Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu

“ She and her children witnessed their marriages, were sponsors at the baptism of their babes; a few years later, in 1618, the old registers of Braye bear witness that the infant son of young Henry du Plessis was named at the font, in the chapel at Richelieu, by two “poor orphans,” assisted by “ten other poor persons.” The gates of the château were open to any humble neighbours who suffered in the wars; the kitchen supplied them with food, sometimes not too plentiful even there ”

“ She was even prepared for a formal reconciliation with her “antienne créature,” to be sealed by receiving back Madame de Combalet into the service and favour from which she had been dismissed some months before.
But here Marie’s dissembling ended; and on November 9, 1630, with a burst of feminine fury, began that “grand orage de la Cour” which threatened to break Armand de Richelieu in full upward flight: the man already feared by Catholic Europe and the hope of the northern Protestants, with whose new leader, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, his diplomacy was even now allying France. ”

“ But what encourages me to attempt a thing so daring is the preciousness of the material with which I have to deal; being such that it needs neither the workman nor his art for the heightening of its value. So that, however little I may say of the incomparable and inimitable actions of the great Armand de Richelieu, I shall yet say much ”

“ Later in the year, the Prince de Condé and the Duc de Montmorency were charged with checking the Duc de Rohan in Languedoc. By that time, Toiras being blockaded by the English in the Isle of Ré, and the attitude of La Rochelle being no longer doubtful, Richelieu had ceased to show patience and toleration of the King’s rebels. The day he had long foreseen had at last arrived. “Faut ruiner les Huguenots. Si Ré se sauve, facile. S’il se perd, plus difficile, mais faisable et nécessaire comme l’unique remède de la perte de Ré. ”

“ They told him that there was one man in France whose hand ought to be on the helm, a man who would serve his own country and his own King, not the interests of a foreign power; a man of high courage, prudence and incomparable dexterity, as wise as he was brilliant, ready, like a burning torch, to consume himself in giving light to the State. This man would be the saviour of France, renewing the great days of Henry. It was hardly necessary to name the Cardinal de Richelieu. ”

“ Paris was an unpleasant place of abode in the winter of 1607-8, when Armand de Richelieu was engaged in making his way at Court. According to L’Estoile, the weather was extremely indisposed, “nebulous, damp and unhealthy.” Great and small alike suffered from “force cathairres, avec force petites véroles, rougeoles, et pourpre:” from which many died, among others the Duc de Bouillon’s daughter. People died suddenly of suffocation on the chest, the season being “tellement desreiglée” that it rained perpetually day and night. ”

“ On the 11th, the Estates of Brittany were opened by the King amid loyal rejoicings, a new governor, the Maréchal de Thémines, taking the place of the Duc de Vendôme. By this appointment [Pg 174] Richelieu showed a certain magnanimity; forgetting his own brother’s death at the hands of the Maréchal’s son, he remembered and rewarded the old soldier’s faithfulness in 1616, when by the arrest of Condé he had checked the rebel party and lightened the task of the Richelieu-Barbin ministry. ”

“ The Memoirs of Bassompierre and others prove that Péréfixe told less than the truth: he was too courtier-like, too careful of offending young royal ears, to give much idea of the brutality of manners which existed in the society of Henry IV. and Marie de Médicis; but he describes vividly the temper of the men among whom Armand de Richelieu, clever, poor, observant, shielded by his elder brother’s popularity, was growing into manhood.
“The French noblesse,” says Péréfixe, “being at peace, could not be doing nothing; some spent their time in hunting; some in the company of ladies ”

“ Why hide in the woods when there was so much to be done in the city?—ambassadors sending couriers half over Europe; joyful meetings with Queen Anne, with Monsieur; audiences of great lords and ladies, one by one; all the happy, noisy, popular confusion of a sudden return to power.
Close by, at the Petit-Luxembourg, Richelieu had his moment of despair. To fall from so great a height meant death, at least to all his ambitions; perhaps literally, for his enemies, so many and so strong, would hardly be satisfied with exile. ”

“ There were those in Paris at the moment who did not wait for the failure of these negotiations to suggest an even wiser plan. One man in France could manage the Queen-mother: he was in exile at Avignon. Restore him to her council; give him authority to mediate between her and the King; his cleverness and moderation would soon bring her to a less violent frame of mind, and so arrange matters to the King’s satisfaction.
The originators of this idea were Richelieu’s two faithful friends, the Dean of Luçon and Père Joseph. ”

“ It was thus nearly three hundred years old when Armand de Richelieu entered it, and had already that royal and military reputation which lasted through three or four centuries more. An old writer on Paris says that the sons of the greatest nobles in the kingdom boarded in this college, and in order that they might not be distracted by intercourse with outside students—a real danger, one would think, and of worse things than distraction—no other scholars were received. ”

“ If the Duc de Vendôme—the “César-Monsieur” flattered and feared by Henry IV.’s Court—had been a man of character to match his position, no one of the great nobles could have equalled him in power and popularity. Even as a vain and vicious coward, few men in the kingdom were more dangerous to Richelieu’s plans and Louis XIII.’s government. From his province of Brittany, the Duke had watched the failure of the great conspiracy in which he and his brother were deeply engaged. They feared, and with reason, that their own ruin would follow that of the Maréchal d’Ornano. ”

“ But those enemies were increasing in number, strength, and confidence. The chances seemed far more even to lookers-on of that day than to us, who possess the balances [Pg 201] of history. The reigning Queen, the Queen-mother, Monsieur, all the princes of the blood except Condé—Alexandre de Vendôme had died at Vincennes in the early spring of 1629, and his family held Richelieu responsible—most of the great nobles and ladies of the Court; statesmen such as Michel de Marillac; Marshals of France such as his brother Louis, lately promoted to that rank, Bassompierre, and others ”

“ Their minds were divided, not altogether rejoicing in the English descent, as they proved a little later—for when the Duc de Soubise, coming from England, presented himself at the gates, they were shut against him until his mother, old Madame de Rohan of the dreams and visions, went down herself to the harbour, commanded that the gates should be opened, took his hand and led him in. The citizens of La Rochelle might resist the rulers of their own country, but they were not unanimously ready to welcome a foreign invader, and it was Richelieu’s policy to [Pg 183] encourage this doubtfulness. ”

“ Add to all this the insolent, boasting speeches which came to the Queen-mother’s ears, the complaints of the King’s own Ministers and of the Parliament of Paris, who liked the new favourites no better than the old, and the anger of the nobles who found their pensions unpaid and the best appointments snatched from their teeth;—it was not amazing either that Marie hesitated as to leaving her town and Court in the west to place herself, personally, in the power of Messieurs de Luynes, or that Richelieu was slow in advising her to do so. ”

“ England, already on the edge of war with Spain, sent eight ships to the help of the French Government; the Dutch fleet was diverted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and twenty French ships made up a fleet of fifty or sixty sail, commanded in chief by Duke Henry de Montmorency, High Admiral of France. Richelieu had not much faith in this young man, the late Constable’s only son and the Princesse de Condé’s brother—one of the handsomest and boldest of the fierce order that the Cardinal meant to subdue. ”

“ But the public has frequently a tendency to give people what it is thought they don’t want, and there was a pretty general feeling that M. de Richelieu was a man destined to figure politically in his native land. ”

“ Also the King promised the destruction of Fort Louis, built by him to command the entrance to the harbour of La Rochelle. This last article of the treaty was not carried out: hence great displeasure in the Protestant camp.
In the eyes of some politicians, notably the Pope’s Nuncio, the Peace of Montpellier, with its concessions to rebel subjects, was somewhat disgraceful to the King of France. Richelieu was of the same opinion, to judge by his own words. But he was too wise not to let the sleeping dogs of the kingdom lie. Civil war was at all times the last thing he desired ”

“ Warned by such severities, and impressed by the failure of the English to succour La Rochelle, several of the Huguenot gentlemen of Poitou came into the camp to assure the King of their loyalty. The most distinguished among them, the Duc de la Trémoïlle, listened to the persuasive voice of Père Joseph and became a Catholic, and certain of his friends followed his example—a signal triumph for Richelieu which was not encouraging to the starving heroes of La Rochelle. ”

“ Armand Richelieu, by nature not vindictive nor mean, thus motions without remorse to the headsman, listens without shame to the spy, and, when asked on his deathbed if he forgave his enemies, replies, conscientiously ignorant of his many offences against the brotherhood between man and man, “I owe no forgiveness to enemies ”

“ As to Buckingham, who with all his faults and frivolities had some of the ideas of a statesman, he was already inclined to the French alliance, seeing in it the one means of defending the foreign Protestants and balancing the power of Spain. Through the winter of 1623-4, envoys of more or less dignity were passing between London and Paris, and the marriage was talked of openly. All this time, no doubt, Richelieu was in favour of it, and his influence, as the Queen-mother’s chief adviser, set that way ”

“ He had built his castle eagerly, swiftly, successfully; and then a far less clever man, by whispering into the ready ear of a boy, had shaken it to the ground. It had been built, of course, on the wrong foundation: the Bishop of Luçon had plenty of time to reflect, as he sat among his books at Coussay, on the too late realised truth that divinity hedged a king, that Louis XIII. was the master.
It is doing Richelieu no injustice to suggest that if he had been well received in the King’s Council-chamber on [Pg 103] that tragic April 24, he might never have followed the Queen-mother to Blois. ”

“ He may probably have been right, for the damp marshes on which the army lived were hardly healthy for a man subject to low fever; Richelieu himself was prostrated by it several times in that spring. All the same, he was angry and scornful at the King’s desertion. He was also uneasy on his own account, for Paris seethed with the intrigues of his deadly enemies, and political clouds were gathering in the south. For a moment it seemed possible that La Rochelle would escape: the departure of both King and Cardinal would have brought the siege to an end. ”

“ Richelieu contrived to raise hope in the minds of all. As president of the clergy at the states-general of 1614 he had figured as an adherent of Spain and the ultramontane interest; he appeared to be a representative of that religious party which was identical with the Spanish party. But he had also been put into the ministry by the party of the Politiques, who had terminated the civil wars, acclaimed Henry IV., applauded the Protestant alliance, and by the mouth of Miron, president of the third estate, had in 1614 proclaimed its intention to take up the national tradition once more. ”

“ Angers was to his right; the village and bridges of the Ponts-de-Cé to his left.
For a month, ever since the King left Paris, confusion had reigned at Angers. Negotiations had gone on furiously, for neither Louis XIII. nor Luynes wished to come to actual blows with the Queen-mother. Richelieu, in public and private, had done his best; in July, preaching before the Queen and her Court, he warned her that no faithful subject could advise her to rebel against her son, and begged her to consider that no arms could triumph over an angel-guarded King. ”

“ And though the momentary flashes of a vigorous intellect would show that nature had been originally bountiful to him, yet he never evinced any steady determination of purpose. Richelieu spared no pains to secure the power he had acquired; and that he might leave the King no means of extricating himself, plunged the kingdom in wars and negociations which he well knew that none but himself could conduct with success. ”

“ The men of La Rochelle make little sorties, but are always beaten back.”
The Cardinal was wise enough to give the King the credit of all his own marvellous doings at this time. It was practicable to blockade La Rochelle by land; but as long as the harbour and channel were open, it was impossible to hinder the city from receiving supplies by sea. At the same time, the difficulties connected with the land siege were considerable enough; and the army regulations carried out by Richelieu, mentioned in his letter to Marie de Médicis, were as stern as they were necessary. ”