Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy

“ These fifteen years draw to a close; it is now 1650, and the Vaudois are entering within the shadow of their [Pg 133] greatest woe. The throne of Savoy was at this time filled by Charles Emmanuel II., a youth of fifteen. He was a prince of mild and humane disposition; but he was counselled and ruled by his mother, the Duchess Christina, who had been appointed regent of the kingdom during his minority. That mother was sprung of a race which has ever been noted for its dissimulation, its cruelty, and its bigoted devotion to Rome. ”

“ Although remaining a Roman Catholic he allied himself with the Protestant princes, and during the earlier part of the Thirty Years’ War he was one of their foremost champions. He was despatched by Charles Emmanuel, duke of Savoy, at the head of about 2000 men to aid the revolting Bohemians when war broke out in 1618. ”

“ Charles Emmanuel (1796-1802) , believing in Bonaparte's promises, was induced to enter into a confederation with France and give up the citadel of Turin to the French, which meant the end of his country's independence. Realizing his folly he abdicated on the 6th of December 1796, and retired to Sardinia, Victor while the French occupied the whole of Piedmont. After the defeat of the French by the Austro-Russian armies during Bonaparte's absence in Egypt, Charles Emmanuel landed at Leghorn, hoping to regain his kingdom ”

“ Soon the English had nearly 40,000 men in the Crimea, while the French Emperor had raised his troops to 100,000. Further aid was given to the allies by Sardinia, whose king Victor Emmanuel, following the old tradition of the house of Savoy, was eager to take part on the stronger side in a great war. His object was partly to gain the gratitude of France, partly to display the strength of his warlike little kingdom in the councils of Europe. ”

“ He thus signed, before dying, the peace of Vervins, which announced the re-establishment of French power and the decadence of Spain. His successor, Philip III, abandoned even the most faithful of the servitors of his house in Italy—Charles Emmanuel I, duke of Savoy, from whom Henry IV, by the treaty of Lyons, received in 1600 Bugey, Valromey, and Gex, in exchange for the marquisate of Saluzzo.
Italy now turned with full hope towards France. The holy see had nothing but kindness for her. ”

“ On the 11th Charles Emmanuel sent the Prince of Piedmont to Susa, where he signed with the Cardinal a treaty whereby the Duke of Savoy engaged to revictual Casale and promised, in the name of the governor of the Milanese, to evacuate Montferrato and cease all hostile operations against the Duke of Mantua. ”

“ By the third week in June all Savoy had been conquered, with the exception of the citadel of Montmélian,{591} which was being closely blockaded, and Louis XIII and Richelieu returned to Grenoble, whither Bassompierre followed them. On July 10 a division of the army of Piedmont under Montmorency and d’Effiat defeated the forces of Charles Emmanuel at Avigliana and occupied Saluzzo, which the Duke of Savoy had annexed during the troubles of the League and retained at the cost of much sacrifice of territory in 1601. ”

“ Never did any great sovereign and great politician provoke and maintain for long such important wars without conducting them in some other fashion than from the recesses of his cabinet, and without ever having exposed his own life on the field of battle. The Spanish army was under the orders of Emmanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy, a young warrior of thirty, who had won the confidence of Charles V. He led it to the siege of Saint-Quentin, a place considered as one of the bulwarks of the kingdom. ”

“ I am firmly convinced that he will overcome all difficulties. Don't believe either that France will let the Duke of Savoy be ruined. It is against every reason of State." Yet there were few to help Charles Emmanuel in this Montferrat war, which was destined to drag feebly on, with certain interludes of negotiations, for two years longer. The already notorious condottiere Ernest Mansfeld, natural son of old prince Peter Ernest, who played so long and so high a part in command of the Spanish armies in the Netherlands, had, to be sure, taken service under the Duke. ”

“ Pope Gregory XIV., an enthusiastic supporter of the League and a strong adherent of Spain, having succeeded Sixtus V., who had been very lukewarm towards the League, made Henry IV.’s position still more serious just at the moment when, the old Cardinal de Bourbon having died, Philip II. wanted to be declared the protector of the kingdom in order that he might dismember it, and when Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, a grandson of Francis I., and Charles III., duke of Lorraine, a son-in-law of Henry II., were both of them claiming the crown. ”

“ VICTOR AMEDEUS II. (1666-1732) , duke of Savoy and first king of Sardinia, was the son of Duke Charles Emmanuel II. and Jeanne de Savoie-Nemours. Born at Turin, he lost his father in 1675, and spent his youth under the regency of his mother, known as “Madama Reale” (madame royale) , an able but ambitious and overbearing woman. He assumed the reins of government at the age of sixteen, and married Princess Anne, daughter of Philip of Orleans and Henrietta of England, and niece of Louis XIV., king of France. ”

“ The outbreak of the first French Revolution again threatened the House of Savoy with destruction. Almost simultaneously, in 1792, the territory of Nice, and the whole of Savoy, were invaded, and occupied by the troops of the Directory; a few years later, Piedmont was incorporated into the French dominions, and Sardinia was all that remained to Charles Emmanuel IV., who, in 1796, succeeded to what he bitterly designated as “a veritable crown of thorns.” ”

“ At Grenoble the King remained for some three weeks to negotiate with the Duke of Savoy. Charles Emmanuel was unable to believe that Louis really intended to cross the Alps while the Huguenots of the South were still unsubdued, and, esteeming himself the arbiter between France and Spain, he refused to abandon the Spaniards, unless the King would undertake to assist him to conquer the Milanese or Genoa or sacrifice to him Geneva. ”

“ Less favourable is the view taken by non-Catholic historians, which seems in some measure to be confirmed by St Francis himself. According to this, Duke Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, who succeeded his more tolerant father in 1580, was determined to reduce the Chablais to the Catholic religion, by peaceful means if possible, by force if necessary. ”

“ From Lyons he accompanied Louis XIII to Avignon, where the King received a visit from Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, who came to lay the basis of a treaty between France, Savoy and Venice, which was signed at Paris on February 7 of the following year, and which had for its object to compel Spain to execute the Treaty of Madrid and to restore the Valtellina to the Grisons. ”

“ Although after the loss of Pinerolo Charles Emmanuel had hastened to make overtures for peace, Richelieu had little belief in his sincerity, and Louis XIII agreed with him on the necessity of retaining so all-important an acquisition as Pinerolo. The Queen-Mother and her creatures were, however, worrying the King incessantly to spare the Duke of Savoy, and Louis, who desired peace about him, and had vainly endeavoured{590} to make his mother listen to reason, sent the Cardinal to Lyons to represent to Marie more fully the condition of affairs. ”

“ Mantua and Montferrat are given to Charles, duke of Nevers. Savoy gets a small portion of Montferrat and Pinerolo is ceded to France.
1637 On death of Victor Amadeus a contest over the regency for his young son, Charles Emmanuel II, begins.
1639 Capture of Turin by Prince Thomas of Savoy in the contest for the regency.
1642 The duke’s mother Christina obtains the regency of Savoy under the protection of France. This leads to the implication of Italy in the wars of Louis XIII with Germany and Spain. Civil war breaks out in Italy. The ducal families take the side of Spain. ”

“ Anne de Montmorency, now head of the government in place of the headstrong chancellor Duprat, for four years upheld a policy of reconciliation and of almost friendly agreement between the two monarchs (1531–1535) . The death of Francis I.’s mother, Louise of Savoy (who had been partly instrumental in arranging the peace of Cambrai) , the replacement of Montmorency by the bellicose Chabot, and the advent to power of a Burgundian, Granvella, as Charles V.’s prime minister, put an end to this double-faced policy, which attacked the Calvinists of France while supporting the Lutherans of Germany ”

“ He induced both France and Spain to evacuate the fortresses which they still held in Piedmont, made a profitable exchange of territory with the Bernese, and acquired an extension of seaboard by the purchase of Tenda and Oneglia (see EMMANUEL PHILIBERT of Savoy) . His son and successor, Charles Emmanuel I., surnamed ue!
the Great, strengthened the tendency of Savoy to become less of a French and more of an Italian Power. In 1 588 he wrested Saluzzo from the French, but his expeditions to Provence and Switzerland were unsuccessful. ”

“ Savoy, as every body knows, was once a part of France, and it still retains all of its original characteristics. I have not heard ten words of Italian since I arrived here, and, judging from what I do hear and from the tone of the newspapers, it would like to become a part of France again. The Savoyards are a religious, steady-going people, and they have little love either for the weak and dissolute monarch who governs them, or for the powerful, infidel prime minister who governs their monarch. ”

“ By the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, following on the defeat of the French, Savoy gained some further accessions of territory in Piedmont. The reign of Charles's son, Victor Amadeus III. (177 3-1 796) , was a period of decadence; the king was incapable and extravagant, and he chose equally incapable ministers. On the outbreak of the French Revolution he sided with the royalists and was eventually brought into conflict with the French republic. The army being demoralized and the treasury empty, the kingdom The fell an easy prey to the republican ~forces. ”

“ Princess Clothilde (b. 1843) , who married Prince Napoleon; Humbert, prince of Piedmont (1844) ; Amadeus, duke of Aosta (b. 1845) ; Oddone, duke of Montferrat (b. 1846) ; and-Princess Maria Pia (b. 1847) . Humbert, who Humber, in 1868 had married Princess Margherita of Savoy, daughter of Victor Emmanuel's brother, the duke of Genoa, became king of Italy on his father's death in 1878. In July 1900 he was assassinated by an anarchist at Monza. He was succeeded by his only son, Victor Emmanuel III., born in 1869, who during his father's lifetime had borne the title of prince of Naples. ”

“ A misreading of the political barometer at a critical moment would mean nothing less than national extinction. From the time that the rivalry between France and the Austro-Spanish power began to develop itself in Italy, the dukes of Savoy had been compelled to follow this tortuous policy. During the Italian [27] expeditions of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. they were on the side of victorious France, but in the war between Francis I. and Charles V. Savoy veered to the side of the Emperor. ”

“ But northern Italy was the constant theatre of far more destructive hostilities; and the Italian sovereign, who acted the most conspicuous part in the general war of Europe, was Charles Emmanuel III, the king of Sardinia. That active and politic prince, pursuing the skilful but selfish and unscrupulous system of aggrandisement, which had become habitual to the Savoyard dynasty, made a traffic of his alliance to the highest bidder. ”

“ As a result of his careful policy, he was gradually able to dispense with his Northern followers and intrust administration and arms to his Provençal subjects. The last of the Troubadours fled to the more congenial courts of Aragon and northern Italy. The successes of Charles began that long series of French aggressions on the Arelate, which only ceased when Savoy itself became French less than forty years ago. This was the natural and inevitable result of the development of the idea of nationality and the decay of the imperial principle. ”

“ Savoy, the important buffer state, was detached from France by the marriage of the somewhat feeble duke to Charles’s capable and devoted sister-in-law, Beatrice of Portugal. Milan, conquered from France, was granted to Francesco Sforza, heir of the old dynasty, and even after his treason was restored to him. In the vain hope of offspring Charles sacrificed his niece, Christina of Denmark, to the valetudinarian duke. In the long negotiations for a Habsburg-Valois dynasty which followed Francesco’s death, Charles was probably sincere. ”

“ Francis had overrun almost the whole of Savoy and Piedmont, he had invaded Artois, and successfully repelled two invasions of France. He was content for the present to rest upon his conquests, to hold Savoy, an outpost for defence, a ready road for attack, and to defer the settlement of other outstanding questions for a season. Charles was the more willing to leave Savoy in Francis' possession because the Duke had offended him deeply in the matter of Nice. On the other hand he needed peace above all for his affairs in Germany, and to meet the Turkish danger. ”

“ A manifesto was published declaring that the French nation offered its alliance to all peoples who wished to recover their freedom, and charging the generals of the Republic to give their protection to all persons who might suffer in the cause of liberty (Nov. 19) . A week later Savoy and Nice were annexed to France, the population of Savoy having declared in favour of France and Sardinia. On the 15th of December the Convention proclaimed that social and political revolution was henceforth to accompany every movement of its armies on foreign soil. ”