Three days later there was another chance, for Richelieu visited the camp; but he was attended by his own guards, and the assassination was “judged impossible.” On this occasion a whisper of the plot reached his ears, and with his usual fearlessness he spoke of it to the Comte de Soissons, haughtily reprimanding him.

The princes were frightened, for their plots had gone beyond the death of Richelieu. They had disloyally done their best to delay the relief of Corbie; they had attempted to draw the Duc d’Épernon into the project of a rising, already favoured by the Duc de Bouillon and others, the object of which was to lay hold on the government, to reinstate the Queen-mother, and to make peace with Spain. They failed; the various successes of the autumn were against them; the Duc d’Épernon, though two of his sons were on their side, refused to listen to them. After the re-taking of Corbie, having returned from the army to Paris, they were seized with a great fear of the Cardinal. He was certain to know all; he was of a temper that never forgave; the Court, they felt assured, was not a safe place for them. They took counsel with each other and resolved to fly, at once, on a dark November night, while Paris was singing and rejoicing over the good news of victory.

Both princes, before leaving Paris, paid a separate visit to the Tuileries. There, under the care of M. de Montglat’s mother, Madame de Saint-Georges, lived Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Gaston’s daughter, now nine years old, a person of decided character, and one of Richelieu’s most hearty haters. The Comte de Soissons paid great court to this little lady, the richest heiress in France if not in Europe. Though four years older than her father and twenty-three years older than herself, and having failed ten years earlier to run away with her mother, he proposed to marry her, and Gaston was ready to consent. This plan was one of the links that now united them. Mademoiselle herself liked Monsieur le Comte, and accepted his compliments and sugar-plums with satisfaction: but at this time she did not understand his object.

It is doubtful if the royal consent would ever have been given to this marriage. But a curious little passage in the Cardinal’s own Memoirs shows how keenly he noticed every detail in the lives of the princes, and on what slight if sure grounds he accused them of conspiracy.

“The next day at evening, which was the night of the 19th to the 20th, Monsieur and he (M. le Comte) left Paris; and that it was plotted between them is shown by this: Monsieur having arrived in Paris, and visiting Mademoiselle his daughter, Madame de Saint-Georges told him that M. le Comte had but just gone out. He leaned his head against a chimney-piece, remained long thoughtful, then said, and repeated several times, ‘What! Monsieur le Comte is here? What! He has not gone to Champagne!’ Which showed plainly that there was a plot between them.”

Disguised and almost alone, the princes retired in different directions: Monsieur to his castle of Blois, the Comte de Soissons to neutral ground at Sedan, held by its sovereigns of the House of Bouillon for more than a hundred years. From these retreats they sent their demands and remonstrances to Louis XIII., while on the other hand they corresponded with the Queen-mother and with Spain.

Richelieu seems to have treated the discontents of the Comte de Soissons with some scorn. He allowed negotiations with him to drag on for some months, and then advised the King not only to forgive him, but to allow him to remain four years at Sedan unless he chose to return to the Court: a leniency for which the Cardinal has been blamed; dangerous to the State and fatal to Soissons himself.

As to Monsieur, a mixture of threats and entreaties, the advance of royal troops to Orléans, the clever management of M. de Chavigny, the Cardinal’s most trusted agent, soon brought about a change in his weathercock mind. He met the King at Orléans in February 1637, “with many demonstrations of friendship.” Indeed, “dissimulation went so far, that there appeared to be a sincere reconciliation between Monsieur and the Cardinal.”

CHAPTER X
1637-1639

Palace intrigues—Mademoiselle de Hautefort—Mademoiselle de la Fayette—The affair of the Val-de-Grâce—The birth of the Dauphin—The death of Père Joseph—Difficulties in the Church.