The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 55, May, 1862 / A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics

by Various

THE STATESMANSHIP OF RICHELIEU.

Thus far, the struggles of the world have developed its statesmanship after three leading types.

First of these is that based on faith in some great militant principle. Strong among statesmen of this type, in this time, stand Cavour, with his faith in constitutional liberty,—Cobden, with his faith in freedom of trade,—the third Napoleon, with his faith that the world moves, and that a successful policy must keep the world's pace.

The second style of statesmanship is seen in the reorganization of old
States to fit new times. In this the chiefs are such men as Cranmer and
Turgot.

But there is a third class of statesmen sometimes doing more brilliant work than either of the others. These are they who serve a State in times of dire chaos,—in times when a nation is by no means ripe for revolution, but only stung by desperate revolt: these are they who are quick enough and firm enough to bind all the good forces of the State into one cosmic force, therewith to compress or crush all chaotic forces: these are they who throttle treason and stab rebellion,—who fear not, when defeat must send down misery through ages, to insure victory by using weapons of the hottest and sharpest. Theirs, then, is a statesmanship which it may be well for the leading men of this land and time to be looking at and thinking of, and its representative man shall be Richelieu.

Never, perhaps, did a nation plunge more suddenly from the height of prosperity into the depth of misery than did France on that fourteenth of May, 1610, when Henry IV. fell dead by the dagger of Ravaillac. All earnest men, in a moment, saw the abyss yawning,—felt the State sinking,—felt themselves sinking with it. And they did what, in such a time, men always do: first all shrieked, then every man clutched at the means of safety nearest him. Sully rode through the streets of Paris with big tears streaming down his face,—strong men whose hearts had been toughened and crusted in the dreadful religious wars sobbed like children,—all the populace swarmed abroad bewildered,—many swooned,—some went mad. This was the first phase of feeling.

Then came a second phase yet more terrible. For now burst forth that old whirlwind of anarchy and bigotry and selfishness and terror which Henry had curbed during twenty years. All earnest men felt bound to protect themselves, and seized the nearest means of defence. Sully shut himself up in the Bastille, and sent orders to his son-in-law, the Duke of Rohan, to bring in six thousand soldiers to protect the Protestants. All un-earnest men, especially the great nobles, rushed to the Court, determined, now that the only guardians of the State were a weak-minded woman and a weak-bodied child, to dip deep into the treasury which Henry had filled to develop the nation, and to wrench away the power which he had built to guard the nation.

In order to make ready for this grasp at the State treasure and power by the nobles, the Duke of Epernon, from the corpse of the King, by whose side he was sitting when Ravaillac struck him, strides into the Parliament of Paris, and orders it to declare the late Queen, Mary of Medici, Regent; and when this Parisian court, knowing full well that it had no right to confer the regency, hesitated, he laid his hand on his sword, and declared, that, unless they did his bidding at once, his sword should be drawn from its scabbard. This threat did its work. Within three hours after the King's death, the Paris Parliament, which had no right to give it, bestowed the regency on a woman who had no capacity to take it.

At first things seemed to brighten a little. The Queen-Regent sent such urgent messages to Sully that he left his stronghold of the Bastille and went to the palace. She declared to him, before the assembled Court, that he must govern France still. With tears she gave the young King into his arms, telling Louis that Sully was his father's best friend, and bidding him pray the old statesman to serve the State yet longer.

But soon this good scene changed. Mary had a foster-sister, Leonora Galligai, and Leonora was married to an Italian adventurer, Concini. These seemed a poor couple, worthless and shiftless, their only stock in trade Leonora's Italian cunning; but this stock soon came to be of vast account, for thereby she soon managed to bind and rule the Queen-Regent,—managed to drive Sully into retirement in less than a year,—managed to make herself and her husband the great dispensers at Court of place and pelf. Penniless though Concini had been, he was in a few months able to buy the Marquisate of Ancre, which cost him nearly half a million livres,—and, soon after, the post of First Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and that cost him nearly a quarter of a million,—and, soon after that, a multitude of broad estates and high offices at immense prices. Leonora, also, was not idle, and among her many gains was a bribe of three hundred thousand livres to screen certain financiers under trial for fraud.

Next came the turn of the great nobles. For ages the nobility of France had been the worst among her many afflictions. From age to age attempts had been made to curb them. In the fifteenth century Charles VII. had done much to undermine their power, and Louis XI. had done much to crush it. But strong as was the policy of Charles, and cunning as was the policy of Louis, they had made one omission, and that omission left France, though advanced, miserable. For these monarchs had not cut the root of the evil. The French nobility continued practically a serf-holding nobility.

Despite, then, the curb put upon many old pretensions of the nobles, the serf-owning spirit continued to spread a net-work of curses over every arm of the French government, over every acre of the French soil, and, worst of all, over the hearts and minds of the French people. Enterprise was deadened; invention crippled. Honesty was nothing; honor everything. Life was of little value. Labor was the badge of servility; laziness the very badge and passport of gentility. The serf-owning spirit was an iron wall between noble and not-noble,—the only unyielding wall between France and prosperous peace.

But the serf-owning spirit begat another evil far more terrible: it begat a substitute for patriotism,—a substitute which crushed out patriotism just at the very emergencies when patriotism was most needed. For the first question which in any State emergency sprang into the mind of a French noble was not,—How does this affect the welfare of the nation? but,—How does this affect the position of my order? The serf-owning spirit developed in the French aristocracy an instinct which led them in national troubles to guard the serf-owning class first and the nation afterward, and to acknowledge fealty to the serf-owning interest first and to the national interest afterward.

So it proved in that emergency at the death of Henry. Instead of planting themselves as a firm bulwark between the State and harm, the Duke of Épernon, the Prince of Condé, the Count of Soissons, the Duke of Guise, the Duke of Bouillon, and many others, wheedled or threatened the Queen into granting pensions of such immense amount that the great treasury filled by Henry and Sully with such noble sacrifices, and to such noble ends, was soon nearly empty.

But as soon as the treasury began to run low the nobles began a worse work, Mary had thought to buy their loyalty; but when they had gained such treasures, their ideas mounted higher. A saying of one among them became their formula, and became noted:—"The day of Kings is past; now is come the day of the Grandees."

Every great noble now tried to grasp some strong fortress or rich city. One fact will show the spirit of many. The Duke of Épernon had served Henry as Governor of Metz, and Metz was the most important fortified town in France; therefore Henry, while allowing D'Épernon the honor of the Governorship, had always kept a Royal Lieutenant in the citadel, who corresponded directly with the Ministry. But, on the very day of the King's death, D'Épernon despatched commands to his own creatures at Metz to seize the citadel, and to hold it for him against all other orders.

But at last even Mary had to refuse to lavish more of the national treasure and to shred more of the national territory among these magnates. Then came their rebellion.

Immediately Condé and several great nobles issued a proclamation denouncing the tyranny and extravagance of the Court,—calling on the Catholics to rise against the Regent in behalf of their religion,—calling on the Protestants to rise in behalf of theirs,—summoning the whole people to rise against the waste of their State treasure.

It was all a glorious joke. To call on the Protestants was wondrous impudence, for Condé had left their faith, and had persecuted them; to call on the Catholics was not less impudent, for he had betrayed their cause scores of times; but to call on the whole people to rise in defence of their treasury was impudence sublime, for no man had besieged the treasury more persistently, no man had dipped into it more deeply, than Condé himself.

The people saw this and would not stir. Condé could rally only a few great nobles and their retainers, and therefore, as a last tremendous blow at the Court, he and his followers raised the cry that the Regent must convoke the States-General.

Any who have read much in the history of France, and especially in the history of the French Revolution, know, in part, how terrible this cry was. By the Court, and by the great privileged classes of France, this great assembly of the three estates of the realm was looked upon as the last resort amid direst calamities. For at its summons came stalking forth from the foul past the long train of Titanic abuses and Satanic wrongs; then came surging up from the seething present the great hoarse cry of the people; then loomed up, dim in the distance, vast shadowy ideas of new truth and new right; and at the bare hint of these, all that was proud in France trembled.

This cry for the States-General, then, brought the Regent to terms at once, and, instead of acting vigorously, she betook herself to her old vicious fashion of compromising,—buying off the rebels at prices more enormous than ever. By her treaty of Sainte-Ménehould, Condé received half a million of livres, and his followers received payments proportionate to the evil they had done.

But this compromise succeeded no better than previous compromises. Even if the nobles had wished to remain quiet, they could not. Their lordship over a servile class made them independent of all ordinary labor and of all care arising from labor; some exercise of mind and body they must have; Condé soon took this needed exercise by attempting to seize the city of Poitiers, and, when the burgesses were too strong for him, by ravaging the neighboring country. The other nobles broke the compromise in ways wonderfully numerous and ingenious. France was again filled with misery.

Dull as Regent Mary was, she now saw that she must call that dreaded States-General, or lose not only the nobles, but the people: undecided as she was, she soon saw that she must do it at once,—that, if she delayed it, her great nobles would raise the cry for it, again and again, just as often as they wished to extort office or money. Accordingly, on the fourteenth of October, 1614, she summoned the deputies of the three estates to Paris, and then the storm set in.

Each of the three orders presented its "portfolio of grievances" and its programme of reforms. It might seem, to one who has not noted closely the spirit which serf-mastering thrusts into a man, that the nobles would appear in the States-General not to make complaints, but to answer complaints. So it was not. The noble order, with due form, entered complaint that theirs was the injured order. They asked relief from familiarities and assumptions of equality on the part of the people. Said the Baron de Sénecé, "It is a great piece of insolence to pretend to establish any sort of equality between the people and the nobility": other nobles declared, "There is between them and us as much difference as between master and lackey."

To match these complaints and theories, the nobles made demands,—demands that commoners should not be allowed to keep fire-arms,—nor to possess dogs, unless the dogs were hamstrung,—nor to clothe themselves like the nobles,—nor to clothe their wives like the wives of nobles,—nor to wear velvet or satin under a penalty of five thousand livres. And, preposterous as such claims may seem to us, they carried them into practice. A deputy of the Third Estate having been severely beaten by a noble, his demands for redress were treated as absurd. One of the orators of the lower order having spoken of the French as forming one great family in which the nobles were the elder brothers and the commoners the younger, the nobles made a formal complaint to the King, charging the Third Estate with insolence insufferable.

Next came the complaints and demands of the clergy. They insisted on the adoption in France of the Decrees of the Council of Trent, and the destruction of the liberties of the Gallican Church.

But far stronger than these came the voice of the people.

First spoke Montaigne, denouncing the grasping spirit of the nobles. Then spoke Savaron, stinging them with sarcasm, torturing them with rhetoric, crushing them with statements of facts.

But chief among the speakers was the President of the Third Estate, Robert Miron, Provost of the Merchants of Paris. His speech, though spoken across the great abyss of time and space and thought and custom which separates him from us, warms a true man's heart even now. With touching fidelity he pictured the sad life of the lower orders,—their thankless toil, their constant misery; then, with a sturdiness which awes us, he arraigned, first, royalty for its crushing taxation,—next, the whole upper class for its oppressions,—and then, daring death, he thus launched into popular thought an idea:—

"It is nothing less than a miracle that the people are able to answer so many demands. On the labor of their hands depends the maintenance of Your Majesty, of the clergy, of the nobility, of the commons. What without their exertions would be the value of the tithes and great possessions of the Church, of the splendid estates of the nobility, or of our own house-rents and inheritances? With their bones scarcely skinned over, your wretched people present themselves before you, beaten down and helpless, with the aspect rather of death itself than of living men, imploring your succor in the name of Him who has appointed you to reign over them,—who made you a man, that you might be merciful to other men,—and who made you the father of your subjects, that you might be compassionate to these your helpless children. If Your Majesty shall not take means for that end, I fear lest despair should teach the sufferers that a soldier is, after all, nothing more than a peasant bearing arms; and lest, when the vine-dresser shall have taken up his arquebuse, he should cease to become an anvil only that he may become a hammer."

After this the Third Estate demanded the convocation of a general assembly every ten years, a more just distribution of taxes, equality of all before the law, the suppression of interior custom-houses, the abolition of sundry sinecures held by nobles, the forbidding to leading nobles of unauthorized levies of soldiery, some stipulations regarding the working clergy and the non-residence of bishops; and in the midst of all these demands, as a golden grain amid husks, they placed a demand for the emancipation of the serfs.

But these demands were sneered at. The idea of the natural equality in rights of all men,—the idea of the personal worth of every man,—the idea that rough-clad workers have prerogatives which can be whipped out by no smooth-clad idlers,—these ideas were as far beyond serf-owners of those days as they are beyond slave-owners of these days. Nothing was done. Augustin Thierry is authority for the statement that the clergy were willing to yield something. The nobles would yield nothing. The different orders quarrelled until one March morning in 1615, when, on going to their hall, they were barred out and told that the workmen were fitting the place for a Court ball. And so the deputies separated,—to all appearance no new work done, no new ideas enforced, no strong men set loose.

So it was in seeming,—so it was not in reality. Something had been done. That assembly planted ideas in the French mind which struck more and more deeply, and spread more and more widely, until, after a century and a half, the Third Estate met again and refused to present petitions kneeling,—and when king and nobles put on their hats, the commons put on theirs,—and when that old brilliant stroke was again made, and the hall was closed and filled with busy carpenters and upholsterers, the deputies of the people swore that great tennis-court oath which blasted French tyranny.

But something great was done immediately; to that suffering nation a great man was revealed. For, when the clergy pressed their requests, they chose as their orator a young man only twenty-nine years of age, the Bishop of Lucon, ARMAND JEAN DU PLESSIS DE RICHELIEU.

He spoke well. His thoughts were clear, his words pointed, his bearing firm. He had been bred a soldier, and so had strengthened his will; afterwards he had been made a scholar, and so had strengthened his mind. He grappled with the problems given him in that stormy assembly with such force that he seemed about to do something; but just then came that day of the Court ball, and Richelieu turned away like the rest.

But men had seen him and heard him. Forget him they could not. From that tremendous farce, then, France had gained directly one thing at least, and that was a sight at Richelieu.

The year after the States-General wore away in the old vile fashion. Condé revolted again, and this time he managed to scare the Protestants into revolt with him. The daring of the nobles was greater than ever. They even attacked the young King's train as he journeyed to Bordeaux, and another compromise had to be wearily built in the Treaty of Loudun. By this Condé was again bought off,—but this time only by a bribe of a million and a half of livres. The other nobles were also paid enormously, and, on making a reckoning, it was found that this compromise had cost the King four millions, and the country twenty millions. The nation had also to give into the hands of the nobles some of its richest cities and strongest fortresses.

Immediately after this compromise, Condé returned to Paris, loud, strong, jubilant, defiant, bearing himself like a king. Soon he and his revolted again; but just at that moment Concini happened to remember Richelieu. The young bishop was called and set at work.

Richelieu grasped the rebellion at once. In broad daylight he seized Condé and shut him up in the Bastille; other noble leaders he declared guilty of treason, and degraded them; he set forth the crimes and follies of the nobles in a manifesto which stung their cause to death in a moment; he published his policy in a proclamation which ran through France like fire, warming all hearts of patriots, withering all hearts of rebels; he sent out three great armies: one northward to grasp Picardy, one eastward to grasp Champagne, one southward to grasp Berri. There is a man who can do something! The nobles yield in a moment: they must yield.

But, just at this moment, when a better day seemed to dawn, came an event which threw France back into anarchy, and Richelieu out into the world again.

The young King, Louis XIII., was now sixteen years old. His mother the Regent and her favorite Concini had carefully kept him down. Under their treatment he had grown morose and seemingly stupid; but he had wit enough to understand the policy of his mother and Concini, and strength enough to hate them for it.

The only human being to whom Louis showed any love was a young falconer, Albert de Luynes,—and with De Luynes he conspired against his mother's power and her favorite's life. On an April morning, 1617, the King and De Luynes sent a party of chosen men to seize Concini. They met him at the gate of the Louvre. As usual, he is bird-like in his utterance, snake-like in his bearing. They order him to surrender; he chirps forth his surprise,—and they blow out his brains. Louis, understanding the noise, puts on his sword, appears on the balcony of the palace, is saluted with hurrahs, and becomes master of his kingdom.

Straightway measures are taken against all supposed to be attached to the Regency. Concini's wife, the favorite Leonora, is burned as a witch,—Regent Mary is sent to Blois,—Richelieu is banished to his bishopric.

And now matters went from bad to worse. King Louis was no stronger than Regent Mary had been,—King's favorite Luynes was no better than Regent's favorite Concini had been. The nobles rebelled against the new rule, as they had rebelled against the old. The King went through the same old extortions and humiliations.

Then came also to full development yet another vast evil. As far back as the year after Henry's assassination, the Protestants, in terror of their enemies, now that Henry was gone and the Spaniards seemed to grow in favor, formed themselves into a great republican league,—a State within the State,—regularly organised in peace for political effort, and in war for military effort,—with a Protestant clerical caste which ruled always with pride, and often with menace.

Against such a theocratic republic war must come sooner or later, and in 1617 the struggle began. Army was pitted against army,—Protestant Duke of Rohan against Catholic Duke of Luynes. Meanwhile Austria and the foreign enemies of France, Condé and the domestic enemies of France, fished in the troubled waters, and made rich gains every day. So France plunged into sorrows ever deeper and blacker. But in 1624, Mary de Medici, having been reconciled to her son, urged him to recall Richelieu.

The dislike which Louis bore Richelieu was strong, but the dislike he bore toward compromises had become stronger. Into his poor brain, at last, began to gleam the truth, that a serf-mastering caste, after a compromise, only whines more steadily and snarls more loudly,—that, at last, compromising becomes worse than fighting. Richelieu was called and set at work.

Fortunately for our studies of the great statesman's policy, he left at his death a "Political Testament" which floods with light his steadiest aims and boldest acts. In that Testament he wrote this message:—

"When Your Majesty resolved to give me entrance into your councils and a great share of your confidence, I can declare with truth that the Huguenots divided the authority with Your Majesty, that the great nobles acted not at all as subjects, that the governors of provinces took on themselves the airs of sovereigns, and that the foreign alliances of France were despised. I promised Your Majesty to use all my industry, and all the authority you gave me, to ruin the Huguenot party, to abase the pride of the high nobles, and to raise your name among foreign nations to the place where it ought to be."

Such were the plans of Richelieu at the outset. Let us see how he wrought out their fulfilment.

First of all, he performed daring surgery and cautery about the very heart of the Court. In a short time he had cut out from that living centre of French power a number of unworthy ministers and favorites, and replaced them by men, on whom he could rely.

Then he began his vast work. His policy embraced three great objects:
First, the overthrow of the Huguenot power; secondly, the subjugation
of the great nobles; thirdly, the destruction of the undue might of
Austria.

First, then, after some preliminary negotiations with foreign powers,—to be studied hereafter,—he attacked the great politico-religious party of the Huguenots.

These held, as their great centre and stronghold, the famous seaport of La Rochelle. He who but glances at the map shall see how strong was this position: he shall see two islands lying just off the west coast at that point, controlled by La Rochelle, yet affording to any foreign allies whom the Huguenots might admit there facilities for stinging France during centuries. The position of the Huguenots seemed impregnable. The city was well fortressed,—garrisoned by the bravest of men,—mistress of a noble harbor open at all times to supplies from foreign ports,—and in that harbor rode a fleet, belonging to the city, greater than the navy of France.

Richelieu saw well that here was the head of the rebellion. Here, then, he must strike it.

Strange as it may seem, his diplomacy was so skillful that he obtained ships to attack Protestants in La Rochelle from the two great Protestant powers,—England and Holland. With these he was successful. He attacked the city fleet, ruined it, and cleared the harbor.

But now came a terrible check. Richelieu had aroused the hate of that incarnation of all that was and Is offensive in English politics,—the Duke of Buckingham. Scandal-mongers were wont to say that both were in love with the Queen,—and that the Cardinal, though unsuccessful in his suit, outwitted the Duke and sent him out of the kingdom,—and that the Duke swore a great oath, that, if he could not enter France in one way, he would enter in another,—and that he brought about a war, and came himself as a commander: of this scandal believe what you will. But, be the causes what they may, the English policy changed, and Charles I. sent Buckingham with ninety ships to aid La Rochelle.

But Buckingham was flippant and careless; Richelieu, careful when there was need, and daring when there was need. Buckingham's heavy blows were foiled by Richelieu's keen thrusts, and then, in his confusion, Buckingham blundered so foolishly, and Richelieu profited by his blunders so shrewdly, that the fleet returned to England without any accomplishment of its purpose. The English were also driven from that vexing position in the Isle of Rhé.

Having thus sent the English home, for a time at least, he led king and nobles and armies to La Rochelle, and commenced the siege in full force. Difficulties met him at every turn; but the worst difficulty of all was that arising from the spirit of the nobility.

No one could charge the nobles of France with lack of bravery. The only charge was, that their bravery was almost sure to shun every useful form, and to take every noxious form. The bravery which finds outlet in duels they showed constantly; the bravery which finds outlet in street-fights they had shown from the days when the Duke of Orleans perished in a brawl to the days when the "Mignons" of Henry III. fought at sight every noble whose beard was not cut to suit them. The pride fostered by lording it over serfs, in the country, and by lording it over men who did not own serfs, in the capital, aroused bravery of this sort and plenty of it. But that bravery which serves a great, good cause, which must be backed by steadiness and watchfulness, was not so plentiful. So Richelieu found that the nobles who had conducted the siege before he took command had, through their brawling propensities and lazy propensities, allowed the besieged to garner in the crops from the surrounding country, and to master all the best points of attack.

But Richelieu pressed on. First he built an immense wall and earthwork, nine miles long, surrounding the city, and, to protect this, he raised eleven great forts and eighteen redoubts.

Still the harbor was open, and into this the English fleet might return and succor the city at any time. His plan was soon made. In the midst of that great harbor of La Rochelle he sank sixty hulks of vessels filled with stone; then, across the harbor,—nearly a mile wide, and, in places, more than eight hundred feet deep,—he began building over these sunken ships a great dike and wall,—thoroughly fortified, carefully engineered, faced with sloping layers of hewn stone. His own men scolded at the magnitude of the work,—the men in La Rochelle laughed at it. Worse than that, the Ocean sometimes laughed and scolded at it. Sometimes the waves sweeping in from that fierce Bay of Biscay destroyed in an hour the work of a week. The carelessness of a subordinate once destroyed in a moment the work of three months.

Yet it is but fair to admit that there was one storm which did not beat against Richelieu's dike. There set in against it no storm of hypocrisy from neighboring nations. Keen works for and against Richelieu were put forth in his day,—works calm and strong for and against him have been issuing from the presses of France and England and Germany ever since; but not one of the old school of keen writers or of the new school of calm writers is known to have ever hinted that this complete sealing of the only entrance to a leading European harbor was unjust to the world at large or unfair to the besieged themselves.

But all other obstacles Richelieu had to break through or cut through constantly. He was his own engineer, general, admiral, prime-minister. While he urged on the army to work upon the dike, he organized a French navy, and in due time brought it around to that coast and anchored it so as to guard the dike and to be guarded by it.

Yet, daring as all this work was, it was but the smallest part of his work. Richelieu found that his officers were cheating his soldiers in their pay and disheartening them; in face of the enemy he had to reorganize the army and to create a new military system. He made the army twice as effective and supported it at two-thirds less cost than before. It was his boast in his "Testament," that, from a mob, the army became "like a well-ordered convent." He found also that his subordinates were plundering the surrounding country, and thus rendering it disaffected; he at once ordered that what had been taken should be paid for, and that persons trespassing thereafter should be severely punished. He found also the great nobles who commanded in the army half-hearted and almost traitorous from sympathy with those of their own caste on the other side of the walls of La Rochelle, and from their fear of his increased power, should he gain a victory. It was their common saying, that they were fools to help him do it. But he saw the true point at once—He placed in the most responsible positions of his army men who felt for his cause, whose hearts and souls were in it,—men not of the Dalgetty stamp, but of the Cromwell stamp. He found also, as he afterward said, that he had to conquer not only the Kings of England and Spain, but also the King of France. At the most critical moment of the siege Louis deserted him,—went back to Paris,—allowed courtiers to fill him with suspicions. Not only Richelieu's place, but his life, was in danger, and he well knew it; yet he never left his dike and siege-works, but wrought on steadily until they were done; and then the King, of his own will, in very shame, broke away from his courtiers, and went back to his master.

And now a Royal Herald summoned the people of La Rochelle to surrender. But they were not yet half conquered. Even when they had seen two English fleets, sent to aid them, driven back from Richelieu's dike, they still held out manfully. The Duchess of Rohan, the Mayor Guiton, and the Minister Salbert, by noble sacrifices and burning words, kept the will of the besieged firm as steel. They were reduced to feed on their horses,—then on bits of filthy shell-fish,—then on stewed leather. They died in multitudes.

Guiton the Mayor kept a dagger on the city council-table to stab any man who should speak of surrender; some who spoke of yielding he ordered to execution as seditious. When a friend showed him a person dying of hunger, be said, "Does that astonish you? Both you and I must come to that." When another told him that multitudes were perishing, he said, "Provided one remains to hold the city-gate, I ask nothing more."

But at last even Guiton had to yield. After the siege had lasted more than a year, after five thousand were found remaining out of fifteen thousand, after a mother had been seen to feed her child with her own blood, the Cardinal's policy became too strong for him. The people yielded, and Richelieu entered the city as master.

And now the victorious statesman showed a greatness of soul to which all the rest of his life was as nothing. He was a Catholic cardinal,—the Rochellois were Protestants; he was a stern ruler,—they were rebellious subjects who had long worried and almost impoverished him;—all Europe, therefore, looked for a retribution more terrible than any in history.

Richelieu allowed nothing of the sort. He destroyed the old franchises of the city, for they were incompatible with that royal authority which he so earnestly strove to build. But this was all. He took no vengeance,—he allowed the Protestants to worship as before,—he took many of them into the public service,—and to Guiton he showed marks of respect. He stretched forth that strong arm of his over the city, and warded off all harm. He kept back greedy soldiers from pillage,—he kept back bigot priests from persecution. Years before this he had said, "The diversity of religions may indeed create a division in the other world, but not in this"; at another time he wrote, "Violent remedies only aggravate spiritual diseases." And he was now so tested, that these expressions were found to embody not merely an idea, but a belief. For, when the Protestants in La Rochelle, though thug owing tolerance and even existence to a Catholic, vexed Catholics in a spirit most intolerant, even that could not force him to abridge the religious liberties he had given.

He saw beyond his time,—not only beyond Catholics, but beyond Protestants. Two years after that great example of toleration in La Rochelle, Nicholas Antoine w as executed for apostasy from Calvinism at Geneva. And for his leniency Richelieu received the titles of Pope of the Protestants and Patriarch of the Atheists. But he had gained the first great object of his policy, and he would not abuse it: he had crushed the political power of the Huguenots forever.

Let us turn now to the second great object of his policy. He must break the power of the nobility: on that condition alone could France have strength and order, and here he showed his daring at the outset. "It is iniquitous," he was wont to tell the King, "to try to make an example by punishing the lesser offenders: they are but trees which cast no shade: it is the great nobles who must be disciplined."

It was not long before he had to begin this work,—and with the highest,—with no less a personage than Gaston, Duke of Orleans,—favorite son of Mary,—brother of the King. He who thinks shall come to a higher idea of Richelieu's boldness, when he remembers that for many years after this Louis was childless and sickly, and that during all those years Richelieu might awake any morning to find Gaston—King.

In 1626, Gaston, with the Duke of Vendôme, half-brother of the King, the Duchess of Chevreuse, confidential friend of the Queen, the Count of Soissons, the Count of Chalais, and the Marshal Ornano, formed a conspiracy after the old fashion. Richelieu had his hand at their lofty throats in a moment. Gaston, who was used only as a makeweight, he forced into the most humble apologies and the most binding pledges; Ornano he sent to die in the Bastille; the Duke of Vendôme and the Duchess of Chevreuse he banished; Chalais he sent to the scaffold.

The next year he gave the grandees another lesson. The serf-owning spirit had fostered in France, through many years, a rage for duelling. Richelieu determined that this should stop. He gave notice that the law against duelling was revived, and that he would enforce it. It was soon broken by two of the loftiest nobles in France,—by the Count of Bouteville-Montmorency and the Count des Chapelles. They laughed at the law: they fought defiantly in broad daylight. Nobody dreamed that the law would be carried out against them. The Cardinal would, they thought, deal with them as rulers have dealt with serf-mastering law-breakers from those days to these,—invent some quibble and screen them with it. But his method was sharper and shorter. He seized both, and executed both on the Place de Greve,—the place of execution for the vilest malefactors.

No doubt, that, under the present domineering of the pettifogger caste, there are hosts of men whose minds run in such small old grooves that they hold legal forms not a means, but an end: these will cry out against this proceeding as tyrannical. No doubt, too, that, under the present palaver of the "sensationist" caste, the old ladies of both sexes have come to regard crime as mere misfortune: these will lament this proceeding as cruel. But, for this act, if for no other, an earnest man's heart ought in these times to warm toward the great statesman. The man had a spine. To his mind crime was cot mere misfortune: crime was CRIME. Crime was strong; it would pay him well to screen it; it might cost him dear to fight it. But he was not a modern "smart" lawyer, to seek popularity by screening criminals,—nor a modern soft juryman, to suffer his eyes to be blinded by quirks and quibbles to the great purposes of law,—nor a modern bland governor, who lets a murderer loose out of politeness to the murderer's mistress. He hated crime; he whipped the criminal; no petty forms and no petty men of forms could stand between him and a rascal. He had the sense to see that this course was not cruel, but merciful. See that for yourselves. In the eighteen years before Richelieu's administration, four thousand men perished in duels; in the ten years after Richelieu's death, nearly a thousand thus perished; but during his whole administration, duelling was checked completely. Which policy was tyrannical? which policy was cruel?

The hatred of the serf-mastering caste toward their new ruler grew blacker and blacker; but he never flinched. The two brothers Marillac, proud of birth, high in office, endeavored to stir revolt as in their good days of old. The first, who was Keeper of the Seals, Richelieu threw into prison; with the second, who was a Marshal of France, Richelieu took another course. For this Marshal had added to revolt things more vile and more insidiously hurtful: he had defrauded the Government in army-contracts. Richelieu tore him from his army and put him on trial. The Queen-Mother, whose pet he was, insisted on his liberation. Marillac himself blubbered, that it "was all about a little straw and hay, a matter for which a master would not whip a lackey." Marshal Marillac was executed. So, when statesmen rule, fare all who take advantage of the agonies of a nation to pilfer a nation's treasure.

To crown all, the Queen-Mother began now to plot against Richelieu, because he would not be her puppet,—and he banished her from France forever.

The high nobles were now exasperate. Gaston tied the country, first issuing against Richelieu a threatening manifesto. Now awoke the Duke of Montmorency. By birth he stood next the King's family: by office, as Constable of France, he stood next the King himself. Montmorency was defeated and taken. The nobles supplicated for him lustily: they looked on crimes of nobles resulting in deaths of plebeians as lightly as the English House of Lords afterward looked on Lord Mohun's murder of Will Mountfort, or as another body of lords looked on Matt Ward's murder of Professor Butler: but Montmorency was executed. Says Richelieu, in his Memoirs, "Many murmured at this act, and called it severe; but others, more wise, praised the justice of the King, who preferred the good of the State to the vain reputation of a hurtful clemency."

Nor did the great minister grow indolent as he grew old. The Duke of Epernon, who seems to have had more direct power of the old feudal sort than any other man in France, and who had been so turbulent under the Regency,—him Richelieu humbled completely. The Duke of La Valette disobeyed orders in the army, and he was executed as a common soldier would have been for the same offence. The Count of Soissons tried to see if he could not revive the good old turbulent times, and raised a rebel army; but Richelieu hunted him down like a wild beast. Then certain Court nobles,—pets of the King,—Cinq-Mars and De Thou, wove a new plot, and, to strengthen it, made a secret treaty with Spain; but the Cardinal, though dying, obtained a copy of the treaty, through his agent, and the traitors expiated their treason with their blood.

But this was not all. The Parliament of Paris,—a court of justice,—filled with the idea that law is not a means, but an end, tried to interpose forms between the Master of France and the vermin he was exterminating. That Parisian court might, years before, have done something. They might have insisted that petty quibbles set forth by the lawyers of Paris should not defeat the eternal laws of retribution set forth by the Lawgiver of the Universe. That they had not done, and the time for legal forms had gone by. The Paris Parliament would not see this, and Richelieu crushed the Parliament. Then the Court of Aids refused to grant supplies, and he crushed that court. In all this the nation braced him. Woe to the courts of a nation, when they have forced the great body of plain men to regard legality as injustice!—woe to the councils of a nation, when they have forced the great body of plain men to regard legislation as traffic!—woe, thrice repeated, to gentlemen of the small pettifogger sort, when they have brought such times, and God has brought a man to fit them!

There was now in France no man who could stand against the statesman's purpose.

And so, having hewn, through all that anarchy and bigotry and selfishness, a way for the people, he called them to the work. In 1626 he summoned an assembly to carry out reforms. It was essentially a people's assembly. That anarchical States-General, domineered by great nobles, he would not call; but he called an Assembly of Notables. In this was not one prince or duke, and two-thirds of the members came directly from the people. Into this body he thrust some of his own energy. Measures were taken for the creation of a navy. An idea was now carried into effect which many suppose to have sprung from the French Revolution; for the army was made more effective by opening its high grades to the commons.[A] A reform was also made in taxation, and shrewd measures were taken to spread commerce and industry by calling the nobility into them.

[Footnote A: See the ordonnances in Thierry, Histoire du Tiers Etat.]

Thus did France, under his guidance, secure order and progress. Calmly he destroyed all useless feudal castles which had so long overawed the people and defied the monarchy. He abolished also the military titles of Grand Admiral and High Constable, which had hitherto given the army and navy into the hands of leading noble families. He destroyed some troublesome remnants of feudal courts, and created royal courts: in one year that of Poitiers alone punished for exactions and violence against the people more than two hundred nobles. Greatest step of all, he deposed the hereditary noble governors, and placed in their stead governors taken from the people,—Intendants,—responsible to the central authority alone.[B]

[Footnote B: For the best sketch of this see Caillet, L'Administration sous Richelieu.]

We are brought now to the third great object of Richelieu's policy. He saw from the beginning that Austria and her satellite Spain must be humbled, if France was to take her rightful place in Europe.

Hardly, then, had he entered the council, when he negotiated a marriage of the King's sister with the son of James I. of England; next he signed an alliance with Holland; next he sent ten thousand soldiers to drive the troops of the Pope and Spain out of the Valtelline district of the Alps, and thus secured an alliance with the Swiss. We are to note here the fact which Buckle wields so well, that, though Richelieu was a Cardinal of the Roman Church, all these alliances were with Protestant powers against Catholic.[C] Austria and Spain intrigued against him,—sowing money in the mountain-districts of South France which brought forth those crops of armed men who defended La Rochelle. But he beat them at their own game. He set loose Count Mansfyld, who revived the Thirty Tears' War by raising a rebellion in Bohemia; and when one great man, Wallenstein, stood between Austria and ruin, Richelieu sent his monkish diplomatist, Father Joseph, to the German Assembly of Electors, and persuaded them to dismiss Wallenstein and to disgrace him.

[Footnote C: History of Civilisation in England, Vol. I. Chap. VIII.]

But the great Frenchman's master-stroke was his treaty with Gustavus Adolphus. With that keen glance of his, he saw and knew Gustavus while yet the world knew him not,—while he was battling afar off in the wilds of Poland. Richelieu's plan was formed at once. He brought about a treaty between Gustavus and Poland; then he filled Gustavus's mind with pictures of the wrongs inflicted by Austria on German Protestants, hinted to him probably of a new realm, filled his treasury, and finally hurled against Austria the man who destroyed Tilly, who conquered Wallenstein, who annihilated Austrian supremacy at the Battle of Lüizen, who, though in his grave, wrenched Protestant rights from Austria at the Treaty of Westphalia, who pierced the Austrian monarchy with the most terrible sorrows it ever saw before the time of Napoleon.

To the main objects of Richelieu's policy already given might be added two subordinate objects.

The first of these was a healthful extension of French territory. In this Richelieu planned better than the first Napoleon; for, while he did much to carry France out to her natural boundaries, he kept her always within them. On the South he added Roussillon, on the East, Alsace, on the Northeast, Artois.

The second subordinate object of his policy sometimes flashed forth brilliantly. He was determined that England should never again interfere on French soil. We have seen him driving the English from La Rochelle and from the Isle of Rhé; but he went farther. In 1628, on making some proposals to England, he was repulsed with English haughtiness. "They shall know," said the Cardinal, "that they cannot despise me." Straightway one sees protests and revolts of the Presbyterians of Scotland, and Richelieu's agents in the thickest of them.

And now what was Richelieu's statesmanship in its sum?

I. In the Political Progress of France, his work has already been sketched as building monarchy and breaking anarchy.

Therefore have men said that he swept away old French liberties. What old liberties? Richelieu but tore away the decaying, poisonous husks and rinds which hindered French liberties from their chance at life and growth.

Therefore, also, have men said that Richelieu built up absolutism. The charge is true and welcome. For, evidently, absolutism was the only force, in that age, which could destroy the serf-mastering caste. Many a Polish patriot, as he to-day wanders through the Polish villages, groans that absolutism was not built to crush that serf-owning aristocracy which has been the real architect of Poland's ruin. Any one who reads to much purpose in De Mably, or Guizot, or Henri Martin, knows that this part of Richelieu's statesmanship was but a masterful continuation of all great French statesmanship since the twelfth-century league of king and commons against nobles, and that Richelieu stood in the heirship of all great French statesmen since Suger. That part of Richelieu's work, then, was evidently bedded in the great line of Divine Purpose running through that age and through all ages.

II. In the Internal Development of France, Richelieu proved himself a true builder. The founding of the French Academy and of the Jardin des Plantes, the building of the College of Plessis, and the rebuilding of the College of the Sorbonne, are among the monuments of this part of his statesmanship. His, also, is much of that praise usually lavished on Louis XIV. for the career opened in the seventeenth century to science, literature, and art. He was also a reformer, and his zeal was proved, when, in the fiercest of the La Rochelle struggle, he found time to institute great reforms not only in the army and navy, but even in the monasteries.

III. On the General Progress of Europe, his work must be judged as mainly for good. Austria was the chief barrier to European progress, and that barrier he broke. But a far greater impulse to the general progress of Europe was given by the idea of Toleration which he thrust into the methods of European statesmen. He, first of all statesmen in France, saw, that, in French policy, to use his own words, "A Protestant Frenchman is better than a Catholic Spaniard"; and he, first of all statesmen in Europe, saw, that, in European policy, patriotism, must outweigh bigotry.

IV. His Faults in Method were many. His under-estimate of the sacredness of human life was one; but that was the fault of his age. His frequent working by intrigue was another; but that also was a vile method accepted by his age. The fair questions, then, are,—Did he not commit the fewest and smallest wrongs possible in beating back those many and great wrongs? Wrong has often a quick, spasmodic force; but was there not in his arm a steady growing force, which could only be a force of right?

V. His Faults in Policy crystallized about one: for, while he subdued the serf-mastering nobility, he struck no final blow at the serf-system itself.

Our running readers of French history need here a word of caution. They follow De Tocqueville, and De Tocqueville follows Biot in speaking of the serf-system as abolished in most of France hundreds of years before this. But Biot and De Tocqueville take for granted a knowledge in their readers that the essential vileness of the system, and even many of its most shocking outward features, remained.

Richelieu might have crushed the serf-system, really, as easily as Louis
X. and Philip the Long had crushed it nominally. This Richelieu did not.

And the consequences of this great man's great fault were terrible. Hardly was he in his grave, when the nobles perverted the effort of the Paris Parliament for advance in liberty, and took the lead in the fearful revolts and massacres of the Fronde. Then came Richelieu's pupil, Mazarin, who tricked the nobles into order, and Mazarin's pupil, Louis XIV., who bribed them into order. But a nobility borne on high by the labor of a servile class must despise labor; so there came those weary years of indolent gambling and debauchery and "serf-eating" at Versailles.

Then came Louis XV., who was too feeble to maintain even the poor decent restraints imposed by Louis XIV.; so the serf-mastering caste became active in a new way, and their leaders in vileness unutterable became at last Fronsac and De Sade.

Then came "the deluge." The spirit of the serf-mastering caste, as left by Richelieu, was a main cause of the miseries which brought on the French Revolution. When the Third Estate brought up their "portfolio of grievances," for one complaint against the exactions of the monarchy there were fifty complaints against the exactions of the nobility.[D]

[Footnote D: See any Résumé des Cahiers,—even the meagre ones in
Buchez and Roux, or Le Bas, or Chéruel.]

Then came the failure of the Revolution in its direct purpose; and of this failure the serf-mastering caste was a main cause. For this caste, hardened by ages of domineering over a servile class, despite fourth of August renunciations, would not, could not, accept a position compatible with freedom and order: so earnest men were maddened, and sought to tear out this cancerous mass, with all its burning roots.

But for Richelieu's great fault there is an excuse. His mind was saturated with ideas of the impossibility of inducing freed peasants to work,—the impossibility of making them citizens,—the impossibility, in short, of making them men. To his view was not unrolled the rich newer world-history, to show that a working class is most dangerous when restricted,—that oppression is more dangerous to the oppressor than to the oppressed,—that, if man will hew out paths to liberty, God will hew out paths to prosperity. But Richelieu's fault teaches the world not less than his virtues.

At last, on the third of December, 1642, the great statesman lay upon his death-bed. The death-hour is a great revealer of motives, and as with weaker men, so with Richelieu. Light then shot over the secret of his whole life's plan and work.

He was told that he must die: he received the words with calmness. As the Host, which he believed the veritable body of the Crucified, was brought him, he said, "Behold my Judge before whom I must shortly appear! I pray Him to condemn me, if I have ever had any other motive than the cause of religion and my country." The confessor asked him if he pardoned his enemies: he answered, "I have none but those of the State."

So passed from earth this strong man. Keen he was in sight, steady in aim, strong in act. A true man,—not "non-committal," but wedded to a great policy in the sight of all men: seen by earnest men of all times to have marshalled against riot and bigotry and unreason divine forces and purposes; seen by earnest men of these times to have taught the true method of grasping desperate revolt, and of strangling that worst foe of liberty and order in every age,—a serf-owning aristocracy.