Twenty Centuries of Paris

by Mabell S. C. Smith

CHAPTER XVI
PARIS OF THE “GRAND MONARQUE”

HISTORY repeated itself when Louis XIII died, leaving as his heir a child of five, Louis XIV (1643-1715), whose kingdom was ruled by a regent, the queen mother, Anne of Austria, who took as her adviser another cardinal, the Italian, Mazarin. This newcomer to power was a different sort of man from his predecessor, Richelieu. “He possessed wit, insinuation, gayety and good manners,” says de Retz, but “he carried the tricks of the sharper into the ministry.”

War with Spain brought success at the beginning, but the Parisians were all too soon quarreling over the finances, and in the thick of a civil war. The people resented the arrest of a member of Parliament, Broussel, which had been accomplished while the general attention was engaged by the celebration at Notre Dame and in the streets over the victory at Lens. De Retz, who was at that time archbishop suffragan of Paris, went to Anne to ask for Broussel’s release. The queen laughed at him and so roused his wrath that he joined the insurgents. He did it whole-heartedly, for for some time to come he fought in the streets—alternately with trying to calm the people—and once was seen at a sitting of the Parliament of Paris with a dagger carelessly protruding from his pocket—“the archbishop’s breviary,” some wit called it.

After de Retz’s failure the Parliament sent a delegation to the regent at the Palais Royal to demand the release of Broussel. Anne refused and the burghers tucked up their gowns and clambered over the street barricades to report their failure to the people. Half way across town they were met by a mob who declined to accept any such decision as final, and once more the envoys turned about and made their laborious way back to the regent.

Anne finally yielded her prisoner, but her action did not end the struggle, which was carried on for some years and was called the Fronde (sling) because the members of Parliament behaved like the stone-slinging youngsters of the faubourg Saint Honoré who gave way before the king’s archers, but renewed their sport as soon as their backs were turned. The contest seems to have been rather absurd, for while the personal courage of the Parisians was unquestioned there was no organization, and the troop that rode gaily out to meet the royal regulars was pretty sure to ride back sad and bedraggled.

The little king was taken to Saint Germain for protection during this year-long commotion, and it was not until peace between the warring parties had been formally proclaimed that he returned to Paris.

This peace did not last long, for the bourgeoisie, some members of the nobility and even a few princes of the blood royal were among the disaffected Parisians. Anne and Mazarin adopted high-handed measures, but they soon found that imprisoning men like the Prince de Condé of the Bourbon family did not ingratiate the court with the people or advance its cause. Two years later on a summer’s day Mazarin took the child king to the top of the hill on which is now the cemetery of Père Lachaise that he might watch a battle between his own troops under Turenne and those under Condé just outside the city walls on the east. Condé’s force was out-numbered and it looked as if he were going to be crushed between Turenne’s army and the wall when the Porte Saint Antoine was suddenly opened and the guns of the Bastille were used against Turenne while Condé’s army gained this unexpected refuge.

It turned out that the king’s cousin, the Duchesse de Montpensier, known as “La Grande Mademoiselle,” had taken upon herself to give the orders which defeated the royal troops. This strong-minded young woman was the bachelor girl of her time, and a “character.” What she would do next was the constant guess and the constant diversion of the court. Although she was eleven years older than Louis he was so captivated by her vivacity that the cardinal thought it judicious to keep the cousins apart, and gave her apartments at the Louvre. At one time during the siege of Orléans she made her way across the moat in a small boat and squeezed her way into the town through a postern gate. At love she scoffed and she refused every offer of marriage that was made to her until she was of an age ostensibly of discretion when she fell madly in love with an adventurer. Her marital experiences undoubtedly made her return to her earlier beliefs in the foolishness of love and marriage.

The court retreated to Saint Denis. The city was given over to internal dissension for some of the city officials were accused of sympathizing with the hated foreign cardinal and his party, and the Hôtel de Ville became the center of violent scenes, its besiegers men who wore in their hats a tuft of straw, the badge of the Frondeurs. It was only when Anne consented to send Mazarin away that the Fronde came to an end and once again Louis could return to Paris.

With such youthful experiences of his chief city it is small wonder that Louis XIV had no great love for it as a place of residence and that he spent most of his life at Versailles. The hunting lodge which Louis XIII had built was the nucleus of the huge palace which his son made large enough not only for his family and retinue but for a large number of the nobles whom it was his policy to gather about him so that he could keep his eye on them. By this means the power of the nobles was decreased on their own estates while their respect for the king, on whose words and smiles they hung, was enormously increased. A lord was grateful for a room at Versailles even though it were so far from private as to be used as a passage-way. Many of the nobility paid handsomely for positions in the royal kitchens. Later in the reign these offices were held by bourgeois, for the finances of this class improved as those of the upper class lessened on account of decreased revenues from their neglected estates. The burghers aped the nobles in manners and in dress, and by favoring them, from whom he had nothing to fear, Louis gained the friendship of an important body. He raised no objection when the citizens took nobles into business partnership, for that served him both by lowering ancient pride and by providing money upon which he could make some demand.