On October 30 Cardinal de Richelieu entered the city on horseback. It was a fearful sight. “On trouva la ville pleine de morts, dans les chambres, dans les maisons, et dans les rues et places publiques;” for the wretched survivors had lacked strength to bury their dead. On the morning of All Saints’ Day the victorious commander said mass in the reconsecrated Church of Sainte-Marguerite, assisted by his lieutenant, M. de Sourdis, now Archbishop of Bordeaux. He then carried the keys of the city to meet the King, who made his state entry on the same day, the Cardinal riding alone before His Majesty, preceded by the three commanders of the army. An enormous convoy of provisions was a more welcome sight to the wolfish creatures crowding in their streets full of tragedy and falling on skeleton knees at Louis XIII.’s feet.
The city, once submissive, was treated severely, but not barbarously. Richelieu would crush rebels with his whole strength, but he left men free to practise their own religion, provided it did not interfere with their obedience to the State. In this he was consistent: a wiser man than Louis XIV., he would never have revoked the great Henry’s edict and deprived France of a multitude of her most capable citizens. The walls and towers of La Rochelle were razed to the ground; the city lost her proud self-governing independence, and became subject to the royal authority. But an amnesty was offered to the leading Huguenots, and the Cardinal placed the gallant Guiton, corsair by nature, in command of one of His Majesty’s ships.
CHAPTER V
1628-1630
The Duc de Nevers and the war of the Mantuan Succession—The rebellion in Languedoc—A new Italian campaign—Richelieu as Commander-in-Chief.
A few days after the submission of La Rochelle a great storm destroyed the mole which had been the city’s destruction. Winds and floods devastated the west of France, and the Cardinal and the Chancellor were nearly drowned in crossing the Loire on their journey with the Court back to Paris.
There was no time for delay. France was on the eve of a new war; and, though the Huguenot question was not really settled as long as the Duc de Rohan kept rebellion stirring in Languedoc, Richelieu felt himself safe in laying it aside for the moment. Spain and Savoy had attacked the Duke of Mantua; his fortress of Casale in Montferrat had been blockaded by Spanish troops for some months before the fall of La Rochelle, but had held out gallantly in the hope of relief from France; indeed, a body of French volunteers had already forced their way in, led by the Cardinal’s trusted agent, M. de Guron, whom he had sent from La Rochelle to manage matters with Savoy until the French were free to act openly.
The difficulty now was that French opinion found itself deeply divided on the question of Mantua. The new Duke was Charles de Gonzague, Duc de Nevers, who had succeeded Vincenzo di Gonzaga as a lineal descendant of the old family. His succession to Mantua and Montferrat was disputed in various quarters and for various reasons. The Duke of Savoy claimed Montferrat, the Duke of Guastalla claimed Mantua; Spain would not have a French prince ruling in Italy, and the Emperor Ferdinand II. insisted on his right as suzerain to hold the provinces and to decide the matter.
The Duc de Nevers was one of the greatest nobles in France. And not only that: he was the head of the house of Paleologus, and the natural heir, had it still existed, to the throne of Constantinople. He was a high-minded, magnificent personage, brave, chivalrous, romantic—Père Joseph’s intimate friend and fellow-crusader. Under the regency he had been a disturbing element, and Marie de Médicis hated him for reasons of her own. In those days her rage against him had led her to speak scornfully of his birth and his race.
“Which coming to the Duke’s knowledge,” says M. de Montglat, “he said that he knew well the respect he owed her as the mother of his King; but that, on the other hand, every one was aware that the Gonzagas were princes before the Medici were gentlemen. These words so piqued the Queen that she never forgave him.”
Therefore there was a private motive of revenge behind the strong opposition offered by the Queen-mother and her friends—the Chancellor Marillac, on this occasion, joining his voice once more with those of the Cardinal de Bérulle, the Princesse de Conti and her lover Bassompierre, and all those of the Court who hated and envied Richelieu—to the plan of marching at once, with the victorious army of La Rochelle, to the succour of the Duke of Mantua. They argued that the troops needed rest after their eighteen months of hardship; that the Huguenot party was not yet really crushed and would have time to rise again; that the Duke of Mantua’s difficulties mattered little in comparison with a peaceful settlement at home. To these zealous Catholics it appeared horribly inconsistent that the Pope should send congratulations and command Te Deums, and that a Cardinal’s Hat should be bestowed on Alphonse de Richelieu, now Archbishop of Lyons—a striking departure from the precedent which forbade that honour to two brothers—all this to glorify the conquest of La Rochelle; while the hero of that conquest was ready and eager to plunge into war with the Catholic powers, Austria and Spain.