As the Duc de Vendôme, who had retired into his government of Brittany, showed himself discontented with the peace and had, not only refused to dismantle the fortifications of Lamballe and Quimper, as he was required to do by the treaty, but had even seized upon Vannes, Marie de’ Medici, on the advice of Villeroy, decided to show the young King to his people, and to “go in person to pacify the western provinces.” Bassompierre accompanied her, with one of the two regiments of Swiss, the other having been disbanded on the signing of peace, and was employed in superintending the razing of the fortifications which Vendôme had erected. The appearance of the young King aroused great enthusiasm in the West, and Vendôme soon decided to make his submission.

Louis XIII returned to Paris, and on October 2 proceeded in great state to the Parlement to declare his majority. He thanked his mother “for having taken so many pains on his behalf, and begged her to continue to govern and command as heretofore.” “I desire and I order,” he added, “that you be obeyed in everything and everywhere, and that you be after me the chief of my Council.”

CHAPTER XV

Bassompierre, during his absence in Lorraine, condemned by the Archbishop of Aix to espouse Mlle. d’Entragues, on pain of excommunication—The archbishop’s decision quashed by the Parlement of Paris—Financial and amatory embarrassments of Bassompierre—Death of his mother—The action which the d’Entragues have brought against him finally decided in his favour—Condé withdraws from Court and issues a manifesto against the Government—Civil war begins—Marriage of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria—Peace of Loudun—Fall of the old Ministers of Henri IV—Concini and the shoemaker—Condé becomes all-powerful—He obliges Concini to retire to Normandy—Arrogance of Condé and his partisans, who are suspected of conspiracy to change the form of government—The Queen-Mother sends for Bassompierre at three o’clock in the morning and informs him that she has decided upon the arrest of the Princes—Preparations for this coup d’état—Arrest of Condé—Concini’s house sacked by the mob—The Comte d’Auvergne and the Council of War—Bassompierre conducts Condé from the Louvre to the Bastille.

In January, 1615, Bassompierre set out for Lorraine, to visit his mother, who was lying dangerously ill at Nancy. “The joy of seeing me,” says he, “restored her to some degree of health,” and, after remaining with her a fortnight, he went to visit some of his friends in Germany. About Easter he returned to Nancy, and was about to set out for France when he received a most astonishing piece of intelligence.

It appears that the d’Entragues, aware that their plea that the court at Rouen was improperly constituted was certain to be overruled by the King’s Council and the case sent back to Rouen for trial, in which event their chance of obtaining a verdict would be a very remote one, had decided to appeal to Rome, and proceeded to petition the Pope to direct that the affair should be adjudicated upon by ecclesiastical commissioners appointed by his Holiness. The petition was granted, though it would appear to have been very unusual for the Vatican to do so, unless it had first been ascertained whether the other party were willing for the case to be submitted to a Papal tribunal; and one of the commissioners appointed was the Bishop of Dax. But, by some error, due no doubt to the similarity of names, the Papal authority to try the case was sent, not to this prelate, but to the Archbishop of Aix. Now, the Archbishop of Aix, if we are to believe Bassompierre, was “a needy rogue, and generally regarded as mad”; and when the Bishop of Beauvais, at whose suggestion the appeal to Rome had been made, and whom the writer accuses of being in love with Marie d’Entragues, offered him a bribe of 1,200 crowns to defeat the ends of justice, he promptly accepted it. Thereupon, without condescending to consult his fellow-commissioners he sent a citation to Bassompierre’s house, summoning him to appear before him; and, after waiting three days, without troubling to ascertain whether that gentleman had ever received the citation, and without hearing any evidence, pronounced, on his own authority, the promise of marriage—which he had not even seen, as it was, with the other documents connected with the case, at Rome—good and valid, and condemned Bassompierre to execute it within fifteen days after Easter, on pain of excommunication.

On learning of these extraordinary proceedings, Bassompierre returned to Paris in all haste, and appealed to the Parlement; and that body, always very jealous of Papal interference with matters which it considered within its own jurisdiction, promptly quashed the archbishop’s decision. He then went to the Queen-Mother, who, “indignant, like everyone else, at the infamy of this man,” issued an order for the prelate’s arrest, which Bassompierre set out to execute, at the head of 200 stalwart Swiss. The archbishop, however, had prudently gone into hiding, where he remained until the Nuncio and the other bishops, fearing a scandal, succeeded in pacifying the infuriated Bassompierre, “the Nuncio giving him his word that within three months at latest his Holiness would quash, as the Parlement had already done, all the proceedings of this fool. And this he did.”

This new development of the d’Entragues affair was only one of many difficulties which beset Bassompierre on his return to Paris:—

“I found myself on my return in very great perplexity; not only in consequence of this affair, but also on account of six hundred thousand livres which I owed in Paris, without any means of paying them; and my creditors, who, on seeing me set out to visit my mother, who was dangerously ill, entertained some hope that, with the property I should inherit from her, I should be able to satisfy them, now that I was returned and my mother recovered, lost all hope of settling their affairs with me, and were consequently very mutinous. There was a quarrel in a certain house between a husband and wife on my account, which gave me pain; and, worst of all, there was a girl for whom I daily feared a discovery attended with a great scandal and evil consequences for me.”

However, his fortunate star prevailed over these complicated effects of his extravagant and amorous propensities:—