreuse, foreseeing the result of the inter- 
 view, implored the Duke to excuse himself from 
 -compliance. But the courage of Gaston was un- 
 
 VOL. II. F 
 
98 
 
 99 
 
 equal to an act of formal disobedience. Anne of 
 Austria^s agents skilfully soothed his fears, and 
 after pitiable vaciUation, he set out in great trepi- 
 dation of mind for Fontainebleau, having first 
 fortified his spirits by passing his word to De 
 Ketz under no circumstances to consent to the 
 removal of the captive Princes from Marcoussy. 
 
 On the night of Orleans' arrival the Regent invited 
 him to a private conference. The cowardly Prince 
 was hke wax in her hands. In an hour she had 
 wrung from him an order for the surrender of his 
 cousins to her own keeping, and curtly dismissed 
 him to repose. Relieved from the immediate in- 
 fluence of the t errible spell with which her strong 
 nature enthralled his, and left to his own re- 
 flections, Gaston passed the rest of the night dis- 
 tracted by rage, fear and shame. At break of day 
 he called for pistols and a horse, and galloping 
 forth like one demented, wandered for hours 
 through the forest, lost in a stupor of contending 
 emotions. On his return, he sought Mazarin, 
 complained bitterly of the unfair stress placed 
 upon his inclinations by the Regent, and demanded 
 back the order. The Cardinal was blandness 
 itself, and sent to summon an Under-Secretary of 
 State, into whose hands the document had been 
 passed. By one of those happy mischances which 
 
 the Minister found so convenient, the Under Secre- 
 tary could not be discovered until late in the day. 
 It then appeared, as Mazarin informed Gaston with 
 expressions of lively regret, that the order had 
 been at once despatched to the new Governor of 
 Normandy, the Count of Harcourt, a distinguished 
 cadet of the House of Guise, and a zealous ad- 
 herent of the Government, with instructions to 
 escort the prisoners to the Citadel of Havre, which 
 the Duchess of Richelieu, now in high favour 
 at Court, had placed at the disposal of the Regent. 
 The same day saw Cond6 and his brothers 
 on their way to their new prison, the secure 
 strensrth of which shut out from them all further 
 hope of freedom. Conde bore this cruel stroke of 
 fortune with his usual equanimity, relieving his 
 disappointment and the tedium of the journey by 
 composing the following well-known lines on the 
 celebrated soldier who had him in custody. 
 
 Cet homme gros et court 
 
 Si fameux dans I'histoire 
 
 Ce grand Comte d' Harcourt 
 
 Tout rayonnant de gloire. 
 Qui secourut Casal, et qui reprit Turin 
 Est maintenant recors de Jules Mazarin. 
 
 A load of care was now hfted from the mind of 
 Mazarin. The formidable captive, the dread fore- 
 boding of whose restoration to freedom, without 
 
 p 2 
 
100 
 
 his concurrence, had for months oppressed him 
 like a nightmare, was again in his own hands. 
 His arch-enemy, the Coadjutor, was baffled and 
 apparently powerless ; rebeUion was extinguished ; 
 and the Parliament of Paris, gratified by the part 
 it had played during the war of Bordeaux, seemed 
 inclined to rest from agitation. It appeared to 
 the Kegent that she might now safely indulge her 
 long-smothered antipathy, and break with De 
 Ketz. Madame de Chevreuse, who had followed 
 Orleans to Fontainebleau in order to keep him steady 
 to his pledge, made a formal application for the 
 Cardinal's hat which had been promised to the 
 Coadjutor. The Regent referred the matter to the 
 Council of State, and, taking advantage of the 
 unexpected opposition of Chateauneuf, positively 
 declined to fulfil her engagement. Mazarin then 
 earnestly counselled her not to return to Paris 
 until the young King had attained his majority, 
 or at least to fix her residence in the Louvre, 
 which was strong enough to repel the assaults of 
 an insurgent rabble, and afforded convenient 
 egress to the country. But Anne of Austria, 
 depressed by ill-health, luxurious in her habits, 
 and insensible to fear, sighed for the distractions 
 of the Capital, and could not be persuaded to ex- 
 change the ease and splendour of the Palais 
 
 101 
 
 Royal for the cheerless discomfort of the Louvre. 
 The Cardinal accompanied her back to Paris, but, 
 after a short stay, set out for Champagne to oppose 
 Turenne and the Spaniards. He carried his for- 
 tunes with him. His presence with the French 
 army ushered in a most brilliant campaign. Rhetel 
 was taken before the eyes of Turenne. The 
 Spanish army was routed in a decisive battle ; its 
 great Commander escaped from the field with 
 only one hundred and fifty horse ; and in a few 
 days not an enemy was left in arms on the soil of 
 France. Mazarin returned again to Paris, vic- 
 torious over all his foes. Never had his posi- 
 tion in France appeared so lofty and so secure. 
 But it was in reality undermined by a secret 
 cabal, which all his craft had failed to penetrate, 
 and a single false move might send it crashing 
 into ruin. 
 
 The three parties which distracted the State, 
 the Old Fronde, of which De Retz, Beaufort, and 
 Madame de Chevreuse were the leading spirits ; 
 the adherents of the imprisoned Princes, who 
 styled themselves the New Fronde ; and the Court 
 party, popularly known as Mazarins, were at this 
 time not unequally represented in the Parliament 
 of Paris. The advocates of the Princes, though 
 numerically the weakest section, possessed a great 
 
102 
 
 superiority in moral power, for they were counte- 
 nanced by Mole, De Mesmes, and Omer Talon, 
 who were the glory of the Assembly; staimch 
 supporters of the Eoyal Authority within the 
 limits fixed by the Declaration of October, but 
 also faithful guardians of the constitution. The 
 cordial union of any two of these parties con- 
 trolled the Decrees of the High Court, and must, 
 so long as the power of the Crown was placed in 
 partial abeyance by a Eoyal minority, have a 
 decisive political effect. Common hatred and fear 
 of Conde had produced the extraordinary coalition 
 between the Court and the Fronde, between 
 faction and authority, which resulted in his over- 
 throw. The popular voice had applauded the 
 League; the Eegent and Mazarin loaded their 
 new alKes with favours and caresses ; De Eetz 
 was ostensibly admitted to the most secret 
 counsels of the Government ; Madame de Chev- 
 reuse seemed to resume her old place in the heart 
 of her mistress; Beaufort again swaggered in the 
 Eoyal Presence Chamber, and in the first fever of 
 joy and triumph deep-rooted enmities and jarring 
 interests appeared to be buried in oblivion. But 
 this unnatural alliance could not be permanent. 
 Only the strong motive of self-preservation could 
 have compelled such antagonistic elements into a 
 
 103 
 
 momentary cohesion. When the pressure was re- 
 laxed, they flew asunder from an inherent principle 
 of repulsion. It would have been as consistent 
 with the laws of nature for two suns to shine in 
 the same firmament, as for Mazarin and De Eetz 
 to rule in harmony ; and each was devoured by 
 the ambition to be Prime Minister of France. 
 Contrary to the wishes and intentions of his con- 
 federates, the wily Italian, strong in the unalterable 
 attachment of Anne of Austria, reaped all the real 
 advantages of the coalition. But as his authority 
 again grew manifestly predominant, the popular 
 favour ebbed from him with increasing rapidity. 
 By the same movement it flowed towards his 
 captives. The gallant defence of Bordeaux 
 aroused general sympathy for Conde's wife and 
 son. The misfortunes of the hero of whom they 
 had been so proud touched the heart of a martial 
 and generous people. The besieger of Paris, the 
 fiery enemy of popular rights, the selfish dictator, 
 were forgotten in the Great Captain who had 
 so weU avenged the defeats of Pavia and St. 
 Quentin. This revulsion of public feeling was 
 watched with the keenest interest by De Eetz. 
 It was with unutterable rage and shame that the 
 haughty prelate found that, notwithstanding his 
 brilliant genius and his unrivalled talents for 
 
104 
 
 intrigue, he was miserably duped by the un- 
 scrupulous artifice of his rival. His nomination 
 by the Crown for a CardinaFs hat, the splendid 
 reward for which he had consented to exalt 
 Mazarin to such a height of power, was first 
 evaded, and afterwards flatly refused, on insulting 
 pretexts ; while the support he afforded the 
 Minister sensibly diminished the popular favour 
 upon which his own power was based. He knew 
 that the establishment of a strong executive was 
 incompatible with the existence of an authority 
 springing from the fierce play of revolutionary 
 passions ; that its first care would be to crush the 
 spirit of faction which, like some potent magician 
 of Eastern story, he had evoked to minister to his 
 behests. Without, therefore, at all sharing in the 
 new-born sympathy for the imprisoned Princes 
 which pervaded men^s minds, self-interest and 
 revenge prompted him to listen eagerly to the 
 suggestion of a coahtion between the Old and the 
 New Fronde for the liberation of the captives and 
 the overthrow of Mazarin. 
 
 The idea of this new political combination origi- 
 nated in the teeming brain of Anne of Gonzaga, 
 the Princess Palatine. In an age strongly 
 coloured by the influence of female celebrities, as 
 remarkable for briUiant intellectual gifts and 
 
 105 
 
 beauty as for easy profligacy of life, Anne of 
 Gonzaga was pre-eminently distinguished by her 
 political talents, her wit, and her eccentric gal- 
 lantries. The birth and connexions of this ex- 
 traordinary woman were illustrious. Her father, 
 the Duke of Mantua and Never s, had been 
 expelled from his Italian principality by the 
 Spaniards on account of his French extrac- 
 tion, and restored by the arms and policy of 
 Kichelieu. Mary of Gonzaga, her sister, some 
 years before one of the brightest ornaments of 
 the Court of France, and the prize for which the 
 aspiring Cinq-Mars rashly staked his fortunes and 
 his life, was now Queen of Poland. Her own 
 husband was a younger son of the unfortunate 
 King of Bohemia and Elizabeth Stuart. The 
 story of her amour with the Duke of Guise, as 
 related by Mademoiselle de Montpensier, affords 
 an amusing view of one side of her character. 
 
 Guise, the representative of the historic family 
 which above all others had linked its name in 
 imperishable renown with the great events and 
 the mournful tragedies of the stormiest and most 
 eventful century of modern history, was himself 
 a prodigy. He was a living anachronism, a 
 knight -errant instinct with the adventurous spirit 
 of the 11th century, flung, as it were, by some 
 
 P 5 
 
106 
 
 cpnvulsion of the moral order, into the age of 
 Louis XIV. Some of his enterprises might have 
 adorned a page in the History of Amadis de 
 Gaul ; all of them were more or less tinged with 
 the hues of romance. He lived the life of Sir 
 Launcelot at a time when even what was most 
 admirable in chivalry was withering under the 
 immortal satire of Cervantes. Yet, like so 
 many of the mediasval barons, he united to his 
 passion for the marvellous considerable practical 
 ability. During the most notable period of 
 his career, while he was engaged at Naples, after 
 the downfall of Massaniello, in endeavouring 
 to fix on his own head the crown of the Two 
 Sicilies, he displayed talents for government of 
 no mean order. But the tone of his mind 
 lent to everything he did a ridiculous air of 
 exaggeration ; and his countrymen, discriminating 
 between splendid and fantastic exploits, have 
 styled Guise the Hero of Romance, Condd the 
 Hero of History. 
 
 This extraordinary nobleman was titular Arch- 
 bishop of Rheims. His episcopal dignity, how- 
 ever, sat lightly upon him. He paid his vows at 
 the shrine of beauty with all the fervour of the 
 joyous chivalry of Languedoc in the days of 
 the Troubadours. His brilHant quahties, his 
 
 107 
 
 romantic wooing, and the resistless spell which 
 daring deeds fling around the imaginations of 
 women, enslaved the sensitive heart of Anne of 
 Gonzaga. But, alas ! the inconstancy of man ! 
 Guise, growing tired of his conquest, quitted Paris 
 rather unceremoniously, and went to Brussels. 
 The Princess pursued him, disguised in male 
 attire ; but, finding the chase hopeless, she assumed 
 a less questionable shape, publicly announced her 
 marriage with her truant lover, and styled herself 
 Madame de Guise. Unfortunately for the success 
 of this decorous fiction. Guise, with strange per- 
 versity, precipitately espoused another lady. The 
 Princess bore his ingratitude with the composure 
 of a stoic, quietly resumed her maiden style and 
 dignity, and, as Mademoiselle de Montpensier 
 says, returned to Paris as though nothing had 
 happened. 
 
 But, to an irregular fancy, the Princess Palatine 
 united not only rare capacity, but a generous 
 heart. She had conceived an enthusiastic admira- 
 tion for Conde, and the Regent had given her just 
 cause of dissatisfaction. In order to extricate her 
 hero, she laboured with consummate skill to form 
 a political combination, which would have ap- 
 peared chimerical, if it were not that, in the words 
 of La Rochefoucault, " all things happen in 
 
108 
 
 France/^ It soon became manifest that her toil 
 was not fruitless. The young Princess of Conde 
 came up to Paris to supplicate the intervention of 
 Parliament against the illegal detention of her 
 husband. Her petition^ which was drawn up by 
 Mole in terms flattering to the self-esteem of the 
 Magistrates, met with no opposition from the 
 adherents of De Retz, and a day was appointed 
 for taking it into consideration. After this first 
 successful move the Princess Palatine proposed, 
 at the suggestion of the Coadjutor and Madame 
 de Chevreuse, that a formal treaty of alliance 
 should be concluded between Conde and the 
 Fronde, the terms to be specified in writing and 
 signed by accredited representatives of the con- 
 tracting parties. The conditions were, the 
 thorough co-operation of the Fronde, in vigorous 
 efforts to wrest the Princes from the clutches of 
 the Government ; the services of the party to be 
 requited by Conde, in the event of success, by 
 the marriage of Mademoiselle de Chevreuse with 
 the Prince of Conti, the obtaining of a red hat for 
 De Retz, and the gift of one hundred thousand 
 crowns to Beaufort^s rapacious mistress, Madame 
 de Montbazon. 
 
 Circumstances favoured Anne of Gonzaga's 
 proposal. The affecting death of the Dowager 
 
 109 
 
 Princess of Conde and the triumphant return of 
 Mazarin from his ca^npaign against Turenne oc- 
 curring almost at the same moment, supplied the 
 strongest incentives of grief, fear, and hatred to 
 second her arguments. But La Eochefoucault, 
 who was commissioned by Madame de Longueville 
 to represent her family in the negotiations, hesi- 
 tated to accept the treaty. He detested De Retz, 
 and considered it more for the advantage of the 
 prisoners to come to an arrangement with Mazarin, 
 who could, by a word, restore them to freedom. 
 During the conferences at Bourg, after the war of 
 Bordeaux, the marriage of Conti with the Countess 
 Martinozzi had been hinted at as a means of ter- 
 minating the feud between Conde and the Minister. 
 There is no doubt that Mazarin was ready to 
 sacrifice much for the honour of an alliance with 
 the House of Bourbon. But the project had been 
 indignantly scouted by Conde when suggested to 
 him through the physician Dalence. The Prince 
 declared he would rather remain a prisoner all his life 
 than purchase freedom on such degrading terms. 
 Still the amicable professions of the Cardinal had 
 left La Eochefoucault ground for hope that a recon- 
 ciliation was not impossible ; and, before giving an 
 answer to the Princess Palatine, he paid several 
 midnight visits to the Palais Royal to urge the 
 
110 
 
 Minister to consent to an immediate accommo- 
 dation. He even disclosed to the Cardinal, so far 
 as lie could do so without betraying the secret of 
 the new coaHtion, the formidable perils that must 
 attend further hesitation. But Mazarin, though 
 proof against the arts of deceit, was the easy dupe 
 of plain dealing. A suspicion that an antagonist 
 might be honest never seems to have crossed his 
 mind. He considered the gulf which mutual 
 injuries had dug between Conde and the leaders 
 of the Fronde to be eternal, and he could not 
 believe in the reality of danger so frankly an- 
 nounced. To the prophetic warning with which 
 La Kochefoucault reluctantly closed their last 
 interview he answered with incredulous badinage ; 
 and the Duke, proceeding straight to the Hotel 
 of the Princess Palatine, accepted the conditions 
 of the Fronde on behalf of the imprisoned 
 
 Princes. 
 
 In order to give the highest prestige and the 
 stamp of legitimate authority to the Coahtion, it 
 only remained to obtain the formal adhesion of 
 the Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom. This, 
 however, was no easy matter. Orleans, though loud 
 in his denunciation of the means by which his con- 
 sent to the removal of his cousins to Havre had 
 been extorted, and liberal of promises, shrank 
 
 111 
 
 from the act of signing the treaty with ludicrous 
 terror. His secretary, Caumartin, a creature of 
 De Retz, followed him about for several days 
 with the document in one pocl:et, an ink-stand in 
 another, and a pen behind his ear. Gaston, 
 with that fine sense of danger with which 
 the weaker animals are gifted, either avoided 
 being alone, or, by irregular, movements, rapid 
 divings through intricate passages, forced marches 
 along remote lobbies, and skilful stratagems that 
 baffled all probable calculations as to time and 
 place, eluded the pursuit. Such an elaborate 
 system of strategy as he practised to confound 
 and vanquish his secretary, if applied to war or 
 politics, would have established his fame as a 
 warrior or a statesman. At last the wily Cau- 
 martin suddenly disappeared from the scene of 
 operations, leaving his master to enjoy his hard- 
 won repose. Over security, which has so often 
 lost the fruits of the most profound combinations 
 and the most signal success, proved fatal to 
 Gaston. As he was proceeding incautiously, in 
 the excusable exultation of victory, from one 
 room to another, he fell into an ambuscade. 
 Caumartin lay in wait for him between the double 
 doors, and> springing forward, placed the pen be- 
 tween his fingers and offered his own back as a 
 
112 
 
 113 
 
 writing-desk. The Duke accepted his fate with- 
 out further resistance, and, after the manner of an 
 ancient Roman falling on his sword, signed the 
 treaty with averted eyes. 
 
 The first move of the confederates proclaimed 
 the existence of the new alliance. On the day 
 appointed for the consideration of the Princess of 
 Conde's petition in the Palace of Justice, the Old 
 and the New Fronde gave it their united support. 
 Orleans deserted the Court, and a decree was 
 passed by an immense majority that a deputation 
 of the Magistrates, headed by their First Presi- 
 dent, should proceed to the Palais Royal, and 
 pray the Regent to set the Princes at liberty. 
 The news of the proceedings in the High Court 
 fell like a thunder clap on the ears of Mazarin, 
 awaking him from his dream of security to shudder 
 at the abyss which had suddenly opened beneath 
 his feet. For the first time since the commence- 
 ment of the Regency, he found arrayed against 
 him the Princes of the Blood, the great nobles, 
 the Parhament of Paris, and the leading dema- 
 gogues ; and that too in a cause which was just, 
 popular, and fortified by the sanction of the 
 Lieutenant-General of the kingdom. Hitherto 
 he had with difficulty found safety in the dissen- 
 Bions of his enemies. Now, quailing before the 
 
 hatred of all classes, and only able to rely for sup- 
 port on the uncertain authority of a Queen Regent 
 — like himself a foreigner — he had to confront a 
 league which might have appalled the bold genius 
 of Richelieu, though armed with all the power 
 and prestige of an absolute King. There was one 
 move which might have checkmated his foes, 
 and it was expected by De Retz with the keenest 
 anxiety. This was for the Regent to quit Paris 
 at once with the young King. The armies 
 were commanded by able generals devoted to 
 Mazarin. The provinces were governed by his 
 adherents. The strength of the coalition lay in 
 the Capital. Safe beyond its walls with Anne of 
 Austria and her son, and having Conde in his 
 hands, he might set at defiance the decrees of the 
 Parliament and the anger of Monsieur. In less 
 than a year Louis would attain his fourteenth 
 year, when, by the laws of France, he entered upon 
 the full exercise of the Royal authority. As the 
 young King was passionately attached to his 
 mother, this event, while terminating the Regency, 
 must bring to her, and, as a consequence, to the 
 Minister, a vast increase of power ; would render 
 armed opposition, which during a minority was 
 regarded as legitimate, or at the worst venial, a 
 political crime of the deepest dye. But Anne of 
 
 1 
 
114 
 
 115 
 
 I 
 
 Austria could not be induced to leave the Palais 
 Royal. Her physical energies were still depressed 
 from recent illness. Holding Orleans in supreme 
 contempt, and feeling assured of her ability to 
 make him again her pliant instrument, she under- 
 rated the gravity of the crisis, and preferred to 
 brave its perils rather than endure the discomfort 
 of exile from the Capital. 
 
 In these circumstances Mazarines position de- 
 manded the exercise of consummate prudence, and 
 of all the wary and patient craft of which he was 
 a master. In his intense vexation of mind, he 
 precipitated his downfal by a blunder which 
 would have disgraced a poHtical novice. The 
 Revolution which had hurled Charles I. of England 
 from his throne, and consigned him to a scaffold, 
 was then in the full flood of its sanguinary 
 triumph. One night while Orleans was supping 
 with the Regent at the Palais Royal, the recent 
 proceedings of the Parliament of Paris coming 
 under discussion, the Cardinal, in an explosion of 
 rage, compared the designs of the leaders of the 
 Fronde to those of Fairfax and Cromwell. The 
 language of Anne of Austria was equally violent. 
 Gaston, dumbf oundered by amazement and terror, 
 escaped with all possible haste to the Luxem- 
 bourg, and, finding De Retz there, repeated to the 
 
 Prelate the observations he had just heard. On the 
 following morning the Coadjutor went to the 
 Palace of Justice, reported to the assembled 
 Magistrates, on the authority of ^ Monsieur, what 
 Mazarin had said, in such a manner as to convey 
 the impression that the invidious comparison was 
 intended to apply to the leading members of the 
 High Court, and proposed to petition the King to 
 expel the Minister for ever from his presence and 
 councils, and to restore the captive Princes to 
 liberty. The astute Prelate had not miscalculated 
 the extent of the advantage given to him by 
 Mazarines imprudent speech. The Parliament, 
 eminently loyal as a body, and holding in deep 
 horror the excesses of the English Republicans, 
 quivered with anger, and voted the address to the 
 Eang by acclamation. Paris welcomed this decree 
 with extravagant delight. The streets blazed with 
 bonfires ; and Orleans, inspirited by the popular 
 demonstrations, publicly declared that he would 
 not again enter the Palais Royal until the Cardinal 
 had departed. 
 
 This sudden poUtical tempest burst upon the 
 Court with a violence as resistless as it was un- 
 foreseen. Anne of Austria vainly strove to allay 
 it by a message to the Palace of Justice, charging 
 the Coadjutor with dehberate falsehood, and pro- 
 
116 
 
 mising to release the Princes when Madame d© 
 Longueyille and Turenne made their submission. 
 The tumult swelled fiercer and higher ; and the 
 Parliament followed up its first blow by a decree 
 of perpetual banishment against Mazarin and his 
 family. The Cardinal saw that in Paris all was 
 lost. The chances of the game, however, were by 
 no means desperate. The revolt of the Capital 
 did not at that time mean the fall of a dynasty, or 
 even of a Minister. Paris was only the largest 
 and most important of many flourishing cities en- 
 joying municipal freedom, each of them the chief 
 town of a province which still preserved a large 
 measure of self-government. That decisive and 
 malign influence, so often exemplified in our own 
 times, which its restless turbulence exercises on 
 the fate of the kingdom, is the result of an all- 
 embracing and slowly-perfected system of admin- 
 istrative centralization, which was the growth of 
 a later and more despotic period. In order to 
 relieve the Regent from the odium and peril that 
 must attend his presence at the Palais Eoyal, in 
 defiance of the votes of the Parliament, and at the 
 same time to secure for himself full liberty of action, 
 Mazarin took formal, and, as he professed, final 
 leave of the Court, and quitted the city at night, 
 disguised as an officer of cavalry. But before his 
 
 117 
 
 departure, he concerted with his mistress a plan 
 of operations against their common enemies, and 
 received from her a written order to De Bar, 
 which placed the imprisoned Princes unre- 
 servedly at his disposal. It was arranged that 
 Anne of Austria, in order to gain time, should 
 feign acquiescence in the exile of her Minister, and 
 concede Conde's release, upon the condition that 
 the insurgents at Stenay laid down their arms. 
 She was next to endeavour, secretly, to break up 
 the confederacy by detaching from it the fickle 
 Lieutenant- General. Should her attempts upon 
 Orleans fail, she pledged herself to the Cardinal, 
 at all risks, to carry off the young King from 
 Paris, and renew the civil war. 
 
 In pursuance of this policy, Anne graciously re- 
 ceived a deputation of the High Court, publicly 
 spoke of Mazarines rule as a thing of the past, 
 allowed messengers to be sent to summon 
 Madame de Longueville and Turenne to sur- 
 render Stenay, and entreated Orleans to resume 
 his attendance at the Council of State. The 
 Duke, however, rendered prudent by experience 
 and the advice of De Retz, declined to venture his 
 person again at the Palais Royal until Cond^ had 
 arrived. The Regent employed, without avail, the 
 interposition of the Parliament to bring about an 
 
118 
 
 interview; and, when accepting Ms excuse of 
 illness as genuine, she offered to call on him at 
 the Luxembourg. Gaston, half beside himself 
 with rage and terror, sent her word that when 
 she entered his palace at one door he would leave 
 it by another. Then, loyal to her compact with 
 her favourite, who quietly watched the course of 
 events from St. Germain, she made preparations 
 for a second nocturnal flight from the capital. 
 But the chiefs of the opposition were on the alert. 
 The suspicious sojourn of Mazarin in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Paris quickened their vigilance. 
 The Koyal Household and the Council swarmed 
 with the Minister's secret foes. Even the most 
 faithful servants of the Queen, chafed by his 
 meddling supervision, and attributing all her in- 
 quietudes to his pernicious counsels, rejoiced at 
 
 his downfal. 
 
 Late one night, after she had retired to rest, 
 Madame de Chevreuse received an intimation 
 from Chateauneuf, who was still Keeper of the 
 Seals, of Anne of Austria's iutention to escape 
 from the Palace at two o'clock on the following 
 morning. The Duchess, prompt and bold as in 
 the days of her adventurous youth, immediately 
 despatched her daughter in a hackney coach to 
 Notre Dame to call up the Coadjutor, and herself 
 
 119 
 
 hurried half -dressed to the Luxembourg to incite 
 Monsieur to arrest the Regent's flight. De Retz 
 fully recognised the danger of the position, of 
 which he had been apprehensive for some days. 
 While Beaufort watched the Palace with a body of 
 horsemen, he made his way, in hot haste, to rouse 
 the Lieutenant General to action. On reaching 
 Gaston's bedroom a strange scene met his eyes. 
 The Duchess of Orleans, sitting up in the bed, 
 and Madame de Chevreuse leaning over it, in 
 equally scanty costume, from the other side, were 
 pouring forth appeals, reproaches, and sarcasms 
 on the terror-stricken Duke, who had entrenched 
 himself deep beneath the bed clothes, and was 
 not to be dislodged. It was in vain that De Retz, 
 suppressing by heroic efforts the laughter that 
 convulsed him, exhausted argument and expostu- 
 lation. In vain the Duchess of Orleans, a stout 
 Lorraine Princess of phlegmatic temperament, 
 added her entreaties with an ardour which was 
 ever afterwards a subject of amazement to her 
 friends. In vain Madame de Chevreuse flung 
 herself in passionate abandon on the coverlet, and 
 enforced persuasion by a Hberal display of her 
 charms. Gaston, petrified by fear, was insensible 
 to reason or prayer, or the allurements of dishe- 
 velled beauty. At every fresh assault he buried 
 
If 
 
 120 
 
 Idmself still deeper beneath the bed-coverings, 
 and uttered feeble groans. Meanwhile the 
 precious moments were passing away. The co- 
 alition was paralysed by the pusillanimity of its 
 chief. 
 
 De Eetz, however, was not the man to shrink 
 from responsibility in such an emergency. 
 Assured of the support of a powerful confederacy, 
 and of the ultimate approval of Orleans, he re- 
 solved to act boldly. His rupture with Mazarin 
 had brought back to him all his old popularity, 
 and, by means of his agents, he had long since 
 organised the canaille of the metropoHs, congre- 
 gated in the purlieus of Notre Dame, into a 
 formidable revolutionary force obedient to his 
 will. Eetuming to the Archiepiscopal Palace, he 
 issued orders for a general rising to prevent the 
 King being carried off to St. Germain. From the 
 belfry of the venerable Cathedral the tocsin of 
 revolt crashed forth upon the midnight air, and 
 soon the iron tongues of a himdred towers and 
 steeples, answering in wild clangour, called Paris 
 to arms. Adherents of the imprisoned Princes, 
 partizans of the Fronde, grave magistrates, sub- 
 stantial citizens, hastened to obey the summons. 
 And, disentombed from their pestilential haunts, 
 disgorged by dens of vice, into which a sunbeam 
 
 121 
 
 had never penetrated, loathsome wretches, steeped 
 in crime, whom society had long since placed 
 under her ban and sent to fester in obscure 
 infamy, stole forth to prey on the public calamity, 
 like ghouls flocking to a feast of death. The 
 numerous streams of insurrection converged in a 
 tumultuous sea around the Palais Royal. The 
 shadows of night only partially concealed the 
 motley character of the assembled host. There 
 were nobles there whose ancestors had been re- 
 nowned in the crusades. There were ecclesiastics 
 of rank, whose cassocks peeped out from beneath 
 the folds of large military cloaks. There were 
 sober burghers, wealthy and peace-loving, who 
 had donned helmet and cuirass in the cause of the 
 Parliament. And, far outnumbering all the others, 
 there were the pariahs of civilization, armed with 
 broken halberds which had shivered at Agincourt 
 on the ranks of English men-at-arms, or with 
 rusty pikes which had flashed at Ivry. The 
 Royal Guards having received orders to offer no 
 resistance, the multitude forced their way into the 
 court-yard of the Palace, and loudly demanded to 
 see the King. Their clamours soon filled every 
 window with trembling, half-naked courtiers, 
 ignorant of the cause of the commotion, whose 
 terrified fancies saw hell let loose beneath them. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 G 
 
122 
 
 as the fitful light of brandished torches threw 
 a dusky glare upon the upturned mass of revolt- 
 ing faces, on which every vice had set its stamp. 
 In this moment of awful peril, Anne of Austria 
 displayed all the courage of her race. Her spirit 
 the imperial spirit of the Caesars, did not quail 
 for a moment. Commanding the doors to be 
 flung open, she advanced to meet the insurgents, 
 inquired their wishes, laughed at their apprehen- 
 Bions, and herself conducted the foremost of them, 
 among whom some of the chiefs, and even De 
 Ketz himself, were reported to have mingled m 
 disguise, into the bed chamber of the young 
 King. Louis was lying on his little couch, ap- 
 parently buried in the soft sleep of chHdhood, 
 undisturbed by the terrors and tumult of the night. 
 The rude rabble, awed into sHent reverence, gazed 
 breathlessly for a moment on the beautiful boy, 
 and crept away murmuring benedictions. Little 
 did they imagine what suppressed passion of 
 resentment and wounded pride was at that moment 
 tearing the heart of their young monarch; or that 
 the outrages, of which he seemed unconscious, 
 would live in his mind in burning memories, 
 moulding his character and policy to the la^t 
 hour of his reign. At dawn the mob dispersed ; 
 but the triumph of the Coalition was complete. 
 
 123 
 
 Orleans, on awaking later in the morning, and! 
 finding all danger over, assumed the entire 
 responsibility of the successful movement. He 
 ordered the burgher militia to replace the Royal 
 Guards at the city gates, and took upon himself 
 all the functions of Government. Anne of 
 Austria, now virtually a prisoner in the Palais 
 Eoyal, found herself compelled to sign the decree 
 of outlawry against her Minister, and another 
 decree for the immediate hberation of Conde and 
 his brothers. La Rochefoucault, the President 
 Viole, and the Under Secretary of State, La 
 Vrilliere, were at once despatched with the order 
 of release to the Governor of Havre. 
 
 Mazarin was still at St. Germain when in- 
 telligence reached him of the Regent's captivity, 
 and of the sanction wrung from her to the hostile 
 decrees of the ParHament. Without losing a 
 moment he started off with a strong escort to 
 Havre, designing to seize the place and the per- 
 sons of the Princes. He found, on his arrival, 
 tliat the news of his reverses had outstripped him. 
 De Bar replied to his summons for admission that 
 he was ready to obey the Regent's order as to the 
 disposal of the prisoners, but that, having sworn by 
 her Majesty's permission to hold the fortress for the 
 Duke of Richelieu, he could not open its gates to 
 
 G 2 
 
 I 
 
124 
 
 the Cardinal's train. Mazarin then meditated 
 upon carrying away the Princes to some other 
 place of security. He abandoned this project, 
 however, on learning that the neighbouring gentry 
 were rising in arms to oppose it. His only re- 
 maining resource was to play the courtier, to en- 
 deavour to win by address what he was unable to 
 extort. Leaving his attendants without the walls, 
 he suddenly presented himself before Conde, an- 
 nounced to the Prince that he was free, and sought 
 by argument, flattery, and falsehood to cozen him 
 into an alliance. Conde's prison had been as 
 impervious to intelligence from the outer world as 
 the grave itself. In the first transports of his joy, 
 he welcomed his suppliant enemy cordially, and 
 asked him to dinner. But, in a little time, the 
 couriers sent forward by La Rochef oucault putting 
 the Prince in possession of the real condition of 
 affairs, the civility with which he had listened to the 
 Cardinal's overtures changed to sarcastic poHte- 
 ness. The baffled Minister still lingered in the 
 chateau, clinging to the fading shadow of hope 
 with all the tenacity of despair, and drinking to 
 its very dregs the bitter cup of humiliation. All 
 his fine-spun schemes, all the intricate meshes of 
 his policy, constructed by the craft and toil of 
 years, had been swept away by the breath of 
 
 125 
 
 popular passion, as if they had been gossamer 
 woof. The edifice of his power, as it towered 
 defiantly in its strength and splendour, had 
 suddenly crumbled into dust. And his heart was 
 a prey to the torments of abased ambition, and to 
 the gnawing of ingratitude — the most pitiless 
 fury that haunts fallen greatness. He saw his 
 dependents, creatures of his favour and flatterers 
 of his prosperity, transformed by the touch of 
 adversity into pitiless critics, who reproached him 
 with freezing looks, and words of bitter scorn. 
 He had not the grandeur of soul that bears calmly 
 the cruel strokes of fortune. His supple but 
 weak spirit grovelled in the dust under the pres- 
 sure of such unforeseen calamity. Seeking an- 
 other interview with Conde, he sounded the depths 
 of meanness in abject entreaties for his victim's 
 protection. The Prince, moved to contempt, not 
 compassion, by such unworthy supplications, 
 coldly bade his humbled foe adieu, and set out 
 with Conti and Longueville for Paris. Mazarin 
 fixed his gaze upon their receding forms until they 
 vanished into space, with the sense of hopeless 
 agony with which the shipwrecked wretch sees 
 the plank, that is his last refuge from destruc- 
 tion, eluding his grasp, and then turned his steps 
 towards exHe. But, in the moment of his pro- 
 
 
126 
 
 127 
 
 found despair, a ray of consolation broke through 
 the cloud of his sorrows. La Vrilliere arrived, 
 bearing him letters from Anne of Austria^, which 
 assured him of her eternal devotion, of her inten- 
 tion of conforming herself absolutely, in all things, 
 to his counsels, and of her fierce purpose to open 
 the way for his return to power by the destruction 
 of all his enemies. Revived by the new spring of 
 hope which the words of his attached mistress 
 called forth in his breast, the Cardinal pursued his 
 way, in a happier mood, to the Castle of Bruhl, 
 near Bonn, which the Elector of Cologne had 
 offered him as a resting place. 
 
 Conde was now delivered from the greatest 
 affliction that can befal impatient genius, the 
 compulsory inaction of captivity. His eagle spirit 
 was again free to soar into its native atmosphere 
 of glory. The rapture of recovered liberty, so 
 exquisite in itself, was rendered intoxicating to 
 his fiery temperament by the triumph that awaited 
 him at Paris. All that were illustrious and 
 powerful among his countrymen, the most dis- 
 tinguished and opposite politicians, the most 
 revered magistrates, the most renowned warriors, 
 the most celebrated women, the Fronde, the Par- 
 liament, the great nobihty, had combined to wrest 
 him from the clutches of the Regent, and now 
 
 crowded forth with emulous enthusiasm to swell 
 the pomp of his triumphal return. The Lieutenant- 
 General met his cousin at some distance from the 
 city gates, and, entering his coach, led the magnifi- 
 cent procession. The citizens who, thirteen months 
 before, had lit bonfires to celebrate the Prince's 
 arrest, now celebrated his release with almost 
 delirious joy. Fireworks, public banquets, and 
 universal revelry proclaimed their delight. The 
 power of his enemies l^y crushed beneath the 
 movement which had shattered the bars of his 
 dungeon. Mazarin was an impoverished outcast, 
 of whom no man any longer took account. 
 The Regent, deserted and unregarded except 
 by the patriotic Mol^, who mourned the victory 
 of mob-violence, even in a righteous cause, 
 nursed her sullen anger in the solitude of the 
 Palais Royal j while the saloons of the Luxem- 
 bourg and the Hotel de Conde were thronged 
 with exulting guests. In the spring-tide of 
 his popularity, the Prince was urged by &ome 
 of his ablest adherents to shut up Anne of 
 Austria in a convent, and to transfer her authority 
 to the Duke of Orleans or himself. And this 
 advice was judicious. There are crises in the 
 lives of public men which shape their whole 
 future, and in which audacity is the highest 
 
 
128 
 
 wisdom. He had ample experience of Anne of 
 Austria's immoveable attacliment to Mazarin, and 
 of the duplicity with which she knew how to veil 
 her animosity towards himself. He was aware 
 that the approaching majority of her son would 
 place her in an almost unassailable position. But 
 his entire career illustrated how completely the 
 rapid perception and the iron will that decide the 
 fate of battles, may lose their keenness and vigour 
 in political conflict. Dazzled by the reflection of 
 his own importance in the pubHc rejoicings, and 
 halting, as usual, between his respect for the 
 throne and the promptings of personal ambition, 
 he dalHed in serene indecision, until the opportu- 
 nity of making himself supreme in the State had 
 passed away for ever. 
 
 Mazarin, from his retreat at Bruhl, ruled the 
 councils of the Regent with undiminished sway, 
 and strenuously urged her to bend all her efforts 
 to detach Conde from the Fronde. The keen- 
 sighted Italian discerned that this might be 
 effected with time and patience. At first, indeed, 
 the language of the Confederates breathed enthu- 
 siasm or gratitude. The Prince tacitly acquiesced 
 in the conditions which had been accepted in his 
 name ; the bearing of the Fronde evinced generous 
 confidence. But the seeds of disruption that lay 
 
 129 
 
 in the very heart of the Coalition, soon burst forth 
 into a plentiful crop of discord. The Prince 
 began to think that the price he was called upon 
 to pay for naked liberty, shorn of the great dig- 
 nities and employments which the Crown alone 
 could give him back, was unreasonably high. 
 Bred up in deep veneration for the throne, which 
 he might, by a not improbable course of events, 
 be called to fill, a despot by nature and by military 
 habit, he regarded power springing from popular 
 tumults with feelings of disgust, from the scope 
 of which the great Episcopal demagogue could not 
 altogether escape. Between De Retz and La 
 Rochefoucault there smouldered the bitter hatred 
 of rival wits, between Madame de Longueville and 
 Mademoiselle de Chevreuse the not less bitter 
 hatred of rival beauties. With such sentiments 
 alive in the minds of the leading personages on 
 either side, permanent union was impossible ; even 
 the surface of their daily intercourse could not long 
 remain unruffled. Cordiality gradually cooled 
 into formal courtesy, and courtesy was chilled by 
 altercation and distrust. From the very nature 
 of the circumstances, Conde's popularity, which 
 had so suddenly blazed forth on his enemies like 
 a consuming flame, waned with equal rapidity. 
 The assembly of nobles, which had met to demand 
 
 Q 5 
 
 
 I 
 
130 
 
 liis freedom, continued its sittings after his return, 
 and, moved by the jealousy of the poHtical powers 
 a<;corded or confirmed to the Parliament of Paris 
 by the Decree of the 24th of October, petitioned 
 the Regent to convoke the States-General. The 
 Parliament, conscious that the meeting of national 
 representatives would throw itself into "dim 
 eclipse,^^ and might perhaps annihilate its new 
 political functions, resisted the demand with all 
 its might. Both parties, urging their recent ser- 
 vices, confidently appealed to the Prince for sup- 
 port. Conde endeavoured to evade the difficulty 
 by standing neutral between his conflicting obli- 
 gations, and referring the rival claims to the Duke 
 of Orleans for decision. He only succeeded in in- 
 curring the reproach of ingratitude from both sides. 
 It was not without reason that he exclaimed one day, 
 when overwhelmed with applications which it was 
 not in his power to satisfy, but the failure of each of 
 which carried with it a sense of injury, that the 
 Duke of Beaufort had been happy in owing his 
 liberty to his own servants. 
 
 When the novelty of his position as a popular 
 idol had worn off, and over- wrought feeling had 
 collapsed into reciprocal disappointment, Conde be- 
 gan to listen complacently to the overtures of the 
 Regent. He consented to receive back from her 
 
 131 
 
 his former honours and offices. As a proof of his 
 good will, he successfully opposed in her interests 
 the convoking of the States-General ; a measure, 
 ardently desired by De Retz, as being likely to 
 lead to a prolongation of the Regency, with 
 Orleans as Regent, and himself as Prime 
 Minister. Anne of Austria suddenly throwing 
 off the appearance of sullen apathy in which 
 she had shrouded the workings of her mind since 
 the triumph of the Coalition, dismissed Chateau- 
 neuf , the Minister of the Fronde, transferred the 
 seals to Mole, [recalled Chavigny, who possessed 
 Conde's entire confidence, to the Council of State, 
 and publicly defied the Duke of Orleans when he 
 protested against her independent exercise of 
 authority. The leading Frondists held a council 
 at the Luxembourg, which Cond^ attended, to 
 determine how they should meet this vigorous 
 attack, with the secret of which they were as yet 
 unacquainted. The Coadjutor proposed that 
 Orleans, with Conde's assistance, should depose 
 the Regent, and assume the reins of Government, 
 Beaufort and he undertaking to excite a popular 
 insurrection. Orleans, before venturing an opinion, 
 looked nervously at the Prince, who sarcastically 
 remarked that he was but a coward in back-alley 
 and slop-pail warfare, but would cheerfully take 
 
132 
 
 horse in the provinces at the orders of Monsieur. 
 Beaufort rudely rebuked his old confederate, 
 whose word had hitherto been law to him, for 
 assuming his co-operation. The Lieutenant- 
 General, scared by the answer of his cousin, 
 hastily broke up the conference. In the tone and 
 language of the Prince, and still more in the un- 
 friendly self-assertion of Beaufort, the practised 
 intelligence of the Coadjutor read the dissolution 
 of the league. With his usual decision, he an- 
 nounced to Orleans that the political aims, which 
 the members of the Coalition had bound them- 
 selves to accomplish, having been achieved, he no 
 longer felt justified in neglecting the care of his 
 diocese ; and he retreated again to the seclusion of 
 Notre Dame. 
 
 Anne of Austria now intimated to Conde that 
 he might name his own terms, if he would re- 
 pudiate his engagements with the Fronde. With 
 a facility, as shameful as it was blind, Cond^ ac- 
 cepted the proposal. The Under Secretaries of 
 State were instructed to draw up a treaty of 
 alliance^ which handed over half the kingdom to 
 the Pri^ and his immediate following ; and the 
 Prince, on his side, undertook to give a public 
 pledge of his change of policy, by the rupture of 
 his brother's engagement with Mademoiselle de 
 
 133 
 
 Chevreuse. There was little difficulty in finding 
 a specious pretext for this breach of faith. 
 Mademoiselle de Chevreuse was in the bloom of 
 youth. Her manners possessed an exquisite charm, 
 which rendered the soft spell of her voluptuous 
 beauty irresistible. But she was depraved even 
 beyond the depravity of that dissolute period. 
 Her amour with the Coadjutor was a public scandal. 
 Conti, though passionately attached to her, con- 
 sented, on being furnished with plain proofs of 
 her misconduct, to renounce the alliance. Good 
 feeling, as well as policy, would have clothed the 
 intimation of this purpose in forms and language 
 of respectful courtesy calculated to deprive the 
 quarrel of unnecessary bitterness. The lady's 
 kindred, the Duchess of Orleans, the Princess 
 Palatine, the Princes of Lorraine- Guise, had 
 not only laid the House of Conde under the 
 deepest obligations, but boasted a lineage as lofty 
 as its own. But the Prince caused his will to be ^ 
 signified in a manner so arrogant and insulting, as 
 justly to provoke the mortal enmity of Madame 
 de Chevreuse, and her powerful family connexions. 
 That spirited lady and De Eetz meditated revenge. 
 Orleans renounced the friendship of his faithless 
 cousin. But the person most ungenerously in- 
 jured by the flagrant ingratitude of Cond^ was 
 
134 
 
 the Princess Palatine. Confiding in his honour, 
 she had given her note of hand for one hundred 
 thousand crowns to Madame de Montbazon, and 
 had pledged herself to obtain for De Retz a 
 Cardinal's hat. Conde repaid the matchless skill 
 and devotion, to which he owed his liberty, by- 
 leaving her to bear the burden of the obligations 
 contracted for his benefit. She tried to obtain 
 the coveted seat in the conclave for the Coadjutor, 
 through the intervention of her sister, the Queen 
 of Poland ; but loyal feeling forbade the Queen to 
 act in the matter without the consent of Anne of 
 Austria, her early benefactress. Cut to the heart 
 by the baseness of her hero, and by her inability 
 to perform promises made in the fervour of dis- 
 interested enthusiasm, Anne of Gonzaga sought 
 a reconciliation with the Regent, and offered her 
 friendship to Mazarin. The placable Cardinal, 
 appreciating her worth, responded with cordiality 
 to her overtures, and warmly recommended her to 
 the favour of his mistress. 
 
 Anne of Austria had now dissolved the victorious 
 host of her enemies ; the great confederacy which 
 had jeopardised her authority, and even her liberty, 
 was rent into hostile factions. But her troubles 
 were by no means at an end. Conde imperiously 
 pressed for the fulfilment of their contract : and, on 
 
 135 
 
 the first signs of evasion on her part, his language 
 grew more peremptory and menacing. It had 
 never entered into her mind to make concessions 
 so fatal to the Crown. She had merely thrown 
 them out as a decoy to lure the Prince to his 
 destruction ; and he, in his arrogant selfishness, 
 had greedily swallowed the glittering bait. But 
 she now found herself isolated, and, without re- 
 source, exposed to his fury. In this new warfare, 
 circumstances for a time gave him peculiar ad- 
 vantages. The constant passing of couriers be- 
 tween Bruhl and the Palais Royal irritated and 
 alarmed the Parliament and citizens of Paris. In 
 the High Court Conde thundered against the pre- 
 dominant influence of the proscribed Minister, 
 and won golden opinions by his affected zeal 
 for the pubHc good. At the Palais Royal she 
 used the popular favour to oppress the Regent 
 and despoil the Crown. In the midst of his 
 philippics against Mazarin, he privately offered 
 Anne of Austria to consent to her favourite's 
 return if his demands were granted. But the 
 Cardinal, to his honour, refused to accept re- 
 storation on such terms. It would only remain 
 he said, to carry the Prince to Rheims and crown 
 him King. With great public spirit, he counselled 
 his mistress, rather than barter away the rights of 
 
136 
 
 her son, to purcliase the services of his arch-enemy, 
 De Retz, even if it were necessary to instal that 
 aspiring Prelate in his own vacant apartments at 
 the Palais Royal, invested with the dignities of 
 Cardinal and Prime Minister. 
 
 The Regent took counsel with the Princess 
 Palatine, and then sending for Madame de Chev- 
 reuse and her daughter, appealed to them to 
 assist her in destroying the object of their common 
 hatred. These ladies, smarting from an insult 
 that could only be washed out in blood, fell joy- 
 fully into the Regent's views, and answered for De 
 Retz. At midnight the Coadjutor was again 
 closeted with Anne of Austria in her little gray 
 chamber. She offered him an immediate nomi- 
 nation to the conclave, and the chief place in the 
 Ministry, if he would free her from the intolerable 
 yoke of the Prince. At the same time she em- 
 ployed all the arts of feminine persuasion to 
 engage his friendship forMazarin. The ambitious 
 heart of the Coadjutor leaped with joy. The 
 splendid prize which, for so many years, had in- 
 spired his efforts and gilded his dreams was within 
 his grasp. But the evident partiality of the 
 Regent for her fallen favourite, and her evident 
 reluctance to elevate his most formidable rival to 
 his vacant seat, taught the wary prelate caution. 
 
 237 
 
 He saw his frank declaration that the alliance she 
 desired was, even in her own interests, impossible, 
 his ability to serve her resting on his antagonism, 
 to the Cardinal, fall barren upon her mind. He 
 therefore decHned for the present accepting any 
 official position ; relying upon Orleans, the Parlia- 
 ment, and the force of public feeling to guard him 
 against the return of Mazarin, and upon time and 
 opportunity to demonstrate to the Regent how in- 
 dispensable to her were his own services. In 
 order to remove the point which the vacancy in 
 the chief post of the Administration lent to Conde's 
 invective, he proposed that Chateauneuf should 
 be recalled to the Council with the title of 
 Prime Minister; and he pledged himself to 
 Anne of Austria to ruin the Prince's popularity, 
 and drive him from the Capital. Transported 
 with joy at gaining such a potent ally, with- 
 out sacrificing to him her exiled Minister, she 
 replied he might consider himself Cardinal and 
 the second of her friends. The Coadjutor was 
 the vainest of men. Though extremely ugly, 
 his successes among the fair sex were notorious^ 
 and no conquest seemed to him impossible. 
 Anne of Austria was a finished coquette ; 
 and she now used her blandishments with such 
 effect, that the intoxicated prelate seems to have 
 
138 
 
 conceived the hope of supplanting Mazarin in her 
 heart as well as in her councils. They sepa- 
 rated, after a conference of some hours, in per- 
 fect accord, each well pleased at the result of the 
 interview. 
 
 The new political combination remained for 
 some time a profound secret. The Regent con- 
 tinued to delude the Prince with professions of 
 regard, and of eager anxiety to satisfy his pre- 
 tensions. But the Fronde assailed him vigorously 
 in the Chambers and in the press, and exposed the 
 hoUowness of his patriotic declarations, by baring 
 to pubHc view the whole course of his private 
 negotiations with the Regent. Conde, however, 
 held his ground firmly. Beaufort, still the idol of 
 Paris, was now his zealous adherent; Orleans, over- 
 awed by his fiery cousin, remained neutral ; M0I6 
 and the wiser magistrates deprecated further dis- 
 sensions in the Royal Family, and the progress of 
 the Coadjutor halted far behind the fierce rush of 
 the Regent^s passions. She was in despair. 
 Desperate councils, inspired by baffled vengeance, 
 were deliberately weighed at the Palais Royal. 
 Vitry had been created Duke and Marshal of 
 France by Louis XIII., for assassinating the ob- 
 noxious Concini. The precedent was not forgotten. 
 The Prince had, of late, abstained from visiting 
 
 139 
 
 the Court, but Marshal Hocquincourt undertook 
 
 to storm his hotel in the night, and slay him if he 
 
 attempted resistance. To her eternal dishonour, 
 
 Anne of Austria warmly approved and encouraged 
 
 this murderous project. No one could estimate 
 
 better than she what likelihood there was that the 
 
 warrior Prince, in his own palace, and surrounded 
 
 by his retainers, would yield without a blow to the 
 
 violence of midnight assassins. But De Retz, 
 
 though unscrupulous and without fear, and steeped 
 
 to the lips in vice, shrank from the infamy of such 
 
 an enormous crime. He offered to have Conde 
 
 arrested at the Luxembourg Palace, in the presence 
 
 of Monsieur; and although Anne of Austria 
 
 jealous and distrustful of the Lieutenant General, 
 
 rejected this proposal, his remonstrances forced 
 
 her, unwillingly, to abandon the scheme of assas- 
 
 sination. 
 
 Information that designs were harboured 
 at Court against his liberty reached the Prince, 
 and so completely had he been fooled by the 
 Regent's artifices, arid his own egregious presump- 
 tion, that his astonishment exceeded his anger. 
 Never had he deemed himself more firmly planted 
 in Anne of Austria's favour, never had he counted 
 with greater certainty upon the realization of his 
 ambitious hopes. He barricaded and garrisoned 
 
140 
 
 his hotel, and, shortly afterwards, fresh rumours of 
 the hostile intentions of his enemies catching 
 some colour of truth from the suspicious move- 
 ments of a body of the Royal Guards, he quitted 
 Paris at break of day for his country house at St. 
 Maur. As he lingered outside one of the city 
 gates, with an armed party of his friends, in ex- 
 pectation of being joined by his brother Conti, 
 the sharp ring of hoofs upon the stony causeway 
 struck his ear. Thinking himself pursued, he set 
 spurs to his horse, and never drew rein till he had 
 reached Meudon. Laughter-loving Paris soon 
 learned with delight how a few donkeys, driven by 
 peasant women to early market, had scared into 
 headlong flight the boldest warrior of the age. 
 
 Conde was joined at St. Maur by all his family, 
 and by a great majority of the nobility then in 
 the Capital. Emboldened by this powerful 
 demonstration, he sent a message to the Parlia- 
 ment, declaring his liberty to be menaced, and 
 requiring the dismissal of the three Under 
 Secretaries of State, Le Tellier, Servien, and 
 Lyonne, as being the creatures and accomplices 
 of the still omnipotent Mazarin. Anne of Austria, 
 divided between vexation and alarm at the un- 
 expected popularity of her enemy, sent down to 
 the Palace of Justice a solemn denial of his accusa- 
 
 141 
 
 tions. The Coadjutor thundered against the pre- 
 sumption of a Prince of the Blood in claiming to 
 dictate the choice of the King's ministers. But 
 the High Court, anxious to soothe the irritation of 
 the Prince, issued a fresh decree against all who 
 should hold communication with a proclaimed 
 enemy of the realm. The Under Secretaries 
 cowering before the storm, and deeming the cause 
 of their patron lost, threw up their seals and 
 retired from Court ; and then Orleans, distracted 
 by contending terrors, paid a friendly visit to his 
 cousin at St. Maur, and persuaded him to return 
 to Paris. 
 
 Nevertheless, the breach between Anne of 
 Austria and Conde grew wider every day. There 
 is Httle doubt that at this time he was heartily 
 sick of faction, and honestly desirous of a recon- 
 ciliation with the Eegent upon terms that would 
 afford a sufficient guarantee for the permanent 
 exclusion of Mazarin from France. But Anne 
 was staunch to her favourite; and the Prince 
 yielding to the evil counsels of his sister and her 
 following, and to the delusive suggestions of his 
 own inflated egotism, began to prepare for civil 
 war. He sent his wife and son to Montrond, 
 placed officers whom he could trust in charge of 
 the fortresses of his governments, and dispatched 
 
142 
 
 tli^ Marquis of Silleiy to Brussels to negotiate a 
 treaty witli the Archduke. These criminal steps 
 gave the Regent an advantage which she was not 
 slow to use. She sent a message to the High 
 Court, formally charging the Prince with high 
 treason. The ParKament appointed a day for 
 the consideration of the indictment. De Retz 
 prepared to sustain it with all his genius and all 
 his audacity ; and the vacillating Orleans promised 
 his co-operation. On the other hand, Conde 
 drew up a counter- declaration, asserting his inno- 
 cence, and demanded Monsieur's signature to the 
 document. Gaston, afraid to refuse, yet ashamed 
 to comply, endeavoured to escape the difficulty by 
 flight, and set out for the country in the early 
 morning. But the Prince stopped his cousin's 
 coach before it got clear of the city, and presented 
 the paper which contained his answer to the 
 Regent's charges. Orleans, awed into instant sub- 
 mission by the glance and voice of his imperious 
 kinsman, subscribed his name without a murmur, 
 and sought refuge in a quiet retreat until the 
 tempest blew over. 
 
 The day appointed for the hearing of the cause 
 was one of the most agitated in the feverish 
 annals of the Fronde. Perhaps the classic 
 ground by the shore of the hoarse ^gean, where 
 
 143 
 
 the fierce democracy of Athens exulted in its 
 stormy life, or the equally memorable spot beneath 
 the shadow of the Roman Forum, whose august 
 temples were so often polluted by the strife of 
 the faction-torn comitiUy never witnessed a more 
 tumultuous scene than that which on this day 
 desecrated the Palace of Justice. The Regent 
 and De Retz were determined to crush Conde at 
 all hazards ; he was equally prepared, if necessary, 
 to resort to the last extremity of force. Paris 
 was divided into hostile camps. The outer halls, 
 the closets, and the corridors of the Palace 
 of Justice were filled with armed men and muni- 
 tions of war. The members of the High Court 
 passed to their chamber through steel-clad ranks, 
 burning with the rage of civil hatred ; and their 
 deliberations were disturbed by the stern murmurs 
 and the clashing of arms that resounded from with- 
 out. A chill of agonised suspense shot through the 
 assembly, freezing the boldest hearts. Brave men 
 were seen to tremble and turn pale, and drops of 
 intense anguish stood upon many a stem brow, 
 and rolled down many a furrowed cheek. Conde 
 opened the debate with fury, denouncing the Coad- 
 jutor as the author of the calumnies by which he 
 was assailed. De Retz replied with equal 
 vehemence, taunting the Prince with perfidy and 
 
144 
 
 ingratitude. The animosity of their followers 
 was kindled into frenzy ; the Prince laid his hand 
 on his sword, and it seemed for a moment as if 
 nothing could avert one of the bloodiest tragedies 
 in the history of France. But the First President 
 Mole, whose sublime courage enabled him alone 
 to preserve composure throughout this terrible 
 scene, threw himself between the hostile parties. 
 He implored Conde by the blood of St. Louis 
 not to defile with human sacrifices to the 
 demon of civil discord, the temple which the 
 good King had reared to peace and justice. He 
 adjured the Coadjutor by his sacred office to 
 spare the flock which Heaven had committed to 
 his charge. These appeals, enforced by the ven- 
 erable character of the great Magistrate, and by 
 the reproaches of half-stifled reason, recalled the 
 leaders to their senses. Conde, whose party was 
 the stronger, immediately despatched La Koche- 
 f oucault to dismiss his armed train ; and De Retz 
 proceeded in person on a similar errand. But as 
 the messengers of mercy were returning, having 
 accomplished their mission, and the rival hosts 
 were quietly dispersing. La Rochefoucault, with a 
 disregard of good faith and prudence which only 
 the madness of long cherished private and party 
 animosity could inspire, caught the Prelate in the 
 
 145 
 
 folds of a door, and holding his body as in a vice, 
 with the head and shoulders within and the lower 
 extremities on the outside, called to his friends to 
 kill the Archbishop. Luckily for De Retz, one of 
 Conde^s favourite officers interfered to rescue him 
 from his critical position. The Parhament ab- 
 ruptly broke up its sitting without coming to a 
 decision on the Regent^s message. 
 
 On the following day Paris awoke, as a man 
 awakes from a drunken debauch. Horror, shame, 
 and remorse urged all whom faction had not bereft 
 of the feelings of humanity, to seek an accommo- 
 dation. Mol^ was indefatigable in the work of 
 conciliation. The Regent, who wished for nothing 
 so much as that the Prince and the Coadjutor 
 should cut each other^s throats, found it expedient 
 to dissemble her feelings. In a few days the 
 King would attain his majority, and hold a Bed of 
 Justice to announce his assumption of sovereign 
 power. It was agreed that on this solemn occa- 
 sion, the Prince should be formally declared 
 guiltless of high treason, pledging himself in 
 return to renounce faction. But, even in the short 
 period which had to elapse, new causes of irritation 
 sprang up, which led to his absenting himself from 
 the ceremony. Louis held his Bed of Justice 
 with all the pomp and circumstance befitting the 
 
 VOL. II. H 
 
146 
 
 august occasion of the majority of a King of 
 France. But tlie elaborate magnificence of 
 ceremonial^ and the splendour of martial array- 
 only rendered the absence of his greatest subject 
 more conspicuous. Anne of Austria, goaded 
 beyond all endurance by this public shght, and by 
 the terms in which it was excused, publicly de- 
 clared that she or the Prince must perish. Still, 
 however, the friends of peace, and especially the 
 Duke of Orleans, were unceasing in their efforts 
 to bring about an understanding. Mazarin 
 counselled his mistress to grudge no reasonable 
 concession which might serve to keep the Prince 
 from revolt. But Anne of Austria hated Conde 
 with an implacable hatred, a blending of all the 
 vindictive emotions of an outraged sovereign and 
 an insulted woman ; and she saw in him an in- 
 superable obstacle to the return of her Minister 
 which her courage impelled her to break to pieces. 
 On the other hand Conde, taught by experience 
 to distrust the Regent, urged on by false pride and 
 the violent counsels of his sister's faction, and 
 entangled in engagements with Spain, had un- 
 willingly drifted towards civil war, till he found it 
 well-nigh impossible to retrace his course. Retiring 
 slowly through the province of Berri to the Castle 
 of Montrond, he held council there with Conti 
 
 147 
 
 Madame de Longueville, Nemours, La Rochefou- 
 cault, the President Viole, and the faithful Lenet, 
 whose opinions always leant to wisdom and 
 moderation. His mind long remained a prey to 
 remorseful doubts before it could resolve on the 
 fatal plunge into civil war ; and when he yielded 
 at last to the importunities of his brother and 
 sister, it was with a mournful prophecy which 
 time fulfilled, that they would desert him at his 
 need. The die was cast, both sides appealed to 
 the sword. 
 
 In reviewing the career of Conde since the 
 peace of Munster, when he cast himself into the 
 angry whirlpool of the Fronde, to be swept along 
 finally into the abyss of rebellion, there are few 
 points indeed on which the judgment can rest 
 with even qualified approval. Ambition is an im- 
 poriouB instinct in the minds of men of great 
 abilities and great energy. But ambition may be that 
 lofty and generous sentiment, which is the natural 
 life of genius, kindling all its glorious faculties 
 into beneficent activity, impelling it on its sublime 
 mission to illumine and to make smooth the dark 
 and difficult paths of human progress . And ambition 
 may be a sordid passion which vivifies genius with a 
 baleful fire only to blast it, perverting it from 
 its God-like destinies into a minister of evil, a 
 
 H 2 
 
148 
 
 deformity, and a curse. After the battle of Lens, 
 the opportunity of winning such renown as has 
 but rarely fallen to the lot of man, opened itself to 
 Conde. He was the hero of the age, radiant with 
 glory. He was at once the first Prince of the 
 Blood, and the chief of a family which had linked 
 its name with popular interests ; at once the idol 
 of the French nobility and the pride of the House 
 of Bourbon. All classes in France regarded him 
 with unbounded admiration. Nature and fortune 
 had combined, in lavish emulation, to endow him 
 with every gift and every advantage calculated to 
 attract confidence from all. The Government, 
 weak and discredited, clung to him for safety ; 
 the nobles, turbulent and licentious, were prodigal 
 of their spontaneous homage to the brilliant 
 warrior; the Third Estate, goaded to revolt by mis- 
 rule, but swayed by patriotic statesmen, equally 
 wise, firm, and loyal, eagerly solicited his pro- 
 tection. Had he possessed greatness of soul com- 
 mensurate with the grandeur of the opportunity, 
 and bent his mind to the noble task of healing the 
 disorders of the State ; of consolidating yet con- 
 fining within salutary limits the power of the 
 Crown ; of bridling faction, yet estabhshing se- 
 curely the just rights of the subject ; he might, 
 in all human probability, have saved France from 
 
 149 
 
 a century and a half of demoralizing despotism, 
 and from the wide waste and ruin of the great Re- 
 volution. And while securing for himself, on the 
 legitimate basis of great public services, a com- 
 manding position in the kingdom, which neither 
 Court intrigue nor popular caprice would have 
 been able to overturn, he might have built him- 
 self an imperishable monument in the welfare of 
 his country, and won from the gratitude of man- 
 kind a chaplet of fame far brighter, purer, and 
 more enduring than the blood-stained laurels he 
 had gathered on the field of Eocroi. 
 
 But this great work, which patriotism invited 
 him to achieve, awoke no responsive enthusiasm 
 in the Princess mind, debauched by the favours of 
 fortune. The glory of establishing a constitu- 
 tional monarchy which should combine, in just 
 measure, authority with freedom, was blazoned 
 before his eyes by the eloquence of MoM and De 
 Retz, without inflaming his soul. In the line of 
 policy he pursued, his views, selfish, and therefore 
 short-sighted, were confined within the narrow 
 bounds of his own vulgar interests. He regarded 
 the difficulties of the Regent, and the miseries of 
 the people, only as materials with which the 
 hand of faction might construct a vast edifice of 
 personal aggrandisement. It might have been 
 
150 
 
 thought that when amidst the tempest of universal 
 odium, which his pride and violence provoked, he 
 was hurried a captive to Vincennes, the sohtude 
 of his prison would have induced reflection, and 
 that reflection and adversity would have revived 
 in his breast seeds of wisdom that had withered 
 in the blaze of cloudless prosperity. But it re- 
 quired far sterner trials to temper that haughty 
 spirit, to school that turbulent heart. He left his 
 prison to follow again a course of unworthy 
 ambition, along which his progress could only be 
 tracked by national calamities. The reckless 
 audacity with which he openjy pursued aims 
 purely selfish, is a remarkable proof of the low 
 standard of public morality in France at that 
 period. There have lived, indeed, in France, 
 both before and after his time. Princes of the 
 Eoyal Blood whose influence overshadowed the 
 throne. In the preceding century the dishonoured 
 royalty of the despicable Henry III. had shrunk 
 into insignificance in the presence of the Great 
 League which was animated by the heroic soul of 
 Henry of Guise. The succeeding century saw 
 the career and fall of Phillippe Egalite. But 
 Guise was strong, not in the strength of faction^ 
 but of the national sympathies. His confederacy 
 was the incarnation of the spirit which stirred to 
 
 151 
 
 its lowest depths the heart of Catholic France, 
 the uprising of Catholicism against the Keforma- 
 tion. History has consigned Egalit^ to eternal 
 infamy by exhibiting him as an odious type of 
 profligate ambition. But such, during the period 
 of his popularity, was not the judgment of the 
 majority of his countrymen. To the few who 
 knew him well, indeed, he was a jaded voluptuary, 
 who, having exhausted every other species of 
 flagitious excitement, was driven by the cravings 
 of a morbid appetite to seek new pleasures in 
 revolution and regicide. But to the mass of the 
 population he appeared, for a time, an illustrious 
 and disinterested champion of liberty, a man of 
 royal rank and royal nature, who, discarding 
 in the sacred cause of humanity the prejudices 
 of birth and the ties of blood, had volun- 
 tarily descended to the condition of a 
 private citizen, in order better to co-operate in 
 a movement that crushed colossal injustice, and 
 emancipated millions from hereditary degradation. 
 The ambition of Conde was neither lofty, like that 
 of Guise, nor crafty like that of Egalite. It was 
 not the sublime sentiment which draws its inspira- 
 tion from a grand idea and is sanctified by a 
 noble purpose. Neither did it seek, with care, to 
 hide its deformity under the borrowed garb of 
 
i 
 
 152 
 
 public virtue. It was of the earth earthy, and its 
 native meanness was only rendered more repulsive 
 by a thin and carelessly worn disguise. For 
 ignoble aims, shamelessly pursued, Cond6 soiled 
 his glory in the mire of faction ; abased his genius, 
 impelled by its natural instincts to soar like the 
 eagle, in slimy paths of intrigue; cast to the 
 winds the obligations of public principle and of 
 private honour ; and finally, in the guilty madness 
 of credulous vanity and distempered pride, com- 
 mitted the last political crime in delivering up his 
 country to civil war, and the sword of a foreign 
 enemy. 
 
 153 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 / 
 
 The success of Cond^ was equal to the justice of 
 his cause. At first his criminal enterprise was 
 gilded by some transient gleams of success. 
 Leaving his family in Berri, to keep that province 
 faithful to his interests, he proceeded with La 
 Rochefoucault to his Government of Guienne. 
 The Parliament and citizens of Bordeaux em- 
 braced his party with enthusiasm ; the provincial 
 magnates, who had formerly looked with coldness 
 on the heroic efforts of his wife, mustered their 
 vassals, and sent them to swell his ranks. The 
 Count of Marsin, Commander of the Army of 
 Catalonia, abandoning a province which had been 
 occupied by the French since the time of Cardinal 
 Richelieu, brought part of his troops to aid the 
 insurrection. Lenet, despatched as the Prince's 
 Ambassador to the Court of Madrid, was flattered 
 with promises of immediate and powerful suc- 
 
 H 5 
 
154 
 
 cours. In the Nortli, the Count of Tavannes suc^ 
 ceeded in detaching Conde's regiments from the 
 Army of Flanders, and erected the standard of 
 revolt upon the walls of Stenay. 
 
 But, even in the beginning, the defections from 
 his party fatally diminished its strength and re- 
 putation. In the eyes of all Frenchmen, of those 
 even who had grown grey in conspiring, the 
 majority of the Sovereign lent a far graver and 
 more sinister complexion to an act of rebellion. 
 His brother-in-law, Longueville, whose good- 
 natured tolerance was at length wearied out by 
 the scandalous profligacy of his wife, and the 
 domineering arrogance of his brother-in-law, 
 declined to incur further risks on account of 
 schemes in which he was not personally interested, 
 and kept Normandy in its allegiance to the 
 Crown. The two distinguished brothers. Bouillon 
 and Turenne, who had been his ablest and 
 staunchest supporters during the war of Bordeaux 
 fell from him. Bouillon could bring four thousand 
 retainers into the field, and the military talents of 
 Turenne were worth an army. Mazarin knew the 
 value of these redoubtable chiefs; and by per- 
 suading Anne of Austria to satisfy the long- 
 debated claims of the Duke, won them over to 
 his party, and purchased, at a cheap price, for the 
 
 155 
 
 young King as splendid and loyal services as any 
 monarchy could ever boast of. f'Conde^s alliance 
 with the Spaniards, which soobr became public, 
 without adding - any great degree to his 
 material strength, weakened his cause morally in 
 an irreparable degree. The Parliament of Paris 
 no longer hesitated to register the King^Jetter, 
 declaring him and his partizans traitorsj The 
 Parliament of Bordeaux was alienated from his 
 interests. The Duke of Orieans broke off all 
 relations with the proclaimed enemies of the 
 
 realm 
 
 The Kegent acted with her usual courage. 
 Taking with her the young King she joined the 
 veteran army of the Count of Harcourt, a General 
 of proved ability, and advanced into Berri. The 
 people of the province received their young 
 Monarch with joyful demonstrations ; the towns 
 threw open the gates to the royal troops, Conti, 
 Madame de Longueville, and the Princess of 
 Conde flying for refuge to Bordeaux. Harcourt 
 then marched to attack Conde in Guienne. All 
 the Prince's genius and activity was insufficient 
 to counter-balance the inferior quality of his raw 
 levies, or to avert from them several slight but 
 galling defeats. Tarnished prestige, and the 
 harsh measures, and harsher manners of their 
 
154 
 
 conrs. In the North, the Count of Tavannes suc« 
 ceeded in detaching Cond6^s regiments from the 
 Army of Flanders, and erected the standard of 
 revolt upon the walls of Stenay. 
 
 But, even in the beginning, the defections from 
 his party fatally diminished its strength and re- 
 putation. In the eyes of all Frenchmen, of those 
 even who had grown grey in conspiring, the 
 majority of the Sovereign lent a far graver and 
 more sinister complexion to an act of rebelHon. 
 His brother-in-law, Longueville, whose good- 
 natured tolerance was at length wearied out by 
 the scandalous profligacy of his wife, and the 
 domineering arrogance of his brother-in-law, 
 declined to incur further risks on account of 
 schemes in which he was not personally interested, 
 and kept Normandy in its allegiance to the 
 Crown. The two distinguished brothers. Bouillon 
 and Turenne, who had been his ablest and 
 staunchest supporters during the war of Bordeaux 
 fell from him. Bouillon could bring four thousand 
 retainers into the field, and the military talents of 
 Turenne were worth an army. Mazarin knew the 
 value of these redoubtable chiefs; and by per- 
 suading Anne of Austria to satisfy the long- 
 debated claims of the Duke, won them over to 
 his party, and purchased, at a cheap price, for the 
 
 155 
 
 young King as splendid and loyal services as any 
 monarchy could ever boa^t of . i'Conde's alUance 
 with the Spaniards, which soobr became public, 
 without adding in any great degree to his 
 material strength, weakened his cause morally in 
 an irreparable degree. The Parliament of Pans 
 no longer hesitated to register the KingXJetter, 
 declaring him and his partizans traitorsj- The 
 Parliament of Bordeaux was alienated from his 
 interests. The Duke of Orleans broke off all 
 relations with the proclaimed enemies of the 
 
 TPalm 
 
 The Eegent acted with her usual courage. 
 Taking with her the young King she joined the 
 veteran army of the Count of Harcourt, a General 
 of proved abiUty, and advanced into Bern. The 
 people of the province received their young 
 Monarch with joyful demonstrations; the towns 
 threw open the gates to the royal troops, Conti 
 Madame de Longueville, and the Princess of 
 Conde flying for refuge to Bordeaux. Harcourt 
 then marched to attack Conde in Guienne. All 
 the Prince's genius and activity was msufficient 
 to counter-balance the inferior quality of his raw 
 levies, or to avert from them several sUght but 
 galling defeats. Tarnished prestige, and the 
 harsh measures, and harsher manners of their 
 
156 
 
 leader, provoked disaffection among tlie insur- 
 gents ; and public disaster was aggravated by the 
 scandalous disorders which broke out in Conde's 
 family, converting Bordeaux into a chaos of 
 tumult and murder. In her journey from Berri 
 Madame de Longueville had engaged in a liason 
 with the Duke of Nemours, which aroused the 
 jealous anger of La Kochefoucault. Conde pre- 
 vented further mischief by despatching Nemours 
 to take the command at Stenay. But shortly 
 afterwards Conti, whose weak nature, ever in 
 extremes, passed at a bound from degrading sub- 
 mission to frantic violence, quarrelling with his 
 sister, openly reviled her in language that out- 
 raged common decency. The Duchess, in order to 
 revenge herself, formed a party among the dregs 
 of the rabble, who were called Ormistes, from their 
 nightly gatherings beneath some large elm-trees, 
 and urged them on to brutal excesses. Bloodshed 
 and rapine stalked abroad through the city. 
 Conde, already fully occupied by his mihtary 
 operations, strove in vain to calm these dissen- 
 sions. His wife, whom the Bordelais revered and 
 loved, brought all her influence to the support of 
 the magistrates. Her courage and wisdom might 
 have restored order; but, unfortunately, the 
 deHcate condition of her health compelled her to 
 
 ) 
 
 157 
 
 \ 
 
 retire from the conflict, and abandon her old 
 asylum to the unbridled licentiousness of a ferocious 
 mob. With his arms clouded by reverses, and 
 his party torn by discord, Conde saw himself on 
 the brink of ruin, from which he was only 
 snatched by another blunder on the part of 
 Cardinal Mazarin. 
 
 The links that bound Anne of Austria to her 
 favourite, forged as they were of intellectual con- 
 viction as well as of affection, were of an 
 indissoluble nature, which neither peril, nor 
 interest, nor time, nor absence, had any power 
 over. As with all women of resolute and 
 wilful character, opposition and opprobrium only 
 drove the Regent to cling more tenaciously to 
 what she cherished. Never had the Cardinal 
 more absolutely guided the councils or directed 
 the movements of her Government than during 
 his retirement at Bruhl. But he did not bear 
 adversity well. His mind was tortured by 
 gnawing anxiety, by jealous fears and suspicions. 
 His letters were filled with puling lamentations 
 and peevish reproaches, interspersed with appeals, 
 couched in the language of high-flown sentiment, 
 to his only too-devoted mistress, to abridge the 
 period of his banishment. To the minds of both, 
 her's always sanguine and fearless, his cheated out 
 

 158 
 
 of its habitual caution by the illusions which are 
 born of the weary yearnings of exile, the time 
 seemed now ripe for his return to France. The 
 royal authority was obeyed without question over 
 nearly the whole kingdom. The only antagonist 
 whom they feared, banned as a public enemy, 
 and losing ground daily in the corner of France 
 to which he was driven, appeared to be reduced 
 to the alternative of submission or flight. Col- 
 lecting a body of troops in the Bishopric of Liege, 
 Mazarin crossed the French frontier, joined the 
 King and Queen-mother at Poitiers, and resumed 
 the direction of affairs. But the explosion of 
 public resentment which followed this rash step 
 taught him to regret his precipitation. The Par- 
 liament of Paris, incensed at his contempt for its 
 decrees, set a price on his head. The Parisians 
 shouted the old war cries of faction with unabated 
 hatred and zeal. De E-etz, to whose ambitious 
 hopes the Cardinal's return to office was a death- 
 blow, withdrew his support and that of his party 
 from the Government. And the Duke of Orleans, 
 irritated into open revolt, formed an alliance with 
 his cousin, whose factious proceedings now wore 
 a semblance of public spirit, and assembled in the 
 neighbourhood of Paris a well-trained army, of 
 which he entrusted the command to the Duke of 
 
 ! 
 
 159 
 
 Beaufort. Beaufort was soon joined by his 
 brother-in-law, the Duke of Nemours, at the head 
 of Conde's veteran regiments from Stenay and a 
 body of Spaniards; and the combined forces 
 advanced towards the Loire, into the region where 
 the rich appanages of Monsieur lay. 
 
 Had either of the Generals possessed military 
 talent the position of the Court would have been 
 perilous in the extreme. But not only were they 
 both totally incompetent, but their councils were 
 distracted by diverging purposes and private 
 animosity. Nemours wished to march to the 
 relief of Montrond, to which the Royalists had 
 laid siege; Beaufort had orders to protect the 
 territories of the Duke of Orleans. Cardinal 
 Mazarin had placed Turenne at the head of the 
 King's army around Poitiers, though only in joint 
 command with Marshal Hocquincourt, and his 
 genius so well supplied the disparity of strength 
 that the excellent quality and superior numbers 
 of the rebel forces barely saved them from destruc- 
 tion. As it was, the insurgents were reduced to in- 
 action, while Angers, Tours, and Blois fell before 
 their eyes ; and the Royal Commanders advanced 
 against Orleans, the chief and only remaining 
 town of Monsieur. The danger in which he saw 
 himself of being stripped of all his possessions. 
 
160 
 
 completely paralysed the energies of that feeble 
 Prince. Instead of showing himself at the head 
 of his disheartened troops, and confirming, by his 
 presence, the wavering fidelity of the citizens of 
 Orleans, he betook himself to bed in a fit of ir- 
 resolution. But his daughter by his first marriage, 
 Mdlle. de Montpensier, boldly came forward to 
 defend her fat her ^s interests. 
 
 This celebrated lady was now about twenty- 
 five years old. Flattery never endowed her with 
 beauty. Her detractors averred that the brusquerie 
 of her manners was strongly dashed with imperti- 
 nence. Her inordinate vanity was constantly 
 shooting forth in strange eccentricities of speech 
 and action ; and was prone to avenge itself on 
 superior merit in her own sex by shafts of ridi- 
 cule, occasionally tipped with the poison of 
 feminine malignancy. But she possessed a daring 
 soul, generous impulses, a strong will, and con- 
 siderable talent. Having inherited through her 
 mother the vast possessions of the Ducal House of 
 Montpensier, she was the richest heiress of the age, 
 and her hand was an object of ambition even to 
 Kings. Indeed, the chief cause of her undissembled 
 ill-humour with the Eegent and Cardinal Mazarin 
 was, that they had frustrated more than one 
 matrimonial alKance on which she had set her 
 
 161 
 
 heart, deeming it contrary to the interests of the 
 State that her vast estates should pass under the 
 control of a foreign Prince. Charles II. of 
 England, while in exile at the French Court, 
 figured among her suitors. But it is difficult 
 indeed to discover any promise of the ''Merry 
 Monarch," whose graceful bow, ready wit, and 
 flowing courtesy were the crowning charm of one 
 of the most brilliant courts of modern Europe, 
 in the gloomy and bashful youth, to whom the 
 language of gallantry, or even of compliment, 
 seemed unknown. Perhaps the part of the im- 
 passioned lover was not easy with the " grande 
 Mademoiselle." At all events she seems to have 
 looked on him as a sort of delicate monster, re- 
 cording with specialinterest his voracious onslaught 
 upon a joint of mutton. The needy and harsh- 
 featured wanderer was not to the taste of the 
 high-spirited Princess. She appears at this time 
 to have cherished the hope which, notwithstanding 
 a great disparity of age, Anne of Austria and the 
 Cardinal encouraged, of ascending the throne of 
 France as the bride of Louis XIY. Her secret 
 partialities had long been with Conde. She lets 
 it be seen in her curious, though insufferably 
 egotistical memoirs, that she would willingly have 
 married him in the event of his wife's death ; and 
 
162 
 
 she ever displays towards that noble woman a 
 peculiar vindictiveness. After withering until the 
 late autumn of her life in thorny virginity, Mdlle. 
 de Montpensiergave her hand in secret nuptials to 
 the Count of Lauzun, so famous for his escapades 
 at the Court of the Great King, and the gallant 
 services he rendered to Mary of Modena and her 
 ill-starred husband; and she was compelled to atone 
 for her mature indiscretion by granting the rever- 
 sion of her enormous property to the French 
 Crown. 
 
 Mademoiselle arrived at the camp of Beaufort 
 and Nemours to find the army disorganised by the 
 dissensions of its leaders. These noblemen were 
 so inflamed against each other that they came to 
 blows in her presence, and though she succeeded 
 m composing the quarrel for the time, their 
 smouldering resentments afterwards leaped up 
 mto a fratricidal duel, in which Nemours was 
 killed. Escorted by her ladies, she boldly pre- 
 sented herself at one of the gatesof Orleans and de- 
 manded admittance,just as an envoy from the Kin^- 
 had arrived at the opposite entrance to summon the 
 town. The magistrates were divided in opinion, 
 and refused to receive either party. Mademoiselle 
 stormed and cajoled to no purpose, the officer in 
 charge of the gate replying to her objurgations 
 
 ' 
 
 163 
 
 only with profound bows. But while she was 
 allowing her anger to evaporate in a solitary stroll 
 along the bank of the river, some of the boatmen, 
 crowding round her, pointed out a barricaded sally- 
 port, looking on the quay, in which a breach might 
 easily be effected. At her instigation they made 
 an opening, through which they dragged and 
 pushed her and two of her ladies into the town. 
 The populace, yelling with enthusiasm, carried her 
 in triumph, all be-draggled and partially dis- 
 arrayed, but delighted with the adventure, to the 
 Hotel de Ville, where she terrified the magistrates 
 into submission. By this achievement, which, 
 half heroic, half ludicrous, well reflected the 
 character of the heroine. Mademoiselle de Mont- 
 pensier preserved the city of Orleans for her 
 
 father. 
 
 While Conde was painfully battling with the 
 difficulties which beset him in Guienne, news 
 reached him of the dissensions of Beaufort and 
 Nemours, and the critical situation of their army. 
 He felt that should this veteran force, which was 
 the main-stay of the insurgent cause, melt away 
 or be destroyed, the loss would be irreparable; 
 and his intelligence left him no room for doubt 
 with regard to the critical position to which it was 
 reduced by the divisions and the incompetency of 
 
164 
 
 its chiefs. His presence alone could save it from 
 dissolution. It was a desperate crisis ; but great 
 actions are born of great difficulties, and the 
 Prince now conceived one of the boldest enter- 
 prises that ever occurred to a leader. This was 
 to traverse one hundred and twenty leagues of 
 hostile territory, swarming with vigilant foes, 
 guarded along all its routes by strong towns and 
 fortresses, intersected by broad and rapid rivers, 
 the bridges and fords of which were in the hands 
 of enemies, and, penetrating Turenne's lines, to 
 put himself at the head of the Army of the Loire. 
 Recognition would involve certain captivity or 
 death, and his person was so well known, especially 
 at the Court, which lay in his track, that the least 
 suspicion of his journey must infallibly lead to 
 discovery. The most profound secresy, the 
 greatest celerity, and rare good fortune were 
 necessary for success. The conduct of the expedi- 
 tion was confided to the skilful audacity and the 
 infinite resource of Gourville. 
 
 The Prince committed the command in Guienne 
 to his brother Conti, leaving him the Count of 
 Marsin and the able Lenet as assistants, and set 
 out on the evening of Pabn Sunday, 1652, in the 
 habit of a courier. He was accompanied by La 
 Eochefoucault, by the young Prince of Marsillac, 
 
 165 
 
 a boy of fifteen, by Gourville, and by three other 
 gentlemen, all wearing disguises. They travelled 
 day and night, avoiding as much as possible the 
 high roads, never halting longer than two hours 
 at a time for rest and food, and never changing 
 horses unless when compelled by absolute neces- 
 sity. The hair-breadth escapes, and the laughable 
 incidents which chequered the journey, continued 
 long afterwards on winter evenings to furnish 
 food for wonder and mirth at provincial firesides. 
 By a bold stratagem Gourville obtained possession 
 of one of the boats at a ferry on the Dordogne, 
 and the party crossed over without incurring the 
 risk of inconvenient questions or scrutiny. Com- 
 ing to a halt at a little out-of-the-way hostelry, 
 the Prince was glad to escape with no other 
 injury than bitter taunts and curses from the 
 quick-tempered inn-keeper, who was enraged by 
 the awkward way in which the pretended courier 
 obeyed an order to bridle a horse. In another 
 little village Conde was jeered by a justly incensed 
 landlady, for letting an omelet, which he had 
 rashly volunteered to cook, fall into the fire. She 
 let him off with a shower of derisive compliments, 
 in consideration of the sound rating administered 
 to him by Gourville. One day a countryman re- 
 cognised Cond^, and called out his name, but the 
 
166 
 
 ]67 
 
 cool impudence of the imperturbable Gourville 
 cheated the bewildered rustic into disbelief of his 
 own senses. Another day the party was hospitably 
 entertained by a gentleman who, unconscious of 
 the quality of his guests, retailed for their amuse- 
 ment all the current scandal and popular jests on 
 the subject of Madame de Longueville's notorious 
 gallantries. They crossed the Loire in a boat, 
 which landed them, by some misadventure, at 
 the very gates of La Charite, a strong fortress 
 commanded by Bussy Rabutin, whom some 
 real or fancied injuries had changed from a 
 staunch adherent to a bitter foe of the Prince. 
 Cond^ and Gourville riding forward, without 
 hesitation, accosted the officer on guard, passed 
 themselves off as comrades in arms, who having 
 outstayed their leave were hurrying to rejoin their 
 regiments, and, leaving affectionate messages for 
 their friend Rabutin, pursued their journey un- 
 impeded, under the walls of the town. A still 
 greater danger befell the adventurers as they ap- 
 proached the Royal Camp. Being under the 
 necessity of venturing upon the high road, one 
 cf their number, the Count of Guitaut, was 
 recognised by a courier from the Court. By this 
 time men and horses were completely exhausted, 
 the Prince's iron frame alone being able to endure 
 
 the constant watching and fatigue. Young 
 Marsillac had fainted several times, and during 
 the later stages of the expedition had been un- 
 able to sit on horseback without assistance. The 
 only chance of safety lay in separating into smaller 
 bodies. Conde, La Rochefoucault, and Marsillac 
 kept together. Turning their horses loose, they 
 crept along stealthily, within a few paces of each 
 other, seeking cover in ditches and patches of 
 vegetation, until they reached the chateau of the 
 Duchess of Chatillon, the sight of which, recalling 
 the recent death of his adoring mother within its 
 walls, must have awakened painful regrets in the 
 Prince's mind. They passed the night in the 
 chateau, surrounded by detachments of the enemy, 
 and the following day, eluding the pursuit of the 
 numerous parties sent out to capture them, pre- 
 sented themselves in safety at the headquarters of 
 Beaufort and Nemours. 
 
 Mazarin, equally unwilling to put a slight upon 
 the long and distinguished services of Hocquin- 
 court, and to lose the military talents of Turenne, 
 had unwisely divided the Royal Army into two 
 bodies, and given to each of the Marshals an 
 independent command. Turenne's troops were 
 quartered around Gien, where the Court resided. 
 Hocquincourt had pitched his camp a few leagues 
 
168 
 
 in advance, near Bleneau, and, despising the in- 
 capacity of Kis opponents, had taken little care to 
 secure his position. On the night following 
 Condi's arrival Turenne was aroused from sleep 
 by the distant tumult of battle in the direc- 
 tion of Bleneau. Starting up, he rushed into 
 the open air and gained an eminence that 
 commanded an extensive view. The camp of 
 Hocquincourt was wrapped in flames, and the 
 light of the conflagration fell on disorderly masses 
 of troops, flying in hopeless rout before the furious 
 attacks of the insurgents. Turenne gazed for a 
 moment in silent amazement on the disastrous 
 spectacle, and then, turning to his officers, said — 
 "The Prince must have arrived." The great 
 warrior recognised the presence of kindred genius 
 in that scene of discomfiture and terror. But the 
 peril of the situation left the Marshal little time 
 for reflection. No one knew so well as he the 
 ardour, sometimes amounting to rashness, with 
 which Conde followed up an advantage. The King 
 and Queen reposed in complete unconsciousness of 
 danger at Gien, while there only remained his 
 own small army to shield them from captivity. 
 He was equal to the emergency. Pushing for- 
 ward, with extraordinary boldness, the four or 
 five thousand men under his command into a 
 
 169 
 
 position partly covered by woods, which concealed 
 his weakness, he vigorously repelled the advance 
 of the victorious enemy. Conde's eagle glance 
 was for once at fault. A great part of his army, 
 corrupted by lax discipline, had dispersed for 
 plunder ; and, fearful of falling into an ambuscade, 
 after one somewhat feeble attack, he halted his 
 men in order to allow time for the stragglers to 
 rejoin their ranks. The hours thus wasted 
 enabled Hocquincourt to rally his beaten division, 
 and bring it up to the support of his colleague. 
 Turenne, no longer fearing to be crushed, confi- 
 dently awaited the enemy in his strong position, 
 which his antagonist, having discovered his error 
 too late, did not now venture to assail. And thus, 
 on this extraordinary day, the fiery Conde lost, 
 through want of daring, the opportunity which he 
 had purchased by such prodigies of hardihood and 
 endurance, of rendering himself master of France 
 by a single blow ; and the cautious Turenne 
 replaced,'^ to use the words of Anne of Austria, 
 the crown on the head of her son" by a 
 manoeuvre, the success of which could not redeem 
 it in the eyes of such a friendly critic as Napoleon 
 from the fault of excessive rashness. 
 
 a\iter this exploit, so brilliant even in its partial 
 failure, Conde taking with him the Dukes of 
 
 VOL. II. I 
 
 ■€( 
 
 (C 
 
170 
 
 171 
 
 Beaufort, Nemours, and La Rochefoucault, and 
 leaving the command of the army to the Coimts 
 of Tavannes and Vallon, two officers who enjoyed 
 his confidence, set out for Paris, where his interests 
 urgently demanded his presence. 
 
 His first few weeks^ experience in Guienne had 
 rudely dispelled the vainglorious illusions with 
 which the Prince had entered upon the civil war. 
 His military genius, with the advantages of the 
 most splendid prestige, and the most powerful 
 following of any subject in Europe, and of alhance 
 with Spain, could not avert disgraceful defeat in 
 a struggle for personal ends, which ralHed the 
 patriotism and loyalty of France around the throne 
 of his young Sovereign. The selfish impatience 
 which precipitated Cardinal Mazarines return to 
 France, in defiance of law and of public opinion 
 had, by partially relieving the ill-judged enterprise 
 of Conde from the crushing odium of wanton 
 rebellion, and by raising up for him unexpected 
 allies, rescued him from destruction. But Conde 
 felt that he could only make a successful stand 
 against legitimate authority by a cordial union 
 with the Duke of Orleans, who possessed the con- 
 fidence of the middle classes, especially in the 
 Capital ; and by winning the countenance of the 
 Paiiiament of Paris, which, though it had placed 
 
 a price on Mazarin's head, upheld the King's 
 decree against himself and his partizans. In ac- 
 complishing these purposes he had to vanquish 
 the opposition of an enemy as skilful and more 
 determined than Mazarin himself. 
 
 pde Retz had now succeeded his uncle as Arch- 
 bishop of Paris. When Mazarin's sudden re- 
 appearance at Court dashed the long-desired and 
 scarcely tasted cup of power from his lips, the 
 Archbishop had betaken himself again to the 
 government of his diocese, the rage and despair 
 of baffled ambition consuming his haughty soul. 
 But his animosity towards his Italian rival, in- 
 tense as it was, paled before his hatred and 
 distrust of Cond^. Though he used all his 
 arts to alienate the Duke of Orleans from the 
 Queen, he was not less eager in dissuading 
 the Duke from an alliance with the Prince. 
 He strove to reconstruct out of the remnant 
 of the Fronde that still adhered to him, and 
 the Parliament and citizens of Paris, a con- 
 stitutional party, under the nominal leadership of 
 Orleans, which opposing Mazarin and Cond^, 
 irresponsible despotism, and selfish faction, would 
 maintain the Royal authority as limited by the 
 Declaration of the 24th of October. But this com- 
 bination, which, though it may have had its root in 
 
 I 2 
 
172 
 
 173 
 
 his personal ambition, was worthy of the enlightened 
 genius of De Retz, and was consistent with the 
 general scope of his policy from the beginning, 
 failed, notwithstanding that it attracted the cordial 
 sympathies of Mole and his friends, on account of 
 the lack of public spirit in the country ; the weak- 
 ness of Monsieur, the selfish pride of the nobles, 
 the selfish timidity of the burghers, and the 
 demoralization of the populace. De Eetz then 
 withdrew himself almost completely from active 
 participation in pohtics, only appearing from time 
 to tim^ to assist the Magistrates in preserving 
 order. \ While Conde was still in Guyenne, feeling 
 the necessity of destroying an influence so pre- 
 judicial to his cause in Paris, he had commissioned 
 Gourville to carry off the Archbishop from his 
 palace, and deliver him up to the Spaniards. 
 Gourville laid his plans with his usual audacity 
 and skill, but the enterprise, so congenial to his 
 temper, miscarried at the last moment through 
 an accident, and he had to fly for his life. After 
 this narrow escape, and while the poHtical fortunes 
 of De Retz were seemingly at their lowest ebb, 
 by one of those strange turns of destiny visible 
 throughout his eventful career, the great prize 
 which all his Hf e he had laboured in vain to secure, 
 fell to him unasked for, and when it had probably 
 
 passed beyond the range of his hopes. The Regent 
 had requited his services against Cond^, during 
 Mazarin's absence at Bruhl, by a nomination for 
 a Cardinal's hat. After her favourite's return, 
 she sent to Rome to cancel the appointment. The 
 Pope, however, at the next creation of Cardinals, 
 elevated De Retz to a seat in the conclave. It 
 was through the spontaneous act of the Pontiff 
 that the baffled demagogue and discarded Minister 
 acquired the dignity he so greatly coveted of 
 Prince of the Church, and the appellation under 
 which he is famous to all time. 
 
 Conde's presence in the Capital gave him com- 
 plete sway, for the time, over the mind of his 
 volatile cousin. The confederate Princes, in order 
 to conciliate the favour of the Parliament, issued 
 a Declaration setting forth, in the language of 
 exalted patriotism, that having taken up arms 
 solely to free the realm from the evil rule of a 
 foreign Minister, they were ready to disband their 
 troops when he, in obedience to the edict of the 
 High Court, retired from France. But Mole and 
 his colleagues, being well-informed of the close 
 relations subsisting between the rebel chiefs and 
 the Spanish Army, then ravaging the northern 
 provinces, and also of the private negotiations 
 with Mazarin which Conde was at that very 
 
174 
 
 moment carrying on through the Duchess of 
 Chatillon, treated this specious manifesto with the 
 contempt it merited, and publicly reproached its 
 authors with their treason and perfidy. The 
 Princes, stung by these just denunciations, resorted 
 to intimidation. Wielding with unskilful hands 
 the dangerous weapons of De Eetz, they excited 
 the rabble against the Magistrates, and being 
 unable to curb the demon they had raised, the 
 city fell under the reign of lawless violence. 
 
 In this unprosperous state of his affairs, death 
 deprived Cond^ of his ablest councillor, the cele- 
 brated Chavigny. This eminent politician, the 
 favourite pupil of Eichelieu, having been long con- 
 demned to obscurity by the hatred of Anne of 
 Austria and the jealousy of Mazarin, had lately 
 become the chief adviser of the Prince. At the 
 time of his decease he was busy with a project 
 which redounded little to the credit of his patron. 
 News having arrived in Paris that the Princess of 
 Conde was fast sinking under a mortal illness at 
 Bordeaux, neither esteem for her virtues nor 
 gratitude for her services restrained her husband 
 from an indecent exhibition of joy at the prospect 
 of being released from ties that had always galled 
 him; and he immediately commissioned Chavigny 
 to arrange for his second nuptials with Made- 
 
 175 
 
 moiselle de Montpensier. But the Princess, 
 having given birth to a son, and having lingered 
 long between life and death, began slowly to mend, 
 to the intense vexation of her lord, and the intense 
 delight of the faithful Gascons. Little could these 
 generous hearts divine how cruel was the fate 
 which then snatched their heroine from the grave. 
 Whilst abortive political and matrimonial in- 
 trigues distracted Conde's attention from military 
 operations, Tavannes and Yallon, out-generalled 
 and beaten by Turenne, now in supreme com- 
 mand of the Koyal Army, found themselves shut 
 up, with diminished forces, in the town of Etampes, 
 and reduced to the last extremity. In compliance 
 with urgent demands for assistance from the rebel 
 Princes, their Spanish allies prevailed on the Duke 
 of Lorraine, by the payment of a large subsidy, to 
 march his army— all that remained to him of the 
 rich territory of which he was Sovereign— into 
 the heart of France. This seasonable diversion 
 extricated the insurgents ; uniting with the 
 soldiers of Lorraine they retired on Paris, closely 
 followed by Turenne. 
 
 A trial of strategical skill followed, in which 
 the Royal commander, though inferior in strength, 
 baffled all the efforts of the confederates to crush 
 him ; and then the needy Duke of Lorraine, moved 
 
176 
 
 177 
 
 by the golden arguments of Mazarin^ suddenly- 
 retired over tlie frontier, leaving his allies to shift 
 for themselves. 
 
 The rebel army, now reduced to about five 
 thousand men, was exposed by this desertion to 
 be overwhelmed at St. Cloud by the simultaneous 
 attacks of Turenne and Marshal la Ferte, who had 
 marched to Turenne's assistance from the borders 
 of Flanders ; and Cond6 went forth again to lead it 
 through the city to a safer position at Charenton. 
 But the municipal authorities, who were loyal to 
 the King and justly indignant at the frightful 
 disorders which mocked their rule, with the aid of 
 De Retz, prevailed on the unstable Orleans to 
 allow the gates to be shut against his cousin. 
 The Prince, thus caught in a trap, endeavoured 
 in the short night of the 1st July, 1652, to draw 
 off his men under the shadow of the city walls. 
 But he was unable to elude the unsleeping vigi- 
 lance of Turenne ; and when, at break of day, he 
 reached the Faubourg St. Antoine, his rear was 
 so hotly pressed by overwhelming numbers that 
 he was compelled to halt and give battle. 
 
 Three streets forming the Faubourg converged 
 upon an open space before the Gate St. Antoine. 
 These he caused to be closed with barricades and 
 such entrenchments as could be hastily thrown 
 
 if 
 
 up, and committed their defence to Nemours, 
 Tavannes, and Vallon. La Rochefoucault and a 
 chosen body of gentlemen remained with their 
 leader as a reserve, ready to rush upon the enemy 
 wherever succour was most needed. The rear of 
 the insurgents rested on the city gate, jealously 
 barred and guarded against them, and the gloomy 
 walls of the Bastille. On his side Turenne made 
 his dispositions for the attack with his usual 
 promptitude and ability. But this great General 
 rated too highly the merits of his old commander 
 to throw away any chance of success in conflict 
 with such an antagonist; he, therefore, wished 
 to delay the assault until La Ferte had come up 
 with the heavy artillery. The young King and 
 Mazarin, however, had taken their station on the 
 heights of Charonne ^overlooking the battle-field, 
 and impatient to witness the destruction of the 
 illustrious rebel, sent message after message to 
 the illustrious Marshal, urging immediate action. 
 The walls, towers, and steeples of the city were 
 alive with swarming multitudes, whose gaze was 
 rivetted by a terrible fascination on the bloody 
 tragedy that soon began to unfold itself beneath. 
 The battle was one of the fiercest and most 
 stubborn in the annals of war. The Royal troops, 
 confident in an overwhelming superiority of force, 
 
 I 5 
 
178 
 
 and eager to distinguish themselves under the 
 eyes of their young Monarch, attacked in three 
 columns with extraordinary impetuosity. The 
 insurgents, feeling that their only hope of safety 
 lay in their valour, disputed every inch of ground 
 with the most determined resolution. Nemours, 
 Tavannes, and Yallon fought on the barricades at 
 the head of their men. La Rochefoucault sur- 
 passed even the splendid gallantry which had 
 rendered the ruined defences of Bordeaux im- 
 pregnable. Conde himself, in his fury and his 
 prowess seemed more than mortal; the living 
 image of the God of War, as depicted more than 
 two thousand years before in immortal verse 
 by the greatest of poets. His terrible counten- 
 ance, flaming with the fierce joy of conflict, his 
 voice rolling in thunder along the ranks of battle, 
 and the lightning strokes of his sword carried 
 dismay into the enemy in every part of the field. 
 The rapidity of movement by which he multiplied 
 himself at the points of danger appeared super- 
 human. '' Did you see the Prince of Cond6 on 
 that day V was afterwards asked of Turenne. 
 " I did not see one Prince of Conde,'' replied the 
 Marshal ; '' I saw more than twelve.'' The 
 carnage was horrible. The combat raged from 
 house to house, from gtory to story, from early 
 
 179 
 
 morning till noon. At mid-day both armies, 
 exhausted by fatigue and the intense heat, 
 were compelled to desist for a brief interval 
 of repose. But, although the fate of the engage- 
 ment was still undecided, the superior numbers 
 and materiel of the King's army had told with 
 fearful effect on the insurgents. Turenne's 
 guns had crushed and levelled their feebled 
 defences, and, sweeping the streets with an 
 iron tempest, had made sad havoc in their 
 ranks. Half the Prince's soldiers, and nearly all 
 their leaders, had fallen. La Rochefoucault 's 
 cheeks were pierced by a musket ball. Nemours 
 and Vallon were carried from the field des- 
 perately wounded. Conde, though his armour 
 was dented with blows, remained unscathed. In 
 the middle of the fight, being almost suffocated 
 by the heat, he had caused himself to be disarmed 
 and undressed, rolled himself over and over in an 
 adjacent field, and then, refreshed and invigorated 
 by the touch of his mother earth, had returned 
 like a Titan to sustain his fainting ranks. Slowly 
 recoiling before the ever-increasing masses of the 
 Royalists, he took advantage of the pause to dis- 
 engage his remaining troops from the smoking 
 ruins of the Faubourg ; and, drawing them up in a 
 compact body before the city gate, he awaited the 
 
180 
 
 approach of his foes with the calm courage of 
 despair. Turenne, having been reinforced by the 
 fresh army and powerful artillery of La Ferte, 
 prepared to deliver the decisive blow which 
 should end the civil war. But in this moment of 
 dreadful suspense, a young and high-born woman, 
 alighting upon the scene like some goddess in a 
 Homeric battle, robbed the Royalists of a certain 
 triumph and snatched the Prince from inevitable 
 destruction. 
 
 On Conde's departure from Paris, the Duke of 
 Beaufort had remained behind, and though unable 
 to defeat the hostile measures of the municipal 
 authorities, remained true to his friend. As the 
 sounds of battle came floating into the city ; as 
 the emotions of admiration and pity for over- 
 matched heroism that thrilled the spectators, who 
 crowded every turret and pinnacle, flashed with 
 electric sympathy through the multitudes below ; 
 as the ghastly heaps of the wounded piled up 
 against the city gate rose higher and more 
 hideous, the popular ferment burst forth in 
 tumult, and Beaufort, exerting on behalf of his 
 hard pressed associates the rough eloquence which 
 was his only talent, inflamed by stirring harangues 
 the passions of the populace. The popular 
 clamour compelled the municipal authorities to 
 
 181 
 
 allow the wounded to be carried within the walls, 
 and the tears and prayers of these brave men, 
 who, unmindful of their own sufferings, implored 
 succour for their gallant comrades, kindled the 
 public agitation into fury. Mademoiselle de Mont- 
 pensier boldly seized the opportunity to save her 
 cousin. She first wrung from the fears and the 
 compassion of her irresolute father a written order 
 to the Governor of the Bastille to obey her direc- 
 tions. Then proceeding amidst the acclama- 
 tions of a vast multitude to the Hotel de Yille, 
 partly by coaxing, partly by threats of personal 
 violence, she extorted from old Marshal THopital, 
 Governor of Paris, and the Provost of the Mer- 
 chants, an order to the officer in command at the 
 Gate St. Antoine to admit the rebel army. En- 
 chanted with her success, she hurried on foot to 
 the scene of battle. Her way lay along the street 
 St. Antoine, which was choked by the mournful 
 procession of the dying and the dead. At every 
 step gaping wounds appalled her sight, cries of 
 agony assailed her ears, the pallid anguish of 
 some familiar face smote her heart. She met La 
 E-ochef oucault, blinded and insensible, borne along 
 in the arms of his son and of Gourville. She met 
 Vallon, almost expiring in a litter, who called out 
 to her in feeble tones that all was lost; and 
 
182 
 
 183 
 
 Guitaut, faint witli loss of blood, reeling on Ms 
 horse like a drunken man. Repairing to a house 
 near the ramparts, she sent to the Prince to come 
 and see her. He was standing at a short distance 
 from the gate, calmly watching the slowly advanc- 
 ing columns of Turenne, the gathering thunder 
 cloud of war that was about to burst in ruin on 
 his head. His face was hardly to be recognised 
 under its hideous mask of clotted dust and blood, 
 and the long matted locks that hung about it in 
 wild disorder ; his shirt and collar were smeared 
 with gore, and in his hand was a naked sword, of 
 which he had flung away the scabbard. On see- 
 ing the Princess he sank upon a seat and burst 
 into tears. ''Pardon my grief,'' he said to her; 
 '' I have lost all my friends.'' She soothed him 
 with words of comfort, ordered the Gate St. 
 Antoine to be thrown open, and the guns of 
 the Bastille to check Turenne's advance. Cond^, 
 disdaining to retreat in broad day before Mazarin, 
 held his ground until nightfall, and then retired 
 unmolested within the walls. The astonishment 
 of the Regent and the Minister at the escape of 
 their great enemy was only equalled by their in- 
 dignation. The Cardinal had hitherto favoured 
 Mademoiselle de Montpensier's aspiring project 
 to become the bride of Louis XIV., thinking it 
 
 I 
 
 good policy to attach her immense possessions to 
 the French Crown. But when he learned that 
 she had ordered the cannon of the Bastille to 
 play upon the King's army, he exclaimed, with a 
 fixed resolve which nothing was able ever after- 
 wards to shake, " She has killed her husband." 
 
 The presence of his troops within its walls 
 rendered Conde master of Paris. But the 
 majority of the High Court, nothing daunted, 
 freely expressed their disapproval of the 
 weak compliances of Marshal I'Hopital and the 
 Provost of the Merchants, to which he owed his 
 safety. The Prince, soured and rendered reckless 
 by his reverses, retaliated by hounding on his 
 soldiers and the rabble against the Chambers. 
 He was unable to control the fiendish passions he 
 had let loose, and the city was again delivered up 
 to a saturnalia of crime, to pillage, murder, and 
 conflagration. The savage rioters attacked the 
 Palace of Justice with fire and sword, and it was 
 by a miracle that the blazing building did not 
 become the funeral pyre of the slaughtered 
 Magistrates. Hundreds of the citizens were 
 butchered in the face of day. The High Court 
 suspended its sittings. Mole and his leading 
 colleagues fled from a scene in which law and 
 order were trampled in the dust by a licentious 
 
 \ 
 
184 
 
 185 
 
 soldiery, and many of the principal inhabitants 
 followed their example. The beleaguering army 
 of Turenne, cutting off the regular supplies of 
 provisions, famine came to glut itself with victims 
 whom violence had spared, and pestilence swept 
 away crowds of spectral wretches already wasted 
 by hunger. The unhappy Parisians, all but the 
 dregs of the population, the vultures of society 
 who feast amidst carnage and desolation, feeling 
 that the rankest despotism could not corrupt into 
 evils more dreadful than those deadly fruits of 
 unbridled license, sighed for the restoration of 
 the Eoyal authority. Every day the insurgent 
 cause sank lower and lower. It was to little 
 purpose that the Duke of Lorraine, having 
 literally fulfilled his engagement with Mazarin 
 by marching out of France, marched back again, 
 and compelled Turenne to raise the siege of the 
 Capital. Tavannes and Vallon led out the 
 Princess troops to co-operate with the troops of 
 Lorraine. But although the Royalist General, 
 knowing with whom he had to deal, did not 
 hesitate to place his small army in exposed posi- 
 tions, his incompetent antagonists failed to seize 
 the opportunities he afforded them. Conde, 
 eaten up by anguish and remorse for the downfal 
 of his party, and the miseries caused by his guilty 
 
 ambition, and worn by incessant toils, had sue- 
 cumbed to a dangerous fever. He was only able 
 to vent his impotent rage by shouting from his 
 sick bed, " Give bridles to Tavannes and Yallon; 
 they are asses.^' At the termination of a fruitless 
 campaign the Duke of Lorraine again retreated 
 across the frontier ; and, to add to Conde's mis- 
 fortunes, his impregnable fortress of Montrond, 
 after holding out for a year, was reduced 
 by famine. The astute Mazarin, seeing the 
 Fronde at the last extremity, dealt it its death 
 blow by voluntarily retiring a second time into 
 exile. The more uncompromising members of 
 the Parliament, who had remained in the Capital 
 after the departure of their First President, im- 
 mediately declared for the King, and drew after 
 them the whole body of substantial citizens. The 
 chiefs of the insurrection, in the blind haste o£ 
 selfish fear, opened separate negotiations with the 
 Court. Anne of Austria temporised, until terror 
 and distrust had broken up the party. Then, 
 assuming a haughtier tone, she announced that the 
 season of concession was over, that she required 
 unconditional submission. In truth there only 
 remained the desperate alternative of repairing to 
 the Spanish Camp. 
 
 It will be obvious, even from this feeble sketch 
 
186 
 
 of the rise and fall of the Fronde/ that it con- 
 tained in itself, from the very beginning, the seeds 
 of its own destruction. There is no record in 
 history of a struggle of equal moment, one in- 
 volving such mighty interests, such stupendous 
 results, and sustained by the utmost energies of 
 so many men and women endowed with most 
 glorious gifts of nature, in which so little can be 
 found to inspire the fancy, satisfy the judgment, 
 or elevate the heart. It was, as regards the vast 
 majority of those who took part in it, a war of 
 mean passions for mean objects, relieved indeed 
 by many brilliant, many amusing, and by some ad- 
 mirable incidents ; episodes dearly purchased by 
 the general degradation of genius, courage, and 
 beauty. What most strikes the mind contem- 
 plating the strife of the Fronde, is an absence 
 of moral grandeur. It did not even contain 
 any grand element of terror. It wanted even 
 the dignity of colossal crime. We see a 
 strange drama in which feeble tragedy and 
 broad farce are fantastically interwoven ; in which 
 horrors, bordering on the ludicrous, give place, 
 with startling rapidity, to more ghastly mirth; 
 terror with little of sublimity, ani humour de- 
 generating into Satanic ribaldry. /One thing aloi 
 in the shifting chaos of ficklb passions and] 
 
 187 
 
 \ grotesque incidents, of vice and madness, appears 
 permanent. This is an all-pervading spirit of 
 selfishness; the principle of disorder, which 
 quickened, and, by quickening, m-adually destroyed, 
 the elements of social confusion) Grasping Princes 
 and nobles, aided by turbulent demagogues, 
 taking advantage of popular discontent and of a 
 long minority, seek to strip newly dowered royalty 
 for their own aggrandisement; an alien Minister, 
 under the pretext of defending the rights of 
 the Crown, strives with equal avidity to clutch 
 undivided authority, and enormous wealth, shame- 
 fully pilfered from an exhausted exchequer and a 
 famishing people. 
 
 But in intimate alliance with, and partly con- 
 cealed by, the play of base and frivolous passions, 
 an issue of the last consequence to France and 
 to Europe was fought out with a singleness of 
 purpose, a strength of conviction, and a steadfast 
 courage worthy of its magnitude. Mathieu Mole 
 strove to win and to preserve inviolate a charter 
 of public rights ; and Anne of Austria strove to 
 maintain the absolute prerogative inherited by her 
 son. 
 
 When France, depressed by a long series of 
 disasters, surrendered to Charles VII. the right of 
 taxing the Third Estate without its consent, she 
 
188 
 
 enabled her Sovereigns^ by pursuing a policy aa 
 crafty as it was patient and tenacious, gradually 
 to destroy every authority in the realm, inde- 
 pendent of their own. They raised up barriers 
 of privilege between the different orders which, 
 till the close of the 14th century, had been accus- 
 tomed to meet frequently, on an equal footing, in 
 national assemblies for the discussion and the 
 regulation of public affairs ; and having rendered 
 co-operation on the ground of common interests 
 impossible, they in the end reduced each order to 
 absolute subjection. The nobles, exempted from 
 the burthens of the State, and monopoHsing its 
 honours and dignities, from being an aristocracy 
 stiffened into a caste, and ceasing to share the 
 motives and feelings completely lost their hold 
 upon the mass of the population. Privileged 
 but isolated, they were easily crushed by open 
 attack, or allured to Court, saw their hereditary 
 jurisdiction silently transferred to functionaries of 
 the Crown. The cultivators of the soil, oppressed 
 by imposts, not only arbitrary and capricious in 
 themselves, but rendered insufferably galling by a 
 vicious system of collection, looked with envy and 
 hatred on their rich, untaxed lords, who, without 
 affording them protection, increased their miseries 
 by a harsh exaction of feudal services. Such of 
 
 189 
 
 the peasants as were fortunate enough to acquire 
 a competence, took refuge in the nearest town 
 under the shelter of municipal institutions, and, if 
 possible, purchased some privileged office which 
 separated them completely from their former life. 
 But the towns also had been gradually despoiled 
 of their ancient freedom. Louis XI. had made 
 relentless war upon them, and most of his successors 
 looked with a jealous eye upon their remaining 
 powers and franchises. At the time of Cardinal 
 Richelieu's death, the Royal authority had 
 emancipated itself from all constitutional control — 
 at least, in the pays d'eleciion, which formed 
 tliree parts of the kingdom — except whatever feeble 
 restraint might exist in the privilege of humble 
 remonstrance before registering the King's edicts, 
 which the Minister left to the Parliament of Paris. 
 The liberty of all French subjects, the property of 
 the middle and lower classes, lay completely at 
 the mercy of the Crown. To make security of 
 person and of goods the birthright of every 
 Frenchman — a right of the subject which has 
 always been regarded in free communities as 
 a necessary condition of good government 
 and national prosperity — and to constitute an 
 independent and vigilant guardian of this 
 right by vindicating for the Parliament of 
 
190 
 
 191 
 
 V 
 
 Paris its ancient claims to discuss freely and to 
 reject, if they were illegal or oppressive, the 
 King^s edicts, were Mol^^s objects. Never, per- 
 haps, did a public man labour for more worthy 
 aims with truer patriotism or more heroic courage. 
 He was not, indeed, exempt from the prejudices 
 of his time and office, or from narrow partialities 
 for his order. He desired all that he did to 
 extend and elevate the functions of the High 
 Court beyond all authenticated precedent; and 
 therefore he regarded the States General with as 
 much jealousy and dislike as Anne of Austria 
 herself. But in the circumstances of the time it 
 might well have seemed to him that this profes- 
 sional spirit was the highest public spirit. The 
 nobles, having selfishly betrayed the Third 
 Estate, had for long past evinced only a disposi- 
 tion to profit by the injustice under which it 
 suffered. The beneficed clergy and the eccle- 
 siastical corporations enjoyed the same privileges 
 as the nobles. The somewhat cumbrous ma- 
 chinery of the States General having long been 
 discarded from ordinary use in political life ; and 
 having, when tried in extraordinary emergencies, 
 proved impotent to effect reform, chiefly because 
 the privileged being separated from the un- 
 privileged classes, not only by a sharply defined 
 
 line of distinction, but by the absence of common 
 interests and common sympathies, the King could 
 venture to treat the national remonstrances with 
 neglect ; the only hope of securing juster measure 
 for the Third Estate, without a revolution, might 
 well have appeared to lie in investing the Parha- 
 ment with a power of control. 
 
 Mole, however, committed the error of a 
 generous and courageous mind in attempting to 
 accomplish a political reformation with inadequate 
 means. To set hmits to the prerogative of the 
 Crown was a task above the strength of the Par- 
 liament of Paris. This was clear to De Eetz, a 
 man of far less pure and lofty character than the 
 First President, but possessing an intellect in- 
 comparably more powerful, enlarged, and versa- 
 tile. /Inspired chiefly, no doubt, by personal 
 ambition, but also in a spirit of enlightened 
 statesmanship, De Retz conceived the design of 
 bringing the aspiring genius of Conde, the 
 mihtary turbulence of the depressed nobles, 
 the discontent of the citizens, and the passions 
 of the populace into an irresistible, however 
 ephemeral, movement which might compel con- 
 cession by the Regent of the demands of the 
 Parliament of Paris, and bear himself on its crest \ 
 to the direction of the reformed Government. ) 
 
192 
 
 The political duel between De Retz and Mazarin, 
 one of the most interesting in history, was not 
 merely a strife of rival ambitions. It was also 
 a conflict of rival principles, and it involved the 
 issue whether an absolute or a limited Monarchy 
 was to be established in France. The cham- 
 pions were not unequally matched. Each 
 was weighted with scandalous vices that sunk 
 him in public esteem. The Coadjutor had a 
 more splendid and daring genius, a more 
 exact knowledge of the condition and the wants 
 of all classes of society, a better cause, and the 
 public favour ; but the confederacy on which he 
 leant, although brilliant and formidable, and a 
 miracle of political skill, was built upon sand. 
 Mazarin excelled in patient astuteness, had at 
 command almost unlimited means of corruption 
 in the patronage and revenues of the State, rested 
 on the support of established power, the venerable 
 name of a King, and the devoted attachment of 
 one of the ablest and most resolute Princesses that 
 ever held a sceptre. Mazarin — after many defeats, 
 and what appeared to be utter discomfiture — 
 finally triumphed, in consequence of the political 
 
 r atheism of the aristocratical party and its chief.] 
 The few nobles who were guided by any principle v 
 sought to recover their ancient power while ) 
 
 193 
 
 ( .retaining their recent privileges, to change the 
 Jklonarchy into an oligarchy ; but the great 
 majority of them were merely impelled by a spirit 
 of rapine to plunder the State. And the conduct 
 of Cond^ — who alone was in a position to curb 
 their excesses, and even to give a patriotic direc- 
 tion to their energies — was conspicuous for the 
 absence of public virtue, of statesman-like sagacity 
 and self-control, and even of private honour. With- 
 out having the excuse of his followers for plunging 
 into faction, for he had been gorged by the Regent 
 with honours and ofiices, he sanctioned their most 
 flagitious acts of treason towards the nation and 
 of disloyalty towards each other by his own pro- 
 ceedings. Now betraying the land to the armies 
 of Spain and the seditious license of their 
 adherents, now lending Mazarin their swords, 
 in return for deceitful concessions, to rivet the 
 yoke of misgovernment, Conde and his party 
 were content to ruin the State so that they were 
 enriched from its spoils. \ 
 
 But no man nor part^ no matter how richly 
 endowed with genius and advantages of fortune 
 can achieve permanent success by pursuing aims 
 nakedly selfish. The personal views must be, 
 partially at least, hidden in the shadow of some 
 broad principle which commands the assent of the 
 VOL. II. K . 
 
f\ 
 
 194 
 
 national intelligence, or must be linked with some 
 general interest, or some powerful sentiment that 
 throbs with a strong pulsation in the heart of the 
 masses. Of this truth the party of the New Fronde 
 and their leader seemed unconscious. And each 
 of them sought his own advantage, not only with- 
 out regard to the public welfare, but without 
 regard to the welfare of his confederates. There 
 was no real principle of cohesion among them. 
 They scoffed at the ties of faith and honour. 
 Fidelity to his associates or treachery- depended 
 with each, mainly, upon his immediate inclination 
 or interest. The consequence was that mutual 
 distrust and the distrust of the country sapped the 
 strength of the party. Perhaps no body of men 
 ever possessed in a more eminent degree the 
 talents and the courage that ordinarily command 
 success, than the French nobles of that time. 
 They numbered in their ranks men of the highest 
 capacity for civil affairs. In splendid mihtary 
 qualities they have never been excelled. Omitting 
 from the comparison Napoleon, who was by paren- 
 tage, temperament, and all but the mere acci- 
 dent of conquest an Italian, and who stands apart 
 in history, with Hannibal and Julius Csesar, high 
 above common rivalry, the twenty years of war- 
 fare that followed the Revolution of 1789, during 
 
 195 
 
 which the French armies over-ran Europe, and the 
 martial energies and ambition, not only of every 
 Frenchman, but of every man in the countries 
 subject to France, were stirred into the highest 
 emulation, not only by a vehement spirit of 
 revolutionary propagandism, but by the great 
 prizes in the career of arms, even kingdoms, 
 thrown open to all, did not produce as many 
 Generals of extraordinary merit as were found 
 among the French Princes and nobles in the 
 single reign of Louis XIY. Hoche, Moreau, 
 Massena, Kleber, perhaps Dumouriez, though 
 illustrious names, pale their light before the 
 brighter glories of Conde, Turenne, Luxembourg, 
 Vendome, Villars, three of them, and those the 
 greatest, old chiefs of the Fronde ; while Harcourt, 
 Catinat, Boufflers, and many others scarcely 
 inferior in renown, might boast achievements 
 which well compare with the deeds of the crowd of 
 Eepublican Generals and Imperial Marshals. 
 Even when the noblesse had greatly degenerated, 
 it supplied the two most remarkable Frenchmen 
 of the Revolutionary period, Mirabeau and 
 Talleyrand. But intellect and courage without 
 faith or virtue cannot long contend successfully 
 against the accumulating moral force of public 
 
 reprobation. 
 
 K 2 
 
196 
 
 The real motives of tlie Royalists were, as a 
 e, equally interested ; but their personal objects 
 were in a great measure concealed from the 
 popular eye, at least after the Eang had attained 
 his majority, under the decent cloak of loyalty. 
 The very selfish instincts of the courtiers impelled 
 them to array themselves under a banner on which 
 a principle intelligible to the nation was inscribed, 
 namely, the supremacy of the Crown. Labour- 
 ing for themselves, they proclaimed themselves, 
 and with, truth, the defenders of the Throne and 
 of order. 3 They had thus, at once, a common 
 interest and a public aim that knit them together 
 and lent a sanction to their efforts. / Union gave 
 them strength, and their consistent support of 
 legitimate authority, contrasting favourably in the 
 public estimation with the profligate freaks of an 
 unprincipled faction, drew to them in the end the 
 sympathies of the nation. Cond^ and his friends 
 not only fell through their own vices, after inflict- 
 ing terrible calamities on the country, but in their 
 fall incurred the inexpiable guilt of dragging down 
 public freedom with them. They drowned liberty 
 in sedition. The wisest and best men of their 
 own order, the patriotic Magistrates who had con- 
 tended so courageously against abuses of power, 
 the factious demagogues themselves, dreading to 
 
 197 
 
 be torn to pieces by their own bandogs, saw no 
 refuge from the woes of the realm except in un- 
 conditional submission to the Royal authority. 
 France, wasted by a civil war which exhausted the 
 fountains of her life, delivered up her cities to 
 the dominion of the rabble, and enabled Spain to 
 pluck from her nerveless grasp the trophies of 
 years of glory, painfully awoke to the conviction 
 that anarchy is the most insupportable form of 
 tyranny; that even the misrule of an irre- 
 sponsible Government was preferable to the 
 organised disorder of selfish faction. And thus 
 it came to pass that, notwithstanding that the 
 Fronde had marshalled under its banner all the 
 patriotism, nearly all the political and military 
 genius, and the acknowledged representatives of 
 the one power of the world which is more potent 
 than genius, feminine beauty, in France; not- 
 withstanding also the deep hatred of Cardinal 
 Mazarin and the bitter sense of misgovemment 
 that rankled in the heart of the nation, the star of 
 the Great Minister again rose in the ascendant. 
 
 The proud spirit of Conde could not brook 
 obedience, and he quitted Paris with the remnant 
 of his troops on the 14th of October, 1652, to 
 join the Spanish army on the northern frontier. 
 The Duke of Orleans hesitated with characteristic 
 
198 
 
 indecision until the time for either reconciKation 
 or resistance had passed, and was banished to 
 Blois, where he dragged out in obscurity the 
 remainder of his restless and unhonoured career. 
 La Rochefoucault and Beaufort submitted and 
 made their peace with the Eegent. The seditious 
 outrages fomented by the Prince of Conti and the 
 Duchess of Longueville at Bordeaux had pro- 
 duced a bad effect throughout the whole province 
 of Guyenne, which the efforts of Lenet and the 
 Count of Marsin, with such feeble aid as the 
 Princess of Conde, tottering on the verge of the 
 grave, could render, were insufficient to counter- 
 act. On the arrival of a fleet and army com- 
 manded by the Dukes of Vendome and Candale, 
 all the towns of the province made overtures of 
 submission. Conti, with the baseness of a selfish 
 and cowardly nature, secretly betrayed his brother, 
 and attached himself to Mazarin, from whom he 
 subsequently accepted a niece, Mdlle. Martinozzi, 
 a dazzling beauty with marvellous golden tresses, 
 in marriage. This alliance of his brother, at 
 whose entreaties he had taken up arms, with his 
 low-bom enemy was the bitterest drop in Conde's 
 cup of humiliation. Cardinal Mazarin caused the 
 most generous terms to be offered to the Princess 
 of Conde, the niece of his great patron, if she 
 
 199 
 
 would consent to remain quietly in France. But, 
 though not expected to survive the voyage, she 
 insisted on embarking with her son, Lenet, and 
 Marsin, to join her husband in Flanders, where 
 her admirable devotion was repaid by the harshest 
 cruelty and neglect. By a most extraordinary 
 article of the capitulation of Bordeaux, two 
 thousand five hundred of Marsin's troops, all 
 Frenchmen, and revolted soldiers of the army of 
 Catalonia, were permitted to march with flying 
 colours across the whole kingdom, and provided 
 on the way, at the Royal charge, with quarters 
 and provisions, to join Conde, an attainted rebel, 
 in the Spanish camp. Madame de LongueviUe re- 
 tired for a time to the country seat of her aunt, the 
 Duchess of Montmorenci, a woman of saintly life, 
 whose exhortations and example wrought a mar- 
 vellous and enduring change in the fallen Queen 
 of the Fronde. Surviving the surrender of 
 Bordeaux for more than twenty years, her fer- 
 vent repentance and exemplary conduct won the 
 admiration of all France, and nobly atoned for 
 the errors of earlier years. 
 
 A few days after Conde's departure, Louis XIV. 
 entered Paris and held a Bed of Justice, in which 
 the Prince and his partizans were again declared 
 traitors, the celebrated Declaration of the 24th of 
 
 V. 
 
200 
 
 201 
 
 ■If' 
 
 October, 1648, was annulled, and the Parliament 
 submissively registered the Royal Edict prohibiting 
 the magistrates from ever again deliberating upon 
 affairs of State. De Retz, the mighty demagogue, 
 whose genius had so long revelled in social confusion 
 as in its own proper element, to whom the roar of 
 civil discord had been rapture, who had ruled 
 the storms of faction with a monarch's sway, was 
 too dangerous a personage in the jealous eyes of 
 newly established authority to be allowed to 
 remain long unmolested in his Archbishopric. 
 Notwithstanding the services he had rendered 
 against Conde, and on which he reckoned to secure 
 for him impunity, he was, after a short respite, 
 seized upon a charge of fomenting new disturb- 
 ances, flung into the Donjon of Yincennes, and 
 thence transferred to the distant Castle of Nantes. 
 From this fortress he contrived, in 1654, to effect 
 his escape, and wandered many years in poverty 
 and exile. As some comet, to the superstitious 
 eye of antiquity, shot athwart the heavens a 
 mysterious herald of wrath, shaking calamities 
 from its flaming locks, the portentous genius of 
 De Eetz had blazed in the political firmament of 
 France, brilliant, baleful, and evanescent. 
 
 His last dangerous foe removed from the scene. 
 Cardinal Mazarin returned in triumph, and resumed 
 
 the exercise of an unlimited authority, which was 
 never afterwards disputed. How eloquent as a 
 symbol of his career was the device he then 
 assumed, a rock lashed by raging billows, and 
 underneath the words, " Quam frustra, et mur- 
 mure quanto," Vain indeed had been the 
 buffetings of the tempest. The Royal Authority, 
 so rudely assailed, towered again in such majestic 
 strength, struck its roots so deep and wide, bound 
 them in such inseparable union with all the 
 chords of the national life, that to uproot it 
 required a convulsion which prostrated Christianity 
 itself in common ruin, and utterly swept away 
 institutions, customs, habits, modes of thought, 
 even landmarks, which had formed an integral 
 part of the nation's growth, or had been incor- 
 porated into its existence for nearly a thousand 
 years. 
 
 'j 
 
 I 
 
 E 5 
 
202 
 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 The seven succeeding years of Condi's life may 
 be passed over briefly. They were spent in the 
 councils and camps of Spain, in parricidal efforts 
 to pierce the heart of his native country with the 
 sword of a foreign enemy. In this part of his 
 career one can admire nothing except the per- 
 verted genius that appeared even more extra- 
 ordinary when labouring at the Titan task of 
 supporting a decrepid Monarchy, than it had 
 appeared when dealing the lightning blows which 
 made that Monarchy totter to its base. His 
 energy and military talent assumed proportions 
 perfectly marvellous in contrast with the feeble 
 though arrogant incapacity of the Spanish 
 Generals. The retreat from Arras, the forcing 
 of Turenne's lines at Valenciennes, the reHef of 
 Cambray, accomplished by him almost in spite of 
 his allies, rank among the most brilliant achieve- 
 
 203 
 
 ments of warfare. But his efforts were barren, 
 except of dubious glory to himself. Not even his 
 fiery spirit could infuse life into Spanish lethargy, 
 or thaw the cold obstruction of Spanish pride. 
 The resources of Spain, although still fed by a 
 perennial stream of treasure from the Indies, 
 were sapped by misgovernment. The bones of 
 the veteran battalions which had shielded her de- 
 cline, whitened the plains of Rocroi and Lens. 
 And the haughty arrogance, the natural growth 
 of irresistible power, which had descended to her 
 children with the heritage of great deeds and 
 illustrious names, was not only ridiculous but 
 fatal, flaunting over mere decay. It prevented 
 the Monarchy profiting by the abilities of the 
 most successful Captain of the age, and kept alive 
 an exaggerated opinion of Spain's strength in 
 other nations of Europe, where the ignorant and 
 the prejudiced still trembled at the bugbear of 
 Spanish power, the mere phantom of what had 
 been a living menace to their forefathers. 
 
 It was the policy of Cromwell, when he had sub- 
 verted the Commonwealth, to distract the attention 
 of the English nation from the unaccustomed evils 
 of a military tryanny, and to find employment 
 for the dangerous spirits of the army by foreign 
 
204 
 
 expeditions ; and his alliance was courted with tha 
 most eager solicitude by France and Spain. A 
 brilliant modern school of English historians, 
 turning away in the disgust of satiety from the 
 familiar spectacle of equitable government and 
 ordered freedom, have borrowed from the darkest 
 ages of paganism the practice of glorifying the 
 lawless passions of humanity; until, in the 
 apotheosis of force, fraud, cruelty, and selfish- 
 ness, we almost see reviving amongst us, in a 
 more intellectual form, heathen superstition in its 
 most debasing phase — the worship of monsters. 
 Enemies of the human race, whose memories have 
 come down to us black with crimes, and laden 
 with the curses of mankind, are — if they have 
 been but successful— exalted as demi-gods ; 
 while their victims, the martyrs of right and 
 justice, are covered with calumny and insult. It 
 is only by the demoralising influence of such 
 teaching that the modern idolatry which bm^ns 
 incense to Cromwell can be explained. His career 
 was the triumph of brute force and cunning, 
 stimulated by fanaticism — a fanaticism which 
 acted in complete subordination to his personal 
 ambition, and in complete harmony with the 
 habitual hypocrisy and dissimulation, and the un- 
 
 205 
 
 scrupulous policy which concealed and accom- 
 plished his designs. That he merits the praise of 
 being affectionate in his domestic relations may 
 be freely admitted, for, after all, he was human ; 
 and that he was a very extraordinary man is 
 attested by his astonishing career. But his 
 ambition was sordid and ruthless, and his genius 
 was of the lowest order — the genius of destruction. 
 His attempts at constructing proved egregious, 
 and even ridiculous, failures during his own life- 
 time. The master-spirits of the world, to whom 
 he has been sometimes compared, redeemed the 
 evils of their rule, and perpetuated their names 
 by great and enduring structures, which command 
 the admiration or gratitude of posterity. The 
 Koman Empire, which survived in all its changes 
 for more than eighteen hundred years, was the 
 legacy of Julius Caesar. The Civil Code, the 
 marvellous organisation, and some of the most 
 magnificent public works of modern France, form 
 a fitting monument to the genius of Napoleon. 
 Cromwell left behind him only ruins — the ruins of 
 an ancient Monarchy and of a new Republic ; and 
 his name lives in association with desolate fanes 
 and shattered castles, and burning memories of 
 cruelty and wrong. Nor since the death of Attila 
 
206 
 
 has Europe been afflicted with the scourge of a 
 destroyer so terrible and remorseless. 
 
 There never was a Government in England so 
 tyrannical or so hateful to the nation as the Protec- 
 torate. It was a mihtary despotism, in comparison 
 with which the tyranny of Charles I. was a mild 
 and humanising yoke. The country was portioned 
 out into eleven districts, each under the command 
 of a major-general, who, at will, imprisoned the 
 persons and confiscated the estates of individuals, 
 obnoxious on account of their principles or their 
 wealth, under the sole authority of the Lord Protec- 
 tor. All but a small minority of the inhabitants 
 qualified to exercise the franchise were deprived of 
 political rights. Trial by jury in political causes 
 was practically abohshed by the instituting of a 
 High Court of Justice, and the mandates of the 
 Council of State. Laws were enacted, enormous 
 annual contributions were imposed, the entire 
 administration was absolutely directed by a small 
 knot of successful adventurers, who registered 
 the decrees of an irresponsible master at White- 
 hall. Three kingdoms were governed by the 
 sword, and steeped in miseries, not that some 
 salutary public object might be achieved, but 
 because an ambitious soldier desired to erect for 
 
 207 
 
 himself the throne he had overturned, on the 
 ruins of the Republic he had betrayed. 
 
 Several times during his rule Cromwell sought 
 to veil his despotism under the forms of a free 
 Government by calling a Parliament. But, not- 
 withstanding the iron grasp of his Major- Generals 
 on the skeleton constituencies, and the forcible 
 exclusion of all independent representatives from 
 the Palace of Westminster on the high constitu- 
 tional grounds that, in the cant of the Saints, 
 they were tainted with malignancy, or delin- 
 quency, or immorality, he was never able to collect 
 together a body of Englishmen sufficiently base to 
 become pUant tools of his ambition. Each Par- 
 liament, after a short trial, was publicly reviled by 
 him, and then ignominiously cashiered for imputed 
 backslidings from virtue. He attached to himself 
 the fanatical soldiers who upheld his usurpation by 
 arts analogous to those with which Mohammed or 
 Mahomet had duped his Arabian followers . Joining 
 frequently in their pious exercises, his preachings 
 and his prayers, conceived in a turgid vein of 
 semi-delirious mysticism — a grotesque travesty of 
 the sublime imagery and the shadowy grandeur of 
 the sacred writings — and poured forth in a simu- 
 lated fervour of inspiration, cheated their diseased 
 fancies into the belief that he was filled with the 
 
if 
 
 208 
 
 Divine Spirit, that he was the chosen instrument 
 of the Most High to establish the reign of Christ 
 upon earth. Not that his pretensions to super- 
 natural enlightenment were altogether charla- 
 tanism. Like the Prophet of Islam, he was to 
 some extent a genuine enthusiast ; but his en- 
 thusiasm was deeply tinctured with craft, and was 
 used to sustain conscious imposture. All his 
 artifices, however, failed to induce the devout 
 warriors, who had made and could at any moment 
 unmake him, and who, even in their most blas- 
 phemous hallucinations, were sincere, to connive 
 at a national sin, by sanctioning his assumption of 
 the Crown, the prize which so long dazzled and 
 mocked his aspirations. In the end, his hypocrisy 
 — although profound and continually fortified by 
 profane appeals to Heaven — became too worn 
 from incessant use to mask even from pious 
 credulity the personal character of his aims. 
 Detested by the whole nation, by the half that he 
 had deceived, as well as by the half that he had 
 vanquished ; destitute of the means of paying the 
 army that held it in subjection ; broken in mind 
 and body, by sickness, domestic calamity, and 
 perpetual terrors of assassination, but to the last 
 the dupe of religious delusion, the blaze of military 
 and naval triumph that closed his domination. 
 
 209 
 
 gilded miserable failure. And probably the 3rd 
 of September deserved the title of his fortunate 
 day more for rescuing him by a peaceful death 
 from a tragic, if not shameful fall, from an un- 
 tenable position, than because of his victories at 
 Worcester and Dunbar. 
 
 The panegyrists of Cromwell rest his claims to 
 admiration as a ruler chiefly on the grandeur and 
 success of his foreign policy. The able and 
 vigorous statesmen of the Long Parliament, by 
 the fleets and armies they created, and the haughty 
 attitude they assumed towards foreign States, had 
 raised the fame and power of England abroad to 
 an unexampled height : and a large share of the 
 glory and advantage of their measures was in- 
 herited by the Protector. But his own foreign 
 policy was selfish blundering. The slight which 
 had been passed by Charles I. on the Spanish 
 Infanta had caused a permanent estrangement 
 between the Courts of Madrid and St. James's. 
 The Spanish Government had been the first to 
 recognize the Commonwealth, and had maintained 
 cordial relations with it to the end. But Crom- 
 well, being unable to obtain from a Parliament the 
 grants of money he needed, and being afraid of 
 increasing the clamours and resistance provoked 
 by the arbitrary levying of contributions, looked 
 
'fl 
 
 210 
 
 with a covetous eye on the rich colonies and the 
 treasure ships of Spain. Also regarding the 
 exiled Charles Stuart as a personal rival, the 
 claim which near relationship gave this Prince to 
 assistance from the House of Bourbon led the 
 Protector to desire a French alliance for his own 
 security. In contempt of existing treaties, which 
 not only good faith, but gratitude and the interests 
 of England should have guarded from violation 
 he despatched an expedition to attack the West 
 India possessions and plunder the commerce of 
 Spam. The enterprise failed disgracefully. It 
 called forth loud and almost unanimous disapproval 
 at home, more particularly from the English 
 merchants. Philip ly., although reluctant to 
 enter upon a new conflict, to which his exhausted 
 monarchy was unequal, protested with dignity 
 against the Protector^s perfidy and withdrew his 
 Ambassador. 
 
 While affairs were in this state, fabulous nar- 
 ratives, which took shape for the greater part 
 in the heated brains of Calvinist Ministers at 
 Geneva, of horrible cruelties practised by the 
 Duke of Savoy upon the Vaudois, threw England 
 into a ferment. The Vaudois, a Protestant people 
 in the valleys of Piedmont, who enjoyed the 
 free exercise of their religion under a CathoKc 
 
 211 
 
 Sovereign, having risen in rebellion without just 
 cause, were defeated in a struggle disgraced by 
 barbarities on both sides, and expelled from 
 their territory. At a time when a " Popish Mas- 
 sacre" was the term applied to the legitimate 
 attempt of Catholics to vindicate their civil and 
 religious rights by arms, stories of unprovoked 
 outrage upon their foreign brethren were sure to 
 meet with greedy acceptance among the Puritans. 
 The small dominant sect of enthusiasts who had 
 endeavoured to exterminate the Irish Catholics, 
 and who proscribed the worship of the majority 
 of English Protestants, were especially vehement 
 in indignant denunciation of an imaginary re- 
 ligious persecution. Cromwell joyfully seized the 
 opportunity of appearing before Europe in the 
 august character of champion of the reformed 
 faith. The Vaudois, though reported to be 
 perishing from cold and hunger amidst the 
 snows of the Alps, unhesitatingly declined his 
 offer of a settlement on confiscated lands in 
 Ireland. But he sent Morland, as ambassador, 
 to Turin, to mediate in their favour, and he de- 
 manded the co-operation of the King of France^ 
 Cardinal Mazarin, however, foreseeing that the dis- 
 turbances in Piedmont would obstruct the treaty 
 of alliance with England, which he ardently de- 
 
212 
 
 sired, had lost no time in exercising the pressure 
 of a powerful neighbour and ally upon the Duke 
 of Savoy. Morland, on arriving at Geneva, found 
 reason to distrust the statements of the Swiss 
 Protestants, and his mediation was civilly declined 
 by the Court of Turin. But Mazarin was able to 
 inform the Protector that an amnesty had been 
 granted to the insurgents through the friendly 
 offices of Louis XIV., and that peace and good 
 fellowship again reigned in the Alpine valleys. 
 
 This happy termination of the quarrel greatly 
 raised the reputation of Cromwell, as it was 
 evidently soHcitude for his friendship that had 
 dictated the intervention of the French Govern- 
 ment; and it gained for France a potent ally 
 against the Spaniards. Six thousand English 
 troops were sent to join the army of Marshal 
 Turenne. The Governor of the Spanish Nether- 
 lands at that time was Don John of Austria, son 
 of Philip ly. and a Madrid actress, a young man 
 full of presumption, and guided by an incapable 
 Mentor, the Marquis of Caracena. The combined 
 forces of France and England laid siege to Dun- 
 kirk, which was only defended by a garrison of 
 one thousand men, destitute of supplies. Don 
 John advanced hastily from Brussels with about 
 fourteen thousand men, to relieve the place, leav- 
 
 213 
 
 ing all his artillery behind. Turenne, issuing 
 from his lines, found the Spaniards in a position , 
 in which their cavalry, nearly one-half of their 
 entire strength, was practically useless, while their 
 right wing rested on an open roadstead ; and a 
 great battle, known as the Battle of the Downs, 
 was fought. Through the errors of the Spanish 
 Generals, the military skill of Turenne, the valour 
 of the English regiments, and the opportune 
 arrival of some English frigates, which, in the 
 heat of the conflict, opened fire on the exposed 
 flank of the Spaniards, the Allies won a complete 
 victory. Conde^s advice had been contemptuously 
 rejected in the Spanish Council of War, his pro- 
 phetic warnings had been received with scornful 
 incredulity. It was only his brilliant charges at 
 the head of the small body of French Cavalry 
 which followed his fortunes, that for a time kept 
 the day doubtful, and saved the beaten army from 
 annihilation. "My cousin,^^ the King of Spain 
 wrote to him, with courteous exaggeration, " I 
 hear that everything was lost and that you re- 
 trieved everything.^' 
 
 The fruits to France of the victory of the 
 Downs were the advantageous peace of the 
 Pyrenees, which prepared the way for the estab- 
 lishment of the House of Bourbon on the Spanish 
 
214 
 
 tlirone; and her military preponderance under 
 Louis XIV. The fruits to England were the costly 
 acquisition of Dunkirk, afterwards sold by Charles 
 II. ; and the expenditure of oceans of blood and 
 millions of treasure in a long series of efforts to 
 destroy that military preponderance which was 
 partly her own work; efforts, marked by the 
 signal defeats of Steinkirk and Landen, of 
 Almanza and Villa Viciosa, as well as by the 
 splendid triumphs of Blenheim, Ramilhes, and 
 Oudenarde, and of which her national debt is a 
 perpetual memorial. CromwelPs short-sighted 
 foreign policy did not even promote the selfish 
 ends he had proposed to himseK. His dynastic 
 schemes perished with him. His armaments 
 drained his treasury and loaded him with debts ; 
 and the London merchants were so irritated by 
 the losses occasioned to their trade by the rupture 
 with Spain, that they refused to relieve the des- 
 perate financial dijficulties which clouded with 
 anxiety the last months of his life. 
 
 It must be confessed that if Spanish presump- 
 tion and immobihty had cramped Condi's opera- 
 tions in war, Spanish honour and fidelity nobly 
 guarded his interests in the negotiations for peace. 
 His restoration to all his estates, dignities, and 
 employments, was strenuously insisted on by Don 
 
 215 
 
 Louis de Haro, the Prime Minister of Spain, and 
 as obstinately resisted by Cardinal Mazarin in 
 their long conferences on the Island of Pheasants, 
 in the Bidassoa. The Prince generously offered 
 to forego his claims in order to promote the 
 pacification of Europe. But Don Louis refused 
 to purchase a treaty on which the very existence 
 of his exhausted country seemed to depend, by 
 the sacrifice of a brave ally. He threatened that 
 his master would endow the French Prince with 
 an independent territory on the borders of France. 
 To avoid this danger, and in consideration of the 
 cession of Avesnes and its dependencies, Mazarin 
 consented to reinstate Conde and his followers, 
 with the exception of the Count of Marsin, in the 
 advantageous positions they had forfeited by 
 rebeUion. 
 
216 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 On Lis return to France at the end of the year 
 1659 Conde, after a brief visit to the Courts with- 
 drew to Chantilly, where he passed in almost 
 complete retirement the greater part of the eight 
 following years. The jealous ascendency of 
 Cardinal Mazarin^ and after that Minister's death, 
 in the year 1661, the lingering distrust of the 
 young King, condemned the Prince to a state of 
 inaction, which became torture to his fiery spirit, 
 when the kingdom again resounded with joyous 
 peals for the triumphs of its arms in Flanders. 
 But he bore his lot without a murmur. Adversity 
 had made him wise. He had too long tasted exile 
 and dependence, the bitter fruits of faction, to 
 dream of cultivating that ungrateful soil again. 
 Even had he wished to do so, it was no longer 
 possible. The times of political confusion were 
 gone by. France was no longer the France of 
 
 217 
 
 his turbulent youth. She had passed from the 
 throes of a great change into another phase of 
 her life ; a development excelling in grandeur and 
 symmetry, but not vivified by the breath, nor en- 
 nobled by the dignity of freedom. Long before 
 Louis, won by Conde's great qualities, and 
 evident anxiety to atone for the past, called hiTn 
 forth again into active employment, the slow 
 revolution which had been initiated by Louis XI., 
 and had received such a mighty impulse from 
 Richelieu, was consummated. The Fronde had 
 flooded the land with a deluge of faction, and 
 when the troubledwaterssubsided, the jurisdiction 
 of the nobles, the political privileges of the Par- 
 liaments, provincial and municipal liberties, the 
 wrecks that had remained of the venerable system 
 of mediaeval polity, all but the mere framework 
 of feudal society, had disappeared for ever, absorbed 
 in the growth of the most brilliant, despotic, and 
 powerfully organized monarchy that had as yet 
 been seen in modem Europe. 
 
 It may be doubted whether history presents to 
 us many subjects of deeper interest, whether it 
 be viewed in relation to its own greatness and 
 splendour, which marked an epoch in civilization, 
 or in relation to its permanent effects upon the 
 political and social condition of France, than the 
 
 VOL. II. L 
 
218 
 
 old Frencli Monarcliy, in the reign of Louis XIY . 
 During the first twenty years of Louis' personal 
 rule that Monarchy reached its culminating point. 
 In its magnificence and its vigour, bright with 
 all glory and with every charm, it was at once the 
 marvel and the terror of the age. Power almost 
 colossal, profound policy, the triumphs of war and 
 of peace, the solemn pomp of religion, the inspira- 
 tion of poetry and art, the sublime conquests of 
 science, the flashing beams of wit, the lofty 
 graces of chivalrous nobihty, the bewitching 
 graces of lovely, refined, and intellectual women, 
 invested it with a grandeur and a beauty wliich 
 still dazzle through the deepening twilight of two 
 hundred years. The position of Louis XIY. was 
 the most intoxicating that the imagination can 
 well conceive. Of France, which, welded into in- 
 dissoluble union by the deep State-craft of 
 Richelieu and Mazarin, fostered and developed 
 during years of peace by the wisdom of Colbert, 
 elated with recent military successes, and filled 
 with a warlike population, organised by Louvois, 
 and led by Turenne, had attained a state of com- 
 pact strength, prosperity, and martial ardour that 
 menaced the independence of Europe, he was 
 absolute master. No man — no body of men — in 
 the kingdom ventured to dispute his will. Im- 
 
 219 
 
 plicit submission had come to be regarded in 
 Prance as the highest political virtue. His Court 
 was the most brilHant and polished that modem 
 Europe has seen. It was a great focus of the 
 human intellect, of the attributes and the arts that 
 glorify and embellish life. No other age, perhaps, 
 has seen, revolving around one centre, so splendid 
 and various a system of genius as that which en- 
 circled with undying lustre the throne of the 
 Great Eang. Colbert and Louvois, Cond^ and 
 Turenne, Racine and Moliere, Pascal and Sevigne, 
 Descartes and Buffon, Mansard and Perrault, 
 Bossuet and Bourdalou shed on his royalty the 
 light of the mind in rich prismatic rays, adorned 
 it with the noblest trophies. At Versailles or at 
 Fontainebleau, he breathed an atmosphere of 
 flattery almost idolatrous; the flattery of men 
 whose praise was immortality, the flattery of 
 women, which meant all that youth, beauty, and 
 the sparkling graces of refined intellect could 
 proffer to passion. A consummate statesman, 
 unlocking throughout his kingdom new springs 
 of industry and enterprise, flooded it with a 
 golden tide of prosperity. Consummate warriors 
 made his arms the terror of Europe. To his 
 toiling energies, peace and war alike presented the 
 enchanted cup of glory. To his voluptuous 
 
 L 2 
 
220 
 
 leisure ministered the arts of a refined luxury, 
 not less seductive than the gorgeous dreams of 
 young ambition, and beauty more eloquent than 
 the almost inspired eloquence of Massillon. 
 
 The dictatorial spirit that belonged to his 
 Government at home, Louis carried into his rela- 
 tions with foreign States less powerful than 
 France. England, bound hand and foot by his 
 policy, connived at, or openly aided his aggres- 
 sions. Not only Charles II., ever spendthrift and 
 needy, and Charles's Ministers, but the chiefs of 
 the English opposition — the patriots, as they 
 styled themselves — were his pensioners. The 
 bribes eagerly clutched by members of the Cabal 
 were not disdained by the austere virtue of Alger- 
 non Sydney. The States -General of the United 
 Netherlands, having given mortal offence to the 
 French Monarch by a Republican independence 
 of bearing, which to him seemed insolent pre- 
 sumption, the Dutch Commonwealth contested 
 the dominion of the seas in a memorable struggle 
 against the combined navies of France and Eng- 
 land, while French armies overran its provinces, 
 and brought it to the brink of ruin. 
 
 Spain, though shorn of her former power 
 and prestige, still clung to her lofty pretensions 
 with a desperate tenacity. Her ambassadors still 
 
 221 
 
 claimed precedence over those of the other lead- 
 in o- powers. Louis, however, far from acknow- 
 ledging a superior, would not brook an equal. 
 The consequence was that the rivalry between 
 the Count D'Estrades, his representative at the 
 English Court, and the Spanish representative, 
 Yatteville, caused a dangerous tumult in London, 
 in which the horses under D'Estrades' coach were 
 killed, and his son and several attendants were 
 wounded. This insult deeply incensed the French 
 King. He sent passports to the Spanish Ambas- 
 sador in Paris ; and his menaces were enforced by 
 such formidable military preparations that Spain 
 shrank from the conflict. Philip IV. made a 
 formal apology, and issued new instructions to 
 his ambassadors, which practically acknowledged 
 the pre-eminence of the French Crown. 
 
 Still more signal was the humiliation of the 
 Pope. The Duke of Crequi, French Minister at 
 Rome, having quarrelled with the brother of His 
 Holiness, the insolence of Crequi's domestics 
 provoked a collision with the Corsican Guards, in 
 which some Frenchmen were killed. The Pontiff 
 at once commai^ded ample reparation to be made, 
 more even than strict justice seemed to require. 
 Some of the soldiers concerned in the riot were 
 hanged, and the Governor of Rome was dis- 
 
222 
 
 missed for negligence. But Louis rejected this 
 atonement with scorn. * In order to avert the- 
 swift vengeance of the eldest son of the Church, 
 the Pope had to disband his guards, to exile his 
 brother, to send his nephew, Cardinal Chigi, to ask 
 forgiveness at Paris, and to erect, within view of 
 the Vatican, a monument recording the abase- 
 ment of the Vice-Gerent of Heaven before tha 
 arrogant majesty of the most Christian King. 
 
 It was, however, into the haughty spirit of the 
 ancient EepubHc of Genoa that the iron of Louis' 
 arbitrary domination entered deepest. Genoa was 
 no longer the powerful State whose merchant- 
 men, freighted with the products of the East, 
 covered the Mediterranean, whose martial prowess 
 had alternately shaken and sustained the Greek 
 Empire, and been a bulwark of Christendom 
 against the Moslem power. The discovery of the 
 Cape of Good Hope, by diverting Eastern com- 
 merce into a new channel, had cut off the sprinrrs 
 of Genoa's greatness. But still, guarded by the 
 waves that had fed her prosperity and borne the 
 tributes of every clime to her feet, the Queen of 
 the Mediterranean preserved the freedom and the 
 generous spirit of more fortunate days. An 
 honourable alliance had existed since the days of 
 Andrew Doria between Genoa and Spain; and 
 
 223 
 
 when the aggressions of Louis provoked fresh 
 hostilities between Spain and France, after the 
 peace of Nimeguen, the Genoese equipped a fleet 
 to support their old ally. The French Monarch, 
 amazed at the audacity of a petty State in thus 
 braving his power, sent the Genoese orders, in the 
 imperious tone of a master, to disarm. The proud 
 Republicans answered by a defiance. With a 
 promptitude unexampled in that age, an irresis- 
 tible naval force, under the command of the cele- 
 brated Duquesne, appeared before Genoa. Thir- 
 teen thousand bombs flung into the beautiful city 
 reduced it to ruin and submission. By a funda- 
 mental law of the Republic, the Doge could not 
 leave its territory without forfeiting his dignity. 
 But even this antique constitution, linked to so 
 many glorious memories, had to do homage to the 
 pride of Louis. The chief magistrate Lescari, 
 attended by four of the principal citizens, appeared 
 as a suppliant for pardon in the presence-chamber 
 of Versailles. When, afterwards, all the marvels 
 of that prodigy of wasteful folly, where amidst 
 scenes created at a fabulous cost to perpetuate 
 the glories of the monarchy, ambassadors from 
 the most remote regions of Africa and Asia 
 mingled in the crowd of European celebrities, 
 were pointed out to the Dodge with compla- 
 
\v 
 
 224 
 
 cent vanity, and lie was asked what of all 
 lie saw most excited liis astonishment, " The 
 most astonishing thing to me," he answered, '^ia 
 to see myself here.'' On his return to Genoa, the 
 Senate, suspending the operation of the laws in 
 compliance with the hard conditions imposed upon 
 them, retained Lescari in an office which thus 
 became the badge of his own dishonour and the 
 servitude of his country. 
 
 Although the political position of France in the 
 reign of Louis XIY. was so commanding, tha 
 ascendency she acquired at the same period in 
 the domain of thought was not only loftier and 
 more legitimate, but was far more extensive and 
 permanent. The graceful labours of French 
 genius in every department of literature, science, 
 and art, and the extraordinary capabiHties of the 
 French mind and the French language for 
 appropriating and diffusing ideas, gave her the 
 foremost place among civilized nations. Paris 
 became the centre of modern civilization— the 
 capital of Europe. In all that related to letters, 
 to taste, to manners, the French canons were 
 the laws of the Continent. The French tongue 
 was the language of literature, of diplomacy, 
 and of polished Kfe. The tragedies of Racine, 
 the comedies of Moliere, the Provincial Letters, 
 
 225 
 
 were soon as familiar to the polite circles of 
 Berlin or Vienna as to those of Paris. And long 
 after Louis' reign had closed in gloom, and all 
 but the memory of its glory had passed away ; 
 when a Pompadour ruled the councils and a 
 Soubise led the armies of France, and her power 
 had become a scoff, the unquestioned supremacy 
 of French genius avenged the humiliation of 
 French arms, and the mighty spell which its 
 magic flung upon Europe, binding victorious foes 
 in intellectual bondage, was more potent than 
 
 ever. 
 
 The transition which carried France from the 
 weakness and disunion of the period of the Fronde 
 to the predominance she assumed fifteen years 
 later, seems, at the first view, one of the most 
 rapid and startling in history. But the splendid 
 despotism of Louis XIV. was merely the natural 
 result of general causes which had long been in 
 operation; though doubtless that result was 
 stamped with a peculiar character, by the action 
 of individual minds. The ancient feudal power 
 of the nobility had been undermined in the pro- 
 gress of society, laid in ruins by the blows of 
 Richelieu, swept away in the unsuccessful revolt 
 of the Fronde. The Tiers Etat vanquished in the 
 noble struggle which the Parliament of Paris 
 
 L 5 
 
226 
 
 maintained for their protection ; moreover, sick of 
 civil wars, in which turbulent princes and noblea 
 used the popular grievances as masks for their 
 own selfish schemes, desired only repose under a 
 strong Government. The consequence was that 
 the royal authority grew into a " despotism 
 tempered by epigrams/' 
 
 Mazarin, thoroughly understanding the crisis,, 
 assisted its development with rare and unscrupu- 
 lous skill. On his return to France, after Conde 
 was expelled, the Cardinal once more grasped the 
 entire direction of the State. The King, although 
 legally of age, was still a boy. The Queen- 
 mother continued to the end completely devoted 
 to her favourite. All opposition to his rule within 
 the kingdom was crushed out, and, during an abso- 
 lute administration that terminated only with his 
 life, he employed all the resources of his deep 
 policy to refine, to humanize, and to corrupt 
 society. He founded the opera at Paris, collected 
 an unrivalled library, and was a judicious patron of 
 learning, and of all the fine arts. By his example 
 and influence he promoted sumptuous habits, 
 gorgeous pageants, and all luxurious and elegant 
 amusements. To supply a safe channel for the 
 feverish energies of the nobles, no longer per- 
 mitted to expend themselves in political struggles^ 
 
 227 
 
 he encouraged gambling, and even cheating at 
 cards, provided it was clever. The passion for 
 high play seized upon all, with its usual terrible 
 fascination, and the vicissitudes of the gaming- 
 table opened a wide door for corruption. The 
 needy noble who had staked and lost his last 
 crown-piece or his patrimonial chateau at hazard, 
 or the ruined magistrate, was but too happy 
 to find a resource in the bounty of the Minister. 
 It was difficult to recognise, in the courtly flatterers 
 who crowded Mazarin's ante-chambers, the furious 
 patriots of other days, whose zeal had never wearied 
 in reviling him as a public enemy. A spirit of 
 luxury, of ostentation, of venality, seen in its best 
 and worst aspects in the career of the gelierous 
 and ill-fated Fouquet, soon began to infect the 
 whole kingdom ; softening down the ferocious 
 habits contracted during a troiibled period, but 
 gradually destroying the lofty spirit of indepen- 
 dence, which, in nobles and magistrates, had been 
 the nurse of masculine virtues. 
 
 But perhaps the individual whose personal 
 influence contributed most powerfully to pro- 
 duce such a marvellous change in the condition 
 of France was the young King himself. If there 
 had been few Princes who during their life-time 
 so habitually breathed an atmosphere of flattery 
 
228 
 
 as Louis the Great, there are few whose memories 
 have been exposed to harsher criticism or more 
 unjust depreciation. In the natural reaction of 
 opinion the writers of Modern France seek to 
 degrade from his pedestal one whom they detest as 
 the impersonation of that arbitrary system, the 
 abuses of which plunged their country into the 
 catastrophe of 1793. Brilliant English writers 
 of the Whig school have as eagerly disparaged 
 the magnificent potentate whose greatness dwarfed 
 the greatness of their idol, William of Orange. 
 Both deal unfairly with the character of a very 
 extraordinary man. 
 
 ^ The reign of Louis, which began almost with 
 his life, was, as has been shown, cradled in civil 
 dissensions. While the Princes of the Blood and 
 the great nobles desolated his kingdom in order 
 to despoil his crown, the unscrupulous greed of 
 the Minister, whose puppet he was, left him some- 
 times in want of the necessaries of life. Mazarin's 
 lust of power inflicted on his young sovereign 
 injuries far worse than the poverty occasioned by 
 his avarice. Louis was taught to ride, to dance, 
 to take part in pageants, to excel in manly sports 
 and graceful accomplishments. But in the 
 scheme of the young King^s education, which the 
 Cardinal jealously superintended, history, pohtics. 
 
 229 
 
 every study that tended to develope his mind, 
 awaken his ambition, or teach him to govern, was 
 carefully interdicted. Nor was this all. There are 
 strong grounds for at least grave suspicion, there 
 is the direct testimony on the point of the faithful 
 La Porte, that the Cardinal resorted to means 
 of weakening the intellect of his sovereign 
 more odious than the exclusion of invigora- 
 ting knowledge, or the influence of trivial pur- 
 suits. But the natural abilities of Louis were 
 of the first order ; and he had inherited from his 
 mother a strength of character even greater than 
 his abilities. Mazarin, towards the close of his 
 career, when he felt himself withering in the icy 
 clasp of the only enemy whom his wiles could not 
 foil, laboured earnestly to repair the injury which 
 his guilty ambition had caused. He then dis- 
 covered, to use his own words, that Louis had in 
 him the materials of '' four good Kings and one 
 honest man." He strove unremittingly by his 
 counsels, by opening to his royal pupil the stores of 
 his vast experience, the hived- up State-craft of 
 an unrivalled politician, to teach Louis the science 
 of governing despotically. Still Mazarin never 
 relaxed his hold of the reins of power for a 
 moment. To the last hour of his life, he monopo- 
 lised the administration. Louis did not venture 
 
280 
 
 to grant the slightest favour without asking his 
 Minister's permission. The Cardinal, remaining 
 seated and covered, received his sovereign every 
 morning in his cabinet, and chid Louis, after he 
 had attained man's estate and had married, with 
 as much freedom as though he were still a child. 
 The young King, fettered by long habit, and still 
 more by gratitude for the immense services 
 Mazarin had rendered the French Crown, stu- 
 diously concealed the burning impatience to 
 rule that consumed him. Engrossed apparently 
 by the pleasures that crown youth and greatness 
 as with a magic garland, he expected in silence 
 the death of his great Minister. 
 
 Mazarin died in the year 1661, at the age of 
 fifty-nine, the richest subject in Europe. Although 
 he had permitted the public revetraes to be mis- 
 managed, and dissipated in luxury and corruption 
 by the Controller General Fouquet, he confided 
 the care of his own fortune to a young and 
 obscure man, in whom his penetration had dis- 
 covered extraordinary genius for finance. At the 
 close of his hfe he presented this able servant to 
 Louis, saying, " Sir, I owe your Majesty every- 
 thing, but I believe I can repay you by giving 
 you Monsieur Colbert.'' In order to screen his vast 
 riches from inquiry after his death, and perhaps to 
 
 231 
 
 appease the cries of his conscience, the Cardinal 
 when he saw his end approaching, conveyed all his 
 possessions by deed to the King. Louis retained 
 them for a day, and then gave them back to the 
 dying Minister as a free gift. The amiable side 
 of Mazarin's character was in nothing more 
 visible than in the strength of his family affections. 
 He had charged himself after he became Prime 
 Minister with the education and fortunes of his 
 six charming and accomplished nieces, the eldest 
 three of whom had been favourite targets for 
 the wit and scurrility of the Fronde, and all of 
 whom afterwards played distinguished parts on 
 the stage of life. By the marriages of Laura 
 Mancini and her beautiful cousin, the Countess 
 Martinozzi, with the Duke of Mercoeur and the 
 Prince of Conti, he had allied his obscure race 
 with the House of Bourbon. Olympia Mancini, 
 the object of the boyish passion of the young 
 King, married the Count of Soissons, son of 
 Prince Thomas of Savoy, became mother of the 
 famous Prince Eugene, and, later on, inspired 
 horror and fear in every Court of Europe by her 
 crimes. Between Louis and Marie Mancini, the 
 next sister, there sprang up a mutual attachment 
 of the most ardent kind. It required all the 
 authority and influence of Anne of Austria to 
 
232 
 
 prevail on the King to conquer his inclination to 
 make the fair Italian Queen of France. The 
 Cardinal removed her from Court, and gave her 
 in marriage to the Constable Colonna, the chief 
 of the family that had fostered his own early- 
 fortunes. The hand of Hortense, the most 
 beautiful of the sisters Mancini, was sought in 
 vain by Charles II. of England, during his exile, 
 and rejected by him after the Restoration. The 
 Cardinal then selected the son of his old friend. 
 Marshal la Meillerai, for her husband, and made 
 them the inheritors of his name, his honours, and 
 the bulk of his enormous wealth. Hortense was 
 the celebrated Duchess of Mazarin. 
 
 It may not be out of place to notice the strange 
 mystery of the Man of the Iron Mask, in con- 
 nexion with the Cardinal's death. Immediately 
 after this event the unfortunate prisoner, whose 
 story has so excited and baffled curiosity, was 
 committed to close confinement in the Castle of 
 Pignerol. He was afterwards transferred to the 
 Bastille, and, although treated with even deferen- 
 tial respect, his features were jealously shrouded 
 from the eyes of his jailors by a vizor of black 
 velvet, until the grave swallowed up his secret in 
 the year 1703. The theory respecting him which 
 has the greatest show of probabihty is that which 
 
 233 
 
 makes him the son of Anne of Austria and 
 Cardinal Mazarin. It has been confidently as- 
 serted, indeed, that the Queen was secretly wedded 
 to her favourite during the Regency. But the 
 Cardinal, although not a priest, had been ad- 
 mitted to ecclesiastical orders, which precluded 
 marriage; and neither his antecedents nor thosa 
 of his mistress placed them above the suspicion 
 of an irregular attachment. The pride and the 
 affections of Louis were alike interested to shield 
 the reputation of his mother ; and the maxims of 
 his Government would oppose no impediment to 
 the perpetual seclusion of her unfortunate off- 
 spring. 
 
 When the death of his Minister was announced 
 to him, the young Monarch, released from a cease- 
 less struggle between his sense of intolerable 
 restraint, and his repugnance to displace one to 
 whom the French Crown owed so much, exclaimed, 
 " I do not know what I should have done, had he 
 lived any longer." The Court became rife with 
 intrigues for the vacant post of Prime Minister. 
 It seemed to many that Conde, who of late had 
 been rapidly growing in the Royal favour, had the 
 best chance of success. But Louis had deter- 
 mined, by the advice of Mazarin, to govern for 
 himself. When de Harlai, President of the 
 

 234 
 
 Assembly of the Clergy, inquired to whom lie 
 was to address himself on public business for the 
 future, the King replied, " To me/* The courtiers 
 smiled, and speculated among themselves for how 
 long their gay, pleasure-loving sovereign would 
 continue to waste his hours upon affairs of State. 
 But the Royal bird, whose bright plumage dazzled 
 them, was, in truth, an eagle, and had already 
 begun his flight towards the sun. They soon saw, 
 with wonder, that the docile trifler, whose highest 
 aim seemed to be to excel in the chase, to lead a 
 galliard with matchless grace, or to storm the 
 bower of some coy beauty, had shot up, with a 
 growth as sudden as that of the gourd of the 
 Prophet, into the strongest, ablest, and most 
 laborious ruler that had ever grasped the sceptre 
 of the Capets. 
 
 Of unusual personal beauty, a majestic mien, 
 and a bearing that personified dignity and grace, 
 his every look, tone, and gesture proclaiming the 
 Monarch ; magnificent in his tastes, hberal to pro- 
 fusion, yet discriminating in his generosity, thirst- 
 ing after fame with an unsatiable thirst, a despot 
 by nature and by position, but making despotism 
 attractive by noble qualities and gracious manners ; 
 uniting to rapid penetration, cool judgment, and 
 an iron will, a hvely imagination which, ever 
 
 235 
 
 aspiring to reproduce in life its own ideal of a King 
 clothed with the glorious attributes of a deity, lent 
 to his aims and actions a striking and some-^ 
 what theatrical, grandeur, Louis was exactly the 
 Prince to become the idol of the French people. 
 His subjects, weary alike of anarchy and of the 
 long rule of Cardinal Mazarin, dazzled and awed 
 by the majesty, the captivating grace, and the 
 brilliant promise of their young sovereign, hailed 
 his assumption of the reins of Government with 
 enthusiasm. Louis succeeded in converting this 
 fervid feeling of loyalty into a deep and lasting 
 sentiment. His character was far from perfect j 
 but it was his rare good fortune that its vices as 
 well as its virtues promoted the consolidation of 
 his authority. His most conspicuous faults as an 
 absolute ruler were, in the more prosperous period 
 of his reign, an arrogant egotism ever urging 
 him on to spoliation and warfare, and to pro- 
 digious expenditure which ministered to his vanity 
 but impoverished his kingdom ; and the open prac- 
 tice of an unbridled licentiousness. He allowed 
 the phantoms of false ambition to lure him from 
 the wiser policy of developing the resources of 
 his realm in peace into a career of aggression, in 
 which he deluged Europe with blood and tears, 
 only in the end to make shipwreck of his own 
 
236 
 
 237 
 
 greatness and of the welfare of his people. 
 But this policy of aggrandisement presented 
 almost irresistible attractions to the young mon- 
 arch of a restless nation, which had but just 
 emerged from a state of turbulence, surrounded 
 as he was by military nobles impatient of inaction, 
 having at command the greatest captains of the 
 age, and having for neighbours and antagonists 
 small or decrepid states. In indulging his passion 
 for war he at first only floated on the current of 
 national feeling, and did not transgress the 
 maxims of prudent, if unscrupulous. Statecraft, 
 In enterprises inspired mainly by the personal 
 pride and ostentation of their ruler, his subjects 
 saw only a patriotic solicitude for the honour of 
 France. And so long as genius, seconded by 
 fortune and wielding resources yet undiminished, 
 continued to crown daring projects with splendid 
 success, the nation, wrapped in a dream of glory, 
 abandoned its destinies, without a murmur, to a 
 King, whom it almost worshipped as a God. 
 
 Again, the licentiousness which, personified in 
 a succession of mistresses, long ruled the Court 
 of Louis with more than queenly pomp and sway, 
 cradled as it was in the lap of refinement, clothed 
 by the graces with every charm, breathing the 
 incense of every muse, not only enthralled in con- 
 
 genial fetters a young, gay, and polished nobility, 
 but even borrowed some attractions from virtue 
 for those who remembered the coarse debauchery 
 of the Regency of Anne of Austria. 
 
 To counterbalance these vices, which, being 
 characteristic of the French nation, aided the firm 
 establishment of his authority, the kingly virtues 
 and qualifications of Louis were manifold and 
 conspicuous. His abihties as a statesman were 
 first-rate. His application to the business of 
 the State was laborious and unremitting ; his 
 decisions were always carefully weighed, and 
 generally were dispassionate. He was gifted in a 
 rare degree with the faculty of promptly recog- 
 nising men of superior merit. These he diligently 
 sought out and preferred in every department of 
 his service, listened to their advice, and gave them 
 his entire confidence and support. To genius 
 Louis was a munificent and discriminating patron. 
 Intellectual superiority of every kind won from 
 him an instant and generous acknowledgment. 
 Nor was his bounty in this respect Hmited by the 
 confines of his own dominions. His device was 
 the sun, and he wished the rays of his royal 
 beneficence to penetrate throughout the world. 
 He not only invited celebrated men from foreign 
 countries to adorn the Academies of Inscriptions, 
 
k 
 
 238 
 
 Painting and Sculpture, Architecture^ and Sciences 
 which he formed at Paris, calHng to the last- 
 named Cassini from Italy, Huygens from Holland, 
 and Romer from Denmark ; but he thought it 
 incumbent on him, as far as possible, to repair the 
 injustice of fortune to struggling genius in every 
 land. There was hardly a country in Europe, no 
 matter what its political relations with France, in 
 which some gifted intellect, pining in penury and 
 neglect, did not find its labours encouraged or its 
 decline cheered by a delicate munificence, which 
 did- not offer a favour, but a tribute to the 
 sovereignty of the mind from the Great King. 
 No monarch was ever more liberal of praise and of 
 reward for service, or more scrupulously slow to 
 censure ; ever displayed less of caprice or of dis- 
 trust in his relations with the servants of the 
 Crown, less of the royal vice of ingratitude, or 
 more of greatness of mind in overlooking personal 
 affronts and injuries. No monarch ever granted 
 a favour with so much delicacy or such enchanting 
 grace. And although, as he said himself, every 
 benefit he conferred made one person ungrateful 
 and many discontented, he never allowed disap- 
 pointment to ruffle the flow of his beneficence. 
 The repugnance which he felt to inflict pain on an 
 old minister or general was sometimes detrimental 
 
 239 
 
 to the public interests. He was just and magna- 
 nimous in his personal relations, a generous and 
 indulgent master, a warm and constant friend, a 
 placable enemy. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding the noble and amiable 
 qualities that made Louis XIY the greatest, and, 
 by nature, one of the best monarchs of France, 
 there is perhaps no other reign, partly by reason 
 of faults of character in the ruler, but far more by 
 reason of the position he inherited, the scenes and 
 traditions in which he had been educated, and the 
 abject spirit of his time, so fertile in abuses of 
 power, in harsh and arbitary suppression of the 
 rights of individuals and of communities, so 
 fraught with ruin to the French Monarchy. Long 
 before his power had begun visibly to wane, its 
 external splendour concealed incurable decay, and 
 almost incredible misery and meanness. The gift 
 of Colbert, which the dying Mazarin had made to 
 his sovereign, was one of the most precious a King 
 could possess. The secret assistance of this able 
 adviser having enabled Louis to detect the frauds 
 by means of which the Superintendent of Finance, 
 Fouquet, sought to hide his enormous peculations, 
 he imprisoned the unfaithful Minister for life, and 
 appointed Colbert to conduct the internal ad- 
 ministration of the kingdom. In a very few 
 
240 
 
 years Louis, following tlie wise councils of the 
 great statesman, had brought the finances to a 
 flourishing condition, almost without example in 
 France ; had fostered trade and agriculture into 
 extraordinary activity, established the East India 
 Company, and planted colonies to give an impulse 
 and an outlet to commerce ; created a fleet which, 
 under a succession of famous Admirals, became a 
 worthy rival of the navies of England and Holland ; 
 improved the administration of justice and the 
 poHce ; enriched, embellished and humanised the 
 kingdom, and especially the Capital, by works of 
 tasteful magnificence and of utility, which still 
 attest his claims to the admiration of mankind, 
 and by a liberal encouragement of all the arts of 
 peace. 
 
 But associated with Colbert was an other Minister, 
 not inferior in ability, though of opposite 
 character and aims, to whom the business of 
 foreign relations was entrusted. This was Louvois, 
 the son of Mazarines old Secretary Le Telher, and 
 perhaps the greatest War Minister that ever lived ; 
 who, devoured by vanity, ambition, and jealousy, 
 strove incessantly to lure his sovereign from the 
 pursuit of pacific triumphs by dazzling his only 
 too susceptible imagination with visions of the 
 power and glory to be won in a career of foreign 
 
 241 
 
 conquest. After the death of Philip lY. of Spain, 
 and of Anne of Austria, Louis, listening to the 
 flattering voice of his evil genius, in preference to 
 the earnest remonstrances of Colbert and Turenne, 
 claimed the Spanish Netherlands in right of his 
 wife ; and in 1667 invaded them at the head of a 
 superb army of fifty thousand men. Turenne, as 
 Marshal General, directed the operations. Town 
 after town fell to the French arms, which advanced 
 without a check, until, in the following year, the 
 triple alliance of England, Holland, and Sweden, 
 induced the French King to conclude a peace, 
 which left him in possession of all his Flemish 
 acquisitions. This brief war, although it some- 
 what crippled Colbert^s beneficent pohcy, did not 
 inflict any serious wound upon the prosperity of 
 the kingdom. 
 
 But when in 1772, Louis having made himself 
 secure of the co-operation or neutrality of 
 Charles II. of England, by the treaty of Dover, 
 and the fascinations of Louise de QuerouaiUes, 
 attacked the Dutch with armaments on a scale so 
 vast and complete as to terrify the other leading 
 States of the Continent into a coalition against 
 France, the strain of such a gigantic struggle as 
 no modem European nation had hitherto sustained, 
 reduced the monarchy to a state of exhaustion, 
 
 VOL, II. M 
 
242 
 
 for whicli the immense glory and the additional 
 territory acquired were but a poor equivalent. 
 The wars that followed the peace of Nimeguen, 
 maintained with ever increasing difficulty and 
 sacrifices, and attended with diminishing results, 
 fatally aggravated the public distress. The skill 
 of Colbert had been taxed to the utmost to find 
 means to support the first prodigious efforts, and 
 the almost incredible waste of public treasure upon 
 the gorgeous folly of Versailles, where forty 
 millions sterling are said to have been sunk in 
 an unprofitable confiict with nature. After the 
 early death of that Minister, the finances fell into 
 a state of frightful confusion. The magnitude of 
 the calamity which befel France, when the Parlia- 
 ment of Paris failed to uphold the Declaration of 
 the 24th of October, 1648, began to manifest 
 itself in the most deplorable consequences, when 
 an imperious Monarch, in whose hands all the 
 powers of the State were concentrated, could no 
 longer sustain the tottering fabric of his pride 
 and ambition, except by cruel injustice to his 
 people. The excessive burthens and the constant 
 drain of war gradually crushed all the life of in- 
 dustry out of the miserable peasants, depopulated 
 whole tracts of country, and stifled conmiercial 
 enterprise. A multitude of useless offices were 
 
 243 
 
 every year created, in order to be sold, and 
 abolished in order to be sold again. Titles of 
 nobihty, which had been borne for nearly a 
 century, were suddenly revoked, and conferred 
 again for fresh payments. Crown lands that had 
 been aHenated to reward service, or for other 
 valuable consideration, in former reigns, were re- 
 sumed and conveyed to new purchasers. It has 
 been observed by De Tocqueville that if one of 
 the subjects of the Great King had practised 
 some of the financial expedients openly resorted 
 to by his Sovereign, he would inevitably have 
 found himself arraigned at the bar of Criminal 
 Justice. The old local liberties died out through- 
 out three parts of the realm, and survived with 
 only a shadowy existence in the pays d'etat. The 
 royal Intendants and their subordinates assumed 
 or controlled the administration of the provinces 
 and the communes, even to the most trifling par- 
 ticulars. The cities of France had hitherto 
 enjoyed the privilege of electing their own magis- 
 trates. Louis abolished this right of election, and 
 exposed the municipal offices for sale. The nobles, 
 stripped of all their ancient power, but with all 
 their ancient privileges confirmed and augmented, 
 were drawn to Court, to glitter in gilded servi- 
 tude, the favoured servants of an absolute master. 
 
 M 2 
 
244 
 
 But, notwithstanding their odious exemptions 
 from public burthens, and their vexatious feudal 
 exactions, the revenues of the nobles gradually 
 melted away in profusion and luxury, until, in 
 course of time, the vast majority of them, vegeta- 
 ting in privileged penury in their mouldering 
 chateaux, became objects of contempt as well as 
 of hatred to their nominal vassals. 
 
 The same policy which destroyed local liberties 
 and centred all authority in the Sovereign, had 
 the unforeseen and unwelcome effect of collecting 
 all the energy and intellect of the country at Paris, 
 which grew in extent and population with amazing 
 rapidity. Louis, by repeated enactments, vainly 
 endeavoured to check a development which excited 
 his jealousy and alarm ; his own despotism created 
 the revolutionary power which so mercilessly 
 avenged on his posterity the evils of his rule, and 
 laid his Monarchy in ruins. 
 
 This arbitrary system of personal Government, 
 so pernicious to the State, exercised a still more 
 baneful influence on the Church. The provision 
 in the Concordat concluded at Bologna in the year 
 1516, which conferred on Francis I. and his suc- 
 cessors the right of nominating to ecclesiastical 
 benefices, had from the beginning been prolific of 
 abuses detrimental to religion ; and the evil in- 
 
 245 
 
 creased with the gradual extinction of public 
 liberty. Many of the French Bishops of the time 
 of Louis Xjy. showed a subserviency to the will 
 of their Sovereign as complete as had been the sub- 
 serviency of the English Bishops to Henry YIII. 
 The question of the Galhcan liberties, raised by 
 Colbert, with the view of exalting the power of 
 the Crown, meant in reality the servitude of the 
 Gallican Church. Condfe, a keen if cynical ob- 
 server, remarked at the time that if Louis were to 
 turn Mohammedan, the majority of his prelates 
 would follow his example. The CathoHc Church 
 had owed her downfall in England mainly to the 
 incredible cowardice and baseness of the 
 Episcopacy, with the one noble exception of 
 Cardinal Fisher. It was perhaps well for her 
 stabihty in France that the French Monarch was 
 a sincere and unswerving believer in her creed. 
 In both cases servility to the temporal power was 
 joined to religious intolerance. The English 
 Bishops had had the impudence to send to the 
 flames for theological error men more honest and 
 blameless than themselves. The French Bishops 
 promoted with zeal their Sovereign's indefensible 
 measures against the Huguenots. 
 
 It was not, however, until long after the death 
 of the Great King, until the ecclesiastical patron- 
 
246 
 
 age of the realm passed througli the hands of the' 
 Regent Orleans, and Madame de Pompadour, and 
 Madame Dubany, that it became evident how 
 fatally injurious to religion was the political 
 system which attained to maturity under his 
 reign. When the nation awoke from the long, 
 death-like torpor which followed the ruinous war 
 of the Succession, to Hsten eagerly to the teachings 
 of the Philosophers, the Church found herself ex- 
 posed, through her close connexion with the State,. 
 to furious assaults, which the deadening influence 
 of that connexion rendered her impotent to repel.. 
 Endowed with extensive possessions, which carried 
 with them all the privileges of exemption from 
 taxation, and of feudal service so odious and so 
 onerous to the peasants ; exacting from these,, 
 besides, the tenth part of their scanty in- 
 comes ; her rich benefices filled with members of 
 a privileged class, nominees of the Crown — 
 the lives of some of whom cast greater ridicule 
 on her doctrines than did all the malignant wit 
 of the scoffers — the Church, instead of inspiring 
 veneration and confidence in the people, became 
 the chief object of their hatred and suspicion, 
 and presented a vulnerable point to the atheis- 
 tical shafts of Voltaire and the Encyclopoedists* 
 Illustrious, both before and since, for some of tha 
 
 247 
 
 brightest luminaries and most fearless cham- 
 pions of the Christian faith, in the hour of her 
 greatest peril, intellect and zeal seemed dead 
 within her. No great spiritual chief arose, di- 
 vinely-commissioned, from her faltering ranks to 
 rekindle the fervour of religion, and scatter the 
 terrible host of her enemies. Discredited and 
 betrayed, she fell ingloriously; and Christianity 
 fell with her, buried under a boiling flood of 
 rancorous unbelief. That this catastrophe was 
 attributable to the accidental circumstance that 
 the clerical order formed a bulwark and a com- 
 ponent part of a political system, demoralizing in 
 itself, and hateful to the great majority of French- 
 men, rather than to any general revolt of French 
 intelligence from Catholic dogmas, seems clear. 
 When the old Monarchy and all its institutions 
 had been swept away for ever, the Church not 
 only erected herself again, but, being disen- 
 cumbered of the temporal distinctions which had 
 clung to her from feudal society, and despoiled of 
 the wealth which had led to the perverting of her 
 august functions into a profane masquerade, re- 
 established herself in the heart of the nation, and 
 vindicated her claims to divine authority with an 
 intellectual power, a fruitfulness of conviction. 
 
248 
 
 and a noble independence which she had not 
 exhibited during the 18th century. 
 
 To anyone who considers impartially the con- 
 dition of the vast majority of the French people 
 during the 18th century ; ground down by the 
 King, the nobles, and the clergy ; cherishing, in 
 their wretchedness, envy and animosity towards 
 the privileged orders ; held in pupilage by func- 
 tionaries of the Crown, even to the most trivial 
 details of their civil life, and of the exercise of 
 their labour ; saturated with the ideas of theorists 
 as deficient as themselves in practical knowledge 
 of free institutions, but who proclaimed with 
 marvellous wit and eloquence that the Catholic 
 Church was an imposture, and that the galling 
 inequaHties of society were an outrage upon 
 natural justice and the rights of man ; the frantic 
 spirit of destruction and impiety, which amazed 
 and horrified the world in 1793, becomes in- 
 telligible. Writers, whose opinions deserve 
 respect, heap somewhat undiscriminating censure 
 on the so-called principles of 1 789, and seem to 
 regard the epoch itself as the fountain-head of all 
 the political and social changes, of an irreligious 
 character, which the revolutionary propagandism 
 has introduced throughout Europe. Some of the 
 
 249 
 
 principles asserted by the National Assembly, 
 as, for instance, the equality of all citizens 
 before the law, and the right of a nation to 
 participate in the making of its laws, and in 
 the imposing of its taxes, are founded in jus- 
 tice ; and although then announced, amidst 
 triumphant poeans, as a new revelation to man- 
 kind, are as old as the most ancient, free, and 
 well-governed communities of the world. Others 
 tend to destroy the foundations of Christian society, 
 and bear the stamp of the Godless intellects that 
 gave them currency. But even these, no matter how 
 widely scattered, would have borne comparatively 
 little fruit, had they not found political and social 
 conditions so eminently adapted to give them root 
 and nourishment. The fact seems to be that the 
 ancieji regime , with its royal theory of divine right, 
 borrowed from a narrow school of Protestant 
 divines, and its pretensions to uphold religion and 
 order, while undermining the authority of the 
 Church, fostering class hatreds, and stifling the 
 healthy life of political freedom, was more instru- 
 mental in disseminating the anarchical and Pagan 
 ideas which, spreading from France, have infected 
 the whole political and social life of Europe than 
 all the Philosophers, Economists, and Apostles of 
 
 Revolution put together. 
 
 M 5 
 
250 
 
 In truth, the reverses that Christianity has 
 suffered in Catholic countries, in recent times,, 
 must be chiefly ascribed to the lethargy that crept - 
 over the Catholic Church in her long connection 
 with vicious forms of government. While she 
 slept, the strongholds of opinion were surprised, 
 and its weapons were wrested from her hands by 
 the active zeal of her enemies. She awoke to the 
 crash of systems and dynasties toppling into ruin, 
 to find that the intelligence and the patriotism of 
 nearly every CathoHc land had become citadels 
 of infidelity, and that the direction of modern 
 thought had, in a great measure, escaped from her 
 control. It was in those countries where free 
 institutions, no matter how apparently hostile 
 to it, flourished, that the Catholic principle 
 continued vigorous and unconquerable. And 
 it seems clear, that it is by recurring to her 
 own ancient policy, which modem scepticism 
 has so skilfully made its own ; it is by means 
 of independent efforts, in the domains of thought, 
 to enlighten and guide the popular mind, by 
 making her legitimate influence felt in political 
 life through the sovereignty of the people — the 
 only expression of divine right in temporal 
 government which her theologians have ever 
 accepted — that, humanly speaking^, the Catholic 
 
 251 
 
 Church can recover the ground she has lost, and 
 prevail in her present struggle of life and death 
 against by far the most formidable alliance of 
 intellect without faith, with power without con- 
 science, she has been called upon to confront 
 since the death of Julian the Apostate. 
 
 The piety that distinguished the latter half of 
 Louis Xiy .^s life was sincere and fervent ; but, 
 being impressed with the despotic character of 
 the Monarch, it was perhaps more hurtful to his 
 kingdom than the ostentatious profligacy of his 
 youth had been. Not that his intolerance was 
 exceptionally harsh. It certainly was not so 
 ruthless as much of the Protestant intolerance of 
 the time. The dragonnades which called forth 
 loud cries of indignation from persecuting 
 champions of religious liberty in neighbouring 
 nations, were retaliation for an outbreak, stained 
 with revolting cruelties. But, in banishing from 
 his impoverished and depopulated kingdom a 
 multitude of industrious citizens, gallant soldiers, 
 and skilful officers, to augment the prosperity, 
 and inflame with a deadlier rancour the opposition 
 of his foes, foi^ the offence of fidelity to their 
 religious conviction, he sinned greviously against 
 justice and sound policy. And a system of 
 proselytism which used temporal motives to 
 
252 
 
 253 
 
 coerce or to seduce the Huguenots into conformity 
 with the established creed, sapped public 
 morality, and directly promoted hypocrisy and 
 scepticism. 
 
 Like the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and 
 the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, with 
 which Catholicism is so frequently taunted, 
 Louis XIY/s oppression of the Huguenots was 
 the fruit of the jealous policy of a despotic 
 Sovereign, not of the teaching of the Catholic 
 Church. The Pope expressed his strong dis- 
 approval of the perverting influences brought 
 to bear by the French Monarch on his Calvinist 
 subjects, as being calculated to foster deceit and 
 infidelity. It is, indeed, a historical fact, easily 
 capable of proof, that the dealings of the Koman 
 Inquisition with religious error in the Papal 
 States, since the Reformation, bear favourable 
 comparison, as regards lenity, with the proscrip- 
 tions of the most tolerant Protestant power. And 
 it should be remembered, that in a system based 
 upon the doctrine of infallibility repression of 
 dissent is not, what it is in systems based on free- 
 dom of judgment, a glaring violation of funda- 
 mental principle. 
 
 The censure of the Pope was only too well 
 justified by the result. The campaign against 
 
 heresy, that culminated in the revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes, was in every way disastrous to 
 the victors. Numerous anecdotes, floating about 
 at the time, bore testimony to the low estimate 
 formed even at the French Court of the sincerity 
 of many of the fashionable conversions. A 
 Huguenot family of some distinction, consisting 
 of a brother and two sisters, had embraced the 
 Catholic faith ; the ladies through conviction, but 
 their brother with the view of pushing his for- 
 tunes at Versailles. His conduct so displeased 
 an uncle, a staunch follower of Calvin, from whom 
 he had large expectations, that the old man at his 
 death left all his possessions to more distant rela- 
 tives. The brother wrote to condole with his 
 sisters on their common misfortune. " You,^^ he 
 said, ^^ who are pious Catholics, can solace your 
 disappointment with the reflection that our uncle 
 is now in eternal torments ; but for me there does 
 not remain even that consolation.^^ On another 
 occasion, when a Huguenot lady of celebrity, wha 
 had separated from her lord, became a Catholic, 
 her friends ascribed the change to her strong 
 desire never again to meet her husband, either in 
 this world or in the next. 
 
 It would, however, be manifestly unjust to hold 
 Louis XIV. personally responsible for all the evils 
 
254 
 
 that flowed from his rule. His political education, 
 the memories of his boyhood, the irresponsible 
 position created for him by the policy of his 
 predecessors, the splendour of his early prosperity, 
 and the adulation of his people, had a pernicious 
 influence upon an imperious and somewhat vain- 
 glorious, but singularly noble nature. The great 
 qualities of the Sovereign, however, only ren- 
 dered his career a more striking proof of the 
 radical badness of a system, that invested one 
 man with absolute control over the lives and 
 fortunes of so many millions of his fellow-creatures, 
 and over the fate of generations yet unborn. The 
 high praise is due principally to Louis himself, 
 that perhaps there is no example in history of a 
 reign equally long, and presenting such a heri- 
 tage of troubled memories to the jealous vigilance 
 of unbounded despotism, in which so little blood 
 was shed on the scaffold for political offences. 
 
 If adversity be the true touchstone of greatness 
 of soul, few Princes have stood the test so well as 
 Louis XIV. In the days of his cloudless pros- 
 perity, when flushed with the insolence of victory, 
 or drunk with the fumes of adulation, he may 
 occasionally have forgotten he was a mere mortal. 
 It is at the melancholy close of his career, when 
 the declining glories of the great monarchy, which 
 
 255 
 
 had thrown surrounding nations into dim ecHpse^ 
 were clouded by disaster; when the old King, 
 having survived the great statesmen and generals 
 of his prime, having survived three generations 
 of his own descendants — his armies routed, his 
 fleets destroyed, his treasury bankrupt, his people 
 perishing from famine and pestilence, and utter- 
 ing cries of anguish and despair, which he could 
 only answer with tears of pity and remorse — con- 
 fronted the ungenerous foes, who, having van- 
 quished, insisted on dishonouring him, with a 
 grand fortitude which half redeemed his fatal 
 ambition — that he most commands our admiration. 
 The conduct of Louis towards the unfortunate 
 James II. of England reflects a purer glory on his 
 name than the most brilliant achievements of his 
 arms or his poHcy. There was little in the character 
 or proceedings of James to conciliate affection or 
 esteem. Ordinary prudence, when the storm of 
 invasion that overwhelmed him was yet sleeping in 
 the distant thunder-cloud, ordinary firmness, when 
 it had burst upon his kingdom, would, in all human 
 probability, have saved his crown. Smitten, how- 
 ever, with the infatuation which seizes on those 
 dynasties which Providence has doomed, he was 
 deaf to the French King's warnings and proffers 
 of aid, while the danger might have been warded 
 
256 
 
 off, equally deaf to the voice of honour when it 
 should have been boldly confronted. The imbecile 
 recklessness with which he risked his throne was 
 only to be equalled by the imbecile poltroonery 
 through which he lost it. But from the moment 
 James landed a fugitive upon the soil of France, 
 Louis no longer saw the weak Sovereign. He saw 
 only fallen majesty, which calamity had but scathed 
 in order to sanctify, and whose blemishes it would 
 have been sacrilege to scan too curiously. The 
 noble friendship which shielded the last years of 
 the ill-fated James, so chivabous, so tender, which 
 no reverses could weary, which no lapse of time 
 nor considerations of interest could chill, is with- 
 out parallel in history. 
 
 Of the Court of the Great King, at the period 
 of its proudest splendour, Conde was one of the 
 most briUiant ornaments. His martial genius and 
 renown were pre-eminent, and circumstances had 
 moulded the fiery leader of the Fronde into the 
 most graceful and assiduous of courtiers. Louis, 
 won by the Prince's great qualities, and his evi- 
 dent anxiety to obliterate the past, after a time 
 distinguished his cousin in the highest degree by 
 his confidence and favour. 
 
 In 1663 Cond6 married his son, the Duke of 
 Enghien, to Anne of Bavaria, the daughter of his 
 
 257 
 
 old friend the Princess Palatine. The young lady 
 had been adopted by her aunt, the Queen of 
 Poland, and brought an immense dowry to her 
 husband. When Louis attacked the Spanish 
 Netherlands, in 1667, Conde was suffered to re- 
 main in retirement. But, in the following year, 
 Louvois having quarrelled with Turenne, now 
 Marshal- General of the Armies of France, the 
 Prince, at the War Minister's suggestion, drew out 
 a plan for the conquest of Franche Compte, and,' 
 being entrusted with its execution, over-ran and 
 annexed the province in fourteen days. 
 
 In the war against Holland, in 1672, Conde 
 commanded in chief, under the King, and planned 
 the celebrated passage of the Ehine, which still 
 lives in the Gallery of Victories at Versailles, on 
 the canvas of Lebrun. Here he received his first 
 dangerous wound, which incapacitated him for 
 further service during the campaign; and what 
 pained him more acutely, he saw his nephew, the 
 young Duke of Longueville, the last of an 
 illustrious race, killed by his side. It was to 
 Louis' neglect of Conde's advice to march rapidly 
 on Amsterdam that the Dutch commonwealth 
 owed its escape from destruction. The time lost 
 by the French Monarch in capturing second-rate 
 towns, and in dictating humiliating terms of peace,, 
 gave his foes leisure to recover from their conster- 
 
258 
 
 nation, and to cut their dykes. Spain, the 
 Emperor, and several of the minor German powers 
 came to the assistance of the States. England, 
 on obtaining her demands, retired from the con- 
 flict ; and France had to support alone the shock 
 of a host of enemies. 
 
 In 1674 Conde sketched out a second plan of 
 operations against Franche Compte, which resulted 
 in the final incorporation of that territory with 
 France. In the same year, with inferior forces, 
 he won the great victory of Seneff over the PrinCe 
 of Orange. Among his prisoners was Count 
 Staremberg, who was sent to Rhiems, and there 
 publicly drank the health of his late Commander. 
 " The Prince of Orange is a man of honour," said 
 the Count, ^' on whom I shall rely all my life ; he 
 promised me that I should drink champagne in 
 Champagne, and you see that he has kept his word." 
 When Conde returned to Versailles, Louis ad- 
 vanced to the head of the grand staircase to meet 
 him. The Prince, a martyr to gout, slowly 
 ascended the steps and entreated his Sovereign's 
 pardon for making him wait. " My cousin," the 
 King replied, '^ when one is so laden with laurels 
 it is difficult to walk fast." 
 
 In the following year Turenne was killed in the 
 lines of Stokhofen, as he was reconnoitering the 
 position of the renowned General Montecuculi, 
 
 259 
 
 before fighting a decisive battle. His fall waa 
 mourned by friend and foe. " There," exclaimed 
 his great antagonist, ^^ died a man who did honour 
 to man." Louis paid the memory of the illustrious 
 Marshal the highest tribute it was in his power to 
 render, by ordering his remains to be deposited 
 at St. Denis among those of the Kings of France. 
 The French Army, disheartened by the loss of its 
 Commander, retreated in confusion across the 
 Rhine, closely pursued by Montecuculi ; and Conde 
 was summoned in haste from Flanders to defend 
 Alsace. On assuming this perilous command, he 
 said, '^ How much I wish to converse only two 
 hours with the shade of Turenne, so as to be able 
 to follow the scope of his ideas." It almost 
 seemed as if he had obtained his wish ; so com- 
 pletely did he subordinate his own impetuous 
 genius to the more cautious spirit that had guided 
 the strategy of his old friend and rival. By 
 skilful manoeuvres he foiled the efforts of the 
 Germans to penetrate into France, and finally 
 compelled them to recross the Rhine. This was 
 his last military service to his country. Although 
 still hardly past the summer of life, the excesses 
 and fatigues of his youth had brought upon him 
 the decrepitude of old age. Severe attacks of 
 gout distracted his mind and crippled his body. 
 He therefore wisely judged that it was time for 
 
260 
 
 him to retire under the shadow of his hard won 
 laurels ; and at the close of his campaign against 
 Montecuculi, he bade a final adieu to the profession 
 
 of arms. 
 
 The prosperous tenour of the Prince's career 
 since his reconciliation with his Sovereign had 
 been chequered by two untoward events — one 
 political, and one domestic. The throne of Poland 
 having become vacant, an influential party in that 
 kingdom solicited him to accept the crown. He 
 was anxious to comply ; his election was scarcely 
 doubtful ; but Louis refused his consent. Keasons 
 of State policy were alleged ; but it is probable 
 that some lingering distrust and jealousy of his 
 cousin influenced the King's decision. Conde 
 bowed to the will of his Sovereign with the 
 unmurmuring obedience which had come to be 
 regarded in France as the highest political virtue. 
 
 The second event has left a deep stain upon 
 Conde's memory. The devoted love, the heroic 
 courage, the extraordinary merits which the 
 Princess of Conde displayed during the Bordeaux 
 war, had failed to conciliate the affection of her hus- 
 band, or the esteem of his family. And, through 
 some distortion of nature, the son, who had been her 
 joy and her sohcitude during the vicissitudes of 
 that remarkable struggle, became, when he grew 
 up to manhood, the worst enemy of his mother. 
 
 261 
 
 Some words of menace and insult addressed to 
 her in her own chamber by a footman named 
 Duval, followed by a murderous assault, aroused 
 vague suspicions. Unfortunately for her, it re- 
 quired only a breath to ripen suspicion into 
 conviction in the minds of those who had the 
 control of her destiny. A secret investigation was 
 held by order of the King. At its termination 
 the Princess was hurried into close confinement, 
 and compelled to surrender her large patrimony 
 to her son. Her prison was the stern old Castle 
 of Chateauroux, in Berri, built in the tenth cen- 
 tury, the same melancholy abode to which she had 
 been exiled by Anne of Austria, before the war 
 of Bordeaux. Louis shortly afterwards promised 
 Conde that her imprisonment should be perpetual. 
 Even in that day the behef in her innocence was 
 general. The sober, searching light of time, 
 which reveals much that is lost in the dazzling 
 glare, or in the deep shadows of contemporaneous 
 life, has established it mor^ clearly. She appears 
 to have been sacrificed to the dislike of her hus- 
 band, the pride of his family, and the avarice of 
 her unnatural son. In the sad solitude of her 
 prison, Claire de MailM completed the weary cycle 
 of her existence. Her own family were all dead. 
 The bitter blast of adversity killed her friends. 
 
262 
 
 No ray of sympathy or of hope cheered the gloom 
 of the long captivity in which her life slowly 
 wasted away. Forgotten by all, more than twenty 
 years rolled by before death, in unbarring her wel- 
 come passage from her living tomb to that where he 
 reigns, reminded the world that she had existed. 
 Even the grave could not shield her from injury. 
 The evil fortune which had dogged her footsteps 
 during life, pursued all of her it had power over, 
 to her last resting-place. In after years her 
 sepulchre was violated, and her dust was scattered 
 to the winds. Truly, the story of this Princess, 
 so gentle and so loving, so adorned by virtues 
 and talents, and yet the victim of a relentless 
 destiny, which sowed her path with sorrows, 
 almost from the cradle to the grave, is one of 
 the saddest recorded in history. 
 
 The evening of Conde^s life was gilded by the 
 ricn glow of a splendid prosperity. The ruin 
 which years of civil war, exile, and peculation had 
 wrought in his immense revenues, was repaired 
 by the able management of Gourville, to whose 
 assistance he had recourse after his return to 
 France. His time was passed chiefly at Chantilly — 
 where art decked with its rarest gems the abound- 
 ing charms of nature — in superintending the edu- 
 cation of his grandchildren, in beautifying his 
 
 263 
 
 unrivalled gardens, and in the enjoyment of a 
 brilliant society. It was his greatest pleasure to 
 assemble around him eminent poets, painters, 
 philosophers, and men of science, whose intel- 
 lectual strife, the clashing of mind with mind, 
 from which flashes of divine light, immortal ideas, 
 emanate, he relished with the keen delight of 
 kindred genius; and whom he loaded with benefits. 
 His occasional visits to the Court were repaid by 
 the distinguished favour of the King, and by the 
 boundless admiration of the fair and the brave. 
 In an age of licentiousness and impiety Conde had 
 been notorious as a roue and a scoffer. And when 
 that age had passed away his irreligious senti- 
 ments remained unchanged. His friends long 
 despaired of his conversion. But the conversion 
 of the Princess Palatine, who had herself declared 
 that such an event would be the greatest of 
 miracles ; and, above all, the exemplary death of 
 his sister, the Duchess of Longueville, after she 
 had atoned by nearly thirty years of penitence 
 for her excesses during the period of the 
 Fronde, shattered the rind of scepticism that 
 enfolded his heart. The springs of religion, 
 which had seemed dried up within him, un- 
 sealed by a dread hand, burst forth again. 
 And the promptings of his better nature were 
 
264 
 
 strengthened by arguments whicli flowed, burning 
 with divine fire, from the lips of Bossuet. After 
 repeated conferences with the Bishop of Meaux, 
 Conde, in 1685, publicly returned to the bosom of 
 Christianity. His submission to the Church was 
 a severe blow to infidels. Voltaire declares that 
 age made a driveller of the hero of Rocroi. In 
 the same year, his grandson, the Duke of Bourbon, 
 married Mademoiselle de Nantes, one of the chil- 
 dren of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan. 
 The Duchess, not long afterwards, was attacked 
 with small-pox at Fontainebleau. The old 
 Prince hurried off from Chantilly, to watch 
 by her sick couch, but the agitation and fatigue 
 he underwent proved fatal to his debihtated 
 frame. He died at Fontainebleau, in the sixty- 
 fifth year of his age, penitent, and resigned, 
 amidst universal regret, leaving behind him a 
 name immortalised by his own great actions, and 
 by the eloquence of Bossuet. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 T. C. Nkwby, 30, Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, London. 
 
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 V.2 
 
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 BRITTLE DO NOT 
 PHOTOCOPY 
 
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 - 1953