CHAPTER XVI
Condé proceeds to Bordeaux, where he is rejoined by his relatives—He opens the campaign with success, but is soon obliged to remain on the defensive—Return of Mazarin—Condé on the Loire—Battle of Bléneau—He leaves his army and proceeds to Paris—His futile negotiations—Battle of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine—Massacre of the Hôtel de Ville—The Fronde grows daily more discredited—Condé quits Paris and joins the Spaniards on the Flemish frontier—The Fronde at Bordeaux—Sanguinary affrays between the Ormée and the Chapeau Rouge—Courage and presence of mind displayed by the Princesse de Condé and Madame de Longueville in separating the combatants—Surrender of Bordeaux—The princess sails for Flanders to rejoin her husband—Her reception at Valenciennes—She is cruelly neglected by Condé—She removes from Valenciennes to Malines—Her miserable existence—Condé applies to the Spanish Court for financial assistance—Brilliant military qualities displayed by him in the service of his country’s enemies—The princess gives birth to a daughter—Peace of the Pyrenees—Return of Condé and his wife to France.
The fatal resolution once taken, Condé acted with his customary vigour and decision. He despatched Lenet to Madrid to conclude a treaty with Spain; wrote to his staunch adherent, the Comte de Marsin, who commanded in Catalonia, begging him to join him in Guienne with all the troops he could induce to follow him, and directed his brother and sister and the Duc de Nemours to proceed to Bourges and endeavour to incite that town and the whole of Berry to revolt. Then, accompanied by La Rochefoucauld, he set out for Bordeaux, which he had resolved to make his headquarters.
Condé was received at Bordeaux with transports of joy, and the town and the greater part of the province at once rose in revolt. But Madame de Longueville and Conti failed entirely in the task entrusted to them, and, on the approach of the royal army, were obliged to retire to Montrond, where Madame la Princesse and her son had remained, and subsequently to Bordeaux. A much more severe blow to the prince’s cause was the defection of Turenne, upon whose support he had confidently counted, but who, together with his brother, the Duc de Bouillon, had decided to throw in his lot with the Court. Nevertheless, he resolved to take the offensive, and for a while carried all before him in the South-West. But his forces were much inferior in number to the Royalists, and by the end of the year he was obliged to fall back to the Garonne.
The sudden reappearance of Mazarin upon the scene in the following January reanimated the hopes of the prince, and appeared to give new strength to his party. The Parlement, which, on 4 December, had issued a decree proclaiming Monsieur le Prince and his principal adherents “attainted and convicted of high treason and lèse-majesté,” now voted that this sentence should be suspended and renewed its old decrees against the Cardinal. Gaston d’Orléans, with whom the prince had been for some time past negotiating, believing that he had been the dupe of the Queen, concluded an alliance with him, and, shortly afterwards, most of the Frondeurs also declared for Condé.
Towards the end of March, Condé, having entrusted the government of Guienne to his brother, Conti, assisted by a council composed of Madame la Princesse, Madame de Longueville, Lenet, Marsin, and the Président Viole, set out to take command of the Frondeurs on the Loire. After an adventurous journey, in which he only escaped capture by a miracle, he reached the army in safety, and falling upon the division of the royal forces commanded by Hocquincourt, completely routed it. But his attack on Turenne’s position failed, and, shortly afterwards, he quitted his army and set out for Paris, with the object of inducing the capital to espouse his cause. Here, he found his beloved Madame de Châtillon, and, largely through her influence, “allowed himself to be drawn into an abyss of negotiations of which one never saw the bottom.”[201] These negotiations led to no result, and, in the absence of their chief, the Frondeur army suffered a severe reverse at Étampes, where it was suddenly attacked by Turenne. Nor did he secure the adhesion of the capital, for, though the populace espoused his cause, the better-class citizens stood aloof.
At length, at the end of June, Condé, comprehending the fatal error he had committed in leaving the field to engage in futile intrigues, and of having preferred the counsels of an avaricious mistress[202] to those of his best friends, left Paris to resume the command of his weakened and disheartened forces. It was too late. Forced back upon Paris by superior numbers, he was obliged to fight the bloody combat of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which would probably have ended in the total destruction of the rebel army, had not la Grande Mademoiselle, by dint of tears and supplications, wrested an order from her irresolute father to open the gates to the hard-pressed Frondeurs and for the cannon of the Bastille to cover their retreat (2 July).
Two days later, a ferocious mob, among which are said to have been many of Condé’s soldiers, disguised as artisans, attacked the Hôtel de Ville, where some three hundred delegates from the clergy, magistracy, and the various parishes were assembled in conclave, murdered several of them, and set the building on fire. This atrocious act, worthy of the worst days of the League, had the effect of terrifying the city into submission to Condé, but, at the same time, proved the death-blow of the Fronde, since all save the refuse of the people were filled with horror and loathing for a party which sought to compass its ends by such means. Every day saw the prince’s followers falling away from him and the desire for peace growing stronger; and the skilful effacement of Mazarin, who, on 19 August, left Pontoise and retired into a second and voluntary exile at Bouillon, and afterwards at Sedan, removed the only pretext for continuing the war. Condé attempted to negotiate, but was informed that no proposal from him would be considered until he had laid down his arms, disbanded his troops, and renounced his alliance with Spain; and, at length, on 13 October, disdaining to accept the general amnesty which had been proclaimed, but finding his position in the capital no longer tenable, he left Paris with the few troops which still remained faithful to him and joined the Spaniards on the Flemish frontier. A week later, Louis XIV. and Anne of Austria made their entry into the city amid general rejoicings, and in the following February Mazarin returned in triumph, to remain until the hour of his death the absolute ruler of France.
The Fronde of Bordeaux survived the Fronde in Paris by nearly ten months. Its chief feature was the bitter struggle between the advanced and moderate parties among the citizens. The former, recruited from the lower middle-class and the populace, desired to carry on the war à outrance, and was quite ready for an alliance with Spain, England, or half Europe for that matter. Its most violent spirits held republican views, which had been fostered by recent events in England, and, imitating the League or anticipating the Jacobins, formed themselves into a regular society, called, from its favourite place of assembly—a little terrace bordered by elms in the environs of the town—the Ormée, and persecuted with the utmost virulence all whom they suspected of hostility to the popular cause. The latter, which comprised the great majority of the better-class citizens, though hostile in general to the Court and Mazarin, were desirous of keeping the insurrectionary movement within bounds, and looked with marked disapproval on Condé’s negotiations with Spain. To resist the tyranny of the Ormée, they organized themselves into a kind of aristocratic league, which was called, from the fashionable quarter of the town, the Chapeau Rouge. Sanguinary encounters between the two factions were of frequent occurrence, and, but for the courage and presence of mind of the Princesse de Condé and Madame de Longueville, who, at great personal risk, repeatedly intervened to separate the infuriated combatants, Bordeaux would have become a shambles.
On one occasion, we read that Madame la Princesse, “fort allumée de colère,” vowed that the next time there was a breach of the peace, she would, notwithstanding that she was with child,[203] place herself at the head of those who obeyed her, and cause the offenders to be cut to pieces.[204] Scarcely, however, had she and Madame de Longueville withdrawn, than the Ormistes, undismayed by this terrible threat, stormed the Hôtel de Ville and held it throughout the night. In the morning, flushed with success, they marched in great force upon the Quartier du Chapeau Rouge, and attacked the house of a certain M. Pichon, a president of the Parlement, who appears to have been the object of their peculiar animosity. Unhappily for them, M. Pichon had received warning of their intentions, and had taken the precaution to convert his residence into a kind of fortress, from which a withering fire of musketry was opened on the besiegers. Exasperated by their losses, the Ormistes proceeded to storm and set fire to the neighbouring houses; reinforcements came up rapidly on both sides, and it seemed as though the whole town would be delivered up to fire and blood. So fierce was the fighting that it appeared hopeless for the princesses to intervene; but, at length, they bethought themselves of a happy expedient. Hastening to the curé of the Church of Saint-Messan, they ordered him to accompany them to the scene of the fray, bearing the Holy Sacrament, preceded by the cross and candles. The cortège advanced into the very midst of the combatants, who desisted, vanquished by the courage and presence of mind of these young women.
On 23 July, 1653, Bordeaux surrendered on honourable terms, the troops which Marsin had brought from Catalonia being permitted to join Condé, and a full pardon being granted to the inhabitants, with the exception of the leaders of the Ormée, one of whom was executed.
The most generous offers were made by Mazarin to Madame la Princesse, on condition that she should remain in France and separate her interests from those of her husband. But, ever constant to her duty, Claire-Clémence declined them, and announced her intention of rejoining Condé. On 3 August, accompanied by the Duc d’Enghien and the faithful Lenet, she sailed for Flanders on board a Spanish ship-of-war. Her health had been so much affected by the trials and anxieties of the last few months that her physicians assured her that she would not survive the voyage; but, happily, these gloomy prognostications were not realized, and on 26 August she landed safely at Dunkerque. Thence she journeyed slowly, by way of Nieuport, Bruges, Ghent, and Oudenarde, to Valenciennes, where, by her husband’s orders, she took up her residence.
By order of the Viceroy of the Netherlands, she was received everywhere with royal honours and the most splendid hospitality. At Valenciennes, the governor, the municipal authorities, and all the nobility of the surrounding country, came to pay her homage, and to compliment her on her heroic Odyssey from Bordeaux. The Viceroy did everything in his power to amuse her, and sent from Brussels a company of actors, who gave before the illustrious exile a series of performances, in a theatre constructed specially for the occasion.
The consideration and sympathy with which strangers were so eager to surround the princess presented a striking contrast to the coldness and indifference of her husband. After all that she had done and suffered for his sake, she might well have expected to receive from him some proof of affection, or at least, of respect. But for eight months after her arrival he never once condescended to visit her, and, to add to the mortification which she must have felt, he deprived her of her son, who had never yet left her, whom he sent to the Jesuit College at Namur. At last, at the end of June, 1654, he sent orders to her to meet him at Mons. They passed one night together at an inn in the town, and on the morrow separated again, the husband proceeding to Brussels and the army, the wife returning to Valenciennes.
At the beginning of September, the approach of the French obliged Madame la Princesse to quit Valenciennes and seek another asylum. She chose Malines, where she installed herself at the Hôtel Hoogstratin. In spite of the fine promises which had been made by the Viceroy, she did not receive any assistance from the Government and soon found herself in terrible straits. The meagre sums sent her at rare intervals by Condé, who was himself in scarcely better case, were quite insufficient to defray the expenses of her Household, and she was obliged to dismiss the greater number of her attendants and to dispose successively of the few jewels she had kept, less for their value than for the associations connected with them, of her horses and carriages, and, finally, of part of her wardrobe. Sometimes she and her servants were even in need of food, for her maître d’hôtel had the greatest difficulty in obtaining credit from the humble tradesmen of the town.
The princess continued this wretched existence for several years. She rarely saw her son, but received occasional visits from her husband, an honour for which she seems to have been indebted to the fact that Condé was no longer able to spend his leisure at Brussels, where he was in debt to every one. “I am in such disrepute with the tradesmen,” he writes, under date 28 October, 1655, to the Comte de Fiesque, his envoy at Madrid, “that they look upon me as a bankrupt. I borrow in every direction, and I pay no one back.” And, a month later: “I doubt if I shall dare to return to Brussels, on account of the multitude of creditors of all kinds whom I have there.... My wife and my son are accustoming themselves to live on air.”
When, on 2 January, 1656, Condé arrived at Malines, he found his unfortunate wife without a fire in her room, and learned that the exasperated landlady of the inn had just caused the princess’s maître d’hôtel to be thrown into prison. Moved with pity, despite his egoism, by the wretched condition to which his conduct had reduced this courageous and devoted woman, he humbled his pride sufficiently to write to Don Luis de Haro, Prime Minister of Spain, to demand assistance. “Finally, Monsieur,” he writes, “I beg your Excellency to consider that without prompt pecuniary assistance it will be impossible for me to continue my services to the King with honour and usefulness.... I beg you to inform me what his Catholic Majesty wishes me to become; for, so long as I have no money, as my troops are without recruits and without remounts, as my general-officers are without a sol, as my fortresses are dismantled, as all my friends are in poverty, as I myself, my wife, and my son are in a continual beggary, I cannot be capable of rendering service to his Majesty in such a condition.”[205]
Condé certainly had every claim upon the gratitude of the Spanish Court, for in the service of the enemies of his country he displayed the most rare qualities. As a general, he compelled the admiration of all by his courage, energy, and foresight. His masterly retreat on Mons, after the raising of the siege of Arras, whereby he saved the routed Spaniards from complete destruction, must rank as one of his finest feats of arms, and scarcely less brilliant were his relief of Cambrai and the manner in which he forced Turenne’s lines before Valenciennes. Badly seconded by the Spanish Government, who furnished him neither with subsidies nor capable generals, he was obliged to give his personal attention to everything. He superintended the recruiting of his armies, their provisioning, their encampments, descended even to the most trifling details, and led the life of the soldier, sharing his privations that he might communicate to him his energy.
As the result of the visit paid by Condé to Malines at the beginning of 1656, in the following spring Madame la Princesse found herself again in an interesting condition. The approach of this event added to the poor woman’s anxieties, for she could not but feel many misgivings as to the fate reserved for a child to be born in exile, the offspring of a rebel prince, who had been deprived, by a decree of the Parlement, even of the name of Bourbon. She was, besides, much disquieted by the prospect of the privations which it might be required to face at Malines, in that inn where she was reduced to live so miserably. She accordingly took counsel with the faithful Lenet, and, on his advice, decided to petition Louis XIV. and Mazarin for permission to return to France, and, at the same time, to appeal to the Parlement of Paris and her relatives to make intercession on her behalf. But the touching letters which she addressed to the King and the Minister were without result; she was merely informed that circumstances did not lend themselves to her return to France, and her only recource was to have a protest drawn up by Flemish lawyers, “in order that her accouchement out of France might not be laid to her charge, nor prejudice the child which would be born of her pregnancy.”
In November, 1656, the Princesse de Condé gave birth, contrary to all her hopes, to a daughter, who was baptized Louise. While this little girl was still only a few months old, Jeanne Baptiste de Bourbon, Abbess of Fontevrault, wrote to Condé, offering her the succession to her abbey. The prince thanked the abbess for her good intentions, but suggested that it would be preferable to wait for better times, and that it was, besides, rather early to make his daughter a nun. The little princess did not assume the cross and mitre, since she died before she was three years old.
The campaign of 1657, which opened with Condé’s brilliant relief of Cambrai, closed with the loss of Mardyke and other places, for the incurable indolence of the Spanish generals hampered the prince at every turn. England had now formed an alliance with France, and, in the following year, the Spaniards, having, against the advice of Condé, marched against the allies, who were besieging Dunkerque, sustained a crushing defeat in the battle of the Dunes. This disaster, followed by the capitulation of Dunkerque and the invasion of Flanders by Turenne, decided Philip IV. to make peace; and, on 24 November, 1657, the Treaty of the Pyrenees brought the long war to a close.
It closed also the exile and disgrace of Condé, who, thanks to the firmness of Spain, was not only permitted to return to France, but re-established in possession of all his property, honours and dignities, with the exception of the governments of Guienne and Berry, and the charge of Grand Master of the King’s Household, which he was to surrender to the Duc d’Enghien, retaining, however, the reversion of the post. In return for Philip IV.’s cession of Jülich to the Duke of Neuburg and of the fortress of Avesnes to France, Louis XIV. conferred upon Condé the government of Burgundy and Bresse, of the château of Dijon, and of Saint-Jean-de-Losne; and, as compensation for the duchy of Albret, which he had given to the Duc de Bouillon, he invested him with that of the Bourbonnais. This last arrangement restored to this branch of the Royal House of France the title of Duc de Bourbon, by which three of the later Princes de Condé preferred to be known.
In return, nothing was demanded of the rebellious prince, except that he should disband his forces within two months, and declare his intention “to make reparation for the past by an entire obedience to all the commands of his Sovereign” in a letter which he was to write to his Majesty. Early in December, this missive reached Toulouse, where the Court then was, and, on the 29th of the same month, Condé, accompanied by the Duc d’Enghien, quitted Brussels and set out for France. Madame la Princesse followed, after a short interval, with the little Mlle. de Bourbon. She, at least, was able to return to her native land without bitterness and without remorse, since she had only acted in accordance with what she believed to be her duty to her husband.