Part 398

La Vieuville, under whose patronage he had been brought forward, welcomed him into the Cabinet. … But La Vieuville was not fitted by nature for the chief place; he was rash, violent, unpopular and corrupt. He soon had to give place to Richelieu, henceforth the virtual head of the Council. La Vieuville, thus supplanted, had been the first to reverse the ruinous Spanish policy of the Court; … he had promised help to the Dutch, to Mansfield, to the Elector Frederick; in a word, his policy had been the forecast of that of the Cardinal, who owed his rise to him, and now stepped nimbly over his head into his place. England had declared war on Spain: France joined England in renewing the old offensive and defensive alliance with the Dutch, England promising men and France money. … The Austro-Spanish power had greatly increased during these years: its successes had enabled it to knit together all the provinces which owed it allegiance. The Palatinate and the Lower Rhine secured their connexion with the Spanish Netherlands, as we may now begin to call them, and threatened the very existence of the Dutch: the Valtelline forts [commanding the valley east of Lake Como, from which one pass communicates with the Engadine and the Grisons, and another with the Tyrol] … were the roadway between the Spanish power at Milan and the Austrians on the Danube and in the Tyrol. Richelieu now resolved to attack this threatening combination at both critical points. In the North he did not propose to interfere in arms: there others should fight, and France support them with quiet subsidies and good will. He pressed matters on with the English, the Dutch, the North German Princes; he negotiated with Maximilian of Bavaria and the League, hoping to keep the South German Princes clear of the Imperial policy. … The French ambassador at Copenhagen, well supported by the English envoy, Sir Robert Anstruther, at this time organised a Northern League, headed by Christian IV. of Denmark [see GERMANY: A. D. 1624-1626]. … The Lutheran Princes, alarmed at the threatening aspect of affairs, were beginning to think that they had made a mistake in leaving the Palatinate to be conquered; and turned a more willing ear to the French and English proposals for this Northern League. … By 1625 the Cardinal's plans in the North seemed to be going well: the North-Saxon Princes, though with little heart and much difference of opinion, specially in the cities, had accepted Christian IV. as their leader; and the progress of the Spaniards in the United Provinces was checked. In the other point to which Richelieu's attention was directed, matters had gone still better. [The inhabitants of the Valtelline were mostly Catholics and Italians. They had long been subject to the Protestant Grisons or Graubunden. In 1620 they had risen in revolt, massacred the Protestants of the valley, and formed an independent republic, supported by the Spaniards and Austrians. Spanish and German troops occupied the four strong Valtelline forts, and controlled the important passes above referred to. The Grisons resisted and secured the support of Savoy, Venice and finally France. In 1623 an agreement had been reached, to hand over the Valtelline forts to the pope, in deposit, until some terms could be settled. But in 1625 this agreement had not been carried out, and Richelieu took the affair in hand.] … {1220} Richelieu, never attacking in full face if he could carry his point by a side-attack, allied himself with Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, and with Venice; he easily persuaded the Savoyard to threaten Genoa, the port by which Spain could penetrate into Italy, and her financial mainstay. Meanwhile, the Marquis of Cœuvres had been sent to Switzerland, and, late in 1624, had persuaded the Cantons to arm for the recovery of the Valtelline; then, heading a small army of Swiss and French, he had marched into the Grisons. The upper districts held by the Austrians revolted: the three Leagues declared their freedom, the Austrian troops hastily withdrew. Cœuvres at once secured the Tyrolese passes, and descending from the Engadine by Poschiavo, entered the Valtelline: in a few weeks the Papal and Spanish troops were swept out of the whole valley, abandoning all their forts, though the French general had no siege-artillery with which to reduce them. … Early in 1625, the Valtelline being secured to the Grisons and French, the aged Lesdiguières was sent forward to undertake the rest of the plan, the reduction of Genoa. But just as things were going well for the party in Europe opposed to Spain and Austria, an unlucky outburst of Huguenot dissatisfaction marred all: Soubise in the heart of winter had seized the Isle of Ré, and had captured in Blavet harbour on the Breton coast six royal ships; he failed however to take the castle which commanded the place, and was himself blockaded, escaping only with heavy loss. Thence he seized the Isle of Oléron: in May the Huguenots were in revolt in Upper Languedoc, Querci, and the Cevennes, led by Rohan on land, and Soubise by sea. Their rash outbreak [provoked by alleged breaches of the treaty of Montpelier, especially in the failure of the king to demolish Fort Louis at La Rochelle] came opportunely to the aid of the distressed Austrian power, their true enemy. Although very many of the Huguenots stood aloof and refused to embarrass the government, still enough revolted to cause great uneasiness. The war in the Ligurian mountains was not pushed on with vigour; for Richelieu could not now think of carrying out the large plans which, by his own account, he had already formed, for the erection of an independent Italy. … He was for the present content to menace Genoa, without a serious siege. At this time James I. of England died, and the marriage of the young king [Charles I.] with Henriette Marie was pushed on. In May Buckingham went to Paris to carry her over to England; he tried in vain to persuade Richelieu to couple the Palatinate with the Valtelline question. … After this the tide of affairs turned sharply against the Cardinal; while Tilly with the troops of the Catholic League, and Wallenstein, the new general of the Emperor, who begins at this moment his brief and marvellous career, easily kept in check the Danes and their halfhearted German allies, Lesdiguières and the Duke of Savoy were forced by the Austrians and Spaniards to give up all thoughts of success in the Genoese country, and the French were even threatened in Piedmont and the Valtelline. But the old Constable of France was worthy of his ancient fame; he drove the Duke of Feria out of Piedmont, and in the Valtelline the Spaniards only succeeded in securing the fortress of Riva. Richelieu felt that the war was more than France could bear, harassed as she was within and without. … He was determined to free his hands in Italy, to leave the war to work itself out in Germany, and to bring the Huguenots to reason. … The joint fleets of, Soubise and of La Rochelle had driven back the king's ships, and had taken Ré and Oléron; but in their attempt to force an entrance into the harbour of La Rochelle they were defeated by Montmorency, who now commanded the royal fleet: the islands were retaken, and the Huguenots sued for peace. It must be remembered that the bulk of them did not agree with the Rochellois, and were quiet through this time. Early in 1626 the treaty of Montpellier granted a hollow peace on tolerable terms to the reformed churches; and soon after … peace was signed with Spain at Monzon in May, 1626. All was done so silently that the interested parties, Savoy, the Venetians, the Grisons, knew nothing of it till all was settled: on Buckingham … the news fell like a thunderclap. … The Valtelline remained under the Grisons, with guarantees for Catholic worship; France and Spain would jointly see that the inhabitants of the valleys were fairly treated: the Pope was entrusted with the duty of razing the fortresses: Genoa and Savoy were ordered to make peace. It was a treacherous affair; and Richelieu comes out of it but ill. We are bound, however, to remember … the desperate straits into which the Cardinal had come. … He did but fall back in order to make that wonderful leap forward which changed the whole face of European politics."

_G. W. Kitchin, History of France, book 4, chapters 3 and 4 (volumes 2-3)._

ALSO IN: _F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapters 40-41._

_J. B. Perkins, France under Mazarin [and Richelieu], volume 1, chapters 4-5._

_G. Masson, Richelieu, chapter 5._

FRANCE: A. D. 1627-1628: War with England, and Huguenot revolt. Richelieu's siege and capture of La Rochelle. His great example of magnanimity and toleration. The end of political Huguenotism.

"Richelieu now found himself dragged into a war against his will, and that with the very power with which, for the furtherance of his other designs, he most desired to continue at peace. James I. of England had been as unable to live except under the dominion of a favourite as Louis. Charles … had the same unfortunate weakness; and the Duke of Buckingham, who had long been paramount at the court of the father, retained the same mischievous influence at that of the son. … In passing through France in 1623 he [Buckingham] had been presented to the queen [Anne of Austria], and had presumed to address her in the language of love. When sent to Paris to conduct the young Princess Henrietta Maria to England, he had repeated this conduct. … There had been some little unpleasantness between the two Courts shortly after the marriage … owing to the imprudence of Henrietta," who paraded her Popery too much in the eyes of Protestant England; and there was talk of a renewed treaty, which Buckingham sought to make the pretext for another visit to Paris. But his motives were understood; Louis "refused to receive him as an ambassador, and Buckingham, full of disappointed rage, instigated the Duke de Soubise, who was still in London, to rouse the Huguenots to a fresh outbreak, promising to send an English fleet to Rochelle to assist them. Rochelle was at this time the general head-quarters not only of the Huguenots, but of all those who, on any account, were discontented with the Government. … {1221} Soubise … embraced the duke's offer with eagerness; and in July, 1627, without any previous declaration of war, an English fleet, with 16,000 men on board, suddenly appeared off Rochelle, and prepared to attack the Isle of Rhé. The Rochellois were very unwilling to co-operate with it"; but they were persuaded, "against their judgment, to connect themselves with what each, individually, felt to be a desperate enterprise; and Richelieu, to whom the prospect thus afforded him of having a fair pretence for crushing the Huguenot party made amends for the disappointment of being wantonly dragged into a war with England, gladly received the intelligence that Rochelle was in rebellion. At first the Duke d'Anjou was sent down to command the army, Louis being detained in Paris by illness; but by October he had recovered, his fondness for military operations revived, and he hastened to the scene of action, accompanied by Richelieu, whose early education had been of a military kind. … He at once threw across reinforcements into the Isle of Rhé, where M. Thoiras was holding out a fort known as St. Martin with great resolution, though it was unfinished and incompletely armed. In the beginning of November, Buckingham raised the siege, and returned home, leaving guns, standards and prisoners behind him; and Richelieu, anticipating a renewal of the attack the next year … undertook a work designed at once to baffle foreign enemies and to place the city at his mercy. Along the whole front of the port he began to construct a vast wall … having only one small opening in the centre which was commanded by small batteries. The work was commenced in November, 1627; and, in spite of a rather severe winter, was carried on with such ceaseless diligence, under the superintending eye of the cardinal himself, that before the return of spring a great portion of it was completed. … When, in May, 1628, the British fleet, under Lord Denbigh, the brother-in-law of Buckingham, returned to the attack, they found it unassailable, and returned without striking a blow."

_C. D. Yonge, History of France under the Bourbons, volume 1, chapter 7._

"Richelieu … was his own engineer, general, admiral, prime-minister. While he urged on the army to work upon the dike, he organized a French navy, and in due time brought it around to that coast and anchored it so as to guard the dike and be guarded by it. Yet, daring as all this work was, it was but the smallest part of his work. Richelieu found that his officers were cheating his soldiers in their pay and disheartening them; in face of the enemy he had to reorganize the army and to create a new military system. … He found, also, as he afterward said, that he had to conquer not only the Kings of England and Spain, but also the King of France. At the most critical moment of the siege Louis deserted him,—went back to Paris,—allowed courtiers to fill him with suspicions. Not only Richelieu's place, but his life, was in danger, and he well knew it; yet he never left his dike and siege-works, but wrought on steadily until they were done; and then the King, of his own will, in very shame, broke away from his courtiers, and went back to his master. And now a Royal Herald summoned the people of La Rochelle to surrender. But they were not yet half conquered. Even when they had seen two English fleets, sent to aid them, driven back from Richelieu's dike, they still held out manfully. … They were reduced to feed on their horses,—then on bits of filthy shell-fish,—then on stewed leather. They died in multitudes. Guiton, the Mayor, kept a dagger on the city council-table to stab any man who should speak of surrender. … But at last even Guiton had to yield. After the siege had lasted more than a year, after 5,000 were found remaining out of 15,000, after a mother had been seen to feed her child with her own blood, the Cardinal's policy became too strong for him. The people yielded [October 27, 1628], and Richelieu entered the city as master. And now the victorious statesman showed a greatness of soul to which all the rest of his life was as nothing. … All Europe … looked for a retribution more terrible than any in history. Richelieu allowed nothing of the sort. He destroyed the old franchises of the city, for they were incompatible with that royal authority which he so earnestly strove to build. But this was all. He took no vengeance,—he allowed the Protestants to worship as before,—he took many of them into the public service,—and to Guiton he showed marks of respect. He stretched forth that strong arm of his over the city, and warded off all harm. … For his leniency Richelieu received the titles of Pope of the Protestants and Patriarch of the Atheists. But he had gained the first great object of his policy, and he would not abuse it: he had crushed the political power of the Huguenots forever."

_A. D. White, The Statesmanship of Richelieu (Atlantic Monthly, May, 1862)._

"Whatever the benefit to France of this great feat, the locality was permanently ruined. Two hundred and fifty years after the event the Poitevin peasant is fanatic and superstitious as the Bretons themselves. Catholic Rochelle is still to be seen, with almost one-third less inhabitants to-day than it had in 1627. The cardinal's dyke is still there, but the insects have seized on the city. A plague of white ants, imported from India, have fastened on its timbers."

_R. Heath, The Reformation in France, volume 1, book 2, chapter 12._

ALSO IN: _S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603 to 1642, chapters 56, 59-60, and 65._

FRANCE: A. D. 1627-1631. War with Spain, Savoy and the Empire over the succession to the duchy of Mantua. Successes of Richelieu.

See ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.

FRANCE: A. D. 1628. New France placed under the Company of the Hundred Associates.

See CANADA: A. D. 1616-1628.

FRANCE: A. D. 1628-1632. Loss and recovery of New France.

See CANADA: A. D. 1628-1635.

FRANCE: A. D. 1630-1632. The Day of Dupes, and after.

On the return of Richelieu and the king from their Italian expedition, in the beginning of August, 1630, "both the monarch and his minister had passed in safety through a whole tract infected with the plague; but, shortly after their arrival at Lyons, Louis XIII. fell ill, and in a few days his physicians pronounced his case hopeless. It was now that all the hatred which his power had caused to hide its head, rose up openly against Richelieu; and the two queens [Marie de Medicis, the queen-mother, and Anne of Austria, the king's wife], united only in their enmity towards the minister, never quitted the bedside of the king but to form and cement the party which was intended to work the cardinal's destruction as soon as the monarch should be no more. … {1222} The bold and the rash joined the faction of the queens; and the prudent waited with wise doubt till they saw the result they hoped for. Happy was it for those who did conceal their feelings; for suddenly the internal abscess, which had nearly reduced the king to the tomb, broke, passed away, and in a very few days he appeared perfectly convalescent. Richelieu might now have triumphed securely; … but he acted more prudently. He remembered that the queen-mother, the great mover of the cabal against him, had formerly been his benefactress; and though probably his gratitude was of no very sensitive nature, yet he was wise enough to affect a virtue that he did not possess, and to suffer the offence to be given by her. … At Paris [after the return of the court] … the queen-mother herself, unable to restrain any longer the violent passions that struggled in her bosom, seemed resolved to keep no terms with the cardinal." At an interview with him, in the king's presence, "the queen forgot the dignity of her station and the softness of her sex, and, in language more fit for the markets than the court, called him rogue, and traitor, and perturber of the public peace; and, turning to the king, she endeavoured to persuade him that Richelieu wished to take the crown from his head, in order to place it on that of the count de Soissons. Had Richelieu been as sure of the king's firmness as he was of his regard, this would have been exactly the conduct which he could have desired the queen to hold; but he knew Louis to be weak and timid, and easily ruled by those who took a tone of authority towards him; and when at length he retired at the command of the monarch … he seems to have been so uncertain how the whole would end, that he ordered his papers and most valuable effects to be secured, and preparations to be made for immediate departure. All these proceedings had been watched by the courtiers: Richelieu had been seen to quit the queen's cabinet troubled and gloomy, his niece in tears; and, some time after, the king himself followed in a state of excessive agitation, and … left Paris for Versailles without seeing his minister. The whole court thought the rule of Richelieu at an end, and the saloons of the Luxembourg were crowded with eager nobles ready to worship the rising authority of the queen-mother." But the king, when he reached Versailles, sent this message to his minister: "'Tell the cardinal de Richelieu that he has a good master, and bid him come hither to me without delay.' Richelieu felt that the real power of France was still in his hands; and setting off for Versailles, he found Louis full of expressions of regard and confidence. Rumours every moment reached Versailles of the immense concourse that was flocking to pay court to the queen-mother: the king found himself nearly deserted, and all that Richelieu had said of her ambition was confirmed in the monarch's mind; while his natural good sense told him that a minister who depended solely upon him, and who under him exercised the greatest power in the realm, was not likely to wish his fall. … In the mean time, the news of these … events spread to Paris: the halls of the Luxembourg, which the day before had been crowded to suffocation, were instantly deserted; and the queen-mother found herself abandoned by all those fawning sycophants whose confidence and disappointment procured for the day of St. Martin, 1630, the title in French history of The Day of Dupes."

_G. P. R. James, Eminent Foreign Statesmen, volume 2, pages 88-92._

The ultimate outcome of The Day of Dupes was the flight of Marie de Medicis, who spent the remainder of her life in the Netherlands and in England; the trial and execution of Marshal de Marillac; the imprisonment or exile and disgrace of Bassompierre and other nobles; a senseless revolt, headed by Gaston, Duke of Orleans, the king's brother, which was crushed in one battle at Castlenaudari, September 1, 1632, and which brought the Duke de Montmorency to the block.

_C. D. Yonge, History of France under the Bourbons, volume 1, chapters 7-8._

ALSO IN: _M. W. Freer, Married Life of Anne of Austria, volume 1, chapter 4._

_C. M. Yonge, Cameos of English History, 6th series, chapter 20._

_Miss Pardoe, Life of Marie de Medicis, book 3, chapters 7-13 (volume 3)._

FRANCE: A. D. 1631. Treaty and negotiations with Gustavus Adolphus in Germany. Promotion of the Protestant Union.

See GERMANY: A.D. 1631 (JANUARY); 1631-1632; and 1632-1634.

FRANCE: A. D. 1632-1641. War in Lorraine. Occupation and possession of the duchy.

See LORRAINE: A. D. 1624-1663.

FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1638. Campaigns on the Flemish frontier. Invasion by the Spaniards. Paris in Peril.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638.

FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1639. Active participation in the Thirty Years War. Treaties with the Germans, Swedes, and Dutch. Campaigns of Duke Bernhard in Lorraine, Alsace and Franche-Comté. The fruit gathered by Richelieu. Alsace secured.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1642. The war in northern Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.

FRANCE: A. D. 1637-1642. The war in Spain. Revolt of Catalonia. Siege and capture of Perpignan. Conquest of Roussillon.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1637-1640, and 1640-1642.

FRANCE: A. D. 1640-1645. Campaigns in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645, and 1643-1644.

FRANCE: A. D. 1641-1642. The conspiracies of Count de Soissons and Cinq Mars. Extinction of the Principality of Sedan.