The ascendancy of France, 1598-1715

by Henry Offley Wakeman

By the end of the year 1629 Richelieu might well look back with pride at the success which had attended his efforts to establish the unity of the nation by consolidating its forces under the power of the Crown. He had crushed a plot of the most formidable of his enemies at court. He had established his ascendency over the mind if not over the affections of the king. He had purified the financial administration so that a larger proportion of the taxes found their way into the treasury. He had put down a dangerous right of private war on a small scale under the guise of duelling. He had destroyed the castles and fortresses over large districts of France, notably in Brittany and the southern provinces. He had laid the foundation of the French navy. He had destroyed the political power and organisation of the Huguenots. But there was still much to be done. As long as the administration of the country and the raising and control of the army were in the hands or under the direction of the territorial nobility, all that he had hitherto accomplished was dependent upon his own precarious life and the still more precarious favour of the king. A successful court intrigue might destroy the whole structure at a blow, and throw France back into the slough of anarchy and peculation from which he had raised her. To obviate this danger he applied himself during the rest of his life, as far as internal politics were concerned, to two special objects, the establishment of a bureaucracy—a civil service under the direct control of the Crown—and the organisation of the army upon a professional basis. In carrying out this latter object he had to proceed very carefully, partly owing to financial considerations, and partly to the necessity he felt for providing in the army a sphere of activity for the nobility, whose political and administrative power he was taking away; and it was not till the time of Louvois that the French army became thoroughly professional. But the active and open warfare in which France became engaged after 1635, as well as the growing importance of the infantry, enabled him to do much in the way of raising and organising infantry regiments directly by the Crown, without the interposition of any noble as colonel, and of appointing and promoting officers such as Fabert and Catinat, who did not belong to the noble class. For many years the nobles considered it below their dignity to serve in infantry regiments, a fortunate prejudice which made it easier for the government to get direct control over that important department of the army.

Illness of Louis XIII., 1630.

The year 1630 saw a vivid illustration of the danger to which the new system of government was exposed from the possible success of a court intrigue or the death of the invalid king. On his way back from the army in Italy to Paris, Louis was taken suddenly ill at Lyons with dysentery. For some days he hung between life and death. On the 22d of September all hope was given up. Gaston hurried to Paris to secure the government. The queen and the queen-mother made arrangements for the arrest of the cardinal, while Richelieu himself, seeing the labours of his life at an end, prepared to fly. But the king’s constitution, much more vigorous than historians have supposed, triumphed not only over the disease but over the physicians. In spite of having been bled seven times in one week he still retained strength enough to rally, and Richelieu remained for the moment safe. His enemies had to alter their plans. The day of Dupes, 1630. Determined not to be baulked of their prey the queen-mother and the queen organised a plot against the minister, which was joined by the two Marillacs, Bassompierre, and Orléans. On the 11th of November Marie in the presence of the king poured forth a torrent of furious invective against Madame de Combalet the niece of the cardinal. On Richelieu’s entrance the storm was directed against him. Accusing him of treason and perfidy, she demanded from Louis his instant dismissal, and called upon the king to choose between his minister and her. For some hours Louis was in great doubt, and the fate of Richelieu hung in the balance. He even signed an order intrusting the command of the army to the maréchal de Marillac. All the courtiers thought the reign of Richelieu was over. Worn out and sick at heart, the king, to free himself from fresh importunities, retired to his hunting-box at Versailles; but once away from the pressure of the courtiers his good sense and patriotism reasserted their power, and he determined to support his minister even against his wife and his mother. Sending for Richelieu privately to join him at Versailles, he put himself entirely into his hands, and the Day of Dupes was over. The vengeance of the outraged minister was terrific. Gaston of Orléans fled to Lorraine, Marie to the Spaniards at Brussels, the maréchal de Marillac was executed, his brother the chancellor died soon afterwards in exile, Bassompierre was imprisoned, the duchesses of Elboeuf, and Ornano banished, and the household of the queen filled with the cardinal’s nominees.

Rising of Orléans and Montmorency, 1632.

But exile increased rather than appeased their hatred of their conqueror. Gaston of Orléans, who had married the sister of the duke of Lorraine strongly against the wishes of Louis, who would not recognise the marriage, organised a fresh plot against the cardinal in 1632. To bring about the ruin of his hated enemy, he did not scruple to ally himself with the enemies of his country. A combined force of Lorrainers and Spaniards was to invade France from the north-east, while the maréchal de Montmorency, the governor of Languedoc, raised the south. But Richelieu’s good fortune did not desert him. The Swedes defeated the Spanish force on the Rhine, before it had even reached the frontiers of France. Lorraine, instead of France, had to bear the brunt of invasion, and 25,000 men under Louis himself quickly overran the country, and brought it permanently under French administration, although it was not formally united to the French monarchy till a century later. Meanwhile, Gaston of Orléans, at the head of a few thousand horsemen, had made his way to Montmorency in Languedoc, endeavouring to raise the country as he went against the iniquities of the minister. Not a man stirred. France had begun to realise that, harsh and oppressive as the government of Richelieu might be, it was far more just and far more tolerable than that of the nobles. In Languedoc Montmorency had succeeded in collecting a small army through his own personal popularity and the support of the estates, but the people refused to move, and he was powerless in the face of Schomberg and the royal troops. At Castlenaudary, on the 1st of September 1632, he was defeated and captured. On the 30th of October the last representative of the most illustrious of the great territorial nobles of France bowed his head before absolute monarchy on the scaffold.

Suppression of the enemies of Richelieu.

A fresh proscription instigated by the implacable justice of the cardinal decimated Languedoc. The estates were dispersed, many of the nobility and gentry executed or sent to the galleys, five bishops deposed, the castles and fortifications of the towns destroyed. The hateful and miserable author of all this misery, Gaston himself, alone escaped. Protected by his birth and his readiness to betray his friends, he was permitted to take refuge in Brussels. There, in conjunction with the queen-mother and the Spaniards, he renewed his plots against France and the cardinal. But Richelieu now felt himself so thoroughly the master both of the nobles and of the nation, that Gaston was more dangerous to him as an open enemy than he would be as the leader of the disaffected at home. The promise of the king’s favour, and renewed gifts to himself and his friends, soon induced him to betray the queen-mother and his hosts. In October 1634 he left his wife and his mother, was formally reconciled to the king and the cardinal, and retired into private life at his castle of Blois. Marie took refuge with her daughter in London, and Richelieu, freed for the time from all anxiety as to revolts and court intrigues, was enabled to turn his whole attention to the aggrandisement of France. In the following year, 1635, he entered openly into the Thirty Years’ War.

Conspiracy of Cinq-Mars, 1642.

Once more but a few months before his death had Richelieu to defend himself against a court intrigue, but it was one which had its roots far more in personal ambition than in serious political rivalry. Cinq-Mars, the son of the marquis d’Effiat, the superintendent of finance, chafing under the stern and all-pervading masterfulness of the cardinal, abused his position of intimacy with the king, to try and poison his mind against his minister, who at that time was thought to be dying. Gaston, that veteran intriguer, and the duc de Bouillon the lord of the feudal dependency of Sedan, gave some political importance to the intrigue by lending it their countenance. The system of espionage established by Richelieu was far too good to permit intrigues of that sort to pass unnoticed. Still neither Richelieu nor the king interfered until they received proof that Cinq-Mars was actually in communication with the national enemy, the Spaniards. Then they struck, and as usual struck hard. The duc de Bouillon was compelled to surrender Sedan to France. Cinq-Mars and his friend de Thou perished on the scaffold, the last of a long list of victims, including five dukes, four counts, and a marshal of France, who were sacrificed by the pitiless cardinal to the genius of his country.

Centralising policy of Richelieu.