Volume V Part 17 (2/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Vaux le Vicomte----405a]

”I put off the execution of my design,” says Louis XIV. in his Memoires, ”which caused me incredible pain, for I saw that during that time he was practising new devices to rob me. You can imagine that at the age I then was it required my reason to make a great effort against my feelings in order to act with so much self-control. All France commended especially the secrecy with which I had for three or four months kept a resolution of that sort, particularly as it concerned a man who had such special access to me, who had dealings with all that approached me, who received information from within and from without the kingdom, and who, of himself, must have been led by the voice of his own conscience to apprehend everything.” Fouquet apprehended and became rea.s.sured by turns; the king, he said, had forgiven him all the disorder which the troubles of the times and the absolute will of Mazarin had possibly caused in the finances. However, he was anxious when he followed Louis XIV. to Nantes, the king being about to hold an a.s.sembly of the states of Brittany. ”Nantes, Belle-Ile! Nantes, Belle-Ile!” he kept repeating.

On arriving, Fouquet was ill and trembled as if he had the ague; he did not present himself to the king.

On the 5th of September, in the evening, the king himself wrote to the queen-mother: ”My dear mother, I wrote you word this morning about the execution of the orders I had given to have the superintendent arrested; you know that I have had this matter for a long while on my mind, but it was impossible to act sooner, because I wanted him first of all to have thirty thousand crowns paid in for the marine, and because, moreover, it was necessary to see to various matters which could not be done in a day; and you cannot imagine the difficulty I had in merely finding means of speaking in private to D'Artagnan. I felt the greatest impatience in the world to get it over, there being nothing else to detain me in this district.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Louis XIV. dismissing Fouquet----407]

At last, this morning, the superintendent having come to work with me as usual, I talked to him first of one matter and then of another, and made a show of searching for papers, until, out of the window of my closet, I saw D'Artagnan in the castle-yard; and then I dismissed the superintendent, who, after chatting a little while at the bottom of the staircase with La Feuillade, disappeared during the time he was paying his respects to M. Le Tellier, so that poor D'Artagnan thought he had missed him, and sent me word by Maupertuis that he suspected that somebody had given him warning to look to his safety; but he caught him again in the place where the great church stands, and arrested him for me about midday. They put the superintendent into one of my carriages, followed by my musketeers, to escort him to the castle of Angers, whilst his wife, by my orders, is off to Limoges. . . . I have told those gentlemen who are here with me that I would have no more superintendents, but myself take the work of finance in conjunction with faithful persons who will do nothing without me, knowing that this is the true way to place myself in affluence and relieve my people. During the little attention I have as yet given thereto, I observed some important matters which I did not at all understand. You will have no difficulty in believing that there have been many people placed in a great fix; but I am very glad for them to see that I am not such a dupe as they supposed, and that the best plan is to hold to me.”

Three years were to roll by before the end of Fouquet's trial. In vain had one of the superintendent's valets, getting the start of all the king's couriers, shown sense enough to give timely warning to his distracted friends; Fouquet's papers were seized, and very compromising they were for him as well as for a great number of court-personages, of both s.e.xes. Colbert prosecuted the matter with a rigorous justice that looked very like hate; the king's self-esteem was personally involved in procuring the condemnation of a minister guilty of great extravagances and much irregularity rather than of intentional want of integrity.

Public feeling was at first so greatly against the superintendent that the peasants shouted to the musketeers told off to escort him from Angers to the Bastille, ”No fear of his escaping; we would hang him with our own hands.” But the length and the harshness of the proceedings, the efforts of Fouquet's family and friends, the wrath of the Parliament, out of whose hands the case had been taken in favor of carefully chosen commissioners, brought about a great change; of the two prosecuting counsel (_conseillers rapporteurs_), one, M. de Sainte-Helene, was inclined towards severity; the other, Oliver d'Ormesson, a man of integrity and courage, thought of nothing but justice, and treated with contempt the hints that reached him from the court. Colbert took the trouble one day to go and call upon old M. d'Ormesson, the counsel's father, to complain of the delays that the son, as he said, was causing in the trial: ”It is very extraordinary,” said the minister, ”that a great king, feared throughout Europe, cannot finish a case against one of his own subjects.” ”I am sorry,” answered the old gentleman, ”that the king is not satisfied with my son's conduct; I know that he practises what I have always taught him,--to fear G.o.d, serve the king, and render justice without respect of persons. The delay in the matter does not depend upon him; he works at it night and day, without wasting a moment.”

Oliver d'Ormesson lost the stewards.h.i.+p of Soissonness, to which he had the t.i.tular right, but he did not allow himself to be diverted from his scrupulous integrity. Nay, he grew wroth at the continual attacks of Chancellor Seguier, more of a courtier than ever in his old age, and anxious to finish the matter to the satisfaction of the court. ”I told many of the Chamber,” he writes, ”that I did not like to have the whip applied to me every morning, and that the chancellor was a sort of chastiser I would not put up with.” [_Journal d' Oliver d' Ormesson,_ t. ii. p. 88.]

Fouquet, who claimed the jurisdiction of the Parliament, had at first refused to answer the interrogatory; it was determined to conduct his case ”as if he were dumb,” but his friends had him advised not to persist in his silence. The courage and presence of mind of the accused more than once embarra.s.sed his judges. The ridiculous scheme which had been discovered behind a looking-gla.s.s in Fouquet's country-house was read; the instructions given to his friends in case of his arrest seemed to foreshadow a rebellion; Fouquet listened, with his eyes bent upon the crucifix. ”You cannot be ignorant that this is a state-crime,” said the chancellor. ”I confess that it is outrageous, sir,” replied the accused; ”but it is not a state-crime. I entreat these gentlemen,” turning to the judges, ”to kindly allow me to explain what a state-crime is. It is when you hold a chief office, when you are in the secrets of your prince, and when, all at once, you range yourself on the side of his enemies, enlist all your family in the same interest, cause the pa.s.ses to be given up by your son-in-law, and the gates to be opened to a foreign army, so as to introduce it into the heart of the kingdom. That, gentlemen, is what is called a state-crime.” The chancellor could not protest; n.o.body had forgotten his conduct during the Fronde. M. d'Ormesson summed up for banishment, and confiscation of all the property of the accused; it was all that the friends of Fouquet could hope for. M. de Sainte-Helene summed up for beheadal. ”The only proper punishment for him would be rope and gallows,” exclaimed M. Pussort, the most violent of the whole court against the accused; ”but, in consideration of the offices he has held, and the distinguished relatives he has, I relent so far as to accept the opinion of M. de Sainte-Helene.” ”What say you to this moderation?” writes Madame de Sevigne to M. de Pomponne, like herself a faithful friend of Fouquet's: ”it is because he is Colbert's uncle, and was objected to, that he was inclined for such handsome treatment. As for me, I am beside myself when I think of such infamy. . . . You must know that M. Colbert is in such a rage that there is apprehension of some atrocity and injustice which will drive us all to despair. If it were not for that, my poor dear sir, in the position in which we now are, we might hope to see our friend, although very unfortunate, at any rate with his life safe, which is a great matter.”

”Pray much to your G.o.d and entreat your judges,” was the message sent to Mesdames Fouquet by the queen-Snother, ”for, so far as the king is concerned, there is nothing to be expected.” ”If he is sentenced, I shall leave him to die,” proclaimed Louis XIV. Fouquet was not sentenced; the court declared for the view of Oliver d'Ormesson. ”Praise G.o.d, sir, and thank Him,” wrote Madame de Sevigne, on the 20th of December, 1664, ”our poor friend is saved; it was thirteen for M.

d'Ormesson's summing-up, and nine for Sainte-He1ene's. It will be a long while before I recover from my joy; it is really too overwhelming; I can hardly restrain it. The king changes exile into imprisonment, and refuses him permission to see his wife, which is against all usage; but take care not to abate one jot of your joy; mine is increased thereby, and makes me see more clearly the greatness of our victory.” Fouquet was taken to Pignerol, and all his family were removed from Paris. He died piously in his prison, in 1680, a year before his venerable mother, Marie Maupeou, who was so deeply concerned about her son's soul at the very pinnacle of greatness, that she threw herself upon her knees on hearing of his arrest, and exclaimed, I thank thee, O G.o.d; I have always prayed for his salvation, and here is the way to it!” Fouquet was guilty; the bitterness of his enemies and the severities of the king have failed to procure his acquittal from history any more than from his judges.

Even those who, like Louis XIV. and Colbert, saw the canker in the state, deceived themselves as to the resources at their disposal for the cure of it; the punishment of the superintendent and the ruin of the farmers of taxes (traitants) might put a stop for a while to extravagances; the powerful hand of Colbert might re-establish order in the finances, found new manufactures, restore the marine, and protect commerce; but the order was but momentary, and the prosperity superficial, as long as the sovereign's will was the sole law of the state. Master as he was over the maintenance of peace in Europe, after so many and such long periods of hostility, young Louis XIV. was only waiting for an opportunity of recommencing war. ” The resolutions I had in my mind seemed to me very worthy of execution,” he says: ”my natural activity, the ardor of my age, and the violent desire I felt to augment my reputation, made me very impatient to be up and doing; but I found at this moment that love of glory has the same niceties, and, if I may say so, the same timidities, as the most tender pa.s.sions; for, the more ardent I was to distinguish myself, the more apprehensive I was of failing, and, regarding as a great misfortune the shame which follows the slightest errors, I intended, in my conduct, to take the most extreme precautions.”

The day of reverses was farther off from Louis XIV. than that of errors.

G.o.d had vouchsafed him incomparable instruments for the accomplishment of his designs. Whilst Colbert was replenis.h.i.+ng the exchequer, all the while diminis.h.i.+ng the imposts, a younger man than the king himself, the Marquis of Louvois, son of Michael Le Tellier, admitted to the council at twenty years of age, was eagerly preparing the way for those wars which were nearly always successful so long as he lived, however insufficient were the reasons for them, however unjust was their aim.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Louvois----411]

Foreign affairs were in no worse hands than the administration of finance and of war. M. de Lionne was an able diplomatist, broken in for a long, time past to important affairs, shrewd and sensible, more celebrated amongst his contemporaries than in history, always falling into the second rank, behind Mazarin or Louis XIV., ”who have appropriated his fame,” says M. Mignet. The negotiations conducted by M. de Lionne were of a delicate nature. Louis XIV. had never renounced the rights of the queen to the succession in Spain. King Philip IV. had not paid his daughter's dowry, he said; the French amba.s.sador at Madrid, the Archbishop of Embrun, was secretly negotiating to obtain a revocation of Maria Theresa's renunciation, or, at the very least, a recognition of the right of devolution over the Catholic Low Countries. This strange custom of Hainault secured to the children of the first marriage succession to the paternal property, to the exclusion of the offspring of the second marriage. Louis XIV. claimed the application of it to the advantage of the queen his wife, daughter of Elizabeth of France. ”It is absolutely necessary that justice should sooner or later be done the queen, as regards the rights that may belong to her, or that I should try to exact it myself,” wrote Louis XIV. to the Archbishop of Embrun. This justice and these rights were, sooth to say, the pivot of all the negotiations and all the wars of King Louis XIV. ”I cannot, all in a moment, change from white to black all the ancient maxims of this crown,”

said the king. He obtained no encouragement from Spain, and he began to make preparations, in antic.i.p.ation, for war.

In this view and with these prospects, he needed the alliance of the Hollanders. Shattered as it had been by the behavior of the United Provinces at the Congress of Munster and by their separate peace with Spain, the friends.h.i.+p between the States General and France had been re-soldered by the far-sighted policy of John Van Witt, grand pensionary of Holland, and preponderant, with good right, in the policy of his country. Bold and prudent, courageous and wise, he had known better than anybody how to estimate the true interests of Holland, and how to maintain them everywhere, against Cromwell as well as Mazarin, with high-spirited moderation. His great and cool judgment had inclined him towards France, the most useful ally Holland could have. In spite of the difficulties put in the way of their friendly relations by Colbert's commercial measures, a new treaty was concluded between Louis XIV. and the United Provinces. ”I am informed from a good quarter,” says a letter to John van Witt from his amba.s.sador at Paris, Boreel, June 8, 1662, ”that his Majesty makes quite a special case of the new alliance between him and their High Mightinesses, which he regards as his own particular work. He expects great advantages from it as regards the security of his kingdom and that of the United Provinces, which, he says, he knows to have been very affectionately looked upon by Henry the Great and he desires that, if their High Mightinesses looked upon his ancestor as a father, they should love him from this moment as a son, taking him for their best friend and princ.i.p.al ally.” A secret negotiation was at the same time going on between John van Witt and Count d'Estrades, French amba.s.sador in Holland, for the formation and protection of a Catholic republic in the Low Countries, according to Richelieu's old plan, or for part.i.tion between France and the United Provinces. John van Witt was anxious to act; but Louis XIV. seemed to be keeping himself hedged, in view of the King of Spain's death, feeling it impossible, he said, with propriety and honor, to go contrary to the faith of the treaties which united him to his father-in-law. ”That which can be kept secret for some time cannot be forever, nor be concealed from posterity,” he said to Count d'Estrades, in a private letter: ”any how, there are certain things which are good to do and bad to commit to writing.” An understanding was come to without any writing. Louis XIV. well understood the n.o.ble heart and great mind with which he had to deal, when he wrote to Count d'Estrades, April 20, 1663, ”It is clear that G.o.d caused M. de Witt to be born [in 1632] for great things, seeing that, at his age, he has already for many years deservedly been the most considerable person in his state; and I believe, too, that my having obtained so good a friend in him was not a simple result of chance, but of Divine Providence, who is thus early arranging the instruments of which He is pleased to make use for the glory of this crown, and for the advantage of the United Provinces.

The only complaint I make of him is, that, having so much esteem and affection as I have for his person, he will not be kind enough to let me have the means of giving him some substantial tokens of it, which I would do with very great joy.” Louis XIV. was not accustomed to meet, at foreign courts, with the high-spirited disinterestedness of the burgess-patrician, who, since the age of five and twenty, had been governing the United Provinces.

Thus, then, it was a case of strict partners.h.i.+p between France and Holland, and Louis XIV. had remained faithful to the policy of Henry IV.

and Richelieu when Philip IV. died, on the 17th of September, 1665.

Almost at the same time the dissension between England and Holland, after a period of tacit hostility, broke out into action. The United Provinces claimed the aid of France.

Close ties at that time united France and England. Monsieur, the king's only brother, had married Henrietta of England, sister of Charles II.

The King of England, poor and debauched, had scarcely been restored to the throne when he sold Dunkerque to France for five millions of livres, to the great scandal of Cromwell's old friends, who had but lately helped Turenne to wrest it from the Spaniards. ”I knew without doubt that the aggression was on the part of England,” writes Louis XIV. in his Memoires, ”and I resolved to act with good faith towards the Hollanders, according to the terms of my treaty: but as I purposed to terminate the war on the first opportunity, I resolved to act towards the English as handsomely as could be, and I begged the Queen of England, who happened to be at that time in Paris, to signify to her son that, with the singular regard I had for him, I could not without sorrow form the resolution which I considered myself bound by the obligation of my promise to take; for, at the origin of this war, I was persuaded that he had been carried away by the wishes of his subjects farther than he would have been by his own, insomuch that, between ourselves, I thought I had less reason to complain of him than for him. It is certain that this subordination which places the sovereign under the necessity of receiving the law from his people is the worst calamity that can happen to a man of our rank. I have pointed out to you elsewhere, my son, the miserable condition of princes who commit their people and their own dignity to the management of a premier minister; but it is little beside the misery of those who are left to the indiscretion of a popular a.s.sembly; the more you grant, the more they claim; the more you caress, the more they despise; and that which is once in their possession is held by so many arms that it cannot be wrenched away without an extreme amount of violence.” In his compa.s.sion for the misery of the king of a free country, Louis XIV. contented himself with looking on at the desperate engagements between the English and the Dutch fleets. Twice the English destroyed the Dutch fleet under the orders of Admiral van Tromp. John van Witt placed himself at the head of the squadron. ”Tromp has courage enough to fight,” he said, ”but not sufficient prudence to conduct a great action. The heat of battle is liable to carry officers away, confuse them, and not leave them enough independence of judgment to bring matters to a successful issue. That is why I consider myself bound by all the duties of manhood and conscience to be myself on the watch, in order to set bounds to the impetuosity of valor when it would fain go too far.” The resolution of the grand pensionary and the skill of Admiral Ruyter, who was on his return from an expedition in Africa, restored the fortunes of the Hollanders; their vessels went and offered the English battle at the very mouth of the Thames. The French squadron did not leave the Channel. It was only against the Bishop of Munster, who had just invaded the Dutch territory, that Louis XIV. gave his allies effectual aid; M. de Turenne marched against the troops of the bishop, who was forced to retire, in the month of April, 1666. Peace was concluded at Breda, between England and Holland, in the month of July, 1667. Louis XIV. had not waited for that moment to enter Flanders.

Everything, in fact, was ready for this great enterprise: the regent of Spain, Mary Anne of Austria, a feeble creature, under the thumb of one Father Nithard, a Jesuit, had allowed herself to be sent to sleep by the skilful manoeuvres of the Archbishop of Embrun; she had refused to make a treaty of alliance with England and to recognize Portugal, to which Louis XIV. had just given a French queen, by marrying Mdlle. de Nemours to King Alphonso VI. The league of the Rhine secured to him the neutrality, at the least, of Germany; the emperor was not prepared for war; Europe, divided between fear and favor, saw with astonishment Louis XIV. take the field in the month of May, 1667. ”It is not,” said the manifesto sent by the king to the court of Spain, ”either the ambition of possessing new states, or the desire of winning glory by arms, which inspires the Most Christian King with the design of maintaining the rights of the queen his wife; but would it not be shame for a king to allow all the privileges of blood and of law to be violated in the persons of himself, his wife, and his son? As king, he feels himself obliged to prevent this injustice; as master, to oppose this usurpation; and, as father, to secure the patrimony to his son. He has no desire to employ force to open the gates, but he wishes to enter, as a beneficent sun, by the rays of his love, and to scatter everywhere, in country, towns, and private houses, the gentle influences of abundance and peace, which follow in his train.”

To secure the gentle influences of peace, Louis XIV. had collected an army of fifty thousand men, carefully armed and equipped under the supervision of Turenne, to whom Louvois as yet rendered docile obedience.

There was none too much of this fine army for recovering the queen's rights over the duchy of Brabant, the marquisate of Antwerp, Limburg, Hainault, the counts.h.i.+p of Namur, and other territories. ”Heaven not having ordained any tribunal on earth at which the Kings of France can demand justice, the Most Christian King has only his own arms to look to for it,” said the manifesto. Louis XIV. set out with M. de Turenne.

Marshal Crequi had orders to observe Germany.

The Spaniards were taken unprepared: Armentieres, Charleroi, Douai, and Tournay had but insufficient garrisons, and they fell almost without striking a blow. Whilst the army was busy with the siege of Courtray, Louis XIV. returned to Compiegne to fetch the queen. The whole court followed him to the camp. ”All that you have read about--the magnificence of Solomon and the grandeur of the King of Persia, is not to be compared with the pomp that attends the king in his expedition,” says a letter to Bussy-Rabutin from the Count of Coligny. ”You see pa.s.sing along the streets nothing but plumes, gold-laced uniforms, chariots, mules superbly harnessed, parade-horses, housings with embroidery of fine gold.” ”I took the queen to Flanders,” says Louis XIV., ”to show her to the peoples of that country, who received her, in point of fact, with all the delight imaginable, testifying their sorrow at not having had more time to make preparations for receiving her more befittingly.” The queen's quarters were at Courtrai. Marshal Turenne had moved on Dendermonde, but the Flemings had opened their sluices; the country was inundated; it was necessary to fall back on Audenarde; the town was taken in two days; and the king, still attended by the court, laid siege to Lille. Vauban, already celebrated as an engineer, traced out the lines of circ.u.mvallation; the army of M. de Crequi formed a junction with that of Turenne; there was expectation of an attempt on the part of the governor of the Low Countries to relieve the place; the Spanish force sent for that purpose arrived too late, and was beaten on its retreat; the burgesses of Lille had forced the garrison to capitulate; and Louis XIV. entered it on the 27th of August, after ten days' open trenches. On the 2d of September, the king took the road back to St. Germain; but Turenne still found time to carry the town of Alost before taking up his winter-quarters.

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