[121] The Princess of Piedmont subsequently petitioned her brother for the release of this officer; and Louis XIII gave Tréville, to whom he had surrendered, a valuable diamond by way of ransom for his prisoner.
[122] He means the nobles who served as volunteers.
[123] Claude, afterwards Duc de Saint-Simon, father of the author of the famous Mémoires.
[124] The intentions of his Majesty, at least so far as the garrison of Privas was concerned, may be gathered from a letter which he wrote the same day to the Queen-Mother. “They are the best men whom M. de Rohan has, and, in causing them to be hanged, as I shall do, and Saint André the first, I shall cut off M. de Rohan’s right arm.”
[125] His followers had apparently obliged Saint-André to surrender himself.
[126] Such is the account given of this lamentable affair by Bassompierre, but, according to other contemporary relations, there would appear to have been some excuse for the barbarous conduct of the Royal troops. “Those who had remained in the fort,” writes Louis XIII to the Comte de Noailles, “seeing that they were unable to escape the evil which pressed them, likewise surrendered to my discretion; but, since it was God’s will to destroy them and avenge upon themselves their rebellion and disobedience, He permitted that some among them, inured more and more to evil, deliberately set fire to a great sack containing a quantity of cannon-powder, which blew up him who had set alight to it and some others, both of these wretches and soldiers of the Guards, French and Swiss, whom I had ordered thither to secure this fort and prevent any disorder. My Guards, excited by this evil action, and believing that a mine had been fired against them, were transported with fury, and, contrary to my intention and my orders, killed the greater part of those who had thrown themselves into the said fort.”
But if there were extenuating circumstances in the case of the soldiers, there was certainly no excuse for Louis XIII following up the massacre by the execution of a number of the survivors. He even wanted to hang the brave Saint-André, and would have done so, but for the intervention of Richelieu. There was between the King and the Cardinal this great difference—that the latter was rigorous only when his interests or policy demanded it, whereas the former was cruel by nature.
[127] Now the chief town of the arrondissement of Castel-Sarrasin, in the Department of Tarn-et-Garonne.
[128] Donatien de Maillé, Marquis de Kerman, Comte de Maillé. He was killed in a duel in 1652.
[129] Richelieu’s niece, Madame de Combalet, afterwards Duchesse d’Aiguillon, was dame d’atours (mistress of the robes) to Marie de’ Medici.