CHAPTER VI.
THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE COUP D’ÉTAT—THE ARREST OF THE PRINCES.
In the first scenes of the shifting drama, the Court had supported Condé in compassing the destruction of the Frondeurs; and Mazarin, with keen policy, instigated the Prince to every act that could widen the breach between him and the faction. Whichever succeeded, the party that succumbed would be inimical to the Minister; and in their divisions was his strength. But the pride and impetuosity of Condé were about this time excited to such a degree by opposition and irritation, that it approached to frenzy, and, unable to overpower at once the leaders of the Fronde, the vehemence of his nature spent itself upon those who were in reality supporting him. He still scoffed at, and openly insulted, Mazarin; he accused the Government of not giving him sincere assistance against the Fronde. He every day made enemies amongst the nobility by his overbearing conduct and his rash, and often illegal, acts; and at length the disgust and indignation of the whole Court was roused to put a stop to a tyranny which could no longer be borne.
Anne of Austria long hesitated as to what she should do to deliver herself from the domination of a man whom she feared without loving: but at length an aggravated insult to herself, and the counsels of a woman of a bold and daring character, removed her irresolution. The Duchess de Chevreuse had been exiled from France, as we have seen, during the greater part of that period in which Condé had principally distinguished himself, and she did not share in the awe in which the Parisians held him. She still kept up what De Retz calls an incomprehensible union with the Queen, notwithstanding all her intrigues; nor did she scruple to hold out to Anne of Austria a direct prospect of gaining the support of the Fronde itself in favour of her Government, if that Government would aid in avenging the Fronde upon the Prince de Condé.
Anne of Austria was unwilling to take a step which appeared to border upon ingratitude, although the late conduct of the Prince might well be supposed to cancel the obligation of his former services. It seems here necessary to say a few words upon the connection of a series of sudden political changes, in order that the reader may understand how such startling results as those we are about to narrate were brought about.
The hollow treaty of peace of the 11th March, 1649, had scarcely been signed ere the Prince de Condé showed himself day by day more strongly attached to the faction which opposed the Court. Feeling his own importance, determined to rule; quick, harsh, and impetuous in his manners, he took a pleasure in insulting the Minister and embarrassing the Queen. There were some personal grounds for this in the strong dislike manifested towards his sister by Anne of Austria. That feeling was signally shown on the occasion of Louis XIV. completing his eleventh year; when a grand ball was given at the Hôtel de Ville, at which the young King, with all the principal members of the royal family and the Court, were present. The Queen’s orders were received with regard to all the arrangements, every person of distinction being invited by her command, except the Duchess de Longueville. That princess, influenced by discontent, it is supposed, at the reception of the royal family in Paris, had remained at Chantilly, on the pretence of drinking some mineral waters in the neighbourhood. The Queen seized the same pretext not to invite her, replying to those who pressed her to do so, that she would not withdraw her from the pursuit of health; but at length the Prince de Condé himself, demanded that she should receive a summons; and his support was of too much consequence, and the bonds which attached him to the Court too slight, for the Queen to trifle with his request.
To the surprise and dissatisfaction of most persons, however, Anne of Austria commanded that the ball should take place in daylight; acknowledging, in her own immediate circle, that it was in order to mortify the ladies attached to the Fronde, the principal part of whom employed methods of enhancing their beauty and heightening their complexion to which the searching eye of day was very inimical. Human malice, of course, took care that the Queen’s motive should be communicated to all the higher circles of Paris; and as vanity is not only a more pugnacious passion, but a much more pertinacious adversary than any other, the words of Anne of Austria rendered many opponents irreconcilable, who might otherwise have been gained to her cause: the family of the Prince de Condé naturally being among the number.
France was then able to count the cost of having created a hero—expendere Hannibalem—a prince à la Corneille, who carried his gaze to the stars, and only spoke to mortals from the summit of his trophies. His sister, Madame de Longueville, had also in the same fashion soared into the sphere of a goddess. The one and the other, in the empyrean, no longer distinguished their fellow mortals from such a height save with a smile of disdain. Great folks, as a contemporary tells us, kicked their heels in their antechambers for hours, and, when granted an audience, were received with yawning and gaping.
The reconciliation effected during the preceding year was rather, as has been said, a truce between the parties than a solid peace. The Parliament had retained the right of assembling and deliberating upon affairs of state, which the Court had sought to prevent: and Mazarin remained Minister, although the Parliament, the people, and even the princes, had desired that he should cease to hold that office. It rarely happens to states in like unfortunate emergencies that among the men who show themselves most active and skilful in overthrowing a government there are found those capable of conducting one; and when such do appear, the chances almost always are that circumstances hinder them from placing themselves in the front rank. It was to Gaston, the King’s uncle, Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, that belonged, in concert with the Regent, the chief direction of affairs; but Gaston felt himself too weak and too incapable to pretend to charge himself with such a burden. He could never arrive at any decision, and took offence when any matter was decided without him. Jealous of Mazarin’s influence, more jealous still of that of Condé, neither of the two could attempt to govern along with him; and nevertheless Gaston was powerful enough to command a party, and to hinder any one from governing without him: ready to offer opposition to everything, but impotent to carry anything into execution. If Anne of Austria had even consented to dismiss her favourite Minister, and overcome her repugnance to the Fronde and the Frondeurs, she could not have formed a government with the chiefs of that party. The Duke de Beaufort, its nominal head, lacked both instruction and intelligence. De Retz, its veritable chief—an eloquent, witty, and bold man, skilful in the conduct of business, in the art of making partisans; brave, generous, even loyal when he followed the impulses of his own mind and natural inclination—was without faith, scruple, reticence, or foresight when he abandoned himself to his passions, which urged him unceasingly to the indulgence of an excessive and irrational libertinage. Such a man could not have replaced him who for so long a period had informed himself of the affairs of France under a master such as Richelieu; who, deeply versed in dissimulation, was inaccessible to any sentiment that might possibly derange the calculations of his ambition. Besides, he, as well as Mazarin, would have had the Princes against him, and could not have resisted successfully their numerous partisans. De Retz had, through the ascendancy of his talents, great influence with the Parisian Parliament, but it mistrusted him; and that body, in its heterogeneous composition, offered rather the means for an opposition than strength to the Government. Condé, to whom the state owed its glory, and the Sovereign his safety, was therefore the sole prop upon which Anne of Austria might have rested; but that young hero had no capacity for business. He could not then have filled up the void which Mazarin’s retirement would have created. Condé, whose natural pride was still further exalted by the flattery of the young nobles who formed his train, and who obtained the nickname of petits maîtres, only used the influence which his position gave him to wring from Mazarin the places and good things at his disposal, and of these he and his adherents showed themselves insatiable. Thus, Condé rendered himself formidable and odious to Mazarin, and made himself detested by the people as Mazarin’s supporter, at the same time that by his arrogance he shocked the Parliament, already unfavourably disposed towards him on account of his rapacity and his ambition.[53]