It is not likely that Louis really intended to part with his Minister. But it was touch-and-go. He had gained time by pacifying his mother for the moment, and had thought to do wisely by removing the hated object from her sight. His next step was to send envoys to reason and negotiate at the Luxembourg. Père Suffren, the royal confessor, and Cardinal Bagni, the Pope’s Nuncio, both did their best, but absolutely in vain. At the moment of her suddenly snatched triumph, Marie de Médicis was not likely to listen to them. Early the next morning the King hurried back to his hunting-lodge at Versailles. It looked as though his promises of four years ago had been mere waste of breath and of paper, for he had not seen Richelieu again. With regard to the two Marillacs, he had seemingly obeyed his mother. Michel, as Minister, was summoned to follow His Majesty to Versailles, and a courier rode off post-haste for Italy, carrying despatches which appointed Louis to the chief command of the army.
This was St. Martin’s Day, Monday, November 11, the “Journée des Dupes.”
News of the Cardinal’s fall spread swiftly through Paris. The Parisians did not love him: his good work in improving the city, carrying on the additions to the Louvre, building a new bridge, rebuilding the Sorbonne at his own cost, was counterbalanced by acts of tyranny. Citizens had been more or less forced to sell their houses, vegetable gardens had been seized, a part of the old wall of Charles V. had been destroyed, all to make room for the Palais-Cardinal. On that Monday morning all Paris, high and low, courtiers and canaille, ran in crowds to the Luxembourg to congratulate the Queen-mother on her victory. In and round the palace the crush of the dupes was so great that there was no room to move. Marie, the centre of it, saw herself once more a ruler in France, her son submissive, her faithful friends rewarded, her enemy ruined and exiled. Some wise man advised her to make assurance sure by following the King to Versailles; she laughed the counsellor away. Why hide in the woods when there was so much to be done in the city?—ambassadors sending couriers half over Europe; joyful meetings with Queen Anne, with Monsieur; audiences of great lords and ladies, one by one; all the happy, noisy, popular confusion of a sudden return to power.
Close by, at the Petit-Luxembourg, Richelieu had his moment of despair. To fall from so great a height meant death, at least to all his ambitions; perhaps literally, for his enemies, so many and so strong, would hardly be satisfied with exile. And he knew the nature of the King. Held by his own strong influence, all was well, but Louis was too nervous to endure such scenes as those of the last few days, if by any possible sacrifice he could end them. Richelieu might be the victim of the King’s hatred of worry as much as of the Queen-mother’s hatred of himself.
Several far-seeing men had the courage to separate themselves from the crowd pressing to the greater Luxembourg. One of these was the Cardinal de la Valette, the ugly, generous, soldierly second son of the Duc d’Épernon; another, the Marquis de Châteauneuf, a distinguished Councillor of State, afterwards ruined by his passion for Madame de Chevreuse; another, that worthy man the Marquis de Rambouillet, whose wife had for some years reigned over half society from her hôtel near the Louvre. These good friends, with a few others, would not allow Richelieu to despair. Though his papers were packed and his coach was ordered for the journey to Pontoise, they entreated him not to go. Cardinal de la Valette reminded him of the old proverb, “Qui quitte la partie la perd,” and gave the advice—to wiser ears than the Queen’s—that he should follow his royal master to Versailles, on the pretext of bidding him farewell. In the midst of their discussion some one arrived from Versailles with a verbal message from Saint-Simon, advising the same course. This strong and direct encouragement had a marvellous effect on Richelieu’s depressed spirits. “Transported with joy, he kissed the messenger on both cheeks.”
No time was lost, we may well believe. The Cardinal’s coach rumbled out of Paris, but his horses’ heads were turned to the south-west, not to the north. In a long private interview with the King he regained all he had seemed to lose, and took a final and solid hold on power. The courtiers, being admitted, heard from the King’s own lips that he ordered the Cardinal to remain with him, serving him well as before; “that he would find means to appease his mother and to gain her consent to what he did, while removing from her those persons who gave her pernicious counsel.”
The Cardinal was treated in a princely manner and lodged in the château, a special mark of favour in days when Versailles was only a small country-house in the midst of immense forests. From his lodging, the next day, he wrote several letters. One was to the King, expressing his extreme satisfaction and extraordinary gratitude, assuring him that never was servant so devoted to his master’s glory, declaring to His Majesty “que je suis la plus fidèle créature, le plus passionné sujet, et le plus zélé serviteur que jamais roy et maître ait eu au monde. Je vivray et finiray en cet estat, comme estant cent fois plus à Vostre Majesté qu’à moy-mesme....”
He also wrote to his sister, the Marquise de Brézé, and to his uncle, Amador de la Porte. Knowing that “common report often represents things as other than they are,” he first tells the news of his disgrace with the Queen-mother, who finds his own services, those of his niece de Combalet and of his cousin La Meilleraye, no longer agreeable to her. But he begs his sister and his uncle not to be amazed or afflicted by this misfortune, since it arose from no fault; and also because he has the consolation of the King’s presence and favour. To the old Commander, irritable and garrulous, he adds a word of discreet counsel. “As I am not capable of any other desire than to live and die the Queen’s servant, I pray you always to speak conformably to this. I warn you, knowing your freedom of speech, and that you might be carried away by the affection you bear me. It would not be reasonable that all my obligations to so good a princess should be forgotten because personally I now disgust her.”
He could afford to appear magnanimous. Even as he wrote the news was flying to Paris, not only of his triumph, but of the utter discomfiture of the Queen-mother’s party and the ruin of her friends. Michel de Marillac, the Chancellor, had been arrested and deprived of the seals, which were given to the Marquis de Châteauneuf. The courier who conveyed the news of his high appointment to the Maréchal de Marillac was followed at once by another, bearing the King’s command that the Maréchal de Schomberg should arrest him. On the very evening of St. Martin’s Day, well named “Day of Dupes,” Richelieu’s swift vengeance was already overtaking his enemies. A few hours later Marie de Médicis was alone in her deserted Luxembourg. Courtiers and canaille were rushing to meet the King’s coach as he drove into Paris, with Cardinal de Richelieu at his portière.