The Assembly authorised the raising of troops and a general levy on the funds of the party; and then proceeded to divide France into eight departments—veritable military districts on the model of the German “circles”—each being placed under the command of a general-in-chief. Although these measures were intended to be purely defensive, nothing more calculated to provoke hostilities could have been devised; the Protestants were at once accused by the Government of having established a republic within the State, and in April a new War of Religion began.
It differed from the old wars, however, inasmuch as neither the chiefs nor the rank and file of the Huguenots were unanimous in supporting it. Lesdiguières, who had been won over by the Court, deserted the common cause, as did most of the Protestant nobles; Rohan, his younger brother Soubise and La Force alone remained faithful. Outside the nobility, the same division of opinion manifested itself; the great majority of the warlike Calvinists of the South took up arms; but the rest of Protestant France did not move.
At the moment of entering upon the campaign against the Protestants, Luynes demanded the sword of Constable of France, which Louis XIII bestowed upon him with the utmost pomp, although he had already promised it to Lesdiguières, on condition that he should abjure the Protestant faith, which the marshal had engaged to do. That the sword which had been borne by such warriors as Du Guesclin, Clisson, Buchan, Saint-Pol, the Duc de Bourbon, and Anne de Montmorency should be conferred upon the hero of an assassination, who could not drill a company of infantry, aroused universal astonishment and disgust; and Luynes’s exchange of the rôle of statesman for that of general was, as one might anticipate, attended with disastrous results for the forces under his command.
However, the campaign opened auspiciously enough. The King and Luynes advanced to Saumur, of which the latter succeeded in getting possession by a characteristic act of bad faith. The Governor of Saumur was that grand old veteran Du Plessis-Mornay, the companion-in-arms and counsellor of Henri IV. Mornay had refused to support a rebellion which, in his eyes, was unjustified, and when Luynes assured him that the King had no intention of depriving him of a post which had been conferred upon him by his father more than thirty years before, he opened the gates of town and château to the royal troops. No sooner were they in possession, than he was informed that prudence would not permit the King to leave a Huguenot in charge of so important a link in his communications. He was offered a bribe of money, and even a marshal’s bâton, in return for the resignation of his government, which he indignantly refused, but accepted the royal promise that in three months’ time he should be reinstated. On various pretexts, however, Louis XIII succeeded in evading this engagement until Mornay’s death, two years later.
At the end of May, the Royal army laid siege to Saint-Jean-d’Angély, called the “bulwark of La Rochelle,” to the possession of which great importance was attached; and it was here that Bassompierre, who, after remaining a day at Bayonne, had hastened northwards, joined it. The town, which was defended by Soubise, held out for nearly a month, and at times there was some pretty sharp fighting in the faubourgs, in which Bassompierre appears to have distinguished himself. But on June 23 it capitulated, and d’Épernon and Bassompierre marched in with the French and Swiss Guards.
On the 26th, Bassompierre accompanied the King to Cognac, from which town he was despatched to Paris, to ratify with the Chancellor and the Spanish Ambassador Mirabello the treaty which he had made at Madrid. He was accompanied by Créquy, who had received a musket-ball through the cheek at the siege of Saint-Jean-d’Angély, and to whom Luynes had suggested the advisability of a short sojourn in the capital for the benefit of his health. About the same time, another brigadier-general, Saint-Luc, was appointed lieutenant-general of the western seaboard of France, and sent by Luynes to Brouage, “to make the King powerful at sea.” The reason, however, why the new Constable felt able to dispense simultaneously with the services of three of the most distinguished officers in the army was not made apparent until some weeks later, as, on taking leave of him, each was assured that he would be recalled so soon as any important operations were contemplated.
Bassompierre’s reception by his friends of both sexes in Paris left nothing to be desired:
“It is impossible to say,” he writes, “how I passed my time during this visit. Everyone entertained us in turn. The ladies congregated or came to the Tuileries. There were few gallants in Paris, and I was in great consideration there, and in love in divers directions. I had brought back from Spain rarities to the value of 20,000 crowns, and these I distributed amongst the ladies, who gave me a most cordial reception.”
Bassompierre had not been long in Paris when he received a visit from his friend Roucelaï, who came on behalf of Luynes to interview him on the question of his marriage with the Constable’s niece, Mlle. de Combalet, which had been proposed to the favourite by Condé and Guise during Bassompierre’s absence in Spain. Luynes was anxious to conciliate these two princes, who had been far from pleased at his assumption of the office of Constable, and, aware that Bassompierre had strengthened his position at Court by the success of his embassy to Madrid and his services at Saint-Jean-d’Angély, he appears to have been anxious to remove all difficulties in the way of the match.
“He had sent Roucelaï,” says Bassompierre, “to ascertain what I desired for my advantage and my fortune, if this marriage were made. For he imagined that I should demand offices of the Crown, dignities and governments, and that it was my intention to be bought. But I answered Roucelaï that the honour of marrying into the family of the Constable was so dear to me, that he would offend me by giving me anything except his niece, and that I demanded nothing beyond that, although afterwards I should not refuse the benefits of which he might deem me worthy when I was his nephew. He [Luynes] was delighted at my frankness, and caused me to be informed that he would place me in the perfect confidence of the King, who had a very strong inclination for me, of which in future he would no longer be jealous, as he had been the previous year.”