Political Women, Vol. 1

by active 1840-1883 Sutherland Menzies

But how did the Queen gain over Condé, and what part did Madame de Longueville play in the affair? That is certainly what neither De Retz could know, who was only aware of what passed in parliament, in the Palais d’Orléans, and the Hôtel de Chevreuse; nor the Duchess de Nemours and Madame de Motteville, who were not in the confidence of the Hôtel de Condé: they could only repeat hereupon what they had heard said in the Court circle, and they must be considered solely as the echoes of reports which it suited the Queen to spread. That is so probable that the one and the other, differing so widely as they did both in intention and feeling, tell exactly the same tale. Madame de Motteville states positively that Madame de Longueville, as soon as she returned from Stenay, advised Condé to break with the Chevreuses, and that La Rochefoucauld supported her in such design; and these are the motives which she attributes to her:—“Madame de Longueville, who had been long jealous of the beauty and graces of Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, could little bear to contemplate the probability of her being raised to a rank even more elevated than her own, and still less, that she should obtain the great influence which such a person was likely to acquire over both her princely brothers. She had, therefore, exerted all her influence over Condé, and with him had been quite successful. But Conti was still in the height of his passion for the beautiful and fascinating girl who had been promised to him during his imprisonment; he supped every evening at the Hôtel de Chevreuse, and his affections, as well as his honour, were fully engaged.” The Duchess de Nemours says the same thing in the same terms.

Confidant and adviser of Madame de Longueville and of Condé, La Rochefoucauld alone knew the whole truth, and could have told it to posterity; but it was not to tell the truth that his memoirs were penned, only too frequently to conceal it, to set in strong relief that which had been well done, and slur over that which had been badly done, or to cast the blame of it upon others. Attentive to the study of his part, and to never accept a bad one, La Rochefoucauld says truly that the Frondeurs, eagerly pressing forwards the marriage of the Prince de Conti with Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, and seeing it retarded, “suspected Madame de Longueville and the Duke de la Rochefoucauld of a design to break it off, for fear that the Prince de Conti should escape from their hands only to fall into those of Madame de Chevreuse and of the Coadjutor;” but he endeavours to give a reason for these suspicions, and to inform us whether they were well or ill founded. Instead of defending himself, and Madame de Longueville, he accuses Condé of having “adroitly increased the suspicions of the Frondeurs against his sister and La Rochefoucauld, firmly believing that so long as they held that belief, they would never discover the true cause of the postponement of the marriage.” And what was that true cause? Here it is, according to La Rochefoucauld: it was that the Prince de Condé “not having as yet either concluded or broken off his treaty with the Queen, and having been informed that the keeper of the seals—Châteauneuf—was about to be dismissed, wished to await that event to conclude the marriage, if Cardinal Mazarin were ruined by M. de Châteauneuf, or to break it off and make through that his court to the Queen, should M. de Châteauneuf be driven away by the Cardinal.”

This interpretation of Condé’s conduct does not do him great honour, but it is a very probable one. In the first place, if La Rochefoucauld knew how to glide so cleverly over all the ticklish points in which he could not appear to advantage, he did not, strictly speaking, tell lies; he retires rather than attacks, unless hurried away by passion, and he was never in a passion with Condé. And, further, the conduct which he attributes to Condé springs quite naturally out of the false position in which Condé had, by degrees, suffered himself to be placed.

Altogether, we are persuaded that Condé was then sincere. His sole error, and it is that which marked his entire conduct during the Fronde, was the not having had, either on this occasion or any other, a fixed and unalterable object. On the 13th of April the Queen took the seals from Madame de Chevreuse’s friend, Châteauneuf, the representative of the Fronde in the Cabinet, to give them to the gravest person of his time, the first president, Mathieu Molé, a worthy servant of the State, very little friendly to the Fronde, and who then was sufficiently favourable towards the Prince de Condé. That same day she recalled to the Council as Secretary of State the Count de Chavigny, who had been formerly minister for Foreign Affairs under Richelieu. Formed in the school of the great Cardinal, as well as Mazarin, ousted from place, crafty and resolute, feeling himself capable of bearing the weight of a ministry, Chavigny had beheld with a sufficiently ominous countenance, after the death of their common master, the sudden elevation of a colleague who had even begun by being his dependent. Since 1643, vanity had turned him aside from the high road of ambition, and he had entangled himself in the brakes of very complicated intrigues. In 1651, he passed as the friend of Condé. It was then only, if we can believe La Rochefoucauld, that Condé declared himself opposed to the marriage of his youthful brother with Mademoiselle de Chevreuse; and it was time that he opposed it, for that marriage was on the eve of accomplishment. Conti gave proof of the most ardent passion for Mademoiselle de Chevreuse; he paid her a thousand attentions which he hid from his friends, and particularly from his sister, for whom he ever professed to entertain an undivided adoration. He held long conferences with the Marquis de Laigues and other intimate friends of Mademoiselle de Chevreuse; it was even feared lest he should marry her without the necessary dispensations and without the participation of the head of his family. Condé, therefore, decided to act at once, and the reputation of the fair lady afforded him a means of attack which he employed with success upon his brother. He seems to have had no great difficulty in attaining his object. The Prince de Conti soon received proof that she was not by any means so immaculate as he had believed: her scarcely doubtful connection with the Coadjutor was placed in its true light, and, convinced that the object of his passion was unworthy the love of a man of honour, he began to look upon her with horror. He even blamed Madame de Longueville and the Duke de la Rochefoucauld for not having warned him sooner of what was said of her in society. From that moment means of breaking off the affair without acrimony were sought; but the interests involved were too great, and the circumstances too piquant not to renew and augment still more the old hatred of Madame de Chevreuse and the Frondeurs against the Prince de Condé, and against those whom they suspected of taking part in that which had just been done.[65]

This testimony would justify Madame de Longueville and La Rochefoucauld himself for having urged Condé upon that disloyal and impolitic rupture, if one could believe it to be entirely sincere; but it is very difficult to admit that Madame de Longueville and her all-powerful adviser could have remained strangers to a determination so important, and there are many doubts and obscurities resting upon this delicate point. De Retz, whose introspect was so penetrating, and who does not pride himself on any great reserve in his judgments, knew not what opinion to form—Condé, Madame de Longueville, and La Rochefoucauld having afterwards assured him that they had had nothing to do with the rupture of the marriage.

But whose soever was the hand that broke off the projected alliance of the Condés with Madame de Chevreuse, it is beyond doubt that that had lost Condé and saved Mazarin. All the errors which followed were derived from that cardinal one. In it must be discerned the first link of that chain of disastrous events which ended by dragging Condé into civil war.

The resentment of Madame de Chevreuse may well be imagined, when she discovered that she had been tricked, that she had separated herself from Mazarin and the Queen, and had drawn Condé out of prison only to receive in exchange such an unpardonable outrage! Already, even a short time before, when the Queen ousted Châteauneuf without consulting the Duke d’Orleans, the wrath of the Frondeurs had been such, that at a council held at the Palais d’Orleans of the whole party, it was proposed to go, on the part of the lieutenant-general, and demand back the seals from Mathieu Molé. The most violent expedients were suggested, and some among the more hot-headed spoke of seizing their arms and descending into the streets. Condé, who had not yet entirely broken with the Frondeurs, and was present at this council with a few of his friends, threw cold water upon every proposal that was made, and energetically opposed the appeal to arms, declaring that he did not understand waging “a war of paving-stones and pots de chambre,” and that he felt himself too much of a coward for such a campaign as that.

After some time passed in sharp discussion, the Duke retired into the apartments of his wife with De Retz, and there a brief consultation ensued, in which the Duchess d’Orleans, Madame de Chevreuse, and the Coadjutor endeavoured to persuade him to arrest the leaders of the opposite party, and rouse the people to insurrection. The Duke d’Orleans was in some degree moved; Condé, Conti, and the Duke de Beaufort and others, had retired into the library, and Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, springing towards the door, exclaimed, “Nothing is wanting but a turn of the key! It would be a fine thing indeed for a girl to arrest a winner of battles!”

The impetuosity of Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, however, alarmed the timid Duke d’Orleans. Had he been brought to it by degrees, he might have consented to the act; but her movement towards the door startled him, and he began to whistle,—which, as De Retz observes, was never a good sign. Then declaring that he would consider of the matter till the next morning, he walked quietly into the library, and suffered the guests to depart in peace whom he had been so sorely tempted to make prisoners.

At the same time in the parliament all the violent measures taken against Mazarin were renewed: he was banished and rebanished, with confiscation of his possessions, and even his books and pictures were ordered to be sold. A decree had already been passed declaring all foreign cardinals incapable of serving in France, and of entering into the ministry. They did not stop there, and certain councillors who were not in the secrets of the party, and obeying only their passion, proposed to exclude from the ministry even the French cardinals as being still too dependent upon Rome. This sweeping motion was carried amid loud cheers, which resounded through all parts of the hall. Whereupon Condé laughingly remarked: “There’s a fine echo.” That same echo was the ruin of De Retz’s hopes, who only so passionately desired to become a cardinal in order to succeed to Mazarin. Shortly afterwards the division between Condé and the Old Fronde was declared, and Condé applied himself to form an intermediate party, a new Fronde, which became sufficiently powerful to disquiet Madame de Chevreuse and the Coadjutor.[66] “Imagine,” says the latter, “what the royal authority purged of Mazarinism would have been, and the party of the Prince de Condé purged of faction! More than all, what surety was there in M. the Duke d’Orleans!”