He then goes on to relate how on the evening of the 10th he accompanied the King to the apartments of Monsieur, from whom Louis had extracted a promise to be reconciled to the Cardinal.

Now, Bassompierre is generally regarded as a singularly reliable chronicler, but we must remember that his Mémoires were written, or rather arranged and revised, during his imprisonment in the Bastille, and that there was always a by no means remote possibility that they might be impounded and placed under the eyes of Louis XIII and Richelieu. It was therefore manifestly to his interest to make out as good a case for himself as he could, and to pose as the victim of unfounded suspicions. When he declares that on the evening of the 10th he had no suspicion of what had taken place at the Luxembourg, and that he was positive that the Princesse de Conti knew nothing about it, he is probably speaking the truth. For it was not until the following morning that Louis XIII signed the despatch appointing the Maréchal de Marillac to the command of the army of Italy, and until the King had taken what appeared to her a decisive step against Richelieu, the Queen-Mother may well have refrained from speaking of the matter to anyone, even to so close a friend and confidante as the Princesse de Conti. But when he asks us to believe that until the afternoon of the 11th, by which time the affair must have been already known to half the Court, and, by his own admission, was known to Monsieur’s favourite Puylaurens and to the Duc de Longueville, both he and his wife were still in ignorance, and that when the Cardinal said to him: “You will no longer take any account of a disgraced man like myself,” he really believed that he was referring to

his differences with Monsieur, we must entirely decline to do so.

On the morning of the 14th, the Spanish merchant Alphonso Lopez,[136] who was one of Richelieu’s secret agents, came to visit Bassompierre and “told him that he would do well to go to Versailles to see the King and the Cardinal.” The marshal, however, learning that the new Keeper of the Seals, Châteauneuf, with whom he was on very friendly terms, was coming to Paris that day to pay his respects to the two Queens, thought it advisable to defer his visit to the morrow, and, meanwhile, to go and offer his compliments to Châteauneuf on his appointment and ascertain from him what reception he was likely to receive.

On the 18th Bassompierre went to Saint-Germain, where the King “gave him the worst reception in the world.” He returned two days later, and was again received in the most frigid manner. He decided to remain there, in the hope that his Majesty might relent, and stayed for three weeks, during which the King never spoke to him, except to give him the password. The two Queens were also in a sort of semi-disgrace, for though Louis treated them with every courtesy, in public it was only on very rare occasions that he entered their private apartments. Beringhen and Jaquinot, two of the King’s first valets de chambre, who had been mixed up in secret intrigues against Richelieu, were banished the Court, but for the present no further steps were taken against the Cardinal’s more prominent enemies. On the other hand, Montmorency and Toiras were created marshals of France, in order to secure them; and, to keep Monsieur quiet, the Cardinal bought the good offices of his two favourites, Puylaurens and Le Coigneux, the former by the promise that he should be created a duke, and the latter by the charge of Président au mortier in the Parlement and the present of a large sum of money.

Meanwhile, efforts were made to persuade the Queen-Mother to be reconciled to the Cardinal, and Louis XIII sent Père Suffren and the Nuncio Bagni to Marie to offer never to oblige her to restore the relatives of Richelieu to their posts in her Household, provided she would consent to resume her place in the Council. This she refused to do, so long as the Cardinal sat there.

With the New Year intrigues began again. The Président Le Coigneux, under the impression that the new Keeper of the Seals, Châteauneuf, was working to ruin him, persuaded Monsieur to break with the Cardinal and quit the Court. On the morning of January 30, Gaston went to Richelieu’s hotel, informed the Cardinal, in a threatening tone, that he renounced his friendship, since he had failed in all the promises which he had made him; then, refusing to listen to any explanation, he added that he was retiring to his appanage and that, “if he were molested, he should defend himself very well.” And, the same day, he left Paris for Orléans.

On learning of the abrupt departure of Monsieur, Bassompierre went to the Cardinal for his orders, as the King was still at Saint-Germain, when Richelieu told him that he had sent in all haste to acquaint his Majesty with what had happened and to counsel his immediate return to Paris. Louis XIII arrived that same evening and alighted at the Cardinal’s hotel, where Bassompierre was awaiting him. To his surprise, the King greeted him most cordially, presented him with a wild boar which he had killed that day, and, after visiting the Cardinal, invited Bassompierre to enter his coach and accompany him to the Louvre.

On the way Louis informed the marshal that “he was going to scold the Queen his mother for having persuaded his brother to leave the Court.” Bassompierre answered that, if the Queen-Mother had done so, she would be much to blame, but he should be greatly surprised if she had counselled such a thing. To which the King rejoined that he was positive she had, “on account of the hatred which she entertained for the Cardinal.”

A few days later Louis XIII announced his intention of spending the Carnival at Compiègne, whither the two Queens decided to follow him, for Marie cherished the illusion that, with the aid of her daughter-in-law, she might yet succeed in undermining the power of the Cardinal, and she was determined not to repeat the fault she had committed on the Day of Dupes.

On February 16, the day before the Court set out for Compiègne, Bassompierre, who had been given permission to remain in Paris, went to take leave of their Majesties. The King received him very graciously and promised him a gratification to compensate him for the heavy expenses which he had incurred during his embassy to Switzerland. Afterwards the marshal went to visit the Princesse de Conti, who was to accompany the Court to Compiègne. Little did he imagine as he bade his wife farewell that they were never to meet again!

In the afternoon of Sunday, February 23, as Bassompierre, who had been dining with the Maréchal de Créquy, was on his way to the Place-Royale to visit his brother-in-law Saint-Luc, his coach had to pull up, owing to the road being blocked by a waggon on which was a sumptuous four-poster bed. He sent one of his servants to inquire to whom the bed belonged, and was told that it was the property of the Abbé de Foix, a meddlesome ecclesiastic, who had been concerned somewhat prominently in the recent intrigues against Richelieu, and that it was on its way to the Bastille, whither its owner had been conveyed a prisoner that morning. From the fact that Foix had been arrested Bassompierre inferred that the Cardinal had resumed the offensive against his enemies; and this surmise proved to be only too correct.

That evening, as Bassompierre was about to set out for the house of his friend Saint-Géran, to witness a play, which was to be followed by a ball, he received a message from d’Épernon begging him to come to him at once. On his arrival, the duke informed him that the King and Court had quitted Compiègne that morning for Senlis, leaving the Queen-Mother under arrest at the château; that the Princesse de Conti had been exiled to her brother’s estate at Eu, by a lettre de cachet; that Vautier, the Queen-Mother’s first physician, had been arrested and conveyed to Senlis, and, finally, that he had learned on good authority that it had been proposed to arrest Bassompierre, Créquy, and himself. He added that no resolution had as yet been taken against Créquy or himself, but it had been decided to arrest Bassompierre when the King returned to Paris on the Tuesday, and that he had sent for him to warn him of his danger.

Bassompierre asked d’Épernon what he advised him to do, and what he proposed to do himself. The old noble replied that, if he were only fifty years old—the age of the marshal—he would not remain in Paris a single hour, and would make for some place of safety, from which he would be afterwards able to make his peace; but that, since he was nearly eighty and had no desire to play the courtier any longer at his age, he should employ all the influence he possessed to disarm the resentment of the King and the Cardinal, at least so far as to obtain permission to retire to his government and spend the rest of his days there in peace. With Bassompierre, however, the case was different. He was still comparatively young, and could afford to wait until Fortune smiled again; and he therefore advised him to leave France at once and offered him the loan of 50,000 écus to enable him to live a couple of years abroad in a style befitting his rank, which he could repay him when his exile was at an end.

He concluded by declaring that, instead of taking to flight, it was his intention to go on the morrow to Senlis to present himself to the King, in order to justify himself, if he were accused, or to go to prison, if he were suspected, or even to die, if his ill fortune or the fury of his enemies went to that extremity.

When he had finished speaking, d’Épernon embraced him, with tears in his eyes, and said: “I know not what will happen to you, and I pray God with all my heart that it may be nothing but good; but I have never known a gentleman better born than you, nor who better deserved all good fortune. You have enjoyed it up to the present. May God preserve it for you! And, although I fear the resolution which you have taken, nevertheless, after having heard and considered your reasons, I approve of it and counsel you to follow it.”

The marshal and d’Épernon then proceeded to Saint-Géran’s house, where they found Créquy, whom the duke informed of the warning which had reached him and of what Bassompierre intended to do. Créquy expressed his approval of his resolution, and said that, for his part, he should do what he could to avert the storm, but that he should not run away from it. After the ball was over, they all three went to sup at Madame de Choisy’s house, where they were presently joined by the Duc de Chevreuse, who did not appear to be much affected by the exile of his sister, the Princesse de Conti, and was as gay as usual. As they were leaving, the Comte du Plessis-Praslin, who had been sent by the King to convey to Chevreuse an official notification of his sister’s disgrace, arrived, and informed the duke that the princess had been exiled, not from any hostility which his Majesty entertained towards the House of Guise, but “for the good of his service.”

On the following morning Bassompierre rose before daybreak, and, foreseeing that, if he were arrested his house would be searched, burned “more than six thousand love-letters” which he had received from various fair ladies during his long career of gallantry, “these being the only papers I possessed,” says he, “which might be able to injure anyone a little.” This task accomplished, he set out for Senlis, in company with the Cardinal de la Valette, the Comte de Soissons, the Duc de Bouillon and the Comte de Gramont. As they were on the point of starting, Soissons warned Bassompierre that he had positive information that it was intended to arrest him, and advised him to make his escape, which he offered to facilitate. The marshal thanked him, but declined, declaring that, “as he had nothing sinister on his conscience, he feared nothing,” and that he proposed to have the honour of accompanying Monsieur le Comte to Senlis.

The next morning the anticipated blow fell:

CHAPTER XLI

On the following day the Governor of the Bastille came to visit Bassompierre, and told the marshal that he was instructed by the King to inform him that “he had not caused him to be arrested for any fault which he had committed, and that he regarded him as his good servant, but from fear lest he might be induced to do wrong,” and that he should not remain long in confinement. This assurance, Bassompierre tells us, afforded him great consolation. Du Tremblay added that his Majesty had given orders that the marshal was to be allowed complete liberty, save that of leaving the fortress, and to take exercise in any part of the Bastille, while he was also to be permitted to have with him such of his servants as he might choose to attend him. Bassompierre, however, contented himself with sending for two lackeys and a cook, who were lodged in a room adjoining his own.

A day or two later Bassompierre sent to inquire of the King if his nephew, the Marquis de Bassompierre, eldest son of the marshal’s surviving brother, the Marquis de Removille, who was on a visit to France, might be permitted to visit him. His Majesty replied that, not only would he permit, but even wished, him to do so, and that he loved him, both for himself and on account of his uncle.

In the second week in March, Louis XIII quitted Paris and marched on Orléans, in order to compel Monsieur, who was threatening civil war, to return to his obedience. The Marquis de Bassompierre requested permission to accompany his Majesty, which was readily accorded, and his uncle furnished him with money to defray the expenses of this journey. On learning of the King’s approach, Gaston fled towards Burgundy, accompanied by the Duc de Roannez, the Comte de Moret, and some troops which he had raised. Bellegarde, Governor of Burgundy, declared in his favour, but made no attempt to raise the province in insurrection; and the prince proceeded to Franche-Comté and thence to Lorraine. The King followed his brother so far as Dijon, where he launched a Declaration against his companions (March 30), and then retraced his steps. The fact that Monsieur had again retired to Lorraine had incensed him against Charles IV and all his subjects, and he sent to inform the Marquis de Bassompierre that “it was not agreeable that he should follow him or even remain in France.”

When, towards the end of April, Louis XIII returned to Paris, the marshal solicited his liberty; but his request was refused. Soon afterwards he fell ill “from a very dangerous swelling of the stomach, arising perhaps from his not having taken the air,” for, for some reason which he does not tell us, he had not left his room since he entered the Bastille two months before. So ill did he become that he thought he was dying, but having been persuaded to take daily exercise on the terrace, his health soon began to improve.

About the same time, a loss more bitter even than that of his liberty befell Bassompierre. The Princesse de Conti, to whom he was secretly married and was undoubtedly most tenderly attached, died at the Château of Eu on the last day of April, a victim, according to her contemporaries, to the grief which the misfortunes which had overwhelmed those whom she held dear had occasioned her. For, not only had the Queen-Mother been disgraced and her husband sent to the Bastille, but her eldest brother, the Duc de Guise, had deemed it prudent to go into voluntary exile in Italy, to escape a worse fate.

Very discreet in general concerning the names of the ladies with whom he had successes—“Bassompierre fait l’amour sans dire mot,” writes a Court poet of the time—the marshal preserves about his relations with the princess a scrupulous reserve, and his restrained emotion when he announces her death is the only indication of his sentiments for her which are to be found in his Mémoires:

Assured of the firm support of the King, Richelieu continued to carry matters with a high hand. The Parlement of Paris refused to register the Royal Declaration of March 30, which, without inculpating Monsieur, stigmatised the accomplices of his flight as guilty of lèse-majesté. On May 13 the magistrates were summoned in a body to the Louvre, where Louis XIII curtly reminded them that their duty was to render justice to his subjects, and not to concern themselves with affairs of State. And, to give point to this rebuke, several presidents and counsellors were banished from Paris.

The excitement which the dissensions in the Royal family had aroused, and the fact that public opinion was distinctly hostile to the Cardinal, rendered it essential to remove the Queen-Mother so far as possible from the Court and Paris. Louis XIII requested her to retire to Moulins, with the government of the Bourbonnais, as a kind of honourable exile. She consented, but quickly altered her mind, pretending that her son had fixed upon Moulins in order to send her from there to Florence. Then the King offered her Angers as a residence. To this also she objected, but agreed to go to Nevers for a time. When, however, she learned that Monsieur had quitted France, she declined to budge from Compiègne.

Early in July, the King, finding that neither his entreaties nor his orders had any effect upon his mother, sent her a kind of ultimatum. Instead of obeying, Marie resolved to retire to a frontier town and from there dictate her conditions. One of her adherents, Vardes, who commanded at La Capelle, in the name of his father, offered to deliver the place to her; but the King, warned of his intention, sent the old Marquis de Vardes in hot haste to La Capelle, who won over the garrison and expelled his son and the Queen-Mother’s friends from the town. When Marie, who had escaped from Compiègne on July 18, approached La Capelle, she was met by the younger Vardes, who informed her of the failure of their plans, which left her no alternative but to cross the Flemish frontier and seek an asylum with the Spaniards at Brussels.

At the beginning of 1632 some hope of his regaining his liberty was held out to Bassompierre. “But,” says he, “I believe that this was done rather to redouble my sufferings by deceiving my hopes than to alleviate my misfortunes.” Anyway, he remained a prisoner, and soon afterwards another sorrow befell him in the death of his brother, the Marquis de Removille, from an illness caused by the hardships he had undergone while serving in the Imperial army during the preceding year.

Early in May Bassompierre learned of the tragic fate of his fellow-marshal, Louis de Marillac, who, after having been kept a prisoner at Sainte-Menehould for several months, was brought to trial before a special commission sitting at Richelieu’s own château of Rueil, on charges of malversation committed while in command of the Army of Champagne, found guilty, condemned to death and executed in the Place de Grève two days later.

A still more striking example of the danger of crossing the path of the terrible Cardinal—for no one doubted that had not Louis de Marillac been so ill-advised as to desert Richelieu’s cause for that of the Queen-Mother, little or nothing would have been heard of his weakness for enriching himself at the expense of the State—was afforded in the following autumn.

In September Monsieur and his friends, counting on Austro-Spanish aid, which, however, failed them completely, attempted an invasion of France. The Duc de Montmorency, Governor of Languedoc, irritated by the growing power of Richelieu and his determination to reduce great nobles like himself to political impotence, took up arms in Gaston’s cause. Defeated and made prisoner by Schomberg at Castelnaudary, he was brought to trial for high treason before the Parlement of Toulouse. Extraordinary efforts were made to save him, but all to no purpose, and on October 29, 1632, the head of “the noblest, wealthiest, handsomest and most pious gentleman in the kingdom” rolled on the scaffold.[140]

Richelieu took advantage of Montmorency’s revolt to remove all hostile or suspected governors of provinces and replace them by his own friends. He himself had already obtained the government of Brittany and been created duke and peer. He was triumphing everywhere, at home and abroad.

At the beginning of the following year Bassompierre had again great hopes of recovering his liberty. Schomberg sent him word that, on the return of the King from the South, he would be released, and he learned that both Louis XIII and the Cardinal had said as much to several persons. However, he was again doomed to disappointment, the fact that Monsieur, after making his submission, had quitted France again, this time for Flanders, being the pretext for his continued detention.

On February 25—the same day on which two years before Bassompierre had been sent to the Bastille—Châteauneuf, the Keeper of the Seals, who had foolishly allowed himself to be drawn by Madame de Chevreuse, with whom he was madly in love, into a fresh conspiracy against Richelieu, was arrested at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and conducted to the Château of Angoulême, where he remained in close confinement until the Cardinal’s death, ten years later. At the same time, the gates of the Bastille opened to admit his nephew, the Marquis de Leuville, and several other persons who had been concerned in the affair, including Bassompierre’s old friend, the Chevalier de Jars.

The Cardinal attached great importance to the arrest of Jars, as he believed that he might be induced to reveal the part which Anne of Austria had played in the conspiracy. But the chevalier, if a somewhat feather-brained, was a brave and honourable, man, and, though he was kept in close confinement for nearly a year and subjected to repeated examinations by his Eminence’s myrmidons, he steadfastly refused to make the least admission that might incriminate the Queen or any of her friends. Finally, he was transferred to Troyes, and then brought to trial for high treason before a special commission, at the head of which was the notorious Laffemas, who was known as “the Cardinal’s executioner,” and made it his boast that he could condemn any man, if he had but two lines of his writing. Laffemas bullied and browbeat the prisoner and “did all the mean things that the base soul is capable of suggesting,”[141] but to no purpose, for he could wring nothing from him. Accordingly, the judges proceeded to pass sentence of death on Jars, who was in due course conducted to the scaffold, “where he made his appearance with a demeanour full of courage, smiling at his enemies and prepared to meet death without flinching.”[142] But it was only a grim farce after all, for Richelieu had nothing to gain by the removal of such small fry as the chevalier, and the only object of the trial had been to intimidate him into betraying his accomplices. And so, at the moment when the condemned man was about to lay his head on the block, Laffemas interrupted the proceedings by producing an order from the King which remitted the capital sentence and directed that the chevalier should be conducted back to the Bastille.

At the beginning of 1634 Bassompierre received a promise that his salary as Colonel-General of the Swiss, which had been suspended the previous year, should be paid, but this promise was not kept. In the following September, however, he learned that the King had given orders that he was to receive it, but, pressed by his creditors, who since his imprisonment had given him no rest, and believing that, if he ceased to command the Swiss, one of the chief reasons for his continued detention would be removed, he begged Richelieu, through the governor of the Bastille, to obtain the King’s permission to sell his post. This was granted, and he also obtained permission to offer it to the Marquis de Rochefort, a friend of Du Tremblay. Rochefort, however, would give no more than 400,000 livres, and the marshal, who while at liberty had refused double that sum, declined to sell at this price. Thereupon Rochefort endeavoured to persuade Richelieu to compel Bassompierre to accept his offer; but though the Cardinal would not do this, the order for the payment of the marshal’s salary was cancelled, and “he continued his miserable imprisonment in the Bastille with great inconvenience in his domestic affairs.”

Towards the middle of December, Du Tremblay came to visit the marshal and told him that he was commissioned to make him an offer for his post, which, if he accepted, his liberty was assured. The persons who had empowered him to do this, whose names he was not at liberty to mention at present, would not go beyond 400,000 livres, but they were people of great influence at Court, who could powerfully assist him in obtaining his release. Bassompierre consented, on condition that the arrears of his salary were paid, and Du Tremblay promised that his brother Père Joseph should go to Rueil and speak to the Cardinal about this. A day or two later Du Tremblay informed him that Père Joseph and the two Bouthilliers had undertaken to arrange the matter with Richelieu, and that he thought that he would leave the Bastille before Christmas. And he gave him to understand that the influential persons for whom he was acting were the Baron de Pontchâteau and his son, the Marquis de Coislin, who was married to a daughter of Pierre Séguier, Châteauneuf’s successor in the post of Keeper of the Seals.

At the end of the year Louis XIII gave his consent to the Marquis de Coislin succeeding Bassompierre in the command of the Swiss.

Epiphany came and went, and Bassompierre still remained in the Bastille, the population of which was about this time increased by the arrival of several persons who were suspected of being concerned with Puylaurens and Du Fargis, formerly French Ambassador at Madrid, in treasonable relations with Spain. These two were imprisoned at Vincennes, where Puylaurens died some months later.

On February 16 Bassompierre received a visit from the younger Bouthillier.

The 400,000 livres was duly paid, the money being brought to the Bastille, by Lopez and Séguier’s intendant Pepin, in instalments of 40,000 to 50,000 livres at a time, the whole transaction occupying several days, as Bassompierre had insisted on being paid in livres instead of in pistoles, and the money had, of course, to be counted and weighed in his presence. Finally, the business was ended, and on March 8 he gave his receipt for the sum and the resignation of his post to his successor’s agents.

A few days later the younger Bouthillier again came to see Bassompierre, and informed him that the Cardinal had spoken to the King of his liberation, that his Majesty had granted it, and that he was to leave the Bastille almost immediately.

Several weeks, however, passed without Bassompierre hearing any further news of his liberation; and it was not until the last day of April that the Governor of the Bastille received a letter from Père Joseph, requesting him to assure the marshal that he would receive his liberty on the return to Paris of the younger Bouthillier, who was to bring him the order for his release. (The Court, it should be mentioned, was then at Compiègne.) Bouthillier arrived on May 5, but, as the marshal heard nothing from him, he sent his niece, Madame de Beuvron, to see him, when the Minister told her that he had actually had the order for her uncle’s release in his hands, but that, owing to the intelligence that had arrived that Monsieur had gone to Brittany, possibly with the intention of embarking for England, it had been decided that the marshal could not be set at liberty so soon, and the order had been cancelled. A few days later it was ascertained that Monsieur had gone to Brittany merely to visit some friends of his, and that he was staying with the Duc de Retz at Machecoul, and had not the least intention of leaving the kingdom. However, this did not hasten Bassompierre’s release, and it began to dawn upon the poor marshal that there never had been any immediate intention of giving him his freedom, and that the assurances which he had received were merely a bait to induce him to sell his post of Colonel-General of the Swiss for about half its value.

Towards the end of May, Du Bois, Bassompierre’s maître-d’hôtel, who was also commissary of the French and Swiss Guards, happened to go on some business to Château-Thiery, where the Court then was. Louis XIII, recognising Du Bois, for he had seen him frequently when he had been the marshal’s guest, told him to come to his lodging and inquired when he was returning to Paris. Du Bois replied that he intended to do so on the following day. “Stay over Sunday,” said the King—it was a Friday—“and I will give you an order for the release of the Marshal de Bassompierre, which I will have made ready on Monday, after I have spoken to the Cardinal.” Du Bois, greatly delighted, for he was much attached to Bassompierre, readily promised to remain, and lost no time in sending off a courier to bear the joyful tidings to the Bastille.

On the Monday, the elder Bouthillier went to visit the Cardinal, who was staying at Condé, and, before starting, told Du Bois that, on his return, he would give him the order of release, and that he could make arrangements to leave for Paris the following morning. But when, on the Minister’s return, Du Bois went to receive the despatch, Bouthillier informed him that his Eminence had been so much occupied with important affairs that day that Bouthillier had hardly been able to mention the matter to him. However, he was coming to Château-Thiery on Wednesday to see the King, when no doubt the order of release would be made out.

The Cardinal did not arrive until Friday, and when, after he had concluded his business with the King and returned to Condé, Du Bois went to Bouthillier, fully expecting to find the precious document awaiting him, he was told that so many pressing affairs had had to be discussed that there had been no time to deal with that of his master’s liberty, but that the marshal might be assured that it would be decided on the earliest possible opportunity. And he suggested that, if Du Bois wished, he should go to Paris and return a few days later, when very probably the order of release would be ready for him.