kept a profound secret, and instructions were sent to the Ambassador to press for certain amendments. New articles were signed by Du Fargis at the beginning of March, and it was these which were now under discussion. The treaty, with some further modifications, was finally signed at Monzon on May 2.
If therefore this peace, which, to all appearance, reversed Richelieu’s whole policy, was not of the Cardinal’s making, he accepted and adopted it, with cynical contempt for the allies of France, Venice, Savoy, and the Grisons, who found themselves treated, not as confederates but as vassals, whose interests might be dealt with without the necessity of consulting them. Richelieu’s excuse was that Charles Emmanuel would undoubtedly have insisted on the negotiations being broken off had he been informed of them.
The astonishment and indignation in London, Venice, Turin, and among the Grisons was extreme. The Venetians and the Grisons had too much need of France not to accept the explanations which Richelieu offered them; but Charles Emmanuel, deceived in his ambitious hopes at the moment when he believed that they were about to be realised, conceived against the Cardinal the most bitter resentment. As for Buckingham, who had brought strong pressure to bear on the Huguenots to induce them to make peace, and was pluming himself on having thereby deprived France of any excuse for not vigorously prosecuting the war against Spain, he felt himself cheated and outwitted, and his vanity was as deeply wounded as was the Duke of Savoy’s ambition.
Imperative motives had, however, imposed peace upon Richelieu. For the security of the Crown and the eventual liberty of Europe, it was absolutely necessary for him to extricate himself from foreign embarrassments with the least possible delay. He was convinced, as Bassompierre suspected, that obstacles within the State must be overcome before France could actively embark upon enterprises outside it. Any really effective action against the House of Austria was, in his judgment, impossible, so long as the Huguenots remained a great faction, ready to profit by the embarrassments of the Government to hinder its operations, and while the grandees, on their side, were thwarting openly, or by secret intrigues, the royal authority.
For the conspiracies of the Court had not contributed less than the revolt of the Huguenots to determine him to make peace. A formidable cabal threatened his power and even his life.
As the favour of Richelieu increased, so did the aristocratic opposition to him gather strength. The grandees of the kingdom were indignant that a Minister should presume to govern in the general interest, instead of in their own, and made ready to draw the sword, if need be, against him as they had against Concini and Luynes. Conspiracy and revolt were in the air, and men and women caballed incessantly, “persuaded that the Cardinal was not a dangerous enemy and that they had nothing to fear from him.”
For some time past Marie de’ Medici had been anxious for the marriage of her younger son, Gaston, Duc d’Anjou, officially styled Monsieur, now in his eighteenth year, a lively, frivolous, dissipated youth, who, when the shades of evening fell, loved nothing better than to escape from the Louvre and scour the streets in search of adventure. Gaston presented a striking contrast to his austere, melancholy, and parsimonious brother, but since his vices were such as the courtiers loved and profited by, he was as popular with them as the King was the reverse; and it was an open secret that the majority of them looked forward with pleasurable anticipation to the not unlikely event of his succession to the throne.
The lady whom the Queen-Mother had chosen as a wife for Gaston was Marie de Bourbon, Mlle. de Montpensier, only daughter of the late Duc de Bourbon-Montpensier, a lively and attractive princess and the richest heiress in France. Richelieu, after some hesitation, decided for the match, influenced, it would seem, by the reflection that, if Monsieur were ever so ill-advised as to raise the standard of revolt, there would be no foreign alliance for him to rely upon. Louis XIII expressed his approval, and nothing remained but to obtain the consent of Gaston.
And then the trouble began.