It is difficult to decide how far Bassompierre was sincere in these protestations. That he had been actually charged by Monsieur with such a commission as the Cardinal suspected may be doubted, but it is practically certain that, if not an active member of the anti-Richelieu cabal, he was in full sympathy with its main object. Nor is this a matter for surprise. As a great noble, he resented Richelieu’s determination to curtail the power and privileges of the nobility and bring them into subjection. As a marshal of France, he disliked the interference of an ecclesiastic in military matters, and he had not forgiven the Cardinal for having supported the pretensions of Angoulême during the siege of La Rochelle, thereby obliging him to accept a separate command and depriving him of the honour of driving the English from Ré. As a courtier and a favourite of the King, he found it difficult to reconcile himself to the sight of a Minister exercising such unbounded authority that no one could any longer hope for advancement except through his good offices.
And there was yet another reason why Bassompierre should have desired to see the success of the cabal. The Guises, and in particular the duke and his sister, the Princesse de Conti, were among its most energetic supporters. The former was now bitterly hostile to Richelieu, who had lately deprived him of the post of Admiral of the Levant, while his sister, as we have said, was a devoted adherent of the Queen-Mother. Bassompierre had been on terms of close friendship with the Guises ever since his arrival at the French Court, and his connexion with them was now even closer than was generally suspected. For many years he had been the lover—or, at least, the most favoured lover—of the Princesse de Conti, who, following the example of Marie d’Entragues, had presented him with a pledge of her affection in the shape of a natural son, of whom we shall have occasion to speak hereafter; and at a date which is unknown, but was probably some time between 1624 and 1630, this intimacy had been regularised by a secret marriage.
It was only natural that Bassompierre should have sided with the party to which his wife and brother-in-law belonged, and we can hardly blame Richelieu, who no doubt knew all about the secret marriage—for there were few secrets which his army of spies did not contrive to ferret out—if he credited the marshal with hostile intentions towards him and placed his name on the list of those distinguished persons upon whom, in the event of his defeating the machinations of his enemies, he intended to take summary vengeance.
It was, however, very far from certain that he would succeed in defeating them. During the King’s convalescence the two Queens were unremitting in their attentions, and Marie de’ Medici took advantage of his weakness to launch all kinds of accusations against the Cardinal, whom she charged with deliberately fomenting dissensions in the Royal family and prejudicing the King’s mind against his mother, wife, and brother, in order that he might dominate it entirely, and of prolonging the war for the purpose of rendering himself necessary, and of sacrificing his Majesty’s health to his ambition. The danger through which Louis had just passed, and the solicitude which Anne of Austria showed for him, had brought about a sort of reconciliation between the royal pair, and the young Queen profited by this to second the admonitions and entreaties of her mother-in-law. The latter gave her unfortunate son no rest, and, at length, to free himself from her obsessions, the King promised her that the Cardinal should be dismissed so soon as peace in Italy had been re-established, or, according to another version, that he would come to a decision on the matter after his return to Paris.
CHAPTER XL
Peace is signed with the Emperor at Ratisbon—The Queen-Mother deprives Richelieu’s niece Madame de Combalet of her post of dame d’atours and demands of Louis XIII the instant dismissal of the Cardinal—The Luxembourg interview—“The Day of Dupes”—Triumph of Richelieu—Bassompierre’s explanation of his own part in this affair—His visit to Versailles—“He has arrived after the battle!”—He gives offence to Richelieu by refusing an invitation to dinner—He finds himself in semi-disgrace—Monsieur quarrels with the Cardinal and leaves the Court—The King again treats Bassompierre with cordiality—Departure of the Court for Compiègne—Bassompierre learns that the Queen-Mother has been placed under arrest and the Princesse de Conti exiled and that he himself is to be arrested—The marshal is advised by the Duc d’Épernon to leave France—He declines and announces his intention of going to the Court to meet his fate—He burns “more than six thousand love-letters”—His arrival at the Court—Singular conduct of the King towards him—The marshal is arrested by the Sieur de Launay, lieutenant of the Gardes du Corps, and conducted to the Bastille.
So soon as his health was re-established, the King is said to have warned Richelieu of the hostile intentions of his mother, and when, on October 19, the Court left Lyons, the Cardinal, with the object of regaining her friendship, travelled with her in the same boat from Roanne to Briare—“in complete privacy,” says Bassompierre, and appears to have spared no pains to conciliate her. Marie dissembled so well that he believed that all immediate danger was over; but scarcely had she arrived in Paris than she called upon the King to carry out the promise he had made her at Lyons.
Louis pleaded the interests of the State, and demanded time to settle the troubles. But it was necessary to find other arguments. Père Joseph and Brulart de Léon, who had been sent to Ratisbon to settle with the Emperor the question of Casale and Mantua, had concluded with him a general peace (October 13). Schomberg was on the march towards Casale, which was in the utmost peril, for the Spaniards had already captured the town and were pressing the citadel closely, when he received news of the treaty. He paid no attention to it and continued to advance. On the 26th he came in sight of the place, and a cannonade between his forces and those of the besiegers had actually begun, when the young Papal agent Mazarini, at the risk of his life, rode in between the hostile armies, waving a paper and crying: “Peace!” The proposals he brought for the evacuation of the town by the Spaniards and of the citadel by the French pending the acceptance of the Ratisbon treaty by Spain were acceded to, and the great siege of Casale came suddenly to an end.
When this agreement was known in Paris, and the war regarded as over, the Queen-Mother, refusing to listen to any remonstrance from the King, promptly deprived Richelieu’s niece, Madame de Combalet, of her post as dame d’atours, in an interview in which she is said to have heaped the grossest abuse upon the unfortunate young woman, and demanded of her son the instant dismissal of the Cardinal. The King demurred and, to escape maternal importunities, withdrew to his hunting-lodge at Versailles; but Marie was resolved to give him no rest until she had gained his consent; and on the morning of November 10 Louis returned to Paris, and went to visit the Queen-Mother at the Luxembourg.
On his arrival at the Luxembourg, whither he was accompanied by Bassompierre, the King and his mother entered the latter’s cabinet, and gave strict orders that no one should be allowed to interrupt them. They then locked the door of the cabinet, and the Queen-Mother’s attendants those of the ante-chamber.