LOUIS XIII, AND HIS MINISTER, CARDINAL RICHELIEU.—Henry IV. was assassinated by a fanatic named Ravaillac, who regarded him as an enemy of the Roman Catholic Church. As his son Louis, who succeeded him as Louis XIII. (1610-1643), was a child of nine years, during his minority the government was administered by his mother, Mary de Medici. Upon attaining his majority, Louis took the government into his own hands. He chose, as his chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, one of the most remarkable characters of the seventeenth century. From the time that Louis admitted the young prelate to his cabinet (in 1622), the ecclesiastic became the virtual sovereign of France, and for the space of twenty years swayed the destinies not only of that country, but, it might almost be said, those of Europe as well.
[Illustration: CARDINAL RICHELIEU. (After a painting in the Louvre.)]
Richelieu's policy was twofold: first, to render the authority of the French king absolute in France; secondly, to make the power of France supreme in Europe.
To attain the first end, Richelieu sought to crush the political power of the Huguenots, and to trample out the last vestige of independence among the old feudal aristocracy; to secure the second, he labored to break down the power of both branches of the House of Hapsburg,—that is, of Austria and Spain.
For nearly the life-time of a generation Richelieu, by intrigue, diplomacy, and war, pursued with unrelenting purpose these objects of his ambition. His own words best indicate how he proposed to use his double authority as cardinal and prime minister to effect his purpose: "I shall trample all opposition under foot," said he, "and then cover all errors with my scarlet robe."
In the following paragraph we shall speak very briefly of the cardinal's dealings with the Huguenots, which feature alone of his policy especially concerns us at present.
POLITICAL POWER OF THE HUGUENOTS CRUSHED.—In the prosecution of his plans, Cardinal Richelieu's first step was to break down the political power of the Huguenot chiefs, who, dissatisfied with their position in the government, and irritated by religious grievances, were revolving in mind the founding in France of a Protestant commonwealth like that which the Prince of Orange and his adherents had setup in the Netherlands. The capital of the new Republic was to be La Rochelle, on the southwestern coast of France. In 1627, an alliance having been formed between England and the French Protestant nobles, an English fleet and army were sent across the Channel to aid the Huguenot enterprise.
Richelieu now resolved to ruin forever the power of these Protestant nobles who were constantly challenging the royal authority and threatening the dismemberment of France. Accordingly he led in person an army to the siege of La Rochelle, which, after a gallant resistance of more than a year, was compelled to open its gates to the cardinal (1628). That the place might never again be made the centre of resistance to the royal power, Louis ordered that "the fortifications be razed to the ground, in such wise that the plough may plough through the soil as through tilled land."
The Huguenots maintained the struggle a few months longer in the south of France, but were finally everywhere reduced to submission. The result of the war was the complete destruction of the political power of the French Protestants. A treaty of peace, called the Edict of Grace, negotiated the year after the fall of La Rochelle, left them, however, freedom of worship, according to the provisions of the Edict of Nantes (see p. 578).
The Edict of Grace properly marks the close of the religious wars which had desolated France for two generations (from 1562 to 1629). It is estimated that this series of wars and massacres cost France a million lives, and that between three and four hundred hamlets and towns were destroyed by the contending parties.