The Court now wished to temporise and overtures were made to De Retz to resign the archbishopric. He was offered in exchange the revenues of seven wealthy abbeys, but stubbornly refused. He was advised by his friends not to yield as the only means to recover his liberty, but he finally agreed to accept the proffered exchange and pending the approval of the Holy See was transferred from Vincennes to the prison of Nantes at the mouth of the Loire. Here his treatment was softened. He was permitted to amuse himself, to receive visitors of both sexes and to see theatrical performances within the castle. He was still a close prisoner and there was a guard of the gate sentinels on his rooms; but he bore it all bravely, being buoyed up with the hope of approaching release.
A bitter disappointment was in store for him. The Pope refused to accept his resignation on the grounds that it had been extorted by force and was dated from the interior of a prison. The attitude of his gaolers changed towards him as he was suspected of foul play and he was secretly apprised that he would probably be carried further out of the world and removed to Brest. He was strongly advised to attempt escape. One idea was that he should conceal himself in a capacious mule trunk and be carried out as part of a friend’s baggage. The prospect of suffocation deterred the Cardinal and he turned his thoughts to another method. This was the summer season and the river was low and a space was left at the foot of the castle wall. The prisoner was in the habit of exercising in a garden close at hand, and it was arranged that four gentlemen devoted to him should take their posts here on a certain afternoon. There was a gate at the bottom of the garden placed there to prevent the soldiers from stealing the grapes. Above was a kind of terrace on which the sentries guarding De Retz were stationed. The Cardinal managed to pass into this garden unobserved and he came upon a rope so placed as to assist him in sliding down to the lower level. Here a horse was awaiting him, which he mounted and galloped away, closely followed by his friends. Their way led through streets where they encountered a couple of guards and exchanged shots with them. All went well until De Retz’s horse shied at the glitter of a ray of sunlight, stumbled and fell. The Cardinal was thrown and broke his collar bone. Both horse and man were quickly got on their feet and the fugitive, though suffering horribly, remounted and continued his flight. The party reached the river in safety, but when embarking on the ferry-boat De Retz fainted and was taken across unconscious. There was no hope of his being able to ride further and while some of them went in search of a vehicle, the others concealed the Cardinal in a barn, where he remained for seven hours, suffering terribly. At last, help came, about two o’clock in the morning, and he was carried on a litter to another farm where he was laid upon the soft hay of a stack. He remained here until his safety was assured by the arrival of a couple of hundred gentlemen, adherents of the De Retz family, for he was now in the De Retz country. This successful escape caused much alarm in court circles, for it was feared that De Retz would reappear at once in Paris, but he was too much shaken by the accident to engage actively in public affairs. He remained in obscurity and at last withdrew from the country. He afterwards became reconciled to the royal power, serving Louis XIV loyally at Rome as ambassador to the Papal Conclave.
On the removal of the great demagogue from the scene, Mazarin returned to Paris. The people were well disposed to receive him and his re-entry was in its way a triumph. The King went many miles out to meet and welcome him, and the Italian minister, long so detested, drove into the capital amidst the most enthusiastic acclamations. The most important personages in the realm vied with each other to do him honor, many who had long labored for his destruction now protesting the most ardent attachment to him. Mazarin took his fortune at the flood and bearing no malice, if he felt any, by no means sought to avenge himself on those who had so long hated and opposed him. He resumed his place as chief minister and the remainder of his rule was mild and beneficent. Disturbances still occurred in France, but they were not of a serious nature. Conspiracies were formed but easily put down and were followed by no serious reprisals. The punishments he inflicted seldom extended to life and limb, for he had a strong abhorrence of bloodshed and he preferred the milder method of imprisonment. He waged unceasing war against depredators who infested the capital and parts of the country. Highway robbery had increased and multiplied during the long dissensions of the civil war. Mazarin was bitterly opposed to duelling as was his predecessor, Richelieu, and he wished to keep the courtiers in good humor. Indeed he directly fostered a vice to which he was himself addicted, that of the gaming table. He was a persistent gambler and it has been hinted that he thought it no discredit to take advantage of his adversary. Never, perhaps, in any age or country was there a greater addiction to play. Vast sums were won and lost in the course of an evening. On one occasion Fouquet, the notorious minister of finance of whom I shall have much more to say, won 60,000 livres (roughly £5,000) in one deal. Gourville won as much from the Duc de Richelieu in less than ten minutes. Single stakes ran to thousands of pounds, and estates, houses, rich lace and jewels of great price were freely put up at the table.
[CHAPTER VI]
THE MAN WITH THE IRON MASK
Louis XIV asserts himself—His use of State prisons—Procedure of reception at the Bastile—Life in the prison—Diet and privileges—Governing staff—De Besmaus—Saint Mars—Fouquet’s fate foreshadowed—Fête at Vaux—King enraged—Fouquet arrested at Nantes—Lodged in the Bastile—Sentence changed from exile to perpetual imprisonment—Removed to Pignerol—Dies in prison—Man with the Iron Mask—Basis of mystery—Various suppositions—Identical with Count Mattioli—Origin of stories about him—Dies in the Bastile.
The latter years of Mazarin’s government were free from serious disturbances at home and his foreign policy was distinctly beneficial to France. He governed firmly, but in the name of the King, who already evinced the strength of will and vigor of mind which were shortly to make the royal authority absolute in France. Louis XIV was still in his teens, but already he would brook no opposition from rebellious nobles or a litigious Parliament. One day he entered the Chamber, booted and spurred just as he came from hunting at Vincennes, and plainly told the members of Parliament assembled there to prepare some fresh remonstrance, that he would tolerate no more of their meetings. “I know, gentlemen, the mischief that comes from them, and I will not permit them in the future.” The president protested that it was in the interests of the State. “I am the State,” replied the young despot of seventeen. The country was entirely with him. All classes were sick of commotions and hailed the new authority with every demonstration of joy. Mazarin, no doubt, aided the development of Louis’s character. “There is enough in Louis,” he had been heard to say, “to make four good kings and one honest man,” and it was under the Cardinal’s counsels that Louis developed his political education.
France was now entering upon one of the most brilliant periods of her history. Mazarin had prosecuted the war with Spain so vigorously that she was prepared to come to terms. He contracted an alliance with Protestant Cromwell which resulted in substantial gains to England. Peace with Spain and the marriage of Louis to a Spanish princess were the last acts of Mazarin, whose constantly failing health showed that death was near. Now, when the end was approaching, he had reached the pinnacle of his fortunes. No longer the hated, proscribed and persecuted minister, he enjoyed the fullest honors and the most unbounded popularity. He had grown enormously rich, for avarice was a ruling vice with him and he had uncontrolled access to the national purse. At his death he left some fifty million livres in cash, owned many palaces filled with priceless statues and pictures, and jewels of inestimable value. His conscience appears to have troubled him as death approached; he sought to silence it by making over all his possessions to the King, who speedily silenced Mazarin’s scruples by returning them as a royal gift.
Not strangely, under such government, the finances of France were at their very lowest ebb. The financial incompetence of Mazarin, coupled with his greed, had left the treasury empty, and when Louis asked Fouquet for money he got for answer, “There is none in the treasury, but ask His Eminence to lend you some, he has plenty.” Fortunately for France, Mazarin had introduced into the King’s service one of the most eminent financiers who ever lived, Colbert, and it is reported that when dying he said, “I owe your Majesty everything; but by giving you my own intendant, Colbert, I shall repay you.” Colbert became Louis’s secret adviser, for Fouquet purposely complicated accounts and craftily contrived to tell the King nothing. One of Colbert’s first acts was to reveal to the King that Cardinal Mazarin, over and above the great fortune he left openly to his family, had a store of wealth hidden away in various fortresses. Louis promptly laid hands upon it and was in consequence the only rich sovereign of his time in Europe.