CHAPTER XXXIV.
Before I proceed farther with my own narrative, it may be as well to take a slight review of the history of the Count de Soissons, whose fate had a great effect upon the course of my whole future life. Nor is it here unworthy of remark, how strangely events are brought about by Providence, while we walk blind and darkling through this misty existence, groping our way onward on a path from which we cannot deviate. An accidental word, a casual action, will change the whole current of life, make a hermit of a monarch, and a monarch of a shepherd: as we sometimes see near the head of a stream a small hillock that a dwarf could stride turn the course of a mighty river far from the lands it flowed towards at first, and send its waters wandering over other countries to kingdoms, and oceans, and hemispheres afar.
The ancient county of Vendome was in the year 1515 erected into a duchy by Francis I., in favour of Charles de Bourbon, a direct lineal descendant from Robert Count de Clermont, fifth son of Saint Louis. Charles de Bourbon, thus Duke of Vendome, left five sons, only two of whom had children, Antoine the elder, and Louis the younger. The first, by his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret, became King of Navarre, and left one only son, who, by default of the line of Valois, succeeded to the crown of France, under the title of Henri Quatre. Louis, the younger brother, became Prince of Condé; and having been twice married, left a family by each wife. By his first marriage descended the branch of Condé, and by the second, he left one son, Charles Count de Soissons, whose son Louis is the Prince referred to in the foregoing pages.
Setting out in life with great personal activity and address, immense revenues, considerable talents, and high rank, it is little to be wondered at that the young Count de Soissons, under the management of a weak, an indulgent, and a proud mother, should grow up with the most revolting haughtiness of character. From morning till night he heard of nothing but his own praises or his own rank; and by the time he was eighteen, his pride of demeanour was so repulsive and insupportable, that it was a common saying, that "No one saw the Count de Soissons twice; for if he did not dislike them and forbid them to return, they were disgusted with him and would not go back."
But as the fault was more in his education than in his disposition, its very excess corrected itself.
He gradually found himself avoided by those whom Heaven had designed for his companions, and sometimes even deserted by his very servants; so that he was often left alone to enjoy his rank and dignity by himself. Under these circumstances he evinced qualities of mind far superior to the petty vice which shrouded it. He had equally the wisdom to see that the fault lay in himself, the judgment to discover in what that fault consisted, and the energy to conquer it entirely. Not a trace of it remained in his manners; nor did any of his actions, but upon one occasion, ever give cause to suppose that a touch of his former haughtiness rested even in the inner recesses of his heart. With a rare discrimination, also, of which few are master, in the examination to which he subjected his own character, he separated completely the good from the bad, and took the utmost care to preserve that dignity of mind which is the best preservation against base and petty vices, even while he cast from him the pride which is in itself a meanness.
Many men, in correcting themselves of the vices of a bad education, would have felt some degree of bitterness towards the person to whose weakness that education and its vices were owing; but towards his mother the Count de Soissons ever remained a pattern of filial affection, consulting her wishes and inclination on every occasion where his own honour and character were not interested in opposing her.
The consequences of the change which he had effected in himself were not long in rewarding him for the effort he had made, and in a very few years he found that affection followed him every where instead of hate. The bright qualities of his mind, and the graces of his person, shone out with a new light, like the glorious sun bursting through a cloud. He was adored by the army, loved by the people; and princes were proud to be his friends.
At this time, however, the councils of France became embarrassed and disordered; and it was difficult even to run one's course quietly through life, so many were the dangers and evils that lurked about on all sides. Every step was upon an earthquake, and few could keep their footing steadily to the end. The Cardinal de Richelieu had already snatched the reins of government from the feeble hands that should have held them, and saw before him a wide field of power and aggrandisement, with few to oppose his putting in the sickle and reaping to his heart's content. The power, the wealth, the popularity of the Count de Soissons, gave him the opportunity of so opposing, had he been so minded; and Richelieu was not a man to live in fear. He resolved, therefore, to win him, or to crush him. To win him offered most advantages, if it could be accomplished; and deeming also that it would be more easy than the other alternative, Richelieu resolved to attempt it. For this purpose he united, in one Circean cup, everything that he fancied could tempt the ambition or passions of him he sought to gain. By a confidential messenger he proposed to the Count the hand of his favourite niece, the Duchess d'Aquillon, offering as her dower an immense sum of ready money, the reversion of all his own enormous possessions, the sword of Constable of France, and what provincial government the Count might choose; and doubtless he deemed such an offer irresistible.
Not so the Count de Soissons, who conceived himself insulted by the proposal; and the only spark of his ancient haughtiness that remained breaking forth into a flame, he struck the messenger for daring to propose the hand of Marie de Vignerot, widow of a mean provincial gentleman, to a prince of the blood-royal of France.
Contemned and rejected, personal resentment became added to the other motives which urged Richelieu to the destruction of the Count de Soissons. Personal resentments never slept with him; they lived while he lived, nor were they even weakened by sickness and approaching death. No means but one existed of gratifying his animosity towards the Count de Soissons; which was, to implicate him with some of the conspiracies which were every day breaking forth against the tyranny of the government. But even this was difficult; for, though living with princely splendour, the Count continued to reside in the midst of the court, where all his actions were open, and nothing could be attributed to him on which to found an accusation. Hatred, however, is ingenious; a thousand petty vexations were heaped upon him, and, in the end, even personal insult was added, but without effect.
The Count firmly resisted all the temptations which were held out to him to sully himself with any of the intrigues of the day. The solicitations of his friends, or the persecutions of his enemies, were equally in vain; and, when human patience could no longer endure the grievances to which he was subjected at the court of France, he left it for Italy, bearing with him the love and regret of the noblest of his countrymen.
A retreat, however, which left him free, unstained, and happy, neither quieted the fears, nor appeased the hatred of Richelieu; but, forced to dissemble, he gradually appeared to abandon his evil intentions, invited the Count to return, and one by one made him such proposals as were likely to efface his former conduct, without exciting suspicion by a sudden change. The Prince was not competent to cope with so deep an adept in the art of deceit; and, though still remembering with indignation the insults that had been offered him, he suffered himself to be persuaded that they would not be repeated, and returned to the court of France.
The minister lost no time, and at length effected his object. On his return, the Count found the best laws of the state defeated, individual liberty lost, and the public good sacrificed to the particular interests of one ambitious man. Richelieu took care that a thousand new affronts should mix a full portion of personal enmity with the Count's more patriotic feelings, and in the end the prince suffered himself to be led into the conspiracy of Amiens.
The weak and fickle Duke of Orleans had been placed in command over the Count de Soissons, at the siege of Corbie; and, brought in closer union from this circumstance than they had ever been before, the two princes had various opportunities of communicating their grievances, and concerting some means of crushing the tyranny which at once affected themselves personally, and the whole kingdom. There were not wanting many to urge that the assassination of the cardinal was the only sure way of terminating his dominion; but as the consent of the Count de Soissons could never be obtained to such a measure, it was determined to arrest the minister at the council at Amiens, and submit his conduct to the judgment of a legal tribunal. The irresolution of the Duke of Orleans suspended the execution of their purpose at the moment most favourable for effecting it, and before another opportunity presented itself the conspiracy was discovered; and the Duke of Orleans fled to Blois, while Monsieur le Comte (as the Count de Soissons was usually called) retired across the country to the strong town of Sedan, the gates of which were willingly thrown open to him by the Duke of Bouillon, who, though a vassal of France, still held that important territory between Luxembourg and Champagne, in full and unlimited sovereignty.
Here the prince paused in security, well aware that Richelieu would never dare to attempt the siege of so strong a place as Sedan, while pressed on every side by the wars he himself had kindled; and here also he was, at the time of my arrival in Paris, though in a very different situation from that in which he at first stood in Sedan.[[7]]