Père Joseph, who with all his cleverness and strength had an attractive modesty, felt himself unequal to dealing alone with this reverend lady, and with the discord and confusion she had caused at Fontevrault. This, at least, was the reason he gave for his appeal to the Bishop of Luçon, “whose superior and transcendent genius had enchanted him,” and who happened to be residing very near Fontevrault, at his Priory of Les Roches.
The Abbey of Fontevrault was quite independent of episcopal authority, and it was only as representing the Pope or the King that any bishop had the right to enter it. Père Joseph appealed to Richelieu as a friend; and, judging from his lifelong devotion, it may be imagined that he joyfully seized this opportunity of rousing the Bishop from the state of fever-stricken depression in which he had returned from Paris. Here, if ever, was a case of a man’s “sharpening the countenance of his friend.” The dying flame was blown into life; hope took suddenly the place of something very like despair. The Capuchin discussed his difficulties with the Bishop, and they agreed that the whole question must be laid before the Queen Regent. Therefore they travelled together to Fontainebleau, where the Court was staying, amid all the enchantment of its exquisite spring.
Marie de Médicis, at this time, was far from happy. A year had passed since Henry’s death; and to a woman both lazy and power-loving, the quarrels, ambitions, jealousies, of the princes and courtiers, each day harder to satisfy, were a constant torment; matters not being improved by the insolent pride of Concini, who posed as the equal of them all. The envoys from Poitou, asking nothing for themselves—no one dreamed that these two men, one ugly, grave, humble in appearance, the other delicate, worn, exhausted, would one day rule France and influence Europe—were graciously received by the Queen; and it appears that Père Joseph, in a few moments of private conversation after the Fontevrault business had been explained, spoke to her of his companion in terms of enthusiastic praise, as “a man of sublime genius and extraordinary merit, capable of the highest employments.” The words remained in the Queen’s mind and bore fruit, though not immediately.
The Bishop and the friar returned to Fontevrault, bearing the royal permission for the community to choose an abbess among themselves; but in the presence and with the consent of the Bishop of Luçon and Père Joseph. The solemn election took place in the summer, when the Grand Prioress, Madame Louise de Lavedan de Bourbon, was naturally chosen.
Madame Antoinette d’Orléans retired to Lencloître, a half-ruined convent of the Order near Poitiers, and was there joined by many nuns from all parts of France, and even from Fontevrault itself, who desired to lead a stricter life under her guidance. It was not long before she founded, with the help and approval of Père Joseph and the Bishops of Luçon and Poitiers, a congregation known as Les Filles du Calvaire, independent of Fontevrault, the object of which was the practice of the Rule of St. Benedict in all its austere purity.
Pushed constantly to the front by Père Joseph, and with no unwillingness on his own part, the Bishop of Luçon added much to his reputation by his conduct of these affairs; State affairs, they might almost be called, considering the rank of those concerned and the wealth and political importance of the great Order of Fontevrault.
CHAPTER IV
1611-1615
Waiting for an opportunity—Political unrest—The States-General of 1614—The Bishop of Luçon speaks.
Richelieu worked hard in his diocese for the next three years, struggling all the while with ill-health and impatience. He went to Paris once during this time and offered his services to the powerful Concini, who received him graciously; but nothing more came of it. And the Queen was for the present inaccessible. Another disappointment was his failure to be elected as representative of his ecclesiastical province, Bordeaux, at a convocation of the clergy which was held in Paris in the early days of the Regency. On this occasion the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Cardinal de Sourdis—nicknamed Sordido—showed himself an enemy to the aspiring young man.
But no envious Metropolitan could keep Richelieu long in the background. He was becoming a very popular figure in the west country, of which Poitou and its learned capital were the centre. His private life appears to have been blameless. He kept up an affectionate intercourse with his own family. For his mother he was still “mon malade,” from childhood a sickly, brilliant creature, a subject of uneasiness and pride. His sister, Madame du Pont-de-Courlay, turned to him for sympathy in a money loss or the death of a little child. He never lost sight of his brother Alphonse, the Carthusian, whose refusal had made him a bishop, and whom, in later years of power, he dragged from his cloister to be Archbishop and Cardinal.