Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 46)

Voltaire, Ancient and Modern History, chapter 145 (works translated by Smollett, volume 5).

ALSO IN: C. D. Yonge, History of France under the Bourbons, volume 1, chapters 5-6.

A. Thierry, Formation and Progress of the Tiers État in France, volume 1, chapter 7.

S. Menzies, Royal Favourites, volume 1, chapter 9.

{1218}

FRANCE: A. D. 1620-1622. Renewed jealousy of the Huguenots. Their formidable organization and its political pretensions. Restoration of Catholicism in Navarre and Béarn. Their incorporation with France. The Huguenot revolt. Treaty of Montpelier.

"The Huguenot question had become a very serious one, and the bigotry of some of the Catholics found its opportunity in the insubordination of many of the Protestants. The Huguenots had undoubtedly many minor causes for discontent. … But on the whole the government and the majority of the people were willing to carry out in good faith the provisions of the edict of Nantes. The Protestants, within the limits there laid down, could have worshipped after their own conscience, free from persecution and subject to little molestation. It was, perhaps, all that could be expected in a country where the mass of the population were Catholic, and where religious fanaticism had recently supported the League and fostered the wars of religion. But the Protestant party seem to have desired a separate political power, which almost justifies the charge made against them, that they sought to establish a state within a state, or even to form a separate republic. Their territorial position afforded a certain facility for such endeavors. In the northern provinces their numbers were insignificant. They were found chiefly in the southwestern provinces—Poitou, Saintonge, Guienne, Provence, and Languedoc,—while in Béarn and Navarre they constituted the great majority of the population, and they held for their protection a large number of strongly fortified cities. … Though there is nothing to show that a plan for a separate republic was seriously considered, the Huguenots had adopted an organization which naturally excited the jealousy and ill-will of the general government. They had long maintained a system of provincial and general synods for the regulation of their faith and discipline. … The assembly which met at Saumur immediately after Henry's death, had carried still further the organization of the members of their faith. From consistories composed of the pastors and certain of the laity, delegates were chosen who formed local consistories. These again chose delegates who met in provincial synods, and from them delegates were sent to the national synod, or general assembly of the church. Here not only matters of faith, but of state, were regulated, and the general assembly finally assumed to declare war, levy taxes, choose generals, and act both as a convocation and a parliament. The assembly of Saumur added a system of division into eight great circles, covering the territory where the Protestants were sufficiently numerous to be important. All but two of these were south of the Loire. They were subsequently organized as military departments, each under the command of some great nobleman. … The Huguenots had also shown a willingness to assist those who were in arms against the state, had joined Condé, and contemplated a union with Mary de Medici in the brief insurrection of 1620. A question had now arisen which was regarded by the majority of the party as one of vital importance. The edict of Nantes, which granted privileges to the Huguenots, had granted also to the Catholics the right to the public profession of their religion in all parts of France. This had formerly been prohibited in Navarre and Béarn, and the population of those provinces had become very largely Protestant. The Catholic clergy had long petitioned the king to enforce the rights which they claimed the edict gave them in Béarn, and to compel also a restitution of some portion of the property, formerly held by their church, which had been taken by Jeanne d'Albret, and the revenues of which the Huguenot clergy still assumed to appropriate entirely to themselves. On July 25, 1617, Louis finally issued an edict directing the free exercise of the Catholic worship in Béarn and the restitution to the clergy of the property that had been taken from them. The edict met with bitter opposition in Béarn and from all the Huguenot party. The Protestants were as unwilling to allow the rites of the Catholic Church in a province which they controlled, as the Catholics to suffer a Huguenot conventicle within the walls of Paris. The persecutions which the Huguenots suffered distressed them less than the toleration which they were obliged to grant. … In the wars of religion the Huguenots had been controlled, not always wisely or unselfishly, by the nobles who had espoused their faith, but these were slowly drifting back to Catholicism. … The Condés were already Catholics. Lesdiguières was only waiting till the bribe for his conversion should be sufficiently glittering. [He was received into the Church and was made Constable of France in July, 1622.] Bouillon's religion was but a catch-weight in his political intrigues. The grandson of Coligni was soon to receive a marshal's baton for consenting to a peace which was disastrous to his party. Sully, Rohan, Soubise, and La Force still remained; but La Force's zeal moderated when he also was made a marshal, and one hundred years later Rohans and the descendants of Sully wore cardinal's hats. The party, slowly deserted by the great nobles, came more under the leadership of the clergy … and under their guidance the party now assumed a political activity which brought on the siege of La Rochelle and which made possible the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Béarn was not only strongly Protestant, but it claimed, with Navarre, to form no part of France, and to be governed only by its own laws. Its States met and declared their local rights were violated by the king's edict; the Parliament of Pau refused to register it, and it was not enforced in the province. … The disturbances caused by Mary de Medici had delayed any steps for the enforcement of the edict, but these troubles were ended by the peace of Ponts-de-Cé in 1620. … In October, 1620, Louis led his army in Béarn, removed various Huguenot officials, and reëstablished the Catholic clergy. … On October 20th, an edict was issued by which Navarre and Béarn were declared to be united to France, and a parliament was established for the two provinces on the same model as the other parliaments of the kingdom. … A general assembly of Protestants, sympathizing with their brethren of these provinces, was called for November 26, 1620, at La Rochelle. The king declared those guilty of high treason who should join in that meeting. … The meeting was held in defiance of the prohibition, and it was there resolved to take up arms. … The assembly proceeded in all respects like the legislative body of a separate state. {1219} The king prepared for the war with vigor. … He now led his forces into southern France, and after some minor engagements he laid siege to Montauban. A three months' siege resulted disastrously; the campaign closed, and the king returned to Paris. The encouragement that the Huguenots drew from this success proved very brief. The king's armies proceeded again into the south of France in 1622, and met only an irregular and inefficient opposition. … Chatillon and La Force each made a separate peace, and each was rewarded by the baton of marshal from the king and by charges of treachery from his associates. … The siege of Montpelier led to the peace called by that name, but on terms that were unfavorable to the Huguenots. They abandoned all the fortified cities which they had held for their security except La Rochelle and Montauban; no assemblies could meet without permission of the king, except the local synods for ecclesiastical matters alone, and the interests of Béarn and Navarre were abandoned. In return the edict of Nantes was again confirmed, and their religious privileges left undisturbed. Rohan accepted 800,000 livres for his expenses and governments, and the king agreed that the Fort of St. Louis, which had been built to overawe the turbulence of La Rochelle, should be dismantled. La Rochelle, the great Huguenot stronghold, continued hostilities for some time longer, but at last it made terms. The party was fast losing its power and its overthrow could be easily foretold. La Rochelle was now the only place capable of making a formidable resistance. … In the meantime the career of Luines reached its end." He had taken the great office of Constable to himself, incurring much ridicule thereby. "The exposures of the campaign and its disasters had worn upon him; a fever attacked him at the little town of Monheur, and on December 14, 1621, he died."

J. B. Perkins, France under Mazarin, with a Review of the Administration of Richelieu, chapter 3 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: W. S. Browning, History of the Huguenots, chapters 54-56.

FRANCE: A. D. 1621. Claims in North America conflicting with England.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631.

FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626. Richelieu in power. His combinations against the Austro-Spanish ascendancy. The Valtelline War. Huguenots again in revolt. The second Treaty of Montpelier. Treaty of Monzon with Spain.

"The King was once more without a guide, without a favourite, but his fate was upon him. A few months more of uncertain drifting and he will fall into the hands of the greatest politician France has ever seen, Cardinal Richelieu; under his hand the King will be effaced, his cold disposition and narrow intelligence will accept and be convinced by the grandeur of his master's views; convinced, he will obey, and we shall enter on the period in which the disruptive forces in France will be coerced, and the elements of freedom and constitutional life stamped down; while patriotism, and a firm belief in the destinies of the nation will be fostered and grow strong; France will assert her high place in Europe. Richelieu, who had already in 1622 received the Cardinal's hat, entered the King's Council on the 29th of April, 1624. …

[Transcriber's note: The date printed is "19/29th of April". Wikipedia gives the date as "appointed to the royal council of ministers on 29 April 1624, (Lodge & Ketcham, 1903, p. 85.)".]

La Vieuville, under whose patronage he had been brought forward, welcomed him into the Cabinet. … But La Vieuville was not fitted by nature for the chief place; he was rash, violent, unpopular and corrupt. He soon had to give place to Richelieu, henceforth the virtual head of the Council. La Vieuville, thus supplanted, had been the first to reverse the ruinous Spanish policy of the Court; … he had promised help to the Dutch, to Mansfield, to the Elector Frederick; in a word, his policy had been the forecast of that of the Cardinal, who owed his rise to him, and now stepped nimbly over his head into his place. England had declared war on Spain: France joined England in renewing the old offensive and defensive alliance with the Dutch, England promising men and France money. … The Austro-Spanish power had greatly increased during these years: its successes had enabled it to knit together all the provinces which owed it allegiance. The Palatinate and the Lower Rhine secured their connexion with the Spanish Netherlands, as we may now begin to call them, and threatened the very existence of the Dutch: the Valtelline forts [commanding the valley east of Lake Como, from which one pass communicates with the Engadine and the Grisons, and another with the Tyrol] … were the roadway between the Spanish power at Milan and the Austrians on the Danube and in the Tyrol. Richelieu now resolved to attack this threatening combination at both critical points. In the North he did not propose to interfere in arms: there others should fight, and France support them with quiet subsidies and good will. He pressed matters on with the English, the Dutch, the North German Princes; he negotiated with Maximilian of Bavaria and the League, hoping to keep the South German Princes clear of the Imperial policy. … The French ambassador at Copenhagen, well supported by the English envoy, Sir Robert Anstruther, at this time organised a Northern League, headed by Christian IV. of Denmark [see GERMANY: A. D. 1624-1626]. … The Lutheran Princes, alarmed at the threatening aspect of affairs, were beginning to think that they had made a mistake in leaving the Palatinate to be conquered; and turned a more willing ear to the French and English proposals for this Northern League. … By 1625 the Cardinal's plans in the North seemed to be going well: the North-Saxon Princes, though with little heart and much difference of opinion, specially in the cities, had accepted Christian IV. as their leader; and the progress of the Spaniards in the United Provinces was checked. In the other point to which Richelieu's attention was directed, matters had gone still better. [The inhabitants of the Valtelline were mostly Catholics and Italians. They had long been subject to the Protestant Grisons or Graubunden. In 1620 they had risen in revolt, massacred the Protestants of the valley, and formed an independent republic, supported by the Spaniards and Austrians. Spanish and German troops occupied the four strong Valtelline forts, and controlled the important passes above referred to. The Grisons resisted and secured the support of Savoy, Venice and finally France. In 1623 an agreement had been reached, to hand over the Valtelline forts to the pope, in deposit, until some terms could be settled. But in 1625 this agreement had not been carried out, and Richelieu took the affair in hand.] … {1220} Richelieu, never attacking in full face if he could carry his point by a side-attack, allied himself with Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, and with Venice; he easily persuaded the Savoyard to threaten Genoa, the port by which Spain could penetrate into Italy, and her financial mainstay. Meanwhile, the Marquis of Cœuvres had been sent to Switzerland, and, late in 1624, had persuaded the Cantons to arm for the recovery of the Valtelline; then, heading a small army of Swiss and French, he had marched into the Grisons. The upper districts held by the Austrians revolted: the three Leagues declared their freedom, the Austrian troops hastily withdrew. Cœuvres at once secured the Tyrolese passes, and descending from the Engadine by Poschiavo, entered the Valtelline: in a few weeks the Papal and Spanish troops were swept out of the whole valley, abandoning all their forts, though the French general had no siege-artillery with which to reduce them. … Early in 1625, the Valtelline being secured to the Grisons and French, the aged Lesdiguières was sent forward to undertake the rest of the plan, the reduction of Genoa. But just as things were going well for the party in Europe opposed to Spain and Austria, an unlucky outburst of Huguenot dissatisfaction marred all: Soubise in the heart of winter had seized the Isle of Ré, and had captured in Blavet harbour on the Breton coast six royal ships; he failed however to take the castle which commanded the place, and was himself blockaded, escaping only with heavy loss. Thence he seized the Isle of Oléron: in May the Huguenots were in revolt in Upper Languedoc, Querci, and the Cevennes, led by Rohan on land, and Soubise by sea. Their rash outbreak [provoked by alleged breaches of the treaty of Montpelier, especially in the failure of the king to demolish Fort Louis at La Rochelle] came opportunely to the aid of the distressed Austrian power, their true enemy. Although very many of the Huguenots stood aloof and refused to embarrass the government, still enough revolted to cause great uneasiness. The war in the Ligurian mountains was not pushed on with vigour; for Richelieu could not now think of carrying out the large plans which, by his own account, he had already formed, for the erection of an independent Italy. … He was for the present content to menace Genoa, without a serious siege. At this time James I. of England died, and the marriage of the young king [Charles I.] with Henriette Marie was pushed on. In May Buckingham went to Paris to carry her over to England; he tried in vain to persuade Richelieu to couple the Palatinate with the Valtelline question. … After this the tide of affairs turned sharply against the Cardinal; while Tilly with the troops of the Catholic League, and Wallenstein, the new general of the Emperor, who begins at this moment his brief and marvellous career, easily kept in check the Danes and their halfhearted German allies, Lesdiguières and the Duke of Savoy were forced by the Austrians and Spaniards to give up all thoughts of success in the Genoese country, and the French were even threatened in Piedmont and the Valtelline. But the old Constable of France was worthy of his ancient fame; he drove the Duke of Feria out of Piedmont, and in the Valtelline the Spaniards only succeeded in securing the fortress of Riva. Richelieu felt that the war was more than France could bear, harassed as she was within and without. … He was determined to free his hands in Italy, to leave the war to work itself out in Germany, and to bring the Huguenots to reason. … The joint fleets of, Soubise and of La Rochelle had driven back the king's ships, and had taken Ré and Oléron; but in their attempt to force an entrance into the harbour of La Rochelle they were defeated by Montmorency, who now commanded the royal fleet: the islands were retaken, and the Huguenots sued for peace. It must be remembered that the bulk of them did not agree with the Rochellois, and were quiet through this time. Early in 1626 the treaty of Montpellier granted a hollow peace on tolerable terms to the reformed churches; and soon after … peace was signed with Spain at Monzon in May, 1626. All was done so silently that the interested parties, Savoy, the Venetians, the Grisons, knew nothing of it till all was settled: on Buckingham … the news fell like a thunderclap. … The Valtelline remained under the Grisons, with guarantees for Catholic worship; France and Spain would jointly see that the inhabitants of the valleys were fairly treated: the Pope was entrusted with the duty of razing the fortresses: Genoa and Savoy were ordered to make peace. It was a treacherous affair; and Richelieu comes out of it but ill. We are bound, however, to remember … the desperate straits into which the Cardinal had come. … He did but fall back in order to make that wonderful leap forward which changed the whole face of European politics."

G. W. Kitchin, History of France, book 4, chapters 3 and 4 (volumes 2-3).

ALSO IN: F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapters 40-41.

J. B. Perkins, France under Mazarin [and Richelieu], volume 1, chapters 4-5.

G. Masson, Richelieu, chapter 5.

FRANCE: A. D. 1627-1628: War with England, and Huguenot revolt. Richelieu's siege and capture of La Rochelle. His great example of magnanimity and toleration. The end of political Huguenotism.

"Richelieu now found himself dragged into a war against his will, and that with the very power with which, for the furtherance of his other designs, he most desired to continue at peace. James I. of England had been as unable to live except under the dominion of a favourite as Louis. Charles … had the same unfortunate weakness; and the Duke of Buckingham, who had long been paramount at the court of the father, retained the same mischievous influence at that of the son. … In passing through France in 1623 he [Buckingham] had been presented to the queen [Anne of Austria], and had presumed to address her in the language of love. When sent to Paris to conduct the young Princess Henrietta Maria to England, he had repeated this conduct. … There had been some little unpleasantness between the two Courts shortly after the marriage … owing to the imprudence of Henrietta," who paraded her Popery too much in the eyes of Protestant England; and there was talk of a renewed treaty, which Buckingham sought to make the pretext for another visit to Paris. But his motives were understood; Louis "refused to receive him as an ambassador, and Buckingham, full of disappointed rage, instigated the Duke de Soubise, who was still in London, to rouse the Huguenots to a fresh outbreak, promising to send an English fleet to Rochelle to assist them. Rochelle was at this time the general head-quarters not only of the Huguenots, but of all those who, on any account, were discontented with the Government. … {1221} Soubise … embraced the duke's offer with eagerness; and in July, 1627, without any previous declaration of war, an English fleet, with 16,000 men on board, suddenly appeared off Rochelle, and prepared to attack the Isle of Rhé. The Rochellois were very unwilling to co-operate with it"; but they were persuaded, "against their judgment, to connect themselves with what each, individually, felt to be a desperate enterprise; and Richelieu, to whom the prospect thus afforded him of having a fair pretence for crushing the Huguenot party made amends for the disappointment of being wantonly dragged into a war with England, gladly received the intelligence that Rochelle was in rebellion. At first the Duke d'Anjou was sent down to command the army, Louis being detained in Paris by illness; but by October he had recovered, his fondness for military operations revived, and he hastened to the scene of action, accompanied by Richelieu, whose early education had been of a military kind. … He at once threw across reinforcements into the Isle of Rhé, where M. Thoiras was holding out a fort known as St. Martin with great resolution, though it was unfinished and incompletely armed. In the beginning of November, Buckingham raised the siege, and returned home, leaving guns, standards and prisoners behind him; and Richelieu, anticipating a renewal of the attack the next year … undertook a work designed at once to baffle foreign enemies and to place the city at his mercy. Along the whole front of the port he began to construct a vast wall … having only one small opening in the centre which was commanded by small batteries. The work was commenced in November, 1627; and, in spite of a rather severe winter, was carried on with such ceaseless diligence, under the superintending eye of the cardinal himself, that before the return of spring a great portion of it was completed. … When, in May, 1628, the British fleet, under Lord Denbigh, the brother-in-law of Buckingham, returned to the attack, they found it unassailable, and returned without striking a blow."

C. D. Yonge, History of France under the Bourbons, volume 1, chapter 7.

"Richelieu … was his own engineer, general, admiral, prime-minister. While he urged on the army to work upon the dike, he organized a French navy, and in due time brought it around to that coast and anchored it so as to guard the dike and be guarded by it. Yet, daring as all this work was, it was but the smallest part of his work. Richelieu found that his officers were cheating his soldiers in their pay and disheartening them; in face of the enemy he had to reorganize the army and to create a new military system. … He found, also, as he afterward said, that he had to conquer not only the Kings of England and Spain, but also the King of France. At the most critical moment of the siege Louis deserted him,—went back to Paris,—allowed courtiers to fill him with suspicions. Not only Richelieu's place, but his life, was in danger, and he well knew it; yet he never left his dike and siege-works, but wrought on steadily until they were done; and then the King, of his own will, in very shame, broke away from his courtiers, and went back to his master. And now a Royal Herald summoned the people of La Rochelle to surrender. But they were not yet half conquered. Even when they had seen two English fleets, sent to aid them, driven back from Richelieu's dike, they still held out manfully. … They were reduced to feed on their horses,—then on bits of filthy shell-fish,—then on stewed leather. They died in multitudes. Guiton, the Mayor, kept a dagger on the city council-table to stab any man who should speak of surrender. … But at last even Guiton had to yield. After the siege had lasted more than a year, after 5,000 were found remaining out of 15,000, after a mother had been seen to feed her child with her own blood, the Cardinal's policy became too strong for him. The people yielded [October 27, 1628], and Richelieu entered the city as master. And now the victorious statesman showed a greatness of soul to which all the rest of his life was as nothing. … All Europe … looked for a retribution more terrible than any in history. Richelieu allowed nothing of the sort. He destroyed the old franchises of the city, for they were incompatible with that royal authority which he so earnestly strove to build. But this was all. He took no vengeance,—he allowed the Protestants to worship as before,—he took many of them into the public service,—and to Guiton he showed marks of respect. He stretched forth that strong arm of his over the city, and warded off all harm. … For his leniency Richelieu received the titles of Pope of the Protestants and Patriarch of the Atheists. But he had gained the first great object of his policy, and he would not abuse it: he had crushed the political power of the Huguenots forever."

A. D. White, The Statesmanship of Richelieu (Atlantic Monthly, May, 1862).

"Whatever the benefit to France of this great feat, the locality was permanently ruined. Two hundred and fifty years after the event the Poitevin peasant is fanatic and superstitious as the Bretons themselves. Catholic Rochelle is still to be seen, with almost one-third less inhabitants to-day than it had in 1627. The cardinal's dyke is still there, but the insects have seized on the city. A plague of white ants, imported from India, have fastened on its timbers."

R. Heath, The Reformation in France, volume 1, book 2, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603 to 1642, chapters 56, 59-60, and 65.

FRANCE: A. D. 1627-1631. War with Spain, Savoy and the Empire over the succession to the duchy of Mantua. Successes of Richelieu.

See ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.

FRANCE: A. D. 1628. New France placed under the Company of the Hundred Associates.

See CANADA: A. D. 1616-1628.

FRANCE: A. D. 1628-1632. Loss and recovery of New France.

See CANADA: A. D. 1628-1635.

FRANCE: A. D. 1630-1632. The Day of Dupes, and after.

On the return of Richelieu and the king from their Italian expedition, in the beginning of August, 1630, "both the monarch and his minister had passed in safety through a whole tract infected with the plague; but, shortly after their arrival at Lyons, Louis XIII. fell ill, and in a few days his physicians pronounced his case hopeless. It was now that all the hatred which his power had caused to hide its head, rose up openly against Richelieu; and the two queens [Marie de Medicis, the queen-mother, and Anne of Austria, the king's wife], united only in their enmity towards the minister, never quitted the bedside of the king but to form and cement the party which was intended to work the cardinal's destruction as soon as the monarch should be no more. … {1222} The bold and the rash joined the faction of the queens; and the prudent waited with wise doubt till they saw the result they hoped for. Happy was it for those who did conceal their feelings; for suddenly the internal abscess, which had nearly reduced the king to the tomb, broke, passed away, and in a very few days he appeared perfectly convalescent. Richelieu might now have triumphed securely; … but he acted more prudently. He remembered that the queen-mother, the great mover of the cabal against him, had formerly been his benefactress; and though probably his gratitude was of no very sensitive nature, yet he was wise enough to affect a virtue that he did not possess, and to suffer the offence to be given by her. … At Paris [after the return of the court] … the queen-mother herself, unable to restrain any longer the violent passions that struggled in her bosom, seemed resolved to keep no terms with the cardinal." At an interview with him, in the king's presence, "the queen forgot the dignity of her station and the softness of her sex, and, in language more fit for the markets than the court, called him rogue, and traitor, and perturber of the public peace; and, turning to the king, she endeavoured to persuade him that Richelieu wished to take the crown from his head, in order to place it on that of the count de Soissons. Had Richelieu been as sure of the king's firmness as he was of his regard, this would have been exactly the conduct which he could have desired the queen to hold; but he knew Louis to be weak and timid, and easily ruled by those who took a tone of authority towards him; and when at length he retired at the command of the monarch … he seems to have been so uncertain how the whole would end, that he ordered his papers and most valuable effects to be secured, and preparations to be made for immediate departure. All these proceedings had been watched by the courtiers: Richelieu had been seen to quit the queen's cabinet troubled and gloomy, his niece in tears; and, some time after, the king himself followed in a state of excessive agitation, and … left Paris for Versailles without seeing his minister. The whole court thought the rule of Richelieu at an end, and the saloons of the Luxembourg were crowded with eager nobles ready to worship the rising authority of the queen-mother." But the king, when he reached Versailles, sent this message to his minister: "'Tell the cardinal de Richelieu that he has a good master, and bid him come hither to me without delay.' Richelieu felt that the real power of France was still in his hands; and setting off for Versailles, he found Louis full of expressions of regard and confidence. Rumours every moment reached Versailles of the immense concourse that was flocking to pay court to the queen-mother: the king found himself nearly deserted, and all that Richelieu had said of her ambition was confirmed in the monarch's mind; while his natural good sense told him that a minister who depended solely upon him, and who under him exercised the greatest power in the realm, was not likely to wish his fall. … In the mean time, the news of these … events spread to Paris: the halls of the Luxembourg, which the day before had been crowded to suffocation, were instantly deserted; and the queen-mother found herself abandoned by all those fawning sycophants whose confidence and disappointment procured for the day of St. Martin, 1630, the title in French history of The Day of Dupes."

G. P. R. James, Eminent Foreign Statesmen, volume 2, pages 88-92.

The ultimate outcome of The Day of Dupes was the flight of Marie de Medicis, who spent the remainder of her life in the Netherlands and in England; the trial and execution of Marshal de Marillac; the imprisonment or exile and disgrace of Bassompierre and other nobles; a senseless revolt, headed by Gaston, Duke of Orleans, the king's brother, which was crushed in one battle at Castlenaudari, September 1, 1632, and which brought the Duke de Montmorency to the block.

C. D. Yonge, History of France under the Bourbons, volume 1, chapters 7-8.

ALSO IN: M. W. Freer, Married Life of Anne of Austria, volume 1, chapter 4.

C. M. Yonge, Cameos of English History, 6th series, chapter 20.

Miss Pardoe, Life of Marie de Medicis, book 3, chapters 7-13 (volume 3).

FRANCE: A. D. 1631. Treaty and negotiations with Gustavus Adolphus in Germany. Promotion of the Protestant Union.

See GERMANY: A.D. 1631 (JANUARY); 1631-1632; and 1632-1634.

FRANCE: A. D. 1632-1641. War in Lorraine. Occupation and possession of the duchy.

See LORRAINE: A. D. 1624-1663.

FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1638. Campaigns on the Flemish frontier. Invasion by the Spaniards. Paris in Peril.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638.

FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1639. Active participation in the Thirty Years War. Treaties with the Germans, Swedes, and Dutch. Campaigns of Duke Bernhard in Lorraine, Alsace and Franche-Comté. The fruit gathered by Richelieu. Alsace secured.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1642. The war in northern Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.

FRANCE: A. D. 1637-1642. The war in Spain. Revolt of Catalonia. Siege and capture of Perpignan. Conquest of Roussillon.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1637-1640, and 1640-1642.

FRANCE: A. D. 1640-1645. Campaigns in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645, and 1643-1644.

FRANCE: A. D. 1641-1642. The conspiracies of Count de Soissons and Cinq Mars. Extinction of the Principality of Sedan.

"There were revolts in various quarters to resist [the yoke of Richelieu], but they were quelled with uniform success. Once, and once only, the fate of the Cardinal seemed finally sealed. The Count de Soissons, a prince of the blood, headed the discontented gentry in open war in 1641, and established the headquarters of revolt in the town of Sedan. The Empire and Spain came to his support with promises and money. Twelve thousand men were under his orders, all influenced with rage against Richelieu, and determined to deliver the king from his degrading tutelage. Richelieu was taken unprepared; but delay would have been ruin. He sent the Marshal Chatillon to the borders of Sedan, to watch the proceedings of the confederates, and requested the king to summon fresh troops and go down to the scene of war. While his obedient Majesty was busied in the commission, Chatillon advanced too far. Soissons assaulted him near the banks of the Meuse, at a place called Marfée, and gave him a total and irremediable overthrow. The cavalry on the royalist side retreated at an early part of the fight, and forced their way through the infantry, not without strong suspicions of collusion with their opponents." {1223} Paris itself was in dismay. The King and Cardinal expected to hear every hour of the advance of the rebels; but no step was taken. It was found, when the hurry of battle was over, that Soissons was among the slain. The force of the expedition was in that one man; and the defeat was as useful to the Cardinal as a victory would have been. The malcontents had no leaders of sufficient rank and authority to keep the inferiors in check; for the scaffold had thinned the ranks of the great hereditary chiefs, and no man could take his first open move against the Court without imminent risk to his head. Great men, indeed, were rising into fame, but of a totally different character from their predecessors. Their minds were cast in a monarchical mould from their earliest years. … From this time subserviency to the king became a sign of noble birth. … Richelieu has the boast, if boast it can be called, of having crushed out the last spark of popular independence and patrician pride. … One more effort was made [1642] to shake off the trammels of the hated Cardinal. A conspiracy was entered into to deliver the land by the old Roman method of putting the tyrant to death; and the curious part of the design is, that it was formed almost in presence of the king. His favourite friend, young Cinq Mars, son of the Marshal d'Effiat, his brother Gaston of Orleans, and his kinsman the Duke de Bouillon, who were round his person at all hours of the day, were the chief agents of the perilous undertaking. Others, and with them de Thou, the son of the great French historian, entered into the plan, but wished the assassination to be left out. They would arrest and imprison him; but this was evidently not enough. While Richelieu lived, no man could be safe, though the Cardinal were in the deepest dungeon of the Bastile. Death, however, was busy with their victim, without their aid. He was sinking under some deep but partially-concealed illness when the threads of the plot came into his skilful hands. He made the last use of his strength and intelligence in unravelling [it] and punishing the rebels, as he called them, against the king's authority. The paltry and perfidious Gaston was as usual penitent and pardoned, but on Cinq Mars and de Thou the vengeance of the law and the Cardinal had its full force. The triumphant but failing minister reclined in a state barge upon the Rhone, towing his prisoners behind him to certain death. On their arrival at Lyons the process was short and fatal. The young men were executed together, and the account of their behaviour at the block is one of the most affecting narratives in the annals of France."

J. White, History of France, chapter 12.

The Duke de Bouillon, implicated in both these conspiracies—that of the Count de Soissons and that of Cinq Mars—saved his life on the latter occasion by surrendering to the crown the sovereignty of Sedan, which belonged to him, and which had been the headquarters of the Soissons revolt. This small independent principality—the town and a little territory around it—had formerly been in the possession of the powerful and troublesome family of La Marck, the last heiress of whom brought it, together with the Duchy of Bouillon, into the family of La Tour d'Auvergne. The Prince and Duke who lost it was the second of that family who bore the titles. He was the elder brother of the great soldier, Turenne. The Principality of Sedan was extinguished from that time.

T. O. Cockayne, Life of Turenne.

ALSO IN: W. Robson, Life of Richelieu, chapters 11-12.

M. W. Freer, Married Life of Anne of Austria, volume 2, chapter 3.

Miss Pardoe, Life of Marie de Medicis, book 3, chapter 13 (volume 3).

FRANCE: A. D. 1642-1643. The death of Richelieu and of Louis XIII. Regency of Anne of Austria. Cardinal Mazarin and the party of the Importants. The victory at Rocroi.

Cardinal Richelieu died on the 4th of December, 1642. "He was dead, but his work survived him. On the very evening of the 3d of December, Louis XIII. called to his council Cardinal Mazarin [whom Richelieu had commended to him]. … Scarcely had the most powerful kings yielded up their last breath when their wishes had been at once forgotten: Cardinal Richelieu still governed in his grave." But now, after two and a half centuries, "the castle of Richelieu is well-nigh destroyed; his family, after falling into poverty, is extinct; the Palais-Cardinal [his splendid residence, which he built, and which he gave to the crown] has assumed the name of the Palais-Royal; and pure monarchy, the aim of all his efforts and the work of his whole life, has been swept away by the blast of revolution. Of the cardinal there remains nothing but the great memory of his power and of the services he rendered his country. … Richelieu had no conception of that noblest ambition on which a human soul can feed, that of governing a free country, but he was one of the greatest, the most effective, and the boldest, as well as the most prudent servants that France ever had." Louis XIII. survived his great minister less than half a year, dying May 14, 1643. He had never had confidence in Anne of Austria, his wife, and had provided, by a declaration which she had signed and sworn to, for a council (which included Mazarin) to control the queen's regency during the minority of their son, Louis XIV. But the queen contrived very soon to break from this obligation, and she made Cardinal Mazarin her one counsellor and supreme minister. "Continuing to humor all parties, and displaying foresight and prudence, the new minister was even now master. Louis XIII., without any personal liking, had been faithful to Richelieu to the death. With different feelings, Anne of Austria was to testify the same constancy towards Mazarin. A stroke of fortune came at the very first to strengthen the regent's position. Since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, the Spaniards, but recently overwhelmed at the close of 1642, had recovered courage and boldness; new counsels prevailed at the court of Philip IV., who had dismissed Olivarez; the House of Austria vigorously resumed the offensive; at the moment of Louis XIII.'s death, Don Francisco de Mello, governor of the Low Countries, had just invaded French territory by way of the Ardennes, and laid siege to Rocroi, on the 12th of May [1643]. The French army was commanded by the young Duke of Enghien [afterwards known as the Great Condé], the prince of Condé's son, scarcely 22 years old; Louis XIII. had given him as his lieutenant and director the veteran Marshal de l'Hôpital; and the latter feared to give battle. {1224} The Duke of Enghien, who 'was dying with impatience to enter the enemy's country, resolved to accomplish by address what he could not carry by authority. He opened his heart to Gassion alone. As he [Gassion, one of the boldest of Condé's officers] was a man who saw nothing but what was easy even in the most dangerous deeds, he had very soon brought matters to the point that the prince desired. Marshal de l'Hôpital found himself imperceptibly so near the Spaniards that it was impossible for him any longer to hinder an engagement.' … The army was in front of Rocroi, and out of the dangerous defile which led to the place, without any idea on the part of the marshal and the army that Louis XIII. was dead. The Duke of Enghien, who had received the news, had kept it secret. He had merely said in the tone of a master 'that he meant to fight, and would answer for the issue.'" The battle, which was fought May 19, 1643, resulted in the destruction, almost total, of the Spanish army. Of 18,000 men who formed its infantry, nearly 9,000 were killed and 7,000 were made prisoners. The whole of the Spanish artillery and 300 of their standards fell into the hands of the victors, who lost, according to their own reports, only 2,000 men, killed and wounded. "'The prince was a born captain,' said Cardinal de Retz. And all France said so with him on hearing of the victory of Rocroi. The delight was all the keener in the queen's circle, because the house of Condé openly supported Cardinal Mazarin, bitterly attacked as he was by the Importants [a court faction or party so called, which was made up of 'those meddlers of the court at whose head marched the Duke of Beaufort, all puffed up with the confidence lately shown to him by her Majesty,' and all expecting to count importantly among the queen's favorites], who accused him of reviving the tyranny of Richelieu. … And, indeed, on pretext offered by a feminine quarrel [August, 1643] between the young Duchess of Longueville, daughter of the prince of Condé, and the Duchess of Montbazon, the Duke of Beaufort and some of his friends resolved to assassinate the cardinal. The attempt was a failure, but the Duke of Beaufort, who was arrested on the 2d of September, was taken to the castle of Vincennes. Madame de Chevreuse, recently returned [after being exiled by Richelieu] to court, where she would fain have exacted from the queen the reward for her services and her past sufferings, was sent into exile, as well as the Duke of Vendôme. Madame d'Hautefort, but lately summoned by Anne of Austria to be near her, was soon involved in the same disgrace. … The party of the Importants was dead, and the power of Cardinal Mazarin seemed to be firmly established. 'It was not the thing just then for any decent man to be on bad terms with the court,' says Cardinal de Retz."

F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapters 41-43.

"Cardinal Richelieu was not so much a minister, in the precise sense of the word, as a person invested with the whole power of the crown. His preponderating influence in the council suspended the exercise of the hereditary power, without which the monarchy must cease to exist; and it seems as if that may have taken place in order that the social progress, violently arrested since the last reign, might resume its course at the instigation of a kind of dictator, whose spirit was free from the influences which the interest of family and dynasty exercises over the characters of kings. By a strange concurrence of circumstances, it happened that the weak prince, whose destiny it was to lend his name to the reign of the great minister, had in his character, his instincts, his good or bad qualities, all that could supply the requirements of such a post. Louis XIII., who had a mind without energy but not without intelligence, could not live without a master; after having possessed and lost many, he took and kept the one, who he found was capable of conducting France to the point, which he himself had a faint glimpse of, and to which he vaguely aspired in his melancholy reveries. … In his attempts at innovation, Richelieu, as simple minister, much surpassed the great king who had preceded him, in boldness. He undertook to accelerate the movement towards civil unity and equality so much, and to carry it so far, that hereafter it should be impossible to recede. … The work of Louis XI. had been nearly lost in the depth of the troubles of the sixteenth century; and that of Henry IV. was compromised by fifteen years of disorder and weakness. To save it from perishing, three things were necessary: that the high nobility should be constrained to obedience to the king and to the law; that Protestantism should cease to be an armed party in the State; that France should be able to choose her allies freely in behalf of her own interest and in that of European independence. On this triple object the king-minister employed his powerful intellect, his indefatigable activity, ardent passions, and an heroic strength of mind. His daily life was a desperate struggle against the nobles, the royal family, the supreme courts, against all that existed of high institutions, and corporations established in the country. For the purpose of reducing all to the same level of submission and order, he raised the royal power above the ties of family and the tie of precedent; he isolated it in its sphere as a pure idea, the living idea of the public safety and the national interest. … He was as destitute of mercy as he was of fear, and trampled under foot the respect due to judicial forms and usages. He had sentences of death pronounced by commissioners of his own selection: at the very foot of the throne he struck the enemies of the public interest, and at the same time of his own fortune, and confounded his personal hatreds with the vengeance of the State. No one can say whether or not there was deceit in that assurance of conscience which he manifested in his last moments: God alone could look into the depth of his mind. We who have gathered the fruit of his labours and of his patriotic devotion at a distance of time—we can only bow, before that man of revolution, by whom the ways which led to our present state of society were prepared. But something sad is still attached to his glory: he sacrificed everything to the success of his undertaking; he stifled within himself and crushed down in some noble spirits the eternal principles of morality and humanity. When we look at the great things which he achieved, we admire him with gratitude; we would, but we cannot, love his character."

A. Thierry, Formation and Progress of the Tiers État or Third Estate in France, chapter 8.

ALSO IN: V. Cousin, Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin, chapters 3-4.

V. Cousin, The Youth of Madame de Longueville.

Lord Mahon, Life of Louis, Prince of Condé, chapter 1.

Cardinal de Retz, Memoirs, books 1-2.

M'lle de Montpensier, Memoirs, chapter 2-3.

{1225}

FRANCE: A. D. 1643. Accession of Louis XIV.

FRANCE: A. D. 1643. Enghien's (Condé's) campaign on the Moselle. Siege and capture of Thionville.

"On the 20th of May … Enghien made his triumphal entry into Rocroy. He allowed his troops to repose for two days, and then it was towards Guise that he directed his steps. He soon heard that Don Francisco de Melo had taken shelter at Phillipeville, that he was trying to rally his cavalry, but that of all his infantry not above 2,000 men remained to him, and they disarmed and nearly naked. No army any longer protected Flanders, and the youthful courage of Enghien already meditated its conquest. But the Court, which had expected to sustain war in its own provinces, was not prepared to carry it into foreign countries. It became necessary to give up all idea of an invasion of Maritime Flanders and the siege of Dunkirk, with which Enghien had at first flattered himself. Then finding that the Spaniards had drawn off their troops from the fortifications on the Moselle, Enghien proposed to march thither, and take possession of them. … Although this project was very inferior to his first, its greatness surprised the Council of Ministers: they at first refused their consent, but the Duke insisted—and what could they refuse to the victor of Rocroy? Thionville was at that time considered to be one of the best fortresses in Europe. On arriving before its walls, after a seven days' march, Enghien … established his lines, erected bridges, raised redoubts, and opened a double line of trenches on the 25th of June. The French were several times repulsed, but always rallied; and everywhere the presence of Enghien either prevented or repaired the disorder. … The obstinate resistance of the garrison obliged the French to have recourse to mines, which, by assiduous labor, they pushed forward under the interior of the town. Then Enghien, wishing to spare bloodshed, sent a flag of truce to the governor, and allowed him a safe conduct to visit the state of the works. This visit convinced the Spaniards of the impossibility of defending themselves any longer. … They evacuated the town on the 22d of August. Thionville was then little more than a heap of ruins and ashes. … By this conquest Enghien soon became master of the whole course of the Moselle down to the gates of Trèves. Sierch alone ventured to resist him, but was reduced in 24 hours. Then, disposing his army in autumn quarters, he set off for Paris."

Lord Mahon, Life of Louis, Prince of Condé, chapter 1.

FRANCE: A. D. 1644-1646. Campaigns in Catalonia. The failures at Lerida.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1644-1646.

FRANCE: A. D. 1645-1648. Campaigns in Flanders. Capture of Dunkirk. Loss of the Dutch alliance. Conde's victory at Lens.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1634-1646; 1646-1648; 1647-1648.

FRANCE: A. D. 1646-1648. The last campaigns of the Thirty Years War. Turenne and the Swedes in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1646-1648.

FRANCE: A. D. 1646-1654. Hostility to the Pope. Siege of Orbitello. Attempts to take advantage of the insurrection in Naples.

See ITALY: A. D. 1646-1654.

FRANCE: A. D. 1647-1648. Conflict between Court and Parliament. The question of the Paulette. Events leading to the First Fronde.

"The war was conducted with alternate success and failure, but with an unintermitted waste of the public revenue; and while Guébriant, Turenne, and Condé were maintaining the military renown of France, D'Emery, the superintendent of finance, was struggling with the far severer difficulty of raising her ways and means to the level of her expenditure. The internal history of the first five years of the regency is thenceforward a record of the contest between the court and the Parliament of Paris; between the court, promulgating edicts to replenish the exhausted treasury, and the Parliament, remonstrating in angry addresses against the acceptance of them." Of the four sovereign courts which had their seat at that time in the Palais de Justice of Paris, and of which the Parliament was the most considerable—the other three being the Chamber 'des Comptes,' the Cour des Aides, and the Grand Conseil—the counselors or stipendiary judges held their offices for life. "But, in virtue of the law called Paulette [named from Paulet, its originator, in the reign of Henry IV.] … they also held them as an inheritance transmissible to their descendants. The Paulette … was a royal ordinance which imposed an annual tax on the stipend of every judge. It was usually passed for a term of nine years only. If the judge died during that term, his heir was entitled to succeed to the vacant office. But if the death of the judge happened when the Paulette was not in force, his heir had no such right. Consequently, the renewal of the tax was always welcome to the stipendiary counselors of the sovereign courts; and, by refusing or delaying to renew it, the king could always exercise a powerful influence over them. In April, 1647, the Paulette had expired, and the queen-mother proposed the revival of it. But, to relieve the necessities of the treasury, she also proposed to increase the annual per centage which it imposed on the stipends of the counselors of the Chamber 'des Comptes,' of the Cour des Aides, and of the Grand Conseil. To concert measures of resistance to the contemplated innovation, those counselors held a meeting in the Great Hall of St. Louis; and at their request the Parliament, though not personally and directly interested in the change, joined their assembly." The queen sarcastically replied to their remonstrances that the "king would not only withdraw his proposal for an increase in the rate of the annual tax on their stipends, but would even graciously relieve them from that burden altogether. … Exasperated by the threatened loss of the heritable tenure of their offices, and still more offended by the sarcastic terms in which that menace was conveyed, the judges assembled in the hall of St. Louis with increased zeal, and harangued there with yet more indignant eloquence. Four different times the queen interdicted their meetings, and four different times they answered her by renewed resolutions for the continuance of them. She threatened severe punishments, and they replied by remonstrances. A direct collision of authority had thus occurred, and it behooved either party to look well to their steps." The queen began to adopt a conciliatory manner. "But the associated magistrates derived new boldness from the lowered tone and apparent fears of the government. {1226} Soaring at once above the humble topic on which they had hitherto been engaged into the region of general politics, they passed at a step from the question of the Paulette to a review of all the public grievances under which their fellow subjects were labouring. After having wrought during four successive days in this inexhaustible mine of eloquence, they at length, on the 30th of June, 1648, commenced the adoption of a series of resolutions, which, by the 24th of July, had amounted in number to 27, and which may be said to have laid the basis of a constitutional revolution. … Important as these resolutions were in themselves, they were still more important as the assertion, by the associated magistrates, of the right to originate laws affecting all the general interests of the commonwealth. In fact, a new power in the state had suddenly sprung into existence. … That was an age in which the minds of men, in every part of Europe, had been rudely awakened to the extent to which the unconstitutional encroachments of popular bodies might be carried. Charles I. was at that time a prisoner in the hands of the English Parliament. Louis XIV. was a boy, unripe for an encounter with any similar antagonists. … The queen-mother, therefore, resolved to spare no concessions by which the disaffected magistracy might be conciliated. D'Emery was sacrificed to their displeasure; the renewal of the Paulette on its ancient terms was offered to them; some of the grievances of which they complained were immediately redressed; and the young king appeared before them in person, to promise his assent to their other demands. In return, he stipulated only for the cessation of their combined meetings, and for their desisting from the further promulgation of arrêts, to which they ascribed the force and authority of law. But the authors of this hasty revolution were no longer masters of the spirits whom they had summoned to their aid. … With increasing audacity, therefore, they persevered in defying the royal power, and in requiring from all Frenchmen implicit submission to their own. Advancing from one step to another, they adopted, on the 28th of August, 1648, an arrêt in direct conflict with a recent proclamation of the king, and ordered the prosecution of three persons for the offense of presuming to lend him money. At that moment their debates were interrupted by shouts and discharges of cannon, announcing the great victory of Condé at Lens. During the four following days religious festivals and public rejoicings suspended their sittings. But in those four days, the court had arranged their measures for a coup d'état. As the Parliament retired from Notre Dame, where they had attended at a solemn thanksgiving for the triumph of the arms of France, they observed that the soldiery still stood to the posts which, in honour of that ceremonial, had been assigned to them in different quarters of the city. Under the protection of that force, one of the presidents of the Chamber 'des Enquêtes,' and De Broussel, the chief of the parliamentary agitators, were arrested and consigned to different prisons, while three of their colleagues were exiled to remote distances from the capital. At the tidings of this violence, the Parisian populace were seized with a characteristic paroxysm of fury. … In less than three hours, Paris had become an entrenched camp. … They dictated their own terms. The exiles were recalled and the prisoners released. … Then, at the bidding of the Parliament, the people laid aside their weapons, threw down the barricades, re-opened their shops, and resumed the common business of life as quietly as if nothing had occurred. … It was, however, a short-lived triumph. The queen, her son, and Mazarin effected their escape to St. Germains; and there, by the mediation of Condé and of Gaston, duke of Orleans, the uncle of the king, a peace was negotiated. The treaty of St. Germains was regarded by the court with shame, and by the Parliament with exultation." Fresh quarrels over it soon arose. "Condé was a great soldier, but an unskillful and impatient peacemaker. By his advice and aid, the queen-mother and the king once more retired to St. Germains, and commanded the immediate adjournment of the Parliament from Paris to Montargis. To their remonstrances against that order they could obtain no answer, except that if their obedience to it should be any longer deferred, an army of 25,000 men would immediately lay, siege to the city. War was thus declared."

Sir J. Stephen, Lectures on the History of France, lecture 21.

ALSO IN: Cardinal De Retz, Memoirs, book 2 (volume 1).

FRANCE: A. D. 1648. The Peace of Westphalia. Acquisition of Alsace, etc.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

FRANCE: A. D. 1649. The First Fronde. Doubtful origin of the name. Siege of Paris by Condé. Dishonorable conduct of Turenne. Deserted by his army. The Peace of Reuil.

"The very name of this movement is obscure, and it is only certain that it was adopted in jest, from a child's game. It was fitting that the struggle which became only a mischievous burlesque on a revolution should be named from the sport of gamins and school-boys. Fronde is the name of a sling, and the boys of the street used this weapon in their mimic contests. How it came to be applied to the opponents of the government is uncertain. Some claimed it was because the members of the Parliament, like the young frondeurs, hurled their weapons at Mazarin, but were ready to fly when the officers of the police appeared. Others said the term had been used by chance by some counsellor, and had been adopted by the writers of epigrams and mazarinades. However derived, it was not ill applied."

J. B. Perkins, France Under Mazarin, chapter 9 (volume 1).

"Paul de Gondi, Coadjutor of Paris [Coadjutor, that is, of the Archbishop of Paris, who was his uncle], famous afterwards under the name of Cardinal de Retz, placed himself at the head of the revolution. … The Prince of Conti, brother of Condé, the Duke of Longueville, the Duke of Beaufort, and the Duke of Bouillon adopted the party of the coadjutor and the parliament. Generals were chosen for an army with which to resist the court. Although taxes levied by Mazarin had been resisted, taxes were freely paid to raise troops—12,000 men were raised; Condé [commanding for the queen] had 8,000 soldiers. These he threw around Paris, and invested 100,000 burgesses, and threatened to starve the town. The citizens, adorned with feathers and ribbons, made sorties occasionally, but their manœuvres were the subject of scorn by the soldiers. … As Voltaire says, the tone of the civil discords which afflicted England at the same time mark well the difference between the national characters. {1227} The English had thrown into their civil war a balanced fury and a mournful determination. … The French on the other hand threw themselves into their civil strife with caprice, laughter, dissolution and debauchery. Women were the leaders of factions—love made and broke cabals. The Duchess of Longueville urged Turenne, only a short time back appointed Marshal of France, to encourage his army to revolt, which he was commanding for his king. Nothing can justify Turenne's action in this matter. Had he laid down his command and taken the side of his brother [the Duke de Bouillon], on account of his family grievance [the loss of the principality of Sedan—see above, A. D. 1641-1642], the feudal spirit which in those days held affection for family higher than affection for country, might have excused him; but, while in the service of a sovereign and intrusted with the command of an army, to endeavour to lead his troops over to the enemy can be regarded as nothing short of the work of a traitor. He himself pleads as his apology that Condé was starving the population of Paris by the investment. … As it was he sacrificed his honour, and allowed his fair fame to be tarnished for the sake of a worthless woman who secretly jeered at his passion, and cared nothing for his heart, but merely for his sword for her own worldly advantage. As it was he endeavoured to persuade his army to declare for the parliament, and purposed taking it into Champagne, and marching for the relief of the capital; but the treachery of the marshal was no match for the subtlety of the cardinal. Before Turenne issued his declaration to his troops the colonels of his regiment had already been tampered with. The cardinal's emissaries had promised them pensions, and distributed £800,000 among the officers and soldiers. This was a decisive argument for mercenaries, who taught Turenne by forsaking him that mercenary services can only be commanded by money. D'Erlach had also stood firm. The regiments of Turenne, six German regiments, called by d'Erlach, marched one night to join him at Brisach. Three regiments of infantry threw themselves under the guns of Philipsburg. Only a small force was left to Turenne, who, finding the blow he intended hopeless, sent the troops still with him to join d'Erlach at Brisach, and retired himself with fifteen or twenty of his friends to Heilbron, thence to Holland, where he awaited the termination of the civil war. The news of the abandonment of Turenne was received with despair at Paris, with wild joy at St. Germain. His banishment, however, was not long. The leaders of the parliament became aware that the princes of the Fronde were trying to obtain foreign assistance to overturn the monarchy; that their generals were negotiating a treaty with Spain. They felt that order, peace, and the independence of parliament, which would in this case become dependent upon the nobility, was in danger. They took the patriotic resolution quickly to act of their own accord. A conference had been opened between the parliament and the Court. Peace was concluded at Reuil, which, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Conti [brother of Condé, the family being divided in the First Fronde], Bouillon, and the other nobles of the Fronde, was accepted by the whole parliament. Peace was proclaimed in Paris to the discontent of the populace. … Turenne, on the conclusion of the treaty of Reuil, embarked in Zeeland, landed at Dieppe, and posted to Paris."

H. M. Hozier, Turenne, chapter 6.

"After the signing of the peace, the Château of St. Germain became the resort of many Frondeurs; the Duchess de Longueville, the Prince of Conti, and nearly all the other chiefs of the party, hastened to pay their respects to the Queen. She received everybody without bitterness, some even with friendship; and the Minister on his part affected much general good-will. … One of the first effects of the peace between the parties was a reconciliation in the House of Condé. The Princess Dowager employed herself with zeal and success in reestablishing harmony between her children. Condé, who despised his brother too much to hate him, readily agreed to a reconciliation with him. As to his sister, he had always felt for her great affection and confidence, and she no less for him: these sentiments were revived at their very first interview at Ruel, and he not only gave her back his friendship, but began to enter into her views, and even to be guided by her counsels. The Prince's policy was to make Royalty powerful and respected, but not absolute. He said publicly that he had done what he ought in upholding Mazarin, because he had promised to do so: but for the future, if things took a different line, he should not be bound by the past. … A prey to a thousand conflicting feelings, and discontented with everybody, and perhaps with himself, he took the resolution of retiring for several months to his government in Burgundy. On returning from Dijon in the month of August, the Prince found the Queen and the Cardinal at Compiègne, and very much dejected. … He … pressed her to return to Paris with her Minister, answering for Mazarin's safety, at the risk of his own head. … Their entry into Paris took place a few days after."

Lord Mahon, Life of Louis, Prince of Condé, chapter 3-4.

ALSO IN: Guy Joli, Memoirs, volume 1.

Cardinal De Retz, Memoirs, book 2.

Miss Pardoe, Louis XIV., chapters 9-11.

FRANCE: A. D. 1650-1651. The New Fronde, or the Petits Maitres. Its alliance with Spain and defeat at Rethel. Revolt, siege and reduction of Bordeaux.

"Faction, laid asleep for one night, woke again fresh and vigorous next morning. There was a Parliamentary party, a De Retz party, and a Condé party, and each party plotted and schemed unceasingly to discredit the others and to evoke popular feeling against all except itself. … Neither of the leaders, each pretending fear of assassination, ever stirred abroad unless in the company of 400 or 500 gentlemen, thus holding the city in hourly peril of an 'émeute.' Condé's arrogance and insolence becoming at last totally unbearable, the Court proceeded to the bold measure of arresting him. New combinations: De Retz and Orleans coalesce once more; De Retz coquets with Mazarin and is promised a cardinal's hat. Wily Mazarin strongly supports De Retz's nomination in public, and privately urges every member of the council to vote against it and to beseech the Queen to refuse the dignity. It was refused; upon which De Retz turned his energies upon a general union of parties for the purpose of effecting the release of Condé and the overthrow of the minister.'

De Retz and the Fronde (Temple Bar, volume 38, pages 535-536).

{1228}

Condé, his brother Conti, and his brother-in-law Longueville, were arrested and conducted to Vincennes on the 18th of January, 1650. "This was the second crisis of the sedition. The old Fronde had expired; its leaders had sold themselves to the Court; but in its place sprang up the New Fronde, called also, from the affected airs of its leaders, the Petits Maîtres. The beautiful Duchess of Longueville was the soul of it, aided by her admirer, Marsillac, afterwards Duke de la Rochefoucauld, and by the Duke of Bouillon. On the arrest of her husband and her brother, the duchess had fled to Holland, and afterwards to Stenai; where she and Bouillon's brother, Turenne, who styled himself the 'King's Lieutenant-General for the liberation of the Princes,' entered into negotiations with the Archduke Leopold. Bouillon himself had retired into Guienne, which province was alienated from the Court because Mazarine maintained as its governor the detested Epernon. In July Bouillon and his allies publicly received a Spanish envoy at Bordeaux. Condé's wife and infant son had been received in that city with enthusiasm. But on the approach of Mazarine with the royal army, the inhabitants of Guienne, alarmed for their vintage, now approaching maturity, showed signs of submission; after a short siege Bordeaux surrendered, on condition of an amnesty, in which Bouillon and La Rochefoucauld were included; and the Princess of Condé was permitted to retire (October 1st 1650). In the north, the Frondeurs, with their Spanish allies, seemed at first more successful. In the summer Leopold had entered Champagne, penetrated to Ferté Milon, and some of his marauding parties had even reached Dammartin. Turenne tried to persuade the Archduke to march to Vincennes and liberate the princes; but while he was hesitating, Gaston transferred the captives to Marcoussis, whence they were soon after conveyed to Havre. Leopold and Turenne, after a vain attempt to rouse the Parisians, retreated to the Meuse and laid siege to Mouzon. The Cardinal himself, like his master Richelieu, now assumed the character of a general. Uniting with his troops in the north the army of Guienne, he took up his quarters at Rethel, which had been captured by Du Plessis Praslin. Hence he ordered an attack to be made on the Spaniards. In the battle which ensued, these were entirely defeated, many of their principal officers were captured, and even Turenne himself narrowly escaped the same fate (December 15th 1650). The Cardinal's elation was unbounded. It was a great thing to have defeated Turenne, and though the victory was Du Plessis', Mazarine assumed all the credit of it. His head began to turn. He forgot that he owed his success to the leaders of the old Fronde, and especially to the Coadjutor; he neglected his promises to that intriguing prelate, though Gondi plainly declared that he must either be a prince of the Church or the head of a faction. Mazarine was also imprudent enough to offend the Parliament; and he compared them with that sitting at London—which indeed was doing them too much honour. The Coadjutor went over to the party of the princes, dragging with him the feeble-minded Orleans, who had himself been insulted by the Queen. Thus was produced a third phase of this singular sedition—the union of the old Fronde with the new. The Parliament now clamoured for the liberation of the princes. As the Queen hesitated, Gaston bluntly declared that the dismissal of Mazarine was necessary to the restoration of peace; while the Parliament added to their former demand another for the Cardinal's banishment. Mazarine saw his mistake and endeavoured to rectify it. He hastened to Havre in order to liberate the princes in person, and claim the merit of a spontaneous act. But it was too late; it was plain that he was acting only by constraint. The princes were conducted back in triumph to Paris by a large retinue sent to escort them. On February 25th 1651, their innocence was established by a royal declaration, and they were restored to all their dignities and charges. Mazarine, meanwhile, who saw that for the present the game was lost, retired into exile; first into Bouillon, and afterwards to Brühl on the Rhine, where the Elector of Cologne offered him an asylum. From this place he corresponded with the Queen, and continued to direct her counsels. The anarchy and confusion that had ensued in France were such as promised him a speedy return."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 5, chapter 1 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: T. Wright, History of France, book 4, chapter 4 (volume 2).

Miss Pardoe, Louis XIV. and the Court of France, volume 1, chapter 13-15.

FRANCE: A. D. 1651-1652. The loss of Catalonia.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1648-1652.

FRANCE: A. D. 1651-1653. The arrogance of Condé and his renewal of civil war. The King's majority proclaimed. General changing of sides. Battle of Porte St. Antoine and massacre of the Hôtel de Ville. End of the Fronde. Condé in the service of Spain.

"The liberated captives were received with every demonstration of joy by all Paris and the Frondeurs, including the Duke of Orleans. The Queen, melancholy, and perhaps really ill, lay in bed to receive their visit of cold ceremony; but the Duke of Orleans gave them a grand supper, and there was universal joy at being rid of Mazarin. … There was a promise to assemble the States General, while Condé thought himself governing the kingdom, and as usual his arrogance gave offence in various quarters. One article in the compact which had gained his liberty was that the Prince of Conti should marry Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, but this alliance offended the pride of the elder brother, and he broke the marriage off hastily and haughtily. Madame de Chevreuse, much offended, repented of the aid she had given, went over to the Queen's party, and took with her the coadjutor, who was devoted to the rejected daughter, and could always sway the mob of Paris. So many persons had thus come to desert the cause of the Prince that Anne of Austria thought of again arresting him." Condé, supposing himself in danger, fled from the city on the 6th of July, and "went to his château of St. Maur, where his family and friends joined him; and he held a kind of court. Queen and Parliament both sent entreaties to him to return, but he disdained them all, and made the condition of his return the dismissal of the secretaries whom Mazarin had left. The Queen, most unwillingly, made them retire, and Condé did return for a short time; but he was haughtier than ever, and openly complained of Mazarin's influence, making every preparation for a civil war. Strangely violent scenes took place," between the Prince and the Coadjutor and their respective adherents; and presently the Prince "quitted Paris, went to Chantilly, and decided on war. {1229} Mazarin wrote to the Queen that the most prudent course would be to ally herself with the Parliament to crush the Princes. After they should have been put down the Parliament would be easily dealt with. She acted on this advice. The elections for the States General were beginning, but in order to quash them, and cancel all her promises, the Queen decided on proclaiming the majority of the King, and thus the close of her own regency. It was of course a farce, since he had only just entered his fourteenth year, and his mother still conducted the Government; but it made a new beginning, and was an occasion for stirring up the loyalty of the people. … Condé was unwilling to begin a civil war, and was only driven into it by his sister's persuasions and those of his friends. 'Remember,' he said, 'if I once draw the sword, I shall be the last to return it to the scabbard.' On the other side, Anne of Austria said, 'Monsieur le Prince shall perish, or I will.' From Montrond, Condé directed his forces to take possession of the cities in Guyenne, and he afterwards proceeded to Bordeaux. On the other hand, Mazarin repaired to Sedan, and contrived to raise an army in the frontier cities, with which he marched to join the King and Queen at Poitiers. War was raging again, still as the Fronde, though there had been a general change of sides, the Parliament being now for the Court, and the Princes against it, the Duke of Orleans in a state of selfish agitation between the two. Learning that the royal army was advancing to his own appanage of Orleans, and fearing that the city might open its gates to them, he sent off his daughter, Mademoiselle [de Montpensier], to keep the citizens to what he called their duty to himself. She went with only two ladies and her servants … and found the gates closed against her." The persevering Mademoiselle succeeded, however, in gaining admission to the town, despite the orders of the magistrates, and she kept out of it the soldiers of both factions in the war. But her own inclinations were strongly towards Condé and his side. "She went out to a little inn to hold a council with the Dukes of Beaufort and Nemours, and had to mediate between them in a violent quarrel. … Indeed, Condé's party were ill-agreed; he had even quarreled with his sister, and she had broken with De la Rochefoucauld! The Duke de Bouillon and his brother Turenne were now on the Queen's side, and the command of the royal army was conferred on the Viscount. Condé, with only eight persons, dashed across France, to take the command of the army over which Beaufort and Nemours were disputing. The very morning after he arrived, Turenne saw by the disposition of the troops who must be opposed to him. 'M. le Prince is come,' he said. They were the two greatest captains of the age, and they fought almost in sight of the King and Queen at Bleneau. But though there were skirmishes [including, at the outset, the serious defeat of a division of the royal forces under Hocquincourt], no decisive engagement took place. It was a struggle of manœuvres, and in this Condé had the disadvantage. … Week after week the two armies … watched one another, till at last Condé was driven up to the walls of Paris, and there the gates were closed against both armies. Condé was at St. Cloud, whence, on the 2nd of July [1652], he endeavoured to lead his army round to Charenton at the confluence of the Seine and the Loire; but when he came in front of the Porte St. Antoine, he found that a battle was inevitable and that he was caught in a trap, where, unless he could escape through the city, his destruction was inevitable. He barricaded the three streets that met there, heaping up his baggage as a protection, and his friends within, many of them wives of gentlemen in his army, saw the situation with despair." The only one who had energy to act was Mademoiselle. She extorted from her hesitating father an order, by virtue of which she persuaded the magistrates of the city, not only to open the gates to Condé, but to send 2,000 men to the Faubourg St. Antoine. "Mademoiselle now repaired to the top of the great square tower of the Bastille, whence she could see the terrible conflict carried on in the three suburban streets which converged at the Porte St. Antoine." Seeing an opportunity to turn the cannon of the Bastille on the pursuing troops, she did so with effect. "Turenne was obliged to draw back, and at last Condé brought his army into the city, where they encamped in the open space of the Pré des Clercs. … Condé unworthily requited the hospitality wrung from the city. He was resolved to overcome the neutrality of the Parliament, and, in concert with Beaufort, instigated the mob to violence. Many soldiers were disguised as artizans, and mingled with the rabble, when, on the 4th of July, he went to the Hotel de Ville, ostensibly to thank, the magistrates, but really to demand their support against the Crown. These loyal men, however, by a majority of votes, decided on a petition to the King to return without Mazarin. On this Condé exclaimed publicly, 'These gentlemen will do nothing for us. They are Mazarinists. Treat them as you please.' Then he retired to the Luxembourg with Gaston, while Beaufort let loose the mob. The Hotel de Ville was stormed, the rabble poured in at doors and windows, while the disguised soldiers fired from the opposite houses, and the magistrates were threatened and pursued on all sides. They had one advantage, that they knew their way through the intricate passages and the mob did not. The first who got out rushed to the Luxembourg to entreat the Duke and Prince to stop the massacre; but Monsieur only whistled and beat his tattoo, and Condé said he knew nothing about sedition. Nor would Beaufort interfere till the disturbance had lasted many hours; but after all many more of the rabble were killed than of the magistrates. It was the last remarkable scene in the strange drama of the Fronde. The Parliament suspended its sittings, and the King transferred it to Pontoise, whither Molé and all the other Presidents proceeded, leaving Paris in disguise. This last ferocious proceeding of Condé's, though he tried to disavow it, had shocked and alienated everyone, and he soon after fell sick of a violent fever. Meanwhile, his castle of Montrond was taken after a year's siege, Nemours was killed in a duel by the Duke of Beaufort, and the party was falling to pieces. … Mazarin saw the opportunity, and again left the Court for the German frontier. This was all that was wanting to bring back the malcontents. Condé offered to make terms, but was haughtily answered that it was no time for negotiation, but for submission. Upon this, he proceeded to the Low Countries, and offered his sword to the Spaniards. {1230} The King entered Paris in state and held a bed of justice, in which he proclaimed an amnesty, excepting from it Condé and Conti, and some others of their party, and forbidding the Parliament to interfere in State affairs. The Coadjutor, who had become a Cardinal, was arrested, and imprisoned until he made his escape, dislocating his shoulder in his fall from the window, but finally reaching Rome, where he lived till the Fronde was forgotten, but never becoming Archbishop of Paris. … When all was quiet, Mazarin returned, in February, 1653, without the slightest opposition, and thus ended the Fronde, in the entire triumph of the Crown. … The misery, distress and disease caused by these wars of the Fronde were unspeakable. There was nothing to eat in the provinces where they had raged but roots, rotten fruit, and bread made of bran. … Le misère de la Fronde' was long a proverbial expression in France."

C. M. Yonge, Cameos from English History, chapter 15.

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon, Life of Condé, chapters 8-9.

G. P. R. James, Life and Times of Louis XIV., chapters 11-12.

Cardinal de Retz, Memoirs, books 3-4 (volumes 2-3).

M'lle de Montpensier, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 11-17.

FRANCE: A. D. 1652. Loss of Gravelines and Dunkirk. Spanish invasion of Picardy.

"In the spring of 1652, the Spanish forces, under the command of the archduke had undertaken the siege of Gravelines, which was obliged to capitulate on the 18th of May. The archduke next undertook the siege of Dunkirk, but, at the earnest desire of the princes, he merely blockaded the place, and sent Fuensaldaña with about 14,000 men into Picardy to their assistance. … The court, in great alarm, sought first a retreat in Normandy, but the Duke of Longueville, who still held the government of that province, refused to receive Mazarin. The fears of the court were not lessened by this proceeding, and it was even proposed to carry the king to Lyons; but the wiser counsels of Turenne finally prevailed, and it was resolved to establish the army at Compiègne, and lodge the court at Pontoise. Fuensaldaña forced the passage of the Oise at Chauni, and then joined the duke of Lorraine at Fismes, on the 29th of July, when their joint forces amounted to full 20,000 men, while Turenne had not more than 11,000 to oppose to them. But the Spaniards were, as usual, only pursuing a selfish policy, and Fuensaldaña, in pursuance of the archduke's orders, left a body of 3,000 cavalry to reinforce the duke of Lorraine, and returned with the rest of his troops to assist in the siege of Dunkirk," which soon surrendered to his arms.

T. Wright, History of France, volume 2, page 89.

FRANCE: A. D. 1652-1653. Last phase of the Fronde at Bordeaux. Attempted revolution by the Society of the Ormée.

See BORDEAUX: A. D. 1652-1653.

FRANCE: A. D. 1653-1656. Condé's campaigns against his own country, in the service of Spain.

"Condé, unfortunately for his fame, made no attempts at reconciliation, and retired to the Spaniards—an enemy of his country! He captured several small places on the [Flemish] frontier, and hoped to return in spring victorious. A few days after the entry into Paris, Turenne set out to oppose him; and, retaking some towns, had the satisfaction, of compelling him to seek winter quarters beyond the limits of France. … Condé persuaded the Spanish to bring 30,000 men into the field for the next campaign: Turenne and La Ferté had but 13,000. To paralyze the plans of the enemy, the Viscount proposed, and his proposal was allowed, to be always threatening their rear and communications; to occupy posts they would not dare to attack, and so to avoid fighting, at the same time hindering them from all important undertakings. He began by throwing himself between two corps of their army, at the point where they expected to effect a junction; and in the eight or nine days thus gained, he recovered Rhétel, without which it would have been, as he declares himself, impossible to defend Picardy and Champagne. Rhétel, so much an object of anxiety, was taken in three days. Baffled in their original purposes, and at a loss, the Spanish expected a large convoy from Cambray, escorted by 3,000 horse. Turenne got news of this, and, posting himself near Peronne to intercept it, drove it back to Cambray [August 11, 1653]. There Condé and Fuensaldaña turned upon him; but he took up a position, which they watched for three or four days, and there defied their attack. They refused the challenge. Thence the enemy drew off," with designs on Guise, which Turenne frustrated. "Condé then laid siege to Rocroi, where his own first glory had been gained; and this place is so hemmed in by woods and defiles, that the relief of it was impossible. But Turenne compensated for the loss of it by the equally valuable recapture, of Mouson. Thus the whole year was spent in marches and countermarches, in gains and losses, which had no influence on events. By this time the malcontents were so prostrate that Condé's brother, the Prince de Conti, and his sister, the Duchesse de Longueville, made their peace with the court. … The year 1654 opened with the siege of Stenay by the young king in person, who was carried thither by Mazarin, to overawe Condé's governor with the royal name and majesty. That officer was more true to his trust than to his allegiance, and Stenay cost a siege. … Condé could do no better than imitate Turenne's policy of the previous year, and besiege Arras as an equivalent for Stenay; to which end he mustered 32,000 men. Arras was a town of some value. Condé had caught it at disadvantage; the governor, Mondejeu … was put on his defence with 2,500 foot and 100 horse. To reinforce this slender garrison was the first care of Turenne. … Mazarin was anxious for Arras, and offered Turenne to break up the siege of Stenay, for the sake of reinforcing the army of relief. This proposal the Viscount declined. He must have been very confident of his own capacity; for he could collect only 14,000 men to hover around the enemy's camp. … He proposed no attempt upon the intrenchments till he had the aid of the troops from Stenay … ; but he disposed his parties around so as to prevent the enemy's convoys from reaching them." Stenay surrendered on the 6th of August, and Turenne, with reinforcements from its besiegers, attacked the Spanish lines at Arras on the night of the 24th, with complete success. The Spaniards raised the siege and retreated to Cambray, leaving 3,000 prisoners and 63 pieces of cannon in the hands of the French. "The capture of Quesnoy and Binches filled up the rest of the year; the places were weak and the garrisons feeble. {1231} Nor did the next season, 1655, offer anything of interest. Turenne reduced Landrecies, Condé, and Guislain, while his active opponent was sometimes foiled by his precautions, and sometimes baffled by the absurd behaviour of the Spanish authorities. … The great event of 1656 was the siege of Valenciennes. This place … was invested by Turenne about the middle of June: but hardly had his camp been intrenched before he repented of his undertaking. The Scheldt flows through the town, and by reservoirs and sluices was flooded at the will of the enemy. Turenne's camp was largely inundated. … He had overestimated his means: so great was the circle of his circumvallation that he had not men enough to guard it adequately, when Condé and the Spanish appeared with 20,000 men to the relief of the place." They broke through his lines and forced him to retreat, with a heavy loss of prisoners taken. "The Viscount retrieved his credit by the bold stand he made after the defeat."

T. O. Cockayne, Life of Marshal Turenne, pages 58-69.

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon, Life of Condé, chapter 10.

J. B. Perkins, France under Mazarin, chapters 16-17 (volume 2).

FRANCE: A. D. 1653-1660. First persecution of the Jansenists.

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS.

FRANCE: A. D. 1655-1658. Alliance with the English Commonwealth against Spain. The taking of Dunkirk for England and Gravelines for France. End of the war.

"Mazarin was now bent upon an enterprise which, if successful, must finish the war. A deadly blow would be struck at the strength of Spain if Dunkirk, Mardyck, and Gravelines—the possession of which was of vital importance to her communication with Flanders, as well as enabling her to ruin French commerce on that coast—could be wrested from her. For this the cooperation of some maritime power was necessary, and Mazarin determined at all costs to secure England. With Cromwell, the only diplomatist by whose astuteness he confessed himself baffled, he had been negotiating since 1651. … At length on November 3, 1655, a treaty was signed at Westminster, based upon freedom of commerce and an engagement that neither country should assist the enemies or rebels of the other; Mazarin consented to expel Charles II., James, and twenty named royalists from France. Cromwell similarly agreed to dismiss from England the emissaries of Condé. But Mazarin was soon anxious for a more effectual bond. … Cromwell had equally good reasons for drawing closer to France, for Spain was preparing actively to assist Charles II. French and English interests thus coinciding, an alliance was signed at Paris on March 23, 1657

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1655-1658.

Gravelines and Dunkirk were to be at once besieged both by land and sea. England was to send 6,000 men to assist the French army. Gravelines was to become French and Dunkirk English; should the former fall first it was to be held by England until Dunkirk too was taken. … The alliance was not a moment too soon. The campaign of 1657 had opened disastrously. The tide was however turned by the arrival of the English contingent. Montmédy was immediately besieged, and capitulated on August 4. The effect was again to make Mazarin hang back from further effort, since it seemed possible now to make peace with Spain, and thereby avoid an English occupation of Dunkirk. But Cromwell would stand no trifling, and his threats were so clear that Mazarin determined to act loyally and without delay. On September 30, Turenne laid siege to Mardyck, which protected Dunkirk, and took it in four days. It was at once handed over to the English." In the spring of 1658 the siege of Dunkirk was begun. The Spaniards, under Don John of Austria and Condé, attempting to relieve the place, were defeated (June 13) in the battle of the Dunes, by Turenne and Cromwell's Ironsides (see ENGLAND: A. D.1655-1658). "Dunkirk immediately surrendered, and on the 25th was in Cromwell's possession. Two months later Gravelines also fell. A short and brilliant campaign followed, in which Don John and Condé, shut up in Brussels and Tournai respectively, were compelled to remain inactive while fortress after fortress fell into French hands. A few days after the fall of Gravelines Cromwell died; but Mazarin was now near his goal. Utterly defeated on her own soil, beaten, too, by the Portuguese at Elvas, and threatened in Milan, her army ruined, her treasury bankrupt, without a single ally in Europe, Spain stood at last powerless before him."

O. Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV., chapter 6.

FRANCE: A. D. 1657. Candidacy of Louis XIV. for the imperial crown.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1705.

FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661. The treaty of the Pyrenees. Marriage of Louis XIV. to the Spanish Infanta.

"The Spaniards could struggle no longer: they sued for peace. Things were prepared for it on every hand: Spain was desperate; matters far from settled or safe in France; in England the Protector's death had come very opportunely for Mazarin; the strong man was no longer there to hold the balance between the European powers. Questions as to a Spanish marriage and the Spanish succession had been before men since 1648; the Spaniards had disliked the match, thinking that in the end it must subject them to France. But things were changed; Philip IV. now had an heir, so that the nations might hope to remain under two distinct crowns; moreover, the needs of Spain were far greater than in 1648, while the demands of France were less. So negociation between Mazarin and Louis de Haro on the little Isle of Pheasants in the Bidassoa, under the very shadow of the Pyrenees, went on prosperously; even the proposal that Louis XIV. should espouse the Infanta of Spain, Maria Theresa, was at last agreed to at Madrid. The only remaining difficulty arose from" the fact that the young King, Louis XIV., had fallen in love with Maria Mancini, Cardinal Mazarin's niece, and wished to marry her. "The King at last abandoned his youthful and pure passion, and signed the Treaty of the Pyrenees [concluded November 7, 1659], condemning himself to a marriage of state, which exalted high the dignity of the French Crown, only to plunge it in the end into the troubles and disasters of the Succession War. The treaty of peace begins with articles on trade and navigation: then follow cessions, restitutions, and exchanges of territories.