Whatever his own personal faith may have been, he knew the spiritual needs of the people. That he did not fear their angry voices he proved by driving alone, “at a foot’s pace, without suite and without guards,” through the wild crowds in the streets, from the Palais-Cardinal to the Hôtel de Ville, bearing the royal order that the city trades and companies should assemble for the purpose of giving their help to the King. His courage triumphed. The people, says Montglat, “dared not say a word to him.”
Royal decrees followed thick and fast; their succession was like the sending round of the Fiery Cross, summoning men to serve their country. Those Parisians who had planned to escape John of Werth and his pillaging horde by flying with all their movable goods to Orléans or some other city of the west, found the gates of Paris shut against them. All privileges and exemptions were abolished in the city. All men capable of bearing arms were ordered to present themselves for enrolment, either at the Hôtel de Ville, where the old Maréchal de la Force sat on the steps to receive them, or mounted and armed at Saint-Denis. All the workshops of Paris were closed; all building stopped; no master of a trade, excepting bakers, butchers, armourers, gun-makers, saddlers, and the like, might keep more than one apprentice; the rest, with masons, stone-cutters, carpenters, artisans of every sort, must serve the King. From each owner of a coach, a horse was demanded; and every house in Paris was expected to furnish a man with belt and sword. The peasants of the surrounding villages were set to work on new fortifications at Saint-Denis.
A day sufficed to change terror into enthusiasm. On August 5 representatives of all the trade guilds and syndicates were received by Louis XIII. in the great gallery of the Louvre, “and offered him their persons and their goods with so great gaiety and affection, that most of them embraced and kissed his knees.” Louis rose to the occasion and kissed them all, not excepting the chief of the cobblers, whose guild made the noble gift of 5,000 francs. The Parliament—not without grudging conditions—the municipality, the colleges, monasteries, and other bodies, poured money at the King’s feet: there was enough to pay and keep, for three months at least, twelve thousand foot and three thousand horse.
In the meanwhile, the news that the enemy had taken Corbie on the Somme, thus drawing alarmingly near to Amiens, on the direct road to Paris, fanned the flame so fiercely that “tout le jeune bourgeois,” says Montglat, “à toute force, vouloit aller à la guerre.” Not many days later, the King and the Cardinal advanced to Amiens, and a strong army, commanded by Monsieur and the Comte de Soissons, held the enemy in effectual check along the banks of the Somme. By the middle of September, all the actual danger of invasion was past, though the Imperialists still held Corbie. John of Werth and his merry men, loaded with booty, had galloped back across the frontier of Artois.
Corbie was not retaken till November, but the Cardinal Infant, his aunt’s successor as ruler of the Netherlands, with the other Spanish and Imperialist generals, discouraged by the advance of the French army, had already withdrawn from French territory; and it seemed, as the autumn advanced, as if the fortune of war was changing in Richelieu’s favour. The enemy was repulsed everywhere: in Burgundy, by Weimar, Condé, and the Cardinal de la Valette; on the Spanish frontier, where St. Jean de Luz was taken, but further advance was resisted by the old Duc d’Épernon and the Comte de Grammont, governors of Guyenne and of Béarn; on the Morbihan coast, where a Spanish force, disembarking near Vannes, attacked the Abbey of Prières. The sturdy monks defended themselves so gallantly that the country-side had time to rise against the invaders, who fled back in disorder to their ships.
At this moment of danger, the two young men whom Richelieu had called to the command of the King’s armies were busily plotting his destruction. To them and their like the death of the Minister and the anarchy that must follow were not only desirable for their own ends, but the best medicines for the ills of France.
Monsieur and the Comte de Soissons were seldom friends, except when they joined hands against Richelieu, and it happened that at this time each was nursing special grievances: Monsieur, as to his forbidden marriage and the death of Puylaurens; Soissons, because the Cardinal had dared to offer him his niece in marriage, had refused him the command of the army in Alsace, and more recently had shown distrust by setting Monsieur over him as Commander-in-Chief of the army on the Oise. There were not wanting faithful friends who pointed out to both princes that now was the moment to revenge themselves. The army was theirs; the Cardinal was at Amiens; the King, staying at the Château de Demuin, a few miles away, rode constantly into the city to hold council with his Ministers. It was natural that the princes in command of the army should attend the council. The rest was easily thought out, with the help of M. de Montrésor, a follower of Monsieur, M. de Saint-Ibal, in M. le Comte’s confidence, and two “solid men,” Varicarville and Bardouville. These six conspirators fixed a day on which the Cardinal should be stabbed to death after the King had left the council.
All went well for their purpose. On the appointed day, “the council being ended, the King went away with all his guards, and the Cardinal remained alone in the courtyard with Monsieur and the Comte de Soissons. Immediately,” writes the Marquis de Montglat, “Varicarville, who knew the secret, stationed himself behind the Cardinal, expecting the signal which Monsieur was to give, while Saint-Ibal and Bardouville took their stand, one on the right, the other on the left. But instead of commanding that the projected deed should be done, Monsieur, seized with fear, remounted the staircase without a word; while Montrésor, surprised at the change, followed him, telling him that his enemy was in his power, and that he had only to speak.”
It was not the first time that Richelieu had owed his life to Gaston’s temperament. So éperdu was the Prince, so utterly had his nerve failed him, that he could only mutter something about “another time,” and escaped as quickly as possible, leaving the Comte de Soissons, “dans la dernière confusion,” face to face with Richelieu. Unaware of his danger, and the King’s brother having disappeared, the Cardinal bade his other enemy farewell and retired to his lodging. The fingers of Saint-Ibal, Varicarville, Bardouville, relaxed on their dagger-hilts, and one may imagine that these three gentlemen stared rather blankly on each other as their doomed victim walked away.
When the story became known, which was not immediately, many persons blamed the Comte de Soissons that he had not made up for Monsieur’s weakness by finishing the affair. “He excused himself,” says Montglat, “by the respect he owed Monsieur, so that he dared undertake nothing in his presence without his command.” He was too wise to act alone in such a matter: the position of Gaston’s cat’s-paw, to be disclaimed and forsaken and left to the King’s justice, was not attractive. The army might rally round the heir to the throne in sudden rebellion; the Comte de Soissons was not equally secure.