Political Women, Vol. 1

by active 1840-1883 Sutherland Menzies

And now what was the actual position of Mazarin on succeeding to power in 1643?

Richelieu had died admired and abhorred. The people, glad to be delivered from so heavy a yoke, obeyed with joy the incipient rule of the Queen-Regent. The courtiers were at first enchanted with a Government that refused nothing asked of it. It appeared, as one of the number said, that there were no more than five little words in the French language: “La reine est si bonne!”[17] The State prisons threw open their gates; the rights of parliaments were respected; the princes of the blood and the great nobles were restored to their governorships. There was for a season one unanimous concert of praise and thanksgiving. But when the princes and parliaments were desirous, as before Richelieu’s rule, of participating in the general direction of the State, and especially in the distribution of place and patronage, great was the surprise of both at finding a steady resistance on the part of the Queen-Regent. To see her manifest a disposition to govern without them was looked upon as something scandalous. Every attempt she made thenceforward to retain a power which they evaded, or to repossess herself of that which she had imprudently suffered to escape from her grasp, seemed to them nothing less than a continuation of the odious system of Richelieu. Their exasperation was increased to the highest degree, therefore, when they beheld her give her entire confidence to a foreigner, to a Cardinal, to a creature of Richelieu. By that triple title Mazarin was equally hateful to the great nobles, the members of parliament, and the middle class. The tyranny of Richelieu had in the end attained to something noble by the high-handed heedlessness of all his acts. If the people were to be trampled on, it was a species of consolation that their oppressor was feared by others as well as themselves. But that the oppression of the doomed French nation was to be continued by a more ignoble hand was altogether intolerable. Frenchmen had begun to ask one another, who was this Mazarin who had come to rule over them? He could not—like Richelieu—boast of his high birth, of descent from a long line of noble ancestors—Frenchmen. Poets and romancers, ye whose imaginations delight to dwell upon sudden downfalls and rapid rises, mark well that little lad at play upon the Sicilian shore near the town of Mazzara! Springing from the lowest of the plebeian class, his family have not even a surname. He is the son of one Pierre, a fisherman, whose humble hut stands yonder beneath the cliff. But a day will come when that lowly-born lad, joining his baptismal name to that of the town which sheltered his cradle, will become Jules de Mazarin, robed in the Roman purple, quartering his shield with the consular fasces of Julius Cæsar, governing France, and through her preparing and influencing the destinies of entire Europe.

It was not, however, by easy steps that Richelieu’s disciple and successor obtained a firm grasp of that plenary power which the master mind of the former had consolidated and long wielded so grandly and terribly. The Queen herself at the commencement of the Regency had not yet renounced her former friendships. During a considerable portion of her married life Anne had impatiently endured the slights and disparagements to which she was so long subjected, both by her husband and his Minister. Through engaging in divers dangerous and unsuccessful enterprises, she had been deprived of all influence, and was a queen only in name. But, a woman and a Spaniard, she had descended to dissimulation, and in that “ugly but necessary virtue”[18] made rapid progress. Up to the time of Richelieu’s death she had played a double game—made partisans in secret, with the object of subverting the Cardinal’s power, whilst feigning the semblance of friendship towards him, and did not scruple to humiliate herself on occasions, in order to carry her point. After that great man’s decease, through rare patience, great caution, and a persistent line of conduct, she ultimately attained that for which she had been willing to make any and every sacrifice—the Regency. During the King’s last illness, the mistrusted Queen and wife had profited by Mazarin’s unhoped-for service, as Prime Minister, in prevailing over the unwillingness of the dying King to appoint her custodian of his son, and Regent during his minority. She regarded this, therefore, as a first and most important service on the part of Mazarin towards her, and for which she felt proportionately grateful. Such was the Cardinal’s first stepping-stone to the good graces of Anne of Austria, and his twofold talent both as a laborious and indefatigable statesman and a consummate courtier, speedily helped to secure for him her entire confidence. The singular personal resemblance he bore to that desperate enamorado of her early womanhood, the brilliant Buckingham, may probably also have served him as a favourable prestige. On her accession to power Anne did not manifest much firmness of character. Naturally indolent, she disliked the drudgery attendant upon business details, and hence continued through convenience the services of a man who, by taking off her hands the wearisome routine of State affairs, allowed her to reign at her ease.

Mazarin, moreover, had never been displeasing to her. He had begun to ingratiate himself during the month preceding the death of Louis XIII.,[19] and she named him Prime Minister about the middle of May—partly through personal liking, but more through political necessity. Far from appearing to resemble the impassive and imperious Richelieu, Anne perhaps might have recalled with agreeable emotion the words of her deceased consort when he first presented Mazarin to her (in 1639 or 1640)—“He will please you, madame, because he bears a striking resemblance to Buckingham.” By degrees the liking increased, and grew sufficiently strong to resist every assault from his enemies. At the same time the Minister to whom the Queen owed so much, instead of dictating to and presuming to govern her, was ever at her feet, and prodigal of that attention, respect, and tenderness to which she had been hitherto a stranger.

It is a delicate matter to investigate with exactitude the means by which Mazarin obtained entire sway over the Queen-Regent, and one which La Rochefoucauld scarcely touches upon; but it is too interesting a point in history to be left in the dark, and thereby to altogether disregard that which first constituted the minister’s strength, and soon afterwards became the centre and key of the situation. After a long season of oppression, regal powers and splendour gilded the hours of Anne of Austria, and her Spanish pride exacted the tribute of respect and homage. Mazarin was prodigal of both. He cast himself at her feet in order to reach her heart. In her heart of hearts she was not the less touched by the grave accusation brought against him that he was a foreigner, for was not she also a foreigner? Perhaps that of itself proved the source of a mysterious attraction to her, and she may have found it a singular pleasure to converse with her Prime Minister in her mother tongue as a compatriot and friend. To all this must be added the mind and manners of Mazarin—supple and insinuating, always master of himself, of an unchangeable serenity amidst the gravest circumstances, full of confidence in his good star, and diffusing that confidence around him. It must also be remembered that Cardinal although he was, Mazarin was not a priest; that imbued with the maxims which formed the code of gallantry of her native land, Anne of Austria had always loved to please the other sex; that she was then forty-one and still beautiful, that her Prime Minister was of the same age, that he was exceedingly well-made and of a most pleasing countenance, in which finesse, was blended with a certain air of greatness. He had readily recognised that without ancestry, establishment, or support in France, and surrounded by rivals and enemies, all his strength centred in the Queen. He applied himself therefore above all things to gain her heart, as Richelieu had tried before him; and as he happily possessed far other means for attaining success in that respect, the handsome and gentle-mannered Cardinal eventually succeeded. Once master of her heart, he easily directed the mind of Anne of Austria, and taught her the difficult art of pursuing ever the same end by the aid of conduct the most diverse, according to the difference of circumstances.

But favourable and indeed gracious as his royal mistress had shown herself towards him personally, and apart from any particular line of policy, at the outset of his premiership Mazarin had nevertheless to contend against a formidable host of enemies; and not the least redoubtable among them might be reckoned that intrepid political heroine the lately-banished Duchess de Chevreuse. No sooner did she again find herself at the side of Anne of Austria than the indefatigable Marie set to work with all her characteristic dash, spirit, and energy to attack Richelieu’s system and its adherents, now directed by Mazarin.

The first point she sought to carry was the return of Châteauneuf to office. “The good sense and long experience of M. de Châteauneuf,” says La Rochefoucauld, “were known to the Queen. He had undergone a rigorous imprisonment for his adhesion to her cause; he was firm, decisive, loved the State, and more capable than anyone else of re-establishing the old form of government which Richelieu had first begun to destroy. Firmly attached to Mdme. de Chevreuse, she knew sufficiently-well how to govern him. She therefore urged his return with much warmth.” Châteauneuf had already obtained as a royal boon that the “rude and miserable condition” of close incarceration under which he had groaned for ten years should be changed for a compulsory residence at one of his country houses. Mdme. de Chevreuse demanded the termination of this mitigated exile, that she might once more behold him free who had endured such extremities for the Queen’s sake and her own. Mazarin saw that he must yield, but only did so tardily, never appearing himself to repulse Châteauneuf, but always alleging the paramount necessity of conciliating the Condé family, and especially the Princess, who, as already said, bore bitter enmity towards him as the judge of her brother, Henri de Montmorency. Châteauneuf was therefore recalled, but with that reservation accorded to the last clause of the King’s will, that he should not appear at Court, but reside at his own house of Montrouge, near Paris, where his friends might visit him.

The next step was to transfer him thence to some ministerial office. Châteauneuf was no longer a young man, but neither his energy nor his ambition had deserted him, and Mdme. de Chevreuse made it a point of honour to reinstate him in the post of Keeper of the Seals, which he had formerly held and lost through her, and which all Queen Anne’s old friends now saw with indignation occupied by one of the most detested of Richelieu’s creatures, Pierre Séguier. This last, however, was a man of capacity—laborious, well-informed and full of resources. To these qualifications he added a remarkable suppleness, which made him very useful and accommodating to a Prime Minister. He moreover had the support of friends who stood high in the Queen’s favour, and was further strengthened by the opposition of the Condés and the Bishop of Beauvais to Châteauneuf. The Duchess perceiving that it was almost impossible to surmount so powerful an opposition, took another way of arriving at the same end. She contented herself with asking for the lowest seat in the cabinet for her friend; well knowing that once installed therein, Châteauneuf would soon manage all the rest and aggrandise his position.

At the same time that she strove to extricate from disgrace the man upon whom rested all her political hopes, Madame de Chevreuse, not daring to attack Mazarin overtly, insensibly undermined the ground beneath his feet, and step by step prepared his ruin. Her experienced eye enabled her promptly to perceive the most favourable point of attack whence to assail the Queen, and the watchword she passed was to fan and keep alive to the utmost the general feeling of reprobation which all the proscribed, on returning to France, had aroused and disseminated against the memory of Richelieu. This feeling was universal—among the great families he had decimated or despoiled;—in the Church, too firmly repressed not to be unmindful of its abasement;—in the Parliament, strictly confined to its judicial functions, and aspiring to break through such narrow limits. The same feeling was still alive in the Queen’s bosom, who could not have forgotten the deep humiliation to which Richelieu had subjected her, and the fate for which he had probably reserved her. These tactics succeeded, and on every side there arose against the late violence and tyranny, and, by a rebound, against the creatures of Richelieu, a storm so furious that Mazarin’s utmost ability was taxed to allay it.

Madame de Chevreuse likewise supplicated Anne of Austria to repair the long-endured misfortunes of the Vendôme princes, by bestowing upon them either the Admiralty, to which an immense power was attached, or the government of Brittany, which the head of the family, Cæsar de Vendôme, had formerly held—deriving it alike from the hand of his father, Henry IV., and as the heritage of his father-in-law, the Duke de Mercœur. This was nothing less than demanding the aggrandisement of an unfriendly house, and at the same time the ruin of two families that had served Richelieu with the utmost devotion, and were best capable of supporting Mazarin. The Minister parried the blow aimed at him by the Duchess by dint of address and patience, never refusing, always eluding, and summoning to his aid his grand ally, as he termed it—Time. Before the return of Madame de Chevreuse he had found himself forced to win over the Vendômes, and to secure them in his interest. On Richelieu’s death he had strenuously contributed to obtain their recall, and had since made them every kind of advance; but he soon perceived that he could not satisfy them without bringing about his own destruction. The Duke Cæsar de Vendôme, son of Henry IV. and The Fair Gabrielle, had early carried his pretensions to a great height, and had shown himself restless and factious as a legitimate prince. He had passed his life in revolts and conspiracies, and in 1641 had been compelled to flee to England through suspicion of being implicated in an attempt to assassinate Richelieu. He did not dare return to France until after the Cardinal’s death; and, as may well be imagined, he came back breathing the direst vengeance. Against the ambition of the Vendômes Mazarin skilfully opposed that of the Condés, who were inimical to the aggrandisement of a house too nearly rivalling their own. But it was very difficult to retain Brittany in the hands of its newly-appointed governor, the Marshal La Meilleraie, in face of the claim of a son of Henry the Great, who had formerly held it, and demanded it back as a sort of heirloom. Mazarin therefore resigned himself to the sacrifice of La Meilleraie, but he lightened it as much as possible. He persuaded the Queen to assume to herself the government of Brittany, and have only a lieutenant-general over it—a post, of course, beneath the dignity of the Vendômes, and which would, therefore, remain in La Meilleraie’s hands. The latter could not take offence at being second in power therein to the Queen; and to arrange everything to the entire satisfaction of a person of such importance, Mazarin solicited for him soon afterwards the title of duke, which the deceased King had, in fact, promised the Marshal, and the reversion of the post of Grand Master of the Artillery for his son—that same son on whom subsequently Mazarin bestowed, with his own name, the hand of his niece, the beautiful Hortense.