Cardinal de Richelieu

by Eleanor C. Price

But there were those, not more guilty, but more dangerous from their very worth and mental distinction, who felt the weight of Richelieu’s vengeance. Michel de Marillac, counted in his own time among “martyrs of the State,” after languishing for many months in his prison at Châteaudun, died of grief at the tragic death of his soldier brother. The trial and death of Marillac “l’Epée” are generally allowed to be dark stains on the Cardinal’s career. Politically, there was no case against him, and the Parliament, when first approached by Richelieu’s tool, the notorious Laffemas, refused to commit him for trial. Richelieu then appointed a Royal Commission, which sat at Verdun, the charge against the Marshal being one of peculation and oppression when governor there. Even now the Cardinal failed to secure a condemnation. The Commissioners shrank from enforcing the extreme of the law against a distinguished soldier whose sins were common to his time and his trade, and the trial dragged on very slowly, till Richelieu brought matters to a point by summoning the Commission, strengthened by members of his own choosing and presided over by the new Chancellor, M. de Châteauneuf, to meet at his country-house of Rueil. Louis de Marillac was brought from the fortress of Ste. Menehould, where he had been imprisoned since his sudden arrest some fifteen months before. He was condemned to death, but only by a small majority of his judges. Threatening letters from the Queen-mother and Monsieur did him no good, but yet the Cardinal, in his own house and with a packed jury, could not secure unanimity. All France agreed with the prisoner’s own cry: “Condemned to die for hay and straw! Not reason enough to whip a lackey!”

He was beheaded in the Place de Grève on May 2, 1632, and buried in the Church of the Feuillants, long since swept away to make room for the Rue Castiglione. There might be read, for less than two hundred years, the simple and dignified epitaph in which his heirs handed down to posterity the high virtues of “this illustrious victim of a powerful and vindictive Minister.” Madame de Marillac, who bore the familiar name of Catherine de Médicis, died of grief within a few months of her husband.

A dozen years later, when Cardinal de Richelieu was dead, the Parliament of Paris registered a decree acquitting Louis de Marillac of the crimes for which he ostensibly suffered.

In that same year 1632 a still nobler head was to fall. The story of Henry de Montmorency’s ruin tangles itself with the treasonable adventures of Gaston d’Orléans.

Duke Charles of Lorraine, nominally a vassal of the Empire, had reasons of his own for giving trouble to France. For nearly a century she had held part of the old province of Lorraine, including the “Three Bishoprics,” Metz, Toul, and Verdun. In giving armed support to the exiled French prince, Charles IV. had the Empire at his back, and a successful invasion of France, with the consequent fall of Cardinal de Richelieu, was likely not only to restore his territory but to be a decisive incident in the Thirty Years’ War. At this moment of happy expectation, Monsieur fell in love with the young Princess Marguerite of Lorraine, the Duke’s sister. A year or two before he had been desperately in love with Princess Marie de Gonzague, daughter of the Duke of Mantua, and the Queen-mother had imprisoned her at Vincennes to be out of his way. This was a more serious affair. A secret, hurried marriage at Nancy united Gaston to the one woman who kept her hold on him through the rest of his frivolous life.

But even before the marriage, the Duke of Lorraine’s plans of conquest had fallen through. French armies had crossed his frontier, driving before them the small force which the Emperor had sent to his aid. From the stronghold of Metz, Louis XIII. and Cardinal de Richelieu were able to dictate their own terms. The Duke of Lorraine was to become a faithful ally of France, and all her enemies were to be expelled from his territory. In consequence of this treaty, Monsieur joined his mother at Brussels. Left to himself, he might have been reconciled with the King, and Richelieu did his best to that end; but his own friends and favourites found it to their interest to keep him in rebellion.

It was not till after the signature of the treaty that Louis XIII. was made aware of his brother’s marriage, to which he had definitely refused his consent. In this and other ways the Duke of Lorraine had played Richelieu false. The consequence was that a French army once more swept over the province, seizing towns and fortresses and bringing Richelieu’s favourite dream—that of extending the French frontier to the Rhine—perceptibly nearer.

At this moment, having taught the Duke a second severe lesson, Richelieu held his hand. The victories of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany were an effectual check on the house of Hapsburg, and hindered the advance of the Spanish and Imperial troops on the Rhine. A French army was needed at home. Monsieur had left Brussels with a small army of German, Walloon, and Spanish mercenaries, and had made a dash through Lorraine, Burgundy, and Auvergne on his way to Languedoc, with the encouragement of the Duc de Montmorency. Leaving Maréchal d’Effiat in command on the German frontier, Richelieu despatched Schomberg and La Force by different routes to the south.

Henry de Montmorency, by every title the flower of the French nobility, was now thirty-seven years old. He was descended in the direct line, through nineteen generations, from an ancestor who was baptized with Clovis. Ever since then the heads of the family had borne the proud legend of “Premier Chrestien que Roy en France; premier Seigneur de Montmorency que Roy en France; premier Baron de France.” Their war-cry was “Dieu ayde au premier Chrestien”; their motto, “Sans tache.” Montmorency’s father, his grandfather, and several of his ancestors had borne the title of Constable of France, and he was himself High Admiral, till Richelieu purchased the charge and assumed the duties under another name. He had succeeded to the government of Languedoc at his father’s death in 1614, before he was twenty. A popular governor of a very difficult province constantly torn by civil war, he spent the greater part of his time in the south. When not engaged in keeping down his turbulent Protestants or in managing his provincial Estates, always discontented, he was to be found in the front rank of Louis XIII.’s campaigns. He did not care greatly for life at Court, though, as a boy, he had been a special favourite with Henry IV., who gave him his name, and though, by the marriages of his half-sister and sister—one with the Duc d’Angoulême, the other with the Prince de Condé—he was nearly connected with the royal family. But he lived magnificently, when in Paris, at the Hôtel de Montmorency, and in the country at his châteaux of Écouen or Chantilly. He was the admiration of society—handsome, a bold rider, a fine dancer, and a very great flirt, in spite of the constant love between him and his young Roman wife, the best and most devoted of women, Maria Felice Orsini. Their story is among the most touching romances of the century.

In many ways the Duc de Montmorency stood above the ordinary ranks of the noblesse, and a little apart from them. As proud and sensitive as any, a certain high touch of generous chivalry kept him free of their vindictive prejudices—as Cardinal de Richelieu had proved in the day when Louis XIII. lay ill at Lyons. His loyalty to the King had always been unimpeachable.