Volume V Part 17 (1/2)
France was the gainer of Artois and Roussillon, and of several places in Flanders, Hainault, and Luxembourg; and the peace of Westphalia was recognized by Spain, to whom France restored all that she held in Catalonia and in Franche-Comte. Philip IV. had refused to include Portugal in the treaty. The Infanta received as dowry five hundred thousand gold crowns, and renounced all her rights to the throne of Spain; the Prince of Conde was taken back to favor by the king, and declared that he would fain redeem with his blood all the hostilities he had committed in and out of France. The king restored him to all his honors and dignities, gave him the government of Burgundy, and bestowed on his son, the Duke of Enghien, the office of Grand Master of France.
The honor of the King of Spain was saved, he did not abandon his allies, and he made a great match for his daughter. But the eyes of Europe were not blinded; it was France that triumphed; the policy of Cardinal Richelieu and of Cardinal Mazarin was everywhere successful. The work of Henry IV. was completed, the house of Austria was humiliated and vanquished in both its branches; the man who had concluded the peace of Westphalia and the peace of the Pyrenees had a right to say, ”I am more French in heart than in speech.”
The Prince of Conde returned to court, ”as if he had never gone away,”
says Mdlle. de Montpensier. [_Memoires,_ t. iii. p. 451.] ”The king talked familiarly with him of all that he had done both in France and in Flanders, and that with as much gusto as if all those things had taken place for his service.” ”The prince discovered him to be so great in every point that, from the first moment at which he could approach him, he comprehended, as it appeared, that the time had come to humble himself. That genius for sovereignty and command which G.o.d had implanted in the king, and which was beginning to show itself, persuaded the Prince of Conde that all which remained of the previous reign was about to be annihilated.” [_Memoires de Madame de Motteville,_ t. v. p. 39.] From that day King Louis XIV. had no more submissive subject than the great Conde.
The court was in the South, travelling from town to town, pending the arrival of the dispensations from Rome. On the 3d of June, 1660, Don Louis de Haro, in the name of the King of France, espoused the Infanta in the church of Fontfrabia. Mdlle. de Montpensier made up her mind to be present, unknown to anybody, at the ceremony. When it was over, the new queen, knowing that the king's cousin was there, went up to her, saying, ”I should like to embrace this fair unknown,” and led her away to her room, chatting about everything, but pretending not to know her. The queen-mother and King Philip IV. met next day, on the Island of Pheasants, after forty-five years' separation. The king had come privately to have a view of the Infanta, and he watched her, through a door ajar, towering a whole head above the courtiers. ”May I, ask my niece what she thinks of this unknown?” said Anne of Austria to her brother. ”It will be time when she has pa.s.sed that door,” replied the king. Young Monsieur, the king's brother, leaned forward towards his sister-in-law, and, ”What does your Majesty think of this door?” he whispered. ”I think it very nice and handsome,” answered the young queen. The king had thought her handsome, ”despite the ugliness of her head-dress and of her clothes, which had at first taken him by surprise.”
King Philip IV. kept looking at M. de Turenne, who had accompanied the king. ”That man has given me dreadful times,” he repeated twice or thrice. ”You can judge whether M. de Turenne felt himself offended,”
says Mdlle. de Montpensier. The definitive marriage took place at Saint-Jean-de-Luz on the 9th of June, and the court took the road leisurely back to Vincennes. Scarcely had the arrival taken place, when all the sovereign bodies sent a solemn deputation to pay their respects to Cardinal Mazarin and thank him for the peace he had just concluded.
It was an unprecedented honor, paid to a minister upon whose head the Parliament had but lately set a price. The cardinal's triumph was as complete at home as abroad; all foes had been reduced to submission or silence, Paris and France rejoicing over the peace and the king's marriage; but, like Cardinal Richelieu, Mazarin succ.u.mbed at the very pinnacle of his glory and power; the gout, to which he was subject, flew to his stomach, and he suffered excruciating agonies. One day, when the king came to get his advice upon a certain matter, ”Sir,” said the cardinal, ”you are asking counsel of a man who no longer has his reason and who raves.” He saw the approach of death calmly, but not unregretfully. Concealed, one day, behind a curtain in the new apartments of the Mazarin Palace (now the National Library), young Brienne heard the cardinal coming. ”He dragged his slippers along like a man very languid and just recovering from some serious illness. He paused at every step, for he was very feeble; he fixed his gaze first on one side and then on the other, and letting his eyes wander over the magnificent objects of art he had been all his life collecting, he said, 'All that must be left behind!' And, turning round, he added, 'And that too! What trouble I have had to obtain all these things! I shall never see them more where I am going.'” He had himself removed to Vincennes, of which he was governor. There he continued to regulate all the affairs of state, striving to initiate the young king in the government.
”n.o.body,” Turenne used to say, ”works so much as the cardinal, or discovers so many expedients with great clearness of mind for the terminating of much business of different sorts.” The dying minister recommended to the king MM. Le Tellier and de Lionne, and he added, ”Sir, to you I owe everything; but I consider that I to some extent acquit myself of my obligation to your Majesty by giving you M. Colbert.” The cardinal, uneasy about the large possessions he left, had found a way of securing them to his heirs by making, during his lifetime, a gift of the whole of them to the king. Louis XIV. at once returned it. The minister had lately placed his two nieces, the Princess of Conti and the Countess of Soissons, at the head of the household of two queens; he had married his niece, Hortensia Mancini, to the Duke of La Meilleraye, who took the t.i.tle of Duke of Mazarin. The father of this duke was the relative and protege of Cardinal Richelieu, for whom Mazarin had always preserved a feeling of great grat.i.tude. It was to him and his wife that he left the remainder of his vast possessions, after having distributed amongst all his relatives liberal bequests to an enormous amount. The pictures and jewels went to the king, to Monsieur, and to the queens. A considerable sum was employed for the foundation and endowment of the _College des Quatre Nations (now the Palais de l'Inst.i.tut),_ intended for the education of sixty children of the four provinces re-united to France by the treaties of Westphalia and the Pyrenees, Alsace, Roussillon, Artois, and Pignerol. The cardinal's fortune was estimated at fifty millions.
Mazarin had scarcely finished making his final dispositions when his malady increased to a violent pitch. ”On the 5th of March, forty hours'
public prayers were ordered in all the churches of Paris, which is not generally done except in the case of kings,” says Madame de Motteville.
The cardinal had sent for M. Jolt, parish-priest of St. Nicholas des Champs, a man of great reputation for piety, and begged him not to leave him. ”I have misgivings about not being sufficiently afraid of death,”
he said to his confessor. He felt his own pulse himself, muttering quite low, ”I shall have a great deal more to suffer.” The king had left him on the 7th of March, in the evening. He did not see him again and sent to summon the ministers. Already the living was taking the place of the dying, with a commencement of pomp and circ.u.mstance which excited wonder at the changes of the world. ”On the 9th, between two and three in the morning, Mazarin raised himself slightly in his bed, praying to G.o.d and suffering greatly; then he said aloud, 'Ah holy Virgin, have pity upon me; receive my soul,' and so he expired, showing a fair front to death up to the last moment.” The queen-mother had left her room for the last two, days, because it was too near that of the dying man. ”She wept less than the king,” says Madame de Motteville, ”being more disgusted with the creatures of his making by reason of the knowledge she had of their imperfections, insomuch that it was soon easy to see that the defects of the dead man would before long appear to her greater than they had yet been in her eyes, for he did not content himself with exercising sovereign power over the whole realm, but he exercised it over the sovereigns themselves who had given it him, not leaving them liberty to dispose of anything of any consequence.” [_Memoires de Madame de Motteville,_ t. v. p. 103.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Death of Mazarin.----399]
Louis XIV. was about to reign with a splendor and puissance without precedent; his subjects were submissive and Europe at peace; he was reaping the fruits of the labors of his grandfather Henry IV., of Cardinal Richelieu, and of Cardinal Mazarin. Whilst continuing the work of Henry IV. Richelieu had rendered possible the government of Mazarin; he had set the kingly authority on foundations so strong that the princes of the blood themselves could not shake it. Mazarin had destroyed party and secured to France a glorious peace. Great minister had succeeded great king, and able man great minister; Italian prudence, dexterity, and finesse had replaced the indomitable will, the incomparable judgment, and the grandeur of view of the French priest and n.o.bleman. Richelieu and Mazarin had accomplished their patriotic work: the king's turn had come.
CHAPTER XLIV.----LOUIS XIV., HIS WARS AND HIS CONQUESTS. 1661-1697.
Cardinal Mazarin on his death-bed had given the young king this advice: ”Manage your affairs yourself, sir, and raise no more premier ministers to where your bounties have placed me; I have discovered, by what I might have done against your service, how dangerous it is for a king to put his servants in such a position.” Mazarin knew thoroughly the king whose birth he had seen. ”He has in him the making of four kings and one honest man,” he used to say. Scarcely was the minister dead, when Louis XIV. sent to summon his council: Chancellor Seguier, Superintendent Fouquet, and Secretaries of State Le Tellier, de Lionne, Brienne, Duplessis-Gueneguaud, and La Vrilliere. Then, addressing the chancellor, ”Sir,” said he, ”I have had you a.s.sembled together with my ministers and my secretaries of state to tell you that until now I have been well pleased to leave my affairs to be governed by the late cardinal; it is time that I should govern them myself; you will aid me with your counsels when I ask for them. Beyond the general business of the seal, in which I do not intend to make any alteration, I beg and command you, Mr. Chancellor, to put the seal of authority to nothing without my orders and without having spoken to me thereof, unless a secretary of state shall bring them to you on my behalf. . . . And for you, gentlemen,”
addressing the secretaries of state, ”I warn you not to sign anything, even a safety-warrant or pa.s.sport, without my command, to report every day to me personally, and to favor n.o.body in your monthly rolls. Mr.
Superintendent, I have explained to you my intentions; I beg that you will employ the services of M. Colbert, whom the late cardinal recommended to me.”
The king's councillors were men of experience; and they, all recognized the master's tone. From timidity or respect, Louis XIV. had tolerated the yoke of Mazarin, not, however, without impatience and in expectation of his own turn. [_Portraits de la Cour, Archives curieuses,_ t. viii.
p. 371.] ”The cardinal,” said he one day, ”does just as he pleases, and I put up with it because of the good service he has rendered me, but I shall be master in my turn;” and he added, ”the king my grandfather did great things, and left some to do; if G.o.d gives me grace to live twenty years longer, perhaps I may do as much or more.” G.o.d was to grant Louis XIV. more time and power than he asked for, but it was Henry IV.'s good fortune to maintain his greatness at the sword's point, without ever having leisure to become intoxicated with it. Absolute power is in its nature so unwholesome and dangerous that the strongest mind cannot always withstand it. It was Louis XIV.'s misfortune to be king for seventy-two years, and to reign fifty-six as sovereign master.
”Many people made up their minds,” says the king in his _Memoires_ [t. ii. p. 392], ”that my a.s.siduity in work was but a heat which would soon cool; but time showed them what to think of it, for they saw me constantly going on in the same way, wis.h.i.+ng to be informed of all that took place, listening to the prayers and complaints of my meanest subjects, knowing the number of my troops and the condition of my fortresses, treating directly with foreign ministers, receiving despatches, making in person part of the replies and giving my secretaries the substance of the others, regulating the receipts and expenditures of my kingdom, having reports made to myself in person by those who were in important offices, keeping my affairs secret, distributing graces according to my own choice, reserving to myself alone all my authority, and confining those who served me to a modest position very far from the elevation of premier ministers.”
The young king, from the first, regulated his life and his time: ”I laid it down as a law to myself,” he says in his _Instructions au Dauphin,_ ”to work regularly twice a day. I cannot tell you what fruit I reaped immediately after this resolution. I felt myself rising as it were both in mind and courage; I found myself quite another being; I discovered in myself what I had no idea of, and I joyfully reproached myself for having been so long ignorant of it. Then it dawned upon me that I was king, and was born to be.”
A taste for order and regularity was natural to Louis XIV., and he soon made it apparent in his councils. ”Under Cardinal Mazarin, there was literally nothing but disorder and confusion; he had the council held whilst he was being shaved and dressed, without ever giving anybody a seat, not even the chancellor or Marshal Villeroy, and he was often chattering with his linnet and his monkey all the time he was being talked to about business. After Mazarin's death the king's council a.s.sumed a more decent form. The king alone was seated, all the others remained standing, the chancellor leaned against the bedrail, and M. de Lionne upon the edge of the chimney-piece. He who was making a report placed himself opposite the king, and, if he had to write, sat down on a stool which was at the end of the table where there was a writing-desk and paper.” [_Histoire de France,_ by Le P. Daniel, t. xvi. p. 89.] ”
I will settle this matter with your Majesty's ministers,” said the Portuguese amba.s.sador one day to the young king. ”I have no ministers, Mr. Amba.s.sador,” replied Louis XIV.; ”you mean to say my men of business.”
Long habituation to the office of king was not destined to wear out, to exhaust, the youthful ardor of King Louis XIV. He had been for a long while governing, when he wrote, ”You must not imagine, my son, that affairs of state are like those obscure and th.o.r.n.y pa.s.sages in the sciences which you will perhaps have found fatiguing, at which the mind strives to raise itself, by an effort, beyond itself, and which repel us quite as much by their, at any rate apparent, uselessness as by their difficulty. The function of kings consists princ.i.p.ally in leaving good sense to act, which always acts naturally without any trouble. All that is most necessary in this kind of work is at the same time agreeable; for it is, in a word, my son, to keep an open eye over all the world, to be continually learning news from all the provinces and all nations, the secrets of all courts, the temper and the foible of all foreign princes and ministers, to be informed about an infinite number of things of which we are supposed to be ignorant, to see in our own circle that which is most carefully hidden from us, to discover the most distant views of our own courtiers and their most darkly cherished interests which come to us through contrary interests, and, in fact, I know not what other pleasure we would not give up for this, even if it were curiosity alone that caused us to feel it.” [_Memoires de Louis XIV.,_ t. ii. p. 428.]
At twenty-two years of age, no more than during the rest of his life, was Louis XIV. disposed to sacrifice business to pleasure, but he did not sacrifice pleasure to business. It was on a taste so natural to a young prince, for the first time free to do as he pleased, that Superintendent Fouquet counted to increase his influence and probably his power with the king. ”The attorney-general [Fouquet was attorney-general in the Parliament of Paris], though a great thief, will remain master of the others,” the queen-mother had said to Madame de Motteville at the time of Mazarin's death. Fouquet's hopes led him to think of nothing less than to take the minister's place.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fouquet----404]
Fouquet, who was born in 1615, and had been superintendent of finance in conjunction with Servien since 1655, had been in sole possession of that office since the death of his colleague in 1659. He had faithfully served Cardinal Mazarin through the troubles of the Fronde. The latter had kept him in power in spite of numerous accusations of malversation and extravagance. Fouquet, however, was not certain of the cardinal's good faith; he bought Belle-Ile to secure for himself a retreat, and prepared, for his personal defence, a mad project which was destined subsequently to be his ruin. From the commencement of his reign, the counsels of Mazarin on his death-bed, the suggestions of Colbert, the first observations made by the king himself, irrevocably ruined Fouquet in the mind of the young monarch. Whilst the superintendent was dreaming of the ministry and his friends calling him _the Future,_ when he was preparing, in his castle of Vaux-le-Vicomte, an entertainment in the king's honor at a cost of forty thousand crowns, Louis XIV., in concert with Colbert, had resolved upon his ruin. The form of trial was decided upon. The king did not want to have any trouble with the Parliament; and Colbert suggested to Fouquet the idea of ridding himself of his office of attorney-general. Achille de Harlay bought it for fourteen hundred thousand livres; a million in ready money was remitted to the king for his Majesty's urgent necessities; the superintendent was buying up everybody, even the king.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Colbert----405]
On the 17th of August, 1661, the whole court thronged the gardens of Vaux, designed by Le Netre; the king, whilst admiring the pictures of Le Brun, the _Facheux_ of Moliere represented that day for the first time, and the gold and silver plate which enc.u.mbered the tables, felt his inward wrath redoubled. ”Ah! Madame,” he said to the queen his mother, ”shall not we make all these fellows disgorge?” He would have had the superintendent arrested in the very midst of those festivities, the very splendor of which was an accusation against him. Anne of Austria, inclined in her heart to be indulgent towards Fouquet, restrained him.
”Such a deed would scarcely be to your honor, my son,” she said; ”everybody can see that this poor man is ruining himself to give you good cheer, and you would have him arrested in his own house!”