[CHAPTER IV]
THE RISE OF RICHELIEU
Early governors of the Bastile—Frequent changes—Day of Barricades—Conspiracy of Biron—Assassination of Henry IV—Ravaillac—Barbarous sentence—Marie de Medicis left Regent—Story of the Concinis—Rise of Richelieu—Gifts and character—His large employment of the State prisons—Duelling prohibited—The Day of Dupes—Triumph over his enemies—Fall of Marie de Medicis—Maréchal Bassompierre—His prolonged imprisonment.
We may pause a moment at this stage to give some attention to a few of the more prominent governors of the Bastile, appointed by each side in turn during the long conflicts of the opposing parties. Antoine d’Ivyer was the first after the English, as captain under the supreme command of Duke Charles of Bourbon. One Cissey, after fifteen years’ tenure in the Bastile, was succeeded by La Rochette, he by De Melun, he by De Chauvigny, and the last by Phillip Luillier, who enjoyed the confidence of Louis XI and was personally in charge of the bishops and dukes who have been mentioned. He was the last of the royal functionaries, the court officials other than military men who acted as gaolers. Only in the troublous times of the League and later of the Fronde, when the possession of the Bastile meant so much to the existing régime, was the fortress entrusted to the strong hands of soldiers and men of action equal to any emergency. After Luillier the charge was considered equal to a provincial government and those entrusted with it were some of the most considerable persons in the State, constables or ministers who ruled by lieutenant or deputy and kept only the title and dignity of the office. It was long deemed hereditary in certain great families and descended from father to son, as with the Montmorencys. The head of that house, William, in 1504, was succeeded by his son, Anne, a Pluralist, at the same time governor of Paris and captain of the castle of Vincennes. Francis, a marshal of France, son of the last-named, was a third Montmorency governor. Much later the post was held by successive members of the family of Admiral Coligny, and some of the governors were very eminent persons, such as Châteauneuf, the Duc de Luynes, Maréchal Bassompierre and Sully, the celebrated minister of Henry IV, whose memoirs have been widely read and were the inspiration of the English novelist, Stanley Weyman.
The Bastile often changed hands. When Henry of Guise made himself master of Paris after the “Battle,” or “Day of the Barricades,” Laurent Testu was governor or king’s lieutenant of the Bastile; but after the second day’s fighting, when summoned to surrender, he obeyed and opened the gates. The Duc de Guise then gave the governorship to one Bussy-Leclerc, a devoted adherent, but of indifferent character, who had been a procureur of the Parliament and a fencing master. He had a large following of bullies and cut-throats. The prisoners in the Bastile were quite at his mercy and he ruled with a rough, reckless hand, inflicting all manner of cruelties in order to extort money,—squeezing the rich and torturing the poor. After the assassination of Henry of Guise at Blois, he planned reprisals against Henry III and sought to intimidate the Parliament, which would have made submission to the King, by making its members prisoners in the Bastile. Leclerc’s excesses roused Paris against him, and the Duc de Mayenne, now the head of the League, threatened the Bastile. Leclerc, in abject terror, at once surrendered on condition that he might retire from the capital to Brussels with the plunder he had acquired. Dubourg l’Espinasse, a brave, honorable soldier, was appointed to the Bastile by the Duc de Mayenne, in succession to Leclerc and defended it stoutly against Henry of Navarre, now King Henry IV, after the assassination of his predecessor. Dubourg declared that he knew no king of France but the Duc de Mayenne, and on being told that Henry was master of Paris, said, “Good, but I am master of the Bastile!” He at length agreed to yield up the fortress to the Duke, who had entrusted him with the command, and finally marched out with all the honors of war, gaining great credit from the King for his staunch and loyal conduct to his superiors. The text of the capitulation has been preserved and its quaint phraseology may be transcribed. The commandant promised to hand over to the king, “on Sunday at three in the afternoon the said Bastile, its artillery and munitions of war. In return for which the King will permit the garrison to march out with arms, horses, furniture and all belongings. The troops will issue by one gate with drums beating, matches lighted and balls” (for loading).
It is recorded of Henry IV by the historian Maquet, that he was the king who least abused the Bastile. It is due this sovereign to say that the prisoners confined in it during his reign were duly tried and condemned by Parliament and that from his accession the fortress lost its exceptional character and became an ordinary prison. Sully was appointed governor and received a letter of appointment in which the King announced that he relied more than ever upon his loyalty and had decided to make him captain of the Bastile: “so that if I should have any birds to put in the cage and hold tight I can rely upon your foresight, diligence and loyalty.” Few prisoners were committed to the Bastile in this reign, but all imprisoned were notably traitors. Such was Charles, Maréchal de Biron, the restless and unstable subject who conspired more than once against the King, by whom at one time he had been exceedingly favored. Henry IV was greatly attached to Biron. “I never loved anyone as I loved Biron,” he said. “I could have confided my son and my kingdom to him.” For a time Biron served him well, yet he, too, entered into a dangerous conspiracy with the King of Spain, the Duke of Savoy and the King’s disloyal subjects in France.
Henry IV forgave him and paid his debts, which were large, for he was a great gambler and had lost large sums at the tables. Biron was sent to London as ambassador to the English Queen Elizabeth but resumed his evil courses on his return to France and was summoned before the King to answer for them. Henry promised to pardon and forgive him if he would confess his crimes, but Biron was obstinately silent and was committed to the Bastile. He was tried openly before the Parliament and unanimously convicted by one hundred and twenty-seven judges. The sentence was death and he was to be publicly executed on the Place de la Grève, but Henry, dreading the sympathy of the mob and not indisposed to spare his friend the contumely of a public hanging, allowed the execution to take place within the Bastile. Biron, although he had acknowledged his guilt, died protesting against the sentence. He comported himself with little dignity upon the scaffold, resisting the headman and trying to strangle him. Three times he knelt down at the block and three times sprang to his feet; and the fourth time was decapitated with much dexterity by the executioner.
The Comte d’Auvergne, the natural son of Charles IX and Marie Touchet, was an ally of Biron’s and put on his trial at the same time. Their common offense had been to invite invasion by the Spaniards and stir up a revolution throughout France. D’Auvergne was sentenced to death and with him the Comte d’Entragues, who had married Marie Touchet, but neither suffered. D’Auvergne remained in the Bastile for twelve years. He was released in the following reign and made a good appearance at court as the Duc d’Angoulême. Henry IV had been moved to soften the rigors of his imprisonment and wrote to the governor (Sully) saying that as he had heard his nephew d’Auvergne needed change of air, he was to be placed in “the pavilion at the end of the garden of the arsenal which looks upon the water, but to be guarded in any way that seemed necessary for the security of his person.”
Reference must be made to one inmate of the Bastile at this period, the Vicomte de Tavannes, who was opposed to Henry IV as a partisan of the League. He was long held a prisoner but was exchanged for the female relations of the Duc de Longueville; and Tavannes has written in his “memoirs:” “A poor gentleman was thus exchanged against four princesses, one a Bourbon, one of the House of Cleves, and two of that of Orleans.” At the fall of the League, Tavannes acknowledged Henry IV on condition that he should be confirmed in his dignity as a marshal of France. This promise was not kept and he withdrew from his allegiance, saying he was the King’s subject and not his slave. For this he was again committed to the Bastile from which he escaped, according to his own account, with great ease,—“A page brought me some thread and a file; I twisted the cord, filed through a bar and got away.” He was not pursued but was suffered to remain in peace in his own castle of Soilly, near Autun. The King could never tolerate Tavannes. He had been largely concerned in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, of which he is believed to have been the principal instigator and which he is supposed to have suggested to Catherine de Medicis.