CHAPTER IV.
THE CONSPIRACY OF THE DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE AND THE DUKE DE BEAUFORT TO GET RID OF MAZARIN.
One need not be greatly astonished at such an enterprise on the part of two women of high rank and a grandson of Henry the Great. At that stirring epoch of French history—the interval between the League and the Fronde—energy and strength were the distinctive traits of the French aristocracy. Neither court life nor a corrupting opulence had yet enervated it. Everything was then in extremes, in vice as in virtue. Men attacked and defended one another with the same weapons. The Marshal d’Ancre had been massacred; more than one attempt had been made to assassinate Richelieu; whilst he, on his side, had not been backward in having recourse to the sword and block. Corneille paints faithfully the spirit of the epoch. His Emilie is also involved in an assassination, and she is not the less represented as a perfect heroine. Madame de Chevreuse had long been accustomed to conspiracies; she was bold and unscrupulous. She did not gather round her such men as Beaupuis, Saint-Ybar, De Varicarville, and de Campion merely to pass the time in idle conversation. She had not remained a stranger to the designs they had formerly concocted against Richelieu, for in 1643 she fomented, as we have seen, their exaltation and their devotedness; and it was not unreasonable, certainly, that Mazarin should attribute to her the first idea of the project which Beaufort was to accomplish.
At the same time it must be remembered that the Importants and their successors the Frondeurs denied this project and declared it the invention of the Cardinal. It is a point of the highest historical importance and deserves serious examination, as upon this conspiracy, real or imaginary, as may be determined after careful investigation, rests the fact whether Mazarin owed in reality all his career and the great future which then opened before him to a falsehood cunningly invented and audaciously sustained; or whether Madame de Chevreuse and the Importants, after having tried their utmost against him, now resolving to destroy him with the armed hand, were themselves destroyed and became the instruments of his triumph. The evidence available irresistibly leads to the latter conclusion, and we think that we shall be able to show that the plot attributed to the Importants, far from being a chimæra, was the almost inevitable solution of the violent crisis just described.
La Rochefoucauld, without having indulged in the insane hopes of his friends and lent his hand to their rash enterprise, made it a point of honour to defend them after their discomfiture, and set himself to cover the retreat. He affects to doubt whether the plot which then made so much noise was real or supposititious. In his eyes, the greater probability was that the Duke de Beaufort, by a false finesse, endeavoured to excite alarm in the Cardinal, believing that it was sufficient to strike terror into his mind to force him to quit France, and that it was with this view that he held secret meetings and gave them the appearance of conspiracy. La Rochefoucauld constitutes himself especially the champion of Madame de Chevreuse’s innocence, and declares himself thoroughly persuaded that she was ignorant of Beaufort’s designs.
After the historian of the Importants, that of the Frondeurs holds very nearly the same arguments. Like La Rochefoucauld, De Retz has only one object in his Memoirs—that of investing himself with a semblance of capacity and making a great figure in every way, in evil as well as good. He is often more truthful, because he cares less about other people, and that he is disposed to sacrifice all the world except himself. In this matter it is hard to conceive the motive for his reserve and incredulity. He knew right well that the majority of the persons accused of having taken part in the plot had already been implicated in more than one such business. He himself tells us that he had conspired with the Count de Soissons, that he had blamed him for not having struck down Richelieu at Amiens, and that with La Rochepot, he, the Abbé de Retz, had formed the design of assassinating him at the Tuileries during the ceremony of the baptism of Mademoiselle (de Montpensier). The Co-adjutorship of the Archbishopric of Paris, which the Regent had just granted him, in consideration of his own services and the virtues of his father, had mollified him, it is true; but his old accomplices, who had not been so well treated as he, had remained faithful to their cause, to their designs, to their habitudes. Was De Retz then sincere when he refused to believe that they had attempted against Mazarin that which he had seen them undertake, and which he had himself undertaken against Richelieu? In his blind hatred he throws everything upon Mazarin: he pretends that he was terrified, or that he feigned terror. It was the Abbé de la Rivière, he tells us, who, in order to rid himself of the rivalry of the Count de Montrésor in the Duke d’Orleans’ favour, must have persuaded Mazarin that there was a plot set on foot against him, in which Montrésor was mixed up. It was the Prince de Condé also who must have tried to destroy Beaufort through fear lest his son, the Duke d’Enghien, might engage with him in some duel, as he wished to do, to avenge his sister, during the short visit he made to Paris after taking Thionville.
To the suspicious opinions of de Retz and La Rochefoucauld let us oppose testimony more disinterested, and before all other the silence of Montrésor,[30] who, whilst protesting that neither he nor his friend the Count de Béthune had meddled with the conspiracy imputed to the Duke de Beaufort, says not a single word against the reality of that conspiracy, which he would not have failed to ridicule had he believed it imaginary. Madame de Motteville, who was not in the habit of overwhelming the unfortunate, after having reported with impartiality the different rumours circulated at Court, relates certain facts which appear to her authentic, and which are decisive.[31] One of the best informed and most truthful of contemporary historians expresses not the slightest doubt on this head. “The Importants,” says Monglat, “seeing that they could not drive the Cardinal out of France, resolved to despatch him with their daggers, and held several councils on this subject at the Hôtel de Vendôme.” That opinion is confirmed by new and numerous particulars with which Mazarin’s carnets and confidential letters furnish us.
The person whom Mazarin signalizes in his carnets and letters as the trusted friend of Beaufort and after him the principal accused, the Count de Beaupuis, son of the Count de Maillé, had found means of sheltering himself from the minister’s first searches; he had succeeded in escaping from France and sought an asylum at Rome under the avowed protection of Spain. Mazarin left no stone unturned to obtain from the Court of Rome the extradition of Beaupuis, in order that he might be legally tried. The Pope at first could not refuse, at least for form’s sake, to have Beaupuis committed to the Castle of St. Angelo. But he was soon liberated, and provided with a State lodging wherein he was allowed to see nearly every one who came. Mazarin complained loudly of such indulgence. “It is all arranged,” said he, “that when necessary he may escape, or at any rate the Duke de Vendôme is furnished with every facility for poisoning him, in order that with Beaupuis may perish the principal proof of his son’s treason. If all this happened in Barbary, people would be highly indignant. And this is suffered to take place in Rome, in the capital of Christianity, under the eyes and by the orders of a Pope!”