King Louis XIII. was not yet in his grave when his last wishes were violated; before his death the queen had made terms with the ministers; the course to be followed had been decided. On the 18th of May, 1643, the queen, having brought back the little king to Paris, conducted him in great state to the Parliament of Paris to hold his bed of justice there. The boy sat down and said with a good grace that he had come to the Parliament to testify his good will to it, and that his chancellor would say the rest. The Duke of Orleans then addressed the queen. “The honor of the regency is the due altogether of your Majesty,” said he, “not only in your capacity of mother, but also for your merits and virtues; the regency having been confined to you by the deceased king, and by the consent of all the grandees of the realm, I desire no other part in affairs than that which it may please your Majesty to give me, and I do not claim to take any advantage from the special clauses contained in the declaration.” The Prince of Condo said much the same thing, but with less earnestness, and on the evening of the same day the queen regent, having sole charge of the administration of affairs, and modifying the council at her pleasure, announced to the astounded court that she should retain by her Cardinal Mazarin. Not a word had been said about him at the Parliament; the courtiers believed that he was on the point of leaving France; but the able Italian, attractive as he was subtle, had already found a way to please the queen. She retained as chief of her council the heir to the traditions of Richelieu, and deceived the hopes of the party of Importants, those meddlers of the court at whose head marched the Duke of Beaufort, all puffed up with the confidence lately shown to him by her Majesty. Potier, Bishop of Beauvais, the queen’s confidant during her troubles, “expected to be all-powerful in the state; he sought out the Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Conde, promising them governorships of places, and, generally, anything they might desire. He thought he could set the affairs of state going as easily as he could his parish-priests; but the poor prelate came down from his high hopes when he saw that the cardinal was advancing more and more in the queen’s confidence, and that, for him, too much was already thought to have been done in according him admittance to the council, whilst flattering him with a hope of the purple.” [Memoires de Brienne, ii. 37.]
Cardinal Mazarin soon sent him off to his diocese. Continuing to humor all parties, and displaying foresight and prudence, the new minister was even now master. Louis XIII., without any personal liking, had been faithful to Richelieu to the death; with different feelings, Anne of Austria was to testify the same constancy towards Mazarin.
A stroke of fortune came at the very first to strengthen the regent’s position. Since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, the Spaniards, but recently overwhelmed at the close of 1642, had recovered courage and boldness; new counsels prevailed at the court of Philip IV., who had dismissed Olivarez; the house of Austria vigorously resumed the offensive; at the moment of Louis XIII.‘s death, Don Francisco de Mello, governor of the Low Countries, had just invaded French territory by way of the Ardennes, and laid siege to Rocroi, on the 12th of May. The French army was commanded by the young Duke of Enghien, the Prince of Conde’s son, scarcely twenty-two years old; Louis XIII. had given him as his lieutenant and director the veteran Marshal de l’Hopital; and the latter feared to give battle. The Duke of Enghien, who “was dying with impatience to enter the enemy’s country, resolved to accomplish by address what he could not carry by authority. He opened his heart to Gassion alone. As he was a man who saw nothing but what was easy even in the most dangerous deeds, he had very soon brought matters to the point that the prince desired. Marshal de l’Hopital found himself imperceptibly so near the Spaniards that it was impossible for him any longer to hinder an engagement.” [Relation de 31 de la Houssaye.] The army was in front of Rocroi, and out of the dangerous defile which led to the place, without any idea on the part of the marshal and the army that Louis XIII. was dead. The Duke of Enghien, who had received the news, had kept it secret. He had merely said in the tone of a master “that he meant to fight, and would answer for the issue. His orders given, he passed along the ranks of his army with an air which communicated to it the same impatience that he himself felt to see the night over, in order to begin the battle. He passed the whole of it at the camp-fire of the officers of Picardy.” In the morning “it was necessary to rouse from deep slumber this second Alexander. Mark him as he flies to victory or death! As soon as he had kindled from rank to rank the ardor with which he was animated, he was seen, in almost the same moment, driving in the enemy’s right, supporting ours that wavered, rallying the half-beaten French, putting to flight the victorious Spaniards, striking terror everywhere, and dumbfounding with his flashing looks those who escaped from his blows. There remained that dread infantry of the army of Spain, whose huge battalions, in close order, like so many towers, but towers that could repair their breaches, remained unshaken amidst all the rest of the rout, and delivered their fire on all sides. Thrice the young conqueror tried to break these fearless warriors; thrice he was driven knack by the valiant Count of Fuentes, who was seen carried about in his chair, and, in spite of his infirmities, showing that a warrior’s soul is mistress of the body it animates. But yield they must: in vain through the woods, with his cavalry all fresh, does Beck rush down to fall upon our exhausted men the prince has been beforehand with him; the broken battalions cry for quarter, but the victory is to be more terrible than the fight for the Duke of Enghien. Whilst with easy mien he advances to receive the parole of these brave fellows, they, watchful still, apprehend the surprise of a fresh attack; their terrible volley drives our men mad; there is nothing to be seen but slaughter; the soldier is drunk with blood, till that great prince, who could not bear to see such lions butchered like so many sheep, calmed excited passions, and to the pleasure of victory joined that of mercy. He would willingly have saved the life of the brave Count of Fuentes, but found him lying amidst thousands of the dead whose loss is still felt by Spain. The prince bends the knee, and, on the field of battle, renders thanks to the God of armies for the victory he hath given him. Then were there rejoicings over Rocroi delivered, the threats of a dread enemy converted to their shame, the regency strengthened, France at rest, and a reign, which was to be so noble, commenced with such happy augury.” [Bossuet, Oraison funebre de Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Conde.] Victory or death, below the cross of Burgundy, was borne upon most of the standards taken from the Imperialists; and “indeed,” says the Gazette de France, “the most part were found dead in the ranks where they had been posted.” Which was nobly brought home by one of the prisoners to our captains when, being asked how many there had been of them, he replied, “Count the dead.” Conde was worthy to fight such enemies, and Bossuet to recount their defeat. “The prince was a born captain,” said Cardinal de Retz. And all France said so with him, on hearing of the victory of Rocroi.
The delight was all the keener in the queen’s circle, because the house of Conde openly supported Cardinal Mazarin, bitterly attacked as he was by the Importants, who accused him of reviving the tyranny of Richelieu.
A ditty on the subject was current in the streets of Paris:—
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“He is not dead, he is but changed of age, The cardinal, at whom men gird with rage, But all his household make thereat great cheer; It pleaseth not full many a chevalier They fain had brought him to the lowest stage. Beneath his wing came all his lineage, By the same art whereof he made usage And, by my faith, ‘tis still their day, I fear. He is not dead. “Hush! we are mum, because we dread the cage For he’s at court—this eminent personage There to remain of years to come a score. Ask those Importants, would you fain know more And they will say in dolorous language, ‘He is not dead.’” |
And indeed, on pretext offered by a feminine quarrel between the young Duchess of Longueville, daughter of the Prince of Conde, and the Duchess of Montbazon, the Duke of Beaufort and some of his friends resolved to assassinate the cardinal. The attempt was a failure, but the Duke of Beaufort, who was arrested on the 2d of September, was taken to the castle of Vincennes. Madame de Chevreuse, recently returned to court, where she would fain have exacted from the queen the reward for her services and her past sufferings, was sent into exile, as well as the Duke of Vendome. Madame d’Hautefort, but lately summoned by Anne of Austria to be near her, was soon involved in the same disgrace. Proud and compassionate, without any liking for Mazarin, she was daring enough, during a trip to Vincennes, to ask pardon for the Duke of Beaufort. “The queen made no answer, and, the collation being served, Madame d’Hautefort, whose heart was full, ate nothing; when she was asked why, she declared that she could not enjoy anything in such close proximity to that poor boy.” The queen could not put up with reproaches; and she behaved with extreme coldness to Madame d’Hautefort. One day, at bedtime, her ill temper showed itself so plainly, that the old favorite could no longer be in doubt about the queen’s sentiments. As she softly closed the curtains, “I do assure you, Madame,” she said, “that if I had served God with as much attachment and devotion as I have your Majesty all my life, I should be a great saint.” And, raising her eyes to the crucifix, she added, “Thou knowest, Lord, what I have done for her.” The queen let her go to the convent where Mademoiselle de la Fayette had taken refuge ten years before. Madame d’Hautefort left it ere long to become the wife of Marshal Schomberg; but the party of the Importants was dead, and the power of Cardinal Mazarin seemed to be firmly established. “It was not the thing just then for any decent man to be on bad terms with the court,” says Cardinal de Retz.
Negotiations for a general peace, the preliminaries whereof had been signed by King Louis XIII. in 1641, had been going on since 1644 at Munster and at Osnabruck, without having produced any result; the Duke of Enghien, who became Prince of Conde in 1646, was keeping up the war in Flanders and Germany, with the co-operation of Viscount Turenne, younger brother of the Duke of Bouillon, and, since Rocroi, a marshal of France. The capture of Thionville and of Dunkerque, the victories of Friburg and Nordlingen, the skilful opening effected in Germany as far as Augsburg by the French and the Swedes, had raised so high the reputation of the two generals, that the Prince of Conde, who was haughty and ambitious, began to cause great umbrage to Mazarin. Fear of having him unoccupied deterred the cardinal from peace, and made all the harder the conditions he presumed to impose upon the Spaniards. Meanwhile the United Provinces, weary of a war which fettered their commerce, and skilfully courted by their old masters, had just concluded a private treaty with Spain; the emperor was trying, but to no purpose, to detach the Swedes likewise from the French alliance, when the victory of Lens, gained on the 20th of August, 1648, over Archduke Leopold and General Beck, came to throw into the balance the weight of a success as splendid as it was unexpected; one more campaign, and Turenne might be threatening Vienna whilst Conde entered Brussels; the emperor saw there was no help for it, and bent his head. The house of Austria split in two; Spain still refused to treat with France, but the whole of Germany clamored for peace; the conditions of it were at last drawn up at Munster by MM. Servien and de Lionne; M. d’Avaux, the most able diplomatist that France possessed, had been recalled to Paris at the beginning of the year. On the 24th of October, 1648, after four years of negotiation, France at last had secured to her Elsass and the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun; Sweden gained Western Pomerania, including Stettin, the Isle of Rugen, the three mouths of the Oder, and the bishoprics of Bremen and Werden, thus becoming a German power: as for Germany, she had won liberty of conscience and political liberty; the rights of the Lutheran or reformed Protestants were equalized with those of Catholics; henceforth the consent of a free assembly of all the Estates of the empire was necessary to make laws, raise soldiers, impose taxes, and decide peace or war. The peace of Westphalia put an end at one and the same time to the Thirty Years’ War and to the supremacy of the house of Austria in Germany.