Cardinal de Richelieu

by Eleanor C. Price

The situation was serious to the last degree, and Richelieu had to meet it alone. The King was far too ill to hear such news, and his life was more valuable to France than any forts and islands: the Cardinal had to accept a responsibility never yet openly his. Walking gingerly in a crowd of enemies, he had till now sheltered himself under the authority of the King. Now he rose supreme, to give those “prompt and powerful orders” which, as he says, were the only way to face the storm. “A thousand cares tormented and agitated his mind; but the greatest of all, which troubled him most, was to show no anxiety before the King.... All the day he was with him; at night he seldom left him; and yet his mind was always busy with the orders which secretly, from hour to hour, he had to send out for the succour of the island and the hindering of the English.... For he heard that there was scarcity in the forts of Ré, and that, if not promptly relieved, they were lost.”

From the gates of Villeroy rode couriers, agents, envoys, carrying orders and money to all parts. The State funds were so low that Richelieu was compelled to use his own money and credit: he ventured all without hesitation. He sent a large sum to Le Havre, for the equipment of five ships; to Saint-Malo, for eight ships and eleven great guns; to Brouage and Les Sables d’Olonne, that any quantity of provisions of all kinds, wine, meat, flour, biscuit, might be ready to be thrown into the besieged citadel. For that purpose he ordered a number of pinnaces from Bayonne and the river-mouths on the Bay of Biscay, which could approach the islands, sailing or rowing, when the weather made large ships useless. Three bold sea-captains, Beaulieu, Courcelles, and Canteleu, promised to carry victuals into Ré or to die in the attempt. Richelieu invited help from Spain, in accordance with treaties; but that cautious government waited to send ships till Buckingham had sailed away for England and something like a French navy, created by Richelieu’s marvellous practical energy and commanded by the Duc de Guise, was cruising in the waters of La Rochelle.

This did not happen till December. No relief of Saint-Martin became possible till the first days of October, when on a stormy night a number of small boats slipped through the English fleet and brought in a supply of provisions and a reinforcement of four hundred men to M. de Toiras and his starving, exhausted garrison. By this time the King had recovered, and he and the Cardinal had joined the army before La Rochelle.

With their arrival the luck turned, and the English attack began to fail, though the people of La Rochelle were now ready to give Buckingham everything he wanted, except—for after all, they were French—a permanent foothold in their islands. The commanders on the coast, under Richelieu’s immediate orders, worked with double activity. Schomberg landed in Ré, Saint-Martin was relieved, and after some hard fighting the English were driven back with serious loss to their ships. A few days later Buckingham sailed away to England, leaving behind him the best part of his army, colours, horses, guns, and baggage. He never saw France again. The English flags taken in Ré were carried in triumph through Paris and hung up in Notre Dame.

And now the fight, one of the sternest in history, the details of which would fill a volume, was between Cardinal de Richelieu and the proud old city of La Rochelle, the stronghold which for two hundred years, either in politics or religion, had repeatedly and successfully braved the kings of France. “The Cardinal had to expect,” says M. Martin, “a terrible resistance. The population of La Rochelle, swelled by the zealous Huguenots of the surrounding country, numbered at least thirty thousand souls—a race of fierce and intrepid corsairs, hardened to fatigue and danger, accustomed, for sixty years past, to live with restless vigilance in the perpetual state of siege which they had imposed on themselves in order to preserve their stormy liberties.”

These liberties Richelieu was resolved that they should no longer enjoy. And except for the support of the King and of his few trusted lieutenants, he was almost alone in that resolution. The nobles of France, even the commanders of the army, saw very well that the entire conquest of the Huguenots was a long step towards their own impotence under an absolute King and a strong Minister. Even the gay soldier Bassompierre said half seriously, “We shall be fools enough to take La Rochelle!” Such opinions, of which he was well aware, did not give the Cardinal a moment’s pause. He made some attempt to disarm his enemies by civilities to the Queen-mother, by obtaining a Cardinal’s Hat for her saintly and distinguished friend Père de Bérulle—his own friend in his Luçon days; but he was too clever to expect much result, and he probably cared little at this moment, when all his instincts of a soldier, a born general, were flaming up within him at the sight of camps to be ruled, armies to be moved, great towering walls to be laid low. Ruin might follow, if it must: the Huguenots should have their lesson.

He had summoned Père Joseph, his chief counsellor, to join him before La Rochelle. The Capuchin walked from Paris in leisurely fashion, visiting convents in Poitou and preaching by the way. He reached the camp on one of those days in October when the Cardinal, lately arrived, was absent on the coast directing the despatch of fresh troops and stores to the islands. He was lodged in the Cardinal’s quarters, a small moated house called Pont-la-Pierre, on the sand-hills, only a hundred paces from the flat sea-shore at Angoulins, just south of La Rochelle. That very night there was an alarm that five hundred men were coming in boats from the town, to blow up the house and kill or capture the Cardinal. Though two regiments, according to Bassompierre, were quartered at Angoulins, the house was outside immediate help, and on a dark and windy night might well be surprised. Père Joseph had scarcely arrived when he was invaded by M. de Marillac and two hundred musketeers. A whole army indeed was on foot to receive the adventurers. Regiments were lying flat among the dunes; the King himself was on horseback all night in heavy rain, watching behind Pont-la-Pierre with a troop of cavalry. All these precautions seemed absurd to Bassompierre and his brother officers, who did not love the Cardinal or appreciate the King’s anxious care for his safety. After all, the expected attack did not come off. Either the men of La Rochelle were warned, or, as Père Joseph thought, the weather was too much for them. He himself was praised by the King for his intrepidity; for when he might have retired to the royal quarters he preferred to remain at Pont-la-Pierre in charge of the Cardinal’s papers.

The character of Louis XIII. never shows so well as in time of war. The gloomy, nervous, irresolute young man was a daring soldier. In spite of his weak health he shunned no hardship; the outdoor endurance learnt in the hunting-field proved itself of real value in battle and siege. Early in December of that year, when the regular blockade of La Rochelle had begun, Cardinal de Richelieu wrote to the Queen-mother with a report of the King’s health:

“... Although the country is most evil, tempest, wind and rain being the usual course, and the soil constantly a quagmire, His Majesty does not cease to dwell here with as much gaiety as if he were in the most beautiful place in the world.... He is constantly at work ... he has regulated his army, reformed his regiments ... he reviews his army, visits his works.... The day before yesterday he spent three hours on the dyke that he is making, to bar the harbour. Not only did he overlook the work, but set an example by working with his own hands. His Majesty alone does much more to advance his affairs than all those who have the honour to be employed under his command. The men of La Rochelle make little sorties, but are always beaten back.”

The Cardinal was wise enough to give the King the credit of all his own marvellous doings at this time. It was practicable to blockade La Rochelle by land; but as long as the harbour and channel were open, it was impossible to hinder the city from receiving supplies by sea. At the same time, the difficulties connected with the land siege were considerable enough; and the army regulations carried out by Richelieu, mentioned in his letter to Marie de Médicis, were as stern as they were necessary. Three leagues of circumvallation, strengthened by forts and redoubts, had to be held by a host of more or less undisciplined men, whose careless commanders thought more of their own interests and their own quarrels than of the service of the King. Before Louis and the Cardinal arrived on the scene, the Duc d’Angoulême had been negligent or humane enough to allow the Rochellois to come out into their fields and gather in their harvest; and after the siege had really begun, he allowed a hundred and twenty oxen to be smuggled one night into the city. It might have cost a lesser man his head.