A few days after the King’s return to Paris, Schomberg was deprived of the post of Surintendant of Finance and banished the Court. Since the Treaty of Montpellier Puisieux had been busily intriguing against him, in company with La Vieuville, a sworn enemy of Schomberg, and had accused him of gross mismanagement of the finances, if not worse. That he had mismanaged them was true enough, though how any other result could have been expected, when he was required to combine the duties of Surintendant with those of Grand Master of the Artillery on active service, it is difficult to see. However, his hands appear to have been perfectly clean, otherwise Richelieu would scarcely have recalled him to office so soon as he came into power, and, though he had committed a grave error in attaching himself to Condé and the war party, he was a more honest, as well as an abler, man than those who had brought about his fall.
Bassompierre, who had taken no part in this intrigue, and had, indeed, endeavoured to protect Schomberg, now proposed to the King to reappoint Sully to the office which he had filled so ably under Henri IV, a suggestion which did him much honour, since he and the old statesman had never been on friendly terms. But Puisieux and his father, the Chancellor Brulart de Sillery, objected, on the score of Sully’s religion, and La Vieuville was made Surintendant.
La Vieuville was a man of some ability, but he was rash, corrupt and an unscrupulous intriguer; and no sooner was he admitted to the King’s Council than he began to conspire, first, to get rid of the Chancellor and Puisieux, his benefactors, then, of all those whom the King admitted to his intimacy, and particularly of Bassompierre, of whom he appears to have conceived the bitterest jealousy.
Towards the end of that year a dispute of long standing between Diane de France, the widow of the Connétable de Montmorency, and the Duchesse de Chevreuse, was adjudicated upon by Louis XIII. It appears that Madame de Montmorency had accepted the post of dame d’honneur to the Queen on the understanding that no Surintendante of her Majesty’s Household should be appointed over her. This condition, however, had not been observed, and the Duchesse de Chevreuse, or the Duchesse de Luynes, as she was at that time, had been appointed Surintendante. The Duc de Montmorency, acting on behalf of his step-mother, requested the King to appoint someone to inquire into this weighty matter and report to the Council, and, as the Duc de Chevreuse, representing his wife, raised no objection, her request was granted. Neither nobleman had, of course, the least intention of compromising the interests of the lady he represented by adopting this course; and their mortification may be imagined when, in November, Louis XIII cut the Gordian knot by depriving both Madame de Montmorency and Madame de Chevreuse of their charges.
In a conversation with Bassompierre, Puisieux asked him his opinion of the King’s decision. Bassompierre frankly replied that he considered it the worst he had ever known him give, as he had thereby offended both parties, and that “the judge would be condemned to pay the costs of the action.” Puisieux inquired what he meant, when he said that, in the unsettled condition of the kingdom, and the probability of another war with the Huguenots, who were angrily demanding the destruction of Fort Saint-Louis at La Rochelle,[18] it was most imprudent of the King to displease two such great Houses as those of Montmorency and Lorraine, and that he ought to indemnify forthwith both ladies for the loss of their charges; otherwise, in the event of war, he might not be able to rely on the loyalty of their relatives.
Bassompierre spoke to Puisieux as one friend might speak to another, and, of course, believed that the latter would regard it as a private conversation. But the Minister, “to play the good valet,” reported what the marshal had said, very possibly with some little embellishments of his own, to Louis XIII, who, in turn, informed La Vieuville; and La Vieuville, delighted to find an opportunity of injuring Bassompierre, professed the utmost indignation, and “told the King that such words were criminal, and that they deserved the Bastille or worse.” His Majesty did not send Bassompierre to the Bastille, but he frowned angrily whenever he saw him, and for a whole week refused to honour him with so much as a word. At the end of that time, however, he unbosomed himself to the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld and his confessor Père Seguiran, who, fortunately, happened to be on friendly terms with the marshal, and, through their good offices, the latter succeeded in making his peace with the King.
This affair was only the prelude to further and more determined attempts by La Vieuville to deprive Bassompierre of the royal favour, but for the moment he was more intent on bringing about the downfall of the Chancellor and Puisieux, in which task he had the powerful support of Richelieu.
Since the dismissal of Schomberg, the Brûlarts, père et fils, had been all-powerful[19] and had mismanaged matters both at home and abroad. The treaty which had been signed between France, Savoy, and Venice in February, 1623, had pledged the contracting parties to take vigorous measures for the recovery of the Valtellina. But the Chancellor and his son had no wish to embark in a war which they felt themselves incapable of conducting, and when the Spanish Government offered to hand over the fortresses of the Valtellina to the Pope in deposit, on condition that his Holiness would assure the tranquillity of the country or restore them to Philip IV, they eagerly embraced this way out of the difficulty. Rome and Spain, however, were in accord to deceive France. The Duke of Feria, governor of the Milanese, did not deliver all the forts to the Papal troops, and the two most important strongholds, Ripa and Chiavenna, remained in Spanish hands; while, on his side, Gregory XV claimed that the Grisons should become Catholic, or that the Valtellina should be constituted a fourth League, with the same rights as the other Leagues of the Grisons. The Treaty of Paris had, in the words of the disgusted Venetian Ambassador, proved itself to be “nothing but a demonstration on paper.”
At home, the Brûlarts trafficked in offices, and allowed, as was the custom, their relatives and friends to enrich themselves at the expense of the State. Such practices were regarded in those days as mere peccadilloes, but Richelieu, who was slowly but surely paving the way for his return to office, and was aware that there was no chance of realising his ambition so long as the Chancellor and his son remained in power, professed to be scandalised, and there can be no doubt that more than one of the pamphlets which appeared attacking the incapacity and greed of the Ministers in vigorous and not too refined language were inspired by his Eminence. At the same time, Richelieu adroitly insinuated to the King, through Marie de’ Medici, that the Brûlarts were turning the great project on the Valtellina announced by the League of Paris to the shame of France, and Louis XIII, who keenly resented the impotence of his diplomacy, became more and more incensed against them. La Vieuville, on his part, was not idle and accused the Brûlarts, probably with justification, of having levied toll on the subsidies which were being sent to the Dutch. The consequence was that on New Year’s Day, 1623, the King demanded the Seals from the Chancellor, and at the beginning of February ordered both him and his son to retire to one of their country-seats.
The King gave the Seals to d’Aligre, who, it will be remembered, would have received them in the autumn of 1622 but for Bassompierre’s intervention. In consequence, the marshal was somewhat apprehensive that he might cherish a grudge against him, and went to offer him his congratulations with considerable misgivings as to how they would be received. To his surprise, however, d’Aligre greeted him with marked cordiality.