Gilles de Retz

“ An army of fifty thousand men volunteered and took the field under him. In the front rank, by the side of his grandfather, at the head of all the vassals of their united baronies, was Gilles de Retz. This army marched against Lamballe which capitulated, Guingamp, the same, and successively Jugon, Chateaulan, Broon, and finally against the château of Champtoceaux in which the Duke was incarcerated. This resisted the assault but was besieged and finally taken, the fortress demolished, and John V. was released and returned to Nantes where he was given a triumphal entry. ”

“ From the Chabot family the lordship passed to the Lavals. Gilles de Laval, sire de Retz (1404–1440) , the comrade-in-arms of Joan of Arc and marshal of France, gave himself over to the most revolting debauchery, and was strangled and burned at Nantes. The barony of Retz passed successively to the families of Tournemine, Annebaut and Gondi. In 1581 it was erected into a duchy in the peerage of France (duché-pairie) for Albert de Gondi, marshal of France and general of the galleys. Pierre de Gondi, brother of the first duc de Retz, became bishop of Paris in 1570 and cardinal in 1587. ”

“ But on closer examination of the countenance of Gilles de Retz, contraction in the muscles of the face, nervous quivering of the mouth, spasmodic twitchings of the brows, and above all, the sinister expression of the eyes, showed that there was something strange and frightful in the man. ”

“ Few things could be more different from each other than Tristan le Roux—another early book of Dumas fils—is from La Dame aux Camélias. Indeed it is a good, if not an absolutely certain, sign that so young a man should have tried styles in novel-writing [Pg 373] so far apart from each other. Tristan is a fifteenth-century story of the later part of the Hundred Years' War, and of Gilles de Retz, and of Joan of Arc, and of diablerie, and so forth. ”

“ Near the little village of Champtoie there are some very magnificent ruins of a feudal castle, which we stopped to explore, having heard previously of the celebrity they had acquired from the frightful crimes of their owner, by name Gilles de Retz Sieur de Laval, who lived in the reign of Charles VII. He was a perfect monster in human shape, and a complete bugbear to all the surrounding country, who gave him the name of Barbe Bleu, the original of our well-known story of Blue Beard. The story-tellers have thought proper to clothe the hero in a turban and Eastern dress ”

“ It is on these rescuers that the central interest of the story turns. Olivier de Karnak and Tristan le Roux are, though they do not at the time know it, brothers by the same mother, the guiltless Countess of Karnak having been drugged, violated, and made a mother by Gilles de Retz's father. They are also rivals for the love of their cousin Alix, and as she prefers Olivier, this sends Tristan literally "to the Devil." ”

“ La Rochefoucauld and Saint Simon spoke admiringly of his "prodigious genius." Anne of Austria called him a "factionist." Mazarin, who as he loved neither virtue nor vice, could not judge justly of one of Plutarch's heroes, did not like Retz; but he feared him. Mademoiselle said in her memoirs: "The Cardinal tells me that he believes that Retz has a black soul." People who knew no better laughed at the Archbishop's nephew, and Retz involuntarily fostered their delusion. ”

“ Retz had twice driven Mazarin out of Paris and once out of France. But Mazarin had proved the better stayer. He had returned, put Retz to flight, and died worth forty millions. Retz came back, made a good end, and only just cleared his debts. And what had it all been about? Some say, Anne of Austria, an elderly, ill-tempered, fat woman; some say vanity, some ambition. I say, Il Talento and the joy of battle: the brain taut, the eye alert, the sword-hand flickering like lightning on a summer night. ”

“ Retz himself admits this in the following passage, too famous to be omitted here, though we must first remark that even if it have a groundwork of truth, the coloring is greatly exaggerated: [11] "I never saw any one else," he says, "in whom intuition could supply the place of judgment. She often suggested expedients so brilliant that they seemed like flashes of lightning, and so wise that they would not have been disowned by the greatest men of any age. ”

“ His uncle, who was old, indolent and absurdly proud, had lived in great seclusion; Retz, on the contrary, gradually acquired a very great influence with the populace of the city. This influence he gradually turned against Mazarin. No one had more to do than Retz with the outbreak of the Fronde in October 1648, and his history for the next four years is the history of that confused and, as a rule, much misunderstood movement. Of the two parties who joined in it Retz could only depend on the bourgeoisie of Paris. ”

“ Twisting and untwisting his chaplet of beads about his long fingers, his eyes averted, the King heard each in turn. Then he looked up. His glance, deliberately ignoring Guise, settled upon the Duke of Retz, who held aloof.
“And you, Monsieur le Marechal, what is your counsel?”
Retz drew himself up, as if bracing himself to meet opposing forces. He was a little pale, but quite composed.
“If there is a man whom I should hate,” he said, “it is this Gaspard de Coligny, who has defamed me and all my family by the foul accusations he has put abroad. ”

“ De Retz reflected. If the queen designed to punish him, she should have something to punish him for. He was not the man to be made a cat's-paw of.
"We are not in such bad case as you suppose, gentlemen," he said to his friends. "There is an intention of crushing the public; it is for me to [Pg 239] defend it from oppression; to-morrow before mid-day I shall be master of Paris."
Anne of Austria had made an enemy of one who had been her strong friend, a bold and restless man, capable of great deeds. He had long taken pains to make himself popular in Paris. ”

“ After the historian of the Importants, the memoirist of the Frondeurs holds nearly the same language. Like La Rochefoucauld, Retz has but one aim in his memoirs—that of giving himself a statesmanlike air, and of making a conspicuous figure in every thing, both good and evil. He is often more veracious, because he exercises less circumspection for others, and is more disposed to sacrifice everybody, himself excepted. ”

“ Among other things it was hinted that Mazarin, having re-entered France, was marching at the head of a foreign army on Paris, with the avowed object of razing it to the ground.
De Retz, laughing in his sleeve, went about attended by a numerous and well-armed retinue to protect him from being murdered; Condé followed his example, and the petits maîtres swaggered more than ever, especially when they met the friends of De Retz; at the Hôtel Vendôme, the Duke of Beaufort stayed in bed, having, according to rumour, been poisoned ”

“ His debts were enormous, and in 167 5 he resolved to make over to his creditors all his income except twenty thousand livres, and, as he said, to “ live for ” them. This plan he carried out, though he did not succeed in living very long, for he died at Paris on the 24th August 1679. One of the chief authorities for the last years of Retz is Madame de Sévigné, whose connexion he was by marriage. Retz and La Rochefoucauld, the greatest of the Frondeurs in literary genius, were personal and political enemies, and each has left a portrait of the other. ”

“ I will let them see that they are not the potentates they think themselves, and that they may easily be brought to reason."
"The cardinal may possibly be mistaken in his measures," answered De Retz. "He will find Paris a hard nut to crack."
"It will not be taken, like Dunkerque, by mining and assaults," retorted the prince, angrily; "but if the bread of Gonesse were to fail them for a week—" He left the coadjutor to imagine the consequences.
The contest continued. In January, 1649, the queen, the boy king, and the whole court set out by night for the castle of St. Germain. ”

“ I was now introduced in form to the friends of Monsieur de Retz: they were all old men; and had, in truth, nothing remarkable in their appearance. Monsieur de Vitry, celebrated in history as the man who, at the command of Louis XIII., shot the Maréchal d'Ancre on the very steps of the Louvre, was the only one whose countenance promised anything like vigour; but it was not to him that De Retz had addressed himself in his present negotiation, but to Monsieur de Cramail, whose face at all events did not prepossess one in favour of his intellect. ”

“ Cardinal de Retz was removed to the castle of Nantes, whence he managed to make his escape in August, 1653; for nine years he lived abroad, in Spain, Italy, and Germany, everywhere mingling in the affairs of Europe, engaged in intrigue, and not without influence; when at last he returned to France, in 1662, he resigned the archbishopric of Paris, and established himself in the principality of Commercy, which belonged to him, occupied up to the day of his death in paying his debts, doing good to his friends and servants, writing his memoirs, and making his peace with God. ”

“ Every defeat—and the Parisians were always defeated—formed a subject for songs and mockery. Councils of war were held in taverns, and [Pg 219] De Retz was seen at a sitting of the Parlement in the hall of St. Louis with a poignard sticking out of his pocket: "There is the archbishop's prayer-book," said the people. The more public-spirited members of the Parlement soon, however, tired of the folly; Mazarin won over De Retz by the offer of a cardinal's hat, and a compromise was effected with the court, which returned to Paris in April 1649. ”

“ Market-women embraced princes, prelates governed armies, court ladies led the mob, and the mob, in its turn, ruled the city." [C]
[Pg 49]
Chapter II. The Boy-King. 1650-1653
M. de Retz. The reconciliation between the court and the Fronde was very superficial. The old antagonism soon reappeared, and daily grew more rancorous. To add to the embarrassment of the court, Monsieur, the duke of Orleans, became alienated from Mazarin, and seemed inclined to join the Fronde. The most formidable antagonist of the cardinal in the Parliament was M. de Retz. ”

“ This last part of the Count's speech instantly let me into the secret of Monsieur de Retz's first visit to me. My good landlady's tongue had probably not been idle concerning what she conceived my necessitous situation; and, upon the alert for all such cases of what Monsieur le Comte called higher pauperism, De Retz had lost no time in seeking to gain me, as he had probably gained many others, by a display of well-timed and discriminating charity.
God knows, I was not a man to look upon wealth and splendour as a virtue in others, nor to regard misfortune and poverty as a vice ”

“ To save his own life he would have thrown your cousin to the wolves. It is each for himself, nowadays, monsieur. I wormed out their plots: they could not deceive Pillot. De Retz is a clever schemer, but the biggest rogues make mistakes. He believed my tale, and so did Condé. Only one man besides myself and M. de Lalande knew the truth, and I was obliged to trust him. As to your cousin I have guarded him against all comers; I have nursed him day and night; I have tricked the soldiers, but now the end is come. Prince and priest are welcome to the secret now. ”

“ The fellow withdrew, ashamed of his violence, and before any further attack could be made upon De Retz he was recognized by the people and dragged to the market-place, constantly crying out as he went, "The queen has promised to restore Broussel."
The good news by this time had spread through the multitude, whose cries of anger were giving place to shouts of joy. Their arms were hastily disposed of, and a great throng, thirty or forty thousand in number, followed the coadjutor to the Palais-Royal. ”

“ Retz claimed that [343] his hand fired the powder, and to do him justice, though his Memoirs make a great deal of the part that he played in the Fronde, they tell less than the truth. He might have said without boasting that he held Paris in the hollow of his hand. He had worked hard to acquire the power by which he bent the people to his will. Vincent de Paul had been his tutor, and Retz had been an unworthy pupil; he had remembered but one of Père Vincent's many lessons of brotherly love. His mind had seized the warning: "Know that the people is a Being, to be considered ”

“ The dismay spread through the country by the revelations already made, demanded that religion and morality, which had been so grossly outraged, should be speedily avenged. People wondered at the delay in pronouncing sentence, and it was loudly proclaimed in Nantes that the Sire de Retz was rich enough to purchase his life. It is true that Madame de Retz solicited the king and the duke again to give pardon to her husband; but the duke, counselled by the bishop, refused to extend his authority to interfere with the course of justice ”

“ Your cousin Henri growls like a savage bear at your name; Armand d'Arçy does nothing but laugh and call himself an oaf; while only last night De Retz declared you were worth your weight in gold. And, to make matters worse, no one could say whether you were free or in the Bastille! Anyway, I am glad you have not joined Mazarin's Guards."
"Why?"
"Because you should be one of us, and we are opposed to Mazarin."
"The Cardinal is a well-hated man!"
"A wretched Italian priest! The nation will have none of him. Before long France will be quit of Mazarin." ”

“ After Retz’s death, the Président Hénault, writing about his Memoirs, asked how one was to believe that a man would have the courage, or the folly, to say worse things about himself than his greatest enemy could have said. The answer, of course, is that Retz had no suspicion that he was saying bad things about himself. He said a great deal that was not true. Other chronicles of the Fronde give detailed accounts of such days as that of the Barricades, with not a word of the Coadjutor in them. ”