Marshal Bassompierre went to the king, who was a hundred paces behind the storming party, ahead of his regiment of guards. “‘Sir,’ said he, ‘the company is ready, the violins have come in, ‘and the masks are at the door; when your Majesty pleases, we will commence the ballet.’ ‘The king came up to me, and said to me angrily, “Do you know, pray, that we have but five hundred pounds of lead in the park of artillery?” ‘I said to him, ‘It is a pretty time to think of that. Must the ballet not dance, for lack of one mask that is not ready? Leave it to us, sir, and all will go well.’ “Do you answer for it?” said he to me. ‘Sir,’ replied. the cardinal, ‘by the marshal’s looks I prophesy that all will be well; rest assured of it.’” [Memoires de Bassompiere.] The French dashed forward, the marshals with the storming party, and the barricades were soon carried. The Duke of Savoy and his son had hardly time to fly. “Gentlemen,” cried the Duke to some Frenchmen, who happened to be in his service, “gentlemen, allow me to pass; your countrymen are in a temper.”
With the same dash, on debouching from the mountains, the king’s troops entered Suza. The Prince of Piedmont soon arrived to ask for peace; he gave up all pretensions to Montferrat, and promised to negotiate with the Spanish general to get the siege of Casale raised; and the effect was that, on the 18th of March, Casale, delivered “by the mere wind of the renown gained by the king’s arms, saw, with tears of joy, the Spaniards retiring desolate, showing no longer that pride which they had been wont to wear on their faces,—looking constantly behind them, not so much from regret for what they were leaving as for fear lest the king’s vengeful sword should follow after them, and come to strike their death-blow.” [Memoires de Richelieu, t. iv. p. 370.]
The Spaniards remained, however, in Milaness, ready to burst again upon the Duke of Mantua. The king was in a hurry to return to France in order to finish the subjugation of the Reformers in the south, commanded by the Duke of Rohan. The cardinal placed little or no reliance upon the Duke of Savoy, whose “mind could get no rest, and going more swiftly than the rapid movements of the heavens, made every day more than twice the circuit of the world, thinking how to set by the ears all kings, princes, and potentates, one with another, so that he alone might reap advantage from their divisions.” [Memoires de Richelieu, t. iv. p. 375.] A league, however, was formed between France, the republic of Venice, the Duke of Mantua, and the Duke of Savoy, for the defence of Italy in case of fresh aggression on the part of the Spaniards; and the king, who had just concluded peace with England, took the road back to France. Scarcely had the cardinal joined him before Privas when an imperialist army advanced into the Grisons, and, supported by the celebrated Spanish general Spinola, laid siege to Mantua. Richelieu did not hesitate: he entered Piedmont in the month of March, 1630, to march before long on Pignerol, an important place commanding the passage of the Alps; it, as well as the citadel, was carried in a few days; the governor having asked for time to “do his Easter” (take the sacrament), Marshal Crequi, who was afraid of seeing aid arrive from the Duke of Savoy, had all the clocks in the town put on, to such purpose that the governor had departed and the place was in the hands of the French when the re-enforcements came up. The Duke of Savoy was furious, and had the soldiers who surrendered Pignerol cut in pieces.
The king had put himself in motion to join his army. “The French noblesse,” said Spinola, “are very fortunate in seeing themselves honored by the presence of the king their master amongst their armies; I have nothing to regret in my life but never to have seen the like on the part of mine.” This great general had resumed the siege of Casale when Louis XIII. entered Savoy; the inhabitants of Chambery opened their gates to him; Annecy and Montmelian succumbed after a few days’ siege; Maurienne in its entirety made its submission, and the king fixed his quarters there, whilst the cardinal pushed forward to Casale with the main body of the army. Rejoicings were still going on for a success gained before Veillane over the troops of the Duke of Savoy, when news arrived of the capture of Mantua by the Imperialists. This was the finishing blow to the ambitious and restless spirit of the Duke of Savoy. He saw Mantua in the hands of the Spaniards, “who never give back aught of what falls into their power, whatever justice and the interests of alliance may make binding on them;” it was all hope lost of an exchange which might have given him back Savoy; he took to his bed and died on the 26th of July, 1630, telling his son that peace must be made on any terms whatever. “By just punishment of God, he who, during forty or fifty years of his reign, had constantly tried to set his neighbors a-blaze, died amidst the flames of his own dominions, which he had lost by his own obstinacy, against the advice of his friends and his allies.”
The King of France, in ill health, had just set out for Lyons; and thither the cardinal was soon summoned, for Louis XIII. appeared to be dying. When he reached convalescence, the truce suspending hostilities since the death of the Duke of Savoy was about to expire; Marshal Schomberg was preparing to march on the enemy, when there was brought to him a treaty, signed at Ratisbonne, between the emperor and the ambassador of France, assisted by Francis du Tremblay, now known as Father Joseph, perhaps the only friend and certainly the most intimate confidant of the cardinal, who always employed him on delicate or secret business.
But Marshal Schomberg was fighting against Spain; he did not allow himself to be stopped by a treaty concluded with the emperor, and speedily found himself in front of Casale. The two armies were already face to face, when there was seen coming out of the intrenchments an officer in the pope’s service, who waved a white handkerchief; he came up to Marshal Schomberg, and was recognized as Captain Giulio Mazarini, often employed on the nuncio’s affairs; he brought word that the Spaniards would consent to leave the city, if, at the same time, the French would evacuate the citadel. Spinola was no longer there to make a good stand before the place; he had died a month previously, complaining loudly that his honor had been filched from him; and, determined not to yield up his last breath in a town which would have to be abandoned, he had caused himself to be removed out of Casale, to go and die in a neighboring castle.
Casale evacuated, the cardinal broke out violently against the negotiators of Ratisbonne, saying that they had exceeded their powers, and declaring that the king regarded the treaty as null and void; there was accordingly a recommencement of negotiations with the emperor as well as the Spaniards.
It was only in the month of September, 1631, that the states of Savoy and Mantua were finally evacuated by the hostile troops. Pignerol had been given up to the new Duke of Savoy, but a secret agreement had been entered into between that prince and France: French soldiers remained concealed in Pignerol; and they retook possession of the place in the name of the king, who had purchased the town and its territory, to secure himself a passage into Italy. The Spaniards, when they bad news of it, made so much the more uproar as they had the less foreseen it, and as it cut the thread of all the enterprises they were meditating against Christendom. The affairs of the emperor in Germany were in too bad a state for him to rekindle war, and France kept Pignerol. The house of Austria, in fact, was threatened mortally. For two years Cardinal Richelieu had been laboring to carry war into its very heart. Ferdinand II. had displeased many electors of the empire, who began to be disquieted at the advances made by his power. “It is, no doubt, a great affliction for the Christian commonwealth,” said the cardinal to the German princes, “that none but the Protestants should dare to oppose such pernicious designs; they must not be aided in their enterprises against religion, but they must be made use of in order to maintain Germany in the enjoyment of her liberties.” The Catholic league in Germany, habitually allied as it was with the house of Austria, did not offer any leader to take the field against her. The King of Denmark, after a long period of hostilities, had just made peace with the emperor; and, “in their need, all these offended and despoiled princes looked, as sailors look to the north,” towards the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus.