CHAPTER VIII.
CONTINUATION OF THE WAR.
THOUGH Mazarin was successful both in the Court and the camp, the government
was involved in financial embarrassments. The annual expenses had been steadily
increasing. The entire sum collected for taxes in 1609 was 26,000,000 livres.
In 1639 the taille alone amounted to 44,000,000 livres, and the expenses of
the government, besides the sums paid for interest, were as much as i io,ooo,ooo
livres. Including the expenses of collection, as much as 120,000,000 livres
were collected from the people, and 50,000,000 livres more were obtained by
loans and by the sale of offices.1 For the year 1643 the expenses of the government
exceeded 124,000,000 livres. 2
This increase in the expenses had not been attended by a corresponding increase
in the wealth of the nation. It is probable that after thirty years, mostly
filled with civil
or foreign wars and with no marked improvement in commerce or internal development,
the nation was poorer in 1643 than in 1610. 3 The burden of such taxation was
increased by the methods by which it was collected. Of the sums taken from the
people a large portion was consumed in the collection and by the profits of
the farmers of taxes. Colossal fortunes were made by those who farmed the taxes
or made advances to the government.4
The expenditure of the sums which reached the treasury was no more satisfactory. In 1643, 48,000,000 livres were paid on acquits a camptant, and in 1644, 59,000,000. No account was rendered of these sums, but it was said that 30,000,000 were for interest at an average of 15 per cent. and the rest largely represented bounties, pensions, and illegal gains. 5 In 1639 the charges on the taxes for alienations made to secure interest and advances were stated at 46,000,000 livres, and the debts thus secured must have been from 150,000,000 to 200,000,000. 6 National borrowing existed in France long before the beginning of the national debt in England, but it was conducted with little regard for the interests of the borrower or the lender. With the most stable government in Europe, the two centuries before the revolution are a long record of partial, and at times of total repudiation. A debt on which the interest was irregularly paid was at times redeemed with even more irregularity. The rentes of the Hotel de Ville, secured by the gabelle and largely held by the bourgeoisie of Paris, were the most valuable, but on those secured by the taille there had been frequent defaults and they sold at a large discount. The government under Richelieu began redeeming these, paying fourteen livres for one livre of rentes, and the process was continued under Mazarin. But it was usually the officers and those favored by the government who obtained payments. Rentes sold by unlucky holders for a few francs were bought by those in favor, and were redeemed at an enormous profit. The controller, Emeri, a protégé of Mazarin's, equally able and corrupt, reaped the greatest profit from these appliances, and while such gains were made by officers of the treasury, the army was ill paid and the war was delayed by the frequent want of money.7
New loans were attempted in these years, but they could only be floated at
so ruinous a discount, that 12,000,000 livres were borrowed on terms that represented
25 per cent. interest. 8 Colbert says that the loans and advances upon taxes,
which Emeri constantly obtained, cost the government 15 per cent, a year, and
at such rates large portions of the revenue were anticipated for one and two
years.9
The taxation was aggravated by irregularities in its assessment. Mazarin writes of an inhabitant of Blaison, whose revenue was less than a hundred livres, that he was assessed for the taille on an income of two hundred livres, and was obliged besides, under the gabelle, to take an excessive quantity of salt. 10 The amount of the taille was often apportioned by greed or caprice, and to an excessive tax was sometimes added the solidarity which compelled a man to pay for his neighbors' default. On account of this weight of taxation in France, enforced chiefly on the poor, the old English prints, which represented John Bull as fat and well filled with beef, and Jacques as a skeleton, starving in rags, were not wholly untrue portraits of the condition of the two peoples.
The misery caused by such taxation at times excited local revolts among the peasants. They were in no condition to make any effective opposition to the government, and the only result of such outbreaks was the dispersion of bodies of ill-armed peasants, the vigorous punishment of the leaders, and the exaction of the burdens which they had sought to escape. As such uprisings were undertaken in folly, so they were often accompanied by pillage and cruelty. These revolts of the Croquants, as they were called, were to some extent successors to the Jacquerie, and they were in like manner caused by misery and marked by brutality.
That such should have been their character is not a thing to surprise us, and the condemnation does not chiefly rest upon those whose ignorance, whose hopeless poverty, whose constant misery maddened them at the sight of the luxury of the house where the tax-collector passed by and the soldier was not quartered.
In 1624 there had been a rising at Quercy of peasants, excited by a new creation of collecting officers, and alleging that their country was burdened down by tailles and other duties; that the rich bought their exemption and left the whole weight to fall upon the poor. The numbers had grown until there were 16,000 men, armed with poles, hoe-handles, plow-shares, and some with muskets and pikes. They burned the houses and destroyed the crops of a few who they charged had bought exemption from taxation, and were then met by a body of troops. No resistance to regular soldiers could be made by the peasants, and the 16,000 were scattered almost without loss. One of their leaders was hung, and another was quartered, and the Croquants were remitted to the tax-gatherer.11 A more formidable rising occurred in Normandy in 1639. The imposition of some new taxes excited the revolt, and placards about the hills asked the people to rise for the defence of their country, oppressed by tax-gatherers and excise men. Twenty thousand men collected, calling themselves the Bare Feet, and their leader took the title of John Barefoot. They sacked the houses of the farmers or collectors of taxes, and murdered a few of them on whom they could lay hands. The example set by the Barefeet was followed by those of higher position; the city of Rouen assumed an attitude of revolt, and pillaged the houses of the tax-gatherers, and even the Parliament of the province showed some sympathy with the disaffected.
There could be, however, but one end to such a movement. In November, Gassion entered Normandy with 4,000 soldiers, and crushed the insurrection with bloody vigor. The Barefeet were scattered in one battle, and Rouen submitted without resistance.
A severe punishment was imposed upon those who had taken any part in the revolt. The leaders of the peasants were so tortured, in order to force a disclosure of their accomplices, that only one of the officers appointed to take their confession was hardy enough to stay until it was obtained. They were then hung or broken on the wheel without any formal trial. Some of the citizens of Rouen were punished for their activity in the troubles, and a penalty of 1,085,000 livres was imposed upon the town, to be paid within three years. It was a fine which would be equivalent to over a million dollars, to be paid by a population which we can safely estimate at less than 35,000.
Nor was the Parliament allowed to go unpunished for the remissness it had shown. Its functions were temporarily suspended and it was then divided into halves, each of which was to perform its duties in alternate six months, and new officers were created at the expense of the old ones, whose authority and whose revenues were thus diminished by half. 12 Richelieu wrote Gassion that he could not have given greater contentment to the king, and the chancellor was dissatisfied because he was not allowed to destroy the Hotel de Ville of Rouen. 13
Similar risings were caused by the increasing burdens of taxation under Mazarin. In 1643 the peasants rose in Rovergue, complaining that it was impossible for them to pay the taille that was imposed upon them. Carrying on the usual pillaging, they even attempted to seize the important place of Villefranche, and many of the inhabitants who did not join in the insurrection refused to act against those who, they said, were exposing their lives for the relief of all and for the public liberty. 14 But the Croquants found none of the nobility to lead them, and they could make no effectual resistance to the troops sent against them.
In the winter, insurrections followed in Bas Poitou, Saintonge, and Angoumois, against an increase in duties. There some of the minor nobles offered themselves as leaders to the people. 15 In these districts there was also a strong Huguenot element, and it was feared the political activity of the party might be revived, and a rebellion be based on the incongruous cry of "greater freedom for church and wine." 16 Mazarin's treatment of the Huguenots was uniformly moderate and judicious. "His Majesty has resolved," he wrote the Bishop of Poitiers, "in the interest of public concord, that those of the reformed religion should enjoy the benefit of the edicts granted by his predecessors, but he desires to see to it carefully that they shall undertake nothing beyond, and shall not pass the bounds prescribed to them by the authority of the king." 17 The insurgents, however, alleged only pecuniary grievances. They received no satisfaction for these and were speedily repressed. They were not severely punished for these outbreaks, and an amnesty was proclaimed. Motives of expediency, as well as Mazarin's aversion to bloodshed, favored a mild punishment for these offences. "In the penalties to be imposed on the guilty," he wrote La Terrière, "we should consider this first, that the goods be spared that they may pay the king what is imposed on them, and that there may be no arrears. This consideration, which is above all others, should make you careful that the troops live with more order, and at the least possible charge upon the people, lest they should be rendered unable to pay the king what is due. Lodging for three days, with the customary license of soldiers, will do more harm than the 'taille' and 'subsistence' for a year." 18
Still more serious resistance was excited by the endeavor to impose new taxes at Paris. The desire to foster the indefinite growth of large cities is quite modern. Former legislators engaged in endeavors to check an increase in population, which they feared was dangerous, or believed drew undue numbers from the tilling of the soil. An edict of Henry II., in 1548, declared that the great number of buildings in the faubourgs of Paris had drawn many from other cities and villages, and furnished also vast numbers of taverns and retreats for persons of evil life, which ruined the young and harbored and encouraged murderers and robbers, and it ordered that any buildings which were there erected should be destroyed. 19
The law had been a dead letter, and with the growth of the city numerous buildings had arisen in the prohibited districts. The controller-general, Emeri, now exhumed this forgotten provision, and in 1644 it was ordered that the proprietors should be taxed a certain amount per square foot for the buildings that had been erected in contravention of its terms. The officers charged with the enforcement of the toisé, as the tax was called, proceeded to take measurements in the faubourg Saint Antoine and the faubourg Saint Germain, both of which were then largely occupied by the poorer classes. The inhabitants appealed to the Parliament of Paris for protection. Four or five hundred poor people crowded into the great hail demanding justice and protection from the toisé. 20
The Parliament summoned the officers executing the toisé to render an
account of their proceedings. They complained of the interference by this body,
and its
representatives held a conference with the queen and her ministers. The resistance,
either of the Parliament or of the people, gained a practical victory. It had
been expected to raise eight or ten millions by the toisé. 21 The government
at last declared that it would accept 1,000,000 in commutation of the duty.
A new scheme for raising money was prepared, which met with equal disfavor,
though from a different class. The regent announced an alienation of 2,300,000
of rentes. The principal raised would amount to nearly 28,000,000. These rentes
were to be issued at 84 per cent., and secured by wine duties in Paris, and
by other revenues of the state. One million five hundred thousand of these were
to be taken by the rich citizens of Paris, and 800,000 by those of other cities.
22 To take a part of a government loan at over eight per cent., would not now
be thought a rigorous imposition by a prosperous Parisian, but in those days
of default and financial irregularities such a measure was regarded as equivalent
to a forced loan. The Parliament considered the edict before registering it,
and left it in such a shape that it would not be recognized by its originator.
It was resolved that the loan should be reduced to an alienation of 1,500,000
livres, that it should be demanded only from those who had been engaged in farming
taxes or lending money to the state, and from the small class who, for twenty
years, had been occupied in wholesale trade. 23 This resolution practically
left the whole sum to be raised by the financiers. But Emeri came to their rescue.
His financial expedients had shown little but an evil ingenuity in consuming
in advance the revenues of future years. It was a policy, says Colbert, which
threatened sure ruin in five or six years, constantly required extraordinary
measures, alienations of the ordinary revenues, creation of new offices, and
the imposition of new taxes, for the verification of which recourse must be
had to the sovereign companies. The fortunes made by the financiers soured the
companies, alienated the people, and stirred up revolt and sedition on every
occasion. 24
To a minister given to such measures, the assistance of the financiers was indispensable, and any step was dreaded which might lessen their ability or their willingness to give aid. "The credit of men of affairs," he said to the Parliament, "consists only in the opinion of others, and the financiers will lose theirs, if it is believed they will be subjected to the rigor of the Parliament. This year they have paid great sums to the Chamber of Justice, and it will be most injurious to them to be separated from the other citizens of Paris and alone subjected to this tax." The Parliament answered that they had devised a way by which 18,000,000 livres could be raised not only without clamor from the people, but amid joy and benediction. 25 The financiers had all the wealth of the kingdom. They lived in richly furnished houses and gave princely fetes, while the rest of France was suffering under oppression. The conclusion of the Parliament was modified so that the loan fell less exclusively on the financiers, but it still remained in such shape that the government would not enforce it. 26
The toisé had been likewise relinquished, but in the spring of 1645
the collection was attempted of the smaller amount to which it had been reduced.
Even in this shape it again excited commotion among those subjected to its burdens.
The women of the faubourgs crowded the halls of Parliament asking justice and
mercy. Their complaints were received by the Courts of Inquests, and it was
demanded that the various courts of the Parliament should meet in the chamber
of St. Louis, and consult concerning the needs of the State. But the zeal of
the Inquests was checked by Mole, the first President, who refused to call together
the Parliament for this purpose.
Unable to shake his resolution, the members of the Inquests abandoned hearing
causes, and disturbed by their presence the Grand Chamber during its deliberations.
A deputation waited on the regent to present their views, but they were received
with scant courtesy. The chancellor rebuked them for their sedition; the Prince
of Condé said that long experience had taught him the danger of any diminution
in the royal authority. As the President Gayant endeavored to reply, the queen
cried out: " Be still, you old fool, I don't wish to hear you." Such
reproofs were followed by more rigorous measures. Gayant and two other members
of the Parliament were sent into exile, and the President Barillon was arrested
and confined at Pignerol. 27 A fresh grievance was thus furnished, and new deputations
waited on the queen to request the recall of the exiled members. Three were
allowed to return, but President Barillon continued suspended from his duties
until his death closed the struggle over him. 28
The resistance of the Parliament aggravated the financial embarrassment, and the government resolved now to enforce its measures, by resorting to the violent means of a bed of justice. On September 7, 1645, the boy-king visited the Parliament with the ceremonial of such occasions. It was two years and a half since the last bed of justice was held, in which the uncontrolled regency of the queen had been declared. Then the Parliament had met, eager for the task, and filled with zeal for the new administration; but the feelings with which its members now assembled were far different. The influence accorded to them at the beginning of the regency had encouraged endeavors to extend an uncertain and debated authority. The numerous devices to which financial distress had driven the government, had offered many opportunities for the exercise of their right of refusing registration. Their activity had been excited by the Important party, which had among them many sympathizers and kinsmen, and had been encouraged by the speech of the Prince of Condé, who had said to them: "It is you who have made the queen, regent." 29. But the government became alarmed by the control which the Parliament was endeavoring to exercise, and was now seeking to reduce it to its condition under Richelieu. The disasters of Charles I., in his struggles with a popular body, which indeed resembled the Parliament of Paris only in name, added to the alarm of the regent. Because a legislative body chosen by the people had driven a king from his throne, it was feared that a court of hereditary legists might at last strip the sovereign of his authority. Mazarin had always felt apprehension of the power of this body. He had warned the queen not to grant an authority to the Parliament which would be used against her, and told her that when it had broken the solemn declaration of the king, it would hold itself superior to the regency. 30 A curious plan is disclosed in his Carnets. He had contemplated being made a counselor of the Parliament, that he might have a voice there. 31 In lieu of that he had pursued his usual policy of liberally bribing the judges.32
A bed of justice, an extreme measure at any time, seemed the more so when the sovereign, whose presence should compel obedience, was a child of seven. Nineteen edicts for raising money in as many different ways were, however, laid before the assembly. The most of the edicts provided for the creation of a great number of new offices, and there was also a duty of one fortieth imposed upon certain classes of legacies. 33 The chancellor then proceeded to the form of taking the votes of those present. He first recited the familiar story of the needs of the great and prosperous wars in which France was engaged, which now compelled a search for the least injurious means that could be found for replenishing the treasury, and the members of Parliament then announced their votes. The first president, while expressing the joy of his subjects at the sight of their king, regretted that this feeling should be disturbed on an occasion when the power of the sovereign was displayed to diminish the authority of justice and the honor of the Parliament. Most of the members said they could not in conscience approve of the edicts, but they gave their voice for them, under the necessity of state. 34
Popular discontent followed such measures, and it was becoming strong in Paris, where it would be most dangerous. As the queen entered Notre Dame, the wives of three hundred merchants who suffered from these impositions, threw themselves at her feet, saying they would bring to her their infants to nourish, since the bread was taken from their mouths. God would grant them justice and mercy if she refused. 35 But the Parliament felt too strong and had too firm a hold of the popular favor to abandon the struggle over these edicts, even after this forced approval. In the following year, 1646, as the obnoxious edicts were in process of execution, the Courts of Inquests again demanded an assembly of the Chambers. The first president informed them that he had the promises of the queen for a revocation of some of the edicts, and that they must seek for her favors and not extort them. 36 A mutinous and grumbling assent to this policy was forced by Mole's influence and his friends, but a matter of greater importance renewed the conflict.
In October, 1646, a decree of the Council established a new imposition on all
articles of consumption entering Paris. 37 It took the place of some other duties,
and of the uncollected portion of the loan which had been imposed upon the inhabitants
of the city. It was to furnish also the means for erecting a new bridge of stone
over the
Seine, opposite the Tuileries, which was demanded by the growth of business
and population. A verification of this edict was obtained from the Court of
Aids, a body much more closely connected with the government than was the Parliament,
and its execution was at once begun. The Court of Aids was one of the sovereign
courts of France, but its duties had been confined to passing upon various questions
that arose from the imposition and collection of taxes. From the nature of its
functions it had for a long time exercised some control over certain aids and
octroi duties, which were regarded as of a different nature from the taille,
the gabelle, and the general imposts of the kingdom. But it was now claimed
that for it to grant registration to such an edict as this, was to usurp the
powers of the Parliament. Had France resembled England, such a question would
have been settled by a proceeding, trivial in appearance, but really of great
importance. Some farmer would have refused to pay the tax of a few sous on a
bushel of turnips which he brought to Paris for sale. The collector would have
seized them for the duty, and a suit against him for a small amount would have
raised the question whether the verification of the Court of Aids was of any
avail, and could justify the collection of the impost. It would have been argued
at length by learned counsel, and the decision of the highest court would have
set the matter at rest. But in France, great constitutional suits have been
rare. Apart from differences in procedure and temperament, the supremacy of
the courts of law, even within their own jurisdiction, was not sure to be respected.
The king's council might assume to annul the decision of the Parliament on a
matter which was of political importance, or at an early stage of the case it
might be taken from the process of the ordinary courts to be passed upon by
some tribunal believed to be more tractable. While the courts protested against
such encroachments, the authority of the king was so vague, its excesses were
so little restrained by defined boundaries, that such acts did not receive the
universal condemnation that would make them dangerous and of no avail.
The duty on provisions that was now established was a better tax than many of those imposed in France; it fell upon all, and it could be collected with ease and with uniformity. The octroi duties, which have always defrayed so much of the expenses of the towns of France, are certainly less injurious than many others that might be levied. It was said that the zeal of the members of the Parliament was now excited by motives which were not of the highest order. Some of the presidents and counsellors were annoyed by finding that their melons and apricots, their grapes and pears, suddenly became dear by reason of this tax. 38 A deputation accordingly visited the regent to complain of the edict and demand that it should be sent to the Parliament for verification. The chancelbr replied that such a duty as this, a temporary charge established for temporary needs, required only the verification of the Court of Aids, and its jurisdiction had been conceded for eighty years.
It could not be denied that such powers had been exercised by that court without objection, but the division between temporary aids and the ordinary revenues was vague. It would be possible, by calling all new duties temporary aids, to escape altogether the necessity of registration by Parliament. The active part taken by that body during the last three years, encouraged it to insist on an enlarged jurisdiction. It had popular opinion for its support in these struggles over taxation. Its members were sunning themselves in a new and pleasing glow of popularity. Instead of being reviled for delays of justice or greed for fees, they were now called the fathers of the people and the preservers of their rights.
The government tacitly yielded the ground and offered to submit some new taxes to take the place of the offending aid. The Parliament was content with having the matter brought before it, and in September, 1647, it resolved that the duty on provisions should be continued, but for two years only. This order of the court was in turn annulled by the Council of State. The result, however, of these contests was to increase alike tile power and the popularity of the Parliament.39 The constant growth of taxes excited animosity in the people, which was increased by the unpopularity of Mazarin and by much that was squalid and petty in his administration. The way was preparing for the outbreak of popular feeling in the Fronde, which was now close at hand. But during these quarrels with the courts much had been accomplished out of France, both by arms and by diplomacy, and to this we must now turn our attention.
The victory of Rocroi and the capture of Thionville left France, at the end of 1643, triumphant in the Low Countries, but, on the other hand, the disaster of Dutlingen had checked any progress in Germany. The formal consultations for peace began at Münster in 1644, but neither side relaxed its exertions in the field, and the war continued with as much vigor as was allowed by the failing resources of the parties. Mazarin was especially resolved to prosecute the war in Germany. Vigorous endeavors there would not only encourage the allies of France, but might compel the Duke of Bavaria to abandon the cause he had so long sustained, and force the Emperor to grant a favorable peace. Turenne had already been sent to assume command of the army in Germany, and in the early summer of ióz~ he was further strengthened by nine thousand men, led by the hero of Rocroi. 40 The French crossed the Rhine at Brisach, and found the Bavarian army, under Mercy, strongly entrenched near Freiburg. Their forces were nearly equal, and their position at the foot of the mountains of the Black Forest seemed fitted to repel any assault. But to the Duke of Enghien, who commanded the united forces of the French, no difficulty seemed insurmountable, and his boldness was seconded by the skill of the ablest lieutenant in the world. Turenne yielded the command to his younger rival, and assisted him with all the zeal he could have displayed in a battle, the sole glory of which was to be his own. Mercy's army numbered about fifteen thousand men, that of Enghien twenty thousand. It was hoped to turn the position of Mercy's troops, and Turenne led a detachment through a ravine to the rear of the Bavarian army. Late in the afternoon of August 5th, the French, led by Enghien, attacked the Bavarians with such reckless valor that they carried the first entrenchments. In the meantime Turenne had forced his way through a narrow ravine, and as night came on the French seemed ready to attack Mercy on either side, but he prudently fell back, and the next morning disclosed his forces drawn up on the slope of a high mountain just by Freiburg.41
This position seemed impregnable against an army which must struggle up the heights from the plain below, exposed during its advance to a murderous fire. But the ardor of Enghien was unabated. A day was given for rest, and on the 7th he attacked the enemy on the mountain. Even French valor was checked by such difficulties but Enghien's courage increased in proportion with the peril, and he reformed his troops and led them up again to the assault. Night ended a conflict in which either side had gained little in position, and both armies had lost heavily in men. The mortality among the French officers was especially great. Enghien was at last forced to admit that Mercy's position must again be turned and it was reckless slaughter to continue the struggle up the mountain. This course had been advised before the battle, but Enghien's taste led him to prefer an open and desperate attack, to an endeavor to force the enemy to retreat by cutting off their supplies. He now, however, marched to cut Mercy off in the rear, but the prudent Bavarian fcll back through the mountains, and, after a few skirmishes, on the 9th effected his retreat. The honor of the victory was thus with the French, but it had been dearly bought. Six thousand of their men, almost one third of the army, had fallen during this bloody week. Mercy was said to have been able to rally but six thousand of his soldiers as he retreated towards Bavaria.
The contest had been so bloody and its results apparently so small, that the enemies of Enghien protested against a Te Deum being sung for what they said was at best but a drawn battle. It was only at Condé's urgency, the Venetian minister wrote, that it was decided to celebrate the battle as a victory. 42 The people complained that the Te Deum was sung, when the enemy, after inflicting great loss, had at last voluntarily left their entrenchments and their useless baggage. 43
The results of the battle were in reality important and justified its carnage. Mercy's army was too broken to make further opposition. Enghien, unharassed by it, captured in rapid succession, Philipsburg, Speyer, Worms, Mainz, Mannheim, and Landau. 44. The French then commanded the Rhine from Switzerland to Mainz, and controlled the Palatinate. Content with this the Duke of Enghien returned to Court, while Turenne sought winter quarters in Alsace and Lorraine, and along the Rhine. The country was so ruined, that in twenty leagues outside of the large towns enough could not be found to feed a horse, except at some château whose owner had thus far enjoyed sufficient favor to escape entire ruin. 45
The Duke of Orleans had been stimulated by the growing fame of his cousin Enghien,
and had sought this year the command of the army in the Low Countries. Delayed
by contentions and jealousies among the French generals, after an obstinate
siege of two months, he had captured the important city of Gravelines. In the
terms made by the city, it stipulated that liberty of conscience should not
be allowed and only a Catholic should be appointed its governor. 46 Satisfied
with this achievement Gaston returned to the Court. The Marshal of La Meilleraie,
who had commanded under him, sought rest at the baths, and Gassion was left
to continue the campaign, but little more was accomplished. 47
Exhaustion was restoring peace to some portions of the vast area where the
war had raged. Many parts of Germany had been so wasted by the long years of
pillage that there was no one left to fight, and the countries were so desolate
that armies shunned them like a desert. This year Franche Comté again
obtained neutrality by agreeing to pay to Mazarin forty thousand crowns annually
while the war lasted. "It had," says a contemporary, "great need
of peace. Never had been such ruin as there. All the villages were burned, the
inhabitants dead, and the country so desolate that it more resembled a desert
than a land that had once been populated." 48
The prosperity of the French arms this year was broken only in Catalonia. There
the Spanish, inspired by the presence of their king, captured the strong and
important city of Lerida. La Mothe Houdancourt was at last removed from a command
in which he had so long suffered disaster. 49 He was thrown into prison, and
public feeling at first demanded a victim for a long series of reverses. But
the unpopularity of Mazarin presently covered the faults of the marshal. His
being disgraced by the minister atoned for his inefficiency as a general. He
was regarded as the victim of persecution, and was at last released.
The campaign in Germany attracted again the chief attention. In 1644 Sweden, not content with the war already waging, had invaded Denmark and left the chief burden of the contest in Germany for the French. But the diplomatic energies of Mazarin and Avaux had been employed successfully in negotiating a peace between these countries sufficiently favorable for the Swedes, and not too humiliating for the Danes. 50 The Swedes were enabled again to give their undivided energies to the struggle against Bavaria and the Emperor, and in 1645 they began an active and successful campaign, while Turenne crossed the Rhine and came up with the Bavarians under Mercy at Marienthal. The Bavarian general prudently avoided a combat. The country was desolate, and the French cavalry insisted on scattering through the neighboring villages, that they might more easily forage for supplies. "They made M. de Turenne decide to send them into some small towns, ill-advisedly," says the marshal of himself, with the courage of a great man. The infantry and artillery remained at Marienthal. Mercy discovered that Turenne's forces were scattered, and he instantly profited by this carelessness. On the 2d of May he led a fierce attack upon the French. Turenne had but a few thousand men together, and they were ill-prepared to meet the shock. The infantry broke at once in confusion; Turenne retreated as best he could, and succeeded in bringing the most of the cavalry safely into Hesse. But his infantry was entirely dispersed, and all of the baggage, ten cannon, and 1,500 cavalry fell into the hands of the enemy. 51
The Landgrave of Hesse protected the shattered forces, and they were presently joined by the Swedish troops. The Swedes had carried on a successful campaign against the imperial forces, which it had been intended to supplement by an advance of the French into Bavaria, but this was now checked by the defeat at Marienthal.
Turenne assumed the entire responsibility of this disaster, and was ready to meet any disgrace it might bring upon him. "The misfortune," he wrote Mazarin, "will not prevent my endeavoring to restore affairs, so far as they depend upon me. Should the queen and your eminence think that or ths misfortune, or for other reasons, it was not necessary to avail yourselves of my services, I shall receive this as I ought." 52 But Mazarin was too sagacious to confound the occasional mistakes of a soldier like Turonne with the chronic incapacity of a dawdler like La Mothe Houdancourt. He wrote Turenne assuring him that regret at the defeat was balanced by the joy that the first rumor of his own death or capture had proven false, and that the check he had suffered would be only a spur to excite him to greater achievements in the future. 53 One thing, indeed, was announced which could not but be unpalatable to the defeated general; Enghien was sent to Germany with an army of io,ooo men to restore the French position and obtain revenge for Turenne's overthrow.
The young duke marched rapidly to the Rhine, crossed it, joined Turenne in Hesse, and with the united armies, over 25,000 strong, moved towards the Danube. He was soon embarrassed by the defection of the Swedish contingent. Konigsmarck, their general, was jealous of Enghien's authority, and he refused to join further in the advance. The departure of these troops, 6,000 in number, was a serious loss, but Enghien continued his forward march and came up with the Bavarians near Nordlingen. Here eleven years before the victorious army of Gustavus had sustained that first great defeat after his death, which destroyed the prospect of Swedish ascendancy in Germany. Mercy, with the usual caution of that skilful veteran, had drawn up his forces in a position which seemed impregnable. The right wing, consisting of six or seven thousand of the troops of the Emperor, was placed on the mountains of Vineberg, which rose slowly from the plain. At the left the cavalry under John de Wert, with two regiments of infantry, commanded the hill of Allerheim. Between them lay the village of Allerheim, where Mercy in person commanded the bulk of the infantry.
The position was so strong that even Turenne did not advise an attack. But here as at Freiburg, Enghien believed that no strength of position could withstand the fury of his assault, and that for him a battle must result in victory. It was the afternoon of August 3d when the attack began. As with most of Enghien's battles the success varied in the different wings. At the right the French cavalry yielded disgracefully before John de Wert. But the great predatory leader had little genius in turning the success of a fierce assault into the gain of a complete victory. He indulged rather his natural impulse and that of his troops in pursuing the routed cavalry and capturing wagons loaded with supplies, or officers who could be held for a rich ransom. Free, therefore, from any movement on the flank which might have been disastrous, Enghien led the attack on Mercy's infantry, stationed in the village. But neither his own valor nor that of his followers could break the enemy. Fortune turned the scale in his favor. He was wounded himself and two horses were shot under him, but as the darkness was beginning to stop the conflict, Mercy, the Bavarian commander, was struck by a bullet and fell dead on the spot. Turenne in the meantime was leading the Hessians up the mountain in the teeth of 7,000 entrenched troops, with numerous cannon pouring shot down upon them. Notwithstanding such resistance he forced the enemy from the position. The Imperialist, General Gleen, was taken prisoner, his cannon captured, and his forces routed. Night had now stopped this murderous conflict. De Wert returned from his pursuit and his plundering to find Mercy dead, and Gleen a prisoner. Even then he probably could have held his ground. The French loss had been greater than that of their enemies, and three or four thousand of their men lay dead on the field. But De Wert was unwilling to cope with Enghien, and during the night he led back his troops unmolested to Donawert. 54
The glory of success was therefore with the French, and Enghien had alike avenged the old disaster of the Swedes and the rout of Turenne in the spring. But the victory had been dearly bought. They had better sing a De Prof undis over the dead than a Te Deum for the living, was again said at Paris, when the celebration was ordered for the victory. 55
It was not only dearly bought, but it was productive of nothing but glory. To retrieve their tarnished reputation and to establish their winter quarters in Suabia was all that Mazarin had expected from Enghien's expedition. 56 He was forced to be content with the gain of reputation alone. The Duke of Enghien was taken sick and had to be carried back to France. The Swedes had been checked in the successes they had met with in the beginning of the year and had fallen back into Silesia, while the Prince of Transylvania had made his peace with the Empire. The Emperor's forces were thus left free to join those cf the Duke of Bavaria, and Turenne was in turn compelled to retreat, and he fell back beyond the Rhine. He gained a victory of no great military importance, in the capture of Treves. The imprisonment of its archbishop and elector ten years before had been the pretext for a formal declaration of war between France and Spain. After many years of imprisonment and wandering, the elector wasP now restored to his seat, and once again had the souls of his flock under his charge. 57
In the next year the French and Swedish armies sought to avoid the evils of separate attacks, which left the Emperor and the Bavarians operating upon inner lines of communication. Under Turenne and Wrangel an army of 17,000 men advanced, in 1646, into the possessions of the Duke of Bavaria. The duke was now an old man of seventy-three. Richelieu and Mazarin had in turn endeavored to draw him from the support of the Emperor, by offers as liberal as he could hope to receive from Ferdinand II. But religion and ambition had made him eager for the long conflict, which was to bring souls to the mass and an electorate to himself. The fierce and stubborn soldier had been reluctant to abandon the war which he had greatly helped to excite and to sustain. His dominions had been drained of men and of money for its prosecution, but they had suffered less than most of Germany from the worst of scourges, the presence of hostile armies within their boundaries. The entry of the allied armies into his territory, proved an argument for peace much stronger than any of Mazarin's letters. 58 Though opposed by superior forces the allies advanced into Bavaria. The choice of this new field had the further advantage, that it was easy to get recruits for an army engaged in a country so little ravaged that it furnished abundant provisions and plunder. 59 After an ineffectual siege of Augsburg, the allies pressed on to the very gates of Munich. The Duke of Bavaria, who saw the enemy laying waste the environs of his capital, and who received but tardy assistance from the forces of the Emperor, resolved at last to make his peace. On March 14, 1647, he signed at Ulm a separate treaty with Sweden and France. By this he bound himself to give no further aid to the Emperor, and his own dominions were in turn to be saved from further invasion. 60
Abandoned by his powerful ally, the hereditary dominions of the Emperor seemed open to the invasion of the enemy. It might have been expected that in the campaign of 1647 they would reach Vienna itself and extort a peace at the palace of the Hapsburgs. But the French government feared too much success. They were jealous of the amount of territory Sweden might demand for herself. They were unwilling to allow too great a triumph to the Protestant princes. Now, as ever since the war began, the zeal of the French was modified by their Catholic sympathies. Unlike most allies, they had been earnest in the hour of disaster, but they grew lukewarm in times of success. The Emperor was now willing to make terms which were fairly satisfactory to the French, and they did not care to oblige him to offer any more. Mazarin wrote in 1647, that France did not wish to give too great power to the Swedes, who were not only ambitious, but sought also the ruin of religion, which was not to be feared from the House of Austria. 61
Despite Turenne's protests at abandoning this opportunity for ending the war by the capture of Vienna, he was ordered in 1647 to march to Flanders, and there to assist in the contest against Spain, which showed little sign of approaching its end. But his German cavalry had six months' pay due them. The French government was in such straits that it could not raise the ready money to pay the arrears due the soldiers. At the Rhine, therefore, the old Weirnarian army mutinied, and refused to cross the river. The summer was wasted in negotiations, and endeavors to enforce obedience, and though a few regiments were sent into the Low Countries, Turenne's army accomplished nothing during this year. 62
Since Enghien's victory at Rocroi the French had prosecuted with success the war in the Low Countries, though receiving little aid from the Dutch. The States-General received from France a subsidy of 1,200,000 livres each year, and it was designed that their forces should cooperate with the French in the attack of the Spanish Netherlands. 63 The Hollanders were, however, often slack in their performance. The independence of the seven provinces had long been established in fact, if not by formal treaty. No burgher of Amsterdam feared that the Inquisition would be reestablished in his city, or that a Spanish governor would persecute his religion, or confiscate his estate. The war had become for them rather one of conquest, and of conquest which must result in bringing near to them a powerful and aggressive nation, instead of one enfeebled and decrepit. It might be better that Spain should retain all of the ten provinces which still remained subject to her, than that the States-General should gain half of them, at the cost of allowing France to have the others.
The French persevered in the war, receiving from the Dutch such assistance as they could get. In 1645, Orleans led the army into Flanders, and began the campaign with the capture of Mardyck. A few weeks of leisurely siege resulted in the conquest of some towns, and by the first of September Gaston sought rest at the Court. 64 As it was now well towards the end of the season, the Hollanders were at last ready to cooperate, and they joined the French under Gassion and Rantzau. But the allied armies did little except march and countermarch, and at the end of the year the Spaniards surprised the French garrison at Mardyck and retook the only place of importance they had lost. Mazarin complained of the dissensions which frustrated important plans. "We cannot," he wrote, "complain of the campaign this year in Flanders, but, considering the feebleness of the enemy, the quality and numbers of our troops, and the considerable reinforcements sent, we might justly have hoped for greater advantages." 65
Gaston was, however, well content even with the moderate glory of such warfare. In 1646 he commanded an army of 35,000 men, one portion of which was led by Enghien himself. The Hollanders were under arms unusually early, but they atoned for this by accomplishing nothing. The French laid siege to Courtrai, which in due time surrendered, and they then spent three weeks in a vigorous siege of Mardyck. This place was finally captured for the second time in fourteen months. It was now late in August, and Orleans was ready to rest from a campaign which had lasted three months. 66 He met with twofold encouragement in this desire. Enghien chafed at serving under one who was made commander on account of his birth, but who was destitute of any military talents. They had indeed preserved friendly and even intimate relations, but they were bound together chiefly by a common dislike of Mazarin and by willingness to complain of the present government. But if Orleans returned to the Court, Enghien would himself assume the command, and he hoped to signal the campaign by some exploit worthy of his own fame. He impressed on Orleans that it was too late to accomplish any thing further of importance, and that he should seek the repose his achievements had earned. A still more persuasive counsellor was the Abbé de la Rivière, the favorite who controlled Gaston's vacillating mind. The abbé's fortune rested on this control which he had obtained. Mazarin showered upon him pensions and livings for his influence over his master. 67 La Rivière hoped to gain from it a cardinal's hat, which he was eagerly seeking. He was not without expectations of succeeding to Mazarin's position. 68 But his power brought its penance. He dared not leave the variable mind of the duke exposed to other influences, and to preserve his control he had to be in constant attendance. Though the abbé had been bought to advise the campaigns of Gaston, they were to him an unspeakable terror. Gaston was not cowardly personally, and a stray bullet might, by killing him, leave La Rivière a hated and insignificant priest. What was still more alarming, a stray bullet might kill the abbé himself. He dared not leave the army, but his craven fears became its jest. He insisted on an immense guard, and kept them in commotion by his alarms. At the siege of Mardyck the soldiers complained it was more work to protect the abbé from his fears, than to guard the trenches from the enemy. La Rivière was therefore eager for the close of the campaign, and master and favorite returned to Paris. 69 By the departure of Gaston the Duke of Enghien was left free to attempt some important movement, and his thoughts turned upon the capture of the city of Dunkirk.
Dunkirk was situated on the shore of the North Sea, in a position that made it alike important and formidable to commerce. From it ships could sail, vying with those of Amsterdam and Antwerp in carrying the products of Guinea and the Indies. But its harbor leading to a canal in the city where a fleet might safely enter, and its position near the shores of France and the British Channel, had rendered it a frequent retreat for pirates. The cruisers that captured the ships of the merchants of Havre and Dieppe or made plundering expeditions along the shores of Picardy and Normandy, found safe refuge in the harbor of Dunkirk. Its name was odious through northern France, alike to the shipper and the resident of the towns along the coast. The ravages of the pirates of Dunkirk are said to have cost France as much as a million a year. 70 They had long had an evil name over all Northern Europe, and strange stories were told of their cruelties; of crews left tied or crucified to the masts of plunciered ships to perish by hunger and exposure; of battles where no quarter was given except to those rich enough to pay great ransoms; of barbarities perpetrated on the high seas and whispered by the winds to the waves. They themselves in turn, when captured, were generally strung up at the yard-arms with short shrift, as avowed enemies of the race. But the position of Dun-kirk was such that it seemed to defy attack, and the strangeness and wildness of its approaches added terror to its name. It was surrounded by vast plains of sand, far over which often spread the waters of the North Sea, and its name was said to signify the church of the dunes. Upon them the fury of the storms often worked strange changes. What had seemed solid land would be swallowed up in some tempest. What had been part of the ocean would be left so that men and wagons could pass over what the day before had been as inaccessible as the Straits of Dover.
An army attempting a siege would find itself on these wild dunes far removed from any places for supplies, and exposed to the utmost severity of storm and weather. Tents could hardly be pitched, and the changing sands would threaten the troops with destruction. The city was, moreover, garrisoned by 3,000 soldiers, and by 3,000 of the citizens and 2,000 sailors, all hardened and experienced in war, as are the inhabitants of such maritime and predatory cities. This force was commanded by the experienced Marquis of Leyde. The ardor of Enghien was increased by these difficulties, and he believed that with skill and vigor the perils of a siege could be overcome. This plan met the warm approval of Mazarin, whose good judgment was always attracted by Enghien's plans, and who had confidence that their boldness was governed by an entire knowledge of what could be accomplished by soldiers commanded by a leader of genius. He had been informed by faithful spies of the abuse which Enghien and Orleans had heaped upon him, and of the offensive doggerel at his expense which had entertained them when sitting over their cups; but this did not deter him from using the duke's talents for a great achievement. 71 The cardinal not only approved of the siege of Dunkirk, but gave Enghien hearty support and valuable advice. 72
The season was already late, and it was impossible to capture the city unless it was accomplished before winter. Enghien advanced with his army of about 15,000 men, and on the 19th of September the siege began. 73 It was necessary to prevent supplies being received by sea. Tromp, excited to hearty admiration of the genius of the young general, sailed with ten ships into the harbor, and cut off communications. Enghien, in the meantime, was pressing the circumvallation of the city with the utmost vigor. The ordinary trenches would not suffice, because along the coast the changing sands might in a night turn the water into land, over which supplies and reinforcements could enter. To guard against this, Enghien had piles driven, supported by great rocks, in such manner as to render this debatable territory impassable. Such work was done under appalling difficulties. The weather was terrible. Constant rains joined with the fury of the ocean to embarrass the soldiers as they worked upon the treacherous dunes. The commander knew that if the siege was prolonged it must fail. Provisions were brought with difficulty. The sea ran very high and destroyed the barricades; the rain was unceasing, and the wind furious. The soldiers could not keep their fires lighted; the sand, driven by the wind, ruined the little food they had. 74 The nights were often spent in the mud, and the storm and cold prevented any sleep. Disease and exhaustion must soon make worse ravages in his army than the most murderous assault. Half fed, wet, sleepless, the men worked on, inspired by the zeal of their leader. Piccolomini attempted to relieve the city, but he could not force Enghien's entrenchments, except by risking a pitched battle, and that he did not dare to venture. Mines were now carried under the city by the besiegers, and a great explosion made a breach in the wall. The French and Spanish met, but the smoke and confusion were so terrible that both sides at last fell back in disorder. The French finally discovered that the advantage was really theirs, and held the position. Nothing now remained but a final and bloody assault, but Leyde did not think that honor required him to await this. He agreed that if he did not receive succor by the 10oth of October, the city should be surrendered. Piccolomini dared not risk the last army in Flanders in an assault on Enghien's entrenchments, and, on October 11th, the Spanish troops evacuated the town. A siege of three weeks had conquered obstacles of man and nature, and destroyed the scourge of French commerce.
The capture of Dunkirk was not without resulting disadvantages. A stage in the long war had been reached when the allies were more jealous of each other than hostile to the enemy. The marked successes of the French created displeasure among the Hollanders, as the victories of Gustavus had exceeded the desires of Richelieu. By the capture of Dunkirk the French obtained a station on the North Sea, which might be used by them as a formidable rival to the commerce of Amsterdam and Rotter-dam. It might turn the allies in arms into rivals in trade. 74 Spain was now ready to grant all that the Dutch really wished. The truce of 1609 could be turned into a permanent peace, with a full and express recognition of the independence of the States, and the long contest of eighty years be formally ended. Mazarin's ambition, and his somewhat devious policy, had been skilfully used by the Spanish to excite still more the apprehension of the States-General. Since 1644 the representatives of the different contestants had been assembled at Munster and Osnabruck, struggling with diplomatic formalities and conflicting interests, with slow success. The treaty between France, Spain, and the Low Countries was one branch of this endeavor to restore peace to Europe. Success had favored the French in their eleven years of war with Spain. They had conquered large portions of Artois and Flanders. Roussillon was entirely in their possession, and the most of Catalonia. Piombino and Porto Longone were captured in 1646, as the results of Mazarin's endeavor to gain a foothold in Central Italy, and, should the war continue, these conquests were more apt to be increased than diminished. The French were therefore in a position where they could demand a large increase of territory.
The boundaries of France had changed but little for over 150 years. With the administrative unity of the seventeenth century, with the decrease of internal turbulence, and the increase of external vigor, came alike the power and the desire for territorial aggrandizement. Such purposes were furthered by a policy uniform in this respect for eighty years. The plans of Richelieu were followed by Mazarin, and were to be still further carried out by Louis XIV. But the tendency of French growth had been toward the Rhine. That seemed a natural boundary; west of it was a territory rich, fertile, and populous, over which there existed vague claims of former political continuity. 76 By the treaty of 1635, negotiated by Richelieu with the States-General, it had been purposed to conquer from Spain the provinces she still held in the Netherlands and divide them among the allies. 77
Mazarin had the same desires, and he was willing to sacrifice for them the conquests made in other parts. "The acquisition of the Low Countries," he wrote, "would form an impregnable bulwark for Paris, and it could then truly be called the heart of France. Our frontiers would extend to Holland, and towards Germany to the Rhine, by holding Lorraine and Alsace, and by the possession of Luxembourg and Franche Comté. So much blood and treasure would have been well employed if all the ancient kingdom of Austrasia could be annexed to this crown."
"The power of France would be formidable to all its neighbors, and especially to the English, who are naturally jealous of its greatness. The Spanish would regain Catalonia and Roussillon, and perhaps Portugal." 78
These provinces contained the fertile and populous fields of Flanders and Brabant; the flourishing and beautiful city of Brussels; Ghent, with its bodies of trained operatives ; the craftsmen of Liege, skilled in iron work; innumerable cultivators of flax and weavers of woollen goods--a population dense, tractable, industrious, and Catholic. They would have been such an addition to the wealth and greatness of France as it had not received since Brittany became a part of the kingdom. To obtain them Mazarin was willing to sacrifice Catalonia and Roussillon, and he was willing to leave Portugal to struggle for herself. 79 Catalonia and Roussillon had formally renounced their allegiance to Spain, and had been received as subjects of France. To desert them now, to leave them to the mercy of the government against which they had rebelled, was a poor return for their proffered and accepted allegiance. But Mazarin was not the man to be deterred by considerations of sentiment or of political honor. The ambassador suggested a method of duping the inhabitants of Catalonia, and blinding them to the desertion which France proposed. 80 The cardinal affected a coy indifference as to the Low Countries and claimed to cherish a special desire for Catalonia. "We must," he writes to the plenipotentiaries at Münster, "in treating with the Spaniards, turn our backs on the place where we wish to go, and disdain that which we really desire." 81
A still more attractive plan was suggested by the Venetian mediator in behalf of Spain. Spanish pride would revolt at surrendering Flanders as the prize of war, but with no loss of dignity it could be bestowed as a dowry with the hand of the Spanish infanta. The Spanish king had a young daughter, Maria Theresa, who could be affianced to Louis XIV., with the agreement that the Netherlands should be the dower she should bring her husband, and though from the youth of the parties the marriage could not be celebrated at once, the provinces could in the meantime remain in the possession of the French. 82 "The peace," one of the ambassadors had remarked, "could not be made without violins." 83 It would be far better, the French said, that Spain should give these provinces with joy and good-will, than, unable to protect them as she was, she should see them wrested from her with violence and disgrace. Catalonia and Roussillon were provinces which, held by a foreigner, would give entrance to the heart of the kingdom. They were far more valuable for Spain to retain than these outlying possessions, which were really only sources of weakness. There would be for France the additional advantage in such an arrangement, that if the Spanish Netherlands were yielded as the fruits of the war, Holland must, under the treaty of 1635, receive her share in the division; but if they were freely bestowed as a dowry, she could certainly claim no portion of a marriage settlement. 84 Mazarin apparently feared the jealousy of the States-General in these plans more than the reluctance of Spain.
Estrades was sent to Holland, to influence public opinion towards such an arrangement, and especially to secure the approval of the Prince of Orange. 85 He endeavored to obtain this by the offer of the marquisate of Antwerp. The prince was willing to accede, but his influence was impaired in Holland, and his resolution was easily overcome by his wife. 86 The princess was greedy and a friend of the Spaniards. Receiving bribes from both sides with impartiality, she was thus free to shape her course according to her own inclination. Mazarin showed an injudicious parsimony in his bribes. He sent a string of pearls, and grumbled to his minister about the uncertain and exorbitant cost, suggesting that the princess might be willing to take instead some plate which could be bought at a fixed price. 87 The Spanish, on the other hand, paid so liberally that the princess was thought to have made, by the conclusion of the peace with them, enough to yield an income of four hundred thousand livres. 88 The prince himself was becoming imbecile, and when he was visited by the Marshal of Gramont, instead of discussing plans for the war, he insisted that the marshal should perform a round dance with him. 89
But the Spaniards made other friends than a dancing dotard. The late campaign had been so unfortunate that they felt their only possibility of obtaining reasonable terms, or of continuing the war with the hope of a change in fortune, was to break the alliance between Holland and France. A long debt of gratitude, assistance rendered in the struggle with Spain when assistance was valuable, the treaty of 1635 renewed in 1644 forbade Holland making a peace, except jointly with France. On the other hand, the States-General were weary of war, and jealous of the power and ambition of the French. The merchants of Amsterdam desired again to devote their whole attention to freighting their ships for the Indies, and unloading the incothing cargoes of sugar from Surinam; the artisans of Haarlem wished their time free to manufacture linen; the sailor of Enkhuizen wanted an opportunity to catch and dry innumerable herrings.
This disposition was skilfully fostered by the Spanish envoys. Pau and Knuyt, plenipotentiaries from Holland to the congress at Münster, were gained to the Spanish interest, as Mazarin claimed, by the promise to each of one hundred thousand crowns. 90 But, apart from bribes, the Spanish used Mazarin's own plans to alarm the Hollanders. There is no doubt that the cardinal would gladly have made peace with Spain on obtaining the Low Countries and the hand of the infanta, but the Spanish were not willing to abandon these possessions, which, though diminished in size, still constituted one of the most valuable provinces of the kingdom. 91 It is doubtful if the suggestions made by the Spanish as to this marriage and the cession of the Low Countries were more than a lure, to be turned to the disadvantage of the French. It was intimated to the Hollanders that France was about to make a separate peace, that the Spanish Netherlands were to be given her, and that perhaps with the hand of the infanta might be transferred what claims Spain still made on the allegiance of the United Provinces. 92
The French protested in vain they had never thought of making any treaty unless Holland joined, and that the proposed marriage of Louis with the infanta had been idle talk, suggested by the Spanish for the purpose of alarming the States-General. The Hollanders were suspicious, and they became still more eager for peace. A certain element, mindful alike of their obligations to France and of repeated treaties, protested that no separate treaty should be made. But the majority, led by Pau and Knuyt, and supported by the powerful province of Holland, were of the opinion that a lasting peace should be made with Spain without delay, and if France had not yet agreed on terms, it should be made without her. 93
It was a constant reproach against the French that they did not really want any peace. 94 Mazarin, it was thought, believed that war furnished him the opportunity for increasing both his power and his wealth. This belief was generally entertained. Even the Duke of Longueville, the French plenipotentiary at Munster, confessed he thought that Mazarin did not really desire peace. The same belief was held at Court. Anne was urged by her friends, by appeals to her religion and her blood, to end the war. She was beset by the Queen of England, now in exile, and by the Princess of Condé. One wept, the other groaned, but neither groans nor tears moved her. The general of the Capucins was sent from Rome; he fell on his knees before her and asked her to make peace and protect religion for the sake of God and her kingdom. But the Court lamented that the queen could hear but one voice, and that she would keep no secret from her minister. 95 An examination of Mazarin's letters and despatches does not confirm any such distrust as to his wish for peace on honorable terms. He proclaimed constantly such a desire, and his conduct does not seem to belie his claim. The diplomacy that he used was often tortuous, but his despatches and confidential correspondence show a genuine effort to procure peace upon the terms to which he thought France was justly entitled. He desired peace with honor. Mazarin had a strong longing for the Spanish Low Countries, and if Holland had still desired a vigorous prosecution of the war for their conquest it would perhaps have pleased him well. But a peace could now be made, which would extend the boundaries of France more than they had been for almost two centuries. An honorable, even a glorious end to a long war was surely better for his interests than a continuation of the ruinous taxation which was exciting general discontent. The Fronde was almost ready to break forth, and though such a movement was not anticipated, Spain in arms was always a dangerous ally for any discontented element. The Spanish, if they could make a separate treaty with Holland, did not care for peace with France, and they were ready to raise constant difficulties, while charging the delays to the French.
Peace with Spain might perhaps, however, have been actually made if the French had not insisted too long on what they really were willing to concede. Spain offered to yield Roussillon and what France then held in Franche Comté and Flanders, and to make a thirty years' truce with Catalonia. Mazarin was at heart willing to abandon Portugal, but the plenipotentiaries long insisted on her interests being provided for in the treaty. 96 Holland, in the meantime, proceeded rapidly with her own negotiations. In the spring of 1646, seventy-one proposed articles had been submitted to the Spanish for their consideration. 97 The French made repeated protests against these steps, but the States-General insisted that they were only acting with such celerity as should enable them to have the terms of their treaty adjusted as soon as those of the French. 98 The successes of 1646 and the capture of Dunkirk quickened the desires of the United Provinces for a treaty with their ancient enemy. It was of enough importance to the Spaniards to make them willing to grant any reasonable terms. At peace with Holland, they might consider whether it was wise, at this time, to treat with France, and whether she, single-handed, would be able to hold the conquests she had made. In December, 1646, articles were signed between Spain and Holland to be inserted in the treaty of Münster, when that should be settled upon, though the States-General still declared that no peace should be made unless the terms were approved by France. 99
Active hostilities were again commenced in 1647, but little progress was made in Flanders during this campaign. Though the Hollanders had not actually made peace with Spain, they gave the French no aid. Mutiny among his troops prevented Turenne from leading the whole of his experienced army to the Low Countries, and Condé was in Catalonia besieging Lerida with small success. There was trouble also in getting the French forces into the field. Some of the officers would not leave the Court, and Mazarin took the young king to Amiens to lead these recreants to the front. 100 The regiments were as poorly manned as they were officered. One regiment could show only seventy men. The lack of money, and the misery suffered by the army rendered it difficult to find any who were willing to serve. 101 To fill the ranks, boys were taken from the shops, vagabonds and loafers were arrested and sold to the recruiting officers at so much a head. A force was thus gathered, but undisciplined and better fitted for flight than for attack. 102
In the meantime the Spaniards, no longer compelled to guard against the Hollanders, placed an army of 28,000 men under the command of the Archduke Leopold. No pitched battle marked the campaign, but its results were on the whole favorable to the Spanish. 103 Marshal Gassion was killed late in the season, and the French lost in him one of their most skilful commanders. Resembling Turenne, and unlike Condé, and still more unlike the crowd of courtiers who commanded a regiment or a division for their summer diversion, Gassion knew no life but that of the camp; he had no ambition but for military glory. Fond neither of wine nor women, he spent whole days in the saddle, and his life was summed up in his favorite nickname, " La Guerre." Some of his associates showed very different qualities. In this campaign of 1647 the army, under the joint command of Gassion and Rantzau, was to march early for the relief of Landrecies; but it was the day for Rantzau to command, and he became so drunk overnight that it cost six hours of delay before he was sober enough to give orders. 104 The French went into winter quarters in Flanders, discouraged by their slow success, suffering from cold and lack of provisions, and with soldiers and officers sharing a common discontent.
The conclusion of peace by the United Netherlands was imminent, and in anticipation
of this the Spanish showed no desire to come to terms with the French. The latter
were now ready to abandon their position with regard to Portugal, but the Spanish
found new difficulties in the status of the Duke of Lorraine. All the provisions
of the peace between Spain and Holland had now been agreed upon. The French
ambassadors protested in vain, and on January 30, 1648, the treaty was at last
signed. 105
One would think," wrote Mazarin, "that for eighty years France had
been warring with the provinces, and Spain had been protecting them. They have
stained their reputation with a shameful blemish." 106
It was eighty years since William of Orange had issued his proclamation inviting all the Netherlands to take up arms "to oppose the violent tyranny of the Spaniards." Unlike the truce of 1609, a formal and final peace was now made. The United Provinces were acknowledged as free and sovereign states. At the time of the truce the Spaniards had only treated with them " in quality of, and as holding them for independent provinces." By a provision which had increased the eagerness for peace of the burghers and merchants of the United Provinces, it was agreed that the Scheldt should be closed. The wealth and commerce of Antwerp were thus sacrificed for the benefit of Amsterdam. The trade with the Indies was divided between the two countries. Numerous commercial advantages were secured and certain additional territory was ceded to the States-General. Full opportunity was given for the development of the Dutch commerce, and the people who had waged this long struggle, forty years for national life, and thirty years, partly for the welfare of their brethren in Germany, and still more for their own temporal interests, had now an opportunity to restore, by an abundant commerce, the ravages that war had worked, to make their country the richest, as it was the freest, in Europe.
The conclusion of the peace between Holland and Spain seemed by common consent to destroy all hope of peace between Spain and France. It was for this diplomatic victory the Spaniards had been struggling, and they had at last obtained it. They were ready to see whether they could not at last obtain more favorable terms than they could now presume to ask. Internal complications in France were greatly to change the aspect of this war. Before it was ended, the hero of Rocroi and Freiburg was to be seen leading Spanish armies against his own countrymen; and when peace was at last made, twelve years later, it was to be reached by the matrimonial alliance Mazarin had already suggested.
Although Mazarin seemed to have become a better Frenchman than most of the French politicians who surrounded him, an Italian cardinal could not lose all interest in Italian politics. The influence of France in Italy had, duringthe last few years, been seriously diminished. Urban VIII., who, from 1623 to 1644 filled the papal chair, was little in sympathy with the religious fervor of Ferdinand II., or with the Spanish zealots. He belonged to the school of political popes who sought to increase the temporal power, and to deal well by their relatives. Civita Vecchia was improved by him as a maritime port, and it was claimed it was made so free for all, that Barbary corsairs came there to sell the plunder they had taken from Christians.
Urban indulged in secular poetry and even set Simeon's song of praise to Sapphic measures. His kinsmen, the Barberini, were said to have gained from gifts and corruption 200,000,000 livres of money. Besides their plunder of the papal revenues, they destroyed so recklessly, in building their palaces, what the Goths and Vandals had spared of the remains of antiquity, that they furnished Pasquin with one of his most famous jests.107 Such a pope sympathized with Richelieu, and was secretly, and at times openly hostile to the Emperor Ferdinand, who was devoting himself to the great effort to reestablish the Catholic faith in all Germany. 108 Mazarin was on intimate terms with Urban's nephews, the Cardinal Barberini and the Cardinal Antonio. The latter held the title of Protector of France at Rome; the arms of France were emblazoned over the door of his palace, and almost as much as the French ambassador he represented that kingdom at the Papal Court. During the long pontificate of Urban VIII., forty-eight cardinals had been created, who survived him, and the most of this number were controlled by the papal nephews, to whom they in great part owed their appointments.
On July 29, 1644, Urban VIII. died and the cardinals were shortly gathered together for the choice of a new pope. Fifty-five were present at the conclave. Cardinal Sacchetti was a friend of the Barberini and was also the choice of the French Court. Bentivoglio was first recommended, but he was old and feeble and died during the conclave. In Sacchetti, Mazarin wrote, all the conditions for a good pope were advantageously combined. 109 Panfihio, on the other hand, as a cardinal known to be devoted to Spain, the French minister was directed to oppose, and he was the first one against whom, if it became necessary, the veto of the French crown was to be interposed. It seemed improbable that the Spanish faction could secure any one specially friendly to that kingdom, as they could not count on over thirteen votes. It was impossible that any one should be chosen who was not acceptable to Cardinal Antonio, and his relations with France were such that he would consent to no one who was thought to be unfriendly to that country. 110 The balloting began, and it seemed that Sacchetti could be chosen, but his friendly relations with France were known and the Spanish protector, on behalf of Philip IV., interposed the veto of Spain against his election. 111 It was on August 9th that the cardinals were confined for the conclave, and September was reached without a choice. The sultry weather of a Roman summer made the confinement still more trying. One cardinal had died, several were sick, and still twice each day the ascending smoke of burning ballots announced that no pope had yet been chosen. 112 Without, the disorder reigned, which was common at times when the church and the government were alike left without a head. Armed bands of marauders marched through the city. The houses of the wealthy were defended by garrisons, and assassinations were an every-day occurrence. The Barberini had become especially odious, and they were the objects of numerous popular demonstrations. Every endeavor was made to influence the cardinals in their confinement, and the French minister was ordered to see that the news of the victory at Freiburg should reach them in some manner, that it might increase the prestige of France. 113
The Cardinal Panfilio was favored by many, but against him the French ambassador was ordered to use the veto if necessary, and Cardinal Antonio was unwilling to have a man chosen over whom he could expect to have little influence. Antonio's hostility was said to have been averted by a trick which should not have deceived an Italian priest. The cardinals were confined in separate cells or chambers. A friend invited Antonio into his cell, while Panfilio entered the next one, divided only by tapestry. There he was overheard saying that he would not become pope unless Cardinal Antonio desired, for it would be causing strife among the family of his benefactor, Urban VIII.; but should that happiness befall him, Antonio would hold a greater power than he had even under his uncle. 114 However this may be, Panfilio bestowed on the Barberini affectionate compliments and treated them with great marks of tenderness and love. 115 Beguiled by these considerations, Antonio prepared to lead his forces to Panfilio's support, and he advised the French minister to allow the election. St. Chamond, the ambassador, should have interposed his veto, but he was bewildered by these changes and wrote home for instructions. 116
The terms submitted were that if France would consent to the choice of Panfilio, Mazarin's brother should be made a cardinal without requiring any nomination from the king, and some other benefits should be given the French crown, 117 but before the answer was received which declined this proposition, the matter had been settled. Michel Mazarin, whose eagerness and indiscretion were a constant injury to his brother, was led to believe that his promotion as cardinal would be one of the first acts of the new pope, and his conduct, it was claimed, showed that the hostility of France to Panfilio had ceased. Antonio was besought by his friends not to await the return of the courier, which would either prevent Panfilio's election, or give the credit of it to France, and in an evil hour for himself he yielded. On the night of the 14th of September the cardinals flocked to the cell of Panfilio in their zeal to congratulate him who was soon to become the holy father. A few French cardinals endeavored to check the movement and to prevent Antonio from violating the express order of France, but without success. At the scrutiny on the morning of the 15th fifteen ballots were announced for Panfilio and thirty-three others, led by the Barberini, at once acceded. He thus received forty-eight out of fifty-four votes cast, and assumed the name of Innocent X. 118 The new Pope was a man of blameless life, of learning, and industry, but he was a strong friend of Spain, bitter in his animosities, and easily controlled by certain influences. His choice was received by the Spanish with greater exultation than they would have shown at gaining a battle. 119
The indignation of Mazarin at his election was fierce. St. Chamond was recalled from Rome in disgrace, and was accused of having betrayed the interests of France. 120 Mazarin charged the ungrateful Barberini with treachery and renounced their friendship. 121 Antonio ceased to be the protector of France, and her arms were publicly torn down from his door. The Barberini soon found they had gained nothing by neglecting France, in the hope of possessing the good-will of the new pontiff. Innocent reserved his favors for those who were his friends from the first. It was not difficult to find in the long administration of Urban's nephews, innumerable proofs of their plunder and maladministration of the papal treasury. Proceedings were begun against them to recover the sums the'y were charged to have thus appropriated. The Pope was applied to for protection, but he only replied he could not stop the course of public justice. 122
It was no part of Mazarin's character to struggle against the inevitable, and while he sought to wreak his vengeance on his representatives who had neglected their duty, he sent his felicitations to the new Pope on his election. "I must give reverent expression," he writes Innocent, "to my gladness that your Holiness has assumed the Pontificate, knowing better than any one else the solace which afflicted Christianity can hope from the talents of your beatitude, and assuring your Holiness sincerely that my joy at your exaltation has been extraordinary." 123 Innocent had the power to bestow a favor for which Mazarin was very eager. His younger brother, Michel Mazarin, inferior to him in capacity, was his equal in a restless desire for prominence and promotion. He was a Dominican monk, and held the office of master of the sacred palace. His promotion to the cardinalate was now eagerly pressed by his brother, though at times he affected an ostentatious indifference. Mazarin was charged with expending 12,000,000 livres of the money of France in his various endeavors to obtain this additional dignity for his family. 124
His first step was to gain the good-will of the Pope, by bestowing upon his nephew, Cardinal Camille Panfilio, an abbey worth 30,000 livres a year. 125 Michel Mazarin made the existence of the new French ambassador miserable by his eagerness and his solicitations for the promotion. Ambition had so turned the spirit of the good father, the ambassador wrote, that he thought his interest more important than that of the state; never demon was more importunate or listened less to reason. His zeal defeated itself. He told of the intention to give the abbey, and the Pope asked for it so eagerly that he obtained the promise of it from the ambassador at his second interview. Of this visit the ambassador writes: "The Pope, without giving me time to finish, demanded if his majesty desired to give an abbey to his nephew. After that I could not delay in offering a thing which was asked for with so much avidity. Then the visage of the Pope became serene, he seemed to grow ten years younger, and his eloquence was redoubled to express his thanks, saying, 'you have been the first to gratify us.'" 126
But the abbey had been extorted without promises in return. Innocent felt himself free to gratify his inclination, and he proceeded to nominate eight cardinals, all friendly to Spain, and of whom Michel Mazarin was not one. 127 The rule of the papacy forbade, it was said, that two brothers should be cardinals. It was a rule that had been broken for royal or princely families. The brother of Cardinal Richelieu had also been made a cardinal, but that was as a reward for the great victory of the faith in the capture of La Rochelle. France received no favors from the new pontiff. He gave some fair words and professed his affection for the interests of the kingdom, but Mazarin said that France received only the flowers and others had the fruit. One of those alleged to have joined in Beaufort's plot to murder the cardinal, had taken refuge at Rome, and his surrender was demanded; but even this was refused. Some Neapolitan bandits, under the orders of the Spanish minister, attacked a Portuguese bishop who was staying there under the protection of France, killed his companion, wounded his coachman, and left him apparently dead. The French minister demanded of the Pope that Spain should be compelled to surrender these ruffians. "It will be seen," he said, "whether he is Pope or only the chaplain of the Spaniards." 128 Failing to receive any satisfaction, the minister deemed it a good time to make his retreat, and for two years France had no ambassador at the Papal Court.
Mazarin was not discouraged by these failures, and he resolved on more rigorous measures to establish French influence at Rome. He received the Barberini again into favor, and they found a retreat in France. 129 A more forinidable movement was the attempt to capture from Spain the Tuscan Presides, places so situated that their holders had easy access to Central Italy. 130 The war in Italy had for some years languished, but hostility to the Pope stirred it again into life. New vessels were fitted out for the navy, and large preparations were made for the invasion of italy. Michel Mazarin was sent to Toulon, where he superintended the preparations with as much vigor as if he were turning the guns on St. Angelo, to bombard a cardinal's hat from the Pope. 131
On April 26, 1646, the expedition set sail, and on the 9th of May, it cast anchor off the important city of Orbitello. The fleet consisted of 150 sail, and was expected to land 10,000 men, and Mazarin wrote that all Italy was in terror. 132 The ships were commanded by the Duke of Brézé, and no more skilful or gallant leader could have been found. Not turned to sloth by his great inheritance from Richelieu, and undismayed by the hostility of his enemies, he had gained at Carthagena a brilliant naval victory, and he now excited among the sailors entire confidence in similar achievements.
The command of the land forces was, however, entrusted to a leader whose deficiencies
more than counterbalanced Brézé's skill. Mazarin desired an Italian
prince to lead his expedition, and Prince Thomas of Savoy had been chosen for
the command. His zeal might have been excited, because this enterprise presented
dim but alluring possibilities. After the capture of Orbitello, which it was
believed would not be long deferred, Mazarin hoped to send the expedition on
to Naples. 133 The disordered condition of that city furnished the opportunity
of wrcsting it, and the territory of which it was the head, from Spanish rule.
Prince Thomas might become the king of Naples and of the Sicilies, France receiving
Nice and Savoy for her reward, should he or his descendants become heirs to
Piedmont. 134 But the incapacity of Prince Thomas made the crown of the two
Sicilies even more remote than an ambitious dream.
Orbitello was strongly situated on a narrow strip of land, and was well fortified. The sea wall rested upon enormous polygonal blocks, put together without cement, the relics of Etruscan fortifications. The situation had been chosen by a people who sought the safest places. But four miles from there was the Etruscan city of Cosae, which Virgil counts among those which sent aid to Aeneas. More modern but less ponderous works protected the city on the land side. But its capture was deemed so certain that great plans were built upon it. Mazarin wrote Brézé that perhaps the Neapolitans would prefer the crown of France for a mistress, and if so, they could make Prince Thomas Duke of Calabria.135 Fearing that disease would come with the hot weather, Mazarin urged Prince Thomas to press forward with the siege.136 But the most simple advances seemed beyond his skill. Repeated endeavors were made to pass the ditch which formed the first of the outworks. Hurdles were brought for a bridge, but as fast as they were laid the Spaniards burned them. "It is a strange affair to get over a ditch in Italy," Mazarin wrote a correspondent. 137 A severe misfortune to the navy made the situation worse. In a sharp and successful engagement with the Spanish fleet, a cannon ball struck and killed the Duke of Brézé. 138 His death was more disastrous than would have been the loss of twenty sail. The French fleet retired to Provence and left the sea open to the Spanish. Sickness was fast reducing the army on land, and on July 18th Prince Thomas raised the siege, which was no further advanced than when it was begun, and led back the remains of his command to Piedmont. 139 Mazarin was greatly depressed by such a failure in a campaign which was to him of special interest. It excited also much hostile criticism in France, and it was believed that his political fortunes would decline on account of the disastrous termination. 140 The news was received with great exultation at Rome, and the Pope said it was an enterprise not of the king, but of an individual, and by a plain miracle the Holy See had been protected from the evil which had been designed. 141
But so mortifying an end to this expensive venture only strengthened Mazarin's resolution to make his power felt in Italy. The battered ships and fever-wasted soldiers were scarcely back in Provence, when the minister began to prepare a second expedition for the same end. There were arrears unpaid to the soldiers in Germany, but money was found for Italian conquest. By September a fleet of two hundred sail, with an army of eight thousand men commanded by the Marshals of La Meilleraie and Du Plessis, was under way. The expedition was conducted with skill and success. Orbitello was not again attacked, but Porto Longone, on the island of Elba, and Piombino, on the mainland, both places of much strategic importance, were captured after brief sieges. 142 With this result came at once the change in the feelings of Innocent X. for which Mazarin had hoped. The position of France was now an imposing one in many ways. In a time of scanty means and dilatory campaigns it was a great proof of wealth and strength, that, after the defeat of Prince Thomas, a second expedition could have been equipped in two months, and a second campaign successfully prosecuted before winter. The places captured gave the French a strong and convenient foothold on the Gulf of Genoa and in Central Italy. Piombino was less than one hundred and fifty miles from Rome. Its revenues belonged to Prince Ludovisio, the Pope's nephew, and its capture was a sharp admonition of what could be expected from a reckless opposition to France. 143 The lesson was not unheeded, and the news of Piombino's fall prepared Innocent for a reconciliation. His manners towards the French became more affable. 144 He found it possible to interfere with the course of Roman justice; the prosecution of the Barberini was dropped, and their property was left to them. A matter more eagerly pursued was the cardinalate for Michel Mazarin. He had been made by France Archbishop of Aix, and was even appointed to the great office of Viceroy of Catalonia. He abandoned alike his religious and political duties, and returned to Rome, there to labor for his promotion. His brother wrote him sharply to proceed to Catalonia, but nothing could draw him from his absorbing hunt after a cardinal's hat. Nor had his brother been remiss in the use of his great power for the same end. Fontenay Mareuil, the most experienced in Roman politics of French diplomats, was again sent to Rome, arid was impressed with the duty of obtaining this promotion. 145 As a reward for this, he claims he was promised the lucrative and influential place of governor of the king's younger brother. Not relying on Mazarin's word, Fontenay had desired further assurances, but at last, in May, 1647, he departed, trusting in the promise which was never fulfilled. 146
A matrimonial alliance had gained the aid of Poland for the ambitions of the Archbishop of Aix. Marie of Gonzagua was the daughter of that Duke of Nevers, who became Duke of Mantua. Many years before, she had been sought in marriage by Gaston, but Mary de Medici had prevented the match. The King of Poland had also been suggested as a lover, but he had preferred a German princess. With high rank but moderate means, Marie of Gonzagua saw years and princes go by, until she at last became the lady-love of Cinq Mars, and encouraged the advances of the son of a marquis. Cinq Mars' career ended in disaster, and with increased years and diminished beauty, she seemed destined to remain a virgin princess. But the German wife of Wladislas, the Polish king, had now died, and, in 1645, he came again to the French market.
Mazarin was eager to establish some French woman at the Polish Court, where her influence might aid in controlling its politics. But the king, though the ruler of a kingdom still of considerable political importance, was only a king by election. He was old, he was gouty, he lived in a country that seemed barbarous to a Frenchwoman, a country where men wore no linen and slept in their furs. Mademoiselle, the daughter of Gaston, disdained his suit, and an alliance with Mademoiselle de Guise was not favored by Mazarin. 147 It was therefore obtained for the Princess Marie, and to her it justly seemed a great elevation. The ambassadors of the Polish king visited Paris to carry back the bride, and they excited the admiration of a populace to whom they appeared more strange than now would an embassy from Japan. 148
They were dressed in Eastern magnificence, and managed their horses with a skill that made the French gentlemen seem indifferent riders. Their garments of brilliant colors, red, yellow, brocades of silver and gold, were adorned with rubies, diamonds, and pearls. Furred bonnets covered shaven heads, and the hair that was uncut hung in a queue down their backs. While those of the French had only iron, their carriages were covered with massive silver, and even their horses were adorned with precious stones and shod with gold and silver. With all this gorgeousness they wore no linen, their clothes were dirty, and they themselves were so greasy, that Mme. de Motteville informs us they made her sick at heart. 149
The Princess Marie was duly married and assumed the crown. She told Mazarin he should see if she wore with wisdom that which he had placed upon her head. 150 Nothing could be added, wrote Mazarin, to the magnificence of the solemnity, nor the treatment which the ambassadors of the Polish king received. The expenses of the queen of Poland were defrayed to the frontier at an incredible cost. 151 But the new queen tarried at Brussels, Amsterdam, and other cities along the route. Her delays wearied the king and distressed the nobles. Some of them were accompanied by a thousand servants and retainers, and the most powerful by three or four thousand, and they wasted in two months the income of two years. 152
After three months the queen arrived at her kingdom, and found barbarity as well as splendor. Old, fat, broken-down by gout and chagrin, the king did not rise to receive his bride, and he found her, like Anne of Cleves, less fair than her portrait. "Is this the great beauty you have told me such marvels about ?" he said to the French ambassador. She sat down to a supper composed of viands which offended alike her palate and her nose, and sighed to her companion, it would be better to return again to France. 153 She gradually, however, acquired an influence over her husband, and from this Mazarin gained not only her good offices for France, but a family advantage which perhaps he had equally desired to obtain from this costly alliance. 154 Like other Catholic kingdoms, Poland was entitled to nominate a cardinal, and this nomination Mazarin after expensive negotiations, procured for his brother. He obtained also advantages for France which were some justification for the money spent on this marriage, and three thousand Polish soldiers served under Enghien at the siege of Dunkirk.
Fontenay Mareuil, when he reached Rome, told Innocent that this nomination
could now be granted to Poland, without justly exciting any jealousy in Spain.
It would have been specially agreeable to Mazarin that it should have been so
given, partly because he would have felt himself free from any uncomfortable
sense of obligation to the Pope, and partly because he did not wish his brother's
nomination to seem accorded to France. The great family of Condé wished
their second son, the Prince of Conti, to become a cardinal, and their anger
might justly be excited, if his promotion should seem to be delayed to advance
an obscure Italian priest. But, though Innocent was brought to promise the promotion,
he refused to grant it to Poland. It should be made with free will out of his
own bosom. He desired, however, to tender an equal honor to the Spanish, and
to send a messenger to their king to ascertain whom he desired for this place.
This deference was due not only to a desire to please Philip IV., but to obtain
from him the nomination of the Count of Ognate, the Spanish ambassador at Rome.
155 Innocent X., though not an especially bad man, was a weak one. His sister-in-law,
Donna Olympia, influenced his policy, and controlled his patronage, and upon
her the enormous bribes of the ecclesiastics and the foreign governments were
bestowed. Count Ognate had promised her 100,000 scudi if she could obtain for
him a cardinal's hat, and Innocent was eager for the opportunity of bestowing
it. One hundred thousand scudi is said to have been promised to Olympia also,
for the nomination of Mazarin's brother. 156 But the Spanish king did not desire
Ognate, and on October 7, 1647, Michel Mazarin received the honor he had so
long coveted, and assumed the title of the Cardinal of Saint Cecile. Among the
cardinals created at the same time was a nephew of Donna Olympia who was but
fifteen. 157
Mazarin made but a poor return to those who had labored for the family advancement,
and he reproached Fontenay Mareuil for having seemed to make this a national
affair. But he showed excessive joy at the promotion, and it was justly charged
that he had resolved to accomplish this matter by whatever means, and his affected
indifference was an endeavor to avert the public indignation which his efforts
excited. 158 To the Pope he sent some tardy and chilly thanks, but Innocent
was grieved because there was nothing said of any allowance to his nephew from
the revenues of Piombino. For Donna Olympia Mazarin suggested some tapestries,
or a silver service, and at last sent some old clothes from the queen's wardrobe,
out of fashion and not worth 4,000 scudi. 159
Mazarin derived neither advantage nor comfort from the dignity he obtained for a dissolute and incompetent brother. The new cardinal went to Catalonia, and after staying there a few days, left his province without even asking the royal consent and returned to Rome.160 His appointment as viceroy excited the derision of the pamphleteers. They complained that Mazarin had gone to Italy to hunt up a begging friar, and had him leave his frock and wallet to make him a viceroy of Catalonia. 161 The abrupt departure of the cardinal made the matter seem worse, and Mazarin complained of his conduct as a detestable example of frivolity and ingratitude, and protested he would do no more for one who gave him such returns. 162 His brother was undisturbed by such reproaches, and continued at Rome, but there he died when only forty-one, the year after he had received his promotion. His death was said to have been caused by excessive debauchery. 163 Little in Mazarin's conduct was as unjustifiable as his zeal for his brother's advancement, and by the general indignation it caused he largely increased his growing unpopularity.
During the expedition to Orbitello in 1646, Mazarin had closely watched Naples, whose coming revolution he foresaw. The ill-suppressed discontents of the city now showed themselves in disturbances, sudden and erratic as the eruptions of Vesuvius, and they offered to France an opportunity for seizing the richest of the remaining possessions of Spain. 164 After the vicissitudes of centuries, Naples and Sicily were now subject to the Spanish crown. They were governed by a viceroy, and were subjected to the drain of men and money which was the result of Spain's necessities and the characteristic of her rule. Burdened with taxation, they complained that their viceroy, the Duke of Arcos, was sending to Spain money raised solely for their own defence. The imposition of a duty on fruits, in a country where fruit formed a cheap article of diet for the poor, and where almost all were poor, kindled the long smouldering discontent. Under the leadership of a fisherman, nicknamed Masaniello, the people of Naples in 1647 rose in revolt. Springing from utter obscurity, this young man of twenty-seven, poor and illiterate, became powerful almost in a day. While the Duke of Arcos hid himself away from the revolt, Masaniello was made Captain-General of Naples. So sudden a change turned his head. At first he had been bold, popular, and judicious. He sought only, he said, to deliver the people from their taxes, and when that was done, he would return again to selling soles and red mullets. But political delirium seized him when he reached an elevation which, for him, was as dizzy as the throne of the Roman emperors, and like some who reached that terrible eminence, his brain was crazed by the bewilderment and ecstasy of power.
He made wild and incoherent speeches. He tore his garments, crying out against popular ingratitude, attacking groups of passers-by, riding his horse wildly through the multitude, and striking with his lance to the right and left. The populace wearied of its darling. Exalted to power on July 7th, he was murdered on the 1th, with the approval of those who had worshipped him a week before. 165 But the revolution did not perish with him. Successive chiefs were chosen and deposed by a fickle people. When the insurrection was active, the representatives of Spain promised untaxed fruits and the privileges allowed by Charles V., and they revoked their promises when it appeared to subside.
In the meantime, Mazarin watched the movement, uncertain as to the course he should pursue. He knew well how great a blow to Spain would be the loss of Naples and Sicily. "The loss of two kingdoms," he wrote, "would be the mortal blow to that monarchy." 166 From involving France in the troubles of Naples he feared, however, a twofold danger. Peace between France and Spain might now be very near. Already the negotiations for it had been embarrassed by the obligations which had been assumed to Portugal and Catalonia, and to interfere in Naples might only add a further complication. "I pray you above all things," he wrote Fontenay Mareuil, "whatever treaty we are obliged to make with these people, not to put us in condition where we cannot conclude peace without breaking our faith to them whenever the enemy consent to reasonable terms." 167
Another consideration deterred the cardinal. His campaigns in Italy had not
been marked by uniform success. The alluring beauties of Naples, the olives
and orange
groves, the bay and islands, the gayety and the wealth of the garden of the
world had often proved a fatal attraction for French valor. Charles VIII. had
led to Naples an army composed of the flower of French soldiery and chivalry;
he had returned broken in fortune and health, with the remnant of his forces
bringing back with them only shame and shameful maladies. Louis XII. had marched
to Naples in triumph, and had been driven out of Italy with defeat and disgrace.
The populace was as fickle as in Roman days. Should the French fleet appear
before the city, it might only create a burst of returning loyalty to Spain.
Even if admitted as allies, they might soon become suspected and hated, the
victims alike of fever and the vendetta. "Let us not gather the fruit till
it is ripe," said the prudent cardinal. "Let us wait till the Neapolitans
are so estranged from Spain that there can be no irresolution. Then let them
choose some king who will not be Spanish, and France will help to establish
his power. The Duke of Anjou or the Duke of Orleans would not go to Naples unless
all was tranquil, and it would be hard to induce the people to choose either
as king. But if they reflected a little they would choose Monsieur the Prince,
who is most fit from birth and personal qualities. It seems to me impossible
that he should not apply all his force and mind to become master of so beautiful,
so great, and so rich a kingdom." 168 But Condé showed no inclination
for the venture. Whether he viewed it as desperate, whether he distrusted the
sincerity of Mazarin, and the help he would furnish, or whether he preferred
being first prince in a great kingdom to being monarch of a small kingdom, he
declined the cardinal's suggestions.
While the minister hesitated, the chance was seized by one who was never accused of too great caution.
"See," cried the courtiers at the tourney of 1662, as Condé and Guise led their respective troops, "the hero of history and the hero of romance." Henry V., Duke of Guise, was born in 1614, and was now thirty-three years old. He had been intended for the church. Four abbeys were conferred on him before he left his cradle, and at fifteen he was Archbishop of Rheims. But the youthful archbishop led a life more scandalous than that of any layman. His loves were innumerable. He even laid siege to the convent of which his sister was abbess, and paid indiscriminate court to the brides of the church. A more serious object of his devotions was Anne of Gonzagua, the sister of the future queen of Poland, and to her he was said to have been secretly married. By the death of his elder brother he had become Duke of Guise. Richelieu thought a man could not justly desire to be at once a priest and a husband, and he sought to lay hold of his ecclesiastical benefices. The archiepiscopal duke threw himself into the revolt led by the Count of Soissons, in 1641, and after that he retired to take service under the Emperor, hotly pursued, not only by his enemies, but by Anne of Gonzagua, who insisted she was his wife. He escaped them all, and married the beautiful Countess Bossut, and the ceremony was duly formalized by the Bishop of Molines. Not until 1644, when he had wasted her fortune of four hundred thousand livres, and had wearied of her charms, did he reappear at Paris. There he formed a still deeper attachment for Mlle. De Pons, one of the queen's ladies in waiting. The critical Tallement says she was too fat and too red in the face for her blonde hair; but Guise thought otherwise, and as "he made love as they do in romances," his devotions furnished pleasant diversion for the Court. 169 Twelve hours of the day he spent with his lady-love. He followed her carriage till the very artisans of the Rue St. Honoré talked of nothing else. \Vhen she went to the waters, he must needs have similar treatment ; he took the same drugs in similar doses from the hands of the same apothecary, saying he could not be well when she was ill. The Countess of Bossut said that she would encounter him in the midst of the Court and demand of him acknowledgment as his lawful wife, and if he denied her, she would shoot him then and there. "It is certainly true that I married you," he wrote her, "but so many of the doctors assure me you are not my wife, that I must needs believe them." 170
With all his extravagances, the duke had wit, talked well, was good-natured, generous, polite, and brave. "It is a pity," said Chevreuse, "that he is a fool." He took part in the duel with Coligny, and after that he presently went to Rome. There he hoped to have his marriage with the Countess of Bossut declared void, that he might marry Mlle. Dc Pons. Though Innocent X. was fond of the duke, he was not willing to countenance all his scandalous conduct, and no divorce was granted. While waiting for it, a fortune was offered Guise stranger than a half dozen new marriages. Representatives of the Neapolitan insurgents naturally turned to France for aid, but they had received from Fontenay only uncertain promises. The Duke of Guise was known to be ready for any chance of fortune; he possessed in abundance the qualifications that gain popularity with the multitude; he was young, affable, and daring; he spoke Italian like one born to the soil, and he was descended on the female side from the House of Anjou, which had once been sovereign in Naples. 171 Whom could the Neapolitans so properly choose for their leader as the romantic descendant of their ancient kings? To the propositions which were made to him the duke lent a willing ear. The wilder and more chimerical the scheme, the more it attracted his active fancy, and the possibility of gaining, by a brilliant display of daring and resolution, supreme power in a strange land, and that land the most beautiful and romantic of the world, might have turned cooler heads than that of Guise. He did, however, first consult France in reference to an undertaking which he claimed was to be solely for her honor and advantage. 172
This new plan was full of embarrassment for Mazarin. He had little confidence in Guise's ability, and no confidence in his fidelity. The duke suggested to the Neapolitans a republic, in which he hoped for himself a place like that of the Prince of Orange in Holland. 173 Mazarin preferred for them a monarchy, and a monarchy in which so uncertain a friend as the Duke of Guise should not be king. He did not wish to be held responsible for the absurd and compromising failure, which he doubted little would be the result of the duke's expedition. Yet, on the other hand, it did not seem that one could refuse to countenance a French prince in wresting Naples from the control of a Spanish king. Mazarin answered, endeavoring .to chill Guise's ardor by the perils of the undertaking 174; but the matter was left for final decision with the representatives of France at Rome, and from them Guise seems to have received some authority for his enterprise. 175 Mazarin's letters show that he had no confidence in Guise's success, and no sympathy with his movement. "It is an altogether bizarre incident," he wrote Fontenay Mareuil, "which we can no more comprehend than you do." 176 "I will tell you in confidence that the character of the Duke of Guise gives me pain, fearing that his voyage will hurt and embarrass us from his small experience, where the most discreet politician would be none too skilful." 177 "I fear all the negotiations of the duke will end in smoke." 178
Undaunted by any such sinister forebodings, Guise prepared to embark for Naples. Glowing statements of the strength of the revolt were made by the emissaries, and believed, because he wished to believe them, by the duke. One hundred and seventy thousand men were said to be in arms, bold, active, ready for any enterprise. Five or six thousand horse could easily be collected; there were three or four millions of gold, magazines filled with powder and ball, abundance of artillery, and provisions for five months in the granaries. The Spaniards could not only be driven from the country they held about Naples, but the war could be carried into Sicily and Sardinia, and these provinces wrested from Spain. 179 "Most Serene Highness," said the formal letter of invitation to the duke, "the faithful people of Naples, with tears of blood, entreat your highness to be its defender, as is the Prince of Orange in Holland, and to procure it the assistance your highness has offered in your letter, which the people have received with open arms. We fail not to pray continually to the Blessed Virgin, our Lady of the Carmelites, that we may soon see your highness, and feel the effect of your valor. "Your highness' servant, the people of Naples." 180
On November 14, 1647, taking with him four thousand pistoles in money and a half dozen domestics, the duke embarked in a felucca, one of the petty boats that cruise along the Mediterranean, and set sail for the city of which he hoped to become the liberator. Sailing by rocky and volcanic Ischia, at break of day on the 15th they rounded the bay, and saw Naples lying before them, with the Spanish army encamped about. Passing towards Torre del Greco, and escaping the Spanish cruisers, at eleven in the morning the duke set foot on land, and was received by the tumultuous applause of a great multitude. 181
He found the condition of affairs full of peril and uncertainty. The Spainards had been driven from the city, but their forces lay near to it, threatening alike its supplies and its safety. Among the lower elements of the populace the nobility were disliked, and the nobles had been exposed to violence and plunder from the ruffians and robbers who were always active in such uprisings. They had, therefore, withdrawn from the town, and, almost without exception, preferred trusting themselves to the Spaniards rather than to the perils of popular rule. Among the population still remaining in the city, the controlling element was the "Black Capes," as they were called, the bourgeois, artisans, officials, and most of the middle classes. They, however, were actuated by widely different feelings. A large portion were content with the rule of Spain, if reasonable reforms could be assured ; while another element deemed its best interest might be in assisting a Spanish restoration, regardless of terms, and yet a third was in favor of the establishment of a republic. Outside of these was the great body of the lazzaroni, the larger part of the population of the city, which then contained about 200,000 inhabitants. 182 They filled the densely peopled portions of the town, and in these narrow, filthy, and swarming streets a popular leader could at any time gather around him a multitude, having nothing to lose and the hope of something to gain, ready to plunder a palace, to tear in pieces some tribune whose rule had become tiresome within the month, to bear in triumph, amid tears and shouts, a new favorite, who would receive their allegiance and heaven's blessing at some miraculous shrine of the Virgin.183
The situation in this tumultuous city was far different from what Guise had
hoped. After offering his prayers to our Lady of the Carmelites, he was presented
to Gennaro Annese. Annese's predecessor, Don Francisco Toralto, had been one
of the many examples of how dangerous was power at Naples. After a brief authority,
his head had been cut off, and his heart, torn from his body, had been presented
to his wife in a silver basin. Annese had lately been declared the generalissimo
of the people, under the newly proclaimed republic. "He was," says
the duke, "a little man of infamous appearance, very black, with big eyes,
a mouth that seemed a slit, and a rough gray beard. He could hardly speak two
words without hesitation, and he trembled at every noise he heard. Twenty guards,
much like himself, stood near him. He carried half a dozen pistols in a belt
of red velvet, which formed part of a dress consisting of a buff cape, adorned
by crimson sleeves, with scarlet breeches and a hat of gold cloth, while he
bore a great musket in his hand for further protection." Guise handed him
a letter from the Marquis of Fontenay, assuring him of French protection, which
Gennaro gravely scanned and turned on all four sides. Then, handing it back
to the duke, he said he could not read, and begged him to tell its contents.
In the meantime came a great knocking at the door and presently entered a man
with a sword, but no hat, and with two rosaries about his neck. He flung himself
on the floor and began to kiss the duke's feet. Raising up this figure, which
Guise believed to have escaped from the madhouse, he was presented as Luigi
del Ferro, the authorized representative of France with the republic. Dinner
was now served, but Gennaro, fearing poison, insisted upon his wife's acting
as cook and waitress. Unfit, as Guise thought, to be either a lady or a cook,
this person served a meal which seemed dirty and ill-prepared to the fastidious
Frenchman. She was attired in blue brocade with silver embroidery, and adorned
with diamond earrings, and a collar of pearls which had belonged to the Duchess
of Montaleone, and thus decked out she served the feast, and, when it was over,
attended to washing the dishes. As the representative of France, Guise thought
Luigi del Ferro should dine with them, but Gennaro assured him that was quite
absurd; Luigi was at the most only worthy to wait upon him, and this the ambassador
proceeded to do, serving the wine upon his knees.
The meal ended, the duke questioned the municipal authorities, and found the
170,000 men in arms dwindled to 4,000 foot-soldiers and 300 horse, with scanty
supplies of ammunition, and provisions in the city for only twelve or fourteen
days.
These revelations, that the reports brought him at Rome had been characterized by more than ordinary southern exuberance, were interrupted by a butcher, the captain of one of the quarters of the city, who bursting in the door and crying out that Gennaro was a traitor, proceeded to inflict vigorous blows upon him, with resounding threats that he would break his head. Gennaro threw himself on the floor, and embracing the butcher's knees, begged for life. His wife besought the duke for succor, and he succeeded at last in quieting the unruly patriot. lIardly was this incident over when cries and lamentations burst upon their ears. One Rousse, a famous bandit, had led a force against some nobles, and had been routed, and his men, running through the streets, wounded and frightened, threw the city into such a turmoil, that the whole town was ready to lay down its arms in dismay. Presently came more successful warriors, a gang Gennaro had sent out to sack some houses. They now returned bringing plate and costly furniture, which was placed with the great accumulation of such booty that Gennaro had stored away in the tower he occupied. Wearied with the day's vicissitudes, the duke was to find no rest by night.
There was danger, Gennaro insisted, that his enemies would come and cut his throat, unless Guise would sleep with him and protect him from peril. The duke protested against inconveniencing Madame Annese, but Gennaro assured him that she would sleep on a mattress before the fire, and he led Guise into a room where was a young slave, plainly suffering from small-pox. There were great amounts of plate, chests of sequins and of pearls, bracelets and chains, rich furniture and beautiful paintings, the results of systematic and successful plunder, piled in vast confusion. Reposing on a state bed, rich in brocade and gold, the unhappy duke was awakened twenty times during the night by Gennaro embracing him, and with tears in his eyes, adjuring him to protect his life from the malice of his enemies. 184
Amidst such difficulties and trials, Guise conducted himself with more judgment than might have been expected. He was installed as generalissimo of the armies of Naples and defender of its liberties. He swore upon the Holy Gospel that he would not lay down his arms until he had procured for the people repose and liberty, and he received from Cardinal Filo Marini the benediction of the sword which marked his dignity. Gennaro was continued in the chief civil authority. 185
The new generalissimo possessed the popular qualities of his family. He had a word for all; he held the babies at the font, chatted with the men at the market, and smiled at the ladies in the windows. He found himself preceded by a reputation for gallantry, and the French, as a nation, were ill-viewed by the jealous Italians. With unusual prudence, he strictly confined his devotions to smiles, and amid the many opportunities offered by the romantic and beautiful Neapolitans to their chivalrous protector, he preserved strict decorum and chastity. What was more important, he took vigorous steps to check the pillaging and robbing which alienated the better classes and enriched the outcasts of the city. By a reasonable activity, communications were kept open; provisions for some time remained plentiful and were sold at moderate prices. Not only was Guise liked by the people, but in him lay their hopes of French assistance, and he could exercise a vigorous and at times a severe supervision over unruly lieutenants. As he rode through the streets filled with decorations, the women threw flowers and burned perfumes before him, and the men shouted and gesticulated with the ardor of a southern population. He felt sufficiently sure of his position to leave the bed and board of Gennaro, to the regret of the latter, who already viewed with jealousy the power and popularity of the new favorite. The two authorities occasionally came into collision. Guise had issued strict orders against pillage, and one of his officers stopped a body of Gennaro's followers, who, under the pretext of searching for hidden arms, had been sent to gain some plunder. Gennaro retaliated by sending the officer to prison. Thereupon Guise called a conference with the captains of the quarters, and "treating them," he says, "with the contempt one ordinarily feels for that sort of people," he told them that having the command of the army, none but himself should interfere with or punish any of the soldiery. Gennaro replied with some impertinence. The generalissimo at once broke his baton and said that such a rabble did not deserve to be commanded by one of his rank, and he would leave them to suffer the loss of their property, the dishonor of their families, and the desolation of their city from the vengeance of the Spaniards. Terrified at such a threat, those present offered to throw Gennaro out of the window, to cut off his head, or to hang him up by one foot if that would allay the duke's discontent, while the wretched man, throwing himself at Guise's feet, kissing them a hundred times and bathing them with his tears, besought his pardon. 186
The duke resumed the baton and proceeded with an administration, frequently varied by similar incidents. Attempts were made to regain the nobility, with much persistence and little success. Their property was carefully protected, and they themselves treated, so far as the usages of war allowed, with distinguished courtesy. Guise contrived to meet some of their representatives and endeavored to win them to his support. He was looked upon by many of them with no unfriendly eyes, but his cause and his followers repelled them. " Our view," said one of them, "is that a republic is not fitted for us, and we will not hear it spoken of. We will never allow the people to share in authority with us. Our genius is so active and self-supporting, that we cannot suffer an equality of power. We are born for a monarchical state, and we cannot do without a king." 187
Some brief skirmishes during December resulted favorably to the city and increased Guise's reputation and popularity. He was fortunate enough to be hit in the face by a spent bullet, and to be injured sufficiently to show the marks for a few days. There was not a man or woman in the city who did not press to see the traces of the wound, pouring out benedictions on the valor and the skill of the illustrious defender, on whom depended their repose and their liberty.
On December 18th, the French fleet, bearing the assistance so much desired
and so long expected, came in sight. 188 It was under the nominal command of
the Duke of Richelieu, the heir to the title and to much of the wealth of Cardinal
Richelieu, but a youth little fitted to add to the lustre of a great name. Mazarin's
views of what was to be accomplished by this expedition were not clear to the
world, and perhaps not clear to himself. Richelieu seems to have had no more
definite instructions
than to offer the assistance of France to the Neapolitans, and to protect them
from the oppression of Spain. 189 He succeeded in accomplishing nothing at all,
even more than was usual with fleets furnished with inefficient officers and
despatched with uncertain orders. An excellent opportunity to attack and scatter
the Spanish was first neglected, but when the French fleet cast anchor before
Naples, peacefully if ingloriously, Guise naturally expected assistance from
it in men, money, and supplies. Unless with such a purpose, there seemed no
reason why twenty-six men-of-war should spend nearly a month in sailing from
Toulon to Naples, and there remain for over two weeks. But the only occupation
furnished the soldiers was to burn a few ships, and to gaze leisurely on Vesuvius
and the Bay of Naples. The truth was that Mazarin, even if desirous of crippling
the Spaniards, was very averse to assisting Guise. He believed that the duke
either desired to form a republic, of which he should be chief, or a monarchy,
of which he should be king, and neither plan was agreeable to the cardinal.
He distrusted his ability and his purposes, and he regarded his presence at
Naples as a detriment to the interests of France. 190 The French representative,
the Abbé of Basqui, waited upon the duke to confer as to the aid that
was to be given him. The abbé held out much that was attractive, but
like the viands placed before Sancho at Barataria, they were withdrawn as soon
as shown.
There were 500,000 francs, but they were in bills of exchange, and it was impossible to obtain the money on them at Naples in its present disorder. There were supplies of wheat, but they had not come. Vessels from Provence had been ordered to bring the grain, and would undoubtedly soon arrive. There were soldiers who would be furnished, and Guise asked for six thousand, four thousand, three thousand, two thousand, and at last had to be content with the promise of eighteen hundred. These men, and a little powder, were all that he obtained. It was understood at Paris, the French envoy said, that Gennaro was the chief officer of the republic, and with him, therefore, his arrangements must be made. Guise replied that he would promptly relieve him of that embarrassment. On the 20th, he rode through the city, haranguing great crowds at the places where they assembled in times of any excitement. The bell of St. Lawrence sounded and gathered together the leaders of the orders and the officers of the city, and by them Guise was promptly granted absolute power, both civil and military. He informed Gennaro that he might resign his authority at ten o'clock mass the next morning, or, if he did not, his head should be cut off, and his body hung to the gibbet in the centre of the market-place. 191
Gennaro chose the former alternative, which was accompanied by the promise of a dukedom, rich lands, and 50,000 crowns a year so soon as peace should be established. Still the promised succor was not furnished. Basqui suggested having Mazarin's brother, the Cardinal of St. Cecile, established as the protector of Naples. To this Guise replied that he himself had been sent for by the people, and that the Cardinal St. Cecile, as the protector of a republic, would only be a joke for Pasquin.192
He declined an invitation to visit the fleet and there consult with the French generals. It was not impossible that, with Guise once on the fleet, the French might have thought the best way to solve a knotty problem would be to keep him there and give their assistance to some other leader. 193 For whatever reason, he declined the invitation, and the French in turn declined by act, if not by word, to furnish the promised assistance. The fleet had now lain for fifteen days before the city, and nothing had been accomplished or attempted. Both water and supplies, it was claimed, were lacking for the men, and without further endeavor, the ships weighed anchor and sailed for Provence, leaving Guise and the Neapolitans to work out their own salvation or their own ruin. 194
If the duke had not gained a firm hold on that fickle people, this lamentable failure of the long-expected assistance from France would have driven him from power, and he would have been fortunate to have escaped being hung in the market-place. But though the great hopes that had accompanied his romantic undertaking were beginning to fade, he apparently remained in full favor. From France he could now expect nothing. Mazarin had plausible grounds for withholding his assistance. Guise sent no report of his affairs to Paris, but proceeded like an independent sovereign, advising no more with the Palais Royal than with the Vatican.
A communication which he did send was not of a nature to remove Mazarin's belief, that he was a shallow and feather-headed man. Mile. De Pons had watched with interest her lover endeavoring to free Naples from Spain. She carried herself as already Duchess of Guise, and soon, perhaps, to be the Queen of Naples and the Sicilies. Her extravagances were such, that the regent directed her to be confined in the Convent of the Daughters of the Holy Mary. When Guise received this news, he neglected watching the intrigues of Neapolitan fishermen and bandits long enough to send his remonstrances to the French Court. "If the passion I have always had," he wrote Mazarin, "for Mlle. De Pons, and which is now more strong and faithful than ever, were not known to your Eminence, you might be surprised that in the condition I am, I should write you thus. But it is the effect of despair, for I confess to you that neither ambition nor the desire to immortalize myself by extraordinary actions would embark me in this perilous enterprise, but the sole thought that by doing some glorious thing I could better merit the good graces of Mlle. De Pons, and after so many perils and pains, pass softly with her the rest of my days. While I hazard my life here, they maltreat and imprison the being I love. Remedy this, and you shall see that never man was so bound to you. Without this, neither fortune, nor greatness, nor life itself are important to me." 195
"Can a man who writes in this way," said Mazarin, sending this letter to Fontenay Mareuil, "be capable of conducting a great enterprise?"
The situation began to darken about the love-lorn adventurer. "The Duke of Guise," Mazarin wrote, "seeks only his own ends, which are based on confusion and disorder, and will some day end with his own ruin and great prejudice to this crown." 196 He was exposed to constant threats. Fear of them bred suspicion, and suspicion led to a series of bloody punishments. Gibbets were placed in different quarters of the town, and the market-places often witnessed the brutal scenes, in which the Neapolitan mob would tear to pieces the body of one who had been their leader a few days before. Fair order was, however, still preserved in the city, and the shop-keepers and trades-people had again resumed their avocations. 197 Courts were organized which administered fairer justice than had been usual at Naples, and the duke himself every Wednesday and Saturday sat in review of their decisions, modifying, affirming, or reversing them with a zeal that was always honest, and which, he tells us, was so marked by reason and justice that no one ever found aught to say against the judgments he pronounced. 198 But by the vigor and sometimes the cruelty with which Guise punished disorderly pillaging, he took the risk of offending that great body of the lazzaroni, which was the largest and most active element in the revolt. His desire to conciliate the nobility, a desire that caused the most scrupulous protection of their property, excited also a certain distrust among the people. 199 A Guise might legitimately have been willing to rely solely upon popular support, but fifty years had affected the sentiments of the Guises, as of all the French nobility. The distance between the nobles and the masses had increased. Caste feeling had grown stronger and more intolerant. Guise could not reconcile himself to having his rule depend upon the sellers of fish or the dealers in macaroni. To hold consultations with the proprietor of a coral-shop, and issue his orders to a tallow-chandler, was too unpleasant a tenure, even of a throne. He could conceive of no suitable government except one in which a nobleman should bear the sword of state, and a marquis of long descent should throw open the door for the morning levee. The nobility could not, however, be induced to return to the city, and the Gennaros and Andreas continued plotting for the overthrow of one from whom they received little favor.
Crowds from the lower quarters of the city poured into the burghs of the Virgin, where lived the black capes and bourgeois, and the influence of the generalissimo was needed to quell the occasional quarrels that arose between them. The Spaniards still held Castel Nuovo, the Castle of St. Elmo, and the strong positions about the city. In February, 1648, the duke resolved upon an endeavor to dislodge them. Paul of Naples furnished a large body of bandits, of which he was leader, to be used in connection with the soldiers of the city, but either from inefficiency or treachery, the assaults were unsuccessful. It was evident that Paul was guilty of insubordination or disloyalty, and Guise spread consternation among the outlaws by executing their leader on the following day. 200
It still seemed possible that he might succeed in establishing a government
independent of Spain, but on any day a revolution was likely to burst forth
and overthrow
him. The affairs of the Spanish were judiciously managed by the new commander,
Don Juan of Austria, and scarcity of food and a growing weariness of Guise assisted
him in obtaining adherents within the city of Naples. On April first, a black
circle above the moon seemed to overshadow the top of his palace, and the duke's
friends told him this was of evil augury and foreshadowed his imprisonment before
the month was passed. 201
"I suspected it," he admits, for he took deep counsel with a soothsayer, who was said to have prophesied for him the throne of Naples, "but I answered them that this black circle represented the crown of Naples, not now in its ordinary lustre and beauty."
On the next morning his astronomer, Cucurulle, the most famous astrologer of Italy, asked leave to retire, as the omens indicated a return of fortune to the Spaniards, while Guise's own horoscope showed great danger imminent, and Mars in the 12th house foretold his imprisonment. The astrologer received his passport and bade adieu. But Guise, notwithstanding the malignity of Mars and his own apprehensions of this sinister omen, having made his prayers to St. Gennaro, and kissed the miraculous vial of his blood, marched to Posillipo, and from there crossed to the island of Nisita. He was warned to return to Naples, but thinking all was safe, he proceeded to lay siege to the fort. But Gennaro, Andrea, and many others had made terms with the enemy, and were now prepared to betray the city. One Sebastian Landi, who commanded at the gate of Alba, had been bribed by them, and early on the morning of April 5th, the Spanish entered at that gate, and supported by an eager multitude crying: "Peace! Peace! Live Spain and die France," they captured the town almost without striking a blow.
A few hours later the news reached Guise at Nisita. His mind was always filled with some hero he would imitate, and he trod in the recorded steps of Scipio, Caesar, or Alexander as the occasion and his recollection suggested. He was now inclined to imitate the Prince of Orange at Nieuport, and kill the messenger of evil tidings lest his troops should be alarmed by them. 202 But so heroic a step was not taken; he soon found the soldiers in tears at the intelligence, and his forces melted away more rapidly than ice before the southern sun. Guise endeavored, with a handful of followers, to escape towards Capua, but they were captured by a detachment of Spaniards. Mazarin's prophecy was fulfilled, and the whole undertaking vanished in smoke almost within twenty-four hours. By the petition of powerful friends and by the avowal of France, Guise was saved from the public execution which some of his enemies demanded, but he was presently taken to Spain, and there was kept a prisoner during four years. 203
In the meantime Mazarin had been as anxious to take some part in the affairs of Naples, as he was apprehensive of the conduct and qualities of Guise. After the failure of the first expedition he at once prepared a second fleet. This was to proceed to Naples and assist the people in their revolt, and if there was no other alternative they would have rendered the aid to Guise which was so grudgingly bestowed. But before the fleet had set sail Mazarin's anticipations had been fulfilled, and the Duke of Guise had been overthrown. The cardinal felt little regret, and he believed that if some one could be found to assist them in Naples, the affairs of France would soon be in better condition than when Guise had the direction. 204 It was hoped that the discontents at Naples would soon cause another revolt, and that the French army would be hailed by the people as their deliverers from an odious tyranny.
But Mazarin was mistaken in his judgment of the revolutions at Naples. The only opportunity for an interference that might have wrenched that kingdom from Spain, was when Guise had become its leader. When Mazarin hesitated to assist the man he mistrusted and despised, he lost the only chance that fortune offered him. The new expedition was put under the leadership of Cardinal Grimaldi and of the Prince Thomas of Savoy, who had already proved his incapacity before Orbitello. It finally appeared before Naples in the summer of 1648, but the anticipations of a rising were bitterly disappointed.
The Neapolitans were discouraged by the result of the last insurrection; they
were well inclined to Don Juan, and they bore no love to the French. After asking
in vain for aid for almost a year, they did not now care to expose themselves
to the dangers of a movement against Spain, because a few French ships were
in the bay.
Receiving no popular aid, the expedition, after some ineffective endeavors,
was abandoned, and the fair hopes ended in a shameful retreat. "We have
entirely lost our fancy of interfering in the affairs of Naples," the secretary
of state wrote in the following spring, when the idea was again suggested. 205
The condition of popular feeling at Naples was so uncertain, its distance from
France was so great, and the Spanish influence was always so large, that any
attempt to use the popular discontents to wrest that city and Sicily from Spain
might have ended in failure, but a judicious observer said that if Richelieu
had been living the revolt would have had a different result. 206
Mazarin wrote in March, 1648, that the affairs of Naples were of such importance
that a favorable result would give the crown an enormous advantage and force
the Spaniards to a peace, while the contrary would show that France, from ill
management, had lost the fairest opportunity that would ever be presented. 207
His conduct must be judged by his own admission.
Footnotes
1. These figures are made from Mallet's Comptes Rendus, Mss. Godefroy; the table prepared by M. d'Avenel the partial statement in Testament Politique de Richelieu, and the statement found in Archives Curieuses, 2d series, t. vi. It is impossible to give accurate figures of the expenses and receipts of the government. There are no statements from which any industry can glean figures that are trustworthy, and it is impossible to reconcile the conflicting data which we have. The entire receipts in 1609 were over 30,000,000 livres, but 26,000,000 livres seems to be the amount collected by taxation.
2. Arch. Cur., 2d ser , t. vi.
3. Such was the statement made by President Le Coigneux in 1648, Journal d'Ormesson, L, and statistics tending to show this will be found later.
4. See Journal d' Ormesson, Choix des Mazarinades, Mém. de Talon, etc.
5. Arch. Cur., t. vi., 64, 65.
6. Testament politique, Forbonnais, "Recherches sur les Finances," i., 241, 242.
7. Grotii Epistolae, 738, 749, 1644, etc., refer frequently to the difficulties in getting money. Turenne writes his sister in July, 1644, to press the Court to send wages due the soldiers, of which there was absolute need.
8. Forbonnais, i., 246.
9. See his letters cited supra. Archives Cur. t. vi., 2d Series, 370, 374.
10. Lettres de Mazarin, i., 286. He says 27 boisseaux at 10 livres the boisseau. He writes again: "We are informed that the apportionment of impositions is made with great irregularity. Some are taxed too much and others too little. "-Let. i., 626.
11. An account of this is found in Mercure François. 1624, 473-8.
12. See Journal de Seguier. Arch. Cur., 2d. ser., t. vi. Floquet, "Histoire du Parlement de Normandie," t. iv. and v. Mercure, t. xxiii. Grotii Epis., 580, 585, 595, et passim. M. Floquet has discussed these matters with much learning and length
13. Let. de Richelieu, viii., 360; vii., 253.
14. See Gazette for 1643, 897, 908, 907. Dis. Ven., xcix., 303, 307, 370, et. Dis. Ven , xcix., 269, et pas.
15. Lettres de Mazarin, i., 549
16. See Carnets, iv., 29, 83
17. Lettres de Mazarin, i., 400. Carnets, i., 86.
18. Lettres de Mazarin, 413, 414.
19. Anciennes Lois Françaises, xviii., 63-65.
20. Grotii Epis. Ined. 165. Talon, 115. Ormesson, 192, 194. Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 6.
21. Talon, 142. Grotii Epis., 969; Ined., 126-148. Grotius puts the amount expected from the taxes on buildings at 4,000,000. Mole, iii., 104-107.
22. Talon, 125. Anc. Lois, xvii., 43-45. The edict says "Que l'acquisition leur tournera plut6t a grace qu' a charge."
23. Talon, 125. Mole, iii., 117-120. Ormesson, 213-214.
24. Lettres de Colbert, ii., 17. See his remarks on the financial disorders from 1630-1660, 19-29
25. Talon, 126.
26. Talon, 128. Grotii Epis., 729, 969.
27. Talon, 143. Ormesson, 270, 273. Mole, iii., 121-135. Grotii Epis., 747.
28. Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 154, 155. Let. de Guy Patin.
29. Carnets, vii., 9.
30. Carnets, i., 87 ; ii., 10, 15, 44, 54, et passim. "Se S. M. non vi prendi rimedio ii parlamento eli grandi havranno Iroppo d' autorita."
31. This curious idea, which has been little noticed by historians, is found in Carnets, iii., 8; iv., 86.
32. See v., 43, 95, etc.
33. Gazette, 801-805, only gives sixteen.
34. Talon, 155-159. Ormesson, i., 309-312.
35. Talon, 159.
36. Ormesson, i., 332, 333. Dis. Ven., ciii., 98.
37. Anc. Lois, xvii., 50.
38. Talon, 196.
39. Talon, 195-214 ; Mole, iii., 168, 175, 177, 178, 181-188 ; Journal d'Ormesson, t. i., 1646-1647.
40. Turenne, 370; Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 8, 9.
41. Gramont, 257.
42. Dis. Ven., ci., 208, 217.
43. Ormesson, i., 210. For battle of Freiburg and the rest of the campaign, see Turenne, 372-376, and Relation de la Moussaye, 97-168. Montglat, 149. Gramont, 256-258. See also Gazette for 1644, 661-672, 789-809. The Gazette speaks of the battle of Freiburg with no exultation and hardly claims a victory. Turenne, Moussaye, and Gramont all took part in the campaign.
44. Grotius, 731. Epis. Ined., 199, 200: "Ex Philip-friburgo dedito magnum ubique gaudium est." Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 58, et passim. Lenet, 499, 500.
45. Turenne, 380.
46. Frequent references in Grotius show the interest in the siege. Epis. 727, 728, 730. Ineditae, 148, 150, 157, etc. Let. de Mazarin, i., 657, 732, 747, 762. Gazette, 389, 605-628, et passim.
47. Montglat, 152. Grotius, Epis. Ined., 213.
48. Montglat, 153.
49. Grotius says he had alienated the inhabitants of Catalonia from the French by his avarice. Epis., 972. Ined., 142, 225, 226, et passim. Montglat, 153. Lettres de Mazarin, i., 738, 746.
50. Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 8, 108, et passim. Epis. Grot., 967, et passim. Corps Diplomatique, vi., 304-306.
51. Turenne. 386, 387. Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 165, et seq. Gazette, 1645, 419-430.
52. Turenne, 388.
53. Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 169-178.
54. Turenne, 392-396. Gramont, 262. Gramont was present at the battle and was taken prisoner. Gazette, 421, 455-486. Let. de Mazarin, ii., 210.
55. Motteville, 103.
56. Letter, Aug. 18, 1645, Instruction to Enghien, Let. de Mazarin, ii., 687.
57. Turenne, 399-401. Mazarin, ii., 261.
58. Mem. de Turenne, 407.
59. Mém. de Turenne, 404.
60. Corps Dip., vi., 371-386.
61. See Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 243, 392-400, 425, 871, et passirn. Mazarin to Avaux, Let. de Maz., ii., 870.
62. Turenne, 408-416. References to the government's financial straits are frequent in the despatches of the Venetian ambassador, t. ci., a, 44, 99, 80: "La strettezza del denaro raifredda del marchia delle militie."
63. Dumont, Corps Dip., vi., 293.
64. Montglat, 160, 161. Let. de Maz., ii., 200, 271, et passim. Gazette, 1645, 493, 603, et passim. Grot. Epis., 748. Gazette, 852.
65. Let. de Mazarin, ii., 239.
66. Montglat, 166-170.
67. In Mazarin's Carnets he states that he intended to keep the friendship of Orleans by means of favors to be given Rivière. Carnets 1 and 2.
68. Grot. Epis. Ined., 198. Carnets, 8, passim. Dis. Ven., civ., cv., passim.
69. Montglat, 169.
70. Dis. Ven., cv., 68.
71. Carnets, viii., 46.
72. Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 311, 317, 327, 328, et passim.
73. Sarrasin, "Siege de Dunkerque," 1649, 27, 31.
74. Sarrasin, 54. Dis. Ven., cv., 59: 'Hanno i grani cli sabbia piu importunato i soldati che le pelle de moschetti e cannoni de' nemici."
75. Lettres de Mazarin, ii, 330, et passim. Dis. Ven.. cv., 48.
76. Grotius wrote, in 1645, the French wish: "ut Galliae veterem restituant limitem." Epis., 742.
77. See ante. p. 175.
78. Negociations Secretes concernant le Traité de Westphalie, iii., 45, 46, et passim. In Mazarin's important despatches to the plenipotentiaries of Jan. 26, 1646 (Nég. Sec., iii., 21-25), these views are advanced in great detail, and the arguments by which he hoped they could induce Spain and Holland to consent.
79. Let. de Maz., ii., 299, 710, etc.
80. Nég. Sec., iii, 29.
81. Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 721.
82. Montglat, 177, 178
83. Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 299.
84. Let. de Mazarin, ii., 295.
85. Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 288, 293, 719-721.
86. Gramont, 271. Let. de Maz., ii., 323, 324. Nég. Sec., iii., 112. Despatch of Mazarin of March 8, 1646.
87. Let. de Maz., i., 621 ; ii., 31.
88. Archives de la Maison d'Orange, 2d ser., t. iv., p. 163, 183.
89. Gramont, 269:
90. Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 407. Traité de Westphalie par Bougeant, ii., 511. Montglat, 177, 178.
91. The correspondence about these propositions can be found from the despatches contained in the Neg. Sec., t. ii. and iii., and the letters of Mazarin. Though the French afterwards denied strenuously that they had entertained any such plans, they are as clearly shown from this correspondence as their desire for Alsace and Lorraine.
92. See Neg. Sec., ii., 2d part, 101, et passim.
93. Bougeant, iii., 136, 137.
94. Epis. Grotii, 718, 726, 975, et passim.
95. Dis. Ven., filza cvi., 121, 182, 190, 241. "Che gli redice tutto cio che a lei viene detto senza guardar nel suo cuore secreto."
96. Lettres de Mazarin, iii., 69-77. Neg. Sec., iv., 224, 233.
97. Bougeant, ii., 505
98. See Nég. Sec., t. ii., 2nd part, 178, 186, etc., and t. ii. and iii., despatches of 1645-6, passim.
99. Dumont, Corps Dip., vi., 380-385.
100. Let. de Maz., ii., 429-434.
101. Dis. Ven., cv., 202, Jan. 15, 1647.
102. Dis. Ven., 101., 141.
103. Let. de Maz., ii., 419, 452, 465, et passim, for 1647.
104. Montglat, 179.
105. Dumont, Corps Dip., vi., 429-435. Bougeant, iii., 349.
106. Let. de Maz., iii., 62, 63.
107. "What the barbarians have not done the Barberini have done."
108. Ranke : "History of the Popes," ii., 238-298.
109. Aff. Etr. Rome, t. lxxxi., cited in Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 249.
110. Aff. Etr. Rome, t. lxxxi., p. 437. Mazarin's desires are fully stated by the Venetian ambassador, with whom he consulted. Dis. Ven., t. ci., a., 165, 189, 225, t. ci., b., II, etc.
111. Let. de Mazarin, ii., 249, 250. Dis. Ven, ci., a., 226.
112. Nég. Sec., ii., 137.
113. Dis. Ven., ci., a., 208.
114. Fontenay Mareuil, 273. Fontenay was one of the representatives of France at Rome during the election, and so had every opportunity of being well informed, but this incident seems a little mythical.
115. Mercurio, 681.
116. It was charged against him also that he was promised 15,000 pistoles if he would withhold the veto, and that he was unable to refuse such a bribe. Dis. Ven., ci., b., 83.
117. Instructions given Gremonville, published in "Negociations d' Henri Arnauld." t. i., 28.
118. Much valuable information about this election is found in "Del Mercurio" of Siri for 1644, t. iv., 1st part, 560-765, and the correspondence and negotiations of the parties are there fully given.
119. Neg. Sec., ii., 156.
120. Grotius says that Cardinal Antonio threw the blame of the result on St. Chamond, saying that he did not use money as he was ordered. Epis., 734; Ined., 243.
121. Grot. Epis., 972. Dis. Ven., ci., b., 21, 22, 40, et passim.
122. Fontenay Mareuil, 275.
123. Let. de Maz, ii., 89.
124. Talon, 276.
125. Articles secrets pour M. de Gremonville, Negociations d'Arnauld, i., 125, 126. Giustiniani speaks of this abbey when it was given to Mazarin in 1642, and says it was worth 40,000 livres a year (Dis. Ven., xcviii., 354), but the war had so affected its rents, that once worth 60,000 a year, in 1644 it was worth but 30,000 (Dis. Ven., cii., 14).
126. See despatch of Gremonville, printed in Let. de Maz., ii., i6i. The Gazette of 1645, p. 91, says that Mazarin gave the abbey of Corbie, which belonged to him, to Cardinal Panfilio, in his zeal for the interests of the state.
127. Grotius, Epis., 749, says the French were greatly offended by this choice of cardinals. The Venetian ambassador says: " L'avviso ha incredibilmente atterrato ii signore cardinale" (cii., 9, 91, March 21, 1646).
128. See Let. de Maz., ii., 148, and despatch to Brienne there cited.
129. Dis. Ven., ciii., 168, et passim. The expedition to Piombino was planned in January, 1664. Ibid., 183.
130. Let. de Maz., ii., p 67.
131. See Gazette, 1646, 565, 566.
132. Let. de Maz., ii., 749.
133. Let. de Maz., ii, 738, 751, 765, 766, 774.
134. The terms of the treaty are printed in the Appendix to Journal d' Ormesson, t. ii., 710-713.
135. Let. de Maz., ii., Introduction, 37, 38.
136. Let. de Maz., ii., 751, Introduction, 33-40.
137. Let. de Maz., ii., 311.
138. Journal du Siege. Lettres, ii., 773.
139. A journal of this expedition is printed in Appendix to Journal d' Ormesson, ii., 720-741. Its history can also be traced in Mazarin's letters. See also Gazette, 1646, 380-433, et passim.
140. Journal d' Ormesson, 350-356. Ormesson says, Aug., 1646: "On croit que tost ou tard cette entreprise perdra le cardinal."
141. Negociations d'Arnauld, ii., 430, despatch of July 22, 1646. These despatches contain much that is curious. Mazarin had put in some letters the word "aimer," expressing his feeling to the Pope, and Innocent found in this some lack of proper veneration. ' Truly," Mazarin writes Arnauld, I should think his Holiness might be satisfied with the term 'love,' as that is all God requires of us, and with it He is well content" (iii., 152).
142. Mem. du Plessis, 382-386 ; Despatches of Mazarin, Brienne, and Arnauld, t. ii., iii., Négociations d'Henri Arnauld ; Let. de Maz., ii., 330, 337, et passim; Gazette, 957, 999, 1053, etc.
143. Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 465, 466.
144. Mém. de 1'Abbe Arnauld, ed. Michaud, 518. Arnauld was then connected with the French mission at Rome.
145. See instructions of Brienne to Fontenay, April 19, 1647, published by Loyseleur.
146. Fontenay Mareuil, 275, 276.
147. Dis. Venez., cii., 9, March, 1645.
148. Ormesson, 330.
149. Motteville, 91-96. Full accounts of the Polish embassy are given in the Gazette for 1645, 1001, 1016-1049; Dis. Ven., ciii., 98, et passim.
150. Let. de Mazarin, ii., 772
151. Ibid., 718. Aff. Etr. Suede, fo. viii., 372.
152. Mazarin, ii., 713.
153. Motteville, 96.
154. Fontenay Mareuil, 277.
155. Dis. Ven., cvi., 267.
156. Dis. Ven., cvi., 230.
157. Despatch of Fontenay to Brienne. Brienne says, despatch of October 18th: "J'ai eu grande joye de la nouvelle." See also despatch of Arnauld Oct. 7, 1647. Négociations, t. v., 278. Fontenay, 281. Let. de Maz., ii., 890. Mem. de Guise, ed. Michaud, xxxi., 19-24.
158. Dis. Ven., cvi., 315, 319, etc. Despatches of l3rienne to Fontenay, July i6 and Sept. 6, 1647
159. Fontenay Mareuil, 275-286.
160. Brierine to Font. Mar., October 25 and December 21, 1647.
161. Lettre d' un Religieux, Arch. Cur., 2d series, t. vii.
162. Lettres de Mazarin, iii., 88, 99.
163. Let. de Guy Patin-but Patin's statements as to the Mazarini must be received with some allowances.
164. See despatches of Brienne to Fontenay Mareuil from April, 1647, to April,
1648, published by Loyseleur and especially despatches of August 16th, 23d,
30th, September 28th, etc. Let. de Mazarin, ii., 905,921, et passim.
The idea of wresting Naples from Spain is suggested in the diplomatic correspondence
of Lionne, then embassador in Italy, with Mazarin in 1642 and 1643.
165. "Parthenope Liberata," 7, 8, 1647.
166. See also Lettres de Mazarin, iii., 75. "Perdre le royaume de Naples qui pourrait bien entrainer la perte de leurs estats d'Italie."
167. Lettres de Mazarin, ii., 529.
168. Ibid., ii., 530. This refers to the young Prince of Condé, who had lately succeeded to his father's title.
169. Mém. Mme. de Motteville, 64, 140, et passim.
170. For all this see chiefly Tallemant des Réaux, vol. vii., 111-121 ; also Mém de Motteville. Tallement is given to untrustworthy gossip, but no stories he could tell would be more scandalous than Guise's adventures.
171. Modène, ii., 275.
172. Mém. de Guise, 26.
173. Mem. de Guise, 25.
174. See letter of Mazarin to Guise of Oct. 7, 1647. Comte de Modêne, i., 112-114.
175. Such, I think, was the tenor of these instructions. M. Cheruel, with his usual learned criticism, has shown that a formal letter of authority to the Duke of Guise, dated October 5, 1647, was probably dated back and furnished him after his capture, in order that, as an accredited representative of France, he might be protected from the summary execution which the Spaniards could say was due a freebooter who assisted a revolting province without authority from any power engaged in regular warfare. But Mazarin's letter to Fontenay Mareuil, of October 7th, does not, I think, show that a formal refusal had been given Guise, and in a letter to his brother, written October 17th (Letters, ii., 961). Mazarin seems to have acknowledged that he had written Guise in about the terms that the latter claims (Mém. de Guise, 32). See also Let. de Mazarin, ii., 506 ; iii., 47. The letter of October 7th is very ambiguous, and could be construed any way, and subsequently Mazarin seems to have acknowledged that Guise had authority for his expedition from the representatives of France at Rome -- Let. de Mazarin, iii., 47, 122.
176. Let. de Mazarin, ii., 505 ; see also 485, 506-7, etc. Brienne to Fontaney Mareutl, Oct. 5, 1645.
177. Ibid., 526.
178. Let. de Mazarin, ii., Int., p. 50. In 1644, Mazarin's views about Guise are found in his Carnets: "He is frivolous and capable of throwing himself foolishly into every ill-advised or unfortunate affair. I distrust him, and he will not change his character."--Carnets, vi., 63.
179. Mém. de Guise, 32.
180. Mém. de Guise, 37.
181. Let. de Mazarin, ii., 556-7, and Despatch of Fontenay Mareuil cited in note. Mem. de Guise, 49-52. Modene, ii., 180 et seq.
182. I am not aware of any accurate figures of the population of Naples at this time. From such statistics as I have found I have estimated it at this number. Montglat, 191, states the population at 500,000, but if by this he means the city proper and not the entire district I think his estimate much too large.
183. See the situation fully described in "Histoire du Soulévement de Naples," du Comte de Modène, ii., 78-86.
184. Mem. de Guise, 53-56.
185. Guise, 60.
186. Guise, 73, 74.
187. Ibid., 91, 92.
188. Despatch of Fontenay Mareuil, published in Let. de Maz., ii. 558.
189. See instruction printed by Modène, i., 121, 133.
190. Let. de Maz., ii., 554-567, et passim; iii., 29, 41-45.
191. Guise, 99.
192. Dis. Ven., cvii., fo. 146. Guise, 103.
193. Mazarin suggested Guise's arrest later.--Letters iii., 59.
194. Guise, 94-109. Let. de Maz., iii, 24, 38, 39, et passim. Relation du Due de Richelieu, published by Modene, i., 133-167. Modene, ii., 254-314.
195. See this letter published by the Count of Modène, t. i., 169-171. Also pp. 9 and 10, Mem. de Guise, ed. Michaud. Also Let. de Maz., iii., 44, et passim. "Parano incredibili," Mazarin writes of Guise, "queste leggierezze a chi non conosce la natura di questo signore."
196. Let. de Maz., iii., 12, 13. See also 27, 32, 41, et passim.
197. Such is Guise's statement; but the Count of Modène, who was also a party in this affair, says food was scarce and dear, and from this cause trouble increased in the city.
198. Guise, 168.
199. Mazarin also thought it necessary to obtain the support of the nobility. --Lettres, iii., 990, 25.
200. Guise, 163.
201. Ibid., 186.
202. Guise, 194.
203. The authorities for this expedition are chiefly to be found in Mazarin's
letters for 1647 and 1648. Despatches of Brienne, Sec'y of State to Fontenay
Mareuil the ambassador at Rome, published by Loyseleur. Méinoires du
Duc de Guise, ed. Michaud, t. xxxi. "Histoire du Soulèvement de
Naples," par le Comte de Modéne, consisting of his own memoirs based
upon the active part he took in the expedition, and a valuable collection of
letters, and instructions, mostly of Mazarin to the various French representatives.
Much information about the affairs of Italy and some about this expedition is
found in "Negociations d' Henri Arnauld." These contain all of Arnauld's
despatches and many of Mazarin's and Brienne's letters, during the years Arnauld
was at Rome.
204. Let, of May 5th, to Plessis Besancon.
205. Brienne to Fontenay, September 4, 1648.
206. Moniglat. 192. The authorities for the last expedition against Naples
are chiefly the despatches of Brienne and Fontenay, published by Loyseleur,
343-376, and despatches of Mazarin, published by Modène, i., 172-237.
207. Let. de Maz., iii., 56. Letter to Cardinal Grimaldi: "Per mal governo se fosse lasciata uscir dalle mani la piu bella occasione che le potesse mai nascere." See also Ibid., 38, 39.
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