Volume 2 — CHAPTER XLII

Death of Richelieu—Bassompierre is offered his liberty on condition that he shall retire to his brother-in-law Saint-Luc’s Château of Tillières—He at first refuses to leave the Bastille, unless he is permitted to return to Court—His friends persuade him to alter his decision—He is authorised to reappear at Court—His answer to the King’s question concerning his age—He recovers his post as Colonel-General of the Swiss—His death—His funeral—His sons, Louis de Bassompierre and François de la Tour—His nephews.

At length, on December 4, 1642, Richelieu succumbed to the one enemy whom he was unable to subjugate, in full possession of all the power and splendour for which he had laboured so unceasingly. Save to his family and his immediate followers, his death brought little regret, for all classes had felt his iron hand, and even the King seems to have experienced a sense of relief at the thought that the short span of life that remained to him would be free from that overshadowing presence.

It was not, however, without considerable difficulty that the distinguished prisoners of the Bastille succeeded in obtaining their freedom. Mazarin and Chavigny demanded that they should be set at liberty; but Sublet des Noyers opposed it. The order of release was only signed by the King on January 18, 1643, and, as the liberated captives were not authorised to return to Court, Bassompierre refused to leave his prison. His friends, however, persuaded him to do so, and he retired, in accordance with the King’s orders, to the Château of Tillières, belonging to his brother-in-law, the Comte de Tillières.

Henri d’Arnauld, Abbé of Saint-Nicolas d’Angers, in a journal addressed to the wife of Président Barillon, describes the incidents of this deliverance, which the invisible influence of Richelieu seemed still to be hindering:

“January 4, 1643. ... Hope is held out to the two marshals who are in the Bastille that they will be liberated before the end of this month.

“January 7th. ... The prisoners of the Bastille entertain great hopes of an approaching liberation.

“January 11th. ... I do not see that the hopes which have been given to these gentlemen of the Bastille are based on too sure a foundation. I greatly wish that I am wrong in the opinion I have formed.

“January 18th. ... Since the letter I wrote I went to the Bastille, to which M. de Romefort came, on behalf of M. de Chavigny, to inform MM. de Bassompierre, de Vitry and de Cramail that the King gave them back their liberty, but on condition that the first shall go to Tillières, M. de Vitry to Châteauvilain, and M. de Cramail to one of his houses. The two last received this news with joy; but M. de Bassompierre is up to the present very decided to refuse to go out on that condition, and all his friends and servants are quite unable to influence him in the matter. They ought to go out to-morrow. Perhaps, between now and then he will alter his decision.

“Wednesday, January 21, 1643.—On Monday, MM. de Bassompierre, de Vitry, and the Comte de Cramail left the Bastille, the last two with great joy. As for the first, his relatives and friends had all the difficulty imaginable to persuade him to accept his liberty on condition of going to Tillières, and a hundred times I believed that he would refuse to do so. I was at the Bastille from 10 o’clock in the morning until 9 o’clock in the evening on the day on which they went out.... They are to remain here for three or four days. They have visited all the Ministers. There is some hope that the Maréchal de Bassompierre will not remain long where he is going.

“January 25. ... The three persons who had come out of the Bastille were forbidden to visit Monsieur. They have taken their departure. The Marquis de Saint-Luc brought to the King a letter of thanks from the Maréchal de Bassompierre. The King, after reading it twice, observed: ‘I refuse to allow people to make terms with me, and the Maréchal de Bassompierre is one of the first who told me that I ought not to do it. If he had not decided to go to Tillières, I should have left him in the Bastille, to be maintained there at his own expense. I gain by the release of these persons 45,000 livres a year.’[150] ‘Yes, Sire,’ answered Saint-Luc, ‘and 100,000 blessings.’

“Tuesday, January 28. ... The Maréchal de Bassompierre has left Chaillot this morning and will reach Tillières to-morrow.

“March 11. ... The Maréchal de Bassompierre is so bored at Tillières that he declares that he repents of having left the Bastille and followed in that the advice of his friends.”

Some weeks later, and very shortly before his death, Louis XIII authorised the Maréchaux de Bassompierre and de Vitry and the Comte de Cramail to reappear at Court.

It is related that when Bassompierre went to pay his respects to the King, his Majesty received him very graciously and inquired how old he was. “Fifty, Sire,” was the reply. “Surely you are much older than that?” exclaimed the King, in surprise. “I deduct the twelve years passed in the Bastille, since they were not employed in the service of your Majesty.” And on being presented to a beautiful young girl, he observed: “Mademoiselle, how much do I regret my youth when I see you!”

Nevertheless, so greatly had the tone and manners of fashionable society changed since that fatal day when he had lost his liberty, that poor Bassompierre—Bassompierre who had formerly passed for the marvel of the old Court!—appears, with his habits of magnificence and gallantry, to have been regarded as a trifle antiquated, though, in the opinion of Madame de Motteville, “the remains of the Maréchal de Bassompierre were worth more than the youth of some of the most polished of that time.” The young men to whom Madame de Motteville refers formed the cabal of the “Importants,” whose ephemeral reign was terminated by the imprisonment of the Duc de Beaufort (September, 1643). To this cabal belonged the Marquis de la Châtre, who, on the death of Coislin, who had died in 1641 from wounds received at the siege of Aire, had succeeded him as Colonel-General of the Swiss. He was obliged to surrender this post, of which the marshal resumed possession, on condition of paying Le Châtre the 400,000 livres which he had received from Coislin. Bassompierre’s resignation was considered as null and void, and the post as not having been vacated.

Bassompierre did not long enjoy this return of favour. On October 12, 1646, his servants found him dead in his bed at Provins, where he had stopped for the night, while returning to Paris from a visit to the elder Bouthillier’s country-house. He had evidently passed away peacefully in his sleep, “as he was found in his customary position, one hand under the pillow at the place where his head rested, and his knees a little raised.”[151] His body was brought in a coach to Chaillot; the intestines, the tongue, and the brain were buried in the parish church before the high altar; the heart and the rest of the body were delivered by the curé to the Minims of Migeon, whose convent was close to the château, and deposited in a chapel to the left of the high altar, in the choir of their church. The Duc de Chevreuse and “other nobles and ladies of high quality, with a great number of bourgeois and inhabitants of Chaliot (sic),” assisted at the funeral ceremony.

The Maréchal de Bassompierre left two sons; one by Marie d’Entragues, the other by the Princesse de Conti. The first, who was called Louis de Bassompierre, took Holy Orders, and, after being provided, doubtless through his father’s influence, with two rich abbeys, was consecrated Bishop of Oloron, a see which he subsequently exchanged for the more important one of Saintes. He was, in later years, appointed almoner to Monsieur, brother of Louis XIV; but this post he resigned, in order that he might reside continuously in his diocese, in which respect he set an example which other bishops would have done well to follow.

The Bishop of Saintes was a pious and worthy man, beloved by the poor and esteemed by everyone. During the troubles of the Fronde he laboured to maintain in their allegiance to the Crown, or to bring back to their duty, the population of Saintes, Brouage and the surrounding country, and it was he who negotiated the accommodation of the Comte, afterwards the Maréchal, du Daugnon with the Court. He died in Paris, whither he had come on business connected with his diocese, on July 1, 1676. “Hélas!” writes Madame de Sévigné, “à propos of sleeping, poor M. de Saintes has fallen asleep this night in the Lord in an eternal sleep. He had been ill for twenty-five days, bled thirteen times, and yesterday morning he was without fever. He talked for an hour with the Abbé Têtu (these kind of improvements are nearly always deceptive), and on a sudden he fell back in agony, and, in short, we have lost him. As he was extremely lovable, he is extremely regretted.”

“The worthy prelate,” says the Gazette de France, “has left his friends sensibly afflicted, the poor of his diocese in the extremity of grief, and all those who knew him edified by the exemplary actions of his life, and his Christian resignation at death.” By a will, made the year before his death, he left all his property to the poor and the churches of his diocese.

The marshal’s son by the Princesse de Conti was known as François de la Tour. He is described by Goulas as “one of the handsomest and bravest men of the Court”; and Tallemant des Réaux writes:

“He [Bassompierre] had a son by the Princesse de Conti, who was called La Tour-Bassompierre; it is believed that he would have recognised him, if he had had the leisure. This La Tour was brave and well made. In a duel in which he took part as second, having to fight with a man who for some years had had a disabled right arm, but had accustomed himself to make use of his left, he allowed his right arm to be bound and, nevertheless, beat his adversary.”

François de la Tour appears to have resembled his father in other respects besides courage and good looks, as, in September, 1639, we find Bassompierre complaining that “a person who was very nearly related to him, named La Tour, had been gambling and had expended in a prodigal fashion a great deal of money, which had occasioned him much vexation.”

François de la Tour was wounded on August 10, 1648, at the taking of Vietri, in the kingdom of Naples, and appears to have died of his wounds. “It is,” observes the Marquis de Chantérac, “without doubt of him that the Gazette de France speaks in announcing, under date January 27, 1648, that the Sieur de Bassompierre, naval captain, had distinguished himself in the engagement which had taken place between the King’s forces, commanded by the Duc de Richelieu, and those of Spain, under the orders of Don Juan of Austria, in the Gulf of Naples.”

Of the three nephews of the marshal, the eldest, Anne-François, Marquis de Bassompierre, was killed in a duel in May, 1646, without having married. The second, Charles, Baron de Dommartin, married Henriette d’Haraucourt; but his male posterity continued only to the second generation. The third, Gaston-Jean-Baptiste, Marquis de Baudricourt and de Bassompierre, left descendants who were attached successively to the service of Lorraine and of France. The last male representative of this branch was Charles-Jean-Stanislas-François, Marquis de Bassompierre, who died in 1837. The families which to-day bear the name of Bassompierre would not appear to be connected in any way with the House of Betstein.

THE END

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