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RICHELIEU,

A TALE OF FRANCE.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY,

Dorset Street, Fleet Street.

RICHELIEU,

A TALE OF FRANCE.

I advise you that you read The Cardinal's malice and his potency Together: to consider further, that What his high hatred would effect, wants not A minister in his power. SHAKSPEARE.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

LONDON:

HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.

DEDICATION.

MY DEAR SIR,

YOUR name is too great a one to be trifled with, and therefore, I do not put it at the head of this page. Should your anticipations in favour of this work be realized, and its success be equal to my utmost hopes, I dedicate it to you in testimony both of my gratitude for your kindness, and my admiration for your genius; but should the hand of criticism cut it short hereafter, or the frost of neglect wither it in the bud, I take a humbler tone, and beg you only to accept my thanks for your good wishes and kind encouragement. If it should succeed, you will, I am sure, receive the work with some pleasure on my account;--if it fail, you will still accept it as the only means I have of expressing my feeling of obligation towards you; and, at all events, you will understand my motive for not prefixing your name to the Dedication of a book, the fate of which is yet doubtful.

PREFACE

DEARLY BELOVED READER,

In such projects, but still more in her obstinate partiality for the celebrated Marechal d'Ancre and his wife, originated a thousand factions and civil wars, which kept the country in a continual state of tumult during the King's minority. These factions, and the circumstances which they engendered, necessarily gave rise to various rapid changes in the Queen's ministry, and amidst these, for the first time, appeared on the political stage Richelieu, then Bishop of Lu?on. His prospects yet doubtful, and his ambition still in its infancy, Richelieu made mildness and courtesy his first steps towards pre-eminence. He contented himself with an inferior station in the Council: his urbanity and his talents proved equally agreeable and useful; and no one beheld in the calm and polished Bishop of Lu?on, any promise of the aspiring and remorseless Cardinal de Richelieu.

A circumstance, however, occurred almost in the outset of his career, which had nearly thrown him for ever from the destined scene of his aggrandizement. This was the fall of the Marechal d'Ancre, and the arrest of the Queen-mother.

The Queen's party, however, was still strong in France; and in her misfortunes, the factious and discontented, who had formerly opposed her measures merely because she held the reins of government, now supported her against the hand to which those reins had been transferred. A civil war seemed inevitable, and in order to avert such an event, the King's advisers found themselves obliged to negociate with the Princess, whom they had dispossessed; but Mary rejected all intercession, and it was not till the return of Richelieu that any compromise could be effected. That minister, however, with the deep diplomatic skill for which he was conspicuous, instantly availed himself of the weak point in the character of his mistress, and through the medium of her confessor, won her to his purpose. A reconciliation was now speedily effected between Mary and her son, and Richelieu having become the friend of the one and the confident of the other, saw himself placed more surely than ever in the road to political eminence. Many circumstances combined to accelerate his progress. The death of the Duke de Luynes, the religious wars still raging in the heart of the kingdom, and the renewed differences between the King and his mother,--all gave the rising minister the means of increasing his power, and the opportunity of displaying the vast energies of his extraordinary mind. All was subdued before him; the Queen-mother was exiled; the Protestants were crushed; and the King himself became the slave of Richelieu.

But power so acquired was only to be maintained at the expense of much blood. Conspiracy after conspiracy was formed to cast off his dominion, and more than one insurrection burst forth in opposition to his tyranny; but each in turn was overthrown, and the blood of the conspirators only served to cement the fabric of his greatness. Usurped power must still have some object for suspicion, and after having quelled all his more powerful adversaries, the jealousy of Richelieu turned towards the young Queen, persecuting her with such uncalled for virulence as to induce many to believe that his hatred proceeded from some more private and personal cause than was apparent.

In the mean time, Louis himself, seldom called upon, except as a state puppet, to sign some ordonnance, or hold some council under the direction of Richelieu, lingered on in inactivity, yielding one privilege after another to the grasping ambition of his minister, without the dignity of royalty or the peace of private life. It is true that, on more than one occasion, he was roused by circumstances to put forth the native energies of his mind, but this was most frequently on some trifling occurrence. And though the momentary flashes of a vigorous intellect would show that nature had been originally bountiful to him, yet he never evinced any steady determination of purpose. Richelieu spared no pains to secure the power he had acquired; and that he might leave the King no means of extricating himself, plunged the kingdom in wars and negociations which he well knew that none but himself could conduct with success. But here indeed his genius showed itself resplendent. The government of a world seemed in his hands, and yet he managed the complicated machine steadily and firmly, with a clear, discerning eye, and a calm, unshrinking heart. Nevertheless, whether it was that the multitude of his other avocations diverted his attention from the minor regulations of the kingdom, or whether, as some believe, he encouraged a disorganized state of the interior for political purposes, it must be acknowledged that all contemporary accounts represent the internal police of France during his administration, as in a strangely deranged condition--a condition little to have been expected from the vigour of his government, and the severe exactitude of his disposition.

But so it was. The partizans of the various factions which had long been embodied as armies, were fain, after his measures had dispersed them as considerable bodies, to take refuge in the less cultivated parts of the country--the mountains, the forests, or the wastes; and as they had before lived by anarchy, they now contrived to subsist by plunder. The nobles being called from their strong holds to expensive cities, and compelled by Richelieu's jealousy to show themselves continually at his luxurious Court, could no longer maintain the host of retainers which had formerly revelled at their expense, and these also were obliged to join themselves to the various bands of freebooters that infested the country. Occasionally a merciless execution of some of these banditti awed the rest for a time, but upon examining history, even to the end of Richelieu's life, we find that while he governed the nobles with a rod of iron, saw every attempt at conspiracy with a prophet's foresight, and repressed it with a giant's strength, he overlooked or forgave those crimes which did not affect his political situation.

Such was the state of France at the opening of the following history: and now having attempted to prepare my reader's mind for what is to follow, I have only farther to refer him to the notes at the end of the third volume, in confirmation of my assertion, that this tale is entirely true. The manuscript from which it is rendered in its present form, possessed that air of fact which from the first left very little doubt on my mind that the narrative was authentic; but not content with this, I examined the best authorities, and had the pleasure of finding that every material circumstance was perfectly unquestionable, and from the acquaintance of the original writer with all the most minute points, I cannot now divest myself of the idea that he must have been, in some degree, an actor in what he narrates.

Be that as it may, I feel sure that whoever peruses it to the end will be perfectly convinced of its truth; and in the hope that many will do so, I leave them to commence their journey, wishing them all a safe and happy arrival at its conclusion.

ERRATA.

RICHELIEU.

Which shows what a French forest was in the year of our Lord 1642, and by whom it was inhabited.

The vast Sylva Lida, which in the days of Charlemagne stretched far along the banks of the Seine, and formed a woody screen round the infant city of Paris, has now dwindled to a few thousand acres in the neighbourhood of St. Germain en Laye. Not so in the time of Louis the Thirteenth. It was then one of the most magnificent forests of France, and extending as far as the town of Mantes, took indifferently the name of the Wood of Mantes, or the Forest of Laye. That portion to the North of St. Germain has been long cut down: yet there were persons living, not many years since, who remembered some of the old trees still standing, bare, desolate, and alone, like parents who had seen the children of their hopes die around them in their prime.

Although much improvement in all the arts of life, and much increase of population had taken place during the latter years of Henry the Fourth, and under the regency of Mary de Medicis; yet at the time of their son Louis the Thirteenth, the country was still but thinly peopled, and far different from the gay, thronged land, that it appears to-day. For besides that it was in earlier days, there had been many a bitter and a heavy war, not only of France against her enemies, but of France against her children. Religious and political differences had caused disunion between man and man, had banished mutual confidence and social intercourse, and raised up those feuds and hatreds, which destroy domestic peace, and retard public improvement. Amidst general distrust and civil wars, industry had received no encouragement; and where stand at present many a full hamlet and busy village, where the vineyard yields its abundance, and the peasant gathers in peace the bounty of Nature, were then the green copses of the forest, the haunt of the wild boar and the deer. The savage tenants of the wood, however, did not enjoy its shelter undisturbed; for, in those days of suspicion, hunting was a safer sport than conversation, and the boughs of the oak a more secure covering than the gilded ceilings of the saloon.

It was at that season of the year, when the first leaves of summer begin to leave the branches from which they sprang, like the bright and tender hopes of early years, that fade and fall before the autumn of life has fully commenced. The sun had abated but little of his force, and the days scarcely seemed to have contracted their span.

"Le bon roy Dagobert Mettoit ses culottes ? renvers. Le bon St. Eloi Lui dit, Oh mon Roy! Que votre Majest? Est bien mal culott?. Eh bien, dit ce bon Roy, Je consens qu'on les m?te ? l'endroit."

Philip, as woodman, had heard it echoed and re-echoed through the forest from his very infancy; and now, without even knowing that he did so, he sang it as a matter of habit, although his mind was occupied upon another subject: as men are always naturally inclined to employ their corporeal faculties on some indifferent object, when their mental ones are intensely engaged in things of deeper interest.

As he approached his dwelling, he suddenly stopped, broke off his song, and turning round, listened for a moment attentively; but the only noise to be heard was the discordant cry of the jay in the trees round about; and the only living things visible were a few wild birds overhead, slowly winging their flight from the distant fields and vineyards towards their forest home.

Philip proceeded, but he sang no more; and opening the cottage door, he spoke without entering. "Charles," demanded he, "has the young gentleman returned, who passed by this morning to hunt?"

"No, father," answered the boy coming forward; "nobody has passed since you went--I am sure no one has, for I sat on the old tree all the morning, carving you a sun-dial out of the willow branch you brought home yesterday;" and he drew forth one of those ingenious little machines, by means of which the French shepherds tell the time.

"Thou art a good boy," said his father, laying his hand on his head, "thou art a good boy." But still, as the Woodman spoke, his mind seemed occupied by some anxiety, for again he looked up the road and listened. "There are strange faces in the forest," said Philip, not exactly soliloquizing, for his son was present, but certainly speaking more to himself than to the boy. "There are strange faces in the forest, and I fear me some ill deed is to be done. But here they come, thank God!--No! what is this?"

As he spoke, there appeared, just where the road turned into the wood, a sort of procession, which would have puzzled any one of later days, more than it did the Woodman. It consisted of four men on horseback, and four on foot, escorting a vehicle, the most elegant and tasteful that the age produced. The people of that day had doubtless very enlarged notions, and certainly the carriage I speak of would have contained any three of modern construction

Indeed the one in question was more like a state carriage than any other; broad at the top, low in the axle, all covered over with painting and gilding, with long wooden shafts for the horses, and green taffeta curtains to the windows: and in this guise it came on, swaying and swaggering about over the ruts in the road, not unlike the bloated Dutch pug of some over-indulgent dame, waddling slowly on, with its legs far apart, and its belly almost trailing on the ground.

"I wish, Pauline, that you would get over that bad habit of softening all your syllables," said an old lady who sat beside her in the carriage. "Your French is scarcely comprehensible."

"Now help, for the love of God!" cried the Woodman, snatching forth his axe, and turning to the horsemen who accompanied the carriage; "murder is doing in the forest. Help, for the love of God!"

But as he spoke, the trampling of a horse's feet was heard, and in a moment after, a stout black charger came down the road like lightning; the dust springing up under his feet, and the foam dropping from his bit.

Half falling from the saddle, half supported by the reins, appeared the form of a gallant young Cavalier; his naked sword still clasped in his hand, but now fallen powerless and dragging by the side of the horse; his head uncovered and thrown back, as if consciousness had almost left him, and the blood flowing from a deep wound in his forehead, and dripping amongst the thick curls of his dark brown hair.

The charger rushed furiously on; but the Woodman caught the bridle as he passed, and with some difficulty reined him in; while one of the footmen lifted the young gentleman to the ground, and placed him at the foot of a tree.

The two ladies had not beheld this scene unconcerned; and were descending from the carriage, when four or five servants in hunting livery were seen issuing from the wood at the turn of the road, contending with a very superior party of horsemen, whose rusty equipments and wild anomalous sort of apparel, bespoke them free of the forest by not the most honourable franchise.

"Ride on, ride on!" cried the young lady to those who had come with her: "Ride on and help them;" and she herself advanced to give aid to the wounded Cavalier, whose eyes seemed now closed for ever.

He was as handsome a youth as one might look upon: one of those forms which we are fond to bestow upon the knights and heroes that we read of in our early days, when unchecked fancy is always ready to give her bright conceptions "a local habitation and a name." The young lady, whose heart had never been taught to regulate its beatings by the frigid rules of society, or the sharp scourge of disappointment, now took the wounded man's head upon her knee, and gazed for an instant upon his countenance, the deadly paleness of which appeared still more ghastly from the red streams that trickled over it from the wound in his forehead. She then attempted to staunch the blood, but the trembling of her hands defeated her purpose, and rendered her assistance of but little avail.

The elder lady had hitherto been giving her directions to the footmen, who remained with the carriage, while those on horseback rode on towards the fray. "Stand to your arms, Michel!" cried she. "You take heed to the coach. You three, draw up across the road, each with his arquebuse ready to fire. Let none but the true men pass.--Fie! Pauline; I thought you had a firmer heart." She continued, approaching the young lady, "Give me the handkerchief.--That is a bad cut in his head, truly; but here is a worse stab in his side." And she proceeded to unloose the gold loops of his hunting-coat, that she might reach the wound. But that action seemed to recall, in a degree, the senses of the wounded Cavalier.

"Never! never!" he exclaimed, clasping his hand upon his side, and thrusting her fingers away from him, with no very ceremonious courtesy,--"never, while I have life."

"I wish to do you no harm, young Sir, but good," replied the old lady;--"I seek but to stop the bleeding of your side, which is draining your heart dry."

The wounded man looked faintly round, his senses still bewildered, either by weakness from loss of blood, or from the stunning effects of the blow on his forehead. He seemed, however, to have caught and comprehended some of the words which the old lady addressed to him, and answered them by a slight inclination of the head, but still kept his hand upon the breast of his coat, as if he had some cause for wishing it not to be opened.

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