A day or two after this, Bassompierre requested permission of Louis XIII to bring an action against La Vieuville before the Parlement, so soon as he should cease to be a Minister, for having falsely accused him to his Majesty of being a pensioner of Spain, in order that he might be punished as he deserved. But the King assured the marshal that he intended to punish him sufficiently himself, by dismissing him with ignominy from office and imprisoning him. However, he enjoined him to say nothing about it to anyone.

Louis XIII seems to have played with the unfortunate La Vieuville up to the very moment of his disgrace much as a cat would play with a mouse. The young King was, not only deceitful, but, like most weak natures, cruel and spiteful, and he would appear to have taken a positive pleasure in inflicting suffering upon those who had the misfortune to incur his resentment.

“On the morrow,[22] the King went after dinner to visit the Queen his mother at Rueil; and La Vieuville, having got wind of what was being prepared against him, packed up his baggage and came, on his way back to Paris, to offer the King his resignation of the office of Surintendant and his place in the Council, telling him that he did not propose to return again to Saint-Germain. The King told him that he must not do this, and that he was distressing himself quite needlessly; and he promised him also that he would give him his dismissal with his own lips, and that he would permit him to come and take leave of him when that should happen. And so he [La Vieuville] felt reassured and returned to Saint-Germain. But, that evening, as the servants were making rough music in the back court in honour of an officer of the Kitchen who had married a widow, Monsieur, brother of the King, sent word to them to come into the court of the château to see him; and all the scullions and others did so, bringing with them pans which they beat. When La Vieuville heard this uproar, he imagined that it was directed against him, and sent to tell the Cardinal de Richelieu that people were coming to assassinate him. The Cardinal mounted to his chamber and reassured him. But, the next morning, the King, having sent for him in his Council, told him that, as he had promised him, he informed him himself that he had no further need of his services, and that he would permit him to take leave of him. Then, as he [La Vieuville] was going out, M. de Tresmes[23] made him prisoner, and, a little while afterwards, a coach and the King’s mounted musketeers arrived, and conducted him to the Château of Amboise, from which he effected his escape a year afterwards.”[24]

From the day of La Vieuville’s disgrace Richelieu was the virtual head of the Council, and for the first time since the death of Henri IV a firm hand guided the ship of State.

CHAPTER XXXI

Vigorous foreign policy of Richelieu—The recovery of the Valtellina—His projected blow at the Spanish power in Northern Italy frustrated by a fresh Huguenot insurrection—Bassompierre sent to Brittany—Marriage of Charles I and Henrietta-Maria—Bassompierre offered the command of a new army which is to be despatched to Italy—He demands 7,000 men from the Army of Champagne—The Duc d’Angoulême and Louis de Marillac, the generals commanding that army, have recourse to the bogey of a German invasion in order to retain these troops—Bassompierre declines the appointment—Conversation between Bassompierre and the Spanish Ambassador Mirabello on the subject of peace between France and Spain—The marshal is empowered to treat for peace with Mirabello—Singular conduct of the Ambassador—News arrives from Madrid that Philip IV has revoked the powers given to Mirabello—Bassompierre is sent as Ambassador Extraordinary to the Swiss Cantons to counteract the intrigues of the house of Austria and the Papacy—His reception in Switzerland—Lavish hospitality which he dispenses—Complete success of his negotiations.

Never had France stood more in need of such guidance than at the moment when Richelieu assumed the direction of affairs. At home, there was for the moment peace, though it was to prove but of brief duration; but abroad the position of affairs had become so threatening that even the dullest minds had begun to be alarmed. Spain and Austria, in closest harmony of religious and political aims, were trampling on the liberties of Europe; Germany seemed prostrate at the Emperor’s feet; Spain dominated all Italy, with the exception of Venice and Savoy. All the provinces which owed allegiance to the two Powers had been knit together; the subjugation of the Palatinate and the Lower Rhine secured their connection with the Netherlands and menaced the very existence of the Dutch; the Valtellina forts commanded the road between the Spaniards in the Milanese and the Austrians on the Danube and in the Tyrol.

Richelieu at once resolved to assail the Austro-Spanish power at both critical points. In the North, he did not interfere in arms, but by subsidies and skilful negotiations he organised a Northern League, under the leadership of Christian IV of Denmark, and arrested the progress of the Spaniards in the United Provinces. In the Valtellina, however, he had recourse to more vigorous measures.

The Spaniards had ended by handing over the forts which had remained in their possession to the Papal troops, but though the period during which the Pope[25] was to hold them in deposit had long expired and he had received all the guarantees he could desire for the security of the Catholic religion, the Holy Father could not bring himself to hand over the Valtellina to the heretic Grisons. The Spaniards, on their side, believed themselves more assured of the Valtellina in the hands of Urban VIII than in their own, and imagined that a cardinal would never venture to make war on the Pope. They did not yet know Richelieu.

In November, Coeuvres, who had persuaded the Protestant Cantons to arm for the recovery of the Valtellina, transformed himself from an ambassador into a general and marched into the Grisons, at the head of a small army of French and Swiss. The districts held by the Austrians at once rose in revolt; the Grisons declared themselves freed from the treaty which had been imposed on them, and the Imperialists hastily withdrew. Having secured the Tyrolese passes, Coeuvres descended from the Engadine by Poschiavo and entered the Valtellina. The entry of some Spanish troops into Chiavenna served to cover the attack directed against the soldiers of the Pope, and in a few weeks Chiavenna and all the forts of the Valtellina had capitulated, although the French general had no siege-artillery with which to reduce them. The Pope’s soldiers and their standards were respectfully sent back to his Holiness.