In 1642, by order of Cardinal Richelieu, the Baron de Beausoleil was cast into the Bastille, and the Baroness was shut up in the state prison of Vincennes, without trial and sentence. Thus, after forty years of labour together in the same pursuits, in the same manner of life, in the decline of their days this worthy couple were separated, to spend the rest of their life in prison. Such was the reward accorded to them for their devotion to the cause of science, and the recompense for the benefits they had afforded to France.
The Baroness died in the prison of Vincennes. The date of her death is unknown, but probably it was not long deferred. Her ardent soul would not long endure the torture of imprisonment, and the sorrows of finding all her labours repaid with ingratitude. Her husband died in the Bastille after lingering for three years behind bars.
One last glimpse of the noble woman we obtain from the Mémoires de Lancelot touchant la vie de M. de Saint-Cyran. The Abbé de Saint-Cyran was shut up in Vincennes in 1638 as a Jansenist. On the 14th of May in that year he was arrested by Richelieu, who then made use of the remarkable words, “Had Luther and Calvin been imprisoned the moment they began to dogmatise, Government would have been spared much trouble.” Saint-Cyran remained in Vincennes till 1642. He died the next year. During his imprisonment he observed in church the Baroness de Beausoleil and her daughter, prisoners like himself. Touched with the scantiness of their clothing, he endeavoured to procure for them the dresses which they needed, and those necessaries which the sickness of the noble lady demanded. The following are the words of the memoir:—“Whilst M. de Saint-Cyran was in Vincennes he met a lady named the Baroness de Beausoleil, who was there with her daughter, whilst her husband was prisoner in the Bastille. Seeing her in church, poorly clad, he made inquiries about her, and sent to Madame le Maître, telling her whom he had seen, and begging her to purchase some chemises for this person, expressly desiring that they might be long, for nothing escaped his charity, and also that the material should be good. When they had been sent, it was ascertained that what had been made for the mother would only fit the daughter, and he gave them to the latter, and ordered fresh ones for the mother. Afterwards he requested to have fustian under-garments, shoes and stockings, sent to them according to measures which he procured, and also after the fashion of the day.
“At the approach of winter he wrote to say that he found that the lady was menaced with dropsy, and that she was extremely sensitive to cold. He therefore begged the person I have mentioned to make for her a dress of thick ratteen, of the best description, and trimmed with black lace, because he heard that such was the fashion, and he added that his maxim was, that people should be served according to their rank. He also had a gown made for the daughter.... He also sent to the Bastille to have the husband well dressed; and I know that the person who brought the tailor to him asked him to choose his material and the trimmings, for he had orders to have him dressed as suited his taste.”
In Saint-Cyran’s own letters we find additional details, very sad they are, but full of interest to those who have followed this worthy couple through their labours into disgrace.
“This letter,” writes the Abbé to his friend M. de Rebours, “is to entreat you, at your convenience, to execute with the utmost secrecy, without allowing it to transpire who sends you and who you are who make the inquiries, a work of great charity upon which I am engaged. There is a person imprisoned here who is the authoress of the book I send you; will you kindly go to M. Maréchal, glassmaker, and consequently a gentleman, and inquire what has become of the children of the Baroness de Beausoleil, a German lady; and lest he should mistrust you, say you do it in charity; and should he still have suspicions, promise him any token of sincerity which he may require. He lives near the House of Charity in the Faubourg St. Germain. Perhaps you had better inquire at the House of Charity for M. Maréchal, and of the girl named Madlle. Barbe, with whom the Baron de Beausoleil, now in the Bastille, and his wife, now here in prison, had left one of their daughters, named Anne du Châtelet, aged twelve, whom her mother had instructed in Latin, so as to make her useful in the search after mines, a science hereditary in the family. By this means you may be able to learn what has become of the other children.
“If you know yourself, or by any of your friends, M. Maturel, advocate, or his brother, who favoured these good people, and who know all their affairs, and are aware of all the circumstances of the robbery committed upon them in Brittany, and estimated at a hundred thousand crowns, you will obtain their entire confidence, and be able to learn what has become of the children. This must be done with the utmost circumspection. You must say that your friends, who lived formerly in Paris, want to know particulars of the family. The eldest son, having gone to the Bastille without proper precautions, to make inquiries concerning his father, was arrested. But we desire to learn something about the other children, some five or six, and who has got charge of them.... What a strange thing it is, that there is no surer means of falling into trouble than to love the faith and Catholic verity.”
Such is the last glimpse we obtain of this unfortunate family. Two noble and devoted servants of science cast into dungeons, and their children scattered or imprisoned—because they served the State too well.
On the 4th of December 1642 Richelieu was called to his account before the throne of a just Judge, to answer for that as well as his other crimes; and in another century the accursed Bastille was torn down stone from stone by an exasperated people and laid low in the dust, never to rise again.