The Chevalier de Jars, above mentioned, had been long an inmate of the Bastile, being concerned with the keeper of the seals, Chateauneuf, in a plot to convey Marie de Medicis and the King’s brother, Gaston, to England. No proof was forthcoming as to Jars’s complicity with Chateauneuf, and he was treated with the utmost cruelty in order to extort confession. He was imprisoned in a fetid dungeon till his clothes rotted off his back, his hair and nails grew to a frightful length and he was nearly starved to death. Père Joseph, the Cardinal’s alter ego, the famous “grey eminence,” constantly visited him to make sure that this rigorous treatment was carried out. At length the Chevalier was taken out for examination, to which he was subjected eighty times, and threatened first with torture and then with capital punishment. At last he was warned that he must die and was removed to the place of execution. Pardon, however, was extended to him just as the axe was raised. Still the Chevalier refused to make any revelation. He was taken back to the Bastile, but he was no longer harshly treated. De Jars seems to have won the favor of Charles I, of England, whose queen, Henrietta Maria, wrote to Richelieu begging for the prisoner’s release. This came in 1638, apparently a little after the episode of the clandestine letter described above.
The birth of a son, afterwards Louis XIV, put an end to the worst of these court intrigues. Gaston d’Orleans lost his position as heir presumptive and the King, while still hating Richelieu, trusted him more and more with the conduct of affairs. Fortune smiled upon the French arms abroad. Richelieu had made short work of his principal enemies and he was now practically unassailable. No one could stand against him and the King was simply his servant. Louis XIII would gladly have shaken himself free from his imperious minister’s tyranny, but the King’s health was failing and he could only listen to whispers of the fresh plots which he was too weak to discountenance and forbid. The last of these was the celebrated conspiracy of Cinq Mars, well known in history, but still better known in romantic literature as the subject of the famous novel by Alfred de Vigny, named after the central figure. Richelieu, needing an ally near the King’s person, had selected Henri Cinq Mars, youngest son of the Marquis d’Effiat, a handsome, vain youth who quickly grew into the King’s graces and was much petted and much spoiled. The young Cinq Mars, no more than nineteen, amused the King by sharing his silly pleasures, teaching him to snare magpies and helping him to carve wooden toys. Cinq Mars was appointed master of the horse and was greatly flattered and made much of at court. His head was soon turned and filled with ambitious dreams. He aspired to the hand of the Princess Marie de Gonzague of the house of Nevers and made a formal proposition of himself to Richelieu. The Cardinal laughed contemptuously at his absurd pretensions, and earned in return the bitter hatred of Cinq Mars. The breach was widened by the King’s bad taste in introducing his favorite at a conference of the Privy Council. Richelieu quietly acquiesced but afterwards gave Cinq Mars a bit of his mind, gaining thereby redoubled dislike. From that time forth Cinq Mars was resolved to overthrow the Cardinal. He found ready support from the Duc d’Orleans and the Duc de Bouillon, while the King himself was not deaf to the hints of a speedy release from Richelieu’s thraldom. Only the Queen, Anne of Austria, stood aloof and was once more on friendly terms with the Cardinal. A secret treaty had been entered into with Philip IV of Spain, who was to further the aims of the conspirators by sending troops into France. The two countries were then at war and it was high treason to enter into dealings with Spain. Just when the plot was ripe for execution an anonymous packet was brought to Richelieu at Tarascon, whither he had proceeded with the King to be present at the relief of Perpignan. This packet contained a facsimile of the traitorous treaty with Philip IV and Cinq Mars’s fate was sealed. The King with great reluctance signed an order for the arrest of Cinq Mars, who was taken in the act of escaping on horseback.
De Thou, another of the conspirators, was taken with the Duc de Bouillon, while the Duc d’Orleans fled into Auvergne and wandered to and fro, proscribed and in hiding. The only crime that could be advanced against De Thou was that he was privy to the plot and had taken no steps to reveal it. Cinq Mars was now abandoned by the King, who left him to the tender mercies of Richelieu. This resulted in his being brought to trial at Lyons, but he contrived to send a message appealing for mercy to the King. It reached the foolish, fickle monarch when he was in the act of making toffy in a saucepan over the fire. “No, no, I will give Cinq Mars no audience,” said Louis, “his soul is as black as the bottom of this pan.” Cinq Mars suffered on the block and comported himself with a fortitude that won him sympathy; for it was remembered that his faults had been fostered by the exaggerated favoritism shown him. De Thou was also decapitated after his associate, and, not strangely, was unnerved by the sight which he had witnessed. The Duc de Bouillon was pardoned at the price of surrendering his ancestral estate of Sedan to the Crown.
This was Richelieu’s last act of retaliation. He returned to Paris stricken with mortal disease. He travelled by slow stages in a litter borne by twelve gentlemen of his entourage, who marched bareheaded. On reaching Paris, he rapidly grew worse and Louis XIII paid him a farewell visit on his deathbed. On taking leave of his master he reminded him of the singular services he had rendered France, saying: “In taking my leave of your Majesty I behold your kingdom at the highest pinnacle it has hitherto reached and all your enemies have been banished or removed.” The tradition is preserved that upon this solemn occasion he strenuously urged the King to appoint Mazarin as his successor. The Italian cardinal was brought into the Council the day after Richelieu’s death and from the first appears to have exercised a strong influence over the King. The means and methods of the two statesmen were in great contrast. Richelieu imposed his will by sheer force of character and the terror he inspired. Mazarin, soft-mannered and supple-backed, worked with infinite patience and triumphed by duplicity and astuteness.
Richelieu’s constant aim was to establish the absolute power of the monarchy, and to aggrandize France among nations. His internal government was arbitrary and often extremely cruel and he was singularly deficient in financial ability. He had no idea of raising money but by the imposition of onerous taxes and never sought to enrich France by encouraging industries and developing the natural resources of the country. A strong, self-reliant, highly intelligent and gifted man, he was nevertheless a slave to superstition and the credulous dupe of fraudulent impostures. It will always be remembered against him that he believed in alchemy and the virtue of the so-called philosopher’s stone; yet more, that he was responsible for the persecution and conviction of Urban Grandier, a priest condemned as a magician, charged with bewitching the nuns of Poictou. It was gravely asserted that these simple creatures were possessed of devils through the malignant influence of Grandier, and many pious ecclesiastics were employed to exorcise the evil spirits.
The story as it comes down to us would be farcical and absurd were it not so repulsively horrible. The nuns believed to be afflicted were clearly the victims of emotional hysteria. They exhibited the strangest and most extravagant grimaces and contortions, were thrown into convulsions and foamed and slavered at the mouth. The ceremony of exorcism was carried out with great solemnity, and it is seriously advanced that the admonition had such surprising effects that the devils straightway took flight into the air. The whole story was conveyed to Cardinal Richelieu by his familiar, Père Joseph, who declared that he had seen the evil spirits at work and had observed many nuns and lay-sisters when they were possessed. The Cardinal thereupon gave orders for Grandier’s arrest and trial, which was conducted with great prolixity and unfairness. The evidence adduced against him was preposterous. Among other statements, it was claimed that he exhibited a number of the devil’s marks upon his body and that he was so impervious to pain that when a needle was thrust into him to the depth of an inch, it had no effect and no blood issued. Grandier’s defence was a solemn denial of the charges, but according to the existing procedure, he was put to the “question,” subjected to most cruel torture, ordinary and extraordinary, to extort confession of the guilt which he would not acknowledge. He was in due course formally convicted of the crimes of magic and sorcery and sentenced to make the amende honorable; to be led to the public place of Holy Cross in Loudun and there bound to a stake on a wooden pile and burned alive. The records state that he bore his punishment with constancy accompanied with great self-denial, and declare that a certain unaffected air of piety which hypocrisy cannot counterfeit was shown in his aspect. On the other hand one bigoted chronicler of the period declares that, during the ceremony, a flying insect like a wasp was observed to buzz about Grandier’s head. This gave a monk occasion to say that it was Beelzebub hovering around him to carry away his soul to hell,—this for the reason that Beelzebub signifies in Hebrew the god of flies.
It is difficult to understand how Richelieu could suffer himself to be beguiled into accepting the promises made by an unscrupulous adventurer to turn the baser metals into gold. But for a space he certainly believed in Noël Pigard Dubois, a man who, after following for some time his father’s profession of surgery, abandoned it in order to go to the Levant, where he spent four years in the study of occult science. On returning to Paris he employed his time in the same pursuit, chiefly associating with dissolute characters. A sudden fit of devotion made him enter a monastery, but he soon grew tired of the irksome restraints he there experienced, and, scaling the walls of his retreat, effected his escape. Three years after this he once more resolved to embrace a monastic life, took the vows and was ordained a priest. In this new course he persevered for ten years, at the end of which time he fled to Germany, became a Lutheran, and devoted himself to the quest of the philosopher’s stone.
Dissatisfied with this mode of life, he again visited Paris, abjured the Protestant religion, and married under a fictitious name. As he now boldly asserted that he had discovered the secret of making gold, he soon grew into repute and was at last introduced to Richelieu and the King, both of whom, with singular gullibility, gave full credence to his pretensions. It was arranged that Dubois should perform the “great work” in the Louvre, the King, the Queen, the Cardinal, and other illustrious personages of the court being present. In order to lull all suspicion, Dubois requested that some one might be appointed to watch his proceedings. Accordingly Saint-Amour, one of the King’s body-guard, was selected for this purpose. Musket balls, given by a soldier together with a grain of the “powder for projection,” were placed in a crucible covered with cinders and the furnace fire was soon raised to a proper heat. When Dubois declared the transmutation accomplished, he requested the King to blow off the ashes from the crucible. This Louis did with so much ardor that he nearly blinded the Queen and the courtiers with the dust he raised. But when his efforts were rewarded by seeing at the bottom of the crucible the lump of gold which by wonderful sleight of hand Dubois had contrived to introduce into it, despite the presence of so many witnesses, the King warmly embraced the alchemist. Then he ennobled him and appointed him president of the treasury.
Dubois repeated the same trick several times with equal success. But an obstacle which he might from the first have anticipated occurred. He soon grew unable to satisfy the eager demands of his protectors, who longed for something more substantial than insignificant lumps of gold. Some idea of their avidity may be conceived when it is known that Richelieu alone required him to furnish a weekly sum of about £25,000. Although Dubois asked for a delay, which he obtained, he was of course unable to comply with these extravagant demands, and was in consequence imprisoned in Vincennes, whence he was transferred to the Bastile. The vindictive minister, unwilling to acknowledge that he had been duped, instead of punishing Dubois as an impostor, accused him of practising magic and appointed a commission to try him. As the unhappy alchemist persisted in asserting his innocence he was put to the torture. His sufferings induced him in order to gain respite to offer to fulfil the promises with which he had formerly deceived his patrons. Their credulity was apparently not yet exhausted, for they allowed him to make another experiment. Having again failed in this, he confessed his imposture, was sentenced to death and accordingly perished on the scaffold.
A host of warring elements was forced into fresh activity by the death of Richelieu, soon followed by that of the King. Louis XIII, in his will, bequeathed the regency to his widowed Queen, Anne of Austria, and her accession to power stirred up many active malcontents all eager to dispute it. The feudal system had faded, but the great nobles still survived and were ready to fight again for independence if the executive were weakened; while parliaments were ready to claim a voice in government and curtail the prerogatives not yet wholly conceded to the sovereign. The long minority of Louis XIV was a period of continual intrigue. France was torn by party dissension and cursed with civil war. If we would understand the true state of affairs and realise the part played by the two great prisons, Vincennes and the Bastile, and the principal personages incarcerated within their walls, a brief résumé of events will prove helpful.