The two victories won in 1620 by the Duke of Luynes, one over the Protestants by the re-establishment in Warn of free worship for the Catholics, and the other over his secret rival Richelieu, by preventing him from becoming cardinal, had inspired him with great confidence in his good fortune. He resolved to push it with more boldness than he had yet shown. He purposed to subdue the Protestants as a political party whilst respecting their religious creed, and to reduce them to a condition of subjection in the state whilst leaving them free, as Christians, in the church. A fundamentally contradictory problem; for the different liberties are closely connected, one with another, and have need to be security one for another; but, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, people were not so particular in point of consequence, and it was thought possible to give religious liberty its guarantees whilst refusing them to general political liberty. That is what the Duke of Luynes attempted to do; to all the towns to which Henry IV. had bound himself by the edict of Nantes, he made a promise of preserving to them their religious liberties, and he called upon them at the same time to remain submissive and faithful subjects of the sovereign kingship. La Rochelle, Montauban, Saumur, Sancerre, Charite-sur-Loire, and St. Jean d’Angely were in this category; and it was to Montauban, as one of the most important of those towns, that Louis XIII. first addressed his promise and his appeal, inconsistent one with the other.
Some years previously, in May, 1610, amidst the grief and anxiety awakened by the assassination of Henry IV. by Ravaillac, the population of Montauban had maintained and testified a pacific and moderate disposition. The synod was in assembly when the news of the king’s death arrived there. We read in the report of the town-council, under date of May 19, 1610,
“The ecclesiastics (Catholic) having come to the council, the consuls gave them every assurance for their persons and property, and took them under the protection and safeguard of the king and the town, without suffering or permitting any hurt, wrong, or displeasure to be done them. . . . The ecclesiastics thanked them, and protested their desire to live and die in that town, as good townsmen and servants of the king . .” On the 22d of May, in a larger council-general, the council gives notice to the Parliament of Toulouse that everything shall remain peaceable. . . . Consul Beraud moves that “every one take forthwith the oath of fidelity we owe to his Majesty, and that every one also testify, by acclamation, his wishes and desires for the prosperity and duration of his reign.”
Ten years later, in 1620, the disposition of the Protestants was very much changed; distrust and irritation had once more entered into their hearts. Henry IV. was no longer there to appease them or hold them in. The restoration of the freedom of Catholic worship in Warn had alarmed and offended them as a violation of their own exclusive right proclaimed by Jeanne d’Albret. In January, 1621, during an assembly held at La Rochelle, they exclaimed violently against what they called “the woes experienced by their brethren of Warn.” Louis XIII. considered their remonstrances too arrogant to be tolerated. On the 24th of April, 1621, by a formal declaration, he confirmed all the edicts issued in favor of the liberty of Protestants, but with a further announcement that he would put down with all the rigor of the laws those who did not remain submissive and tranquil in the enjoyment of their own rights. This measure produced amongst the Protestants a violent schism. Some submitted, and their chiefs gave up to the king the places they commanded. On the 10th of May, 1621, Saumur opened her gates to him. Others, more hot-tempered and more obstinate, persisted in their remonstrances. La Rochelle, Montauban, and St. Jean d’Angely took that side. Duke Henry of Rohan and the Duke of Soubise, his brother, supported them in their resistance. Rohan went to Montauban, and, mounting into the pulpit, said to the assembly, “I will not conceal from you that the most certain conjecture which can be formed from the current news is, that in a short time the royal army will camp around your walls, since St. Jean d’Angely is surrendered, and all that remains up to here is weakened, broken down, and ready to receive the yoke, through the factions of certain evil spirits. I have no fear lest the consternation and cowardice of the rest should reach by contagion to you. In days past you swore in my presence the union of the churches. Of a surety we will get peace restored to you here. I pray you to have confidence in me, that on this occasion I will not desert you, whatever happen. Though there should be but two men left of my religion, I will be one of the two. My houses and my revenues are seized, because I would not bow beneath the proclamation. I have my sword and my life left. Three stout hearts are better than thirty that quail.”
The whole assembly vehemently cheered this fiery speech. The premier consul of Montauban, Dupuy, swore to live and die in the cause of union of the churches. “The Duke of Rohan exerted himself to place Montauban in a position to oppose a vigorous resistance to the royal troops. Consul Dupuy, for his part, was at the same time collecting munitions and victuals.” It was announced that the king’s army was advancing; and reports were spread, with the usual exaggeration, of the deeds of violence it was already committing. At the news thereof, every nerve is strained to advance the fortifications “there is none that shirks, of whatever age, or sex, or condition; every other occupation ceases; night serves to render the day’s work bigger; the inhabitants are all a-sweat, soiled with dust, laden with earth.” Whilst the multitude was thus working pell-mell to put the town substantially in a state of defence, the warlike population, gentlemen and burgesses, were arming and organizing for the struggle. They had chosen for their chief a younger son of Sully’s, Baron d’Orval, devoted to the Protestant cause, even to the extent of rebellion, whilst his elder brother, the Marquis of Rosny, was serving in the royal army. Their aged father, Sully, went to Montauban to counsel peace; not that he exactly blamed the resistance, but he said that it would be vain, and that a peace on good terms was possible. He was listened to with respect, though he was not believed, and though the struggle was all the while persisted in. The royal army, with a strength of twenty thousand men, and commanded by the young Duke of Mayenne, son of the great Leaguer, came up on the 18th of August, 1621, to besiege Montauban, with its population of from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand. Besiegers and besieged were all of them brave; the former the more obstinate, the latter the more hare-brained and rash. The siege lasted two months and a half with alternate successes and reverses. The people of the town were directed and supported by commissions charged with the duty of collecting meal, preparing quarters for the troops, looking after the sick and wounded, and distributing ammunition. “Day and night, from hour to hour, one of the consuls went to inspect these services. All was done without confusion, without a murmur.” Ministers of the Reformed church, to the number of thirteen, were charged to keep up the enthusiasm with chants, psalms, and prayers. One of them, the pastor Chamier, was animated by a zealous and bellicose fanaticism; he was never tired of calling to mind the calamities undergone by the towns that had submitted to the royal army; he was incessantly comparing Montauban to Bethulia, Louis XIII. to Nabuchodonosor, the Duke of Mayenne to Holofernes, the Montalbanese to the people of God, and the Catholics to the Assyrians. The indecision and diversity of views in the royal camp formed a singular contrast to the firm resolution, enthusiasm, and union which prevailed in the town. On the 16th and 17th of August the king passed his army in review; several captains were urgent in dissuading him from prosecuting the siege; they proposed to build forts around Montauban, and leave there the Duke of Mayenne “to harass the inhabitants, make them consume both their gunpowder and their tooth-powder, and, peradventure, bring them to a composition.” But the self-respect of the king and of the army was compromised; the Duke of Luynes ardently desired to change his name for that of Duke of Montauban; there was promise of help from the Prince of Conde and the Duke of Vendome, who were commanding, one in Berry and the other in Brittany. These personal interests and sentiments carried the day; the siege was pushed forward with ardor, although without combined effort; the Duke of Mayenne was killed there on the 16th of September, 1621; and, amongst the insurgents, the preacher Chamier met, on the 17th of October, the same fate. It was in the royal army and the government that fatigue and the desire of putting a stop to a struggle so costly and of such doubtful issue first began to be manifested. And, at the outset, in the form of attempts at negotiation. The Duke of Luynes himself had a proposal made to the Duke of Rohan, who was in residence at Castres, for an interview, which Rohan accepted, notwithstanding the mistrust of the people of Castres, and of the majority of his friends. The conference was held at a league’s distance from Montauban. After the proper compliments, Luynes drew Rohan aside into an alley alone, and, “I thank you,” he said, “for having put trust in me; you shall not find it misplaced; your safety is as great here as in Castres. Having become connected with you, I desire your welfare; but you deprived me, whilst my favor lasted, of the means of procuring the greatness of your house. You have succored Montauban in the very teeth of your king. It is a great feather in your cap; but you must not make too much of it. It is time to act for yourself and your friends. The king will make no general peace; treat for them who acknowledge you. Represent to them of Montauban that their ruin is but deferred for a few days; that you have no means of helping them. For Castres and other places in your department, ask what you will, and you shall obtain it. For your own self, anything you please (carte blanche) is offered you. . . . If you will believe me, you will get out of this miserable business with glory, with the good graces of the king, and with what you desire for your own fortunes, which I am anxious to promote so as to be a support to mine.”
Rohan replied, “I should be my own enemy if I did not desire my king’s good graces and your friendship. I will never refuse from my king benefits and honors, or from you the offices of a kind connection. I do well consider the peril in which I stand; but I beg you also to look at yours. You are universally hated, because you alone possess what everybody desires. Wars against them of the religion have often commenced with great disadvantages for them; but the restlessness of the French spirit, the discontent of those not in the government, and the influence of foreigners have often retrieved them. If you manage to make the king grant us peace, it will be to his great honor and advantage, for, after having humbled the party, without having received any check, and without any appearance of division within or assistance from without, he will have shown that he is not set against the religion, but only against the disobedience it covers, and he will break the neck of other parties without having met with anything disagreeable. But, if you push things to extremity, and the torrent of your successes does not continue,—and you are on the eve of seeing it stopped in front of Montauban,—every one will recover his as yet flurried senses, and will give you a difficult business to unravel. Bethink you that you have gathered in the harvest of all that promises mingled with threats could enable you to gain, and that the remnant is fighting for the religion in which it believes. For my own part, I have made up my mind to the loss of my property and my posts; if you have retarded the effects thereof on account of our connection, I am obliged to you for it; but I am quite prepared to suffer everything, since my mind is made up, having solemnly promised it and my conscience so bidding me, to hear of nothing but a general peace.”
The reply was worthy of a great soul devoted to a great cause, a soul that would not sacrifice to the hopes of fortune either friends or creed. It was a mark of Duke Henry of Rohan’s superior character to take account, before everything, of the general interests and the moral sentiments of his party. The chief of the royal party, the Duke of Luynes, was, on the contrary, absorbed in the material and momentary success of his own personal policy; he refused to treat for a general peace with the Protestants, and he preferred to submit to a partial and local defeat before Montauban, rather than be hampered with the difficulties of national pacification. At a council held on the 26th of October, 1621, it was decided to publicly raise the siege. The king and the royal army departed in November from the precincts of Montauban, which they purposed to attack afresh on the return of spring: the king was in a hurry to go and receive at Toulouse the empty acclamations of the mob, and he ordered Luynes to go and take, on the little town of Monheur, in the neighborhood of Toulouse, a specious revenge for his check before Montauban. Monheur surrendered on the 11th of December, 1621. Another little village in the neighborhood, Negrepelisse, which offered resistance to the royal army, was taken by assault, and its population infamously massacred. But in the midst of these insignificant victories, on the 14th of December, 1621, the royal favorite, the constable, interim keeper of the seals, Duke Albert of Luynes, had an attack of malignant fever, and died in three days at the camp of Longueville. “What was marvellously surprising, and gave a good idea of the world and its vanity,” says his contemporary, the Marquis of Fontaine Mareuil, “was that this man, so great and so powerful, found himself, nevertheless, to such a degree abandoned and despised, that for two days, during which he was in agony, there was scarcely one of his people who would stay in his room, the door being open all the time, and anybody who pleased coming in, as if he had been the most insignificant of men; and when his body was taken to be interred, I suppose, to his duchy of Luynes, instead of priests to pray for him, I saw some of his valets playing piquet on his bier whilst they were having their horses baited.”
It was not long before magnificence revisited the favorite’s bier. “On the 11th of January, 1622, his mortal remains having arrived at Tours, all the religious bodies went out to receive it; the constable was placed in a chariot drawn by six horses, accompanied by pages, Swiss, and gentlemen in mourning. He was finally laid in the cathedral-church, where there took place a service which was attended by Marshal de Lesdiguieres, the greatest lords of the court, the judicature, and the corporation.” It is a contemporary sheet, the Mercure Francais, which has preserved to us these details as to the posthumous grandeur of Albert de Luynes, after the brutal indifference to which he had been subjected at the moment of his death.
His brothers after him held a high historical position, which the family have maintained, through the course of every revolution, to the present day; a position which M. Cousin took pleasure in calling to mind, and which the last duke but one of Luynes made it a point of duty to commemorate by raising to Louis XIII. a massive silver statue almost as large as life, the work of that able sculptor, M. Rudde, which figured at the public exhibition set on foot by Count d’Haussonville, in honor of the Alsace-Lorrainers whom the late disasters of France drove off in exile to Algeria.
Richelieu, when he had become cardinal, premier minister of Louis XIII. and of the government of France, passed a just but severe judgment upon Albert de Luynes. “He was a mediocre and timid creature,” he said, “faithless, ungenerous, too weak to remain steady against the assault of so great a fortune as that which ruined him incontinently; allowing himself to be borne away by it as by a torrent, without any foothold, unable to set bounds to his ambition, incapable of arresting it, and not knowing what he was about, like a man on the top of a tower, whose head goes round and who has no longer any power of discernment. He would fain have been Prince of Orange, Count of Avignon, Duke of Albret, King of Austrasia, and would not have refused more if he had seen his way to it.” [Memoires de Richelieu, p. 169, in the Petitot Collection, Series v., t. xxii.]