La Grande Mademoiselle, 1627-1652

by Arvède Barine

The chair in the little room stood ready for the visitors who paid their respects to the sick man when the travellers halted.

The table was carried for the convenience of the secretary, who wrote upon it, sorted his papers, dusted his ink with scented gold-powder, and pasted great wafers over the silken floss and the English ribands which tied his private correspondence.

Richelieu, as he travelled, dictated army orders and diplomatic despatches. When the little procession arrived at a halting-place, everything was ready for its reception; the house in which the Cardinal was to lodge had been prepared, the entire floor to be occupied by him had been gutted so that no inner partitions could interfere with his progress. The wains stopped, the inclined plane was set in position against the side of the house, and the heavy machine bearing the sick-room was rolled slowly into the breach and engulfed without a tremor.

When it was possible the room was drawn aboard a boat and the Cardinal was transported by water; in that case when he reached home he was disembarked opposite his palace near the Port au Foin, and borne through the crowd of people, who struggled and crushed each other so that they might know how a Cardinal-Minister looked, lying in his bed and entering Paris, dying, yet triumphant, after he had vanquished all his enemies.

Richelieu saw all that passed; his perceptions were as keen and his judgment was as just as in the days of his vigorous manhood. Entering Paris in his bed on his return from Lyons, he saw among the prostrate courtiers of his own party a man who had been compromised by the conspiracy, and then and there he summoned him from his knees and ordered him to present himself at the palace and give an account of his actions. Richelieu's word was law; no one questioned it. The weeks which followed the return from Lyons were tedious. After the exposure of the conspiracy the Cardinal suspected every one, the King included. His tired eyes searched the corners of the King's bed-chamber for assassins. He strove to force the King to dismiss some of the officers of his guard, but at that Louis revolted.

After violent discussions and long recriminative dialogues the Cardinal resorted to heroic means. He shut himself up in his palace, refused to receive the King's ambassadors, and threatened to send in his resignation. Then the King yielded, and peace was made.

The two moribunds were together when the precautions for the national safety were taken against Gaston d'Orléans. In his declaration Louis told the deputies that he had forgiven his brother five separate and distinct times, and that he should forgive him once more and once only. The declaration made it plain that the King was firm in his determination to protect himself against his brother. Gaston was to be stripped of all power and to be deprived of the government of Auvergne; his gendarmerie and his light cavalry were to be suppressed. The King made the declaration to Mathieu Molé, December 1, 1642. That same day the Cardinal passed a desperate crisis, and it was known that he must die.

He prepared for death with the firmness befitting a man of his calibre. When his confessor asked him if he had forgiven his enemies, he answered that he had "no enemies save the enemies of the state."[86] There was some truth in the answer, and in that truth lay his title to glory. At home or abroad, in France or in foreign lands, Richelieu received the first force of every blow aimed at France. He was the Obstacle, and all hostility used him as a mark. He was the shield as well as the sword of the State. His policy was governed by two immutable ideas: 1. His own will by the will of the King; 2. France. His object was to subject all individual wills to the supreme royal will, and to develop French influence throughout Europe. We have seen the position which France had taken under his direction; he had accomplished work fully as important in the State. "The idea of monarchical power was akin to a religious dogma," said Ranke, "and he who rejected the idea expected to be pursued with the same rigour, and with nearly the same formalities, with which national justice pursued the heretic. The time for an absolute monarchy was ripe. Louis XIV. might come; he would find his bed ready.