The ascendancy of France, 1598-1715

by Henry Offley Wakeman

The peace of Montpellier, concluded between Louis and the revolted Huguenots in October 1622, was one of those treaties which are not so much a conclusion of a struggle as a preliminary to its recommencement. It left the questions at issue not merely unsolved but intensified. Huguenotism, always quite as much a political as a religious movement, had derived its aspirations and drawn much of its strength from the desire of independence arising from the jealousy of the king of Paris, which was characteristic of the south of France, and from the jealousy of the French crown, which was characteristic of the French nobility. It was among the towns of the south of France and among the smaller nobility—the country seigneurs—that it spread with the greatest rapidity. Its strongly self-centred and individualistic creed fell in naturally with their passionate love for their privileges and their intense dread of the central government. Ever since the Huguenots became a power in the land, the tendency of their policy had been towards independence, all the more significant because it came about without any defined cry for separation. Aided by the weakness of the crown Huguenot towns, such as La Rochelle, Montauban and Nismes, during the civil troubles became self-governing communities independent of the French government, and had been practically recognised as such by various treaties during the wars, and by the Edict of Nantes. Their organisation. Huguenot organisations under the name of ‘circles’ parcelled France out into districts under regular officers for the purposes of defence and offence from end to end. In many parts of the country this organisation consisted merely upon paper, but in the north where the influence of the duke of Bouillon was great, and over large districts of the south it was a dangerous and menacing reality. In the strong words attributed to Richelieu, the Huguenots shared the government of France with the king. In the revolt of 1621, although the leaders probably never intended to do more than frighten the Crown and secure their own political position, many of the rank and file were openly fighting for independence. To the Crown therefore it had become essential to crush the power of the Huguenots if it wished to be supreme over France. To the Huguenots it was no less essential to conquer the Crown if they wished to secure their independence.

In such a state of affairs the treaty of Montpellier was obviously but a breathing space in the combat. Both sides saw that at that moment neither of them could win a decisive victory, and both were content to wait for a more favourable opportunity. Rising of the Huguenots, 1625. That opportunity seemed to have come to the hot-headed Soubise, the brother of Rohan and the head of the circle of La Rochelle in 1625. The new minister was hardly yet settled in his saddle. It was no secret that he was surrounded by enemies of all kinds, from the king’s brother Gaston of Orléans down to the pages of the royal household. He had just engaged the forces of France in the question of the Valtelline, and had incurred the enmity of the more strenuous of the Catholic party by making war upon the soldiers of the Pope. Surely a rising of the Huguenot organisations at such a moment could not fail to be successful at least in overturning the rash and unpopular minister. Since Richelieu had been in power he had been diligently forming a nucleus of a royal navy, and at the beginning of 1625 the six vessels of war, which were the outcome of his efforts, were gathered in the little port of Blavet in Brittany. Soubise by an act of happy daring seized the whole of them on the 17th of January 1625, and, establishing himself on the islands of Rhé and Oléron, prepared, now that he was undisputed master of the sea, to defy any attack which the royal forces might direct against the walls of La Rochelle. But Richelieu was not so easy out-generalled. He at once withdrew from the affairs of Italy, procured ships from Holland and England, after long and tortuous negotiations in which he completely outwitted Buckingham, and manning them with French sailors inflicted a crushing defeat upon Soubise in September 1626, and forced him to take refuge in England. The crisis had been, however, sufficiently acute to show Richelieu that it was not safe to undertake responsibilities abroad as long as his enemies at home were so watchful and unsubdued. He must establish his authority on a firm basis in France, before he could run the risk again of having to deal with foreign war and internal revolts together. On the 5th of February he put an end to the Huguenot rising by renewing the terms of the treaty of Montpellier. In March the treaty of Monzon relieved him for the moment of all danger from the side of Spain, and he felt that the time had then arrived when he might safely proceed to strike the first blow at the power of the nobles.

Edicts against duelling and private castles, 1626.

In the summer of 1626 two edicts were issued in pursuit of this policy. By the first all duelling was declared punishable by death. By the second the destruction of all fortified places not situated on the frontier was ordered. These two laws struck at two of the most cherished privileges of the nobles and the greatest dangers of the state. The right of an independent tribunal of arms, by which all personal questions arising in their own order should be adjudicated, was one incompatible with civilised and authoritative government. The fortified town and the fortified castle formed the natural home of both sedition and oppression, and Richelieu, in determining to sweep them away in France, was merely taking a course which all restorers of order in all countries had felt themselves obliged to take. Like Henry II. of England he found that fortresses in the hands of a territorial nobility were inconsistent with the power of the Crown. But the nobles were not going to submit to legislation of this sort without attempting a counter stroke. Suppression of the conspiracy of Vendôme and Chalais, 1626. Gaston of Orléans, the king’s brother, with the duc de Vendôme the son of Henry IV. and Gabrielle d’Estrées, the comte de Soissons another prince of the House of Bourbon, the duchesse de Chevreuse a friend of the queen and a born intrigante and tireless enemy of the cardinal, became the leaders of a plot to depose the king, to assassinate Richelieu, and put Gaston on the throne. It was soon discovered. Gaston to save his own life basely surrendered his friends and associates to the ruthless mercy of Richelieu. The comte de Chalais suffered for him on the scaffold, another of his associates, Ornano, in prison. The duc de Vendôme, the duc de la Valette son of the old duc d’Epernon, Madame de Chevreuse, the comte de Soissons were all banished, and Richelieu rid himself at one blow of the most dangerous of his enemies. The nobles were astonished at his audacity. They could not believe that any one would dare so to treat the noblest of their order, but in the following year they received a lesson which startled them still more. Execution of Montmorency-Bouteville, 1627. The comte de Montmorency-Bouteville, one of the famous family of Montmorency and a noted duellist, fought a duel in open day in the midst of Paris in disregard of the royal edict. Richelieu had him immediately arrested and put to death on the scaffold on the 21st of June 1627. The execution of one of the noblest of French subjects, for the exercise of one of the commonest and most cherished privileges of the French nobility, showed them more clearly than anything else had yet done, that the minister at the head of the government was determined to be their master.

War with England, 1627.

Hardly had Richelieu emerged in triumph from his first contest with the nobles, than he found himself involved in an unnecessary war with England and the Huguenots. The treaty between France and England on the occasion of the marriage between Henrietta Maria and Charles I. contained provisions which were absolutely certain to lead to mutual recriminations sooner or later. Charles had promised publicly to permit his wife to keep her French household, and have complete control over the education of the children till they were thirteen years of age. Privately he had bound himself to tolerate Roman Catholicism in England. But he very soon found that, in the excited and unreasonable temper of the English people, it was impossible for him even to pardon Roman priests condemned under the penal laws. Neither in the interests of his domestic life could he permit a band of mischief-making women to alienate from him the affections of his child-wife. In both these matters he found himself compelled to break his word. Louis on his side set at naught his own verbal promise to permit Mansfeld and the English contingent to march across France to attack the Palatinate, and so in the eyes of the English court became largely responsible for the terrible misfortunes of the year 1626 in Germany. When Richelieu in further pursuance of the treaty had demanded from Charles a loan of ships to use against Soubise and the revolted Huguenots, Buckingham had set his wits against those of Richelieu to avoid carrying out his obligation in fact, while he outwardly professed to be eager to do so, and even condescended to the trick of organising a sham mutiny on board the fleet. But in the end he was outwitted, and the spectacle of English ships in the French fleet, which defeated Soubise and the Huguenots, so exasperated the Protestant party in the English Parliament, that Buckingham from motives of self-defence as well as from those of wounded pride declared war against France in order to shift the odium from himself to Richelieu, and to pose before the world as the champion of the Protestant cause. Siege of La Rochelle, 1627. In July 1627 Buckingham, at the head of a large but ill-appointed fleet, appeared before La Rochelle, and occupying the island of Rhé besieged the fort of S. Martin. The Rochellois much against their will felt compelled to make common cause with the English, and the Huguenots in the south of France seized the opportunity once more to rise into revolt under Rohan. Richelieu found himself again threatened by a formidable combination of foreign and domestic enemies, and determined this time to have recourse to no half measures. In November Buckingham was obliged to withdraw from before the unconquered S. Martin and sail back to England for reinforcements. Richelieu himself formed the siege of La Rochelle. Recognising at once the impossibility of capturing a city open to the sea and surrounded by marshes by attack on the land side only, he began the gigantic work of building a mole right across the mouth of the harbour. Thus he hoped to cut off the city wholly from the possibility of relief from the sea, while the rigid lines of circumvallation drawn round the town prevented any attempt at introducing provisions from the land side. For five months the weary work went on. It was a race against time. All depended on the question whether the mole could be finished before the English fleet reappeared. Day and night in spite of many blunders and some misfortunes the huge mass slowly grew. The two wings approached nearer to each other, garnished with towers and palisades and batteries, until by the end of April 1628 the aperture between the two was small enough to be closed by a bridge of boats made into floating batteries, and fastened together by stout iron chains and defended by wooden stockades. It was hardly finished when the English fleet was sighted. For fifteen days the English hurled themselves with renewed and despairing vigour against the fortifications, but without success. On the 18th of May they sailed home and left La Rochelle to starve. Capture of La Rochelle, 1628. Victory was now but a question of time. Early in October the English fleet reappeared, but did not even dare to face the now impregnable defences of the besiegers. On the 28th the heroic Guiton worn out by famine accepted the inevitable. La Rochelle surrendered to the royal forces, its municipal privileges were abolished, its fortifications destroyed, its government placed in the hands of royal officials. Liberty of conscience was guaranteed to the citizens, but all vestige of independent authority was absolutely taken away.

Pacification of the south, 1629.

After the capture of La Rochelle it was a comparatively easy matter to crush out the rebellion in the south. Early in 1629 the king put himself at the head of his army, marched into Languedoc and the district of the Cevennes, capturing the towns and destroying the castles. Rohan and the Huguenot leaders finding they could get no material assistance from Spain were obliged to submit. By the peace of Alais concluded in June 1629 the Huguenots ceased to retain any political power in France. Their guaranteed towns were handed over to the royal government, their fortresses were razed, their organisation was destroyed, their right of meeting was taken away, but their liberty of worship remained unimpaired.

The peace of Alais marks the end of the first act of the great drama which was being played by Richelieu in the history of France, the completion of the first, if not the most difficult, of the tasks to which he had devoted himself. Destruction of the political power of the Huguenots. By it the policy of the Edict of Nantes was carried to a legitimate conclusion. Religious peace was ensured by the recognition of religious division, while the danger that religious division should impair the national unity was effectually removed. It was a policy of national unity not of national uniformity. Richelieu did not care that all Frenchmen should be made outwardly to profess the same religious or political creed, should wear outwardly the same religious or political dress, as long as they were whole-hearted in the service of the Crown, as long as their liberty was not a weakness to the state. That it could not fail to be a source not merely of weakness, but of serious danger, to the state, as long as it was based upon political privilege and defended by political organisation, had already been abundantly proved in the course of the reign of Louis XIII. Every time that France had been threatened by the hostility of her neighbours, whether of Spain or England, a rising of the Huguenots had turned a serious foreign war into an acute national crisis. Every time that the Huguenots had risen in revolt they had allied themselves with the national enemies. Twice already had Richelieu’s plans for the development of France been thwarted by the determination of the Huguenots to prefer their independence to their patriotism, and to look upon the foreign entanglements of the government merely as their opportunity. When a powerful political organisation deliberately sets itself to profit by the dangers of the nation, and to pursue its own interests to the detriment of those of the nation, it must either crush the government or be crushed by it. Richelieu enlisted the whole forces of the state in the campaign against the Huguenots, because he saw clearly that as long as their religious privileges were based on the possession of political power, the political exigencies of their position, and the fancied necessities as well as the inherent tendencies of their religion, must make them the enemies of France. The destruction of La Rochelle and the peace of Alais changed them at once from a formidable political party into a harmless religious sect. They ceased to be a danger to the state through their want of patriotism and desire for independence. They became a strength to France through their frugality, their manual skill, and their morality. Grateful for religious toleration and satisfied with it, in less than a generation they were found among the staunchest supporters of the monarchy, and effectually proved their gratitude by never stirring a finger to increase the embarrassments of the Crown in the perilous days of the Fronde.

Administrative reforms.