"I do not feel well," said the prince, who did not venture to say he would not conclude the marriage at all: "I am ill, and would rather regain my health before I marry. The sea-air will do me good."
The serpent-smile came upon Richelieu's lips again. "Oh, I have a prescription," he said, "which will cure the malady of your Highness very rapidly."
"How soon?" asked the prince, in a hesitating tone, not liking that smile, which he had seen before.
"In ten minutes," answered Richelieu, "for it cannot take long to act." And, opening his portfolio, he took forth a paper all written in a hand which Gaston knew too well. There, before his eyes, all apparently in the writing of the unhappy Chalais, was a confession of a treasonable conspiracy against the king and the state, in which he himself, Gaston of Anjou, and the young Queen Anne of Austria, were implicated by name. How much was really written by Chalais, how much had been added by the cardinal's skilful secretaries, has never been known; but Gaston was conscious that he was lost if he did not make his peace. After a moment of stupefied astonishment, he agreed to the proposed marriage,—agreed that it should take place immediately; but then, remembering his high position as brother of the reigning monarch and heir-presumptive to the throne, he began to make conditions,—demanded some security for the life, at least, of his friend and partisan Chalais.
But the terrible words which had long been hanging on the cardinal's lips were spoken at last, when the prince proposed some stipulations. "Perhaps," he said, "in the position in which your Highness now stands, it would be better to content yourself with the promise of your own life and liberty."
The young duke stood like one stupefied. The audacious idea that he—he, Gaston of Anjou—might possibly be brought to trial, condemned, executed, or sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, was spoken with calm civility, with courtly reverence for his high rank, but in a tone so cold, so grave, so determined, as to show that it was not unfamiliar to him who uttered it. A vague impression of the character of the man with whom he had to do—no definite perception, no clear insight into his character, but a sort of instinct, which seemed given to him on a sudden for his preservation—took possession of Gaston of Anjou. He yielded at once and entirely. A faint, hypocritical effort in favor of the unhappy Chalais, which Richelieu well knew how to parry with soft words and half-promises, was all that the selfish prince ventured to attempt. Toward himself, however, the minister showed himself unbounded in liberality. Dukedoms, Government posts to the amount of a million of revenue, were promised and given on the marriage of Monsieur with Mademoiselle de Montpensier; and the contract was sealed with the blood of Chalais. It was a part of Richelieu's system.
Vialart, Bishop of Avranches, a contemporary, remarks that the great minister was accustomed, in dealing with those nobles who had any real pretensions, to grant them even more than they could rightly claim; but, if they showed themselves insensible to such conduct, from that moment he had no mercy on them. It was a part of his system, also, to teach one to betray another. The weaknesses of the men with whom he had to do served him as much as their strength.
The art of fathoming the characters of those who surround us, and the science of applying their strong qualities against our enemies and using their weaknesses against themselves, is the great secret of ambition. By it, every usurper has risen to power; by it, most have maintained themselves in authority; and when they have fallen, it has been more frequently by a mistake in the character of others than by want of force in their own. It may seem a Machiavelian axiom; but, had I the wisdom of the great Florentine, I should not be at all ashamed of being compared, even in one short passage, to that wise, virtuous, much-misunderstood man. The axiom, however, applies as closely to nations as to individuals. It resolves itself simply into this:—Who knows a nation best will rule that nation best. We have a thousand illustrations of the fact; and Richelieu certainly knew the French nation—that is to say when speaking of those times—knew the nobility, as well as man could know them,—in the mass, and individually; and, whenever it suited his purpose to be stern, he knew no pity, showed no compassion; whenever there was no object in severity, he was kind, or gentle, or sportive.
The well-known anecdote of Boisrobert and Mademoiselle de Gournay, when the former induced Richelieu to bestow upon the good old poetess, first a pension of a hundred crowns for herself, then a pension of fifty crowns for her chambermaid, then a pension of twenty crowns for her cat, and, lastly, a pistole for each of the cat's kittens, shows to what extent his good-humor could be carried. On the other hand, the fate of Chalais, Montmorency, Cinq Mars, De Thou, Marillac, and a host of others, gives fearful evidence of his relentless vengeance. At the period of which I write, however, the harsher points of his character had not fully developed themselves: perhaps they were not fully formed; for the minister whom we see represented on the stage, at this very period of his history, as an old and almost decrepit man struggling with an imaginary conspiracy, was really only forty-two years of age, and vigorous in body as in intellect.[2]