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Title: History of the Bastile and of its principal captives
Author: R. A. Davenport
Release date: September 20, 2025 [eBook #76902]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Thomas Tegg and Son, 1838
Credits: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE BASTILE AND OF ITS PRINCIPAL CAPTIVES ***
Transcriber’s Note: This book uses the spelling “Bastile” throughout
(rather than “Bastille” as is more common in modern times).
THE HISTORY OF THE BASTILE.
THE
HISTORY OF THE BASTILE,
AND OF ITS
PRINCIPAL CAPTIVES.
BY
R. A. DAVENPORT.
AUTHOR OF THE “NEW BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY,” ETC. ETC.
Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more
To France than all her losses and defeats,
Old or of later date, by sea or land,
Her house of bondage, worse than that of old
Which God avenged on Pharaoh—the Bastile.—COWPER.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS TEGG AND SON,
73, CHEAPSIDE.
1838.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The execution of a plan so frequently falls immeasurably short of the
author’s original conception, that some wit, of whom I have forgotten the
name, has likened them to the cry of an oriental fruit-hawker: “In the
name of the Prophet—figs!” I can bear witness how much what is purposed
goes beyond what is accomplished. I began loftily, and perhaps the reader
will say, that I have ended with—figs. At the outset I designed to link,
in some measure, the history of the Bastile with that of France, and to
trace the rise and progress of those parties, factions, and sects, which
furnished inmates to the prisons of state. But I soon discovered that the
contracted limits of a single volume would not admit of my plan being
carried into execution. By much enlarging the page, and by making, at
no small cost, a very considerable addition to the number of pages, the
publisher has liberally endeavoured to give me the means of rendering
the work less imperfect than it would otherwise have been; but I have,
nevertheless, been exceedingly cramped by the want of adequate space.
But, though I have not done all that I wished to do, I am by no means
disposed to disparage my labours. I have consulted every document that
was accessible, and have conscientiously tried to be strictly just, and
to combine information with amusement. I indulge a hope that the volume
will tend not only to keep up an abhorrence of arbitrary power, but
also to inspire affection for governments which hold it to be a duty to
promote the happiness of the people. Whatever may be its defects, it
is the only work in the English language that has even the slightest
pretension to be denominated a History of the Bastile.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
Original meaning of the word Bastile—Various
Bastiles—Description of “The Bastile”—Officers of the
fortress—Interior of it—The Garden—The Court where
the prisoners took exercise—The Towers, Dungeons,
Apartments, Furniture, Food, of the prisoners—The
Library—The Chapel—Lettres de Cachet described—Advocate
of them—Change in the treatment of prisoners—Narrative
of a prisoner—Strict search of prisoners—Harshness to
them—Artifices employed against them—Silence enjoined
to the Guards, &c., of the prison—Mode of receiving
visitors—Suppression of letters—Secrecy and mystery—Medical
attendance—Wills—Insanity—Clandestine burial of the dead. 1
CHAPTER II.
Reign of John II.—Stephen Marcel, Provost of the
Merchants—Reign of Charles V.—Hugh Aubriot—Reign of
Charles VI.—Noviant—La Rivière—Peter des Essarts—John de
Montaigu—Contests of the factions at Paris—The Count of
Armagnac—The Burgundians obtain possession of Paris—Massacre
of the Armagnacs—Assassination of the Duke of Burgundy—Reign
of Charles VII.—Paris in the hands of the English—Villiers
de l’Isle Adam—The English expelled from Paris—Reign of
Louis XI.—Anthony de Chabannes—The Count de Melun—Cardinal
de Balue—William d’Haraucour—Charles d’Armagnac—Louis de
Luxembourg—The Duke of Nemours and his children. 33
CHAPTER III.
Reign of Francis I.—Semblançai—The Chancellor Duprat—The
Chancellor Poyet—Admiral de Chabot—Fall of Poyet—Reign of Henry
II.—Anne du Bourg—Louis du Faur—Reign of Francis II.—Execution
of Du Bourg—Francis de Vendôme—Reign of Charles IX.—The Duke of
Lunebourg—Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé in danger of
the Bastile—Faction of the Politicians—La Mole—Coconas—Marshal
de Montmorenci—Marshal de Cossé—Reign of Henry III.—Bussi
d’Amboise. 74
CHAPTER IV.
Reign of Henry III. continued—Conspiracy of Salcede—Francis
de Rosières—Peter de Belloy—Francis le Breton—Bernard
Palissy—Daring plots of the League—Henry III. expelled from
Paris—The Bastile surrenders to Guise—Bussi le Clerc appointed
governor—Damours—James de la Guesle—Reign of Henry IV.—Members
of the parliament arrested—President de Harlay—Potier de
Blancmesnil—The family of Seguier—Speeches of Henry IV.—Louis
Seguier—James Gillot—Outrage committed by the Council of
Sixteen—It is punished by the Duke of Mayenne—Henry IV. enters
Paris—Surrender of the Bastile—Du Bourg—Treasure deposited in
the Bastile by Henry. 102
CHAPTER V.
Reign of Henry IV. continued—Viscount de Tavannes—The marshal
duke of Biron—Faults of Biron—Friendship of Henry IV. for
Biron—La Fin, and his influence over Biron—The Duke of
Savoy—Biron’s first treason pardoned—Embassies of Biron—Speech
of Queen Elizabeth to Biron—Discontent among the nobles—Art of
La Fin—Imprisonment of Renazé—La Fin betrays Biron—Artifices
employed to lull Biron into security—Arrest of Biron, and
the Count of Auvergne—Conduct of Biron in the Bastile—His
trial—His execution—Respect paid to his remains—Monbarot
sent to the Bastile—The Count of Auvergne—He is sent to the
Bastile but soon released—He plots again—Cause and intent of
the conspiracy—He is again arrested—Sentence of death passed
on him, but commuted for imprisonment—He spends twelve years
in the Bastile—Mary of Medicis releases him—Conspiracy of
Merargues—He is executed—Death of Henry IV. 133
CHAPTER VI.
Reign of Louis XIII.—The treasure of Henry IV.
dissipated—Prevalent belief in magic—Cesar and Ruggieri—Henry,
prince of Condé—The Marchioness d’Ancre—Marshal
Ornano—Prevalence of duelling—The Count de Bouteville—The Day
of the Dupes—Vautier, the physician of Mary of Medicis—The
Marshal de Bassompierre—The Chevalier de Jars—Infamy of
Laffemas—Three citizens of Paris sent to the Bastile—Despotic
language of Louis XIII.—The Count de Cramail—The Marquis of
Vitry—Peter de la Porte—Noel Pigard Dubois, an alchemical
impostor—The Count de Grancé and the Marquis de Praslin—The
prince Palatine—Count Philip d’Aglie—Charles de Beys—Letter
from an unknown prisoner to Richelieu. 172
CHAPTER VII.
Reign of Louis XIV.—Regency of Anne of Austria—Inauspicious
circumstances under which she assumed the regency—George
de Casselny—The Count de Montresor—The Marquis de
Fontrailles—Marshal de Rantzau—The Count de Rieux—Bernard
Guyard—Broussel, governor of the Bastile—The Duchess of
Montpensier orders the cannon of the Bastile to be fired on
the king’s army—Conclusion of the war of the Fronde—Surrender
of the Bastile—Despotism of Louis XIV.—Slavishness of the
nobles—John Herauld Gourville—The Count de Guiche—Nicholas
Fouquet—Paul Pellisson-Fontainier—Charles St. Evremond—Simon
Morin—The Marquis de Vardes—Count Bussy Rabutin—Saci le
Maistre—The Duke of Lauzun—Marquis of Cavoie—The Chevalier
de Rohan—A nameless prisoner—Charles D’Assoucy—Miscellaneous
prisoners. 217
CHAPTER VIII.
The Poisoners—The Marchioness of Brinvilliers—Penautier—La
Voisin and her accomplices and dupes—The “Chambre Ardente”—The
Countess of Soissons—The Duchess of Bouillon—The Duke of
Luxembourg—Stephen de Bray—The Abbé Primi—Andrew Morell—Madame
Guyon—Courtils de Sandraz—Constantine de Renneville—The
Man with the Iron Mask—Jansenists—Tiron, Veillant,
and Lebrun Desmarets—The Count de Bucquoy—The Duke de
Richelieu—Miscellaneous prisoners. 273
CHAPTER IX.
Reign of Louis XV.—Regency of the Duke of Orleans—Oppressive
measures against all persons connected with the Finances—Their
failure—Prisoners in the Bastile—Freret—Voltaire—The
Cellamare conspiracy—The Duchess of Maine—Madame de
Staal—Malezieu—Bargeton—Mahudel—The Mississippi scheme—Count
de Horn—Death of the Regent—Administration of the Duke of
Bourbon—La Blanc—Paris Duverney—The Count de Belleisle—The
Chevalier de Belleisle—Madame de Tencin. 314
CHAPTER X.
Reign of Louis XV. continued—The Bull Unigenitus—A Notary
Public—G. N. Nivelle—G. C. Buffard—Death of Deacon Paris—Rise,
progress, and acts, of the Convulsionaries—Persecution
of them, and artifices employed by them to foil their
persecutors—Lenglet Dufresnoy—La Beaumelle—F. de
Marsy—Marmontel—The Abbé Morellet—Mirabeau the elder—The
Chevalier Resseguier—Groubendal and Dulaurens—Robbé
de Beauveset—Mahé de la Bourdonnais—Count Lally—La
Chalotais—Marin—Durosoi—Prévost de Beaumont—Barletti St.
Paul—Dumouriez. 346
CHAPTER XI.
Captivity and Sufferings of Masers de Latude—Cause of his
Imprisonment—He is removed from the Bastile to Vincennes—He
escapes—He is retaken, and sent to the Bastile—Kindness of
M. Berryer—D’Alegre is confined in the same apartment with
him—Latude forms a plan for escaping—Preparations for executing
it—The Prisoners descend from the summit of the Bastile, and
escape—They are recaptured in Holland, and brought back—Latude
is thrown into a horrible dungeon—He tames rats, and makes a
musical pipe—Plans suggested by him—His writing materials—He
attempts suicide—Pigeons tamed by him—New plans suggested
by him—Finds means to fling a packet of papers from the top
of the Bastile—He is removed to Vincennes—He escapes—Is
recaptured—Opens a communication with his fellow-prisoners—Is
transferred to Charenton—His situation there—His momentary
liberation—He is re-arrested, and sent to the Bicêtre—Horrors
of that prison—Heroic benevolence of Madame Legros—She succeeds
in obtaining his release—Subsequent fate of Latude. 382
CHAPTER XII.
Reign of Louis XVI.—Enormous number of Lettres de Cachet
issued in two reigns—William Debure the elder—Blaizot
imprisoned for obeying the King—Pelisseri—Prisoners from
St. Domingo—Linguet—Duvernet—The Count de Paradès—Marquis
de Sade—Brissot—The Countess de la Motte—Cardinal de
Rohan—Cagliostro—The affair of the Diamond Necklace—Reveillon
takes shelter in the Bastile—Attack and capture of the Bastile
by the Parisians—Conclusion. 436
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE BASTILE.
A. Avenue from St. Anthony’s Street—B. Entrance, and first drawbridge—C.
The Governor’s house—D. First court—E. Avenue leading to the gate of
the fortress—F. Drawbridge and gates of the fortress—G. Guard-houses—H.
The great court within the towers—I. Staircase leading to the Council
Chamber—K. Council Chamber—L. Court du Puits, or Well Court—M. Way to
the garden—N. Steps leading into the garden—O. Garden—P. The moat of the
fortress—Q. Passage to the Arsenal garden—R. A wooden road round the
walls for the night patrole—1. Tower du Puits—2. Tower de la Liberté—3.
Tower de la Bertaudière—4. Tower de la Bazinière—5. Tower de la Comté—6.
Tower du Trésor—7. Tower de la Chapelle—8. Tower du Coin.]
THE HISTORY OF THE BASTILE.
CHAPTER I.
Original meaning of the word Bastile—Various
Bastiles—Description of “The Bastile”—Officers of the
fortress—Interior of it—The Garden—The Court where
the prisoners took exercise—The Towers, Dungeons,
Apartments, Furniture, Food, of the prisoners—The
Library—The Chapel—Lettres de Cachet described—Advocate
of them—Change in the treatment of prisoners—Narrative
of a prisoner—Strict search of prisoners—Harshness to
them—Artifices employed against them—Silence enjoined
to the Guards, &c. of the prison—Mode of receiving
visitors—Suppression of letters—Secrecy and mystery—Medical
attendance—Wills—Insanity—Clandestine burial of the dead.
The word Bastile, which has now long been, and will ever remain, a term
of opprobrious import, to designate the dungeons of arbitrary power,
has, like many other words, deviated widely in the lapse of years from
its original meaning. Its derivation is traced, somewhat doubtfully, to
the Italian _bastia_ or _bastione_. In former times, it was applied to
any fort, whether permanent or temporary. In our old writers, as well
as in those of France, we find it repeatedly given to field works. The
redoubts, for instance, by means of which, in the reign of the sixth
Henry, the English blockaded Orleans, are so denominated by French
chroniclers. The same is the case with respect to more durable works;
there were, at an early period, no less than three bastiles at Paris,
those of St. Denis, the Temple, and St. Anthony, all of which were
situated to the north of the Seine. Eventually, the name was confined to
the last of these buildings. The quadrangular castle of St. Denis was
demolished in 1671; but the tower of the Temple, in which the unfortunate
Louis the Sixteenth and his family were confined, outlasted the Bastile
itself for nearly a quarter of a century, and was used as a state prison
till 1811, when it ceased to exist.
The bastile of St. Anthony—which structure I shall henceforth mention
only as The Bastile—is generally supposed to have been founded by Hugh
Aubriot. This opinion is, however, erroneous. It is beyond a doubt,
that the original plan and construction of it must be assigned to the
celebrated Stephen Marcel, provost of the merchants of Paris. When, in
1356, after the disastrous battle of Poitiers, the English detachments
were ravaging the vicinity of the French capital, and the citizens were
filled with terror, Stephen undertook to repair the dilapidated bulwarks
of the city, and add other defences. Among his additions was a gate,
fortified with towers on each side, leading from the suburb of St.
Anthony into the street of the same name. These towers must be considered
as the first rudiments of the Bastile.
The haste with which, while an enemy was at hand, the walls had been
constructed, had not allowed of giving to them that height and solidity
which were requisite for effectually resisting an attack. In 1369,
Charles the Fifth resolved to remedy this defect. The task of making
the necessary improvements was committed to Hugh Aubriot, the provost
of Paris. Among the changes which Aubriot made, was the adding of two
towers to those which already existed at St. Anthony’s gate. They were
erected parallel with those built by Marcel; so that the whole formed
a square fort, with towers at the angles. In the reign of Charles the
Sixth, after the Maillotin insurrection, in 1382, the Bastile was again
enlarged, by the addition of two towers at each end of the fortress; thus
presenting a front of four towers to the city, and as many to the suburb.
To render more difficult any attempt to surprise the place, the road,
which, as we have seen, ran through it, was turned to one side. The body
of the fortress received no further accession; but, before the middle of
the seventeenth century, a bastion was constructed on the side toward the
suburb, and a broad dry ditch, about forty yards wide and twelve deep,
faced with masonry, encircled the whole.
Along the summit of the exterior wall of the ditch, which was at an
elevation of sixty feet above the bottom of the ditch, was a wooden
gallery, called the Rounds, reached by two flights of steps. Day and
night sentinels were constantly moving about in this gallery; every
quarter of an hour they were visited by some of the officers or
serjeants; and, more completely to secure their vigilance, each man had
certain numbered pieces of copper pierced with holes, which, at stated
times, he was to drop on the point of an instrument, fixed in a padlocked
box. A bell was also rung upon the Rounds, every quarter of an hour,
throughout the night.
The officers on the establishment of the Bastile consisted of a governor,
the king’s lieutenant, a major, who officiated as secretary, and prepared
the reports and monthly accounts for the minister, two adjutants to
assist him, a physician, a surgeon and his assistant, a chaplain, two
priests, and a confessor, a keeper of the records, clerk, superintendant
of the buildings, engineer, four turnkeys, and a company of invalids.
No soldier was allowed to sleep out of the place without leave from the
governor; nor could any officer dine out or be absent all night, without
permission from the minister. Originally only the governor and the
king’s lieutenant were appointed by the king, the rest being nominated
by the governor; and guard was mounted at the castle by a body of
citizens, which bore the name of the Independent Company of Archers. The
change was made about the middle of the eighteenth century.
The interior of the gloomy fabric must now be described. Having passed
down St. Anthony’s-street, and arrived nearly at the city gate, leading
to the suburb of the same name, he who wished or was compelled to visit
the Bastile, turned to the right hand, in the direction of the Arsenal,
where stood a sentinel, to warn off all idle gazers. Before, however,
the main building could be entered, the visiter had to pursue his
way along an approach, bent nearly into the form of three sides of a
square, ⊐, flanked with buildings of various kinds, on the whole of one
side, and a part of the other. Over the entrance gate was an armoury,
and on the right of it a guard-room; on the left hand was a range of
suttling-houses, and on the right were barracks. The road then made an
abrupt turn, on the right of which were stables, coachhouses, and a door
into a space which was called the Elm Court. This first division was
named the Passage Court. At the extremity of it was a drawbridge, with a
guard-house at its further end. This bridge led to a second court, taking
its name from the governor’s house, which, with his garden, occupied one
half of its circuit. Another abrupt turn brought the visiter opposite the
portal of the fortress, which he at length reached, after having passed
by the kitchens, and traversed the great drawbridge. Between the street
and the interior of the fortress there were five massy gates, at all of
which sentinels were posted.
The principal drawbridge being passed, and the gate opened, the visiter
stood within the Bastile itself. Leaving on his right a guard-room, he
found himself in the Great Court of the Castle, a parallelogram of about
a hundred and two feet long by seventy-two broad, containing six towers,
three on the side looking towards the suburb, and as many on the city
side: the former were named de la Comté, du Trésor, and de la Chapelle;
the latter de la Bazinière, de la Bertaudière, and de la Liberté.
Between the three left hand towers were rooms for the archives and other
purposes, and the chapel; between the towers du Trésor and de la Chapelle
was, in former times, the gate of St. Anthony, and the road into the city.
A pile of buildings, comparatively modern, extending across the shortest
diameter of the fortress, from the Tour de la Chapelle to the miscalled
Tour de la Liberté, divided this principal court from another, called
the Well Court. This pile contained the council chamber, the library,
the repository for the prisoners’ effects, and apartments for the king’s
lieutenant, the major, and other officers, and, occasionally, for the
sick, and captives of distinction.
The length of the Well Court was between seventy and eighty feet, the
breadth between forty and fifty. At the angle on the right was the tower
du Coin, on the left the tower du Puit. In this court were some lodgings
for the drudges of the place; and, as the poultry were fed and the offal
was thrown out here, it was always dirty and unwholesome.
The garden, formed out of what once was a bastion, on the suburb side of
the castle, was laid out in walks, and planted with trees. It appears,
that, till a period not long previous to the downfall of the Bastile,
such prisoners as were not confined for flagitious crimes, or for the
express purpose of being rendered supremely wretched, were permitted
to walk there. To the last governor, M. de Launay, they were indebted
for being deprived of this privilege. To increase his already enormous
emoluments, he let it to a gardener, and he had interest enough with
the minister to obtain his sanction for this encroachment on the scanty
comforts of the prisoners—an order was issued by which they were excluded
from it. Nor was this all, or the worst. The platforms, along the summit
of the towers and connecting curtains, had hitherto afforded a pleasant
and airy walk; but these, too, were shut up, at his desire, partly to
save trouble to those who watched the prisoners, and partly to diminish
the chance of conversation between the former and the latter. Such
conduct is, however, not strange in the man who could meet the complaints
of his oppressed inmates with obscenely vulgar language; and could add,
that “people either ought not to put themselves in the way of being sent
to the Bastile, or ought to know how to suffer when they got there.”
Humanity deplores his subsequent fate, and execrates the brutality of his
murderers; but, as far as regards him personally, M. de Launay appears to
have been deserving of very little respect.
The only remaining spot in which exercise could be taken was the
principal court. “The walls which enclose it,” says M. Linguet, “are
more than a hundred feet high, without windows; so that, in fact, it
is a large well, where the cold is unbearable in winter, because the
north-east wind pours into it, and in summer the heat is no less so,
because, there being no circulation of air, the sun makes an absolute
oven of it. This is the sole lyceum where such of the prisoners as have
permission (for all do not have it) can, each in his turn, for a few
moments in the day, disencumber their lungs from the pestilential air of
their dwelling.” But even this poor gratification, which seldom extended
to an hour, was considerably abridged by circumstances. Any increase in
the number of prisoners diminished the time which was allotted. Whenever,
as was frequently the case, any stranger entered the court, the prisoner
was obliged to hurry into a narrow passage, called the Cabinet, and shut
himself in closely, that he might not be seen. M. Linguet states, that
three quarters of an hour was often wasted in these compulsory retreats
to the Cabinet. If they were not promptly made, or the captive displayed
any curiosity, the least penalty inflicted was confining the delinquent
within the limits of his cell.
The towers, which were at least a hundred feet high, were seven feet
thick at the top, and the thickness gradually increased, down to the
foundation. Lowest of all in them were dungeons, under the level of the
soil, arched, paved, lined with stone, dripping with perpetual damps,
the darkness of which was made visible by means of a narrow slit through
the wall, on the side next the ditch. In this fetid den, swarmed newts,
toads, rats, and every variety of vermin which haunt confined and gloomy
spots. Planks, laid across iron bars fixed in the wall, formed the couch
of the captive, and his only bedding, even in the most inclement season,
was a little straw. Two doors, each seven inches thick, with enormous
locks and bars, closed the entrance to each of these horrible abodes,
over which might fitly have been inscribed the terrific line that shone
dimly over the gate of hell, “All hope abandon ye who enter here!”
Above the dungeons were four stories, each consisting of a single room,
with, in some instances, a dark closet scooped out of the wall. All were
shut in by ponderous double doors; as were also the staircases. In three
of the stories, the rooms, of an irregular octagonal shape, were about
twenty feet in diameter, and eighteen in height. In many of the rooms
the ceilings were double, with a considerable vacuity between them; the
lower one was of lath and plaster, the upper of solid oak. The highest
story of all, which was termed la Calotte, was neither so lofty nor so
large as the others; it was arched to support the roof and platform, and
its curvature prevented its inhabitant from walking in any part but the
middle of the room. On the towers and curtains several pieces of cannon
were mounted.
The light which was thrown into these chambers was broken and imperfect;
prospect from them there was none. Each room had only one window; and,
independent of the obstacle opposed to sight by the massiveness of the
walls, there was another, in the double iron gratings, at the outside and
middle, formed of bars as thick as a man’s arm, which closed the narrow
aperture. In the lower stories, that there might be no chance of seeing
or being seen, the opening was filled half way up with stone and mortar,
or with planks fastened to the external grating. Three steps led up to
some of the windows, if windows they may be called; in other cases they
were level with the floor. A glass casement excluded the wind in the
better apartments; the dungeons were left exposed to all the rigour of
the elements.
The rooms were floored with tile or stone, and all of them, except the
dungeons, had chimneys or stoves; the chimneys were secured, in several
parts, by iron bars. In winter, six pieces of wood were allowed daily
for firing. M. Linguet complains, in his Memoirs, that the quantity was
insufficient, and the quality execrable. It is obvious that, to enhance
his profits, an avaricious governor would purchase as cheaply, and deal
out as scantily, as it was possible for him to do.
The rooms were designated from their situation in the towers, numbering
from the bottom, and the prisoners were designated by the number of their
room. Thus, for instance, the first chamber above the dungeon in the
Bazinière tower was called the first Bazinière, and so on to the topmost,
which was known as the Calotte Bazinière. The prisoner was consequently
mentioned not by his name but by the number of his room—the first
Bazinière, the first Bertaudière, the third Comté, &c. &c. In some cases
it appears that the prisoner received another name instead of his own,
which was never uttered or written. In this way De la Tude, of whom we
shall have occasion to speak, was denominated Daury.
In what manner these pleasant abodes were furnished M. Linguet shall
describe. “Two worm-eaten mattresses, a cane elbow chair, the bottom of
which was held together by packthread, a tottering table, a water jug,
two pots of delftware, one of which was to drink out of, and two flag
stones, to support the fire; such was the inventory, at least such was
mine. I was indebted only to the commiseration of the turnkey, after
several months’ confinement, for a pair of tongs and a fire shovel. It
was not possible for me to procure dog-irons; and, whether it arises from
policy or inhumanity I know not, what the governor will not supply, he
will not allow a prisoner to procure at his own expense. It was eight
months ere I could obtain permission to buy a tea-pot, twelve before I
could procure a tolerably strong chair, and fifteen ere I was suffered
to replace by a crockery vessel the filthy and disgusting pewter vessel
which is the only one that is used in the Bastile.
“The single article which I was at the outset allowed to purchase was a
new blanket, and the occasion was as follows:
“The month of September, as every body knows, is the time when the moths
that prey upon woollens are transformed into winged insects. When the
antre which was assigned to me was opened, there arose from the bed,
I will not say a number, nor a cloud, but a large and dense column of
moths, which overspread the chamber in an instant. I started back with
horror. ‘Pooh! pooh!’ said one of my conductors with a smile, ‘before you
have lain here two nights, there will not be one of them left.’
“In the evening, the lieutenant of police came, according to custom,
to welcome me. I manifested so violent a repugnance to such a populous
flock bed, that they were gracious enough to permit me to put on a new
covering, and to have the mattress beaten, the whole at my own cost. As
feather beds are prohibited articles in the Bastile, doubtless because
such luxuries are not suitable for persons to whom the ministry wishes
above all things to give lessons of mortification, I was very desirous
that, every three months at least, my shabby mattress should have the
same kind of renovation. But, though it would have cost him nothing, the
proprietory governor opposed it with all his might, ‘because,’ said he,
‘it wears them out.’”
Each prisoner was supplied with flint, steel, and tinder, a candle a day,
a broom once a week, and a pair of sheets every fortnight.
Captives of rank were undoubtedly somewhat better accommodated, and,
where there were no particular reasons for annoying them, they were
favoured by being allowed to receive articles from their homes; but the
common run of convenience and comfort appears not to have gone beyond
what is described by M. Linguet.
The food of the prisoners was paid for by the king at so much per head,
according to a graduated scale; but the supply and management of it were
left, seemingly without controul, in the hands of the governor. By this
arrangement the prisoners were placed at the mercy of their jailor,
who, if he happened to have a great love of gain, and a scanty portion
of humanity, might fill his purse by furnishing bad provisions, or not
sufficient to sustain life. “There are prisoners in the Bastile,” says
Linguet, “who have not more than four ounces of meat at a meal; this has
been ascertained more than once by weighing what was given to them; the
fact is notorious to all the under officers, who are grieved by it.” In
estimating the amount of the wrong thus inflicted, it must be borne in
mind, that the man who is in bonds requires more and better nourishment,
to keep nature from sinking, than is necessary for the man who is a free
agent. There was, in this instance, no excuse for stint. The sum allowed
by the king for the maintenance of the captives was exceedingly liberal.
It was nearly half a crown a day for an individual of the humblest class;
four shillings for a tradesman; eight shillings for a priest, a person
in the finance department, or an ordinary judge; twelve shillings for a
parliament counsellor; twenty shillings for a lieutenant general in the
army; one pound ten for a marshal of France; and two guineas for a prince
of the blood. If the sovereign oppressed those who incurred his anger, he
at least did not mean to starve them.
What was the fare which this high rate of remuneration obtained for
the prisoners? It is thus described in a work, published in 1774, by
one who had himself long tried it. I am not aware that the accuracy of
the statement has ever been impeached; on the contrary, there is the
testimony of other witnesses to the same effect.
“The kitchen is supplied by the governor’s steward, who has under him a
cook, a scullion, and a man whose employment is to cut wood for fuel.
All the victuals are bad, and generally ill-dressed: and this is a mine
of gold to the governor, whose revenue is daily augmented by the hard
fare of the prisoners under his keeping. Besides these profits, which
are inconceivably great, the governor receives a hundred and fifty
livres a day for fifteen prison rooms, at ten livres each, as a sort
of gratification in addition to his salary; and he often derives other
considerable emoluments.
“On flesh days the prisoners have soup with boiled meat, &c. for dinner;
at night a slice of roast meat, a ragoût and salad. The diet on fast days
consists, at dinner, of fish, and two other dishes; at night, of eggs,
with greens. The difference in the quality of the diet is very small
between the lowest rank of prisoners, and those who are classed at five
or ten livres; the table of the latter is furnished with perhaps half
a starved chicken, a pigeon, a wild rabbit, or some small bird, with a
dessert; the portion of each rarely exceeds the value of twopence.
“The _Sunday’s_ dinner consists of some bad soup, a slice of a cow, which
they call beef, and four little pâtés; at night a slice of roast veal or
mutton, or a little plate of haricot, in which bare bones and turnips
greatly predominate; to these are added a salad, the oil to which is
always rancid. The suppers are pretty uniformly the same on flesh days.
_Monday_: instead of four pâtés a haricot. _Tuesday_: at noon, a sausage,
half a pig’s foot, or a small pork chop. _Wednesday_: a tart, generally
either half warm or burnt up. _Thursday_: two very thin mutton chops.
_Friday_: half a small carp, either fried or stewed, a stinking haddock
or cod, with butter and mustard; to which are added greens or eggs; at
supper eggs, with spinach mixed up with milk and water.—_Saturday_: the
same. And this perpetual rotation re-commences on Sunday.
“On the three holidays, St. Louis, St. Martin, and Twelfth day, every
prisoner has an addition made to his allowance, of half a roasted
chicken, or a pigeon. On Holy Monday, his dinner is accompanied by a tart
extraordinary.
“Each prisoner has an allowance of a pound of bread and a bottle of
wine per day; but the wine is generally flat and good for nothing. The
dessert consists of an apple, a biscuit, a few almonds and raisins, some
cherries, gooseberries, or plums; these are commonly served in pewter,
though sometimes they are favoured with earthen dishes and a silver spoon
and fork. If any one complains of receiving bad provisions, a partial
amendment may take place for a few days; but the complainant is sure to
meet with some unpleasant effects of resentment. There is no cook’s shop
in the kingdom, where you may not get a better dinner for a shilling than
what are served in the Bastile. The cookery, in short, is wretchedly bad,
the soup tasteless, and the meat of the worst quality, and ill dressed.
All this must operate to injure the health of the prisoners; and, added
to other grievances, excites frequent imprecations of vengeance from
Heaven.”
With respect to the badness of the wine, Linguet corroborates the
statement of this writer. The governor, it appears, in addition to the
diet-money, had the privilege of taking into his cellars near a hundred
hogsheads of wine, duty free. “What does he do?” says Linguet. “He sells
his privilege to a Parisian tavern keeper, of the name of Joli, who gives
him 250_l._ for it, and he takes in exchange from him the very cheapest
kind of wine for the use of the prisoners; which wine, as may easily be
imagined, is nothing but vinegar.” This was a fraud at once upon the
government and the prisoners.
The sole mental recreation which the prison afforded was derived from a
small library, consisting of about five hundred volumes. This collection
is said to have been founded by a foreign prisoner, who died in the
Bastile, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, and to have been
enlarged by later sufferers. In some cases, prisoners were allowed to
read in the library; but, generally, the works were taken to the cells
of the captives, and the selection of them depended on the taste of the
turnkeys. Few of the books were unmutilated; for the prisoners now and
then indulged in writing bitter remarks on the blank spaces. As soon as a
book was returned, every leaf was carefully examined, and woe be to the
rash offender who had suffered passion to get the better of prudence! An
epigram, or a sarcasm, on his persecutors, or on men in office, exposed
him to the worst that irresponsible power could inflict. As to the
volume, if the writing was on the margin, the piece was cut off; but when
it chanced to be inserted between the lines, the page was torn out.
It seems to have been thought by no means necessary that a prisoner, who
was deprived of all earthly comforts, should receive consolation from
regular attendance on religious worship. The chapel was a miserable hole,
of about seven or eight feet square, under the pigeon-house of the king’s
lieutenant. “In this chapel,” says one who had been a captive, “are five
small niches or closets, with strong locks, of which three are formed in
the wall; the others are only wainscot. Every prisoner admitted to hear
mass is put in by himself,[1] and can neither see objects nor be seen of
any. The doors of these niches are secured by two bolts on the outside,
and lined within by iron bars; they are also glazed; but before each is
hung a curtain, which is drawn back at the Sanctus, and again closed at
the concluding prayer. Five prisoners only being admitted at each mass,
it follows that no more than ten can assist at that ceremony in a day.
If there be a greater number than this in the Castle, they either do not
go at all, or go alternately; because there are generally found some who
have a constant permission.”
There was a confessor in the fortress; but it is scarcely possible that a
prisoner could repose entire confidence in a spiritual director who was
in the pay of his oppressors. Though it is going much too far to say,
as M. Linguet does, that such a man is “a cowardly double-dealer who
prostitutes the dignity of his character,” it must be owned that some
doubts and suspicions as to him might naturally arise; it matters not
that they would be unjust, the possibility of their being excited ought
to have been carefully avoided.
Let us now turn to the concise but terrible instrument, by virtue of
which an individual was consigned to captivity, perhaps for life. This
was the _lettre de cachet_, or sealed letter, so called to distinguish
it from the _patent_ or open letter, which was merely folded. In former
days, such epistles were called _lettres closes_, or _clauses_. The
name was not given to all sealed up missives, but only to those which
contained some command or information from the sovereign. They were
signed by the king, and countersigned by one of the secretaries of
state. The same appellation was originally given to all letters of the
kind described; but, in latter times, it was principally if not wholly
applied, at least in common parlance, to royal orders of exile and
imprisonment.
The oldest recorded mandate of this species is that which Thierry the
Second issued, at the instigation of Brunehaut, against St. Columbanus,
who had severely censured the vices of the mother and the son. It
directed that he should be removed from the monastery of Luxeuil,
and banished to Besançon, where he was to remain during the king’s
pleasure. The saint yielded only to force, and, as soon as the guards
were withdrawn, he retired to his convent. Violence, however, at length
compelled him to quit the dominions of the licentious Thierry.
The _lettre de cachet_ was usually carried into effect by the officers of
police; sometimes the arrest was made at the dwelling of the individual,
sometimes on the roads or in the street by night; but, in all cases,
it appears to have been accomplished with as much secrecy as possible,
so that it was no uncommon thing for persons to be missing for years,
without their friends being able to discover what had become of them. Men
of rank were at times spared the disgrace of being taken into custody;
they were favoured by being allowed to carry the letter themselves to
the prison mentioned in it, and surrender to the governor. Here is a
specimen of these obliging billets, which was addressed to the prince of
Monaco, a brigadier in the French army.
“My Cousin,
“Being by no means satisfied with your conduct, I send you this
letter, to apprise you that my intention is, that, as soon as
you receive it, you shall proceed to my castle of the Bastile,
there to remain till you have my further orders. On which, my
cousin, I pray God to have you in his holy keeping. Given at
Versailles, this 25th of June, 1748.
(_Signed_) “LOUIS.”
(_Countersigned_) “VOYER D’ARGENSON.”
By such a scrap of paper as this might any man in France be doomed to
close and hopeless imprisonment. Malice, wounded pride, rivalry, revenge,
all the base and cruel passions, availed themselves of it to torment
their enemies. The titled harlot, whose shame had excited laughter or
reprobation, the minister, whose measures were unpopular, the frivolous
courtier, whose folly had been satirised, the debauchee, who wished to
remove an obstacle to his lust, the parent, who preferred ruling his
offspring rather by fear than love, was eager to obtain one of these
convenient scorpion scourges, and the wish was too often gratified.
There is scarcely any enormity so monstrous that it cannot find a
defender. Even _lettres de cachet_ have not been without an apologist;
and, to make the wonder the greater, an English apologist. Let us listen
to his plea. “Perhaps (says he) it was the abuse of the _lettres de
cachet_, rather than their institution, that merited the execration in
which they were held; for however extraordinary it may seem, they were
not unfrequently used to serve the purposes of humanity. There are many
instances of persons, who, on account of private disputes, or affairs
of state, would have been exposed to public punishment, that were shut
up by a _lettre de cachet_, until the danger was past, or the matter
accommodated or forgotten. It may undoubtedly be objected, that keeping a
person from justice is itself a crime against the public; but in forming
a judgment upon this subject, we ought to take into consideration the
prejudices entertained in the country where this authority was employed.
It should be remembered that, by an old and barbarous practice, the
disgrace attending a capital punishment, inflicted by the laws, was
reflected upon all the family of the criminal; and that in many instances
it required a public act of the supreme power to wipe off the stain, and
again enable them to serve their country. In as far, therefore, as the
_lettres de cachet_ counteracted the effects of these prejudices, they
were useful; _but though they were signed by the king, from the idea that
it was proper to have them ready for cases of emergency, ministers, and
governors of provinces, &c., were generally furnished with them in blank,
to be filled up at their discretions; and the friends and favourites of
those ministers sometimes obtained them from them, as is proved by the
case of M. de Fratteaux, and in many other instances_.”[2]
This is, indeed, carrying to a ridiculous extent the determination
to find “a soul of good in things evil!” Perhaps it would not be
uncharitable to put a harsher construction on such language. Public
justice is to be defrauded, thousands are to be plunged into misery,
personal safety is to be hourly jeoparded, crime committed by the rich
and powerful is to escape with all but complete impunity, and the motives
which most influence individuals to bridle their unruly passions are to
be weakened, merely “to counteract the effects of a prejudice” on a few
ancient families! Never was an infinitely small benefit bought at a more
extravagant price.
From certain particulars, which we find in various memoirs, it would seem
that, generally speaking, more indulgences were granted to the inmates
of the Bastile in former days, than during the last thirty years of its
existence. At all times, however, much would undoubtedly depend on the
personal character of the governor; if he chanced to be liberal-minded
and humane, he would, as far as he could venture to do so, mitigate the
sufferings of his captives; if, on the contrary, he were greedy of gain,
and harsh in his disposition, he would stint and deteriorate their diet,
wantonly deny them even the most trifling comforts, and, in short, do his
best to make the management of the prison “render life a burthen,” which,
with an impudent candour, one of the officers of the castle avowed to be
its especial purpose.
It must be owned that, in some respects, modern times witnessed an
improvement in the practice of the Bastile. The cages, which it is
known once to have contained, were removed. The rack, also, and other
instruments of torture, ceased to be called into use. At what period
the change took place is not said. That, in the latter end of Louis the
Thirteenth’s reign, the instruments still existed in the castle, we
learn from the Memoirs of the faithful La Porte, who saw them, and was
threatened with them to extort a confession.
What the Bastile was in its mildest form will appear from the following
narrative, written by a person who was confined for eight months. “About
five in the morning of the 2d of April, 1771,” says the narrator, “I was
awakened by a violent knocking at my chamber door, and was commanded,
in the name of the king, to open it. I did so, and an exempt of the
police, three men who appeared to be under his orders, and a commissary,
entered the room. They desired me to dress myself, and began to search
the apartment. They ordered me to open my drawers, and having examined my
papers, they took such as they chose, and put them into a box, which, as
I understood afterwards, was carried to the police office. The commissary
asked me my name, my age, the place where I was born, how long I had been
at Paris, and the manner in which I spent my time. The examination was
written down by him; a list was made of every thing found in the room,
which, together with the examination, I was desired to read and sign.
The exempt then told me to take all my body linen, and such clothes as
I chose, and to come along with them. At the word _all_ I started; I
guessed where they were about to take me, and it seemed to announce to me
a long train of misery.
“Having shut and sealed the drawers, they desired me to follow them; and
in going out, they locked the chamber door and took the key. On coming
to the street, I found a coach, into which I was desired to go, and the
others followed me. After sitting for some time the commissary told me
they were carrying me to the Bastile, and soon afterwards I saw the
towers. They did not go the shortest and direct road; which I suppose was
to conceal our destination from those who might have observed us. The
coach stopped at the gate in St. Anthony’s street. I saw the coachman
make signs to the sentinel, and soon after the gate was opened: the
guard was under arms, and I heard the gate shut again. On coming to the
first drawbridge, it was let down, the guard there being likewise under
arms. The coach went on, and entered the castle, where I saw another
guard under arms. It stopped at a flight of steps at the bottom of the
court, where being desired to go out, I was conducted to a room which
I heard named the council chamber. I found three persons sitting at
a table, who, as I was told, were the king’s lieutenant, the major,
and his deputy. The major asked me nearly the same questions which the
commissary had done, and observed the same formalities in directing me to
read and sign the examination. I was then desired to empty my pockets,
and lay what I had in them on the table. My handkerchief and snuff-box
being returned to me, my money, watch, and indeed every thing else, were
put into a box that was sealed in my presence, and an inventory having
been made of them, it was likewise read and signed by me. The major then
called for the turnkey whose turn of duty it was, and having asked what
room was empty, he said, the Calotte de la Bertaudière. He was ordered
to convey me to it, and to carry thither my linen and clothes. The
turnkey having done so, left me and locked the doors. The weather was
still extremely cold, and I was glad to see him return soon afterwards
with firewood, a tinder-box, and a candle. He made my fire, but told me,
on leaving the tinder-box, that I might in future do it myself when so
inclined.[3]
“From the time the exempt of police came into my room, I had not ceased
to form conjectures about the cause of my imprisonment. I knew of none,
unless it were some verses and sketches, relative to the affairs of the
times. Though they were indiscreet, they were of little importance. The
only writing that might have seriously given offence to the government, I
had never shown, but to one person in whom I thought I could confide. I
found afterwards he had betrayed me.
“When I heard the double doors shut upon me a second time, casting my
eyes round my habitation, I fancied I now saw the extent of all that was
left to me in this world for the rest of my days. _Besides the malignity
of enemies, and the anger of a minister, I felt that I ran the risk of
being forgotten; the fate of many who have no one of influence to protect
them, or who have not particularly attracted the notice of the public.
Naturally fond of society, I confess I looked forward to the abyss of
lonely wretchedness, that I thought awaited me, with a degree of horror
that cannot easily be described. I even regretted now what I had formerly
considered as the greatest blessing, a healthy constitution that had
never been affected by disease._
“I recollect with humble gratitude the first gleam of comfort that shot
across this gloom. It was the idea, that neither massive walls, nor
tremendous bolts, nor all the vigilance of suspicious keepers, could
conceal me from the sight of God. This thought I fondly cherished, and
it gave me infinite consolation in the course of my imprisonment, and
principally contributed to enable me to support it, with a degree of
fortitude and resignation that I have since wondered at—I no longer felt
myself alone.
“At eleven, my reflections were interrupted by the turnkey, who entered
with my dinner. Having spread the table with a clean napkin, he placed
the dishes on it, cut the meat, and retired, taking away the knife. The
dishes, plates, fork, spoon, and goblet, were of pewter. The dinner
consisted of soup and bouilli, a piece of roasted meat, a bottle of good
table wine, and a pound loaf of the best kind of household bread. In
the evening, at seven, he brought my supper, which consisted of a roast
dish and a ragoût. The same ceremony was observed in cutting the meat,
to render the knife unnecessary to me. He took away the dishes he had
brought for dinner, and returned at eight the next morning to take away
the supper things. Fridays and Saturdays being fast or _maîgre_ days, the
dinner consisted of soup, a dish of fish, and two dishes of vegetables;
the suppers, of two dishes of garden stuff, and an omelet, or something
made with eggs and milk. The dinners and suppers of each day in the week
were different, but every week was the same: so that the ordinary class
of prisoners saw in the course of the first week their bill of fare for
fifty years, if they staid so long.
“I had remained in my room about three weeks, when I was one morning
carried down to the council chamber, where I found the commissary. He
began by asking most of the questions that had been put to me before.
He then asked if I had any knowledge of some works he named, meaning
those that had been written by me;—if I was acquainted with the author
of them;—whether there were any persons concerned with him;—and if I
knew whether they had been printed? I told him that, as I did not mean
to conceal any thing, I should avoid giving him needless trouble; that
I myself was the author of the works he had mentioned, and guessed I
was there on that account;—that they never had been printed;—that the
work, which I conceived was the cause of my confinement, had never been
shown to any but one person, whom I thought my friend; and having no
accomplices, the offence, if there was any, rested solely with myself. He
said my examination was one of the shortest he had ever been employed at,
for it ended here. I was carried back to my room, and the next day was
shaved for the first time since my confinement.
“A few days afterwards I wrote to the lieutenant of the police,
requesting to be indulged with the use of books, pen, ink, and paper,
which was granted; but I was not allowed to go down to the library to
choose the books. Several volumes were brought to me by the turnkey, who,
when I desired it, carried them back and brought others.
“After my last examination I was taken down almost daily, and allowed to
walk about an hour in the court within view of the sentinel: but my walks
were frequently interrupted; for if any one appeared, the sentinel called
out ‘To the Cabinet!’ and I was then obliged to conceal myself hastily in
a kind of dark closet in the wall near the chapel.
“The sheets of my bed were changed once a fortnight, I was allowed four
towels a week, and my linen was taken to be washed every Saturday. I had
a tallow candle daily, and in the cold season a certain number of pieces
of firewood. I was told that the allowance of fire to the prisoners began
the 1st of November, and ceased on the 1st of April, and that my having a
fire in April was a particular indulgence.
“After being detained above eight months, I was informed that an order
had come to discharge me. I was desired to go down to the council
chamber: every thing I had brought with me was returned, together with
the key of my apartment, which I found exactly in the state I left it on
the morning of the 2nd of April, 1771.
“During my confinement I wrote many letters to several of my friends,
which were always received with civility, but not one of them had been
delivered.”
The aspect of captivity in the Bastile, even when stripped of a part of
its horrors, is surely hideous enough. But there can be no doubt that,
in a multitude of cases, an enormous degree of severity was exercised.
Instead of being told, as in this instance, to give up the contents
of his pockets, the prisoner was rudely searched by four men, who
amused themselves with making vulgar jokes and remarks while they were
performing the task; sometimes his own garments were taken from him,
and he was clothed in rags. His sufferings from imprisonment might also
be frightfully aggravated, by thrusting him into one of the humid and
pestilential dungeons, or into a room which was in the vicinity of a
nuisance. M. Linguet was confined in a chamber which fronted the mouth
of the common sewer of St. Anthony’s street, so that the air which he
breathed was never pure; but in hot weather, in the spring and autumnal
floods, and whenever the sewer was cleaned, the mephitic vapours, which
penetrated into his cell, and accumulated there for want of an outlet,
were scarcely to be endured. What were the interior accommodations of
this cell the reader has already seen.
The prisoner was not left to divine the motive for depriving him of all
incisive and pointed instruments; he was bluntly informed that it was
done to prevent him from cutting his own throat or the throats of his
keepers. The reason assigned for the precaution shows sufficiently, that
the officers of the Bastile rightly estimated the capability of exciting
despair, which was possessed by their prison. This preventive system was
carried to an almost ludicrous extent. Wishing to beguile the tedium
of captivity, M. Linguet resolved to resume his geometrical studies,
and he accordingly requested to be supplied with a case of mathematical
instruments. After much demur, the case was obtained, but it was without
a pair of compasses. When he remonstrated respecting the omission, he was
told, that “arms were prohibited in the Bastile.” At length, his jailors
hit upon the happy idea of having the compasses made of bone. Candour,
however, requires the acknowledgment that their fears were not wholly
groundless, instances having occurred in which prisoners were driven to
desperation. It was with a pair of compasses that the unfortunate Count
Lally endeavoured to put an end to his existence. His attempt was made in
the year 1766, and, in the following year, a more fatal event took place.
A captive, Drohart by name, contrived to secrete a knife, with which he
first mortally wounded a turnkey, and then destroyed himself.
For some time after his arrival at the Bastile, every thing seems to
have been studiously contrived to shock a prisoner’s habits, insulate
him from the human race, and deliver him up to squalid wretchedness and
distracting thoughts. The manifest purpose of this was, to break his
courage, and thereby induce him to make such confessions as would answer
the ends of his persecutors. It was not till after he had undergone a
second examination that he was allowed to be shaved; and months often
elapsed before this favour was granted. Neither was he permitted to have
books, pens, or paper, nor to attend mass, nor to walk in the court. He
could not even write to the lieutenant of police, through whom alone
any indulgence was to be obtained. The sight of the turnkey, for a few
moments, thrice a day, was the sole link which connected him with his
fellow beings.
Every stratagem which cunning could devise was put in practice to entrap
a prisoner into an avowal of guilt, the betraying of his suspected
friends, or, failing these, into such contradictions as might give a
colour for refusing to believe him innocent. Threats, too, were not
spared, nor even flatteries and promises. At one moment, papers were
shown to him, but not put into his hands, which his examiners affirmed
to contain decisive proof of his criminality; at another, he was told
that his accomplices had divulged the whole, and that his obstinate
silence would subject him to be tried by a special commission, while,
on the contrary, if he would speak out frankly he should be speedily
liberated. He who was seduced by this artifice was sure to repent of his
folly. When the irrevocable words had passed his lips, he was informed
that the power of his deluders did not extend to setting him free, but
that they would exert all their influence, and hoped to succeed. It is
scarcely necessary to say, that there was not a syllable of truth in
their assurances, and that he who had confided in them was treated with
increased severity. It was not only in official examinations that the
captive was exposed to be thus circumstanced; the same system was pursued
throughout. There was no one who approached him to whom he could venture
to breathe a whisper of complaint. If he was visited by the lieutenant of
police, the sole aim of the lieutenant was to draw forth something which
might be turned against him. If he was allowed to be attended by one of
the invalids, the attendant treasured up for his masters every word that
was dropped. Sometimes, apparently as a matter of grace and kindness, a
companion, said to be a fellow sufferer, was given to him; the companion
was a police spy, who was withdrawn when he had wormed out the secret,
or had become convinced that it was unattainable. To listen to that
which seemed the voice of pity was dangerous; for the turnkeys and other
officers, enjoined though they were to be mute on other occasions, had
their tongues let loose for fraudulent ends, and were taught to lure the
prisoners into indiscreet language, by feigned expressions of sympathy.
In general, a silence was maintained by the officers and attendants,
which might rival that of the monks of La Trappe. “When a corporal or
any other, (said the instructions) is ordered to attend a prisoner,
who may have permission to walk in the garden, or on the towers, it is
expressly forbidden that he speak to him. He is to observe his actions,
to take care that he make no signs to any one without, and to bring
him back at the hour fixed, delivering him over to an officer, or one
of the turnkeys, as may have been ordered.”—“The sentinel in the court
must constantly keep in view the prisoners who may be permitted to walk
there: he must be attentive to observe if they drop any paper, letter,
note, or anything else: he must prevent them from writing on the walls,
and render an exact account of every thing he may have remarked whilst
on duty. All persons whatsoever, except the officers of the staff and
turnkeys, are forbidden ever to speak to any prisoner, or even to answer
him, under any pretence whatever.” As it was supposed that strangers
might chance to feel pity for the victims of despotism, and of course be
disposed to express it, or to serve them, care was taken to guard against
that evil. It was therefore ordered that, “if workmen should be employed
in the castle, as many sentinels must be put over them as may be thought
necessary, who must observe them with the same attention as they do the
prisoners, in order that they may not approach these, nor do any thing
that may be contrary to the rules of the place.”
Visits from without seem never to have been permitted except in minor
cases of offence. No permission was granted till after the final
examination, and not then till repeated requests had been made, and
powerful interest employed. Even when the favour was obtained, its value
was seriously diminished by the restrictions with which it was clogged.
The prisoner was obliged to receive his relative or friend in the council
chamber, on one side of which he was placed, and his visitor on the
other, with two officers between them; nor were the parties suffered to
converse on any subject which had the most remote reference to the cause
or circumstances of the prisoner’s confinement. The same system was
followed when one captive had an interview with another. There was but
one case, in which incarcerated individuals could have a free interchange
of thoughts; it was when the fullness of the prison, or the humanity of
the governor, caused two of them to be located in the same chamber.
Intercourse by letters was equally shackled, though there was an
insulting affectation of a readiness to facilitate correspondence.
It has, indeed, been conjectured, that “this apparent indulgence to
prisoners was one of the many artifices employed to discover their
secrets, and the persons with whom they were connected;” and this
supposition may not be far from the truth. There can be no doubt, that
of the letters written by captives few arrived at their destination. We
have seen, in the narrative of a prisoner, that the whole of those which
he wrote were suppressed. M. Linguet tells us, that, knowing the king’s
brothers, Monsieur and the Count d’Artois, (afterwards Louis XVIII. and
Charles X.) to be favourable to him, he wrote to them, to solicit their
intercession. “The letters,” says he, “were sealed. The lieutenant of
police, some time after, told me he had read but not transmitted them;
that he had not been allowed. When I observed to him that, since he knew
the contents, he might make them known to the generous princes from whom
he had detained them, he replied, that he had no access to such high
personages. Thus the man, who was prohibited from approaching such high
personages, had the privilege of breaking open and suppressing their
letters, of rendering fruitless their good intentions and those of the
monarch, and, in short, of raising round me ramparts more impenetrable
than all the magic castles with which imagination has ever peopled our
romances.”
Profound secrecy and mystery were among the most prominent features in
the management of the Bastile. He who was fortunate enough to emerge
from this den of Cacus, was previously compelled to swear that he would
never reveal whatever he had seen or heard during his abode in it. He
who was retained, to waste away life within its dreary limits, was
sedulously shut out from all knowledge of what was passing in the world.
The malignant enemy, by whom he had been deprived of freedom, might be
gone to his last account, but to _him_ he still lived and tyrannized,
for no whisper of his departure was suffered to reach him. When the fact
of a person being in the Bastile was not so notorious as to preclude
the possibility of denying it, his being there was unblushingly denied.
When enquiry was made, the officers, the governor, the minister himself,
would not scruple to affirm, and that, too, in the most solemn manner,
that they knew nothing of any such individual. Thus were his friends
discouraged, and led to slacken in their exertions for his relief, or
wholly to discontinue them. If, however, they discovered the falsehood,
and persisted in their efforts, there was still another resource for
defeating them; slander was resorted to, the worst crimes were attributed
to him, and he was held up as an abandoned miscreant, whom it was a
disgrace to patronize, and mercy to confine. At last, weariness, disgust,
or death, robbed him of all who had loved or pitied him, and, even though
his original persecutor had ceased to exist, the victim was left to
perish forgotten in his dungeon.
There was one object, besides the wish to elicit imprudent speeches or
confessions, which had power to open the lips of the jailors; that object
was the desire of tormenting, of making the prisoner feel how completely
he was insulated from mankind, no less by its own baseness than by his
prison walls. “I was daily told with a laugh,” says M. Linguet, “that I
ought not to trouble myself any longer about what the world was doing,
because I was believed to be dead; the joke was carried so far, as to
relate to me circumstances which insane rage or horrible levity added
to my pretended exit. I was assured, also, that I had nothing to hope
from the warmth and fidelity of my friends; not so much because, like
others, they were deceived with respect to my existence, as because they
had become treacherous. This double imposture had for its purpose, not
merely to torture me, but at once to inspire me with a boundless reliance
on the only traitor whom I had reason to fear, and who was perpetually
represented as being my only true friend, and to discover, from the
manner in which I was affected by these tidings, whether I had really any
secrets which could lay me open to a betrayer.”
Though the captive was not allowed to live with even a shadow of comfort,
or to hasten his own end, a wide opening was left for death to accomplish
his deliverance in one of the regular modes. From the evening meal till
that of the morning, he was hermetically sealed up by massy, iron-lined
double doors; in all that time no human being approached him. The turnkey
slept in a distant chamber, where neither voice nor the sound of knocking
could reach him. Bells seem to have been thought too great a luxury
for the place. If illness suddenly came, there was no resource for the
sufferer, but to call to the nearest sentinel, on the other side of the
broad moat. If his voice were too weak, if his strength failed to carry
him to the window, or if the wind drowned his cries, he must remain
unaided. If his disorder were apoplectic, or he broke a blood-vessel, it
is manifest that his fate was sealed. But, supposing him to be heard,
prompt assistance was by no means to be expected. The sentinels gave the
alarm to each other, till it reached the guard-house; the turnkey was
then to be called, who, on his part, had to rouse the servant of the
king’s lieutenant, that he might awake his master, and procure from him
the keys. Two hours were thus spent before the surgeon was drawn from his
bed, where, in truth, he might as well have continued, since, interdicted
as he was from prescribing by himself, he could only make a report to the
governor, and promise that the physician, who resided three miles off,
and was overloaded with practice, should be sent to on the morrow.
If the disease was not immediately dangerous, some medicine was brought,
and the sick man must help himself as well as he could, and be thankful
if his malady were not thought to be simulated. “But when he was reduced
to extremity, when he was so far gone that he could not rise from the
worm-eaten couch on which he lay, a nurse was given to him. And who
was this nurse? a stupid, coarse, brutal invalid soldier, incapable of
attentions, little assiduities, every thing which is indispensable for a
sick person. But a still worse thing is, that when this soldier is once
fastened on you, he can never quit you; he himself becomes a prisoner. It
is therefore necessary to begin by purchasing his consent, and prevailing
on him to be shut up with you as long as your captivity lasts; and, if
you recover, you must make up your mind to bear the bad temper, the
discontent, the reproaches, the ennui, of this companion, who takes ample
vengeance upon your health for the seeming services which he has lent to
your sickness.”
There was yet another stab to be inflicted on those who were sinking into
the grave, and by this the living could be wounded at the same time. To
regulate the manner in which, after his death, his property shall be
distributed, and, by so doing, to save a wife and offspring from the
perplexity, endless trouble, expense, and perhaps ruin, which may arise
out of a disputed succession, or the want of needful formalities, is a
duty which every rational being will be anxious to perform. That the
person is a captive, only renders more necessary the performance of the
duty. But not so thought the myrmidons of the Bastile. It is on record
that a prisoner, who was stretched for two months on a bed of sickness,
expecting that each hour would be his last, repeatedly and vainly
implored a French minister of state to grant him the customary legal aid
for executing his will; his prayer was sternly refused, though there
was a lawyer who belonged to the prison establishment. That this was a
solitary instance it would be folly to imagine.
It was not of unfrequent occurrence in the Bastile, for the bodily
faculties of a prisoner to survive his mental. Shut out from the
beautiful forms of nature, the treasures of intellect, and the delights
of social converse, from all that can animate or console; racked by a
thousand remembrances, conjectures, passions, and fears; brooding in
deep seclusion and silence over the past and the present, and vainly
struggling to penetrate the darkness of the future; his mind at length
gave way, and idiotism or madness ensued. Yet even that must be deemed a
blessing, if it brought with it oblivion of his fate.
But the long and unbroken series of woes is at last ended; death has rent
asunder the fetters of the captive, and he is “where the wicked cease
from troubling, and the weary are at rest.” Is there yet a way left, by
which his ingenious tormentors can make their vengeance reach beyond
the grave, by which they can, in some measure, entail upon his kindred
a share of suffering? There is. How was this important purpose effected
in the Bastile? As soon as the breath was out of the body, a notice was
sent to the minister of the home department and the lieutenant-general
of police. The king’s commissary then visited the prison, to minute
down the circumstances. This being done, orders were issued to inter
the body. In the gloom of evening it was conveyed to the burying ground
of St. Paul’s; two persons belonging to the Bastile attended it to sign
the parish register; and the name under which the deceased was entered,
and the description of the rank which he held, were fictitious, that
all trace of him might be obliterated. Another register, containing
his real name and station, was, in truth, kept at the Bastile; but it
was almost inaccessible, a sight of it, for the purpose of making an
extract, being never allowed, without a strict enquiry into the reason
why the application was made. His family and friends, meanwhile, remained
in profound ignorance of his having been released from his troubles.
No mourning mother, wife, or child, followed his remains to their last
abode; and even the poor consolation was denied them of knowing the spot
where he reposed, that they might water it with their tears. Thus, in
death, as in life, oppression and malice triumphantly asserted their
absolute dominion over the captives of the Bastile.
CHAPTER II.
Reign of John II.—Stephen Marcel, Provost of the
Merchants—Reign of Charles V.—Hugh Aubriot—Reign of
Charles VI.—Noviant—La Rivière—Peter des Essarts—John de
Montaigu—Contests of the factions at Paris—The Count of
Armagnac—The Burgundians obtain possession of Paris—Massacre
of the Armagnacs—Assassination of the duke of Burgundy—Reign
of Charles VII.—Paris in the hands of the English—Villiers
de l’Isle Adam—The English expelled from Paris—Reign of
Louis XI.—Anthony de Chabannes—The Count de Melun—Cardinal
de Balue—William d’Haraucour—Charles d’Armagnac—Louis de
Luxembourg—The Duke of Nemours and his children.
A mind tinctured with superstition, even though it were not of the
darkest hue, might be tempted to believe that a fatality pursued the
men by whom the Bastile was raised. It has been seen that the original
founder was the famous Stephen Marcel, Provost of the Merchants. Marcel,
though his character has uniformly been blackened by writers devoted
to absolute monarchy, seems to have been influenced, at least in the
greatest portion of his career, by truly patriotic motives. It is not
the object which he laboured to obtain, but some of the means which
he employed for its attainment, that merits censure. To confine the
royal authority within reasonable bounds, and to give the national
representatives their proper weight in the scale of government, were
the purposes which he sought to accomplish. The dangerous circumstances
in which the country was placed, and the heavy oppression under which
the people groaned, pointed out such a reform as being no less wise
than just. The time for attempting it was favourable; inasmuch as
the captivity of the king, and the presence of a victorious foreign
army, would, it was supposed, compel the dauphin, Charles, to look to
the States-General for the means of saving France from still greater
calamities. Yet, so strong was princely dislike to receiving aid from the
legitimate guardians of the public purse, that Charles preferred raising
supplies by the fraudulent and ruinous expedient of debasing the coin. In
that scheme he was fortunately defeated by the stubborn opposition of the
Provost.
The alliance formed by Marcel with Charles, surnamed the Bad, king
of Navarre, was, perhaps, an impolitic act; not so much because
the Navarrese monarch deserved the epithet given to him by French
historians—for we may doubt whether he was, in reality, much more
blame-worthy than his namesake, the dauphin, on whom the same historians
have lavished their praise—but because a junction with a man who was
exceedingly obnoxious to a large party in France was likely to give rise
to suspicions with respect to his principles and motives. It is probable,
however, that he was led to it, by a wish to have some stronger prop
to lean on than the fluctuating favour of the populace. The “varium
et mutabile semper,” by which Virgil, somewhat harshly, characterizes
the female sex, may, with less appearance of satire, be applied to the
multitude. This truth Marcel was doomed to learn by experience.
For nearly two years, the Provost, with more or less steadiness, kept his
footing on the tottering eminence to which he had risen. During that time
he was actively engaged in securing the French capital from external and
internal foes. He fortified and enlarged its circuit, supplied it with
arms and provisions, established a guard of citizens, which was night
and day on the watch, and barricaded the entrances of the streets by
ponderous chains, which were fastened to the houses: these chains were
the first barricades which were formed in Paris.
The capital was undoubtedly saved from pillage and devastation by the
provident care of Marcel. In spite, however, of his exertions, his
popularity waned; the minds of his fellow citizens were poisoned by
the arts and insinuations of the dauphin’s friends, and irritated by
his connection with the king of Navarre, whose troops were mercilessly
ravaging all the circumjacent country. While the Parisians were in this
ferment, the dauphin promised a general amnesty to them, on condition of
their giving up to him the Provost, and twelve other persons, whom he
should select. Fearing, probably, that this temptation would be too great
for them to resist, the Provost, in an evil hour, resolved to admit into
the city the troops of the king of Navarre. It is also said, though there
does not appear to be any proof of the fact, that he intended to make a
general massacre of the opposite party, and transfer the crown of France
to Charles the Bad. For this we have only the word of his enemies.
It was on the night of the 31st of July, 1358, that Marcel designed to
open the gates of Paris to the Navarrese soldiery. He was too late. At
noon, he went to the gate of the bastile of St. Denis, and ordered the
guard to deliver up the keys to Joceran de Mascon, the king of Navarre’s
treasurer. The guard refused to comply, and a loud altercation arose. The
noise brought to the place John Maillard, the commandant of the quarter.
Up to this moment, Maillard had been the zealous friend of Marcel, but
he now resolutely opposed the scheme of the latter. A violent quarrel
ensued between them, which ended by Maillard springing on horseback,
unfurling the banner of France, and summoning the citizens to assist him
in preventing the Provost from betraying the city to the English. The
summons speedily brought a throng around him. The friends of the dauphin,
likewise, did not let slip this opportunity of acting in his behalf. A
considerable body of men was collected by them, at the head of which were
placed two gentlemen, named Pepin des Essarts and John de Charny.
From the gate of St. Denis, meanwhile, Marcel proceeded on the same
errand to the other gates. He was not more successful than on his first
attempt; obedience was every where refused. As a last resource, he bent
his course to the bastile of St. Anthony. Here, again he was foiled.
His enemies were beforehand with him. The keys he did by some means
obtain, but they were useless. Maillard had already reached the scene of
action, with a numerous train of followers, and he was almost immediately
joined by the partisans of the dauphin. With the keys of the Bastile in
his hand, Marcel began to ascend the entrance ladder, striving at the
same time to keep off his assailants. A terrible cry now burst forth of
“Kill them! kill them! death to the Provost of the Merchants and his
accomplices!” Alarmed by the clamour, he attempted to save himself by
flight, but he was struck on the head with an axe, by de Charny, and he
fell at the foot of the Bastile, which he had himself built. His body
was immediately pierced with innumerable wounds by the infuriated crowd.
Giles Marcel, his nephew, and fifty-three others, the whole of the party
which had attended him, were either slain on the spot or thrown into
prison. Three days afterwards, the dauphin re-entered Paris, and began
to feed his revenge with blood.
By Hugh Aubriot the Bastile was advanced another step towards its
completion. Born at Dijon, of humble parents, Aubriot gained the favour
of Charles the fifth, and of his brother, the duke of Anjou, and was
appointed minister of finance. He was also raised to the dignified,
though troublesome and dangerous office of Provost of Paris. Charles
the fifth had a love of building, and he found in the Provost a man who
had talents and activity to carry his wishes into effect. Paris was
indebted to Aubriot for numerous works, which conduced to its safety,
ornament, and salubrity. He strengthened and added to the ramparts,
constructed sewers, which he was the first to introduce into the
capital, formed quays, rebuilt the Pont au Change, and built the Pont
St. Michel. In these labours he employed, at a fixed rate of payment,
all the mendicants, destitute persons, and disorderly characters of the
city; thus compelling them to earn that subsistence which they had been
in the habit of extorting or plundering from the citizens. The police
of the city was greatly improved by him in other respects. Among the
ordinances which he issued, for that purpose, was one which revived that
of Louis the ninth, relative to prostitutes. Paris was now overrun with
loose women; the ordinance enjoined them, under penalty of fine and
imprisonment, to reside only in certain places, which were specified, to
the number of nine.
The strict performance of his duty proved to be the ruin of Aubriot.
Among the worst nuisances of the capital were the scholars of the
University of Paris; they were addicted, among other things, to
drunkenness, libertinism, and robbery, and their insolence was still
more insufferable than their vices. Perpetual quarrels and contests, in
which they were almost always the aggressors, took place between these
votaries of learning and the citizens. The main cause of their excesses
being thus pushed beyond all bounds was the complete impunity which
they enjoyed. Fonder of its privileges than of morality and justice,
the University on all occasions strenuously resisted the efforts of the
magistrates to bring scholars to punishment. In more than one instance it
threw its protecting shield over plunderers and assassins, and pursued
with a deadly hatred those individuals who had dared to enforce the laws
against criminals. This crying abuse Aubriot determined to suppress. In
the prison of the Little Châtelet, which was built by him, he ordered
two strong and not over comfortable cells to be constructed, for the
reception of delinquent scholars. These he called his _clos Bruneau_ and
_rue de Fouaire_; the University schools being situated in places which
were so named. By this stinging joke, and by the vigorous measures of
Aubriot, the University was inexpiably offended. Regardless of its anger,
he, however, resolutely persisted in arresting and committing to prison
every student who ventured to transgress.
While Charles the fifth lived, Aubriot remained safe; but the death of
his patron, and the weakness and confusion of a minority, laid him open
to the malice of his enemies. The University had sworn to accomplish
his ruin, and this oath it held sacred. In his public character he had
so deported himself as to be intangible; and, therefore, his private
life was ransacked to find matter for accusation. It was discovered, or
feigned, that he was too warm a lover of women, and, to give a darker
colour to this fault, it was added, that he had an especial predilection
for Jewesses. From this, by a curious process of logic, it was deduced
as an inference, that he was himself a Jew and a heretic; his accusers
not perceiving, or not choosing to perceive, that the one of these
conditions excluded the other. Their reasoning was akin to that which, in
the fable, the wolf uses to the lamb. Unluckily, too, for the Provost,
they resembled the wolf in other points; they had his savageness and his
ability to injure. The University and the clergy joined in a clamour
against him, and were supported by the duke of Berry, who was hostile to
the Burgundian party, to which Aubriot belonged.
Charged with impiety and heresy, Aubriot was brought to trial before
an ecclesiastical tribunal. With such prosecutors and such judges,
conviction was certain. To such a pitch did the University and the clergy
carry their animosity against him, that he would have been doomed to the
flames, had not his friends at court powerfully exerted their influence
to procure a milder sentence. But, though his life was spared, he was not
suffered to escape without feeling how venomous are the fangs of fanatics
and pedants. He was condemned to public exposure and penance, in presence
of the heads and scholars of the University, to ask pardon upon his
knees, and, with no other food than bread and water, to spend in strict
confinement the remnant of his days.
Aubriot was conveyed to the Bastile, to undergo the last part of his
sentence. In the course of a few months, probably because he was treated
with too much lenity in a state prison, he was removed to the bishop’s
prison, called Fort-l’Evêque, where he was thrown into one of those
dungeons which bore the significant name of oubliettes. There he might
have languished long, or perished quickly, but never have hoped for
deliverance, had not, in 1381, the intolerable oppression exercised
by the government given rise to the insurrection which, from the
circumstance of the revolters being armed with leaden malls, was called
the Maillotin. In want of a leader, the insurgents bethought them of Hugh
Aubriot; and it is not unlikely that, as he had suffered heavy wrongs,
they supposed he would espouse their cause with heart and soul. They
accordingly liberated him. Aubriot, however, was either too old, or too
prudent, to become the head of a revolt; he spoke his deliverers fair,
but, on the very evening that he was set free, he crossed the Seine, and
hastened to Burgundy, his native country, where he is believed to have
died in the following year.
While Charles the sixth was labouring under his first attack of insanity,
the political feuds and intrigues which distracted his court gave fresh
inhabitants to the Bastile. When, in 1392, the dukes of Burgundy and
Berry assumed the government, the overthrow of Clisson, the constable
of France, and prime minister, necessarily ensued, and in his fall was
involved the ministry he had formed. Three of the ministers, La Begue de
Villaine, Noviant, and La Rivière, were arrested; Montaigu, the fourth,
escaped to Avignon. La Begue, an aged man, who had served in the field
with honour under several kings, was soon released; Noviant and La
Rivière were reserved as scape goats, and were shut up in the Bastile.
Of Noviant nothing important is recorded. La Rivière had enjoyed, in the
highest degree, the confidence and friendship of Charles the fifth; so
much, indeed, did the monarch value him, that, by his express commands,
whenever his favourite died, the royal mausoleum of St. Denis was to be
the place of interment. At the accession of Charles the sixth, La Rivière
suffered a temporary eclipse; but he shone forth again when the young
monarch assumed the reins of government.
Noviant and La Rivière were now in the hands of their enemies, and had
little to hope; for they were rich enough to excite a hungering after
their spoils, and had been too long in possession of power not to be
loathed by their rivals. It is the curse and the shame of politics,
that they render men insensible to, or, which is still worse, incapable
of acknowledging, the merit really owned by those who differ from them
in views and principles. Thorough-going politicians are but too apt to
affirm what is false, or suppress what is true, provided it will injure
their opponents. It follows, as a natural consequence of this unworthy
feeling, that, though the two ministers fully vindicated themselves on
every article of impeachment, they had but small chance of escaping.
Their fate was deemed so inevitable that, more than once during the trial
the brute populace rushed to the place of execution, lured by the report
that the ministers were about to be brought to the scaffold. Luckily
for them, they had a protector, stronger than their innocence. This was
the young and lovely princess Jane, countess of Boulogne, the wife of
the duke of Berry. Her marriage with the duke had been brought about by
the influence of La Rivière, and this circumstance, together with the
minister’s estimable qualities, had secured for him her affection and
esteem. Her pleadings softened her husband, and thus prevented a deadly
sentence from being passed on the fallen statesmen. It is not to be
supposed, however, that they were allowed to go unscathed. To declare
them guiltless would have been a tacit confession of error, an act which
is not to be expected from weak and base minds; and, besides, hatred
could not consent to let loose its objects without previously making
them feel a touch of its fangs. The ministers, therefore, after having
been captives for twelve months, and in hourly dread of death, were only
condemned to confiscation of their property, and exile to a distance
from the court. With respect to the latter part of the sentence, they
might well have exclaimed, like Diogenes, “and we condemn you to remain
at court!” Charles, on his temporary return to sanity, restored their
estates, but they were not again employed. La Rivière died in 1400, and
was buried at St. Denis.
There was a moment when the Bastile seemed about to be converted to its
original purpose, that of a fortress for the defence of Paris. After
the duke of Burgundy had, in 1405, obtained possession of the king, the
dauphin, and the capital, preparations to recover Paris were made by the
beautiful but worthless queen Isabella, and her paramour, the duke of
Orleans. In consequence of this, the Burgundian prince placed garrisons
in the Bastile and the Louvre; and a report having been spread, that
there was a plot to carry off the dauphin, a chain was stretched across
the river, from the Bastile to the opposite bank, to prevent the passage
of vessels. It was on this occasion that, to win the good will of the
Parisians, the duke induced the king to restore to them the barricading
chains, of which they had been deprived in 1383, and which had ever since
been kept in the castle of Vincennes. The precautions were prudent, but
they were made useless, by a treaty between the hostile parties.
It has already been observed, that the office of Provost of Paris was no
less perilous than honourable. During the disturbed and disastrous reign
of Charles the sixth, there were as many as twenty-four provosts, and
there were few of them who did not find their dignity a burthen. Among
the most unfortunate of them was Peter des Essarts. He was one of the
French nobles who were sent to aid the Scotch in their contest with the
English; and, in 1402, he fell into the hands of the latter. After he was
ransomed he returned to France, and became a zealous partisan of John
the Fearless, the duke of Burgundy. The duke amply rewarded him for his
services. He successively obtained for him the posts of Provost of Paris,
grand butler, grand falconer, first lay president of the chamber of
accounts, supreme commissioner of woods and waters, and superintendant
of finance, and also the governments of Cherbourg, Montargis, and Nemours.
As provost of Paris, it fell to his lot to arrest a man whose rise had
been no less rapid than his own. His task was performed with a thorough
good will. Montaigu, whom we have seen flying to Avignon after the
downfall of Clisson, returned to the French capital when the storm was
blown over. There he became more than ever a favourite of the king, who
loaded him with honours, promoted his relations, and procured for his
son the hand of the constable d’Albret’s sister. Among the offices which
were lavished on Montaigu were those of finance minister and grand master
of the royal household. His riches were soon increased to an enormous
degree, and his pride to a still greater. To the duke of Burgundy he
had rendered himself peculiarly obnoxious, by thwarting his plans, and
being a determined adherent of the queen and the house of Orleans. The
Burgundian affected to be reconciled to him, but he did not the less
resolve upon his destruction. To accomplish the ruin of Montaigu, the
duke instituted an enquiry into the conduct of those who had managed
the finances; a species of enquiry which was always applauded by the
tax-burthened people. At the same time, he likewise procured for the
Parisians the restoration of various privileges, which had been taken
from them, as a punishment for the Maillotin insurrection. Having thus
fortified his popularity, he took advantage of the king being visited by
one of his fits of madness, to commence operations against Montaigu. The
favourite had been cautioned against his danger, and advised to fly from
it, but confiding in the support of the queen and the duke of Berry, he
was deaf to advice. He was arrested in the street by des Essarts, and
committed to the Little Châtelet. It strongly marks his insufferable
pride and insolence, that, when he was seized by the provost, he
exclaimed “Ribald! how hast thou the audacity to touch me.” This was the
arrogance of an upstart, for he was of humble birth. He was brought to
trial, with little attention to the forms or the spirit of justice, and,
after having been tortured, was condemned to lose his head; his property
was confiscated, but, instead of being appropriated to replenish the
treasury, it was divided among his enemies. The sentence was executed in
the autumn of 1409.
If ambition had not entirely banished prudence, the fate of Montaigu
might have taught des Essarts to reflect on the frail tenure by which,
in an age of faction, the most conspicuous partisans hold their fortunes
and their lives. Nor was he without a still more impressive warning. In
a moment of displeasure, the duke of Burgundy said to him, “Provost of
Paris, John de Montaigu was three-and-twenty years in getting his head
cut off, but verily you will not be three years about it:”—ominous words,
where the prophet had the power of bringing his prophecy to pass!
In 1410 the contending factions once more resumed their arms. By a rapid
march, the Burgundian prince made himself master of Paris, which he
garrisoned with eight thousand men. For the support of the troops, a
heavy tax was imposed upon the citizens. Des Essarts was charged with the
levying of this tax, and he is accused of having swelled his own coffers
with the largest share of the produce. By this onerous measure, the
popularity of the duke and the provost was materially diminished. In the
course of a few months, the duke deemed it prudent to conclude another
simular of a treaty; it was called the treaty of the Bicêtre, from the
place where it was negotiated, and by one of its articles he consented
that des Essarts should be removed from the provostship of Paris.
It seems impossible for the signers of such treaties to have put their
hands to them without being tempted to laugh in each other’s faces; the
compacts were notoriously intended to be broken on the first favourable
opportunity. Accordingly, but a few months elapsed, after the conclusion
of the peace, before the Burgundian and Orleanist parties were again in
arms, and vituperating each other in the most virulent language. Des
Essarts was re-established as provost of Paris; and, during the temporary
ascendancy of the Orleanists, his exertions to supply the city with
provisions gained for him, from the citizens, the flattering appellation
of the Father of the People. When, however, the Parisians ceased to be in
dread of having hungry bellies, they ceased to applaud him; and, in the
following year, he became an object of their hatred.
A sharp contest of a few months was terminated by another hollow truce,
under the name of a peace. By this time the Burgundian prince appears to
have been converted into a deadly enemy of des Essarts. Three causes are
assigned for this change. The provost is said to have in private charged
him with appropriating a large sum of the public money to his own use; to
have entered into correspondence with the Orleanist leaders, and warned
them that the duke designed to assassinate them; and likewise to have
formed, with the concurrence of the dauphin, a plan for rescuing that
prince and the king from the state of tutelage in which they were kept by
the Burgundian ruler. It is highly probable that, disgusted by the duke
having abandoned him in the treaty of the Bicêtre, he had really gone
over to the Orleanist faction. Any one of these causes was sufficient
to make his former patron resolve upon his ruin. There was also another
circumstance which wore a threatening aspect for des Essarts. The
States-General were now sitting at Paris, and in that assembly clamours
began to be heard against financial depredators, amongst whom the
multitude, so lately his adulators, did not hesitate to class him. To
elude the storm, which he saw approaching from more than one quarter,
he resigned his office of finance minister, in which he had succeeded
Montaigu; but he did not forget to secure an adequate compensation
for the sacrifice which he made. He then retired to his government of
Cherbourg.
The Burgundian was at this period in apparent amity with the dauphin;
nor had he, as yet, openly manifested his animosity against the provost.
The dauphin, was, however, at heart hostile to him, and impatient of his
yoke. It was, no doubt, with a view to having a firm hold of Paris, that
he resolved to become master of the Bastile; but to the duke the reason
which he assigned was, the mutinous disposition of the people, which
it was necessary to have the means of repressing. Imagining that the
provost was still trusted by the duke, he proposed to confide to him the
task of seizing upon the Bastile. The clear-sighted Burgundian at once
saw through the scheme, but he gave a willing consent to its execution;
for it would enable him to accomplish two objects, the getting of des
Essarts into his hands, and the gaining a complete triumph over the
dauphin himself. Des Essarts was consequently summoned from Cherbourg;
he accepted the commission; and he managed so well, that he secured the
Bastile, without the least opposition.
The provost was scarcely in possession of the fortress before the scene
changed. The Burgundian prince had skilfully laid a train, and a violent
explosion suddenly took place. A rumour was spread throughout Paris, that
the Orleanists, or Armagnacs, as they now began to be called, intended
to carry off the dauphin with his own consent, and that the provost
was at the head of the plot. A furious multitude, the leaders of which
were two of the duke’s attendants, immediately hurried to invest the
Bastile on all sides. It swelled every moment, till it consisted of not
fewer than twenty thousand armed men, all clamorous for the blood of des
Essarts, and determined to storm the castle, in order to satisfy their
rage. Another body, led by John de Troie, a surgeon, proceeded, at the
same time, to the dauphin’s palace, loaded him with insult, and arrested
several of his officers and friends, some of whom were murdered on their
way to prison.
The duke of Burgundy now came forward, apparently as a mediator. The
besiegers he induced to suspend their attack, by promising that their
object should be attained without force being used. He then tried his
eloquence on des Essarts. In the first interview he failed, in the second
he succeeded. By dint of representing to him that it was impossible to
restrain the people, and that, if they effected their entrance, which
they certainly would, the provost would be torn in pieces, he shook his
resolution of defending himself; and, by pledging his honour that no harm
should befall him, he finally prevailed on him to surrender.
Des Essarts would have done more wisely to brave death from the
sanguinary crowd, than to rely on the honour of an acknowledged assassin.
Ostensibly for the purpose of saving him from the violence of his
enemies, he was led to the prison of the Châtelet, where he seems to have
thought that all danger was at an end. He was speedily undeceived, by his
being brought to trial. In addition to various crimes charged against him
in his official capacity, he was accused of having caused the renewal of
the war between the princes after the treaty of Chartres, and of having
plotted to carry off from Paris the king, the queen, and the dauphin. He
was, of course, found guilty, and was condemned to lose his head, and to
have his remains suspended from the gibbet of Montfaucon. Four years
had not elapsed since the convicted Montaigu was conveyed by him to the
same spot. The sentence passed on des Essarts was executed on the first
of July 1413. He went to the scaffold with great courage; a circumstance
which his enemies attributed to his having flattered himself that the
people would rise and rescue him. If he entertained any such visionary
hopes, his long experience of the people must have been entirely lost
upon him.
The changes in the fortune of the two factions which desolated France
succeeded each other with an almost ludicrous rapidity; the party which
was triumphant on one day was prostrate on the morrow. We have just seen
the dauphin humbled by the duke of Burgundy; yet the same year did not
pass away before the dauphin and the Armagnacs gained the upper hand,
and the duke found it prudent to retire to his own dominions. That he
might keep a firm hold of the capital, the dauphin gave the command of
the Bastile to his uncle, prince Louis of Bavaria, appointed the duke
of Berry governor of Paris, gave the provostship to Tannegui du Châtel,
removed to the Bastile the chains used for barricading the streets, and
issued orders for the citizens to deliver up all kinds of arms.
The duke of Burgundy appealed to the sword, but without success, and the
treaty of Arras, which was the result of his failure, relieved France
for awhile from his incursions and his intrigues. It was not till nearly
two years afterwards, when the battle of Agincourt had given a rude
shock to the French throne, that he re-appeared upon the scene. Under
his auspices, the Burgundian faction at Paris formed a conspiracy, for a
general massacre of the Armagnacs, in which the king himself was not to
be spared, should he venture to resist. It was detected at the critical
moment, and the Armagnacs avenged themselves by murders, proscriptions,
and excessive taxes, which alienated many of their friends, without
crushing their enemies.
The death of the dauphin Louis, speedily followed by that of his
brother and successor John, gave the dignity of dauphin to Charles, the
youngest son of the king. The duke of Burgundy had hoped to exercise an
influence over John, but he had only hostility to expect from Charles,
who, as far as a boy of fifteen could be any thing, was a partisan of
the Armagnacs. By war alone could any thing be gained, and he therefore
prepared to wage it. The gross impolicy of the opposite party gave him
manifold advantages. While the count of Armagnac, the constable, who was
the head of the reigning faction, goaded the people by forced loans,
enormous imposts, and severities against all whom he suspected, he and
the dauphin contrived also to exasperate the queen, by seizing her
treasures, casting, perhaps not undeservedly, a stain upon her character,
and banishing her to Tours. Driven to desperation by these injuries and
insults, she abjured her long-cherished hatred of the duke, and wrote
to him for succour. He gladly listened to the call, released her from
captivity, and escorted her to Chartres, where, in virtue of an obsolete
ordinance of the king, she assumed the title of regent, and created a
parliament, to counterbalance that of the capital. A preponderating
weight was thus thrown into the scale of the Burgundian prince. Nor did
he neglect to strengthen himself by conciliating the people; for, while
the count of Armagnac was daily irritating them by his extortions, the
duke held out to them a tempting lure, by proclaiming that all the towns
which opened their gates to him should be freed from taxes. Encouraged
by these circumstances, his partisans in the capital formed a plan for
admitting him into the city; but it was discovered and frustrated.
The return of our Henry the fifth to France, in 1417, and the progress
which he was making in Normandy, recalled to their senses most of the
leaders of the factions. The necessity of union being felt, negotiations
were opened. The queen, the dauphin, and the duke of Burgundy were
willing to come to terms; the principal article agreed on was, that the
queen and the duke should form a part of the royal council. But the count
of Armagnac would hear of no treaty that did not really leave in his
hands the whole power of the state; and he accordingly strained every
nerve, and was even guilty of the most revolting cruelty, to render
impossible an accommodation with the Burgundian leaders. He little dreamt
how soon he was to be precipitated from the pinnacle of greatness, and
trampled in the mire by the basest of the base.
Harassed and impoverished by tyranny and exaction within the walls, and
beset by foes beyond them, the Parisians were hungering for peace. They
were the more inveterate against Armagnac, because they were tantalized
by the object for which they longed being almost within their reach.
Peace had, in fact, been concluded at Montereau, and publicly announced
in Paris, and the count, seconded by de Marle, the chancellor, was the
sole obstacle to its being enjoyed. He was inflexible in his resistance.
To bring about a rupture of the treaty, he sent troops to attack two of
the Burgundian posts; seemingly struck with a judicial blindness, the
forerunner of his fall, he pushed to an unbearable length his arrogance,
extortion, and gloomy precautions; and he is said to have even meditated
a sweeping massacre of such of the citizens as were hostile to him,
and to have ordered leaden medals to be struck for distribution to his
partisans, that the murderers might distinguish them in the hour of
carnage. If the character of the man, and the spirit of those barbarous
times, were not in accordance with this sanguinary project, we might,
perhaps, imagine him to be unjustly charged with it; for, in all ages,
it has been the custom to blacken an overthrown tyrant, by loading him
with imaginary crimes. That, however, it was possible for persons of
the highest rank to tolerate, and probably to command, the cold-blooded
slaughter of their foes, was but too speedily proved.
Terrible as the multitude is when once moved, it is slow to be moved.
Mutual distrust, and the dread of failure, keep its component parts
from uniting, till some one, more daring than the rest, or provoked
into action by flagrant wrongs, assumes the lead, and gives to it the
principle of cohesion. It was a denial of justice which brought into
play the man who was wanting, to convert into open revolt the passive
disaffection of the citizens. The servant of an Armagnac noble having
grossly maltreated Perinet le Clerc, whose father, an ironmonger, was the
quartinier, or magistrate of his ward, Perinet applied to the provost
for redress. His application was contemptuously rejected, and he swore
to be revenged. In concert with some of his friends, he matured a plan
for admitting the Burgundian troops, and he opened a correspondence on
the subject with Villiers de l’Isle Adam, who commanded at Pontoise, for
the duke. The chance of success seemed so fair, that l’Isle Adam readily
agreed to risk a portion of his garrison in the attempt. The negotiation
was conducted with so much secrecy that not a breath of it transpired.
The plan was carried into effect on the night of the 28th of May, 1418.
Perinet was a man of ready resources, equally discreet and resolute, and
he omitted nothing that could tend to secure a triumph. By virtue of his
office, the father of Perinet held the keys of St. Germain’s gate, and
had the relieving of the guard there. On the appointed night, having
first contrived to place on guard many of his associates, Perinet stole
to his father’s bed-side, and, undiscovered, drew the keys from beneath
his pillow. L’Isle Adam was waiting near the gate with eight hundred men.
At two in the morning, it was opened by Perinet, who, as soon as the
troops had entered, locked the gate, and threw the keys over the walls,
that, retreat being impossible, the soldiers might be compelled to combat
with desperate valour. The adventurers proceeded in dead silence along
the streets till they reached the Little Châtelet, where they were joined
by several hundred armed citizens, who had been assembled to receive
them. The confederates now loudly raised the rallying cry of “Peace!
peace! Burgundy for ever!” and it was soon as loudly echoed from every
side. From all the streets crowds of citizens sallied forth, wearing on
their dress the St. Andrew’s cross, which was the distinguishing mark of
the Burgundian party. In a very short time, tens of thousands were in
arms.
Scattered over a large city, and taken by surprise, the Armagnacs could
make no resistance. Tannegui du Châtel, the governor of the Bastile,
had barely time to hurry to the dauphin’s abode, snatch him half awaked
from the couch, wrap him in the bedclothes, and convey him for safety to
the Bastile, whence, without delay, he removed him to Melun. While he
was thus occupied, a party of Burgundians marched to the king’s palace,
and compelled him to take horse, and put himself at their head. Other
parties spread themselves over the city, and slaughtered, or dragged to
prison, all the Armagnacs on whom they could lay their hands. Nobles,
warriors, ministers of state, bishops, abbots, magistrates, and the
humble followers who had moved at their beck, were indiscriminately
thrust into durance. The jails were speedily crowded till they could hold
no more, and it then became necessary to confine the captives in public
buildings and private houses. The constable, in the rags of a beggar, at
first eluded his pursuers, and found shelter in the dwelling of a poor
mason; but a threatening proclamation, against whoever should harbour an
Armagnac, terrified his host into betraying him.
The Bastile, and consequently the power of entering Paris, was yet held
by Tannegui du Châtel. In the hope of recovering the capital, before
preparations could be made for its defence, he hurried back from Melun,
along with other officers, among whom was Barbazan, who is honourably
distinguished in the French annals, as the irreproachable knight, and
the restorer of the kingdom and crown of France. At the head of a
large body of gendarmes, he, on the first of June, made a sally from
the Bastile, and advanced up St. Anthony’s-street, towards the palace,
with the intention of making himself master of the king’s person. The
king, however, had been removed, and Tannegui was soon encountered by
l’Isle Adam, who had gathered together some troops, and was every moment
reinforced by the citizens. A desperate contest took place, but the
Armagnac general was finally compelled to retreat, with the loss of four
hundred men. The corpses of the slain were ignominiously thrown into the
common sewer by the victors. Leaving a small garrison in the Bastile, he
retired with the remainder of his force, and distributed it among the
neighbouring fortresses of Corbeil, Meaux, and Melun. Two days after the
departure of Tannegui, the governor of the Bastile deemed it prudent to
capitulate.
Already irritated by Tannegui’s attempt, the partisans of the Burgundians
were excited almost to madness by a letter from the queen, in which she
declared that neither she nor the duke would return to Paris, till it
was purged of the Armagnacs. It has been truly remarked, that “such a
letter was, in reality, a decree of death.” That was the construction put
upon it by the Burgundian faction; and, unrestrained by any religious or
humane feeling, they promptly carried the sentence into effect. On the
morning of the 12th of June, a report being spread that the enemy were
attacking two of the gates, the citizens hastily assembled from every
quarter. “All issued from their houses,” says an old writer, “like swarms
of bees from various hives. Malls, hatchets, axes, clubs, poles shod with
iron points, swords, pikes, javelins, and halberts, were called into use
by the insurgent people.”
The signal of carnage was given by one Lambert, who harangued them,
and proposed to massacre the captives. His sanguinary suggestion was
instantly adopted by the brutal crowd, and they hurried to the numerous
prisons, uttering loud cries of “Kill those dogs! Kill those Armagnac
traitors!” A scene of horror ensued at which nature shudders. Some of the
victims were flung from the towers of the buildings upon the pikes of
the assassins, some were chopped down with hatchets, some were drowned,
and others were burned alive in their dungeons; their mangled remains
were exposed to every kind of indignity; and torrents of blood flowed
through the streets. From the jails the slaughter was extended to the
suspected inhabitants of houses, and was followed by pillage. The work of
murder and robbery was untiringly continued throughout the whole of the
night, and was recommenced in the morning, after the labourers in it had
refreshed themselves by a short repast.
Nineteen hundred of the Armagnacs are said to have fallen on this
terrible day. Nor did they alone suffer, for numbers of the Burgundian
party fell beneath the weapons of their private foes, who availed
themselves of this opportunity to gratify their revenge. After having
for three days been dragged through the streets by the mob, the naked
and disfigured corpse of the constable was conveyed out of Paris in the
scavengers’ cart, and thrown among the filth and ordure of the city
laystall. That no proof of their ferocity might be wanting, his murderers
cut a portion of his skin into the form of a scarf, and hung it round him
in ridicule of the white scarf which was the badge of his party.
A supplementary massacre, of equal extent, and attended by circumstances
equally atrocious, occurred shortly after, in which perished the
prisoners from the Bastile and Vincennes, and those who had been arrested
since the first slaughter. On this occasion, the captives in the Great
and Little Châtelet strove to defend themselves, by hurling down stones
and tiles on their enemies, but their resistance was soon overpowered,
and not one of them escaped.
These enormities—prefigurations of those which, nearly four centuries
later, were to be committed in the same city—were succeeded by riotous
rejoicings for the arrival of the queen and the duke, and by “one of
the finest religious processions that ever was seen.” But the wrath of
Heaven did not slumber long. “The joy of Paris,” says an old annalist,
“was speedily changed into mourning, for three months had not passed away
after this carnage, when so cruel a pestilence fell upon the city, that
it destroyed more than eighty thousand persons in three months. History
records, that this Perinet and his companions, after having squandered
all that they had gained by plunder, died miserably, not long enjoying
the fruits of their robberies; and that the greater part of the nobles
and gentlemen, who had acted with the murderers, were carried off by the
pestilence, except l’Isle Adam, who was reserved to be chastised by king
Henry of England, though it was on another account, as we shall relate
in the proper place. And was it not God who took vengeance for these
cruelties?”
In a little more than a year from this time, John the Fearless, himself
an assassin, fell by an assassin’s hand, at the conference of Montereau.
His life had been productive of great evils to France; his death brought
on it still greater. The murder of John gave birth to that coalition
between his successor Philip the Good, Henry the fifth of England, and
queen Isabella, which, for more than a quarter of a century, deluged the
kingdom with blood, and nearly wrested the sceptre from the ancient line
of monarchs. In 1420, Paris was delivered into the hands of the English,
and for sixteen years they retained possession of it; the Louvre, the
Bastile, and Vincennes, were their principal posts in the capital and its
immediate vicinity.
The only prisoner whom, during their domination, the English are recorded
to have confined in the Bastile, was the very man but for whose activity
and daring the capital would, perhaps, never have been in their power.
It was l’Isle Adam. This warrior, who was born about 1384, of an ancient
and noble family, was taken by the English, at Honfleur, in 1415. After
he recovered his liberty, he joined the party of John the Fearless, and
was made governor of Pontoise. We have seen by what means he gained Paris
for the Burgundian prince. That he was deeply implicated in the massacres
appears to be a melancholy truth; and all his talents and valour are
insufficient to cleanse his reputation from that damnable spot. For his
services he was rewarded, by the duke of Burgundy, with the rank of
marshal.
It is not clear in what manner l’Isle Adam incurred the displeasure of
our Henry the fifth, the regent of France. French writers ascribe the
circumstance to the pride and arrogance of the English sovereign, who
required the most abject homage from all his French courtiers. L’Isle
Adam, they tell us, having one day come into the royal presence in a
plain grey dress, the monarch sternly asked him whether that was a fit
dress for a marshal. “Dearest lord,” said the offender, “I had it made
to travel in from Sens to Paris;” and, while he spoke, he looked at
the king. “What!” exclaimed Henry, “do you dare to look a prince in the
face?” “Most dread lord,” answered the marshal, “it is the custom in
France; and if any one avoids looking at the person to whom he talks, he
is considered as a bad man and a traitor; therefore, in God’s name, do
not be offended.”—“Such is not our custom,” Henry sourly replied, and
here the dialogue ended. If this story be true, it speaks ill for the
policy, and worse for the disposition, of the victor of Agincourt.
A few days after this conversation is supposed to have occurred, L’Isle
Adam was committed to the Bastile, on the false and absurd charge of
meaning to betray Paris to the dauphin. About a thousand of the citizens
took up arms to rescue him, on his way to the fortress, but they were
put to flight by the small band of English archers, which was escorting
him to prison. L’Isle Adam, it is affirmed, would have passed from the
Bastile to the scaffold, had he not been saved by the remonstrances of
Philip the Good, and the death of Henry.
After the decease of Henry, L’Isle Adam rejoined the Burgundian standard,
and took so active and effective a part in the war, that, when the
order of the Golden Fleece was established, he was one of the first on
whom it was conferred. In 1437, he followed the duke of Burgundy into
Brabant, and on the 22nd of May, of that year, he was killed in a popular
insurrection, which took place at Bruges.
It was not till the 22nd of September, 1429, that any attempt was made to
disturb the English in their occupation of Paris. Flushed with its recent
successes, and hoping that the citizens would rise upon the garrison,
the army of Charles assaulted on that day the ramparts of the capital,
between the gates of St. Honoré and St. Denis. The assault, led by Joan
of Arc, continued for four hours; but the glorious heroine was severely
wounded through the thigh, and the assailants were compelled to retire.
For seven years after this attack, the English kept their ground in
Paris. But the English power in France was now daily crumbling into
dust. The Burgundian, their ally for several years, was become their
active enemy; the duke of Bedford, whose valour and skill so long upheld
a tottering cause, had sunk into the grave; town after town, willingly
or on compulsion, opened its gates to Charles; succours arrived seldom
and in scanty numbers; and frequent insurrections, in Normandy and other
quarters, compelled them to disseminate their troops, so that it became
impossible for them to take the field with a formidable army. At this
critical moment, Paris had only a feeble garrison of fifteen hundred men;
a force wholly inadequate to defend the place, even had the citizens
been far less disaffected than they really were. They were weary of
war, and, besides, prudence dissuaded them from persisting to oppose
a sovereign whose throne was evidently established on a solid basis.
Such being the state of things, Charles thought the time was come to
recover his capital. A negotiation was secretly opened with the citizens;
and, on condition of a general amnesty, they agreed to return to their
allegiance. On the night of the 13th of April, 1436, the king’s troops
were admitted into the city. Though he was taken by surprise, Willoughby,
the governor, a brave and intelligent officer, took such measures as
would have baffled his assailants, had he received any aid from the
Parisians. But not a hand was raised in his behalf, and he had no other
resource than a retreat to the Bastile, which he effected in good order.
An honourable capitulation, allowing him to retire with bag and baggage,
to Rouen, was offered to Willoughby, and, as he knew that resistance must
be unavailing, he wisely accepted an offer which he could not hope would
be repeated. Thus ended the sway of the English in Paris.
During the remainder of the reign of Charles VII., nothing more occurred
which belongs to this narrative. Abundant materials, are, however,
supplied by the iron sway of his son and successor, Louis XI. Historians,
in speaking of Louis XI., have charactered him, and with justice, as a
violator of all social duties, as being a “bad son, a bad husband, a bad
father, a bad brother, a bad kinsman, a bad friend, a bad neighbour,
a bad master, and a most dangerous enemy.” That, on attaining supreme
power, such a man should take heavy vengeance for injuries, real or
supposed, is in the natural order of things. Immediately on his accession
to the throne, Louis displaced from their offices all persons who had
rendered themselves obnoxious to him; and, in some instances, his revenge
was more signally manifested.
Among the most conspicuous of those who felt his anger was Anthony de
Chabannes, count of Dammartin. Chabannes had played an active part in the
long war between Charles VII. and the English, and, on various occasions
had done signal service. Like many other nobles of that period, he was,
however, possessed of far more courage than honourable principles. To
swell his coffers with plunder, he did not hesitate to put himself
at the head of the ferocious banditti known by the descriptive name
of _écorcheurs_, or flayers, with whom he ravaged the north-eastern
provinces of France, as far as the Swiss frontier. He quitted them in
1439, to marry a rich wife, after which he again entered into the king’s
service.
Chabannes, as is often the case with criminals, could more easily
commit crimes than bear to be told of them. The monarch having one day
laughingly greeted him by the title of king of the flayers, he angrily
replied, “I never flayed any but your enemies; and it appears to me
that you have derived more benefit from their skins than I have.” Not
satisfied with this retort, he further gratified his offended feelings by
prompting the dauphin to become the leader of the malecontents, in the
ephemeral civil war which is known as the war of the _Praguerie_.
After the Praguerie was over, Chabannes was again received into favour
by Charles, and he seems ever after to have remained faithful to him. He
even disclosed a conspiracy which the dauphin had formed, to deprive the
monarch of his crown and liberty. The dauphin, on being brought face to
face with him, hardily denied the fact, and gave him the lie. The conduct
of Chabannes, in this instance, was not undignified. “I know,” said he,
“the respect which is due to the son of my master; but the truth of my
deposition I am ready to maintain, by arms, against all those of the
dauphin’s household who will come forward to contradict it.” No one was
hardy enough to accept this challenge.
It is less creditable to Chabannes, that he presided over the commission
which was appointed to try, or rather to find guilty, the persecuted
Jacques Cœur, and that he contrived to obtain, at a shamefully inadequate
price, several of Cœur’s estates.
In 1455, Chabannes, by performing his duty to his sovereign, gave fresh
offence to the dauphin. Irritated at last by the political intrigues of
his son, and by his having persisted for ten years to absent himself from
the court, Charles determined to deprive him of the petty sovereignty of
Dauphiné, and to secure his person. Chabannes was chosen to carry this
determination into effect: and he acted with such vigour that, after
having prevailed on the duke of Savoy to refuse the prince an asylum, he
compelled him to seek shelter in the dominions of the duke of Burgundy.
Chabannes was, consequently, one of the earliest victims on the accession
of Louis to the throne. Deprived of his office of grand master of France,
he took flight, but he soon returned, and claimed a fair trial. The king
refused to admit the claim, and ordered him to quit the kingdom; an order
which he obeyed. While he was absent, his property was confiscated, and
he was summoned to appear, and answer the charges against him. Confiding
in his innocence, he complied with the summons; but he was found guilty
of high treason, and condemned to death. The sentence was commuted to
banishment by Louis; who, however, changed his mind as to the punishment,
and shut him up in the Bastile.
In the Bastile Chabannes remained for four years. On the breaking out
of the war, the parties in which called their confederacy the League of
the Public Good, he contrived to escape; and, on his way to join the
malecontents, he made himself master of the towns of St. Fargeau and St.
Maurice. He was one of those who benefited by the treaty of Conflans,
which terminated this war. His sentence was annulled, and his estates
were restored to him.
It is a singular circumstance that, with respect to Chabannes, Louis
passed at once from the extreme of hatred and suspicion, to that of
kindness and confidence. He not only restored his estates, but he added
to their number. At a later date, when he instituted the order of St.
Michael, Chabannes was one of the first whom he nominated. Favours
conferred by a gloomy and unprincipled tyrant cast a doubt on the
character of the receiver, even when it has been hitherto unstained,
which was not the case with the new knight. The nomination gave occasion
to a severe sarcasm from the duke of Britanny. Louis having sent to him
the collar of the order, the duke declined it, assigning as a reason,
that “he did not choose to draw in the same collar with Chabannes.”
Chabannes was not ungrateful for the benefits bestowed on him. When,
strangely deviating from his accustomed wariness, Louis involved himself
in the dilemma which Sir Walter Scott has so admirably described in
Quentin Durward, Chabannes did him the most essential and opportune
service, and received his warmest thanks for it. He was afterwards
employed in various important expeditions, all of which he brought to a
successful issue. In his old age, he withdrew from the court, but, in
1485, Charles VIII. conferred on him the government of the Isle of France
and Paris. Chabannes did not long enjoy this new honour; he died in 1488.
The war, caused by the League of the Public Good, which restored liberty
and fortune to Chabannes, deprived his enemy, the count de Melun, not
only of both, but of life also. When we are told that Melun was so
addicted to pleasure, luxury and sloth, as to have acquired the name of
the Sardanapalus of his times, we can form no very flattering estimate
of his character. Yet he stood high in the good graces of Louis XI.,
and participated largely in the spoils of Chabannes. In his capacity
of governor of Paris and the Bastile, he was also entrusted with the
custody of that nobleman. It was not till after the battle of Montlhéri
that Louis began to suspect him. The monarch had, indeed, some excuse
for suspicion. Melun had at least been criminally negligent, in a post
which demanded the utmost vigilance. He had prevented a sally from the
city during the battle, which might have turned the scale in the king’s
favour, and he had been ignorant of, or winked at, a correspondence
carried on with the chiefs of the League by some of the disaffected
citizens. These indications of treachery were strengthened by two
circumstances; some of the cannon of the Bastile had been spiked, and the
gates of the fortress, on the side next the country, had been left open
while the besiegers were making an attack. The escape of Chabannes might
also afford a reason for doubting his keeper’s fidelity. Louis, however,
was, at this moment, too closely pressed by his numerous enemies to enter
into an investigation of the subject; and he, therefore, only dismissed
the governor.
Melun retired to his estates, and imagined that the storm was blown
over. He was mistaken. As soon as Louis had disembarrassed himself, he
instituted a rigid enquiry into the conduct of his disgraced favourite.
One of the most active in pushing it on was a man who was indebted to
the count for his rise in life; the cardinal Balue, of whom further
mention is about to be made. The result of the enquiry was, a charge of
having maintained a secret correspondence with the heads of the League,
especially with the duke of Britanny. Melun was in consequence arrested,
and conveyed to Chateau Galliard, in Normandy, by the provost Tristan
l’Hermite, of infamous memory.
The trial was commenced without delay, and, as he refused to confess to
any crime, he was put to the torture. With respect to his correspondence
with the chiefs of the League, he avowed it, but pleaded that it had
the king’s sanction. It is probable that this was really the case. Many
motives might have induced the king to allow of his officer corresponding
with the enemy. But Louis had now resolved upon the destruction of Melun;
and, as he never scrupled at falsehood when he had any point to gain by
it, he denied that he had given the permission. By adding that he had
long had cause to be dissatisfied with the prisoner, he gave a broad
hint as to what kind of verdict he desired. The judges, as in duty
bound, pronounced Melun guilty, and he was consigned to the scaffold. His
execution took place in 1468. Of his confiscated property, a considerable
portion was bestowed on Chabannes.
It is said, that the executioner having only wounded him at the first
stroke, Melun raised his head from the block, and declared, that he had
not deserved death, but that, since the king willed it, he was satisfied.
If this be true, we must own that tame submission to the injustice of a
despot was never more strikingly displayed.
Had Melun lived but a little longer, he might have triumphed in the
downfall and punishment of his ungrateful enemy, the cardinal, which
took place in 1469. John Balue, the person in question, born in Poitou
in 1421, was the son of either a miller or a tailor. He had, perhaps, as
many vices, and as few virtues, as any person upon record. Ingratitude,
in particular, seems to have been deeply rooted into the nature of this
unworthy prelate. Towards the bishops of Poictiers and Angers, who had
early patronized and confided in him, and the count de Melun, by whom
he was introduced to the monarch, he acted with unparalleled baseness.
His sovereign fared no better than his other benefactors. Louis XI. had
rapidly raised him to the highest offices in the state, and had loaded
him with ecclesiastical preferment, yet the traitor betrayed him.
While his power lasted, there was no department of the government with
which Balue did not interfere. This trait in the character of the
cardinal called forth a pleasant sarcasm from Chabannes, who could not
see with patience his own province invaded. Balue having one day reviewed
some regiments, Chabannes gravely requested the king’s permission to
visit the cardinal’s bishopric of Evreux, for the purpose of examining
clerical candidates, and conferring ordination on them. “What do you
mean?” said Louis. “Why, surely, sire,” replied Chabannes, “I am as fit
to ordain priests, as the bishop of Evreux is to review an army.”
It required, however, something more than a joke to shake the confidence
which the monarch placed in the cardinal. That something more was not
slow in coming. Since the treaties of Conflans and Peronne, it had been a
main object of Louis to dissociate his brother, the duke of Berry, from
his dangerous adviser the duke of Burgundy; and, as one means towards
effecting this, he strove hard to induce him to accept, as an appanage,
the duchy of Guienne and the government of Rochelle, instead of the
provinces of Champagne and Brie, which, by the treaty of Peronne, he had
been compelled to confirm to his brother. Louis was undoubtedly justified
in wishing to accomplish this object, as there was little chance that
peace would be preserved if the duke of Berry became an immediate
neighbour of the duke of Burgundy. Nor was the equivalent which the king
offered for Champagne and Brie an inadequate one, but much the contrary.
On this occasion, the king suffered the penalty to which all deceivers
are subjected, that of not being trusted. Could the duke of Berry have
put faith in his brother, he no doubt would have accepted Guienne.
It was with no less surprise than indignation that the king discovered,
by intercepted letters, that all his efforts, not only in this case but
in others, had been counteracted by the man on whom he most relied.
The cardinal, and his friend and agent William d’Haraucourt, bishop
of Verdun, were in close correspondence with his enemies. It was to
revenge himself for the king having failed in his promise, to procure
him a cardinal’s hat, that d’Haraucourt entered into the plot against
him. It would seem that nothing short of madness could have prompted
the cardinal to peril his liberty and fortune, perhaps his life, by his
treasonable proceeding. But here again the king was whipped by his own
vices. Balue perceived or imagined that his influence was declining, he
was convinced that it would wholly expire whenever his services were no
longer necessary to the monarch—Louis being, in his opinion, incapable
of personal attachment—and he therefore resolved to place him in such
a situation, by making the king’s foes formidable, that those services
should be always indispensable. On his being interrogated, he avowed,
with a shameless candour, that, for this purpose, he had betrayed the
secrets of the state to the Burgundian duke, encouraged the duke of Berry
to refuse the proposed exchange, advised the calamitous interview and
disgraceful treaty of Peronne, and recommended to Charles of Burgundy to
compel the king to accompany him on the expedition against the revolted
citizens of Liege.
There was treason enough here to forfeit a hundred heads, had they
grown on laic shoulders. But, as far as regarded the final penalty of
the law, their ecclesiastical character proved a shield to the cardinal
and his associate. The king desired the pope to nominate apostolical
commissioners to try the criminals; the pope, on the other hand,
contended that they must be judged by the consistory, and that the
decision of their fate must be left to him. A long negotiation ensued
between the spiritual and temporal sovereigns, and, as neither would
concede, the offenders were never brought to trial at all.
It cannot, however, be said that the cardinal and the bishop escaped
unscarred. If Louis could not take their lives, he could at least render
their lives a burthen, and this was a power which he was not backward
in exercising. In the province of Touraine, between twenty and thirty
miles to the southward of Tours, stood the castle of Loches, one of the
sepulchres in which Louis buried his living victims. It was there that,
at a later period, Ludovico Sforza lingered out the last years of his
existence. Loches was well provided with oubliettes, dungeons, chains of
enormous weight, facetiously called the king’s little daughters, iron
cages, and all other means of torturing the body and mind. Thither Balue
was sent, and there he passed eleven lonely years, in an iron cage, which
was only eight feet square. His fate resembled that of Perillus—for to
the cardinal himself is attributed the invention of these cages. Perhaps
the only praise which he ever deserved was gained at the castle of
Loches; the praise of having preserved his courage unshaken throughout
the whole of his tedious captivity. Balue was released in 1480, went to
Rome, where he was received with open arms, was sent as legate to France,
and died, in 1491, bishop of Albano, and legate of the March of Ancona.
His confederate, d’Haraucourt, was still more severely punished. The
Bastile was his place of confinement, and there a cage, of unusual
strength, was constructed in one of the towers, expressly for his abode.
The cage was formed of massy beams, bolted together with iron, occupied
nineteen carpenters for twenty days in framing it, and was so heavy, that
the vault, which was to support it, was obliged to be rebuilt in a more
substantial manner. Within its narrow and gloomy limits, d’Haraucourt was
immured for no less than fifteen years. It was not till after the death
of Louis the eleventh, that the prisoner was set at liberty. He died, at
a very advanced age, in the year 1500.
While d’Haraucourt was wasting away life in his cage, there was another
prisoner in the Bastile, who was enduring far worse misery, and was far
more worthy of compassion, because, though he was himself guiltless, he
suffered the penalty of another’s crimes. When, in 1473, the restless
and unprincipled John, count of Armagnac, was slain at Lectoure, by the
royal troops, his brother Charles, who had taken no part in the contest,
was arrested by order of Louis the eleventh, sent to the Concièrgerie,
and put to the torture. He was on the point of proving his innocence,
when he was removed to the Bastile, and secluded from all access of
friends. L’Huillier, the governor, treated him with a cold-blooded
barbarity which was worthy of a man who held office under Louis. There
was nothing that cruelty could suggest that was not practised on the
unfortunate Charles. The agonies of the captive were protracted for a
period of fourteen years, during all which time he inhabited a dreary
and noisome dungeon, in which water almost continually dropped upon him,
and he could not move without wading though slimy mud. He was liberated,
and his property was restored, by Charles the eighth. The boon, however,
came too late to be of any avail. His reason was shaken by what he had
undergone; he languished for a few years, and died in 1497.
Less compassion is due to the next inhabitant of the Bastile who appears
upon the scene. Faithful to no party, he fell regretted by none. Louis
de Luxembourg, count of St. Pol, who was born in 1418, succeeded to the
possessions of his father, when he was only fifteen. He did not receive
his moral education in schools where humanity and honour were to be
learned. His uncle and guardian, count de Ligni, was well qualified
to brutalise his youthful mind. It was de Ligni that basely sold the
heroine Joan of Arc to the English, for ten thousand livres. In one of
his campaigns he took his nephew with him, that the boy might kill some
of the prisoners, in order to accustom him to scenes of blood. Louis is
said to have proved an apt scholar, and to have taken delight in the
performance of his murderous task.
At his outset in life, St. Pol, like most of his family, was a warm
partisan of the English party. Circumstances, however, having compelled
him to visit the court of Charles the seventh, he met with so flattering
a reception that he deserted his party, and devoted himself to that
monarch. With the dauphin (who was afterwards Louis the eleventh)
he contracted as close a friendship as can subsist between two such
characters. St. Pol distinguished himself, in the service of his new
master, on various occasions, particularly at the sieges of the Norman
fortresses.
Though St. Pol had given up the English party, he did not break off his
old connection with the Burgundian prince. He fought for him against the
insurgent citizens of Ghent, and he even joined in the League of the
Public Good, as it was ludicrously styled, and led the vanguard of the
count de Charolais, at the battle of Montlhéri. At the peace of Conflans,
Louis, in the hope of winning him over from the Burgundian interest,
promoted him to be constable of France; and soon after, with the same
view, he gave him the hand of Mary of Savoy, the queen’s sister, and
granted him a wide extent of territory.
These favours did not produce the desired effect. St. Pol seems to have
had little gratitude in his nature; and, in this case, he perhaps thought
that there was none due for what was rather a bribe than a free gift. As
he imagined that his safety consisted in preventing a good understanding
between the king and the duke of Burgundy, he was constantly intriguing
to keep them at variance, and he alternately betrayed them. His intrigues
being discovered, the two princes, during one of their short periods of
amity, entered into a compact, by which they declared him their common
enemy. The duke of Burgundy promised, that if the constable fell into his
hands, he would surrender him to the king within eight days. For this he
was to be rewarded by the restoration of St. Quentin, Amiens, and other
towns on the Somme. This agreement was of course kept a profound secret.
What St. Pol had already done was sufficient to seal his fate; but
he roused the anger of Louis still farther, by an act of personal
disrespect, and by leaguing with Edward the fourth of England for the
invasion of France. It was not, however, till he had got rid of Edward
by a treaty, and had artfully contrived to irritate the duke of Burgundy
still more against St. Pol, that Louis seriously prepared for taking
vengeance on the offender. The negotiation between Edward and Louis had
already alarmed the constable, and, to conciliate the latter, he had
offered to attack the English. This offer Louis communicated to Edward,
who, indignant at the treachery of his recent confederate, sent the
letters which he had received from him to the French monarch. Louis
was thus furnished with decisive proofs. To the overtures of St. Pol
he replied in ambiguous words, the real meaning of which was soon made
evident: “I am overwhelmed by so many affairs,” said the Machiavelian
monarch, “that I have great need of a good head like yours to get through
them.”
The preparations of the king at length made St. Pol fully aware of his
danger. Hesitating as to the measure which in this emergency he ought
to adopt, he for a moment half resolved to stand on his defence; but
reflection on the superior resources of his enemy persuaded him that
he had no chance of success from arms. Yet, had he boldly appealed to
the sword, he might, perhaps, have saved his life, or at least have met
with an honourable death. He preferred throwing himself on the duke of
Burgundy, whom he tempted by offering him his strong towns, as the price
of protection. Louis demanded that he should be given up to him; and
after some qualms of conscience as to sacrificing a suppliant, who was
also his cousin, Charles of Burgundy complied with the demand. St. Pol
was conveyed to the Bastile. The French monarch gave him his choice,
either to make a full confession, or to be tried in the customary manner.
The latter alternative was chosen by the prisoner, who knew not that his
letters, to Edward and the duke of Burgundy, were in the king’s hands,
and therefore believed that there was not legal evidence to warrant
his conviction. His judges sentenced him to lose his head, and he was
executed on the 19th of December, 1475.
The last captive in the Bastile, during the reign of Louis the Eleventh,
or rather the last of whom any record remains—for there were doubtless
numbers of the nameless throng—was an Armagnac; a name which seems to
have been fatal to its owners. We have seen one Armagnac torn in pieces
by the populace, another treacherously slain after the surrender of his
stronghold, a third losing his reason in a dungeon, and we are now to
witness the leading of a fourth to the scaffold, under circumstances the
most horrible.
James of Armagnac, duke of Nemours, was the son of the Count de la
Marche, who was the governor of the youthful dauphin. When the pupil of
the count ascended the throne, he gave his cousin Louisa in marriage to
James of Armagnac, and conferred on him the dukedom of Nemours, with
all the rights and privileges of the peerage; an honour which had never
before been enjoyed by any other than princes of the royal family.
Nemours, nevertheless, joined the League of the Public Good. Louis, as we
have seen, was obliged to succumb to the League; and, by the consequent
peace of Conflans, James of Armagnac obtained the government of Paris and
the Isle of France.
Little more than three years elapsed before Nemours was again engaged
in intrigues against the monarch. But the time was gone by when revolt
could lead to promotion. Louis had strengthened his authority, and he
was not disposed to see it set at nought. He, however, pardoned him; but
it was on condition that any future offence should render him liable
to punishment for the past, and that he should then be deprived of his
privilege of peerage, and be tried as a private individual.
In the course of a few years Nemours once more, and finally, brought down
the wrath of the monarch on his head. He was accused of treason, and
Beaujeu was despatched to besiege him in the town of Carlat, to which
the duke had retired. Carlat was supposed to be impregnable, and it was
provisioned for two or three years. Nemours, nevertheless, surrendered
without resistance, on condition that his life should be spared; Beaujeu
guaranteed this condition, as did likewise Louis le Graville, lord of
Montaigu, and Bonfile le Juge, who enjoyed the royal confidence. The wife
of the duke, who was confined in child-bed, died of grief and terror, on
seeing her husband become a prisoner.
Nemours was conveyed, first, to Pierre-Encise, whence he was removed
to the Bastile; where he was subjected to the harshest usage. All his
supplications to the king, during two years’ abode in the Bastile, were
unavailing; or rather, indeed, seem to have tended to irritate him.
The duke had, undoubtedly, been a turbulent subject; but nothing can
palliate the infamy of the king’s conduct, after he had Nemours in his
power. It is difficult to account for the inveteracy of his hatred. There
was no conceivable violation of justice of which he was not guilty.
To have broken the pledge solemnly given by his general was little
compared with what followed. Such of the judges as seemed inclined to
show mercy were threatened and displaced; others were tempted by being
promised to share in the spoils of the prisoner; the place where the
court held its sittings was more than once arbitrarily changed; and the
decent formalities of the law, as well as its essential principles, were
contemptuously discarded. No wonder that Nemours was condemned to death.
But now a scene opens which casts all the rest into shade, and at which
nature shudders. Nothing was omitted that could render death terrible
to the duke. The chamber where he confessed to the priest was hung
with black; the horse which took him to execution was covered with a
housing of the same hue. He was already agonised by the thought that his
children, who were little more than infants, were reduced to beggary—but
this was not enough. A scaffold was expressly constructed for him to
suffer on, with wide openings between the planks, and underneath, clad
in white, their heads naked, and their hands bound, were placed his
children, that they might be drenched with their parent’s blood. It was
on the 4th of August, 1477, that this horrible tragedy was acted.
Did the brutal vindictiveness of the monarch end here? It did not. The
guiltless children, of whom the youngest was only five years old, were
taken back to the Bastile, and plunged into a loathsome dungeon, where
they had scarcely the power of moving. There they remained, for five
years, till the accession of Charles the eighth opened their prison door.
A part of the confiscated property of their father was subsequently
restored to them by Charles. The health of two of them was so broken that
they did not long survive. The youngest inherited the title of Nemours,
rose to be viceroy of Naples, and fell at the battle of Cerignoles, in
1503.
CHAPTER III.
Reign of Francis I.—Semblançai—The Chancellor Duprat—The
Chancellor Poyet—Admiral de Chabot—Fall of Poyet—Reign of Henry
II.—Anne du Bourg—Louis du Faur—Reign of Francis II.—Execution
of du Bourg—Francis de Vendôme—Reign of Charles IX.—The Duke of
Lunebourg—Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé in danger of
the Bastile—Faction of the Politicians—La Mole—Coconas—Marshal
de Montmorenci—Marshal de Cossé—Reign of Henry III.—Bussi
d’Amboise.
During the reigns of Charles the eighth and Louis the twelfth, a period
of more than thirty years, no prisoners of note appear to have been
incarcerated in the Bastile. In the reign of Francis the first, we
again find it receiving persons of rank within its gloomy walls. The
first who was consigned to it by Francis was James de Beaune, baron
of Semblançai. He was the eldest son of John de Beaune, a citizen of
Tours, who acquired a large fortune by commerce, and who, after having
withdrawn from mercantile pursuits, held the office of steward to Louis
the eleventh and to Charles the eighth. Semblançai entered early into
the royal service, and, in the reign of Charles the eighth, rose to the
high situation of superintendant of the finances, and retained it under
Louis the twelfth and Francis the first. It was to his talents he was
indebted for preferment; and his conduct, in the difficult and dangerous
post which he occupied, justified his elevation, and gained for him the
confidence of the three monarchs. Francis was even accustomed to address
him with the flattering appellation of father. Keeping aloof from all
court intrigues, he displayed, in his official character, an exemplary
regularity, economy, and probity; and he crowned the whole by a virtue
which is still more rare in a finance minister—that of endeavouring
to alleviate the burthens of the people, and prevent them from being
despoiled by unprincipled nobles.
The man who acted thus was not likely to be without enemies; all the
greedy, who were disappointed of thrusting their hands into the public
purse, and all the wasteful and corrupt, to whom his example was a
stinging rebuke, would of course abhor him. But Semblançai might have
set their malice at defiance, had they not found an invincible ally in a
female, whose venomous hatred was rendered fatal to him by her unbounded
influence.
This powerful female was Louisa of Savoy, duchess of Angoulême, the
mother of Francis the First. She was beautiful in person, a doating
mother, and endowed with many intellectual qualities of a superior
class; but she was immeasurably ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.
Such was her avidity for riches, and such her success in gratifying it,
that, at the time of her death, her coffers contained no less than a
million and a half of golden crowns—an enormous, not to say disgraceful
hoard, especially when we consider what was the value of the sum at
that period. In two instances, her criminal passions were the cause of
shame and misfortune to France. Of the first of these we are about to
speak; the second was her persecution of the Constable de Bourbon—a base
and disastrous measure, which was prompted either by resentment for
his rejection of her love, or by her eagerness to seize upon his ample
domains, or, perhaps, by a combination of both these unworthy motives.
The regard which was manifested for Semblançai by Francis was, at one
period, equally felt by the duchess of Angoulême. There exists, under her
hand, the strongest testimony to the rectitude of the superintendant, and
of the generous sacrifices which he made, to provide for the wants of the
state. It was not till the necessity of vindicating his own character
compelled him to criminate her, that she became his enemy.
Jealous of the influence possessed by the countess of Chateaubriant, the
mistress of Francis, whose brother, Lautrec, was then governor of the
Milanese and commander of the French army in that province, the duchess
appears to have formed the plan of aiming a deadly blow at the sister
through the side of the brother. If, by disabling him from defending the
Milanese, she could bring Lautrec into disgrace, it was not improbable
that the disgusted and indignant monarch, who set a high value on his
Italian conquest, would extend his anger to the countess. The means which
she adopted for bringing her scheme to bear, had also an additional and
not trivial merit in her eyes; that of contributing to swell the mass of
treasure which she had already accumulated.
In the first part of her project, she completely succeeded. Deprived of
the pecuniary resources which he had expected from France, and which were
the more needful, as the harshness of his government had rendered him
unpopular in Italy, Lautrec was defeated at the battle of the Bicocco,
was deserted by his Swiss auxiliaries, and at length was driven from the
duchy of Milan.
The disgrace thus cast upon the French arms, and that, too, in a
country which he in person had won, could not fail to exasperate a
young and warlike sovereign. When Lautrec returned to his native land,
the king refused to admit him to his presence; but at last, through
the intercession of his sister, and of the Constable de Bourbon, the
vanquished general obtained an audience. He was received with a frowning
countenance; and he boldly complained of his reception. “Is it possible
for me,” said Francis, sternly, “to look favourably on a man who is
guilty of having lost my duchy of Milan?”
Nowise daunted by this rebuff, Lautrec firmly replied, “I will dare to
assert, that your majesty is the sole cause of that loss. For eighteen
months your gendarmes had not a single farthing of pay. The Swiss, with
whose disposition as to money you are well acquainted, were also left
unpaid. It was solely by my management that they were retained for
several months with my army. There would have been no reason for wonder
had they quitted it without drawing their swords; their respect for me
induced them, however, not to desert me till after a sanguinary combat.
They compelled me to give battle, though I foresaw clearly that there was
no hope of victory; but, in my circumstances, prudence dictated to risk
every thing, however little chance there might appear that our efforts
would be successful. The whole of my crime amounts to this.”
The astonishment of Francis was excited by this speech of Lautrec.
“What!” exclaimed he, “did you not receive the four hundred thousand
crowns, which I ordered to be sent to you soon after your arrival at
Milan?” “No, Sire,” answered Lautrec; “your majesty’s letters came to
hand, but no money was forwarded to me; nor did it ever pass the Alps.”
Semblançai was immediately summoned into his presence by Francis, to
account for such an extraordinary violation of his duty. In his defence,
the superintendant stated, that the duchess, vested with authority as
regent, had demanded from him the four hundred thousand crowns, and that
he held her receipt for the sum.
Irritated by this unexpected discovery, Francis hastened to his mother’s
apartment, and reproached her for conduct which had cost him a part of
his dominions. The duchess is said to have begun her reply by a denial
of the fact. She was, however, ultimately compelled to own that she had
indeed obtained four hundred thousand crowns from Semblançai; but she
artfully pretended, that she had previously confided the money to his
care, and that it was the produce of savings from her income. Semblançai,
on the contrary, strenuously protested that she had never entrusted any
thing to his keeping, and that, when she drew from him the funds in
question, he had told her that they were set apart by the king for the
service of the forces in Italy.
Francis was no doubt convinced of her guilt, but he could not bear
the idea of openly stigmatizing a mother whom he loved. There was
consequently nothing to be done but to bury, as far as was possible, the
whole transaction in oblivion. Abruptly putting an end to the altercation
between the duchess and the superintendant, he said, “Let us think no
more on the subject! we did not deserve to conquer; it was in vain that
fortune declared on our side; we threw insuperable obstacles in the way
of her favour. Let us cease to be traitors to each other, and let us
henceforth endeavour to act for the public good, with more wisdom and
union than we have hitherto displayed.”
That Semblançai continued to hold his place is a sufficient proof that
his assertion was credited by the king. That the revengeful duchess was
eager to ruin him, we might easily have believed, even had the result
not afforded evidence of the fact. For a considerable time, however, she
silently nursed her wrath. It was not till 1524, when a new expedition
was in preparation against the Milanese, that she found an opportunity of
striking her blow. Money was wanted; and Semblançai, who had come forward
on former occasions, was desired to make an advance from his private
fortune. But this he declined to do; pleading, as a reason for his
refusal, that a debt of three hundred thousand crowns was already owing
to him. He was punished by dismissal from his office—if that can be
called a punishment for which he appears to have sought—and, after having
given in his accounts, and shown that they were correct, he retired to
his estate of Balan, in the neighbourhood of Tours.
On the departure of Francis for Italy, he again appointed his mother to
act as regent. She had now unlimited power; and, as far as concerned
Semblançai, she exercised it cruelly and basely. She began by instituting
against him a suit, to recover a balance which she alleged to be due
to her, as part of the pretended deposit. To bolster up her cause, she
is accused of having stooped to the most degrading means. Gentil, the
confidential clerk of Semblançai, was enamoured of one of her attendants;
and this female the regent employed to steal, or obtain by blandishments,
the receipt which had been given to the superintendant.
This suit was probably meant to answer the double purpose of narrowing
his resources and injuring his character. But this mode of proceeding
was “too poor, too weak, for her revenge,” and she soon adopted another,
which struck directly at his life. His secretary, John Prévost, who seems
himself to have had reason for dreading an inquiry into his official
conduct, was tampered with, to cause the ruin of his master. Impunity
for his own misdoings was to be the price of his new crime. A charge of
peculation was brought against Semblançai, and, towards the close of
1526, he was committed to the Bastile. To render his fate certain, the
office of sitting in judgment upon him was entrusted to the Chancellor
Duprat, who had been his rival, was still his deadliest foe, and was,
besides, a devoted tool of the queen mother. As his colleagues, or rather
accomplices, Duprat selected, from the various parliaments, men on whose
subserviency he could rely. From a tribunal thus infamously constituted,
not even a semblance of justice could be expected. On the 9th of August,
1527, Semblançai, who was then in his sixty-second year, was condemned to
be hanged; and this sentence was, shortly after, executed on him, at the
gibbet of Montfaucon.
The popular feeling, with respect to Semblançai, may be considered as at
least a strong presumptive proof of his innocence. It is not often that
the fall of a finance minister is a subject of sorrow to the multitude.
In his case we find one of the few exceptions; for the people beheld
his melancholy fate with grief, surprise, and indignation, and they
long looked with an evil eye on the malignant princess by whom he was
judicially murdered.
There is an apparent but not a real discrepancy in the accounts of the
behaviour of Semblançai, when his doom was sealed. From the language of
Du Bouchet, who represents him as weeping bitterly, and cherishing hopes
of pardon till the last moment, a hasty conclusion might be drawn, that
the courage of the victim deserted him. But wounded honour and a keen
sense of the ingratitude with which a life of services was repaid, might
well wring tears from his eyes, though his mind remained unmoved by the
fear of death. That his firmness was, in fact, not to be shaken, we have
the unexceptionable testimony of Marot, who probably witnessed the calm
deportment of Semblançai when going to the scaffold. In his lines, which
bear the title of “Du Lieutenant Criminel et de Semblançai,” the poet
thus forcibly expresses himself—
“When Maillard, hellish judge, led Semblançai
On gallows tree to pass from life away,
Say which of them most undisturbed was seen?”
“I’ll tell you, friend: so blank was Maillard’s mien,
He looked as though he saw the direful dart
Of death hang o’er him; but so brave a heart
Semblançai showed, you would have sworn that he
Was leading Maillard to the gallows tree.”
We have seen, that the chancellor, Duprat, was the instrument which
Louisa of Savoy employed to accomplish the destruction of Semblançai. At
an earlier period, he had served her as effectually in a similar case.
Her suit against the constable de Bourbon, to strip him of his vast
estates, is said to have been suggested by Duprat, and was certainly
brought to a favourable issue by the exercise of his influence over the
judges. His hatred of the constable was caused, or sharpened, by Bourbon
having refused to comply with a request relative to the grant of an
estate in Auvergne. Detested by all France, for the fiscal oppressions of
which he was the author, and for his having betrayed the liberties of the
Gallican church, the chancellor nevertheless retained his power to the
last, and died loaded with titles and riches.
Another tool of the duchess of Angoulême, who closely imitated the
conduct of Duprat, was not equally fortunate. William Poyet, a native
of Angers, born about 1474, had acquired a high reputation at the bar
before he was chosen the queen-mother’s advocate against the constable
de Bourbon. The manner in which he performed his new task ensured his
promotion. He became successively advocate-general, and president à
mortier, and was employed in various negotiations; and, at length, in
1538, his ambition was gratified by his appointment to the high office of
chancellor. If servility to the monarch, and an utter disregard of the
rights and happiness of the people, are qualifications for that office,
his fitness cannot be denied. He was undoubtedly worthy of succeeding to
Duprat.
The profligate readiness with which Poyet encouraged Francis the first
to load his subjects with heavy taxes, drew upon him a severe reproof
from Duchatel, the virtuous and benevolent bishop of Orleans. Hearing
the chancellor tell the king that his majesty was the master of all that
his subjects possessed, the bishop indignantly exclaimed, “Carry such
tyrannical maxims to the Caligulas and Neros, and, if you have no respect
for yourself, at least respect a monarch who is the friend of humanity,
and who knows that to hold its rights sacred is the first of his duties.”
This speech did honour to the prelate, but there is no ground for
believing that it produced any good effect upon either the sovereign or
the minister.
It was by female influence that Poyet was raised to his lofty station; it
was by the same influence that he was precipitated from it. Two parties
existed at court, those of the dauphin and the duke of Alençon, the heads
of which were the constable de Montmorenci and the admiral de Chabot.
Besides the hatred which he felt against Chabot as a political rival, the
haughty Montmorenci found, in the unceremonious tone of equality with
which he was addressed by the admiral, another reason for hating him.
To ruin an enemy by underhand measures was the natural proceeding of a
courtier. He insinuated to the king that Chabot had acquired his riches
by iniquitous practices; and, by holding out the lure of a cardinal’s
hat, he induced Poyet to assist in Chabot’s destruction. The chancellor
exerted himself so strenuously, in raking up matter of accusation against
the intended victim, that he at length produced five-and-twenty charges,
each of which, he declared, would subject the delinquent to capital
punishment. The alleged criminality of Chabot was soon made known to the
king.
It is probable, nevertheless, that remembering the services of Chabot,
and the friendship which had existed ever since their youthful days,
Francis would have overlooked the supposed crimes, had he not been
provoked by a speech which sounded like defiance. Some trifling dispute
occurring between them, he threatened to bring him to trial; to which
Chabot boldly replied, that a trial had no terrors for him, his conduct
having always been so irreproachable, that neither his life nor his
honour could be put in danger. Francis was weak enough to take offence at
this implied challenge; he committed the offender to the castle of Melun,
and directed the chancellor to prosecute him.
Poyet rushed upon his prey with the ferocity of a hungry tiger. He began
by selecting the commissioners who were to sit in judgment on Chabot;
and, to ensure their obedience, he himself, contrary to established
custom, presided over them. Yet, with such instruments, and in spite of
all his unprincipled efforts to spur them on, he was not able fully to
accomplish his purpose. So groundless were the articles of impeachment,
there being only two of them which at all, and those but slightly,
affected the prisoner, that, instead of voting for death, the judges were
disposed either to acquit him, or, at most, to pass a lenient sentence.
By dint, however, of threats, the chancellor compelled them to go far
beyond their intention; they consequently condemned Chabot to a fine of
fifteen thousand livres, confiscation of property, and perpetual exile.
One of them is said to have added to his signature the Latin word _vi_,
in almost imperceptible characters; thus signifying that force had been
used to extort his consent. Not content with the daring contempt of
justice which he had already displayed, Poyet, in drawing up the judgment
of the court, did not hesitate to falsify it, by inserting additional
crimes, and aggravating the penalty.
Though Francis was irritated by the honourable boldness of Chabot, he had
never intended to carry matters to extremity against him. He could not
now avoid being astonished that the charges had dwindled into such utter
insignificance, and that, nevertheless, a sentence of such undue severity
was pronounced; and he appears to have been also warmly solicited in
his behalf by a prevailing advocate, the duchess of Etampes, the royal
mistress, who was a relation of Chabot. Yet though the king designed to
receive the admiral again into favour, he could not deny himself the
mean gratification of taunting him. “Well,” said he to him, “will you
again boast of your innocence?” “Sire,” replied Chabot, “I have but too
well learned, that before God and his sovereign no man must call himself
innocent; but I have one consolation, that all the malice of my enemies
has failed to convict me of having ever been unfaithful to your majesty.”
Chabot was pardoned, and reinstated in his offices. This tardy justice
came too late; though his enemies had been unable to drag him to the
scaffold, they had succeeded in shortening his days. In little more than
twelve months, his existence was terminated by a disease, seemingly of
the heart, which was brought on by the grief and anxiety that he had
suffered.
Chabot, however, lived long enough to witness the downfall of his
adversaries. To Montmorenci the king intimated, that he had no longer
occasion for his services; and the dismissed courtier in consequence
retired to Chantilly, whence he did not emerge during the remainder of
Francis’s reign. A heavier misfortune awaited Poyet, and it speedily fell
upon him. Two females, the duchess of Etampes and the queen of Navarre,
were the foes who overthrew him. The duchess, who was already offended
by his persecution of her relative, he exasperated beyond measure, by
refusing to perform an illegal act in favour of one of her friends; the
queen of Navarre he alienated in a similar manner; and he rendered both
of them more inveterate, by some bitter remarks on the influence which
females possessed over the mind of the sovereign. They combined together
for his ruin, and they effected it. In August, 1542, he was dragged from
his bed, and carried to the Bastile. Thus, after having been allowed
to be unjust with impunity, he was punished for recollecting at last
that he had duties to perform. In this emergency, he had the mingled
audacity and meanness to write to Chabot, imploring his forgiveness and
protection. After having been three years in prison, he was declared
incapable of ever holding office, and was sentenced to five years’
imprisonment, and to pay a fine of a hundred thousand livres. The king
himself, with a strange want of decorum, came forward as a witness
against him on the trial. Poyet died in 1548, an object of general
contempt.
The captives, to whom our attention is now to be directed, were of a
very different character from the chancellor Poyet; they were sufferers
for conscience’ sake; men who, when the question related to religious
interests, deemed it a duty not to submit in silence to arbitrary
power. Their names were Anne du Bourg, and Louis du Faur, and they
were counsellors of the parliament at Paris. The uncle of du Bourg was
chancellor in the reign of Francis I. Du Faur was of a family which had
produced many eminent characters, among whom is to be numbered Guy du
Faur, lord of Pibrac, author of the well-known Quatrains.
Pressed, it is said, by the Guises, and by the duchess of Valentinois,
his mistress, the latter of whom was looking forward to the benefit she
might expect from confiscations, Henry the second unwisely resolved to
carry to the full extent the persecution of the protestants. Hitherto,
only the humbler classes had been marked out for punishment; but, as
nothing more than the mere pleasure of tormenting could be derived
from pursuing them, it was now determined that men of higher rank
should suffer in their turn. This was at least impartial injustice. It
was believed that the reformed doctrines had many partisans among the
magistracy; and the members of the parliament of Paris were therefore
selected, as the subjects upon whom the new experiment of rigour should
be first tried. This step was taken at the suggestion of le Maître, the
chief president, who had the baseness to deliver privately to the king a
list of his protestant colleagues, and also a tempting statement of the
property which they possessed.
It was a custom of the heads of the parliament to meet at stated periods,
for the purpose, among other things, of inquiring into any alleged
neglect or violation of duty on the part of the members. These meetings,
which were established by an edict of Charles VIII., were called the
Mercuriales, from the circumstance of their taking place on a Wednesday.
To one of these assemblies, while it was in the midst of a debate, on the
measures which ought to be adopted with respect to heretics, the king
suddenly came, without any previous notice, accompanied by the Guises,
and other rigidly catholic nobles, and guarded by a formidable escort.
Previously to his arrival, the balance of opinion had inclined to the
side of a lenient administration of the law, until the discipline of the
church had been reformed by a new œcumenical council. Though the monarch
affected to be calm, it was easy to perceive that he was under the
influence of passion. He made a vehement harangue, in which he dwelt on
the disturbances caused by sectaries, and on the necessity of defending
the church, and then ordered the members to resume the debate, and
promised them freedom of speech.
The promise was meant only as a snare. The manner in which the king had
come to the sitting, in open contempt of usage and even of decorum,
plainly showed that his intention was to intimidate. But, by pretending
to guarantee the privilege of freely speaking, he hoped to do away the
impression which his abrupt coming had made, and delude the speakers into
a disclosure of their real sentiments. There were some, perhaps, who
confided in his word; there were others who, doubtless, were aware that
no reliance was to be placed on it, but who, nevertheless, thought they
were called upon to maintain, at all hazards, what they deemed to be the
cause of religion and truth. Of the latter class were Anne du Bourg and
Louis du Faur.
Du Faur admitted that troubles arose in the state from the difference of
religions, but he contended that it ought to be inquired who was really
the author of those troubles; and, with a manifest allusion to the king,
he added, that if this were done, the same reply might perhaps be made as
was given, on a similar occasion, by the prophet Elijah to Ahab, “I have
not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house, in that ye have,
forsaken, the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim.”
The speech of du Bourg, though it seemed to be less directly personal to
the monarch, was as well calculated as that of du Faur to excite angry
feelings in Henry and in many of the hearers, on whose vices it made a
rude attack. There were men, he said, whose blasphemies, adulteries,
horrible debaucheries, and repeated perjuries, crimes worthy of the worst
death, were not merely overlooked, but shamefully encouraged, while
every day new punishments were invented for men who were irreproachable.
“For of what crime can they be accused?” exclaimed he. “Can they be
charged with high treason, they who never mention the sovereign but in
the prayers which they offer up for him? Who can say that they violate
the laws of the state, endeavour to shake the fidelity of the towns, or
incite the provinces to revolt? With all the pains that have been taken,
not even with witnesses picked out for the purpose, has it been possible
to convict them of having so much as thought of these things. No! All
their fault and misfortune is that, by means of the light of the Holy
Scriptures, they have discovered and revealed the shameless turpitude of
the Papal power, and have demanded a salutary reformation. This is their
sedition.”
When all the members had delivered their opinions, some of which were
favourable to mild measures, the king called for the register, in which
were inscribed the opinions of those who had spoken before his arrival,
and also on a previous day. He then addressed to the assembly another
speech of censure and menace, and ended by ordering the arrest of du
Bourg and du Faur, who were present, and likewise of six absent members.
The two former were conveyed to the Bastile, where du Bourg, and probably
du Faur also, was shut up in a cage. Three of the others escaped; the
rest were sent to other places of confinement.
This arbitrary act was the last which Henry had the power of committing.
On that day fortnight, at a tournament, he was mortally wounded by a
splinter from the lance of the count de Montgomery. The scene of the
tournament was near the Bastile; and it is said that as the wounded
monarch was carried past the prison, his conscience smote him, and he
more than once expressed his fears that he had behaved unjustly to men
who were innocent. The cardinal of Lorraine, who was with him, is also
said to have assured him, that such an idea could have been inspired only
by the arch fiend, and admonished him to reject it, and adhere firmly
to his faith. This story, however, has no other foundation than popular
report.
The reign of Francis II. opened under no favourable auspices for the
protestants. The minor king was wholly under the influence of the
Guises, and of his mother Catherine of Medicis, all of whom had vowed a
deadly hostility to them. The persecution was accordingly resumed with
an increase of vigour. The trial of the members of the parliament was
pushed on; but it was against du Bourg that the hatred of the court was
peculiarly directed—the sweeping crimination, which was contained in his
speech before the deceased Henry, had wounded many great personages too
deeply to be forgiven.
Before the death of Henry, a commission had been appointed, which had
interrogated du Bourg on the subject of his religious tenets. He having
candidly avowed them, they were pronounced heretical by the bishop of
Paris, and he was delivered over to the secular authority. Du Bourg
appealed to the archbishop of Sens, and to the parliament, but without
effect. The trial was proceeded with, and, while it was pending, an event
occurred, which contributed to render his enemies still more inveterate.
One of his judges was a counsellor named Minard, a man of profligate
life, who had given violent advice to the late king. Du Bourg, therefore,
repeatedly challenged him as incompetent to sit upon the trial, and, on
Minard refusing to withdraw, the prisoner is said to have exclaimed, “God
will know how to compel thee!” It unfortunately happened that, returning
one evening to his home from the trial, Minard was assassinated, by
a pistol being fired at him. Du Bourg was suspected, and not without
an appearance of reason, of being implicated in the murder, and this
hastened his fate. There is no ground whatever to believe that he was
concerned in the foul deed; but it must be owned, that such prophecies
as he ventured upon are dangerous, because they have a tendency to bring
about their own fulfilment. It is not improbable, that the act was
suggested to the mind of some fanatical protestant by the words of the
prisoner.
It was in vain that the Elector Palatine wrote to the French monarch,
to entreat him to spare the life of du Bourg, and that numerous eminent
persons, even catholics, solicited to the same effect. Neither their
intercession, nor his acknowledged integrity and pure morals, availed to
save him. He was condemned to be hanged and his body burnt, at the Place
de Grêve. He died, at the age of thirty-eight, with a calm heroism, and
Christian spirit of forgiveness, which excited general admiration. His
death, far from being beneficial to the catholic cause, was exceedingly
injurious to it. The protestants regarded him as a martyr, gloried in
him as an honour to their party and faith, and were not slow in taking a
heavy vengeance for his untimely doom.
The blood of du Bourg seems to have deadened the fire of persecution, as
far as related to the other parliamentary prisoners. Some were subjected
to little more than nominal punishments; and even du Faur, the most
obnoxious of them, was only condemned to pay a fine, ask pardon, and be
suspended from his judicial functions for five years. But, comparatively
light as this sentence was, du Faur refused to acquiesce in it; he boldly
protested against it, and after a hard struggle, he was fortunate enough
to obtain its revocation, and to be re-established in his magisterial
capacity. Nor does it appear that this victory was purchased by any
sacrifice of principle.
Among those who, during the new crusade against protestants, had to
lament the loss of liberty, was Francis de Vendôme, Vidame of Chartres,
allied to the princes of the blood and the potent house of Montmorenci.
Vendôme had served in Italy, as a volunteer, under the duke of Aumale,
and, subsequently, held a command there, under the duke of Guise; after
which he was appointed governor of Calais. Closely connected with the
house of Montmorenci, he was irritated beyond measure by the dismissal
of the constable, and cherished a deadly animosity against the Guises,
who were the authors of that measure. It is not wonderful that, under the
influence of these feelings, he should make common cause with the prince
of Condé and the king of Navarre, who were preparing for resistance to
the court. Vendôme took an active part in rousing the protestants to
arms in various parts of the kingdom. But some of his letters, to the
prince of Condé, having been found upon la Sague, an emissary of the
protestant party, he was arrested and sent to the Bastile. There he was
treated with extreme rigour, and was refused permission to see his wife,
though she offered to become a prisoner with him. The letters were in
appearance merely complimentary, but the dread of the torture induced la
Sague to disclose that important secrets were written, with sympathetic
ink, on the cover that contained them. The death of Francis II. and
the pretended reconcilement of the hostile parties on the accession of
Charles IX., would have saved Vendôme from the scaffold, but he did not
live to recover his freedom. Worn out by a life of dissipation, he died,
in his thirty-eighth year, at the Tournelles, to which prison he had been
removed from the Bastile.
The decease of Vendôme took place in 1560, and, for several years, with
the exception of a duke of Lunebourg, who was imprisoned for a quarrel
with the duke of Guise, no prisoner, at least none whose fate history has
thought worthy of recording, appears to have found an abode within the
walls of the Bastile. After the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew,
there was a moment when the fortress seemed about to receive a princely
captive. The king of Navarre (afterwards Henry IV.) had yielded to the
threats of the royal murderer, and had changed his religion; but the
Prince of Condé was made of sterner stuff. He resisted so firmly all
attempts to induce him to apostatize, that Charles IX. ordered him to
be brought before him, and, in a furious tone, addressed to him three
ominous words; “The mass, death, or the Bastile.” Condé held out a little
longer, but he yielded when he found that du Rosier, a famous protestant
minister, had been converted to the Catholic faith.
It was not till towards the close of the reign of Charles IX. that the
Bastile was again tenanted. That monarch was then sinking rapidly into
the grave, under the pressure of bodily disease, and the perpetual stings
of his conscience. Haunted by appalling dreams, and by direful spectres
and dismal sounds, which his fancy incessantly conjured up, he had fallen
into a state which scarcely the remembrance of his crimes can prevent
us from pitying. It was at this period that the party was formed which
adopted the appellations of Politicians and Malecontents. The first of
these names was chosen to show that the persons assuming it were not
actuated, like the protestants, by religious motives. The oppressive
weight of the taxes, the insolent licentiousness of the soldiery, and the
cruelty and flagrant incapacity of those who managed the public affairs,
were their grounds of complaint. At the head of this party, which soon
became considerable, were William de Montmorenci and his nephew, the
Viscount de Turenne. Though this party consisted of catholics, yet, as
among the objects which it sought to obtain there were many which the
protestants no less eagerly desired, it was not long before a coalition
was formed between them.
To give greater weight and consistence to the party, it was thought
advisable to provide for it a chief of a more elevated rank than
Montmorenci and Turenne. The duke of Alençon, one of the king’s brothers,
who is known in English history as the duke of Anjou, was the chosen
individual. With many defects, and a scanty share of virtues, he had
some qualifications for being head of the party. To the protestants
he was recommended by his being far less hostile than the rest of his
family, and by his having been an unalterable friend of the murdered
admiral Coligni. Alençon was irritated by the restraint, little short of
imprisonment, under which he was kept at court, and by the refusal to
confer on him the lieutenant generalship of the kingdom, which had been
held by his brother Henry; and was consequently not averse from joining
those who could contribute to gratify his ambition. It has, indeed, been
supposed, and the supposition is by no means improbable, that the party,
or at least the protestant branch of it, would have been willing to raise
him to the throne, to the exclusion of Henry, his elder brother.
Two of the principal agents in forwarding the design of the malecontents
were la Mole, and the count de Coconas, the favourites of the duke of
Alençon. La Mole was an officer, a native of Provence. Among the ladies
of the court he was much admired for his liveliness and companionable
qualities. His time was divided, not quite equally, between sinning
and hearing mass; the latter of which he attended three or four times
a day. It was said of him by the king, that whoever wished to keep a
register of la Mole’s debaucheries, need only reckon up his masses. He
was notoriously one of the gallants of Margaret of Valois, as Coconas was
of the duchess of Nevers, the eldest of three sisters, who were called
the Graces. Coconas was one of the many Italians who were attracted into
France by the hope of receiving patronage from Catherine of Medicis. One
anecdote will suffice to demonstrate the fiendishness of his nature.
During the massacre of St. Bartholomew, he bought from the populace
thirty hugonot prisoners, that he might gratify himself, by subjecting
them to torture both of body and mind. After having, by a promise of
saving their lives, induced them to renounce their faith, he put them
slowly to death by numerous superficial dagger wounds. Of this act he was
accustomed to boast. The fate of such a man can excite no pity.
All was arranged for the flight of the duke of Alençon, the king of
Navarre, and the prince of Condé, from the court, in order to join the
malecontents, and hoist the standard of opposition. Bands of troops were
hovering round the palace of St. Germain, to protect their retreat.
But the plot was disconcerted by the vigilance of Catherine of Medicis,
the imprudence of some of the plotters, and the hesitation of the
feeble-minded duke. At two in the morning, Catherine hurried the dying
Charles from St. Germain to Paris in a litter, and placed guards over the
duke and the king of Navarre; Condé, more prudent than his associates,
had embraced the first opportunity to escape. There were some ludicrous
circumstances connected with the hasty retreat to Paris. “The cardinals
of Bourbon, Lorraine, and Guise,” says d’Aubigné, “the chancellor
Birague, and Morvilliers and Bellièvre, were all mounted on Italian
coursers, grasping with both hands their saddle bows, and as thoroughly
frightened at their horses as at the enemy.” Contrasting strongly with
this was the pitiable state of the monarch, with his frame debilitated,
and all the weight of the St. Bartholomew on his soul, groaning, and
mournfully exclaiming, “At least they might have waited till I was dead!”
Indignant at what he called a foul conspiracy, the king ordered that a
rigid enquiry should instantly be commenced. La Mole denied every thing;
Coconas, on the contrary, disclosed all that he knew, and perhaps more.
But the fate of the conspirators was sealed by the duke of Alençon, who
made an ample confession, without even having attempted to stipulate for
the lives of his confederates. Coconas and la Mole, who had been sent to
the Bastile, were now brought to trial; and, by dint of legal sophistry,
the project of bringing about the flight of the princes was construed
into a design against the person of the king.
Coconas and la Mole were condemned to be put to the torture, and then
beheaded. “Poor la Mole!” exclaimed the latter, while he was suffering
the first part of his sentence, “is there no way to obtain a pardon? The
duke, my master, to whom I owe innumerable obligations, commanded me
on my life to say nothing of what he was about to do. I answered, yes,
sir, if you do nothing against the king.” The unfortunate man, like vast
numbers at that period, had faith in magic arts. A waxen image, of which
the heart was pierced through with a needle, had been found among his
effects. On being questioned whether this was not meant to represent the
king, and to be an instrument of tormenting his majesty, he replied that
its only purpose was to inspire love in a lady, of whom he was deeply
enamoured.
On the scaffold, before he laid down his head on the block, he
significantly said to the by-standers, “You see, sirs, that the little
ones are caught, and that the great ones, who have been guilty of the
fault, are allowed to escape.” La Mole displayed his ruling passion
strong in death. His last words, after having prayed to God and the
Virgin, were, “commend me to the kind remembrance of the queen of Navarre
and the ladies.” He was not forgotten by his lady-love; neither was his
companion. Queen Margaret and the duchess of Nevers are said by some
to have embalmed the heads of their admirers, that they might always
preserve them for contemplation; while by others they are asserted to
have taken them in a carriage to a chapel, at the foot of Montmartre, and
buried them with their own hands. Two years afterwards, the sentences
against la Mole and Coconas were annulled by Henry III.
The abortive plot in favour of the duke of Alençon proved a source of
trouble to two individuals, more eminent in rank, and far more estimable
in character, than were la Mole and Coconas. The marshals Francis de
Montmorenci, and Arthur de Cossé, the former of whom was the eldest son
of the celebrated constable, were suspected, or pretended to be so, by
the queen mother; Montmorenci was also well known to feel that hatred
of the Guises which was characteristic of his family. At her suggestion,
therefore, they were committed to the Bastile, by Charles IX. This was
nearly the last exercise of his authority. He died about a fortnight
after, leaving his mother to hold the office of regent, till his
successor, the third Henry, could return from Poland.
Montmorenci was the husband of Diana, the natural daughter of Henry II.,
and had been employed on numerous occasions, civil and military, in all
of which he had honourably acquitted himself. Of his martial exploits the
most prominent was the brave though unsuccessful defence of Terouane. He
was liberal, high-minded, learned, firm, and of invariable rectitude.
Cossé was still more illustrious in arms than his fellow prisoner. He
had distinguished himself at various sieges, particularly those of Sens
and Metz, and in the battle of St. Denis, and many other encounters. Nor
was he a mere enterprising soldier. It is said of him, by contemporary
historians, and it is no light praise, “that his head was as good as his
arm.”
The party which had hitherto been known as that of the Politicians now
took the name of the Third Party. It received a large increase, by the
junction of catholics, whose indignation was excited by the constraint
put upon the duke of Alençon and the king of Navarre, at Vincennes, and
the close imprisonment of two such eminent men as de Montmorenci and
de Cossé. Condé, too, was busy in Germany, stirring up the protestant
princes to succour his friends, and keeping up a continual correspondence
with the French calvinists.
On his taking possession of the throne, Henry set at liberty the king
of Navarre and the duke of Alençon. The marshals, however, were still
retained in confinement. Diana, the wife of Montmorenci, had adopted
a singular mode of moving in her husband’s behalf the feelings of the
monarch. Dressed in deep mourning, and followed by all her female
attendants in the same garb, she met Henry as he was passing through the
street, fell at his feet, and entreated him to take compassion on her
husband, whose health was declining in a prison, into which he had been
thrown without being convicted, or so much as accused, of any crime.
She likewise forcibly urged that, even if his majesty supposed him to
be guilty, he ought to grant him a fair trial. The king seemed to be
affected by her appeal, which was backed by some of the nobles who were
present, and he promised to enquire into the business with as little
delay as possible.
The promise of the king, however, if sincere at the moment, was soon
disregarded. Cossé, who, like his fellow captive, was suffering from bad
health, was, indeed, allowed to take up his abode in his own house, under
a guard; but the only deliverance which was destined for Montmorenci was
deliverance from all the troubles of this world. It appears, in fact,
that his life would not have been safe for a moment, but for the salutary
fear that his death would drive into open hostility his brother Damville,
who held the government of Languedoc. A report having been spread that
Damville was dead, the king resolved to have the marshal strangled in
prison, and, as a preliminary step, it was industriously given out that
he was subject to apoplectic attacks. This barbarous and cowardly scheme
would have been carried into effect, had not an obstacle occurred. Giles
de Souvré, who had been mistakenly selected to perform the assassin’s
part, chanced to be a more honest man than his royal master, and he
purposely interposed so many delays, that time was afforded to ascertain
the falsehood of the report which had announced the death of Damville.
It was neither to the clemency nor the justice of his sovereign that
Montmorenci was ultimately indebted for the recovery of his freedom.
Endangered by the betrayal of a plot into which he had entered against
his brother, Alençon mustered up courage enough to run away. His flight
took place on the 16th of September 1575. As soon as he was in safety, at
Dreux, he issued a manifesto, not unartfully contrived, to gain partisans
in various quarters. Reform in every department was the tempting burden
of its song. It worked its intended effect; the protestants were in
raptures, the Third Party was satisfied with it, and he speedily found
himself in a situation to set the court at defiance.
William, one of the brothers of Montmorenci, whom we have seen one of the
original chiefs of the Politicians, was now about to enter the French
territory at the head of a division of troops, designed to herald the way
to the army which the prince of Condé had succeeded in obtaining from
the Elector Palatine. In the first outbreak of her anger, on hearing
this news, the queen mother sent him word, that, if he dared to advance,
she would despatch to him the heads of the two marshals. His reply was,
“Should the queen do as she threatens, there is nothing of hers in France
on which I will not leave the marks of my revenge.”
Menace having failed, the wily Catherine resorted to an opposite mode
of proceeding. Aware that the liberation of the two marshals would be
imperatively demanded by their armed friends, and that the king was too
weak to refuse it, she determined to try whether she could not secure
their gratitude, by appearing to have the merit of voluntarily releasing
them. They were accordingly restored to liberty. By a declaration, under
the royal seal, Montmorenci was pronounced to be “absolutely innocent of
the crime which had been laid to his charge,” When a similar exculpatory
document was offered to Cossé by the king, he chivalrously replied,
“Excuse me, sire, for declining it; a Cossé ought to think that no one
can believe him to be guilty.”
Though they could not be ignorant of the motive which had induced
Catherine to throw open their prison doors, the marshals acted as if a
favour had really been granted to them. Montmorenci had the largest share
in bringing about the truce, and the subsequent treaty, between the king
and the duke of Alençon; and the loyalty of Cossé was considered to be
so unimpeachable that, in 1578, he received the order of the Holy Ghost.
Montmorenci died in 1579; Cossé in 1582.
The principal favourite of the duke of Alençon, after the death of la
Mole and Coconas, was Louis de Clermont, better known by the appellation
of Bussy d’Amboise. In profligacy he went beyond his predecessors. He
seems to have been a compound of vices, without a single virtue; unless,
indeed, we may give the name of virtue to mere brutal courage. Full
of pride and insolence, eager to involve others in deadly quarrels,
a libertine, a professed duellist, and a cold-blooded assassin, his
being tolerated at the French court, and even admired by many persons,
is an unrefutable evidence of the wretched state of morals among the
nobility of France. Bravery must have been held in a sort of idolatrous
estimation, when respect for it could induce such a man as Crillon to be
the friend of d’Amboise.
The first achievement which Bussy is known to have performed stamps his
name with infamy. He was engaged in a lawsuit against the marquis of
Renel, one of his relations, to recover from him the marquisate, which
Bussy claimed as his right. The marquis had come to Paris, with the king
of Navarre, and was there when the massacre of St. Bartholomew took
place. In the midst of the carnage, Bussy sought him out, and stabbed
him to the heart. The parliament, soon after, passed a decree, admitting
the murderer’s claim; but it is consolatory to find that the decree was
subsequently annulled.
Having attached himself to the duke of Alençon, he was entrusted with the
government of the castle of Angers, and he soon made himself universally
hated, by his extortion and tyranny. When he visited the court with his
master, his arrogance and audacity rose to such a height, that the king’s
favourites, whom he had often insulted, at length formed a scheme to
assassinate him. The attack was made at night, and with superior numbers;
but it was foiled by the skill and resolution of Bussy and his followers.
The monarch himself was not safe from the contemptuous sarcasms of Bussy.
In their dress, Henry and his minions carried to the most extravagant
length the costly and absurd fashions of that period. Bussy one day
attended his patron to court. He himself was simply dressed, but he was
followed by six pages, clad in cloth of gold, and tricked out in the most
approved style of finery. That the point of this silent satire might not
be lost, he insultingly proclaimed aloud, that “the time was come when
ragamuffins would make the most show!” The king was so irritated by this
language, that, for a while, the duke was obliged to forbid Bussy from
appearing in his train.
About the same time, Bussy gave fresh cause of offence to the king.
Ever seeking an opportunity to indulge his passion for duelling, he had
wantonly quarrelled with a gentleman named St. Phal. Looking at some
embroidery, St. Phal remarked that the letter X was worked on it; Bussy,
from sheer contradiction, asserted that the letter was a Y. A duel of six
against six in consequence took place, and Bussy was slightly wounded.
As, however, Bussy sent his antagonist a second challenge, and expressed
a stubborn determination to follow up the quarrel to the last extremity,
the king interposed to put an end to it. Bussy reluctantly consented to
meet St. Phal, in the king’s presence, for the purpose of reconcilement,
and when, with that intent, he went to the Louvre, he was accompanied
into the palace by a band of two hundred determined partisans. The anger
of the king was excited by this irruption of bravos, but for the present
he restrained it.
In one of those fits of suspecting his brother, with which Henry was
occasionally seized, he went by night to put him under arrest, and, at
the same time, he sent Bussy to the Bastile. On the following morning, a
council was held, at which, prompted by the queen mother, the ministers
declared that the step which the king had taken was impolitic, and
advised him to be reconciled with the duke. Henry consented. The only
stipulation which he made was, that Bussy, on being liberated, should be
reconciled to Caylus, the king’s favourite, with whom he was at enmity.
Bussy complied, and, in complying, contrived to throw ridicule on the
weak monarch. “Sire,” said he, “if you wish me to kiss him, I am quite
ready to do it;” then, suiting the action to the word, he embraced Caylus
in such a thoroughly farcical style, that the spectators were unable to
repress their laughter.
It was not long before the libertinism of Bussy supplied Henry with the
means of destroying him. It is probable that, in his amours, the pleasure
of betraying the women who confided in him formed one of the greatest
inducements to pursue them—a base feeling, which is still prevalent. In
a letter to the duke of Anjou, he boasted that he had been spreading his
nets for the Great Huntsman’s beast, and that he held her fast in them.
The Great Huntsman was the count de Montsoreau, who held that office;
the beast, as she was politely called, was the count’s wife, whom the
profligate writer had seduced. This letter Anjou put into the king’s
hands, as a good jest. Henry kept it, and communicated it to the count,
whom he urged to revenge himself on the offender. Montsoreau was not
backward to follow the king’s advice. He hurried home, and compelled his
wife to write to Bussy, to make an assignation with him. Bussy was true
to the appointment. Instead, however, of meeting the countess, he was
attacked by Montsoreau and several men, all of whom wore coats of mail.
In spite of the odds against him, he fought for some time with determined
spirit; but, finding that he must eventually be overpowered, he tried
to escape through the window, and was slain by a stab in the back. “The
whole province,” says de Thou, “was delighted at his fall, and even the
duke of Anjou was not very sorry to be rid of a man who began to be a
burthen to him.”
CHAPTER IV.
Reign of Henry III. continued—Conspiracy of Salcede—Francis
de Rosières—Peter de Belloy—Francis le Breton—Bernard
Palissy—Daring plots of the League—Henry III. expelled from
Paris—The Bastile surrenders to Guise—Bussi le Clerc appointed
governor—Damours—James de la Guesle—Reign of Henry IV.—Members
of the parliament arrested—President de Harlay—Potier de
Blancmesnil—The family of Seguier—Speeches of Henry IV.—Louis
Seguier—James Gillot—Outrage committed by the Council of
Sixteen—It is punished by the duke of Mayenne—Henry IV. enters
Paris—Surrender of the Bastile—Du Bourg—Treasure deposited in
the Bastile by Henry.
It was a conspiracy against the duke of Anjou, and the king of France,
that brought the next prisoner of importance to the Bastile. This
conspiracy originated with the Guises, was promoted by that great artisan
of mischief Philip the Second of Spain, and contained the seminal
principle of the subsequent war, which is known as the war of the League.
The agent employed in carrying it on was Nicholas Salcede, a man of
daring and profligate character, whose father, a Spanish gentleman, the
governor of Vic, in Lorraine, having offended the Guises, was slain,
though he was a catholic, in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. By dint,
however, of heaping favours and attentions on him, the Guises, to whom,
indeed, he was distantly related, soon induced Salcede to forget the
murder of his parent. By a crowning act of kindness, they, in some
measure, acquired a right to his services. Counterfeiting the king’s
coin, as well as that of foreign states, was a crime which, for a long
series of years, was of common occurrence in France among persons of
rank. The punishment of throwing them into boiling oil was insufficient
to deter them; for it was so often evaded that it ceased to create
terror. Salcede had carried the practice of coining to such an extent as
to be able to purchase an estate. Being detected, he was summoned to take
his trial at Rouen, and, as he prudently refused to appear, sentence of
death was passed upon him as a contumacious criminal. But the duke of
Lorraine interceded for him, and his pardon was granted. This, and the
prospect of honours and rewards, linked him firmly to the Guises.
The duke of Anjou was, at this period, struggling to acquire the
sovereignty of the Netherlands, and under his banner were arrayed an
immense number of the French nobles. To the members of the house of
Lorraine he was inveterately hostile; for he looked upon them as his
personal enemies, and as having been authors of the many mortifications
which he had undergone. To prevent him from entering France, for the
purpose of succouring his brother Henry, was, therefore, an object of
primary importance; as, if that were not attained, their project of
dethroning the king, or at least becoming viceroys over him, could
scarcely hope for success. Morality was, in those days, at so low an
ebb among the great, that it is probable the Guises would have felt but
few scruples in accomplishing their purpose by the death of the duke;
though, avowedly, their sole aim was to shut him out of France, by
closing against him the northern frontier and the ports of Britanny.
The daring spirit and desperate situation of Salcede—for he was deeply
involved in debt—pointed him out to the Guises as a fit instrument. The
duke of Guise tempted him by a solemn assurance, that the king of Spain
would reward him with rank and occupation proportioned to the magnitude
of his services; and he backed his arguments and promises by descanting
on the benefit which the catholic religion would derive from ruining the
duke of Anjou. His eloquence prevailed, and Salcede unreluctantly devoted
himself to the furtherance of the treasonable scheme.
It was arranged, that the Guises should secretly furnish funds for
raising a regiment, to be commanded by Salcede, and that he should then
proceed to the duke of Anjou, and offer to bring to his banner a chosen
body of men, who would engage to remain under it for several months. No
doubt was entertained that, as the duke was scantily provided with money,
was, in consequence, daily deserted by some of his troops, and had no
great confidence in the Belgians, he would gladly accept this offer; and
would either entrust the new corps with the keeping of some important
fortress, or reserve it as a guard for his own person. In either case,
the conspirators could turn the circumstance to account. The seizure of
Dunkirk and Cambray were the main points to which Salcede’s attention
was to be directed; but he was also to do his best to shake the fidelity
of Anjou’s officers, and, of course, was to act as spy for the Spanish
monarch. The prince of Parma, meanwhile, was gradually to approach
Calais, the governor of which town, it is said, had promised to betray
his trust. The sudden loss of Calais would, it was imagined, so terrify
Henry, that he would give the supreme command of his forces to the duke
of Guise; the French accomplices of the Guises would then rise in arms;
and the plan of subverting the government would be easily executed.
As had been expected, the proposal of Salcede was listened to with much
pleasure by the duke of Anjou, who treated him as a valuable friend. The
duke was as yet ignorant that the conspirator had been reconciled to the
Guises. Nor was he aware that, in his way to Bruges, Salcede had visited
the enemy’s camp, had a conference with the prince of Parma, the viceroy,
and been accompanied to Bruges by two of the prince’s agents. But the
sharp-sighted prince of Orange was not disposed to grant his confidence
to the newcomer so readily as the duke; he disliked and suspected him,
both as being in his origin a Spaniard, and as having been found guilty
of an infamous offence. The enquiries of the prince of Orange elicited
sufficient evidence to justify his suspicion that Salcede had sinister
designs, and he, therefore, advised the duke to arrest him. This advice
was followed by Anjou, who had already learned, from another quarter,
that his pretended partisan was connected with the Guises. Salcede was
accordingly arrested on his coming to the palace. The two agents of the
prince of Parma were waiting at the palace gate for their confederate’s
return; one of them escaped, the other, Francis Baza by name, was seized
and committed to prison. In the course of a few days, Baza put an end to
his existence.
In the first examination, mysterious hints were all that could be drawn
from Salcede; in the second, he spontaneously disclosed so complicated
and gigantic a conspiracy, that his hearers were astounded. That part of
it which related to Belgium and the duke of Anjou was the smallest part;
a mere episode in the Guisian Iliad. The conspirators purposed nothing
less than to imprison the king of France, exterminate the royal family,
and subject the kingdom to the domination of Spain. Their means Salcede
stated to be immense. As implicated in the plot, he named a multitude
of the most powerful nobles, a majority of the governors of provinces
and towns, and even some of the king’s ministers and favourites. The
provinces of Picardy, Champagne, Burgundy, Britanny, and the Cotentin,
were, he said, secured by the plotters; nor would foreign aid be wanting,
as the papal and Piedmontese troops were to enter France on the side of
Lyons, while two Spanish armies were to pass the Pyrenees into Bearn
and Gascony, where the malecontents were in readiness to receive them.
This deposition, after a lapse of some days, he voluntarily repeated and
enlarged, and he offered to prove it, by being confronted with three
persons, whom he had before mentioned, and who, he was convinced, would
confess that he had spoken but the truth.
This disclosure was of too much importance to Henry of France to admit of
delay in making it known to him. The duke of Anjou accordingly despatched
one of his chamberlains to Paris, with the depositions, and a letter, in
which the Guises were not spared. At first, Henry was startled at the
seeming danger; but his natural dislike of business, and his love of
pleasure, soon induced him to take refuge in the idea that the whole was
an invention of some one who wished to disturb his quiet, or a stratagem
of his brother, to obtain liberal succours. Not so thought his minister
Bellièvre, in whom he placed great confidence. While the minister perused
the paper, the changes in his countenance plainly showed that he thought
the plot was real, and the peril from it extreme. It was at length
settled, that Bellièvre, accompanied by Brulart, one of the secretaries
of state, should proceed to Bruges, interrogate Salcede, and require
that the criminal should be transferred to Paris. “If,” said the king,
“my brother consents to the transfer, I shall believe that a conspiracy
exists.”
When Bellièvre questioned him, Salcede, for the third time, repeated
his story. He was now conveyed to France, and placed in the castle of
Vincennes; the duke of Anjou having readily acceded to the wish of his
brother. When, however, he was brought before the king in council,
he disavowed all that he had previously said. His confession had, he
affirmed, been dictated to him by three persons in the duke’s service,
who compelled him to write it. “Why, then, did you say the same to
Bellièvre, when those persons were absent?” inquired the king. To this
the unblushing prisoner answered, that Bellièvre had intimidated him by
threats, and that he had always been under the influence of terror while
he was in the ducal palace. Bellièvre was a man remarkable for patience
and politeness, but he was so provoked by this charge, that he could not
forbear from exclaiming, “You are an impudent slanderer.” At the close of
the examination, Salcede was removed to the Bastile. There he was again
examined, and there he persisted in his disavowal.
It now became a question what should be done with Salcede. The president
de Thou advised that he should be retained in prison. He urged that, if
the conspiracy were real, his detention would intimidate his accomplices,
and afford the means of convicting them in case of need; while, on the
other hand, if the conspiracy were only a calumny, invented by turbulent
and ill-disposed persons, the existence of the criminal might serve
to justify the innocence of those whom he had accused. His son, the
celebrated historian, tells us, that the president had an additional
motive in thus advising; he wished not merely to hold the conspirators
in check, by preserving the evidence of their guilt, but, at the same
time, to keep before the king’s eyes a memento of the danger to which
he exposed himself by his unbridled licentiousness, and his oppressive
misgovernment.
This prudent counsel was, however, strenuously opposed. It was contended
that, in whatever light the question was viewed, the culprit ought to
die. Supposing the plot to be a reality, his death would terrify his
associates; his being suffered to live might drive them to rebellion
through despair. If, on the contrary, his tale were false, death ought
to punish the calumny; and the more so because, if impunity were granted
to him, resentment, at being unjustly suspected, might provoke innocent
persons to become really criminal.
The motive which prompted many to insist on the latter mode of proceeding
cannot be mistaken; they were pleading for their own lives, or the
lives of their friends. The weakness of their reasoning is so evident
as to need no exposure. It was not by stifling inquiry that the monarch
could hope to neutralize or convert his enemies. History does, indeed,
record instances where it was wise as well as generous to throw the
veil of oblivion over an incipient plot, and save the plotters from the
necessity of becoming open rebels; but this was not a case of the kind.
The plotters against Henry were irreclaimable, and, ascribing his conduct
to fear and not to mildness, would only be encouraged to persist in their
destructive projects. When justice has pronounced upon the criminal,
then is the time for a sovereign to show mercy; and, if he have a human
heart, he will set no other bounds to his clemency than those which are
imperatively prescribed by the safety of the state. But he who shrinks
from prosecuting a traitor offers a premium for the growth of treason.
Henry, nevertheless, decided otherwise. He adopted the opinion of those
who were for sending Salcede to the scaffold. In thus following their
insidious advice, he was not influenced by principle or mistaken policy;
he was mainly actuated by a childish impatience, an eagerness to get rid
of a disagreeable subject, which interrupted his contemptible pleasures.
Like the stupid bird, which hopes to baffle its pursuers by hiding its
head, he seems to have thought that if danger were out of sight it could
not reach him. He had, however, another and an equally mean reason for
his decision; the wish to mortify de Thou. The president had recently
offended him by a virtuous and truly loyal act. Dreading the effect which
would be produced by the king’s incessant edicts to extort money, he
implored him to pause, lest poverty and despair should drive the people
to resistance. Instead of profiting by this patriotic warning, Henry
turned round to his train of flatterers, and sneeringly exclaimed, “The
poor man is in a state of dotage!” He was righteously punished for his
scorn of honest and prudent counsel. Ere many years had gone by, he was
taught to lament with tears the loss of this doting magistrate, and to
confess that, had de Thou lived, Paris would never have revolted.
Salcede was brought to trial. Everything that could throw light on the
fact of the conspiracy was studiously suppressed; there was no search for
evidence relative to it, no examination and confronting of the persons
who had been charged by the prisoner. The sole object was to obtain a
sentence of death against the man whose existence might prove fatal to
the conspirators. That object was accomplished on the 25th of October,
1582. Salcede was pronounced guilty of high treason, and was condemned
to be torn into quarters by four horses; his quarters were to be placed
on gibbets, at the principal gates of Paris, and his head was to be sent
to Antwerp, to be exposed in a similar manner. Immediately previous to
his execution, he was likewise to be put to the torture; this was a
supererogatory act of cruelty, for, even if we admit the possibility of
justifying the use of torture, its infliction in this instance could
answer no useful purpose. It was decreed, also, by his judges, that “his
confessions, the private letters found on him, and _the declarations
which he had made since the commencement of his trial_, should be burnt
to ashes; as having been malignantly and calumniously invented, to
prejudice the honour of various princes, nobles, and other persons.” Here
is the key to the whole proceeding.
“Light dies before thy uncreating word!
Thy hand, great anarch, lets the curtain fall,
And universal darkness buries all.”
The king was sufficiently devoid of feeling to witness, behind a curtain,
the torturing of the prisoner, and to go to the Town Hall, to see
executed the ferocious and sickening sentence, which condemned a fellow
being to be torn to pieces by horses. But, even in that corrupt and
semi-barbarous age, there were not wanting persons who passed a severe
censure on Henry, for conduct which was disgraceful to him as a king and
a man.
When the torture was applied, Salcede again veered about; he re-asserted
the whole of what he had originally stated, with respect to the
conspiracy. This blow was, however, adroitly parried by those whom it
might otherwise have injured. As he was passing up a dark staircase,
after having been tortured, he was joined by a priest, of the order of
Jesuits, who exhorted him to retract his confession once more. This
ghostly adviser no doubt worked powerfully on his hopes and fears, with
regard to another world, and he succeeded in prevailing on him to make a
new retractation. As nothing was to be gained by varying in his story, he
persisted in this retractation, and, at the place of execution, he loudly
extolled the virtues, and proclaimed the innocence, of his patrons, the
Guises. He lived a villain, and he died a self-convicted liar.
In the following year, 1583, there occurred another, but comparatively
a trivial, illustration of the ambitious views of the Guises, and
the vacillation and timidity of the king. Francis de Rosières, a
native of Toul, born in 1534, was a man of prepossessing manners, and
of considerable erudition and eloquence. He rose to be archdeacon of
Toul, and through the patronage of cardinal de Guise, obtained several
benefices, and the office of counsellor to the duke of Lorraine. To prove
his gratitude to his benefactors, and probably at their instigation, he
composed and published a voluminous work, on “the genealogy of the dukes
of Lorraine and Bar.” Its evident purpose was to degrade the reigning
family, and exalt that of the Guises. Not satisfied with tracing back
in a direct line to Charlemagne the descent of the house of Lorraine,
he carried it further through the starless night of ages, up to a son
of Clodion, from whom Merovæus was pretended to have usurped the crown.
The inference was easy, that the monarchs of the Capetian race were
intruders, and that the Guises alone had a legitimate right to the
throne. From thence to the assertion of the right was but a single step,
on the propriety of which it was for prudence to decide, the question of
justice being already settled. This doctrine was, in fact, openly taught
in other works, which the Guises, however, affected to disavow, and to
regard as fabrications of the protestants, for the purpose of throwing
suspicion on their loyalty.
In addition to his laboured genealogy of his patrons, Rosières had been
guilty of various misrepresentations, and of a personal attack upon
Henry; and he had supported his fabric of falsehood by documents which
were manifestly spurious, and by altering others, so as to suit them to
his purpose. The other libels Henry had repelled only by employing Pons
de Thyard, a man of varied talents, to write an elaborate answer: against
this he resolved to proceed in a different manner; he treated it as a
state crime. He who had swallowed the camel of last year’s conspiracy,
now strained at this gnat of a volume. And here again his infirmity of
purpose betrayed him to the scorn of his enemies. Commencing vigorously,
he despatched Brulart to Toul, to interrogate Rosières; after which the
archdeacon was conveyed to Paris, and housed in the Bastile. Thus far,
Henry seemed to have meditated a tragedy; but, in its further progress
the drama dwindled down to a miserable farce. The plan which he adopted
had the demerit of alike disclosing an inclination to mortify the Guises,
and a dread of offending them. It was the latter feeling which prompted
him to prohibit the parliament from intervening in the cause, because
that body would probably pass a sentence derogatory to the house of
Lorraine; it was the former feeling which induced him to persevere in
seeking to gain the shadow of a triumph. He could not see that any thing
short of complete victory was in reality a defeat.
Pursuing the absurd system which he had framed for himself, Henry now
convoked, at the Louvre, a numerous council of nobles and eminent men;
all the heads of the Lorraine family were present. Rosières was brought
from the Bastile, and, on his knees confessed his fault, owned that
he deserved rigorous punishment, and sued for pardon. The keeper of
the seals then gravely lectured him on the enormity of his crime, and
declared him to be guilty of high treason. It was next the turn of the
queen-mother to play her part; and, accordingly, as had previously been
arranged, she stepped forward, and entreated her son to forgive the
offender, for the sake of the duke of Lorraine. The king graciously
consented, and delivered Rosières into the hands of the duke. This
ludicrous scene was terminated by a decree, that the book should be torn
to pieces before the author’s face, but that no public record should be
made of these things, “lest reproach should fall on the illustrious house
of Lorraine.” Anquetil pithily remarks, that the crime ought either to
have been left unnoticed, or been more severely chastised.
Rosières did not pass the whole of his remaining days in tranquillity.
He involved himself in a quarrel with his bishop, and was under the
necessity of repairing to Rome, to plead his own cause. How he sped in
the holy city is doubtful; one writer affirms that he was censured,
another maintains that he was absolved. He died in 1607. Besides the
Genealogy, he wrote various works, which are as dead as their author.
Writers who ventured to thwart the Guises in their treasonable designs
did not meet with so much lenity from them as was shown to Rosières by
the feeble-minded Henry. No merit whatever could counterbalance the sin
of opposing them. This was experienced by Peter de Belloy, an eminent
jurisconsult, who was born at Montauban, about 1540, and became public
professor and counsellor at Toulouse. Belloy was a zealous catholic, and
his three elder brothers had fallen in combating against the protestants.
But these claims to consideration were not sufficient to prevent him from
being persecuted by the house of Lorraine.
Asserting the king of Navarre’s right to succeed to the reigning monarch,
and exposing the machinations and hollow pretexts of the Guises, was
the crime of which Belloy was guilty. The works which drew on him
the vengeance of the Guisian faction were the “Catholic Apology;” “A
Refutation of the Bull of Pope Pius V. against the Navarrese sovereign;”
and “An Examination of the Discourse published against the Royal House
of France.” In these works, which were given to the press in 1585 and
1586, he contended, that the protestantism of Henry of Navarre did not
deprive him of his title to the crown; that the king could not disinherit
his legitimate heir; that the Pope had no authority to sit in judgment
upon the question of the succession; and that the seeming ardour of the
Guises, in behalf of catholicism, was nothing more than a mask to cover
their designs upon the throne. His language was strictly decorous, his
candour and impartiality were evident, but his facts and arguments were
unforgivable.
Slander was the weapon which his enemies began by using against Belloy.
To his “Catholic Apology” a reply was published by a Jesuit, who assumed
the designation of Francisculus Romulus, but who is believed to have been
the celebrated Bellarmin. To give weight to his reasonings, the Jesuit
boldly asserted that his opponent, who falsely took the name of catholic,
was at least a heretic, if not an atheist. This calumny fell harmless
upon the object at which it was aimed. It was not so with calumny from
a higher quarter. The Guises were not satisfied with defaming him; they
determined to make him feel their power more effectually. An unfortunate
maniac, le Breton by name, of whom I shall have next occasion to speak,
had written a seditious libel. This libel the Guises ascribed to Belloy.
Failing to effect their purpose by this accusation, they painted him
in the darkest colours to the king, as a dangerous mischief-maker and
heretic, and the weak monarch was at last prevailed upon to commit him to
the prison of the Concièrgerie.
After Henry had assassinated the duke of Guise, the Council of Sixteen
removed Belloy to the Bastile, where he remained in close confinement
for nearly four years. He at length found means to escape, and he sought
refuge at St. Denis, which was garrisoned by the troops of Henry IV. He
was introduced to Henry, by Vic, the governor, and the king rewarded
his talents and fidelity, by appointing him advocate-general to the
parliament of Toulouse. His subsequent life appears to have been passed
in quiet. The date of his death is not known, but in 1612 he was still
living. He wrote various works, besides those which have already been
mentioned: among them are a “Dissertation on the Origin and Institution
of various Orders of Chivalry;” and “An Exposition of the Seventy Weeks
of Daniel.”
Francis le Breton, to whom I have already alluded, affords a striking
proof that, when Henry the third forbore to punish, it was not clemency,
but fear, indolence, or caprice, that withheld his hand. Le Breton was a
barrister of Poitiers, who had acquired considerable reputation by his
forensic talents. It speaks strongly in favour of his honesty and the
kindness of his nature, that he espoused so warmly the part of those for
whom he pleaded, as entirely to identify their interest with his own. A
mere mercenary counsel, indifferent to the justice or injustice of his
client’s claim, could have had no such feelings. Unfortunately, le Breton
was of a family in which symptoms of insanity had often appeared, and the
dreadful malady was lurking in his brain. The loss of a cause, in which
he was engaged for a poor individual, at once roused the latent disease
into action. He burst into vehement invectives against the judges, and
presented a violent memorial against them to a higher tribunal. The
superior judges, who saw how he was affected, gave him a gentle rebuke,
and dismissed the complaint. Irritated by this, he journeyed to Paris,
to make an appeal to the king. Having fastened his memorial on the
end of a stick, he went to the Louvre, where the guards, who rightly
concluded that he was bereft of his senses, endeavoured to drive him
away. Le Breton, however, was immovable, and he exclaimed so loudly and
incessantly, “The cause of the poor is abandoned, and God will take
vengeance for it,” that the noise reached the king’s ear, and he ordered
him to be admitted. Henry listened to his story, and then commanded him
to return to his own country, and to keep silence in public. To have
sent him to the hospital would have been a more praiseworthy act.
Instead of proceeding to Poitiers, the maniac wandered through the
provinces, calling on the people to recover their liberty, and sending
inflammatory writings to the towns which were too distant for him to
visit. At last he reached Bordeaux, and demanded an interview with the
duke of Mayenne. It was granted; and the unfortunate lunatic employed
the whole of it in conjuring the duke to defend the cause of the poor.
Mayenne, who felt that le Breton’s harangues to the multitude, mad as he
was, might be serviceable to the Guises, gave him money, and probably
hopes, and then desired him to withdraw.
Encouraged by this gracious reception, le Breton made the best of his
way to Paris, where he sat down to compose a furious invective against
the king, whom, with more truth than prudence or decorum, he styled
a debauched tyrant, and the magistrates, whom he stigmatised as men
steeped in wickedness, who, to please that tyrant, and gratify men in
power, betrayed the cause of the poor. Two printers were found who had
sufficient boldness to risk the printing of this libel. But, just as it
was about to appear, the whole impression was seized, and the author was
lodged in the Bastile. The printers were sentenced to be whipped, with
their necks in a halter, and then to be banished from the kingdom. The
libel was burnt by the public executioner.
Believing, or affecting to believe, that the prisoner was less a madman
than an instrument of the malecontents, Henry endeavoured, by secret
interrogations, to obtain a confession that such was the fact. The
attempt failed, and the prisoner was then given up to the parliament for
trial. It was his misfortune that he was not the agent of some formidable
conspirator; he would in that case have had a fair chance of escaping.
When le Breton was brought before the parliament, his malady manifested
itself in a more extravagant manner than ever. He treated the court with
unbounded contempt, spoke to the members with his hat on, and would
answer no questions. As he thus suffered judgment to go by default,
sentence of death was passed upon him, as guilty of having excited
the people to revolt; but his equitable and compassionate judges also
decreed, that “a deputation should wait upon the king, to represent that
the culprit laboured under mental alienation, and to entreat that his
majesty would pardon a crime which was rather the effect of disease than
of free will.”
But neither the prayer of the parliament, nor the supplications of le
Breton’s mother, who brought irrefragable evidence of his madness, had
any effect upon the heartless Henry. Here was a victim whom he could
safely sacrifice, and he would not forego the pleasure. Yet even here
his mental cowardice peeped out. Instead of the involuntary offender
being conveyed to the Grêve, which was the usual place of execution,
he was hanged in the palace court. It seems to have been supposed, and
perhaps correctly, that the people could not witness without emotion
the death of a man, whose malady and whose fate had been brought upon
him by commiseration for their sorrows, and who perished because he had
no friend, while notorious criminals were daily allowed to brave the
laws with impunity. Far from acting as an example to deter others, the
murder of le Breton—for in his deplorable situation it was a murder—only
served to exasperate the people in a tenfold degree. It was the singular
infelicity of Henry never to be right in his treatment of crime; he was
despised when he did not punish, he was hated when he did.
Political persecution consigned to the Bastile, at this period, and when
he was on the verge of the grave from extreme old age, a man who was
a benefactor, and an honour, to his native land. Bernard Palissy was
born about the year 1500, in the bishopric of Agen. His parents were so
scantily favoured by fortune that they could do little for his education;
but he contrived to acquire a knowledge of reading and writing, and
sufficient skill in drawing and land-measuring to gain a livelihood as a
draughtsman, a painter of glass and images, and a land surveyor. Geology,
natural philosophy, and chemistry, next attracted his attention, and with
respect to the two former he was far in advance of his contemporaries.
It was about the year 1539, when he had settled at Saintes, after his
journeys through the provinces, that a circumstance occurred which gave
a colour to all his future life. He chanced to be shown a beautiful
enamelled porcelain cup, manufactured in Italy. It struck him that, if
he could discover the secret of fabricating this ware, he might obtain
riches, and likewise serve his country by introducing into it a new
art. From that moment he pursued his object with admirable energy and
perseverance. Innumerable experiments failed, his resources wasted away,
poverty and almost starvation stared him in the face, yet still, in spite
of this, and of the exhortations of some, and the sneers of others, he
steadily persisted. At length, after having suffered a mental martyrdom
of sixteen years’ duration, he succeeded in his efforts, and independence
and fame were his reward. For the adornment of their palaces and gardens,
the king and all the nobles of France were eager to possess the figures
and vases which were produced by Palissy’s taste and skill.
Bernard Palissy had too enlarged a mind to devote himself wholly to
the heaping up of riches. The toils of business he diversified and
lightened by liberal studies. He formed a cabinet of natural history at
Paris; gave, for several years, a course of lectures on natural history
and physics; and wrote a variety of works, valuable for their facts and
reasonings, and the new and just views contained in them, and unaffected
and pleasing in their style.
Palissy was a protestant, firmly attached to his religion, and from that
attachment arose the only troubles which molested him in the decline
of life. When the public exercise of their worship was prohibited, he
gathered into a private assembly a few individuals of his own class, each
of whom in his turn expounded the tenets of the Gospel. In 1562, though
the duke of Montpensier had given him a safeguard, and his manufactory
had been declared a privileged place, the bigoted judges of Saintes
destroyed his establishment, and would have destroyed the proprietor
also, had not the king interposed, and rescued him from their hands.
The memory of Charles the ninth is branded with eternal infamy, but
candour requires it to be owned, that he was a man of taste and talent;
a lover of literature and the arts. It is melancholy to think upon what
he might have been, and what he was. He invited the persecuted artist to
Paris, and gave him apartments in the Tuileries. Thus protected, Palissy
remained unhurt during the horrible slaughter of St. Bartholomew’s day.
The protection which Charles the ninth extended to Palissy, the
weaker-minded Henry the third wanted courage to continue. When the
influence of the Guises became predominant in Paris, the venerable
artist was arrested by the Council of Sixteen, and thrown into the
Bastile. There Henry visited him. “My good man,” said the king, “if
you cannot bring yourself to conform on the point of religion, I shall
be compelled to leave you in the clutches of my enemies.” Palissy was
then nearly ninety years of age, but his spirit was not bowed by the
weight of years, or the prospect of death. He firmly replied, “Sire, you
have several times said that you pity me; but I pity _you_, who have
uttered the words ‘I am compelled.’ This is not speaking like a king. I
will teach you the royal language. Neither the Guisarts, nor your whole
people, can ever compel me to bend my knee before an image, for I know
how to die.”
The firmness of Palissy was not put to the extreme proof; but, had it
been so, there is no reason to believe that his conduct would have belied
his words. He was saved from the fiery ordeal by the duke of Mayenne, who
humanely threw so many obstacles in the way of his trial, that Palissy
died a natural death, in the Bastile, about the year 1589, no less
respected for his virtues than admired for his talents.[4]
Those enemies of Henry, into whose hands he feared that he should be
“compelled” to deliver up Palissy, continued to plot against the monarch
with an astonishing degree of audacity, which could be equalled only by
the tameness with which he endured it. Plans were successively formed
by them, to obtain possession of Boulogne; to arrest him on his way
from Vincennes, and, subsequently, at the fair of St. Germain; and to
make themselves masters of the Bastile, the Arsenal, the Temple, and
other posts in Paris, massacre the ministers, judges, and courtiers,
and depose and imprison him. Among the bitterest and most active of his
enemies was the duchess of Montpensier, sister of the duke of Guise, who
constantly wore at her girdle a pair of golden scissors, for the purpose,
as she insolently said, of giving the monkish tonsure to brother Henry
of Valois, previous to his being sent to a monastery. Henry frustrated
these schemes, but had not spirit to punish them. The impunity which
the criminals enjoyed produced its natural effect. The resources and the
boldness of the conspirators were increased; the memorable day of the
Barricades ensued; the monarch was expelled from Paris; and he entered it
no more.
As soon as the king had taken flight from the Louvre, Guise put garrisons
into the Arsenal, and other military positions of Paris, and likewise
into Vincennes and the town of Corbeil. The Bastile might still have
remained in the power of Henry, and afforded him an easy entrance into
his capital, had he not been guilty of an unaccountable act of folly.
Colonel Ornano, an officer of established reputation, had offered to
pledge his head that, if he were entrusted with the command, he would
hold the place to the last extremity; but Henry preferred leaving it in
the hands of Lawrence Testu, of whom it was sarcastically said, that
he was more fit to govern a bottle than a fortress. He justified the
contempt which was expressed for him, by surrendering the moment that he
received a summons from Guise. His prompt submission called forth another
sarcasm, by which he was declared to have given up his post, because he
had no oranges to flavour his ragoût of partridges.
The government of the Bastile was conferred, by Guise, on Bussi le Clerc,
the most active member of the Council of Sixteen, a determined hater of
the king and the protestants, and devoted heart and soul to the Guises.
Bussi was originally a fencing-master, but changed his calling, and
became an attorney. He was not long without prisoners. Among the first
whom he received were Perreuse, late the provost of the merchants, who
was expelled from his office for being faithful to the king, La Guesle,
the attorney general, and Damours, a protestant minister.
Damours was fortunate. Some ferocious wild beasts have been known to
contract an attachment to helpless animals which were thrown into their
dens. Bussi did so with respect to Damours. Instead of tormenting him,
and being eager to send him to the flames, a mode of proceeding which
might have been expected from a zealous and unenlightened catholic,
he took a singular liking for him. With many oaths, he declared that,
thorough hugonot as he was, Damours was worth more than all those
politicians, the presidents and counsellors, “who were nothing but
hypocrites;” and he bestirred himself so vigorously on behalf of his
favourite, that he procured his liberation.
James de la Guesle was born in 1557, and succeeded his father in
the office of attorney general. After the day of the Barricades, he
endeavoured to escape in disguise from Paris, for the purpose of joining
the fugitive king; but he was recognised, and committed to prison. He
did not long remain in the Bastile, and, as soon as he was set free, he
proceeded to St. Cloud, where Henry was residing. The death of the king,
which soon after occurred, afforded the enemies of La Guesle a pretext
to throw out insinuations against him; for it was by him that Clement,
the assassin monk, was introduced into the presence of the monarch.
His loyalty was, however, too well known to admit of being stained by
calumny. After having held office throughout the reign of Henry IV., and
enjoyed the full confidence of that sovereign, La Guesle died in 1612.
The Bastile was not allowed to remain untenanted by prisoners of
distinction. Bussi had soon the gratification of wreaking his hatred
upon “the presidents and counsellors” whom he had described as being
“nothing but hypocrites.” The parliament, still faithful to the king,
was a serious obstacle in the way of the Leaguers, and the Council of
Sixteen determined, therefore, to apply an effectual remedy to this
evil. This remedy was of the same nature as that which, long afterwards,
was employed in England, by Oliver Cromwell, and is known by the name of
Pride’s Purge. Bussi le Clerc was the colonel Pride on this occasion.
On the 16th of January, 1589, while the parliament was about to choose
deputies, for a mission to the king, at Blois, Bussi, who had surrounded
the hall with troops, suddenly entered, attended by some of his armed
followers, and began to read a list of the proscribed members, among
whom were the two presidents. On hearing this, the whole of the members
simultaneously declared, that they would share the fate of their chiefs.
Bussi took them at their word, and they were led away to the Bastile,
where they were soon joined by some of their colleagues, who, suspecting
what would happen, had not quitted their homes, but whose caution had
failed to ensure their safety. All those who were not on Bussi’s list
were, however, liberated in the course of the same evening, and a part
of the others were allowed to return to their homes, on their friends
becoming answerable for them. Having thus got rid of the persons who were
obnoxious to them, the Leaguers remodelled the parliament, in such a
manner as to render it subservient to their purposes.
The most distinguished of the parliamentary members who were kept in hold
were Achille de Harlay, Nicholas Potier de Blancmesnil, Louis Seguier,
and James Gillot.
The personal and mental courage of Harlay qualified him well for the
stormy times in which he lived. To the influence of fear he seems to
have been scarcely accessible. To the merit of unchangeable loyalty he
added the rarer merit of opposing the rash and oppressive edicts of the
sovereign. His legal knowledge was profound, and his integrity without
a stain. He was born in 1536, and he sprung from a family which had
distinguished itself, for more than two centuries, on the seat of justice
or in the field of battle. At the age of forty-six, he succeeded his
father-in-law, Christopher de Thou, as president of the parliament of
Paris.
When the success of his partisans, on the day of the Barricades, had
rendered the duke of Guise master of the capital, he went, with a train
of followers, to the house of Harlay, for the purpose of prevailing on
him to convoke the parliament, that the recent measures might obtain
something like a sanction. The president was walking in the garden, and
he did not deign to notice his visiter till the duke approached him;
then, raising his voice, he said, “It is a lamentable thing when the
servant drives out his master. As to all the rest, my soul is God’s,
my heart is the king’s, and my body is in the hands of the wicked; let
them do as they please with it.” Guise still pressing him to assemble
the parliament, he sternly replied, “When the majesty of the monarch
is violated, the magistrate has no longer any authority.” Hoping to
intimidate him, some of the duke’s followers threatened him with death,
but their threats were as unavailing as the request of Guise had been.
“I have,” replied the undaunted magistrate, “neither head nor life that
I value more than the love I owe to God, the service which I owe to the
king, and the good which I owe to my country.”
After an imprisonment of several months, Harlay obtained his liberty, at
the price of ten thousand crowns. The moment that he was free he departed
from Paris, to join Henry the fourth at Tours, and the monarch appointed
him president of the parliament sitting in that city, and composed of
Parisian members, who had succeeded in escaping from the clutches of the
Leaguers. In this post, Harlay sustained his high reputation, by the
vigour and eloquence with which he refuted the manifestos of Spain and
the League, and the bulls of the Roman Pontiff.
Peace at length came, and Henry rewarded his services by the estate of
Beaumont, with the title of count. When the first president returned
to Paris, all the members of the parliament went out to meet and
congratulate him. As Harlay advanced in years, he did not bate one jot
of the spirit which he had manifested at an earlier period. He still
unflinchingly supported the rights of the kingdom, and the liberties of
the Gallican church, and protested against whatever he deemed pernicious
to the people or the monarch. The re-establishment of the Jesuits he
strongly but vainly opposed. From one of his speeches to Henry the
fourth, in 1604, we may judge with what an honest freedom he uttered his
sentiments. The parliament having dissented from a measure which the
Council had resolved upon, its dissent was construed into disobedience.
“If to serve well be disobedience,” replied the venerable magistrate,
“the parliament is in the habit of committing that fault; and, when a
conflict arises between the king’s absolute power and the good of his
service, it prefers the one to the other, not from disobedience, but from
a desire to do its duty, and to keep its conscience clear.”
After having held the first presidentship for thirty-four years, Harlay,
whose sight and hearing were impaired, resigned it early in 1616, and he
died, on the 23d of October, of the same year, at the age of eighty.
Born at Paris, in 1541, of a family which had given several eminent
magistrates to the state, Potier de Blancmesnil attained the rank of
president à mortier in 1578. With talents less splendid than those of
Harlay, he was not inferior to him in probity and devoted loyalty. From
the imprisonment which followed his seizure by Bussi le Clerc he was
released in a few days; but he did not long retain his liberty. When
Henry, on the 1st of November, 1589, made himself master of the suburbs
of Paris, and there seemed reason to believe that the new monarch would
soon enter the city in triumph, the joy of Potier was so undisguised,
that the Leaguers again sent him to his old quarters in the Bastile. He
was brought to trial, as an adherent of the Bearnese—for so Henry was
contemptuously called—and he would no doubt have suffered an ignominious
death, had not the duke of Mayenne interposed, and released him from
prison. Throwing himself at the feet of his deliverer, Potier exclaimed,
“My Lord, I am indebted to you for my life; yet I dare to request from
you a still greater benefit, that of permitting me to join my legitimate
sovereign. I shall all my life acknowledge you as my benefactor; but I
cannot serve you as my master!” Mayenne had greatness of mind enough not
to be offended by this speech. Affected even to tears by the appeal, he
raised up and embraced the suppliant, and allowed him to depart. It is
delightful to find a few bright flowers of virtue among the lurid and
noxious growth produced by civil war.
Henry the Fourth rewarded Potier by making him president of the
parliament of Chalons. In that office he continued during the whole of
Henry’s reign. When the monarch perished by the knife of Ravaillac,
the news was carried to Chalons, accompanied, as is customary in such
cases, by a thousand terrific rumours. As soon as he heard the lamentable
tidings, René Potier, the president’s son, who was bishop of Beauvais,
hurried to the hall where the parliament was sitting, and entreated him
to quit the place without delay, in a carriage which he had brought for
the purpose. But the magistrate had more firmness than the prelate. He
answered, in a loud voice, that the state and the country called on him
not to absent himself on such an emergency, but to die, if needful, in
order to secure the obedience which was due to Henry the fourth’s son;
and he earnestly exhorted his colleagues not to remove from their seats.
It was probably for this opportune act of courage and fidelity that Mary
de Medicis conferred on him the title of her chancellor.
Potier lived to the venerable age of ninety-four, preserving all his
faculties to the last. His decease took place on the 1st of June 1635.
It has been remarked by French writers, that no family furnished more
magistrates than that of Seguier. From the first appearance of the name
in the parliament of Toulouse, when that body was originally formed,
in the 14th century, down to the period of the French revolution, the
number amounted to sixty-eight, of whom many possessed high talents, and
consummate legal knowledge. Peter, the first who bore that prenomen,
is characterised, by the poet Scevola St. Marthe, as “one of the most
brilliant lights of the temple of the laws,” and in this praise there
is no poetical exaggeration. To this magistrate France owes eternal
gratitude, for his having frustrated the project of introducing the
Inquisition into that country. He was warned beforehand that he would do
well to avoid venturing too far in his opposition, but he nobly set the
danger at defiance, and he triumphed.
The six sons who survived him were all of the legal profession. No
monarch ever paid a more graceful compliment to a subject than that which
Henry the fourth paid to the second Peter, a son of the first, who became
president on the resignation of his father. The courtiers pressing so
closely round the king that the president could not reach him, Henry
held out his hand to Seguier, and said, “Gentlemen, allow to come to me
my inseparable during my bad fortune, which, with you, he aided me to
surmount. I can answer for it, that, notwithstanding the business with
which I burthen him, he will always be too much my friend to neglect
me.” In a similar strain he publicly addressed Anthony, another brother,
who was setting off on an embassy to Venice. “You made your way into my
affections,” said he, “in the same manner that I did into my kingdom, in
spite of the resistance and the slanders of my enemies and enviers.”
Louis, the fourth brother, was a counsellor of the parliament, and also
dean of the cathedral church of Nôtre Dame, at Paris. He obtained his
release from the Bastile by paying a large ransom; but he was not allowed
to remain in peace, he being soon after expelled from the capital by
the Leaguers. He was subsequently sent to Rome, by Henry the fourth, to
negotiate with the pope for the monarch’s absolution. On his return,
he was offered the bishopric of Laon, which would have given him the
elevated and much coveted rank of duke and peer. Seguier, however, devoid
of ambition, preferred to remain in the humble station of dean. He died
in 1610.
Gillot, the last of those whom I have mentioned as having been lodged
in the Bastile by Bussi le Clerc, was certainly entitled to share the
fate of his companions, his attachment to the royal cause being a matter
of notoriety. He was of a noble Burgundian family, possessed a good
fortune, much erudition, and a valuable library, was connected with most
of the wits and learned men of that period, and assembled them frequently
at his social board, where they conversed on topics of philosophy and
literature. He had also the higher merit of being beneficent, sincere,
and candid. It was said of him, that he had so benign a disposition that
his sole delight was in obliging. Gillot was educated for the church,
and became dean of Langres, and canon of the Holy Chapel at Paris; he
was likewise one of the ecclesiastical counsellors, or judges, in the
parliament. His abode in the Bastile does not appear to have been of long
duration; it is probable that he ransomed himself. For his incarceration
he took an ample revenge, by bearing a part in writing the admirable
satire called “la Satire Ménippée, ou le Catholicon d’Espagne,” which
covered the Leaguers with ineffaceable ridicule, and is said to have been
more injurious to their cause than the sword of Henry the fourth. The
harangue of the legate at the opening of the states of the League, and
the laughable idea of the procession of the Leaguers, are attributed to
Gillot. This estimable and talented man died in 1619.
The Council of Sixteen, like the Common Council of Paris in 1792 and
1793, was eager to monopolize all the power of the state. It carried on
a secret correspondence with the Pope and the Spanish monarch, and was
obviously preparing to subvert the authority of the duke of Mayenne.
In furtherance of its plan, it resolved to strike the parliament with
terror, and of course render that body subservient, by a decisive blow.
A pretext was furnished by the acquittal of a person named Brigard,
who had been tried on a charge of corresponding with the royalists.
A cry was immediately raised, that the parliament had violated its
duty, by granting impunity to treason, and that some measure must be
adopted, to prevent the recurrence of such a crime. Several meetings
were clandestinely held, to decide upon what should be done. The result
was, that on the 15th of November, 1591, the president Brisson, and the
counsellors Larcher and Tardif, were seized by order of the Sixteen,
carried to prison, and hanged there upon a beam, without even the
semblance of a trial. The bodies, with calumnious papers attached to
them, were then removed to the Grêve, and publicly exposed on three
gibbets.
This last outrage caused the downfall of the Sixteen. Mayenne had long
been dissatisfied with the conduct of these turbulent and sanguinary
men, and he was heartily glad of this opportunity to punish them, and
annihilate their political influence. He could do both with safety,
as a great majority of the citizens were shocked and disgusted by the
murderous act which had been committed. The duke was then with his army
at Soissons, where he was expecting to be joined by the prince of Parma.
Leaving his troops under the command of the young duke of Guise, he
hastened, with three hundred horse and fifteen hundred foot, to Paris.
A few days after his arrival, he consigned four of the criminals to
execution, proscribed two who had escaped, prohibited, under pain of
death, all secret meetings, and thus put an end for ever to the tyranny
of the council. The partisans and agents of Spain murmured in private
at these decisive measures, but they were in too feeble a minority to
venture upon doing more.
Among those who were executed was not Bussi le Clerc; though, as he
had been the most conspicuous actor in the murders, he richly deserved
death. It was to being governor of the Bastile that he was indebted for
his safety. When Mayenne came to Paris, Bussi prudently kept within the
walls of the fortress; and, as there were various reasons which made it
unadvisable to besiege him, he was allowed to negociate. On condition
that he should not be punished for his share in the murder of Brisson,
Larcher, and Tardif, and that he should be at liberty to go wheresoever
he pleased with his property, he agreed to surrender the Bastile. The
first of these articles was faithfully performed; but with respect to the
second he was not so lucky, for Mayenne’s soldiers deprived him of the
booty which he had made during the civil war. He retired to Brussels,
where, during forty years, he earned a scanty subsistence, as an obscure
teacher of fencing. The custody of the Bastile was confided, by the duke
of Mayenne, to du Bourg, a brave and trusty officer.
In 1589, after Henry the fourth’s attempt upon Paris, when he had little
more than the shadow of an army left, and was obliged to retreat on
Normandy, the Parisians were so confident that the Bearnese would be
brought back a prisoner by the duke of Mayenne, that the windows in St.
Anthony’s-street were hired, to see him pass along in his way to the
Bastile; in the following year, he held them cooped up within their
walls, suffering the direst extremity of famine; and now, in 1594, he
entered the capital in triumph, as an acknowledged sovereign, amidst
the shouts of the multitude. It must be owned, however, that for the
submission of Paris, as well as of many other cities, Henry had to thank
his purse rather than his sword. For giving up Paris, Brissac, the
governor, received nearly seventeen hundred thousand livres. The whole of
the strong places which the king bought, cost him no less than thirty-two
millions of livres, besides governments, offices, and titles. At dinner,
on the day of his entry, he pointedly alluded to this circumstance, in
the presence of some of the vendors. Nicolas, a jovial poet and man of
wit, was standing by Henry’s chair: “Well,” said the king to him, “what
say you to seeing me here in Paris?” “Sire,” replied Nicolas, “that which
is Cæsar’s has been rendered unto Cæsar.” “Ventre saint-gris!” exclaimed
Henry in reply, “I have not been treated at all like Cæsar, for it has
not been rendered to me but sold to me, and at a pretty high price too.”
There was, nevertheless, one man among the Leaguers who was not venal.
This was du Bourg, the governor of the Bastile. His vigilance had
recently frustrated a plot to seize on the fortress, and he now prepared
to defend his charge to the utmost. For five days he refused to listen to
any overtures, and he even turned his cannon upon the city. But having
received information that it was impossible for Mayenne to succour him,
he consented to capitulate upon honourable terms. His garrison was
allowed to retire with arms and baggage. Money he refused to accept;
nor would he acknowledge Henry as his master; he had, he said, given his
faith to the duke of Mayenne, and he would not violate it. With a strange
mixture of ferocity, coarseness, and chivalrous feeling, he added, that
Brissac was a traitor, that he would maintain it in mortal combat with
him before the king, and that he “would eat his heart in his belly.”
The circumstances of the times, which rendered it necessary to reign with
some degree of caution, but still more the generous and clement character
of Henry, for a few years prevented the Bastile from having many captive
inmates. Menaces of sending individuals to it were occasionally thrown
out, but they were not executed. In 1596, for instance, when, to supply
his pressing wants, Henry had unjustly seized on the money destined to
pay annuitants at the town-hall, we find him giving vent to a momentary
fit of anger, and threatening whoever should presume to hold what he
was pleased to call seditious language, with respect to this arbitrary
measure. The seditious language, which thus excited his wrath, was
nothing more than a petition, which a citizen named Carel had drawn up on
behalf of the plundered annuitants.
There was a moment when the Bastile was on the point of receiving an
illustrious victim; no less a man than Theodore Agrippa d’Aubigné, the
long tried and faithful friend of Henry, amidst peril and misfortune.
Irritated by d’Aubigné’s restless zeal in the cause of the hugonots, the
king gave Sully an order to arrest him, but it was soon withdrawn.
In 1602, Sully was appointed governor of the Bastile. Since 1597 he
had been at the head of the finance department, and during his able
administration, a part of the Bastile was occupied in a manner such as
it had never before been, nor ever was afterwards. It became a place
of deposit for the yearly surplus of revenue, which was obtained by
the judicious system of the minister. The amount of the treasure thus
accumulated has been variously estimated, but it was probably about forty
millions of livres. It was designed to be appropriated to the realising
of Henry’s military projects. The Tour du Trésor is supposed to have
derived its name from its having been the tower in which this hoard was
secured.
CHAPTER V.
Reign of Henry IV. continued—Viscount de Tavannes—The marshal
duke of Biron—Faults of Biron—Friendship of Henry IV, for
Biron—La Fin, and his influence over Biron—The duke of
Savoy—Biron’s first treason pardoned—Embassies of Biron—Speech
of Queen Elizabeth to Biron—Discontent among the nobles—Art of
la Fin—Imprisonment of Renazé—La Fin betrays Biron—Artifices
employed to lull Biron into security—Arrest of Biron, and
the count of Auvergne—Conduct of Biron in the Bastile—His
trial—His execution—Respect paid to his remains—Monbarot
sent to the Bastile—The count of Auvergne—He is sent to the
Bastile but soon released—He plots again—Cause and intent of
the conspiracy—He is again arrested—Sentence of death passed
on him, but commuted for imprisonment—He spends twelve years
in the Bastile—Mary of Medicis releases him—Conspiracy of
Merargues—He is executed—Death of Henry IV.
The first distinguished prisoner of the Bastile, after the firm
establishment of Henry on the throne, was John de Saulx, viscount
de Tavannes, second son of that marshal who acquired an undying but
unenviable fame during the massacre of St. Bartholomew. He was born in
1555, and may be said to have been nursed in a deadly hatred to the
protestants. The viscount accompanied Henry the third to Poland, remained
behind when his master departed, visited the Turkish frontier provinces,
was engaged in various actions, and at length fell into the hands of the
Ottomans. He managed, however, to get free, and, in 1575, he revisited
his native country.
In the wars between the catholics and the protestants, Tavannes was
an indefatigable scourge of the latter. On one occasion, while he was
governor of Auxonne, he was in no small danger; he was surprised and
wounded in a church by the enemy, and was confined in a castle. Yet
though the wall was a hundred feet high, and he was guarded in sight,
he contrived to escape. In the war of the League, against both Henries,
he rendered himself conspicuous by his violence and perseverance. He
proposed to arm the people with pikes, but this proposal was overruled,
on the ground that it tended to excite in their minds the idea of a
republic. In attempting to relieve Noyon, he was again made prisoner; he
was, however, soon exchanged, the mother, wife, and two sisters, of the
duke of Longueville being given as an equivalent for him. In 1592, he was
appointed to the government of Burgundy, and he maintained the contest
till 1595, when, being abandoned by all his companions in the cause, he
yielded a sullen submission to Henry.
Having refused to join the king at the siege of Amiens, he was arrested,
in 1597, and committed to the Bastile. Tavannes had certainly a talent
for escaping; we have seen that he twice extricated himself from
confinement, and he now did so for the third time. By what means he
eluded the vigilance of his jailors does not appear. Henry seems to have
cherished no very strong resentment against the fugitive; for, instead of
placing him in surer custody, he allowed him to reside unmolested on his
estate, where Tavannes died, about the year 1630. The viscount published
a life of his father, a curious and valuable work; of which, however,
some passages are animated by a spirit dishonourable to the writer.
That Tavannes, who was long his determined enemy, and never professed
to have become his friend, should be openly or secretly hostile to him,
could excite no surprise in Henry; but his feelings must have received a
deep wound, when he discovered that he might say, with the inspired royal
psalmist, “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did
eat of my bread, hath lifted his heel against me.”
Charles de Gontaut, duke of Biron, the son of a man distinguished for
his honour, loyalty, valour, and martial exploits, was born about 1562,
and inherited his father’s warlike spirit, but not his praiseworthy
qualities. In his childhood he was so dull of apprehension that he could
scarcely be taught to read. In his military studies he must, however,
have made early and extraordinary progress; for at fourteen he was
colonel of the Swiss regiments, and when he was only fifteen, the command
of the army in Guienne was entrusted to him for some weeks by his father,
who had broken one of his thighs. His religion we may believe to have
hung loosely enough upon him, as he twice changed it before he reached
his sixteenth year.
There were two crying sins of the age, duelling and gaming, in which
Biron made himself conspicuous. He was not yet twenty, when he fought a
duel with the prince of Carency, who was a rival suitor to the heiress
of the family of Caumont. Each party had two seconds, all of whom were
in habits of friendship with each other. It was in a snow-storm, at day
break, that the combatants met; and, by taking their ground so that the
snow drove into the faces of their antagonists, Biron and his seconds
contrived to destroy them. This triple murder was pardoned by Henry the
third, at the request of the duke of Epernon. As a gamester, Biron played
so deeply, and with such infatuated perseverance, that he himself said,
“I know not whether I shall die on the scaffold; but, if I do not, I am
sure that I shall die in a workhouse.”
The scaffold which, with somewhat of a divining spirit, he seems to
have thought his not improbable doom, was more than once predicted to
him. The basis on which one prediction was built may excite a smile.
“The archbishop of Lyons,” says an old writer, “judged better than any
one else of the nature of men by their countenances. For having one day
curiously contemplated the features and characters of the marshal Biron’s
face, he pronounced that he had an exceedingly bad physiognomy, verily
that of a man who was fated to perish wretchedly.” On surer grounds,
on a knowledge of his son’s disposition, his father sometimes said to
him, “Baron,” (that was his early title) “I advise you to go and plant
cabbages on your estate, as soon as peace is made; for, otherwise, you
will certainly lose your head at the Grêve.”
The faults of Biron were, indeed, such as to justify melancholy
forebodings with respect to his end. He was vain, imperious, passionate,
restlessly active, so greedy of praise that he deemed himself robbed of
all that was given to others, so high an estimater of his own services
that he never thought them enough rewarded, and so reckless of speech
that, when he was in an angry mood, his invectives and reproaches did not
spare even the sovereign. These faults were rendered more dangerous to
him by his habits of profusion, and the consequent occasional emptiness
of his purse, which laid him open to temptation, especially during his
fits of dissatisfaction and disgust. On the other hand, it is beyond
all doubt that Biron, for some years after the outset of his career,
was devoted to Henry the fourth; he was eminently intrepid, displayed
unwearied zeal, gave an admirable example of discipline, and was a
consummate master of his profession. “No one,” said Henry, “has a keener
eye in reconnoitring an enemy, nor a more ready hand at arraying an army.”
At the battles of Arques, Ivry, and Aumale, at the sieges of Paris and
Rouen, and on various other occasions, Biron was conspicuous among his
fellow chiefs. His promotion kept pace with his exploits, and he rose
rapidly to the highest dignities. In 1592, Henry appointed him admiral
of France, and, in 1594, a marshal; on receiving the latter rank he
gave up the office of admiral, which Villars demanded as a part of his
reward for the surrender of Rouen. It has been imagined, that Biron
cherished a rankling resentment for the deprivation of the admiralship;
but this is more than doubtful: he appears, on the contrary, to have
acceded to it with a good grace. In 1595, he obtained the government
of Burgundy, and his life was saved by Henry, at the sharp encounter
of Fontaine-Française. After having manifested his wonted military
talents at the siege of Amiens, in 1598, Biron attained the zenith of
his elevation, by being created a duke and peer. When the deputies of
the parliament waited on the king, in Picardy, to congratulate him on
the success of his arms, he paid to the new-made peer one of those
well-turned compliments by which he so often delighted his warriors and
statesmen. In turning to account that part of “the cheap defence of
nations” which consists in gracefully bestowing praise, no man was more
of a proficient than Henry. “Gentlemen,” said he to the deputies, “I
introduce to you the Marshal de Biron, whom I present with equal success
to my enemies and my friends.”
Thenceforth, thanks to his own folly, the star of Biron gradually
declined till it set in blood. He soon became unsafe to be opposed to
the king’s enemies, and unworthy of being presented to his friends.
Vanity and prodigality were the faults which began his ruin; the one led
him to think that his superlative merit was inadequately requited, the
other caused him to accuse Henry of avarice and ingratitude, because
the monarch did not feed his extravagance with boundless supplies. Biron
might, nevertheless, have stopped short of destruction, had there not
been perpetually a tempter at his ear, whispering sinister councils. His
evil genius was Beauvais La Nocle, sieur de La Fin, a veteran intriguer,
who had spent his life in disturbing the public peace, and was still in
correspondence with Spain, Savoy, the banished partisans of the League,
and the malecontents in various provinces. He is truly described as
having been “an enterprising, active, insinuating man, especially skilful
in getting on the weak side of those whom he wished to seduce. Bold with
the rash, circumspect with the prudent, he seemed to give himself up
entirely to his accomplices, that he might provide for his own safety at
their expense.” Henry, who well knew the character of the man, warned
Biron against him, but the warning was slighted.[5]
The peace of Vervins, which relieved France from a burthensome war,
precipitated the fall of Biron. Even before it was concluded, he had
listened to the blandishments of Spanish emissaries, and had suffered
them to tempt his ambition with the prospect of independent sovereignty,
but he had stopped short on the verge of disloyalty. While his mind
was thus susceptible of treasonable infection, he was unfortunately
despatched by Henry to Brussels, for the purpose of interchanging, with
the archduke, the customary oaths as to the faithful performance of the
treaty. There he was surrounded by every imaginable seduction. He was
“the observed of all observers;” the most splendid entertainments were
given, expressly in honour of him; and he heard nothing but exaggerated
praises of his transcendent valour and skill, insidious expressions of
regret that he should serve a master so blind to his worth, or so meanly
jealous of it, and highly-coloured representations of the glorious career
which he might run, if he would devote his talents to the cause of the
Spanish sovereign. When it was imagined that his head was sufficiently
turned, a treaty with Philip was proposed to him. But he was not yet
prepared to go thus far; he would give no more than a vague promise
to join the catholics, in case of their rising against Henry, and he
returned to Paris only half a traitor.
That which had been begun in the Netherlands was completed in France.
During the troubles of the League, the duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel,
had seized upon the marquisate of Saluzzo. Hitherto he had held nearly
undisturbed possession of it, but Henry, now that he was relieved from
the pressure of foreign and domestic hostility, resolved to recover a
territory which was of importance from its affording a passage into
Italy. For the same reason, the duke was anxious to retain it; he could
not see without apprehension and disgust a powerful neighbour constantly
posted within a few miles of his capital. In the hope of prevailing
on Henry to cede the marquisate to him, the duke adopted the plan of
visiting the French court. Charles Emmanuel had seductive manners, and
a ready eloquence, and he concealed profound dissimulation under the
semblance of openness and sincerity. Henry, however, though he treated
him with an almost ostentatious kindness and pomp, was inflexible on the
main point, and the duke found himself under the necessity of signing a
disadvantageous treaty.
But Charles Emmanuel had not relied solely on the policy or the
generosity of Henry; he knew that the embers of disaffection were still
alive in some of the French nobles, and he hoped to fan them into a
flame which should scorch the monarch. To win the discontented to his
side, he scattered with a lavish hand his largesses, under the disguise
of presents. Though from some of those whom he tempted he failed to
procure an explicit avowal of their sentiments, he doubted not that
they might be reckoned upon in case of an explosion; others spoke out
more plainly; and Biron threw himself unreservedly into the arms of the
wily Savoyard. It was partly, perhaps, by ministering to the marshal’s
wants, but much more by rousing his wrath against the king, that the duke
succeeded in making him a traitor. He artfully communicated to him some
depreciating language which Henry was said to have used, and the vain
and passionate Biron no longer hesitated to cast off his allegiance. The
reward of his treason was to be the sovereignty of Burgundy, and the hand
of one of Charles Emmanuel’s daughters. Yet at the moment when he was
rushing headlong into rebellion, he publicly refused to accept a present
of two fine horses from the duke of Savoy; assigning as the reason, that
it would not become him to receive gifts from a prince between whom and
his own sovereign there were differences existing. Thus hypocrisy was
added to the list of his vices.
Imagining that the succour which he expected from the Spanish court, and
the movements of the French malecontents, would render it impossible for
Henry to attack him, Charles Emmanuel, on his return to Turin, refused to
carry the treaty into effect. Henry determined, therefore, to resort to
force. To Biron, of whose fidelity he did not yet doubt, he offered the
command of the army; and the marshal, in order to avoid suspicion, was
compelled to accept it. All that, without betraying himself, he could do
to shun success, he did. But the duke of Savoy, relying on his intrigues,
had left his fortresses scantily provided with the means of defence,
and they consequently made only a feeble resistance, in spite of Biron’s
wishes and faulty measures. It was a fatal circumstance for the Savoyard
prince, that the power of Spain was palsied by the recent accession of
the contemptible Philip the third. Had the second Philip been alive, the
viceroy of Milan, the count de Fuentes, a deadly foe of Henry, would
probably have led his numerous forces from the Milanese, and made the
contest something like what the duke had vauntingly threatened to make
it, “a forty years’ affair.” As it was, Fuentes could only recommend
to Biron, to seize the king and send him to Spain, “where,” said he,
contemptuously, “he shall be well treated, and we will divert him with
dancing, and banquetting among the ladies.” Biron shrank from this step,
yet, in one of his furious outbreaks of passion, he meditated a fouler
crime. At the siege of fort St. Catherine, knowing that the king was
about to visit the trenches, he sent a message to the governor, to point
his cannon on a certain part of them, and to place in another a company
of musketeers, who were to fire when a signal was given. But he quickly
repented of his purpose, and kept the king from approaching the perilous
spots.
Though the marshal renounced the base idea of becoming the murderer of
his sovereign, he did not renounce his plots against him. La Fin was
still employed in negotiating for him with the count de Fuentes, and a
second treaty was agreed upon at Milan. It was arranged that the duke
of Savoy should sign a peace, which, however, he was to break as soon
as the French armies were withdrawn, and the Spanish troops were ready;
that the Spanish monarch should give to the marshal the title of his
lieutenant-general, and secure to him Burgundy, and a princess of Spain
or Savoy; and that, in case of the war being unsuccessful, he should
be indemnified for his loss by the payment of twelve hundred thousand
golden crowns, and an annuity of a hundred and twenty thousand.
By this time the suspicions of Henry began to be awakened with regard to
Biron. There were many circumstances which conspired to rouse them; not
one of the least of which was the incomprehensible apathy of the duke
of Savoy; who, as he scarcely made an effort to defend himself, must be
supposed to look for deliverance by some unknown means. Rumours, too,
began to be spread of dark and dangerous intrigues; and it is probable,
that the manner in which the military operations were conducted by the
marshal, so unlike his wonted vigour, was not unremarked. All this
appears to have induced Henry to refuse to give the government of the
citadel of Bourg to Biron, who urgently requested it. There can be no
doubt that Biron wished to be master of this citadel solely to enable him
the better to act in concert with Charles Emmanuel; yet he considered as
an inexpiable insult the king’s refusal to grant it.
No longer doubting that the marshal had become entangled in dangerous
projects, and anxious to save a man whom he loved, Henry took the step
of coming to a personal explanation with him. Taking Biron aside, in the
cloister of the Cordeliers, at Lyons, he questioned him as to the purpose
and cause of the correspondence which he carried on with the enemies
of the state, promising, at the same time, a full pardon for all past
errors. Thus caught by surprise and pressed, the marshal could not wholly
deny his fault, but he described it so as to make it appear only venial,
suppressed every thing that it was important for the king to know, and
affirmed that, though he was tempted by the prospect of marrying a
princess of Savoy, he should never for a moment have wavered in his duty
had he not been refused the government of the citadel of Bourg. Without
seeking to penetrate deeper into the mystery, Henry embraced him, and
said, “Well, marshal, do you think no more about Bourg, and, for my part,
I will never remember what has occurred.” The king, however, hinted that
a relapse would be productive of dangerous effects.
In the following year, 1601, Biron was sent as ambassador to England, to
announce to Elizabeth the marriage of Henry. He was accompanied by the
counts of Auvergne and Chateauroux, the marquis de Créqui, and a splendid
train of a hundred and fifty gentlemen. Elizabeth received him in the
most flattering manner; but there was one of her conversations with him
which might well have excited ominous thoughts in his mind. Essex had
recently suffered. Speaking of that nobleman, she said, “I raised him to
the most eminent dignities, and he enjoyed all my favour; but the rash
man had the audacity to imagine that I could not do without him. His too
prosperous fortune and his ambition rendered him haughty, perfidious,
and the more criminal from his having seemed to be virtuous. He suffered
a just punishment; and if the king my brother would take my advice, he
would act at Paris as I have done here. He ought to sacrifice to his
safety all the rebels and traitors. God grant that his clemency may not
prove fatal to him. For my part, I will never show any mercy to those who
dare to disturb the peace of the realm.” Biron must surely have felt his
heart sink within him, when he heard this language, which, in all ways,
was so applicable to himself. It is said, and we may easily believe it,
that he omitted to mention this speech, when he gave an account of his
embassy.
The forbearance of Henry, and the lesson of Elizabeth, were alike
powerless to check the downward career of the infatuated Biron. His
treasonable practices were still persevered in. After his return from
England, he was sent as ambassador, to Soleure, to ratify a treaty with
the Swiss, and, on his way thither, he had a four hours’ conversation
with Watteville, the duke of Savoy’s agent. Instead of proceeding to
Paris, to render an account of his mission, he stayed at Dijon, the
capital of his government, where the violent and insulting language in
which he spoke of the king, gave abundant proof that little reliance
could be placed upon his fidelity. In the meanwhile, various parts of
the kingdom, particularly Poitou, the Limousin, and Périgord, in the
last of which provinces the marshal had numerous partisans and vassals,
were thrown into a ferment by insidious reports of Henry’s tyrannical
intentions. Among the nobles also discontent was at work; the duke of
Bouillon and the count of Auvergne were the principal malecontents. The
provinces Henry quieted, by the kindness which he displayed in a journey
through them; the nobles were not so easily to be reclaimed. It was
obvious that a speech which the duke of Savoy made, after his leaving
France, was not a mere idle vaunt. His friends rallying him on his
failure, and alluding to the season at which he came home, told him that
he had brought nothing but mud back from France. “If I have put my feet
into the mud,” replied the duke, “I have put them in so far, and have
left such deep marks behind, that France will never efface them.”
While, within the kingdom, men’s minds were in this uneasy state, the
news from without was by no means consolatory. Philip Dufresne Canaye,
the French ambassador at Venice, was laudably active in procuring
information of all movements among the Italian powers, by which his
country might be affected. He learned that, while throughout Italy the
utmost pains were taken to blacken the character and depreciate the
resources of Henry, French subjects, disguised, were busy at Turin and
Milan, and that they had frequent nocturnal interviews with the ministers
of the two courts. He described minutely the features, demeanour and
dress of these emissaries, and offered to have one of them seized, and
carried off to France, if a small remittance were sent to him. Some
strange lethargy seems to have come over the king and the French ministry
at this moment; for they not only refused the money which was required,
but even failed to send that which was indispensable for the payment of
his spies.
From this ill-timed slumber they would probably have been startled up by
a fatal explosion, had not the catastrophe been averted by a disclosure
of nearly all that related to the plot which had so long been carried on.
The terrible secret was divulged by that very La Fin who had so largely
contributed to lead Biron astray. La Fin’s first feeling of alienation
from the great conspirator is supposed to have arisen out of the only act
for which, during a considerable period, the marshal had been deserving
of praise. From Biron’s sudden abandonment of the plan to kill the king,
in the trenches of fort St. Catherine, his confident drew the conclusion
that his firmness was not to be relied upon, and that consequently, at
some time or other, he might bring ruin upon those who were connected
with him. That he might have the means of shielding himself in case of
such an event, he immediately began to preserve all the papers that
passed through his hands; and when the marshal desired him to burn any
of them before his face, he, by a dextrous sleight, contrived to throw
others into the fire in their stead.
Still La Fin continued to be employed in his perilous office of a
negociator. It is probable, however, that, now his fears were excited,
and it was become a main object with him to keep open a door for escape,
he did not display the same alacrity and zeal as before. Biron did not
suspect him, but the more cautious and penetrating count de Fuentes did;
and his suspicions are said to have been strengthened by some words
which dropped from La Fin. Those suspicions the count took especial care
to conceal from the person who had inspired them. “Dead men,” says the
proverb, “tell no tales;” and the case is much the same with men entombed
alive in a dungeon. Fuentes thought it prudent to provide against the
danger of a betrayal, by getting rid of La Fin. In order to effect this,
he found a pretext for requesting him to pass through Piedmont, on his
way to France. Either La Fin had some misgiving as to the intention of
the Spanish viceroy, or chance served him well; for, instead of going
himself to Turin, he took the road through Switzerland, and sent Renazé,
his confidential secretary, to the duke of Savoy. Renazé was immediately
arrested, and carried to the castle of Chiari. It was in vain that La
Fin strove to interest the marshal in behalf of the secretary; Biron
spoke coldly of the captive, as a man who must be sacrificed for the
safety of the rest; and he is said even to have advised his confidant
to take secret measures for effectually silencing all who had been the
companions of his travels, or could give any clue to his proceedings.
Already, though he seems not to have had the slightest idea that La Fin
would be unfaithful to him, he had deemed it politic to transfer his
dangerous confidence to the baron de Luz, his cousin, and two subordinate
agents. Of this La Fin obtained information; and it did not tend to quiet
his fears. It might be thought advisable to make him share the fate of
Renazé. But, even supposing this not to happen, he saw plainly that the
violent conduct of Biron towards the king must inevitably soon bring
matters to extremities, and that, if the conspirators failed, which it
was highly probable they would, his own life would be periled beyond
redemption. His nephew, the vidame of Chartres, was also urgent with him
to secure his head while there was yet an opportunity.
La Fin at length passed the Rubicon. He made known to the king, that he
had momentous secrets to communicate. In reply, he was told, that he
should be rewarded for this service; but he stipulated only for pardon,
and it was readily granted. The whole of the proofs of Biron’s guilt were
then placed by him in the hands of Henry, who was deeply afflicted by
these convincing testimonies of the marshal’s treason.
Justice seems to be degraded, and almost to change its nature, when its
purpose is attained by fraudulent means. The net was spread for Biron,
but in quieting his fears, and luring him into it, a scene of trickery
and falsehood was exhibited, which cannot be contemplated without pain.
Sully had set a better example, by a stratagem which is not amenable
to censure. To prevent Biron from maintaining a war in Burgundy, the
minister prudently withdrew from the fortresses of that province the
greatest part of the cannon and gunpowder, on the plea that the former
were damaged and ought to be recast, and the latter was weakened by
age, and must be re-manufactured, and he took care not to replace
them. The right arm of Biron’s strength was thus cut off. The marshal,
nevertheless, might still take flight; he had more than once evaded a
summons to confer with Henry; and it was of primary importance to secure
his person. As alarm might be excited by La Fin journeying to court,
he was instructed to write to the marshal, that the king had required
his presence, that he could not refuse to comply without giving rise
to surmises; and that nothing should drop from his lips which could
prejudice his friend. In the allusions which it made, and the caution
which it recommended, the reply of Biron furnished additional evidence
of his guilt. The monarch, too, played his part in the deception. To the
baron de Luz, who had been sent from Burgundy to observe what was going
on, and was about to return to that province, he spoke of the marshal
in terms of kindness, and declared that his heart was lightened by a
conversation which he had held with La Fin, as it proved that many of the
charges brought against Biron were wholly unfounded. La Fin, at the same
time, assured the marshal that the king was entirely satisfied, and would
receive him with open arms. Deluded by these artifices, Biron determined
to join Henry at Fontainebleau, notwithstanding that the incredulous de
Luz, and others of his adherents, strenuously endeavoured to dissuade
him. Various circumstances, ominous of evil, are said to have preceded
his departure. On his road he received more than one warning from his
well-wishers, but he spurned them all, and proceeded to Fontainebleau.
As he was descending from his horse, he was saluted by the traitorous
La Fin, who whispered, “Courage and wary speech, my master! they know
nothing.” His belief in these words consummated the ruin of Biron.
In spite of Biron’s faults, the heart of Henry still yearned towards
him. Though he could not greet the offender with his customary warmth
and frankness, he received him graciously, and led him through the
palace, pointing out the improvements which had been made. At length he
touched upon the delicate subject of the marshal’s deviation from the
path of duty. He hinted that he had incontrovertible proof, but assured
him that an honest confession would cancel every thing, and replace him
on the summit of favour. Misled by his pride, and the fatal mistake
that his secret was safe, Biron, instead of seizing this opportunity to
extricate himself from danger, was mad enough to assume the lofty tone of
conscious and wronged innocence; studiously cold in his general manner,
he sometimes verged upon insolence, and he loudly declared, that he came
not to justify his conduct, but to demand vengeance upon those who had
slandered him, or, if need were, to take it. Twice more, in the course of
the day—once in person, and once through Biron’s friend, the count of
Soissons—Henry renewed his efforts, and was haughtily repulsed. On the
morrow the monarch returned to the charge, and made other two attempts
to save the marshal from the gulf which was opening to receive him.
Oblivion for the past, friendship for the future, were earnestly offered
to his acceptance. But Biron was like the deaf adder; he even broke out
into a fit of passion on being pressed for the last time; and Henry was
reluctantly compelled to resign him to his fate.
It is probable that the king would have borne with Biron for a while
longer, had not the terrors, entreaties, and tears of his consort,
impelled him to decisive measures. Mary of Medicis believed, that it
was a part of the policy of Spain to cut off the royal family, and she
shuddered at the idea of what, in the case of a minority, might happen
to herself and her offspring, from the hostility of a man who was in all
ways so formidable as Biron. The king himself had already betrayed the
same apprehension to Sully. After having, in melancholy terms, confessed
his lingering affection for the marshal, he added, “But all my dread is,
that were I to pardon him, he would never pardon me, or my children,
or my kingdom.” The gates of mercy were in consequence shut upon the
dangerous criminal.
Biron had been in the habit of contemptuously reflecting upon the
character of Essex, for what he considered as a cowardly surrender,
and of maintaining that a man of spirit ought rather to suffer himself
to be cut to pieces, than run the risk of dying by the headsman’s axe.
The time was now come when it was to be seen whether he could practise
his own doctrine. It was midnight when he quitted the presence of the
king. Every thing had been prepared for his arrest, and that of the
count of Auvergne, who was suspected of sharing in the treason. The
latter nobleman was taken into custody by Praslin, at the palace gate.
No sooner had Biron passed out of the ante-chamber than Vitry, the
captain of the guard, seized the marshal’s arm, informed him that he was
a prisoner, and demanded his sword. At first he supposed it to be a jest;
and, when he was undeceived, he desired to see the king, that he might
deliver the weapon into his hands. He was told that Henry could not be
seen, and his sword was again required. “What!” exclaimed he furiously,
“take the sword from me, who have served the king so well! My sword,
which ended the war, and gave peace to France! Shall the sword which my
enemies could not wrest from me be taken by my friends!” At length he
submitted. When he was led along the gallery, through a double line of
guards, he imagined that he was going to execution, and he wildly cried
out, “Companions! give me time to pray to God, and put into my hand a
firebrand, or a candlestick, that I may at least have the comfort to die
while I am defending myself.” When, however, he found that he was in no
instant danger, he meanly endeavoured to irritate the soldiers against
the king, by saying to them, “You see how good catholics are treated!” He
passed a sleepless and agitated night, pacing about his chamber, striking
the walls, raving to himself, and occasionally to the sentinels, pouring
forth invectives and imprecations, and sometimes with singular imprudence
striving to seduce a valet de chambre of the king, who watched him, to
write to his secretaries, directing them to keep out of the way, and to
maintain, in case of their being taken and questioned, that he never had
carried on any correspondence in cipher.
From Fontainebleau the prisoners were conveyed by water to the Bastile.
During the passage, Biron was lost in gloomy reverie, and when he
entered within the walls of the prison his mind was racked with the
worst forebodings. Nor were the circumstances attendant on his abode
in the Bastile at all of a nature to raise his spirits. Placed in
the chamber whence the constable St. Pol had passed to the scaffold,
watched with lynx-eyed vigilance, and so carefully kept from weapons
that he was allowed only a blunted knife at his meals, he could not
help exclaiming, “This is the road to the Grêve.” While he was in this
disturbed state, superstitious weakness is said to have lent its aid to
complete his distraction. He was told that the Parisian executioner was
a native of Burgundy; and it instantly flashed into his recollection,
that having shown to la Brosse, an astrologer, his own horoscope under
another person’s name, the wizard predicted the beheading of the person;
and that Cesar, a pretended magician, of whom more will be seen in the
next chapter, had said, that “a single blow given behind by a Burgundian
would prevent him from attaining royalty.” The shock seems for the moment
to have utterly deprived him of his senses. Refusing to eat, or drink,
or sleep, he incessantly raved, threatened, and blasphemed. A visit
from the archbishop of Bourges, who came to offer the consolations of
religion, and who gave him some hopes of mercy on earth, rendered Biron
less violent. At the prisoner’s request, Villeroi and Silleri, two of the
king’s ministers, also visited him; and, either that his brain was still
wandering, or that he thought to establish a claim to pardon by appearing
to make important discoveries, or that he was prompted by a malignant
wish to involve in his own ruin those whom he hated, he is said to have
charged, and in the strongest terms, a number of innocent persons with
being engaged in treasonable practices. Whatever was his motive, his
purpose was frustrated; Henry did not thirst for blood; and it has been
remarked, that the documents which, on the trial, were brought forward
against the culprit, were not those that most forcibly criminated him,
but those which criminated him alone.
While Biron was thus the sport of his unruly passions, his friends were
actively employed in endeavouring to save him. Henry had returned to the
capital, amidst the shouts and congratulations of his subjects. Soon
after his arrival, many of the nobles, some of whom were of Biron’s
nearest kindred, waited upon the king, to intercede for the criminal.
The duke of la Force was their spokesman; he spoke on his knees, and,
though Henry desired him to rise, he retained that posture. He pleaded
the services of the culprit and his father, the divine command to forgive
our enemies, the pardon which the king had extended to others, and,
especially, the deep indelible stain which would be thrown upon the
family by a public execution; and, as far as was possible, he laboured
to extenuate the marshal’s guilt, by representing that it arose from the
warmth of his temper, and had never been carried beyond mere intention.
There was one point in the duke’s speech which it was, perhaps, impolitic
in him to urge; that in which he stated himself to speak in the name of
a hundred thousand men, who had served under Biron. This was begging
too much in the style of the Spanish beggar in Gil Blas, and was not
calculated to propitiate a man like Henry.
The monarch answered temperately, and even kindly, but with due firmness.
Reminding them that he did not resemble some of his predecessors, who
would not suffer parents to sue for their children on such an occasion,
he declared that the mercy for which they asked would, in fact, be the
worst of cruelty. He alluded to the love which he had always borne to
Biron, and told them, that had the offence been only against himself he
would willingly have forgiven it, and did forgive it as far as related to
his person, but that the safety of his children and of the whole kingdom
was implicated, and he must perform his duty to them. With respect to
the disgrace which it was feared would attach to the relatives of the
culprit, he treated the fear as a visionary one; he was, he said, himself
descended from the constable St. Pol and the Armagnacs, who suffered on a
scaffold, yet he did not feel dishonoured. In conclusion, he assured them
that, far from depriving the marshal’s kindred of the titles and offices
which they possessed, he was much more inclined to add to the number, so
long as they continued to serve the state with fidelity and zeal.
The king having authorized the parliament to proceed to trial, a
deputation from that body, with the first president Harlay at its head,
went to the Bastile, to take the necessary examinations, and confront the
witnesses. With only one exception, which exception the internal evidence
supplied by the papers soon obliged him to retract, Biron recognized
all the letters and memorials which were shown to him; but he strove to
put an innocent construction upon them, and, as they were written in a
studiously ambiguous style, he might have thrown doubts upon the subject,
had they been unsupported by oral testimony. In this stage of the
business, he was asked what was his opinion of la Fin? Still believing
that person to be true to him, he replied that he was “an honourable
gentleman, a good man, and his friend.” The depositions of la Fin were
then read, and he was brought face to face with the prisoner. The marshal
now burst out into the most furious abuse of the man whom, but a moment
before, he had declared to be his honourable and worthy friend. “O good
God!” exclaims a contemporary chronicler, “what said he, and what did he
not say! With what more atrocious revilings could he have torn to pieces
the character of the most execrable being in the world! With what more
horrible protestations, with what more terrible oaths, could he have
called upon men, angels, and God himself, to be the witnesses and judges
of his innocence!” La Fin, however, stood his ground against the storm
of invective; and supported his evidence by corroborative circumstances,
and additional documents in the prisoner’s handwriting. It seemed as
though every thing conspired against Biron at this dreadful moment. “If
Renazé,” said he, “were here, he would prove La Fin to be a liar.” To
his utter surprise and consternation, the witness whom he had invoked,
but whom he imagined to be dead, was suddenly brought forward, and amply
confirmed the whole of La Fin’s story. On the very day that Biron was
arrested, Renazé contrived to escape from the castle of Chiari, and he
now sealed the fate of the marshal. Driven to his last resource, Biron
pleaded the pardon which was granted to him at Lyons, and protested that,
since he received it, he had never entertained any criminal designs. In
this plea he was no less unfortunate than in the others. From his own
incautious avowal, it was gathered that he did not make a full confession
to the king; and one of his letters showed that he had continued to plot
for many months after the monarch had forgiven him.
The preliminary proceedings being completed, three days were occupied
by the parliament in going over the mass of evidence, and hearing the
summing up of the attorney general. The courts of justice, in those
times, always commenced their sittings at an early hour. Between five and
six o’clock, on the morning of the fourth day, Biron, closely guarded,
was taken by water to the hall of the parliament, where a hundred and
twelve of the members were in waiting to receive him; the peers had
unanimously refused to sit upon his trial. At the sight of this array
of judges he changed colour, but he soon recovered his self-possession,
and is said to have assumed a kind of theatrical air which was scarcely
decorous. A contemporary describes him as rudely bidding the chancellor
speak louder, and as “putting forward his right foot, holding his mantle
under his arm, with his hand on his side, and raising his other hand to
heaven, and smiting his breast with it, whenever he called upon God and
the celestial beings to be witnesses of his integrity in the service of
the king and kingdom.”
The whole of the crimes attributed to him had been arranged under five
heads, concerning which he was interrogated by the chancellor. The
questioning and defence of Biron lasted between four and five hours, and
it must be owned that, in this final struggle for life and reputation, he
made a noble stand. Though, in the course of a long speech, he sometimes
became entangled in contradictions, its general tenor was well calculated
to produce a favourable effect; at moments he was even eloquent, and
worked strongly on the feelings of his auditors. Much he denied, and what
he could not deny he palliated; with respect to the treasons charged
against him, he was, he said, the seduced and not the seducer, a man not
deliberately wicked, but led astray by hateful intriguers, who wrought
his violent passions into frenzy, by representing that the monarch
had undervalued and insulted him—a representation which seemed to be
confirmed by his being refused the government of Bourg; he pleaded that
his errors had gone no farther than intention, that they had been fully
and freely pardoned, and had never been repeated; he urged his numerous
and eminent services as a counterbalance to his faults, and the mercy
which had uniformly been shown to far worse offenders as a reason why
it should be extended to him; and he repelled, as an infamous calumny,
the accusation of having intended to bring about the death of Henry—yet,
imprudent as such language was, he could not forbear from broadly hinting
that the monarch was fickle, unjust, and cruel: “I rely more upon you,
gentlemen,” said he, “than I do upon the king, who, having formerly
looked on me with the eyes of his affection, no longer sees me but with
the eye of his hatred, and thinks it a virtue to be cruel to me, and a
fault to exercise towards me an act of clemency.” At the close of his
speech, few of his hearers were unmoved, but all were unconvinced.
The most curious part of his defence is yet to be mentioned. If he did
not spare his sovereign, it is not to be supposed that he would spare La
Fin. Whenever he mentioned him he could not restrain his fury, but gave
vent to a flood of abuse. Coining, and an unnatural regard for Renazé,
were among the numerous crimes which he imputed to him. Strange that he
did not perceive the folly of thus vituperating a man, whom he had so
recently recognized as his honourable and worthy friend, and whose sins,
if they really existed, he must then have known! But this was not all.
For his vindication he mainly trusted to one plea—that he had not been a
free agent, that he was under the irresistible influence of La Fin, who
was a sorcerer, and had dealings with the devil. He averred, seriously,
that La Fin was in the habit of breathing on him, biting his ear, and
kissing his left eye, and calling him his master, his lord, his prince,
and his king; that whenever his eye was kissed he felt a tendency to do
evil; that the magician also enchanted him by making him drink charmed
waters; and that he showed him waxen images which moved and spoke, and
one of which pronounced, in Latin, the words “impious king, thou shalt
perish!” “If by magic he could give voice to an inanimate body,” said he,
“is it wonderful that he should have such power over me as to bend my
will to an entire conformity with his own?”
Deceived by the compassion which some of his judges had manifested,
Biron cherished the flattering hope of an acquittal. His spirits were
so elated by this idea, that he amused himself with repeating to his
guards various portions of his defence, and mimicking the gestures and
speeches which he supposed the chancellor to have made in the course of
the subsequent proceedings. His vanity, too, contributed to buoy him
up. He ran over, in conversation, the list of French commanders, found
some defect in each of them, and thence concluded that, as his military
talents were obviously indispensable to the state, his life was secure.
The termination of that life was, nevertheless, rapidly approaching. By
an unanimous vote, on the day after his appearance at their bar, the
parliament pronounced Biron guilty of high treason, and condemned him to
lose his head on the Grêve. The place of execution was changed by the
king to the interior of the Bastile, at the request, it was said, of
the criminal’s friends; but partly, perhaps, in the fear that a popular
commotion might occur, and partly because a report was spread, that some
of his domestics intended to throw a sword to him on the scaffold, that
he might at least have the chance of dying an honourable death. It was
wise not to run the risk of encountering his despair.
The first intimation which Biron received of his impending doom, was
from seeing that crowds were gathering together in the neighbourhood of
the Bastile. The change of time and place had not been publicly made
known. “I am sentenced! I am a dead man!” he instantly exclaimed. He
then sent a messenger to Sully, to request that he would come to him,
or would intercede with the king. With these requests Sully declined to
comply, but he desired the messenger to leave the marshal in doubt as to
the king’s intention. On the following morning, the last day of July,
1602, the chancellor, accompanied by some of his officers, proceeded
to the Bastile, to read the sentence to him, and announce its immediate
execution. Biron was at the moment deeply engaged in calculating his
nativity. When he was taken down to the chancellor, he addressed him
in an unconnected rhapsody of prayers, lamentations, invectives, and
reproaches, intermingled with protestations of innocence, and vaunts
of the services which he was yet capable of rendering to the state. He
besought that he might be suffered to live, even though it were in prison
and in chains! It was a considerable time before the chancellor could
obtain a hearing, and he was speedily interrupted by sallies of rage from
the marshal, who reproached him with hardness of heart, execrated La Fin,
accused the king of being revengeful, and the parliament of injustice in
not having allowed sufficient time for his vindication, and, finally,
asserted that he was put to death because he was a sincere catholic.
This burst of insane passion was succeeded by a lucid interval, during
which he calmly dictated his will, sent tokens of remembrance to his
friends, and distributed in alms the money which he had about him.
The reading of some parts of his sentence again roused his irritable
feelings. When he heard the charge of having intended to destroy the
king, he exclaimed, “That is false! blot it out!” and when the Grêve was
mentioned, he declared that no power on earth should drag him thither,
and that he would sooner be torn to pieces by wild horses than submit to
such an indignity. He was quieted by being told of the change which had
been made; but, when it was hinted to him that his arms must be bound, he
relapsed into such violence that it was thought advisable to leave his
hands at liberty. He then made his confession to the priest; and it was
remarked that he, who had just before boasted of being a good catholic,
was ignorant of the commonest forms of prayer, prayed more like a
soldier than a Christian, and seemed to be thinking less of his salvation
than of the things of this world.
It being now near five o’clock, the hour which was appointed for the
execution, he was informed that he must descend into the court of
the prison. As he was quitting the chapel, he caught sight of the
executioner. “Begone!” vociferated he: “touch me not till it is time; if
you come near me till then, I swear that I will strangle you!” He twice
repeated the command and the threat when he was at the scaffold. Looking
round on the soldiers, he mournfully said, “Would but some one of you
fire his musket through my body, how thankful I should be! What misery
it is to die so wretchedly, and by so shameful a blow!” The sentence
was then read again, and again he lost all patience at being accused of
planning Henry’s death. It was with much difficulty that the clerk of the
parliament completed the reading of the sentence, his voice being almost
drowned by the clamour of the prisoner. Thrice Biron tied a handkerchief
over his eyes, and as often he tore it off again, and once more he vented
his rage on the executioner, who had maddened him by wishing to cut
off his hair behind. “Touch me not,” he cried, “except with the sword.
If you lay hands on me while I am alive, if I am driven into a fury,
I will strangle half the folks that are here, and compel the rest to
kill me.” So terrible were his looks and his tone, that several of the
persons present were on the point of taking flight. It was believed that
he meditated seizing the death-sword, but the executioner had prudently
desired his attendant to conceal it till it was wanted. At last, after
long delay, the marshal requested Baranton, one of the officers of the
Bastile, to bandage his eyes and tuck up his hair; and, when this was
done, he laid his head upon the block. “Be quick! be quick!” were his
last words, and they were promptly obeyed. They were scarcely out of the
mouth of the speaker when the sword descended, and by a single blow Biron
ceased to exist.
The remains of Biron were interred in the church of St. Paul. Not only
was his funeral followed by multitudes, but multitudes visited the church
afterwards, for the purpose of sprinkling his grave with holy water.
“Never was there a tomb,” says de Thou, “on which so much holy water
was poured; a circumstance rather disagreeable to the court, which was
vexed to see that a step which all ought to have deemed necessary for the
safety of the king and state, was so wrongly interpreted as to become a
subject of public dissatisfaction.”
Almost the last wish of Biron was for vengeance on La Fin; the wish was
gratified. After a lapse of four years, La Fin ventured to visit Paris.
In the middle of the day, and in the centre of the capital, he was
attacked by twelve or fifteen well-mounted men, who unhorsed him, and
stretched him on the ground, weltering in his blood. Several passengers
were killed or wounded by the random firing. The perpetrators of this
deed, though not unknown, were never brought to justice. La Fin himself
was undeserving of pity; but his murderers, even had he been the only
victim, ought to have been shortened by the head.
Faithless to a sovereign who had lavished kindness and honours upon him,
borne with his caprices and errors, and more than once saved his life
on the field of battle, Biron was rightfully punished; but the severity
which, on very slight grounds of suspicion, was shown to René de Marc,
sieur de Monbarot, seems to impeach the justice of Henry. When, however,
we recollect, that his mind was painfully agitated by the plots which
were thickening round him, we may, perhaps, be inclined to pity rather
than blame the monarch, that, in one instance, its natural bias towards
lenity was turned aside.
In the bay of Douarnenez, off the Breton coast, there is an islet, called
Tristan, or Frimeau, which commands the entrance to the harbour of
Douarnenez. The government of it was held by the baron de Fontanelles,
who, during the war of the League, had rendered himself notorious by his
activity in plundering. Not being any longer able to gratify his rapacity
in this manner, he sought for other resources, and hoped he had found
them in becoming an accomplice of Biron, and in opening a negotiation
with the Spaniards, to deliver up to them the island and the neighbouring
town. This would have put Spain into possession of a very annoying post
in Britanny. Fortunately his treason was discovered, and he was sentenced
to be broken on the wheel. Three other persons, two of whom were Bretons,
participated in his guilt, and the latter were executed.
Before the accomplices of Fontanelles were led to the scaffold, they were
put to the torture, and, while they were writhing under that iniquitous
infliction, something dropped from them which was construed into an
implication of Monbarot, who was governor of Rennes. Monbarot had done
good service against the duke of Mercœur, during the war of the League,
and, since the peace, he had made strenuous exertions to maintain the
royal authority in Britanny. All this was, nevertheless, insufficient to
save him from being suspected of treasonable designs, and immured in the
Bastile.
Monbarot languished in prison for three years—and to a solitary captive
years are ages. He would, perhaps, have remained there during a much
longer period, had not filial love been a persevering suitor for him.
His only son repeatedly solicited the king to set his parent free; and,
failing to obtain that boon, he entreated that he might be allowed to
lighten his sorrows, by sharing his captivity. At length, Monbarot’s
enemies having failed to procure any proof whatever against him, he
was liberated by Henry. But, though he was declared to be innocent, he
was punished as though he were guilty. Instead of being, as far as was
possible, compensated for three years of suffering, he was deprived of
the government of Rennes, which was given to Philip de Bethune, Sully’s
younger brother. It is probable, indeed, that the persecution of Monbarot
was set on foot for the sole purpose of wresting from him his coveted
office.
Charles of Valois, count of Auvergne, who was afterwards known as duke
of Angoulême, was a son of Charles the ninth, by Maria Touchet, and
was born in 1573. He was admitted a knight of Malta, and became grand
prior of France; but Catherine of Medicis having bequeathed to him the
counties of Auvergne and Lauragais, he quitted the order of Malta, and
married a daughter of the constable Montmorenci. Charles was one of the
first to join Henry of Navarre, on the accession of that prince, and he
fought valiantly for him at Arques, Ivry, and Fontaine Française. In
the course of a few years, however, his loyalty evaporated, and we find
him an accomplice of Biron. When he was arrested, his pleasantry and
presence of mind did not forsake him. On Praslin demanding his sword,
he laughingly said, “Here it is; it has never killed any thing but wild
boars. If you had given me a hint of this business, I should have been
in bed and asleep two hours ago.” He preserved the same gay humour while
he was in prison. In October he was released, after having disclosed the
whole that he knew of the conspiracy. As, however, the king had procured
the same information from other quarters, Auvergne would probably have
been severely punished but for two favourable circumstances—he was the
half brother of the king’s mistress, the marchioness of Verneuil, and he
had been particularly recommended to him by Henry the third, when that
monarch was on his death-bed.
A very short time elapsed before Auvergne was again involved in
treasonable projects. His confederates were the marchioness of Verneuil,
her father, Francis de Balsac d’Entragues, and an Englishman named
Thomas Morgan. The duke of Bouillon, and other nobles, were also ready
to lend their aid. The marchioness, who, in consequence of the promise
of marriage which the king had given to her during the insanity of his
passion, affected to consider herself as his wife, was irritated by the
birth of a dauphin, which seemed to shut out the possibility of her son
ever possessing what she called his right. D’Entragues was deeply wounded
in his feelings, by the stain which Henry’s licentious love for his
daughter had cast upon him. Some writers,—who appear to suppose that a
French father could not think himself dishonoured by his child becoming
a king’s concubine,—throw doubts on the sincerity of d’Entragues’
indignation; but I can see no real grounds for their so doing. There
is an air of sincerity, in what he says upon this subject, which is
greatly in his favour. After touching upon the ingratitude with which
his faithful services had been repaid, he adds, “Borne down by years and
maladies, I was condemned to suffer more deadly blows from blind fortune.
My daughter, the sole consolation of my old age, pleased the king, and
this last stroke completed my misery. Grief aggravated my maladies, and
still more intense mental anguish was joined to the pains which my body
endured. I found myself exposed to all the gibes of the courtiers, and
that which generally constitutes the happiness of a father, and which
ought to have formed the glory and felicity of my family, was, on the
contrary, the cause of my shame, of the dishonour of my house, and of
the insulting scorn with which I was overwhelmed.” As often as he
implored for leave to withdraw from court he was refused, and at length
he was forbidden to see his daughter. Not content with inflicting these
wrongs upon him, Henry was striving to seduce his second daughter also.
Assuredly if such injuries are not sufficient to rouse the wrath of a
father, it is difficult to imagine what would be. That d’Entragues keenly
felt them is certain; for he more than once endeavoured to intercept
and kill the king, while he was on his way to the marchioness, and to
her sister, and Henry is said to have narrowly escaped. The design to
assassinate is indefensible; but it at least proves that the father was
in earnest. At a subsequent period, Henry said to d’Entragues, “Is it
true, as is reported, that you meant to kill me?” “Yes, Sire,” replied
the undaunted noble, “and the idea will never be out of my mind, while
your majesty persists to blot my honour in the person of my daughter.”
The particulars of the conspiracy are very imperfectly known. It is said
the principal stipulations of the treaty with Spain were, that Philip
should recognise as dauphin the natural son of Henry by the marchioness
of Verneuil, on her putting him into his hands; that, in the first
instance, the mother and child should seek refuge at Sedan, under the
protection of the duke of Bouillon, and that subsequently five Portuguese
fortresses should be ceded to them as places of security; and that France
should be invaded on the frontiers of Champagne, Burgundy, and Provence,
by the marquis of Spinola, the count of Fuentes, and the duke of Savoy.
To the prosecution of Auvergne there were two obstacles, which arose out
of the conduct of Henry. When the count was released from the Bastile, he
offered to continue his correspondence with the Spanish court, for the
purpose of betraying its secrets to the king; and a regular authority
for so doing was unwisely granted to him. It was base in Auvergne to make
such a proposal, and scarcely less so in Henry to adopt it. By another
act, the monarch gave him a fresh pretext for holding intercourse with a
power which was thoroughly hostile at heart. Henry being attacked by a
fit of illness, the marchioness, who had insulted Mary of Medicis beyond
endurance, affected to feel, or perhaps felt, such extreme dread of what
would befal her and her offspring in case of his death, that the king
gave her half brother a written permission to negotiate an asylum for
her in a foreign country. Cambray was the place which she and Auvergne
selected as the city of refuge; and this selection afforded them, while
the negotiation was proceeding, an opportunity to carry on intrigues with
the emissaries of Spain.
Apprehending, probably, that his treasonable duplicity would soon be
detected, Auvergne, by challenging the count of Soissons, artfully
contrived to be banished from court. Soissons complained, and Henry, to
satisfy him, exiled the challenger to the province whence he derived
his title. This was what Charles of Valois had aimed at; for, in that
province, his possessions, his popularity, and the rugged nature of
the country, would contribute to secure him from danger. While he was
there, a letter written by him, to one of his friends at Paris, was
intercepted, and, though its language was obscure, it gave the king
reason to believe that, under pretence of betraying Spain, the count was
in reality plotting with it. Henry immediately summoned him to return to
court. Auvergne was however aware of the reason and the danger. “It is
only for the purpose of bringing my head to the scaffold,” said he, “that
I am called to Paris.” The mere idea of being re-immured in “that great
heap of stones,” as he called the Bastile, made him shudder. Neither a
safe-conduct, nor a formal pardon, which were offered to him, nor the
assurances of several persons, whom the king sent to him, could remove
his suspicions. To avoid being taken by surprise, he lived in the woods,
and the most solitary spots, and kept dogs and sentinels continually on
the watch. Yet he was at last circumvented. His regiment of cavalry was
purposely ordered to pass near his abode, and he could not deny himself
the gratification of inspecting it. In this pleasure he thought he might
safely indulge, as he was resolved that he would neither dismount nor
be surrounded, and was on the back of a fleet horse, that could gallop
ten leagues without stopping. He was, nevertheless, adroitly seized, and
carried off to the Bastile, where he was placed in the chamber that Biron
had inhabited. On his way thither he had preserved his serenity, but,
when he entered the chamber, the remembrance of his friend drew from him
a few tears. He soon, however, recovered his equanimity, and jocosely
told the governor, “there was no inn at Paris so bad that he would not
rather go to bed in it, than in this building.” As soon as Auvergne was
secured, d’Entragues was arrested and lodged in the Concièrgerie, and the
marchioness of Verneuil was placed under a guard in her own house.
The parliament was now directed to take cognizance of the plot. Henry,
however, whose main object in all this was to render his haughty mistress
more submissive, sent one of his confidential servants to make her an
offer of pardon on certain conditions. He was repulsed, as he richly
deserved to be. The marchioness disdainfully replied, that, as she had
never committed a crime against the king, there was no room for a pardon.
The trial accordingly proceeded. The conspirators defended themselves
dextrously. Biron had been ruined partly by admitting, at the outset,
the fair character and veracity of intended witnesses. The marchioness
and the count at least avoided that rock, by manifesting an apparently
bitter hostility to each other. As to d’Entragues, he censured them
both; but his vindication principally consisted of a severe exposure and
impeachment of Henry’s conduct, with respect to himself, the marchioness,
and her sister.
Though in a legal point of view, whatever they might be in a moral, the
proofs against the prisoners were by no means clear, the judges, on the
1st of February, 1605, found Auvergne, d’Entragues, and Morgan, guilty
of high treason, and condemned them to lose their heads. The marchioness
was sentenced to be confined in a monastery, while further inquiries
were being made into her past proceedings. She was, however, soon
after allowed to reside in her own house at Verneuil; and no long time
elapsed before the king ordered that all inquiry into her acts should
be discontinued. The punishment of the remaining offenders was next
commuted. D’Entragues was exiled to his house at Malesherbes, Morgan was
sent out of the kingdom, and Auvergne was doomed to remain in “that great
heap of stones,” which he so much abhorred.
Thus ended a farce which was eminently disgraceful to Henry, and for
which he was justly censured. “It excited indignation,” says de Thou, “to
see the ministry of the most respectable tribunal in the realm profaned
by a court intrigue. The king, it was said, had brought the marchioness
to trial, not for the purpose of punishing her, nor to give an example
which was equally necessary and full of equity, but that her father and
brother, who had tried to withdraw her from the court, might be foremost
in exhorting her to renew her connection with a prince who madly loved
her.” To crown the whole, the monarch who, to secure more effectually a
refractory mistress, had thus made a laughing-stock of the laws and the
magistracy, speedily deserted that mistress, and transferred his fickle
affections to Jacqueline de Beuil, whom he created countess of Moret.
The death of Henry did not open the prison doors of the count of
Auvergne. He spent nearly twelve years in the Bastile. Happily for him,
he had been well educated, and though, while he was immersed in the
debaucheries of an immoral court, he had lost sight of literature, his
taste for it was not destroyed. He was therefore enabled to solace by
study his long captivity; and we may believe that, when he once more
emerged from his durance, reflection and added years had made him a wiser
and a better man. He had need of consolation while he was incarcerated;
for, the year after he was committed to the Bastile, he received another
heavy blow. Queen Margaret instituted a suit, to recover from him the
vast property which he derived from her mother, and the tribunal decided
against him.
At last, in 1616, he was set free by Mary of Medicis, that he might
assist in forming a counterpoise to the Condéan faction; and in 1619,
he was created duke of Angoulême. He subsequently served the state with
honour, on various occasions, both as ambassador and general. His death
took place in 1650.
Scarcely were the proceedings against Auvergne and his accomplices
brought to a close before another conspiracy was discovered; it was the
last which was formed, or rather, perhaps, which was made public, during
the reign of Henry. The author of this plot was Louis d’Alagon, sieur de
Merargues, a Provençal noble, nearly allied to some great families. We
have seen that the Spaniards were desirous to obtain an establishment
on the Breton coast, which might be a thorn in the side of France. They
now sought to gain a much more dangerous footing on the shore of the
Mediterranean. The important city of Marseilles was the object which they
coveted, and Merargues was the person on whom they reckoned to put it
into their possession.
Almost the first step which Merargues took, after becoming a traitor,
showed how unfit he was to act the part which he had chosen; he had all
the will in the world to be a dangerous conspirator, and wanted only
the talent. Some years before, he had proposed to the king to keep two
galleys ready for service, in order to secure the port of Marseilles;
the plan was adopted, and as a recompense, he received the command of
the vessels. In maturing this scheme, he derived much assistance from a
galley-slave, who was a man of ability. To this man, whom he imagined
to be entirely devoted to him, and capable of daring deeds, Merargues
communicated his purpose of betraying Marseilles to the Spanish monarch.
By means of the two galleys, he considered himself to be master of the
port; and he had no doubt of being elected to the office of Viguier,
or Royal Provost, for the following year, which would give him full
authority over the city and the forts.
In order to fathom to the bottom the project of Merargues, the wily
galley-slave affected to lend a willing ear to the projector. He,
however, deemed it more prudent to trust to the gratitude of his own
sovereign for a reward, than to that of Philip of Spain. As soon as he
had acquired a thorough knowledge of the particulars, he wrote to the
duke of Guise, offering to give information of the utmost importance, on
condition of recovering his liberty. His offer was made known to the king
by the duke, and was accepted. Guise was at the same time directed to
keep the affair a profound secret, till decisive proof could be obtained
against the criminal, and to take the necessary precautions for the
safety of the city.
Merargues himself was not slow in furnishing the evidence which was
wanted. He had already had various conferences with Zuniga, the Spanish
ambassador, an able and intriguing diplomatist, but his correspondence
on the subject was principally carried on through Bruneau, the
ambassador’s secretary. Unconscious that his scheme was known to the
French government, he now visited Paris, on a mission to the court, from
the states of Provence; a mission which he no doubt readily undertook,
that he might have an opportunity of making arrangements with his foreign
confederates. By order of the king, he was closely watched, and it was
soon discovered that he had secret interviews with Zuniga and Bruneau.
The latter was tracked to the abode of Merargues, and both of them were
arrested. On the secretary, who tried in vain to draw his sword, was
found a paper, which bore witness to the criminality of his purpose.
Merargues, on being seized, exclaimed, “I am a dead man! but if the king
will spare my life, I will disclose great things to him!” He was conveyed
to the Bastile, and Bruneau to the Châtelet.
No sooner did Zuniga learn the detention of his secretary than he
demanded an audience of the king. It must excite a smile, to hear that
he complained bitterly of heavy wrong, and assumed the lofty tone of
offended dignity. In the face of the clearest evidence, he denied all
sinister designs; and talked largely of the privilege of ambassadors
being violated, and the law of nations set at nought—as if any privileges
or law could exist authorizing an envoy to conspire in the very court of
the monarch to whom he is deputed. Nor did he forget to recriminate upon
the ministers of Henry, as being fomenters of revolution in the Spanish
dominions, nor to throw out threats of hostility, in case redress were
denied. Angered by the haughty language of Zuniga, Henry retorted with at
least equal acrimony, and concluded by a peremptory refusal to release
Bruneau, till the question of his guilt or innocence had been thoroughly
investigated. In the course of a few days, however, Bruneau was sent
back to his master; but not before he had answered interrogatories, and
been confronted with Merargues.
The fate of Merargues could not be doubtful. He was sentenced to be
beheaded, and then quartered. As the culprit was related to the families
of the duke of Montpensier and the cardinal de Joyeuse, the king sent
to those personages, to offer the commutation of the punishment into
perpetual imprisonment. They, however, with a praiseworthy spirit,
replied that, though they were grateful for his kindness, they must
decline to accept it; of all such villains they would, they said, be glad
to see France cleared, and, although the criminal was their relative,
they would do justice on him with their own hands, if there were no
executioner to perform that duty. Merargues was in consequence executed,
at the Grêve, and his head was sent to Marseilles, and exposed on the
summit of one of the city gates.
On the same day that Merargues was led to the scaffold, the life of Henry
was endangered by the violence of one John de Lisle, a madman. In the
course of a few months another accident occurred; he narrowly escaped
drowning, while crossing the ferry of Neuilly in his carriage. At the
expiration of five years, treason accomplished its purpose, and the
existence of this justly celebrated monarch was cut short by the knife of
Ravaillac.
CHAPTER VI.
Reign of Louis XIII.—The treasure of Henry IV.
dissipated—Prevalent belief in magic—Cesar and Ruggieri—Henry,
prince of Condé—The Marchioness d’Ancre—Marshal
Ornano—Prevalence of duelling—The count de Bouteville—The Day
of the Dupes—Vautier, the physician of Mary of Medicis—The
marshal de Bassompierre—The chevalier de Jars—Infamy of
Laffemas—Three citizens of Paris sent to the Bastile—Despotic
language of Louis XIII.—The count de Cramail—The Marquis of
Vitry—Peter de la Porte—Noel Pigard Dubois, an alchemical
impostor—The count de Grancé and the Marquis de Praslin—The
prince Palatine—Count Philip d’Aglie—Charles de Beys—Letter
from an unknown prisoner to Richelieu.
The treasure deposited in the Bastile, by Henry IV., did not remain long
undissipated after his death. It began to melt away, like snow in the
sun, as soon as the regency of Mary of Medicis was commenced. Swarms of
her favourites and dependants clamoured to obtain the reward of their
sycophancy. Like the horse-leech’s two daughters, they were perpetually
crying, “Give! Give!” and, had such personages existed in the days of
Solomon, he might have added a fifth thing to the four which he describes
as never saying “It is enough.” Most prominent among the group were
Concini and his wife; and, as they were exceedingly unpopular, they
endeavoured to silence the cry against them, by stopping, at the public
expense, the mouths of their most formidable censors. But it was not
only her friends, as they called themselves, that Mary of Medicis had
to satisfy; her enemies, and she had many, were to be bought off, and
they sold their forbearance dearly. Fraud and shameless rapacity became
universal. “Governors,” says Anquetil, “called for guards which they
never enlisted, for augmentations of their garrisons, that they might
gain something out of the pay, and fortifications, which often were
useless. They themselves made the bargains, and, at the king’s cost,
managed matters with the contractors. Reversions were granted down to
the third generation. Those who by this means were excluded, required
drafts on the royal treasury. Nothing was more common than the doubling
and trebling of salaries, from the highest office to the lowest. Some
obtained dowries for their daughters, others the payment of their debts:
so that it was a general pillage.” To all this must be added, the loss
sustained, and the injury done to every branch of industry, by the
creation or revival of obnoxious tolls, privileges, and monopolies.
Thus the money accumulated by Henry was speedily squandered. After all,
it was, perhaps, more innocently spent in this manner, than it would
have been in carrying on the wide-spreading war which he had planned, to
realise his chimerical projects. Some drops of the golden shower probably
descended among the multitude; and myriads were not led forth to spill
their blood in foreign lands. The real mischief in this case was, that,
when the hoard was gone, the spirit of spending remained; and to satisfy
that spirit new taxes and exactions were pitilessly imposed on a people
whose burthens were already oppressive.
Having wholly lost his influence, Sully resigned many of his offices, and
returned into private life. Among the places which he relinquished were
the superintendence of the finances, and the government of the Bastile.
He, however, did not make the sacrifice without taking especial care to
be well remunerated for it. A million of livres, and a yearly pension of
forty-eight thousand livres, was his price. It is quite clear that the
virtuous Sully did not think, like Pope, that “virtue _only_ makes our
bliss below.”
For the first four or five years of the regency of Mary of Medicis, the
Bastile seems to have contained no prisoner of note. At the end of that
time it received an individual who, though he had no rank to boast of,
professed to be in the service of a potent master. The belief in magic
was almost general at that period. We have seen that Biron attributed
his crimes to the influence of magic upon him. All the world was running
mad after charms, spells, and philtres; the boldest of the throng had
a violent curiosity to see the devil. Among those who preyed upon the
credulity of the crowd, history has preserved the names of two—one
was called Cesar, the other was Ruggieri, a Florentine. It is to the
extraordinary mode in which they are asserted to have quitted the world,
that we are indebted for our knowledge of them.
Cesar is gravely stated to have had the power of calling down hail
and thunder at his pleasure. He had a familiar spirit, and a dog, who
seems to have been a sort of minor fiend, acting as messenger, to carry
his letters, and bring back answers. Cesar was a manufacturer of love
potions, to make young girls enamoured of young men; and, on occasion,
could help a cowardly enemy to destroy without risk the man whom he
hated. It was charged against him, that he had formed a charmed image
for the purpose of making a gentleman waste away. This was a very common
practice when sorcery and witchcraft were in vogue. But it seems probable
that the crime which brought him to the Bastile was an indiscretion which
he committed with respect to one of the gentle sex. He was accustomed to
attend the witches’ sabbath; and he boasted that, at one of those unholy
meetings, a great lady of the court had granted him the last favour which
a female can bestow. Such a vaunt was well calculated to bring him into
durance. It did that, and more. On the eleventh of March, 1615, all Paris
was astonished, by learning that, in the dead of the night, the devil had
come, with a tremendous din, and strangled Cesar in his bed. Four days
afterwards, his satanic majesty, who appears to have wanted the services
of two magicians at once, snatched away, in the same manner, the soul of
the Florentine Ruggieri, who was then residing in the house of a French
marshal. It is not difficult to account for these supposed supernatural
events.
A curious description of the tricks which Cesar played upon his dupes
is given by a contemporary author, who speaks in the character of the
magician. The representation is probably correct. “You would hardly
believe,” says he, “how many young courtiers and young Parisians there
are, who teaze me to show them the devil. Finding this to be the case,
I hit upon one of the drollest inventions in the world to get money.
About a quarter of a league from this city, I found a very deep quarry,
which has long ditches on the right and left hand. When any body wants
to see the devil, I take him into that; but, before he enters, he must
pay me forty or fifty pistoles at least; swear never to say a word of the
matter; and promise not to be afraid, or call on the gods or demigods, or
pronounce any holy words.
“All this being done, I enter the cavern first; then, before going
further, I make circles, and involutions, and fulminations, and mutter
some speech composed of barbarous words, which I have no sooner uttered
than my curious fool and I hear the rattling of heavy chains, and the
growling of large mastiffs. Then I ask him if he is afraid; if he says
yes (and there are many who dare not proceed), I lead him out again, and,
having thus cured him of his impertinent curiosity, I pocket his money.
“If he is not afraid, I go forward, mumbling out some terrific words.
When I have reached a particular spot, I redouble my incantations, and
utter loud cries, as if I had gone frantically mad. Immediately six
men, whom I keep hidden in the cavern, throw out flashes of flame, to
the right and left of us, from burning rosin. Seen through these flames
I point out to my inquisitive companion a monstrous goat, loaded with
great heavy chains of iron, painted with vermilion, to look as though
they were red hot. On each side, there are two enormous mastiffs, with
their heads fastened into long wooden cases, which are wide at one end,
and very narrow at the other. While the men keep goading them, they howl
with all their might, and this howling echoes in such a manner, through
the instruments on their heads, that the cavern is filled with sounds so
terrific that, though I know the cause of the hurlyburly, even my own
hair stands on end. The goat, whom I have taught his lesson, plays his
part so well, rattling his chains, and brandishing his horns, that there
is nobody but what would believe him to be the devil in earnest. My six
men, whom I have also thoroughly trained, are likewise loaded with red
chains, and dressed like furies. There is no light in the cavern but what
they now and then make with powdered rosin.
“Two of them, after having played the devil to perfection, now come to
torment my poor curious gull, with long bags of cloth full of sand;
with these they so belabour him all over his body, that I am at last
obliged to drag him out of the cavern half dead. Then, when he has come
to himself a little, I tell him that it is a most perilous thing to wish
to see the devil, and I beg that he will never indulge it in future; and
I assure you that no one ever does after having been so double damnably
beaten.”
The year after the foul fiend had fetched away Cesar and Ruggieri,
the Bastile was tenanted by an occupant of high rank—Henry, prince of
Condé, the second who bore that Christian name. Condé was born in 1588,
and, till the birth of a dauphin, was presumptive heir to the throne of
France. The prince was well educated, witty and pleasant in conversation,
spoke several languages, and was better acquainted with literature and
the sciences than most contemporary men of high birth; but his person was
not attractive. It was probably the latter circumstance which induced
Henry the fourth to unite him to Henrietta de Montmorenci, the loveliest
and richest female of that time. Her inclinations leaned towards the
handsome, gallant, and accomplished Bassompierre; but Henry, who was
smitten with an extravagant passion for her, seems to have thought that
he could more easily seduce her if she were the wife of Condé. He was
mistaken. The prince, on whose “liking the chase a hundred thousand times
better than he liked women” Henry had rather erroneously calculated,
was not disposed to be dishonoured, even by a king who was his uncle.
Henry, previous to the marriage, had, indeed, pledged his word that,
on his account, the prince need have no fears; but Henry was not a man
to be trusted in such cases. The nuptial knot was scarcely tied before
the conduct of the monarch became such as to awake, and justify, all
the jealous fears of the husband; who was further aggrieved by being
compelled to endure the contempt and insolence of Sully. To avoid the
danger which hung over him, his sole resource was to fly the country with
his wife; and he accordingly contrived to make his escape, and to obtain
an asylum in the court of the archduke Albert, at Brussels.
When Henry found that his intended prey was beyond his reach, his
behaviour resembled rather that of a madman than of a sage monarch,
at the mature age of fifty-seven. He ran about asking advice of his
courtiers, the ministers were summoned, councils were held, parties of
troops were despatched to seize the fugitives, and war was threatened
against Spain, if she refused to give them up. When Sully was told of
what had happened, he replied in a surly tone, “I am not astonished at
it, sire; I foresaw it clearly and warned you of it; and had you taken
my advice a fortnight ago, when he was going to Moret, you would have
put him into the Bastile, where you would find him now, and where I
should have kept a good watch over him for you.” Such was the morality
of the austere Sully! This “well-seeming Angelo,” who has been praised,
at least as much as he deserves, could be indignant at the idea of the
monarch marrying Henrietta d’Entragues, his mistress; but he could see
no dishonour in that monarch breaking his plighted word, as well as all
moral obligations, by seducing the wife of his nephew; nor in he himself
volunteering his assistance to forward an adulterous intercourse, by
prompting the seizure of the injured husband, and becoming his gaoler!
It was not without reason that the prince dreaded to trust his wife
within the corrupted atmosphere of the French court. Had she remained
there, it appears certain that she must have fallen. As it was, her
fidelity was, for a moment, on the point of being shaken. Henrietta was
little more than sixteen, and the glory of the sovereign, his boundless
generosity to her, and his idolatrous fondness, dazzled her imagination
so far, that, while she was at Brussels, a correspondence was actually
carried on between them. An attempt was made by Henry’s emissaries to
carry her off, but it failed. When d’Estrées, marquis of Cœuvres, who
conducted this attempt, was reproached for his baseness by Condé, his
defence was, that he had acted upon orders from the king his master, and
that it was his duty to execute them, whether they were just or unjust.
Henrietta repaired her momentary error by her subsequent conduct.
Not believing himself to be safe, Condé removed to Milan, where he
published a manifesto to justify his having quitted France. From
policy he passed over in silence the main cause of his flight; but he
indemnified himself by pouring forth all the bitterness of his resentment
on Sully, whom he painted in the darkest colours. Some overtures were
made, to lure the prince back to France, but they were ineffectual.
But, while Henry was preparing to carry war into the territory of his
neighbours, he fell by the hand of an assassin, and the way was thus
opened for the return of the prince.
Condé aspired to the regency, but his ambitious hopes were disappointed.
Chagrined at the failure of some of his subsequent schemes, and the
refusal of favours which he sought, the prince, with many of the nobles,
took up arms against the court. For this, he and his adherents were
declared guilty of treason. A peace was, nevertheless, patched up between
the parties, and he returned to Paris in a sort of triumph.
Not more than a year elapsed before the obvious intention of Condé, to
monopolize all the power of the state, compelled Mary of Medicis to
venture upon decisive measures against him. Sully was active in prompting
her to this step. The strength of the prince’s party rendered the
attempt hazardous; but the business was kept so secret, and was so ably
managed, that he was arrested in the Louvre, and conveyed to the Bastile,
without opposition. Here, and at Vincennes, he remained for three years,
during part of which time he was harshly treated. It was not without
much difficulty, and till he had been long confined, that his wife, who
had become sincerely attached to him, was allowed to share his prison.
His liberation was brought about by the fall of Concini, and he was
reinstated in his honours. Thenceforth, he served Louis the thirteenth
faithfully in the cabinet and the field. He died in 1646. Voltaire truly
says, with respect to him, that his being the father of the great Condé,
was his greatest glory.
The downfall of Concini, marshal d’Ancre, which opened the gates of the
Bastile to let out Condé, opened them also to admit, for a short time,
the wife of the murdered marshal. After Concini had been assassinated by
Vitry and his accomplices, and his body had been dragged from the grave,
and torn into fragments, by an ignorant and savage populace, Leonora, his
widow, was hurried to prison. She was a daughter of the female by whom
Mary of Medicis was nursed, and had been the playmate of the princess.
When Mary became the consort of Henry IV., she took Leonora in her train
to Paris. So attached was Mary to her, that Leonora is said, by Mezeray,
“to have directed at her pleasure the desires, the affections, and the
hatreds of the queen.” Riches were, of course, heaped upon her. She is
charged with having fomented the disagreements of Mary and her inconstant
husband, by making false statements, to excite the jealousy of her
mistress. If she did so, which may be doubted, she was performing a work
of supererogation; for Henry rendered falsehood unnecessary, by affording
abundant and undisguised cause for complaint. The light of the sun was
not more obvious than his conjugal infidelity. It was also objected,
that she insolently shut her door against the princesses and nobles, who
came to pay court to her in the height of her power. If this be true,
it proves only that she had spirit and good sense enough to despise
the sycophancy of those by whom she knew herself to be detested. It is
much in favour of Leonora’s private character, that Mary of Medicis was
so firmly her friend; for, unlike the titled dames who surrounded her,
Mary was a modest and virtuous woman. That the marshal and his partner
fattened on the spoils of the state it would be folly to deny; but, mean
and criminal as such conduct undoubtedly is, we must bear in mind that
the crime was common to all the courtiers of that period. Every one
was eager, as the French phrase expresses it, “to carry off a leg or a
wing.” It was envy, not abhorrence of robbing the public, that caused the
destruction of Mary’s favourites.
In France, to live upon the imposts squeezed from the people was not
deemed an impeachable act, unless, perhaps, by those who had failed to
get a share of the pillage; and consequently there was no legal ground
for dragging the widow of Concini to the bar. But hatred is ingenious in
finding means to effect its purpose. Having first been so effectually
plundered by the police officers, that she had not even a change of linen
left, she was sent before a special commission, to be tried for Judaism
and sorcery. Other charges were brought forward, but it is obvious
that they were only meant to increase the odium under which she was
labouring. The trial was, throughout, a mockery of justice. Evidence the
most trivial in some instances, and absurd in others, was produced to
substantiate the charge of Judaism and sorcery. Some Hebrew books, which
were found in her apartment, were gravely supposed to be used by her
for necromantic purposes. “By what magic did you gain such an influence
over the mind of the queen-mother?” was one of the questions put by her
judges. “My only magic,” replied the prisoner, “was the power strong
minds have over weak ones”—a memorable reply, which goes far to prove
that she was a woman of superior talent.
Though the judges had, no doubt, been selected for the purpose of
ensuring her condemnation to death, it turned out that a mistake had
been made with respect to some of them, and that they were not of the
opinion of d’Estrées, who thought that the orders of a master ought to
be executed, whether they were just or unjust. Five of them absented
themselves, and a few others voted for banishment. The majority, however,
were faithful to their mission, and she was sentenced to be beheaded,
and her remains burnt, and scattered to the winds. By the same sentence,
her husband’s memory was branded with infamy, her son was declared
ignoble, and incapable of holding office or dignity; their mansion, near
the Louvre, was ordered to be levelled with the ground, and all their
property was confiscated.
On hearing this sentence, to which she was compelled to listen
bareheaded, in the midst of an insulting crowd, nature for a moment
prevailed in the bosom of Leonora, and she sobbed loudly. The disgrace of
her son seems to have been more painful to her than even her own fate.
She soon, however, recovered herself, and became resigned to her doom.
When she was led to execution, her deportment so won for her the respect
of the multitude, that not a syllable of reproach was heard. She looked
firmly, yet without any theatrical affectation of heroism, on the block
and the flaming pile; submitted to the blow without a murmur; and thus
triumphantly vindicated her claim to the possession of a strong mind.
Having passed over an interval of seven years, after the judicial murder
of the marchioness d’Ancre, we find the Bastile receiving John Baptist
Ornano, the son of a father who enjoyed and deserved the friendship of
Henry IV. Ornano was born in 1581, and was not more than fourteen when he
commanded a company of cavalry at the siege of la Fère. He subsequently
served with distinction in Savoy and other quarters.
In 1619, Louis the thirteenth appointed him governor of Gaston, duke
of Anjou, the king’s brother, who was presumptive heir to the throne.
Gaston had, for some time, been under the care of the count de Lude,
than whom it would have been difficult to find a man more unfit for his
office, unless he was chosen for the purpose of leading his pupil astray.
Ornano, by a proper mixture of firmness and kindness, soon succeeded in
perfectly acquiring the respect and affection of the prince. One part of
the system, by which he purposed to break the bad habits of his youthful
charge, is said to have consisted in awakening his ambition. With this
view he dwelt upon the strong probability of the prince succeeding to the
crown, and the necessity of making himself acquainted with affairs of
state; and he taught him to believe, that he could gain such knowledge
only by being admitted into the king’s council. It may be supposed that,
in thus acting, Ornano was not without an eye to his own advancement and
influence. La Vieville, however, who then ruled, did not wish to see
Gaston in the council, and still less Ornano. He, therefore, persuaded
Louis to remove the prince’s governor, and send him into Provence. Ornano
refused to resign, and he was punished by being sent to the Bastile,
whence he was transferred to the castle of Caen.
Gaston remonstrated strongly against being deprived of his friend and
preceptor; but his remonstrances would probably have been of little
avail, had not la Vieville been precipitated from power. Ornano was
then released by the king, and was placed at the head of the prince’s
household. In 1626, at the request of Gaston, seconded by the advice
of Richelieu, he was created marshal of France. This promotion was the
precursor of his fall. It was a part of the policy of Richelieu to grant,
in the first instance, more to suitors of rank than they were entitled to
expect, that, in case of their afterwards opposing him, he might treat
them without mercy. It appears he soon began to suspect that the new-made
marshal was not likely to be a submissive dependent, and this was enough
to induce him to work his ruin. Ornano himself aided his dangerous enemy,
by pertinaciously requiring admittance into the council, and by using
offensive language on his demand being refused. Various acts of the
marshal were now represented in the darkest colours to the suspicious
king, by Richelieu; and Louis, always open to suggestions of this kind,
imprisoned the supposed offender in the castle of Vincennes. Ornano died
there, in September, 1626. He death was attributed to poison, but the
report was certainly unfounded. Whether, if he had lived, he would have
saved his head, is doubtful; for when Richelieu had once resolved to have
a man’s head, it was not easy to disappoint him.
Among the few whom justice, not tyranny or caprice, immured within the
walls of the Bastile, may be reckoned Francis, count de Bouteville, of
the ancient and illustrious family of Montmorenci, whose father, Louis
de Montmorenci, was vice-admiral of France in the reign of Henry the
fourth. The example which was made of him was necessary, to vindicate
the insulted laws, and to check a murderous practice which had shed
some of the best blood in the kingdom. For a long series of years, in
defiance of the severe edicts issued against it by Henry IV. and Louis
XIII., duelling had been carried to an extent which it is frightful to
contemplate. War itself would scarcely have swept off more victims of the
privileged class, than were sacrificed in private and frivolous quarrels.
Paris, in particular, swarmed with professed duellists, who gloried in
their exploits, and counted up their slain with the same exultation that
a sportsman counts the game he has killed. Some, who prided themselves on
a peculiar delicacy of honour, were ever on the watch to find a pretext
for taking offence. Even to look at them, to touch any part of their
dress in passing by them, or to utter a word which could be misconstrued,
sufficed to draw from them a challenge to mortal combat.
Bouteville was one of the most conspicuous of these offenders. In
1624, M. Pontgibaud, in 1626, the count de Thorigny and the Marquis
Desportes, and in January, 1627, M. Lafrette, fell beneath his weapon.
In consequence of the last of these encounters, he, and his second,
the count des Chappelles, were compelled to take refuge at Brussels.
Thither he was followed by the marquis de Beuvron, a relation of the
count de Thorigny, who was eager to avenge his death. The archduchess
Isabella, who then governed the Netherlands, brought about a semblance
of reconciliation between them, but their rancour remained unabated;
for even at the moment when, in sign of forgiveness, they embraced each
other, Beuvron whispered to Bouteville, “I shall never be satisfied till
I have met you sword in hand.”
The archduchess also solicited Louis the thirteenth to grant the pardon
of Bouteville, but the monarch refused. On hearing this, the rash and
insolent culprit exclaimed, “Since a pardon is denied, I will fight in
Paris, aye, and in the Place Royale too!” He was as good as his word.
In May he returned to the French capital, and his first step was to
offer Beuvron the satisfaction which that nobleman had expressed a wish
to obtain. A combat of three against three was arranged, and the Place
Royale was chosen as the spot for deciding it. Beuvron was seconded by
Buquet, his equerry, and by Bussy d’Amboise, the latter of whom had been
ill of fever for several days, and was weakened by repeated bleedings.
Bouteville brought with him des Chappelles, his cousin, and constant
auxiliary on such occasions, and another gentleman. They fought with
sword and dagger.
Bussy being killed by des Chappelles, the five remaining combatants, who
began to dread the vengeance of the violated laws, sought for safety in
flight. Beuvron and Buquet succeeded in escaping to England. Bouteville
and his cousin fled towards Lorraine. Unfortunately for them, Louis the
thirteenth was then at the Louvre, and, as soon as he heard of the duel,
he ordered a vigorous pursuit of the offenders. At Vitry, in Champagne,
the officers of justice overtook Bouteville and his associate; the latter
wished to resist, but the former prevailed on him to surrender. On their
arrival at Paris, they were committed to the Bastile, and no time was
lost in bringing them to trial.
From all quarters the king was importuned by entreaties to pardon the
criminals. The countess de Bouteville threw herself at his feet, to beg
the life of her husband; but he passed on without replying. “I pity her,”
said he to his courtiers, “but I must and will maintain my authority.”
The nobility were not more successful in their supplications to the king
and the parliament. At the trial all that forensic talent could do for
the prisoners was done by Chastelet, their counsel. The plea which he
put in for them was written with so much eloquence and boldness, that
cardinal Richelieu sternly told him it seemed to impeach the justice
of the king. “Excuse me, sir,” replied Chastelet, “it is only meant to
justify his mercy, in case he should extend it to one of the bravest men
in his kingdom.” When the sentence of death was passed, another effort
was made to move the king. The princess of Condé, accompanied by three
duchesses, and the wife of Bouteville, requested an audience of his
Majesty. He at first refused to see them; but he subsequently admitted
them to a private interview in the queen’s apartments. They pleaded
in vain. “I regret their fate as much as you do,” said he; “but my
conscience forbids me to pardon them.”
Bouteville seems, from the beginning, to have made up his mind to die,
and to have been unfeignedly repentant. While he was in the Bastile, he
was attended by Cospean, the bishop of Nantes, one of the most highly
gifted preachers of the age. It was by the exhortations of this pious
prelate that Bouteville was awakened to a due sense of his crimes. So
moved was he by the fervid eloquence of his spiritual guide that, while
his trial was yet pending, he said to him, and doubtless with perfect
sincerity, “So resigned am I to the will of God, and so ready to do
every thing to save my soul, if to save it be possible, that, even more
pressingly than my wife now begs for my pardon, I will beg my judges to
condemn me to the gibbet, and to be drawn to it on a hurdle, in order to
render my death more ignominious and meritorious.” It was not without
difficulty that Cospean could dissuade him from seeking salvation by
means of this extraordinary self abasement. Contrition alone, and not an
act which would cast a stigma on his family, the prelate justly observed,
was required to appease the wrath of an offended Deity.
Bouteville and his cousin met death with much firmness; the former
refused to allow his eyes to be bandaged. On the scaffold a circumstance
occurred, which appears to prove that vanity, like hope, sometimes does
not leave us till we die. The mustachios of Bouteville were large and
handsome, and he put up his hands, as though to save them, when the
executioner came to cut off his hair. “What! my son,” exclaimed Cospean,
who attended him till the last, “are you still thinking on _this_ world!”
The plan which, under seemingly favourable auspices, was formed, by Mary
of Medicis and her partisans, to subvert the power of Richelieu, and
which was shattered to pieces on the day emphatically called the Day of
the Dupes (November 11, 1630), was disastrous to many who were concerned
in or suspected of favouring it. Of the Marillacs, one, a proved soldier,
was brought to the scaffold; the other, a magistrate of unimpeachable
conduct, was hurried from one prison to another, and closely confined,
and he died a captive. But we must restrict ourselves to those
individuals who were committed to the Bastile. One of these was Vautier,
born at Montpelier, in 1592, who was the queen mother’s principal
physician. If we were to give credit to Guy Patin, we must believe that
Vautier was a worse pest than a whole host of duellists, and richly
deserved to be the inmate of a dungeon. “He was,” says Patin, “a rascally
Jew of the Avignonese territory, very proud and very ignorant, who was
lucky in having escaped the gallows for coining, and who afterwards found
means to wriggle himself in at court.” But the evidence of Patin is
liable to more than suspicion in this instance; for Vautier was a friend
to antimony and chemical remedies, all of which his censurer held in
abhorrence: to prescribe them was worse in his eyes than being guilty of
all the deadly sins. Vautier, however, certainly appears to have been of
an obstinate disposition, and at times unjust.
Vautier was believed to have so much influence with the queen mother,
that he was one of the first to be arrested after the Day of the Dupes.
He was confined for a while at Senlis, whence he was removed to the
Bastile. In the Parisian fortress he remained for twelve years, during
which period no communication with him was permitted. It was in vain
that, after her flight, when she was so dangerously ill at Ghent, Mary
of Medicis intreated to have the services of her confidential physician.
Richelieu kept fast hold of his prey. In 1643, the captive was set at
liberty by Mazarin, who subsequently appointed him head physician to the
king. Patin flings his venom upon this appointment. It was, he says,
bought of the minister for twenty thousand crowns, and the purchaser was
to act as his spy. He adds an insinuation, which does no credit to his
heart. “See what policy is!” he exclaims; “this man was twelve years
imprisoned by the father, yet the health of the son is entrusted to him.”
M. Patin seems to have thought, that a man who has been injured by the
parent, must needs wish to poison the child. Vautier died in 1652.
The grave physician is succeeded by a very different personage; a
courtier of high birth, handsome, accomplished, full of gallantry in both
senses of the word, witty, and with his natural talents improved by early
study. Francis de Bassompierre, who was all this, was born in Lorraine,
in 1579, and was descended from the princely house of Cleves. On
returning from his travels, he visited the court of Henry IV., and soon
acquired the friendship of that sovereign. Among a crowd of courtiers,
each vying with the other in splendour and extravagance, he was one of
the foremost. At the baptism of the king’s children, he wore a dress of
cloth of gold, covered with pearls, the cost of which was nine hundred
pounds. Gaming, thanks to the bad example set by Henry, was scandalously
prevalent; and here, too, Bassompierre was prominent. He tells us, in his
memoirs, that not a day passed, while he was at Fontainebleau, in which
twenty thousand pistoles were not won and lost, and that he was a winner
of half a million of livres within twelve months.
Desirous of adding the reputation of a soldier to his other pretensions,
he served a campaign in Savoy, in 1602, and in Hungary the following
year. Having established his military character, he resumed his station
at the French court. The greatest part of the business of his life
seems now, and for many years, to have been amorous intrigues—to apply
the word love to them would be a profanation of it. However eager he
might be to swell the number of his conquests, there is the best reason
for believing, that those whom he attacked were willing enough to be
overcome. It at once proves his attractions, and speaks volumes as to the
low state of morals among the females at that period, that when, at a
later date, Bassompierre was about to be imprisoned, he burnt more than
six thousand letters, which contained the proofs of his amatory success.
One of the most notorious of his amours was that in which he involved
himself with Mdlle. Entragues, sister of the king’s mistress, the
marchioness of Verneuil. By this lady he had a son. She is said to have
obtained from him a promise of marriage, and for several years she sought
to enforce the performance of it, and persisted in bearing his name.
Meeting him one day at the Louvre, she told him publicly that he ought to
cause the customary honours to be paid to her there, as his wife. “Why,”
said he, “will you take a _nom de guerre_?” “You are the greatest fool in
all the court!” exclaimed the enraged lady. “What would you have said to
me, then, if I had married you?” retorted the provoking Bassompierre.
In 1605, the career of this gay deceiver was near being cut short by a
serious accident. At a tournament, in front of the Louvre, where the king
was present, Bassompierre was so severely wounded by the lance of the
duke of Guise, his antagonist, that his life was long in danger. This
tournament was the last which was exhibited in France; the dangerous
amusement was discontinued, in consequence of this misadventure. People
began to be of the same opinion as the Turkish sultan, that it was too
much for a jest and too little for earnest.
Bassompierre at last appears to have felt that it was time for him
“to live cleanly as a nobleman should do,” and he resolved to marry.
His choice fell on Charlotte de Montmorenci, one of the most rich and
beautiful women in France, and neither she nor her father, the constable,
was averse from the union. It has been seen, in the sketch of Condé’s
career, that Henry IV. became excessively enamoured of her. In some cases
her marriage would have made no difference; as Henry might have assented
to it, and bound down the husband not to exercise his conjugal rights,
as he had done with respect to Gabrielle d’Estrées and Jacqueline du
Beuil. To such a restriction he probably thought that Bassompierre would
not submit. Calling him therefore to his bed-side—for Henry was ill of
the gout—he told him that he meant to unite him to Mdlle. d’Aumale, and
revive for him the dukedom of Aumale. On Bassompierre asking with a
smile, whether his majesty meant him to have two wives, the king sighed
deeply, and said, “Bassompierre, I will speak to you as a friend. I am
become not only in love with Mdlle. de Montmorenci, but absolutely beside
myself for her. If you marry her, and she loves you, I shall hate you;
if she loves me, you will hate me. It is much better that this should
not occur, to disturb the good understanding between us; for I have the
most affectionate regard for you.” The result was that the courtier
resigned his mistress, and was rewarded for the sacrifice with the rank
of colonel-general of the Swiss regiments. Bassompierre would fain make
us believe that he was sorely grieved, at being thus deprived of the
beautiful Montmorenci; but we may be sceptical on this head, since we
have his confession, that, in order “not to be idle, and to console
himself for his loss, he immediately made up his quarrel with three
ladies, whom he had entirely quitted when he thought that he should be
wedded.”
For more than twenty years, Bassompierre continued to be a flourishing
courtier. Once only, in that long period, he was in danger; it was from
the hostility of la Vieville, the minister, who strove to cage him in
the Bastile. The time of Bassompierre was, however, not yet come, and he
had the satisfaction to witness the downfall of his enemy. In the course
of these twenty years, he acquired reputation, both in the field and the
cabinet; he was active at various sieges and battles, particularly at the
sieges of Rochelle and Montauban, and he was entrusted with embassies
to Spain, Switzerland, and England, which he executed in an able manner.
For a short time he had the custody of the Bastile; and, in 1623, he
rose to the rank of Marshal. His being employed as a negociator was the
work of the royal favourite, Luynes, who was jealous of the influence
which Bassompierre possessed with the monarch. Luynes was candid enough
to confess this. “I love you, and esteem you,” said he, “but the liking
which the king has for you gives me umbrage. I am, in truth, situated
like a husband who fears being deceived, and cannot see with pleasure
an amiable man frequenting his wife.” To remove from court the man whom
he dreaded, Luynes offered the choice of a command, a government, or an
embassy; Bassompierre chose the last.
Richelieu proved a far more formidable adversary than la Vieville. He
doubted not that Bassompierre had been engaged in the late plot against
him; he knew that he was a friend of the queen mother; and he suspected
him of having borne a part in the clandestine marriage of the duke of
Orleans with the princess Margaret of Lorraine. It is said, also, that
the cardinal imagined the marshal to have voted for imprisoning him, in
case of the malecontents being successful. This was more than enough to
bring down on him the vengeance of the triumphant minister. Bassompierre
was warned more than once of what would happen, and was advised to
escape, but he refused to follow this advice. He was taken to the
Bastile, in February, 1631. His arrest cost the death of the princess of
Conti, to whom he had long been secretly married; she died of grief in
little more than two months.
Bassompierre had reason to hope that his imprisonment would be but of
short duration. The evening before he was seized, he had mentioned to
the king the reports which were afloat, and Louis had declared them
to be false, and expressed much affection for him. The day after the
deed was done, the monarch sent him a message, that he considered him
to be a faithful servant, that he was not arrested for any fault, but
in the fear of his being led to commit one, and that he should soon be
released. Year after year elapsed, however, and the promised liberation
was still delayed. Hopes were often held out to him, apparently with no
other intention than that of making him feel the pain of disappointment.
There seems, indeed, to have been a malignant resolution formed to
torment him. The grain on his Lorrain estate was seized, the estate
itself was ravaged, his nephew’s mansion was destroyed, his pay was
stopped, cabals were excited against him in the Bastile, and he was
compelled to relinquish his commission of colonel-general for an
inadequate compensation. Yet, while Richelieu was acting thus, he could
ask Bassompierre to lend him his country-house! To add to the prisoner’s
vexations his property was going to ruin, some of his friends proved
faithless, and death was busy among his dearest relatives.
It was twelve years before the decease of Richelieu gave freedom to
Bassompierre. His post of colonel-general was restored to him by Mazarin;
and an intention was manifested of appointing him governor to the minor
king, but this intention was frustrated by a fit of apoplexy, which put
an end to his existence in October 1646.
Of the many individuals who were persecuted by the cardinal-king, none
were more estimable than Francis de Rochechouart, who was usually
denominated the chevalier de Jars. He was of an ancient and noble family,
which traced back its origin to the viscounts of Limoges, early in the
eleventh century. To great personal and mental graces, and prepossessing
manners, he added a mind of such firmness as is not of common
occurrence, especially among the courtier tribe. His eminent qualities
gained him the friendship of Anne of Austria, which alone was sufficient
to excite the suspicion and hatred of Richelieu—that ultra Turk, who
could bear “no rival near his throne,” nor even the friend of any one who
could possibly become a rival. In 1626, de Jars was, therefore, ordered
to quit the court. He retired to England, where he soon won the favour of
Charles I., his queen Henrietta Maria, the duke of Buckingham, and other
distinguished characters. Bassompierre, an acute observer, was at that
time in England as ambassador from Louis XIII., and from the manner in
which he mentions him, it is evident that de Jars was in high repute at
the court of Charles.
In 1631, de Jars was allowed to return, or was recalled, to his native
country. Whether he was lured over to France, that he might be within the
grasp of his potent enemy, cannot now be ascertained. It is probable that
he was, for he did not long remain at liberty. In February, 1632, he was
involved in the downfall of Chateauneuf, the keeper of the seals, who
had inexpiably offended the implacable minister. De Jars had sufficient
demerit to bring down this misfortune on him; he was the friend, and,
as Bassompierre affirms, the confidant of Chateauneuf, possessed the
queen’s esteem, and was, perhaps, suspected of being looked upon with a
favourable eye by the beautiful and fickle duchess of Chevreuse, of whom
Richelieu was enamoured. As, however, the first two of these offences
would hardly have justified his imprisonment and trial, and as the third
had the same defect in a greater degree, and, besides, could not have
been decorously urged against him by a high dignitary of the church,
the crime attributed to him was that of assisting Anne of Austria to
correspond with Spain, and of planning the removal to England of the
queen mother and the duke of Orleans.
It was the depth of winter when de Jars was thrown into one of the
dungeons of the Bastile, and there he was kept for eleven months, till
the clothes rotted off his back. The reader will remember what horrible
abodes these dungeons were. It being supposed, perhaps, that his spirit
was by this time enough broken, he was sent for trial to Tours, where
a tribunal of obedient judges had been formed, for the express purpose
of sitting in judgment upon him. At the head of this tribunal was one
Laffemas, or La Fymas; a man who was redeemed from the contempt of
mankind for his baseness, only by the hatred which was excited by his
power and will to do mischief. He was the ready tool, or, to use a more
emphatic and appropriate French phrase, the _âme damnée_ of Richelieu,
and was capable of diving to the lowest deep of degradation, in the
service of his master. He bore the well earned and significant nickname
of “the cardinal’s hangman.”
At the Bastile and at Troyes, de Jars underwent no fewer than eighty
examinations. In these, Laffemas strained every nerve to seduce, or
beguile, or terrify, the prisoner into avowals which would manifest or
imply guilt in himself or in his friends. But de Jars was proof alike
against feigned sympathy, intreaties, artful snares, and ferocious
threats. Not a word dropped from his lips by which any one could be
criminated. Laffemas had no sinecure office in conducting this iniquitous
affair; he was often lashed by de Jars with unsparing severity, as a
mendacious and deceitful coward; nor did the cardinal himself escape
without a full portion of stinging censure.
De Jars did not stop here. He determined to inflict a public disgrace
upon Laffemas. By dint of importunity, he obtained permission to hear
mass, on All Saints’ day, in the church of the Jacobins, where he knew
that Laffemas would be present. Thither he was taken, under a strong
guard. Watching the moment when, with downcast eyes and a Tartuffe
countenance, Laffemas was coming from the communion table, he broke from
his guards, and seized the judge by the throat. “Villain!” exclaimed he,
“this is the moment to confess the truth. Now; while your God is on your
lips, acknowledge my innocence, and your injustice in persecuting me. As
you pretend to be a Christian, act like one: if you do not, I renounce
you as my judge, and I call upon every one who hears me to bear witness
that I protest against your being so.”
This singular scene drew the wondering congregation round the parties.
But the people were by no means inclined to interfere in behalf of the
intendant, and some time elapsed before the soldiers could extricate
him from the gripe of the prisoner. Laffemas seems not to have been
deficient in courage. Undisconcerted by this sudden attack, he said, in a
conciliating tone, “Do not make yourself uneasy, sir; I assure you that
the cardinal loves you; you will get off with merely going to travel in
Italy: but you must first allow us to show you some billets, in your
own handwriting, which will convince you that you are more blameable
than you say you are.” “Such an insinuation,” remarks Anquetil, “was
not calculated to set him at ease. Richelieu, as Madame de Motteville
tells us, said that ‘with two lines of a man’s writing, however innocent
that man might be, he might be brought to trial; because, by proper
management, whatever was wanted could be found in them.’ Accordingly,
when de Jars heard talk of writing, he gave himself up for lost, but he
soon armed himself with renovated courage.”
The insinuation that written evidence existed was a falsehood. Fresh arts
were therefore employed, to obtain a confession. They were as fruitless
as all the former had been. Sentence of death was then passed; and, this
having been done, final efforts were made to move him, first by a promise
of pardon, next by the menace of torture. He treated both with contempt.
He was at last led to the scaffold; he ascended it with calm courage;
and, after once more asserting his innocence, he laid his head upon the
block. While he was waiting for the blow, and all earthly hopes must have
been dead in his bosom, he was suddenly raised up, and told that his life
was spared. As he was about to descend from the scaffold, the infamous
Laffemas approached, and besought him, in return for the king’s mercy, to
disclose whatever he knew respecting the misdeeds of Chateauneuf. But de
Jars disdainfully replied, “It is in vain that you seek to take advantage
of my disturbed state of mind; since the fear of death failed to extort
from me any thing that could injure my friend, you may be certain that
all your labour will be thrown away.[6]”
It is said that the whole of this scene—a disgraceful scene to all the
actors but one—was got up by Laffemas under the direction of Richelieu.
Packed as the judges were, it was supposed that, if they thought death
were to ensue, even they would shrink from pronouncing the guilt of a man
against whom there was not a shadow of proof. The pardon was, therefore,
shown to them, and they were told that the mockery of an execution was
only meant to intimidate the prisoner into the desired confession. But
of what stuff must judges have been made in those days, when they could
consent thus to violate the dignity of justice, and the feelings of
humanity, in order to gratify the malice of a minister.
From Troyes, de Jars was sent back to the Bastile. He remained there till
the spring of 1638, when he was liberated on condition of his immediate
departure, to travel in Italy. From Guy Patin’s letters, we learn that
the chevalier was indebted for his release to the intercession of Charles
I. of England and Henrietta Maria. He did not return to France till after
the decease of his persecutor.
De Jars was engaged in the early part of the political contest, which led
to the ridiculous war of the Fronde; but he seems to have been rather a
peacemaker than a firebrand, for he endeavoured to arrange matters, by
bringing about a reconciliation between Mazarin, with whom he had become
acquainted at Rome, and Chateauneuf, the keeper of the seals, of whom he
was a constant friend. He at length withdrew from the court, passed his
latter years in happy retirement, and died in 1670.
Nearly at the same time that de Jars was set free, the gates of the
Bastile were opened to admit three citizens of Paris, who had been guilty
of a crime which could not be overlooked; they had dared to remonstrate,
perhaps somewhat too roughly, against being robbed of the means of
subsistence. “They went,” says Guy Patin, “to M. Cornuel, and in some
degree threatened him, on a report being spread, that the payment of
the annuities receivable at the Town Hall was about to be suspended, and
the money to be applied _in usus bellicos_. The names of these three
annuitants are Bourges, Chenu, and Celoron, and they are all three _boni
viri optimeque mihi noti_. God grant, I pray, that no misfortune may
happen to them.” Whether the kind prayer of Patin was heard, we are not
told.
That such things should occur in a country governed as France was, is
quite natural. Richelieu brooked not even the shadow of opposition; and,
Louis, submissive slave though he was to an imperious minister, had all
the brutal pride of an Oriental despot. In two instances (out of many
which might be quoted), the one not long before, and the other shortly
after, this period, the monarch, to whom parasites prostituted the title
of “the just,” did not scruple to treat with contumelious insolence the
parliament of Paris, a body of magistrates, eminent for their learning
and other qualities. On the first occasion, having taken offence at a
request which they made, he told them that, “in future, whenever he came
to them, he should expect to be received outside the door of their hall,
by four presidents on their knees, as the custom had formerly been.”
The second time, when, with respect to the duke de Valette’s trial, the
president Bellièvre, in decorous but dignified language, remonstrated
with Louis on his gross violation of justice and proper feeling, in
wishing the judges to sit in his own palace, while he was present to
overawe them, he furiously replied, that he detested all those who
opposed his trying a duke and peer wherever he pleased. They were, he
told them, ignorant beings, unfit for their office, and he did not know
whether he should not put others in their place. “I will be obeyed,”
said he; “and I will soon make you see plainly that all privileges are
founded only on a bad custom, and that I will not hear them talked
about any more.” But from this—which, however, can scarcely be called a
digression—let us return to his captives in the Bastile.
During a part of the time that de Jars was in the Bastile, there was
within its walls a prisoner equally as brave, and of as honourable a
character, as himself. This was Adrian de Montluc, count de Cramail, born
in 1568, a grandson of that intrepid but cruel Montluc whose commentaries
were called by Henry IV. the Soldier’s Bible. In the second of Regnier’s
satires, which is addressed to Cramail, the poet winds up an animated
panegyric on him, by declaring that he proves “virtue not to be dead in
all courtiers.” There was more truth in this than is always to be found
in the eulogies lavished by a poet. It appears, from various authorities,
that he shone in conversation, was well informed, and was an honourable,
benevolent and judicious man. As a military officer, he earned reputation
in various battles. His conduct at the combat of Veillane, in 1630,
where Montmorenci utterly defeated a force five times as numerous as his
own, called forth a complimentary letter from cardinal Richelieu. “Fewer
lines than you have received blows,” says his eminence, “will suffice
to testify my joy that the enemy has cut out more work for your tailor
than your surgeon. I pray to God that, after such rencounters, you may
always have more to spend for clothes than plaisters; and that, for the
advantage of the king’s service, and the glory of those who have acquired
so much on this occasion, others of the same kind may often occur; among
which there will, I hope, be some that will enable me to convince you
that I am, &c. &c.”
The manner in which Richelieu proved his friendship for Cramail was by
sending him to the Bastile. It has been stated that Cramail was put into
confinement shortly after the Day of the Dupes, and his attachment to
the prince of Condé was the cause of it. This, however, appears to be a
mistake. Cramail was undoubtedly serving under Louis XIII. in Lorrain, as
late as 1635, at the period when the French arms were under a temporary
eclipse; and we learn from Laporte, and other writers, that, believing
the king’s person to be in jeopardy, the count advised him to return to
Paris. For this advice, reasonable as it was, he was incarcerated by
Richelieu. His imprisonment did not terminate till after the death of
the cardinal. He did not long survive his persecutor; his health was
broken by captivity and harsh treatment, and he died in 1646. Cramail
was the author of three works—“La Comédie des Proverbes;” “Les Jeux de
l’Inconnu;” and “Les Pensées du Solitaire.”
Among the contemporaries of Bassompierre, de Jars, and Cramail, within
the walls of the Bastile, there was another of equal rank, but not of
an equally noble mind. His hands were stained with blood; his earliest
promotion was bought by perpetrating a cowardly murder. This personage
was Nicholas de l’Hospital, marquis of Vitry, to whom I have slightly
alluded in my notice of the marchioness d’Ancre. He was the degenerate
son of a warrior, who was incapable of a dishonourable action. Vitry, who
was born in 1611, succeeded his father as captain of the royal guards,
and ingratiated himself with Luynes, the minion of Louis XIII. In concert
with Luynes, he formed the plan of assassinating marshal d’Ancre, who was
obnoxious to the king. Eager to win the marshal’s staff which was held by
Concini, Vitry let slip no opportunity of irritating the king against the
intended victim, and of pressing for permission to assassinate him. The
monarch hesitated for a while, not from virtue but from fear; he ended
by granting his sanction, and Vitry lost not a moment in acting upon it.
With his brother du Hallier, and an associate named Perray, he waited for
Concini at the entrance of the Louvre, and there the three confederates
despatched him with pistols, which they had kept concealed beneath their
cloaks. When Louis was informed that the deed was done, he had the
ineffable baseness to look out at the palace window, and exclaim, “Many
thanks to you, Vitry! I am now really king!” It must, however, be owned
that the baseness of the monarch was kept in countenance by that of his
courtiers and flatterers, who lauded the assassin as profusely as though
he had been the saviour of the state.
For this disgraceful service, Vitry was rewarded by the great object
of his ambition, the rank of marshal. On hearing of this, the duke of
Bouillon indignantly declared that he blushed at being a French marshal,
now that the marshal’s staff was made the recompense of one who traded in
murder.
Though, of the two favourites of the queen mother, Vitry had slain the
husband with his own hand, and thus been the cause of the wife’s public
execution, and though at that time he had treated her with disgusting
insolence, yet when, two years afterwards, a feigned reconcilement took
place between Mary of Medicis and her son, she allowed Vitry to be
presented to her. On this occasion a scene of dissimulation occurred,
which has not often been paralleled. Vitry bent to kiss the hem of her
garment, but she graciously stretched out her hand to raise him, saying,
at the same time, “I have always praised your affectionate zeal in the
king’s service.” To which, with equal sincerity, he replied, “it was that
consideration alone which induced me to do all that the king desired;
without, however, my having had the slightest idea of offending your
majesty.” If we cannot praise the parts which these actors played, we
must at least admit that they played them skilfully.
The military career of Vitry did not begin till the breaking out of
the war between the protestants and catholics, in 1621. Though he was
deficient in principle, he was not so in courage; in the course of the
war he distinguished himself upon many occasions, particularly in the
isle of Rhé and at the blockade of Rochelle. He obtained the government
of Provence in 1631, and he held it for six years. At the expiration of
that period, he was arrested, and sent to the Bastile. His having caned
an archbishop, and misused his authority in various cases, were among
the causes of his imprisonment. Richelieu said of him that, “though his
courage and fidelity rendered him worthy to govern Provence, yet it was
necessary to deprive him of office, because, being of a haughty and
insolent disposition, he was not fit to rule a people so jealous as the
Provençals were of their franchises and privileges.”
Vitry spent six years in the Bastile, from which prison he was not
released till after the death of cardinal Richelieu. During the latter
part of his imprisonment he participated in intrigues, which would have
brought him to the block had they been discovered. In conjunction with
Bassompierre, Cramail, and others, he entered into the plot of which
the gallant count de Soissons was the head. The state prisoners in the
Bastile were, at that period, allowed so much freedom of intercourse,
both with their friends and among themselves, that they had plenty of
opportunity to conspire. It was arranged, between Vitry, Bassompierre,
and their associates, that, as soon as Soissons had gained a victory,
they should seize the Bastile and the Arsenal, and call the citizens
of Paris to arms. De Retz is of opinion that the success of their
scheme would have been certain; but the death of Soissons, who fell
in the battle of Marfée, at the moment of his victory, prevented the
conspirators from carrying their design into effect. Fortunately for
those who were concerned, their secret practices were never disclosed
while cardinal Richelieu was alive.
Vitry was created a duke in 1644, but he died in a few months after he
obtained this title. He left a son, possessed of talent far superior to
his own, and who in character more resembled his grandfather than his
father.
The count de la Châtre, in his Memoirs, relates a circumstance respecting
the liberation of Vitry and his fellow prisoners. The anecdote shows,
among other things, to what an extent Louis XIII. was infected with what
Byron calls the “good old gentlemanly vice” of avarice. “The cardinal
(Mazarin) and M. de Chavigny,” says la Châtre, “solicited the king for
the deliverance of the marshals Vitry and Bassompierre, and the count
de Cramail. The means which they employed on this occasion deserve to
be recorded, as being rather pleasant; for, finding that the king was
not very willing to comply, they attacked him on his weak side, and
represented to him that these three prisoners cost him an enormous sum
to keep them in the Bastile, and that, as they were no longer able to
raise cabals in the kingdom, they might as well be at home, where they
would cost him nothing. This indirect mode succeeded, this prince being
possessed by such extraordinary avarice, that whoever asked him for money
was an insufferable burthen to him; so far did he carry this, that, after
the return of Treville, Beaupuy, and others, whom the violence of the
late cardinal (Richelieu) had, when he was dying, forced him to abandon,
he sought occasion to give a rebuff to each of them, that he might
prevent them from hoping to be rewarded for what they had suffered for
him.” Here we see a king beginning his reign by prompting his servants to
commit murder, and ending it by displaying cold-blooded ingratitude to
those who had been faithful to him—fit end for such a beginning!
From a noble, who stained his hands with blood, to win the favour of a
king, we gladly turn to a plebeian, who risked his life, rather than
violate his fidelity to the neglected and ill-used consort of that
monarch. Peter de la Porte was this plebeian, who, though his trials were
not carried to such a dreadful extent as those of the chevalier de Jars,
has a legitimate claim, as far as regards probity and firmness of mind,
to be placed in the same class with that distinguished character. La
Porte was born in 1603, and entered into the service of Anne of Austria
at the age of eighteen, as one of her cloak-bearers. It being suspected
that he was trusted by the queen, he was deprived of his office in 1626,
when a desperate attempt was made by the minister to implicate her in the
conspiracy of La Chalais. He then entered into her body guards. In 1631,
he was, however, allowed to resume his former situation.
Ever studying to abase the queen, Richelieu believed that he had at last
found an opportunity to accomplish his purpose effectually. This was in
1637[7]. That the queen should privately keep up some correspondence
with the king of Spain and the cardinal infant, who were her brothers,
and also with the persons whom she valued in the courts of Madrid and
Brussels, was natural, more especially in her discomfortable situation,
slighted as she was by her husband, and thwarted and misrepresented by
the minister and the minister’s satellites. But Anne of Austria had a
sincere attachment to France, and there is no reason to believe that her
letters contained anything which could prejudice her adopted country.
Yet, it was not advisable that they should come into the hands of a man,
who boasted that with only two lines of an innocent person’s writing he
could ruin him—a boast which could be made by no one that was not dead
to honour and shame. It was necessary, therefore, to provide a safe
place, where the correspondence might be deposited. The queen’s favourite
convent of Val de Grace, of which she was the foundress, was the place
which she chose. There Anne had an elegant apartment, or oratory, in
which, after her devotions were over, she could sometimes, free from the
constraint and heartlessness of the court, enjoy a few hours of social
intercourse with the inmates of the convent. One of the nuns received
the letters from Spain and the Netherlands, and placed them in a closet,
whence they were taken by the queen, whose answers were forwarded in the
same manner.
Richelieu, who had spies in all quarters, discovered the secret of the
correspondence which was carried on through the Val de Grace. He lost not
a moment in filling the mind of the weak Louis with phantoms of danger,
which was to arise from the queen’s unauthorised communications with her
relatives. The queen was hurried off by her husband to Chantilly, where
she was confined to her own room, scantily attended, and was obliged to
submit to being interrogated by the chancellor. Such was the baseness
of the courtiers that, believing her to be lost, not one of them would
venture even to look up at her window. Her confidential servants were
shut up in various prisons. The chancellor himself visited Val de Grace
to make a rigorous search for papers; but he found nothing. That he
failed in his search is not marvellous; for he is believed to have
previously contrived to give the queen notice of the intended visit. All
the papers had consequently been removed, and placed under the care of
the marchioness of Sourdis.
Foiled in this attempt to reach the secret, Richelieu tried whether it
might not be wrung from the servants of the queen. La Porte, as being
supposed to possess a large share of her confidence, was of course most
open to suspicion and persecution. There had, besides, been found upon
him a letter from the queen to the duchess of Chevreuse, who was then in
exile. In the month of August, 1637, he was committed to the Bastile.
Here he was repeatedly and severely questioned, but nothing to criminate
his royal mistress could be drawn from him. It was in vain that the
cardinal himself employed threats and promises, to obtain the information
which he so much desired. The obstinate fidelity of La Porte was not to
be shaken, even when the commissary showed him a paper, which he said
contained an order for applying to him the torture, and took him to the
room that he might see the instruments. He was equally proof to the fear
of death.
In May, 1638, it being then certain that, after being childless for
two-and-twenty years, Anne of Austria was in a situation to give an
heir to the throne, the liberation of La Porte was granted to her. He
was, however, exiled to Saumur, where he resided till the decease of
Louis XIII. When Anne became regent, she recalled him, and gave him a
hundred thousand francs, that he might purchase the place of principal
valet-de-chambre to the king. This office he held for several years.
But La Porte was too honest to prosper in a corrupt court. Sincerely
attached to the queen-regent, he thought it his duty to apprise her of
the degrading reports which were spread, on the subject of her long
interviews with Mazarin, and by this candour he cooled her friendship
and gratitude, while, at the same time, he incurred the enmity of the
cardinal himself, by communicating to her a circumstance, relative to
the young king, which Mazarin was desirous of keeping concealed. In
revenge, Mazarin deprived him of his place, and forbad him to appear at
court. It was not till after the death of the cardinal that La Porte was
again admitted to the king’s presence, and from him he met with a kind
reception. He died in 1680.
Alchemy, the rock on which the peace and fortune of numbers have been
wrecked, was still more fatal to Noel Pigard Dubois, a restless and
certainly unprincipled adventurer, whom it deprived of liberty and life.
He was a native of Coulomiers, adopted his father’s profession, that of
a surgeon, then abandoned it, and voyaged to the Levant, where he spent
four years. During his stay in the East, he studied the occult sciences.
Returning to Paris, he passed there four years of an obscure and often
intemperate existence, associating chiefly with pretenders to alchemical
knowledge. Caprice, or a sudden fit of devotion, next induced him to
enter a Capuchin convent, but he appears to have speedily become tired
of restraint, and accordingly he scaled the walls and escaped. At the
expiration of three years he re-embraced a monastic life, took the vows,
and was ordained a priest, in which character he was known by the name of
Father Simon. The quicksilver of his disposition seemed at length to be
fixed, for he continued to wear the monkish habit during ten years; but
he verified the proverb that the cowl does not make the monk, his unquiet
spirit was again roused into action, and he fled into Germany. There
he became a convert to the doctrines of Luther, and once more devoted
himself to seeking for the philosopher’s stone.
Hoping, perhaps, that there would be more believers, or fewer rivals,
in his own country than in Germany, he retraced his steps to Paris.
Probably he was himself half dupe, half knave, almost believing that he
had really found the great secret, but resolved at all events, to turn
his supposed skill to his own advantage. His first step was to abjure
protestantism; his next was to marry under a fictitious name. Rumours
of his wonderful hermetic discoveries were speedily bruited about. They
procured him the acquaintance of an Abbé Blondeau, an evidently credulous
man, who introduced him to Father Joseph, the favourite and confident
of Richelieu, as a person who might be useful to the state. For the
services which Dubois was to render, it was stipulated that his past
misdeeds should be buried in oblivion. France was at that time groaning
under a heavy load of taxation, money was raised by the most abominable
exactions; and, consequently, it was but just that an individual who
promised to procure supplies more innocently than by grinding the face
of the people, should be forgiven for offences which, though deserving
of punishment, were somewhat less iniquitous than systematic tyranny and
extortion.
It affords a striking proof to what an extent the delusions of alchemy
prevailed in that age, that the strong-minded Richelieu instantly grasped
at the bubble which floated before him. Had only the weak Louis done so,
there would have been no cause for wonder. But the minister was full
as eager as his nominal sovereign. It was arranged that Dubois should
perform the “great work” in the presence of the king, the queen, and a
throng of illustrious personages. The Louvre was the place at which the
new and never-failing gold mine was to be opened.
When the important day arrived, Dubois adroitly acted in a manner which
was calculated to inspire confidence. He requested that some one might
be charged to keep an eye on his proceedings. One of his body guards,
named Saint Amour, was chosen by the king for this purpose. Musket balls,
given by a soldier, together with a grain of the powder of projection,
were placed in a crucible, the whole was covered with cinders, and the
furnace fire was soon raised to a proper pitch. The transmutation was now
declared by Dubois to be accomplished, and he requested that Louis would
himself blow off the ashes from the precious contents of the crucible.
Eager to see the first specimen of the boundless riches which were about
to flow in upon him, the king plied the bellows with such violence, that
the eyes of the queen and many of the courtiers were nearly blinded with
the dust. At last a lump of gold emerged to view, and his transports
were boundless. He hugged Dubois with childish rapture, ennobled him,
and appointed him president of the treasury, nominated Blondeau a privy
counsellor, promised a cardinal’s hat to Father Joseph, and gave eight
thousand livres to Saint Amour. The master of perennial treasures could
afford to be generous.
The experiment is said to have been repeated, and with the same success
as in the first instance. Dubois must at least have been a clever knave,
an adept in legerdemain, to have deluded so many strongly interested
spectators, and that, too, in spite of the precautions which he had
himself daringly recommended, for the prevention of fraud.
But there was a rock on which the luckless adventurer was doomed to
split. Humbler patrons than he had found might for a long while have been
satisfied with the scanty portion of gold contained in the bottom of a
crucible; but the desires of his powerful friends were of a more greedy
and impatient kind, not to be fed with distant hopes, but demanding large
and immediate fruition. Richelieu loudly called upon the alchemist to
operate on an extensive scale; and he proved that it was necessary to do
so, by requiring that Dubois should furnish weekly a sum which should not
be less than six hundred thousand livres, about 25,000_l._ The startled
Dubois requested time to make the requisite preparations, and time
was granted. In truth, as the powder of projection was believed to be
procurable only by a protracted and laborious process, it was impossible
not to admit his claim for delay. The marvel is, that he did not avail
himself of the respite, to get beyond the reach of danger. When the day
arrived which he had named, he was of course compelled to own that he was
not yet prepared.
Suspicion being excited, he was imprisoned at Vincennes, whence he was
transferred to the Bastile. Offended pride and vanity and disappointed
cupidity are often cruel passions. To punish Dubois for his sins
against them, the cardinal appointed a commission to try him; but being
averse from coming forward in the character of a dupe, he ordered him
to be arraigned on a charge of dealing in magic. As the wretched man
obstinately persisted in denying his guilt, he was put to the torture.
To gain a brief reprieve from his sufferings, he offered to realise the
golden dreams which he had excited. Faith was not quite extinct in his
patrons, and he was allowed to make another experiment. It is needless to
say that he failed. Being thus driven from his last hold, he avowed his
imposture, was sentenced to death, and terminated his existence on the
scaffold, on the 23d of June 1637.
The battle of Thionville, which was fought in 1639, and terminated in
the defeat of the French, and the death of Feuquieres, their general,
gave two prisoners to the Bastile; not foreign enemies, or rebellious
Frenchmen, but officers who had combated for their country—the count de
Grancé and the marquis de Praslin. At Thionville, the troops under their
orders refused to advance, and finally ran away. It appears, from the
testimony of Bassompierre, that no blame was attributable to the count
or the marquis; they were nevertheless immured in the Bastile, though
it does not seem easy to discern how the cowardice of soldiers is to
be cured by imprisoning their officers. It was, however, in a similar
kind of spirit, only somewhat more barbarous, that in England, more
than a century afterwards, admiral Byng was sacrificed (murdered is the
proper word); not, as Voltaire sarcastically observes, “to encourage the
others,” but to divert public indignation from its proper objects. The
system was carried to a horrible length in France, during the reign of
terror. Less sanguinary, in this instance, than his imitators, Richelieu
contented himself with inflicting a short deprivation of liberty. The two
captives were restored to favour, and Grancé rose, in the next reign, to
the rank of marshal.
The next two cases which are on record, afford a striking proof of
the contempt in which Richelieu held justice and the law of nations,
whenever they chanced to stand in the way of his political schemes, and
the gratification of his vindictive spirit. On the death of the gallant
warrior, Bernard of Saxe Weimar, which took place in the summer of 1639,
the possession of his admirably trained army became an object which all
the belligerent powers were eager to obtain. Among those who sought the
prize was the Prince Palatine, a son of the unfortunate Frederic, who
lost the crown of Bohemia and his own hereditary states. The prince was
passing through France, from England, to enter on the negociation, when
he was arrested, and sent to the Bastile, under pretence of his being an
unknown and suspected person. Richelieu, meanwhile, pushed on his treaty
with the officers of the deceased duke, and succeeded in purchasing their
services for France. When this was accomplished, it was discovered that
the arrest of the Prince Palatine was a mistake, and he was consequently
set free.
The second case occurred in the following year, 1640, and was a still
more flagrant violation of international laws, and more fraught with
circumstances of baseness and malignity. Louis XIII. had a sister,
Christina, beautiful, accomplished, and of winning manners; in a word,
as worthy of being beloved as he was the contrary. This princess was the
widow of the duke of Savoy, who left to her the regency of his states,
during the minority of Emanuel Philibert, his son. On the decease of
her husband, the ambition of his brothers prompted them to grasp at the
reins of government, and, to effect their purpose, they called in the
aid of Spain. The duchess was sorely pressed by her enemies. In this
strait, nature and policy combined to make her apply to Louis for aid.
The appeals to him, in her letters, are often affecting. Richelieu was
willing enough to send succours, but he was determined that they should
be bought at an extravagant rate. His object, in truth, was to place
the dominions of the minor, and even the minor himself, at the mercy of
France. He not only required that certain fortresses should be delivered
up to him, but also that the young duke should be put into the hands of
the French king, that is to say, into his own. To bring this about, he
descended to the most unworthy intrigues and double dealing; alternately
calumniating the duchess to her brothers-in-law, and them to her, in
order to render impossible an accommodation between them. Borne down by
necessity, the duchess at length consented to admit French garrisons
into some of her fortresses, but she resolutely persisted in refusing to
surrender her son.
The firmness of the duchess was sustained by count Philip d’Aglie, one
of her principal ministers, a man of discernment and talent, who never
slackened in his hostility to the scheme of Richelieu. He feared that
the visit of the young duke to France would resemble the descent into
Avernus—“_Sed revocare gradum, hoc opus, hic labor est._” The cardinal
had hoped that, in an interview which the duchess had with Louis at
Grenoble, she might be cajoled or terrified into compliance. But on that
occasion her own firmness was backed by the presence of count d’Aglie,
and the expectations of the ungodly churchman were in consequence
frustrated. So irritated was he by his disappointment, that he proposed,
in council, to arrest the count; but, powerful and feared as he was, he
could not prevail upon the members to assent to this measure. It was
therefore postponed to a better opportunity. In the meanwhile, calumny
was set at work to blacken the character of the devoted individual, that
when the happy time arrived for pouncing upon him, he might excite no
sympathy. That the slander would wound the duchess also was a matter
of little concern to the personage by whom it was propagated. It was
roundly asserted, apparently without the shadow of a reason for it, that
an illicit intercourse subsisted between the duchess and the minister,
the latter of whom the cardinal, with an affectation of virtuous anger,
was pleased to designate as “the wretch who was ruining the reputation
of Christina.” It was not till the following year that he could succeed
in wreaking his malice on the count. As soon as the French troops
had recovered Turin from the Spaniards, Richelieu ordered d’Aglie to
be seized; and, in spite of the remonstrances of the duchess against
this gross violation of her sovereignty, he was hurried to France, and
confined in the Bastile. The date of the count’s deliverance, I am unable
to ascertain, but it is probable that his imprisonment was not protracted
beyond the life of the cardinal.
It appears to have been about this time that there was published a
bitter satire upon the cardinal, for which an unlucky author, who had
no concern with it, was conveyed to the Bastile. The satire bore the
title of “The Milliad,” from its consisting of a thousand lines. One
edition is intituled, “The Present Government, or the Eulogy of the
Cardinal.” It was attributed to Charles de Beys, a now-forgotten author,
who wrote three plays and some verses, and was lauded as a rival of
Malherbe, by a few of his ill-judging contemporaries. It must have been
some mischievous joker that ascribed “The Milliad” to him, for Beys was
not the sort of man to meddle with political satire, especially on such
a dangerous subject; he was of an indolent, convivial disposition, and
spent the largest portion of his time in enjoying the pleasures of the
table. He was, nevertheless, pent up in the Bastile, as the libeller of
the all-potent cardinal. Fortunately for him, he was able to prove his
innocence, was set at liberty, and continued to follow his former course
of life, till his constitution gave way, and he died, in 1659, at the age
of forty.
In the winter of 1642, Richelieu, who had so largely fed the prisons and
scaffolds of France, terminated his career of ambition and blood. There
is extant a letter which, while the cardinal was on his death bed, was
written to him by one of his victims, named Dussault. The letter bears
date on the first of December, three days previous to the decease of the
minister, and it seems never to have reached him. What was the offence of
Dussault is not known; from a broad hint which is given in his epistle,
it appears that he suffered for having refused to execute some sanguinary
order given to him by Richelieu. When he penned the following lines, he
had been more than eleven years an inmate of the Bastile.
“My Lord,—There is a time when man ceases to be barbarous and unjust;
it is when his approaching dissolution compels him to descend into the
gloom of his conscience, and to deplore the cares, griefs, pains, and
misfortunes, which he has caused to his fellow creatures: allow me to
say fellow creatures, for you must now see that of which you would never
before allow yourself to be convinced, or persuade yourself to know, that
the sovereign and excellent celestial workman has formed us all on the
same model, and that he designed men to be distinguished from each other
by their virtues alone. Now, then, my lord, you are aware that for eleven
years you have subjected me to sufferings, and to enduring a thousand
deaths in the Bastile, where the most disloyal and wicked subject of
the king would be still worthy of pity and compassion. How much more
then ought they to be shown to me, whom you have doomed to rot there,
for having disobeyed your order, which, had I performed it, would have
condemned my soul to eternal torment, and made me pass into eternity with
blood-stained hands. Ah! if you could but hear the sobs, the lamentations
and groans, which you extort from me, you would quickly set me at
liberty. In the name of the eternal God, who will judge you as well as
me, I implore you, my lord, to take pity on my sufferings and bewailings;
and, if you wish that He should show mercy to you, order my chains to be
broken before your death hour comes, for when that comes, you will no
longer be at leisure to do me that justice which I must require only from
you, and you will persecute me even after you are no more, from which
God keep us, if you will permit yourself to be moved by the most humble
prayer of a man who has ever been a loyal subject to the king.”
This application was made in vain. If the cardinal ever saw it, which
is doubtful, it failed to penetrate his iron heart; he “died, and made
no sign,” in favour of the wretched supplicant. From Dussault’s evident
despair of ever being freed except by Richelieu, it may be conjectured
that, as an agent of the minister, he had given inexpiable offence to
some one on whom power was now likely to devolve; and this supposition
is rendered more probable, by his captivity having been subsequently
protracted to an extraordinary length. It was not till the 20th of June,
1692, that he was dismissed, after having languished in the Bastile for
sixty one years! At his advanced age,—for he must at least have been
between eighty and ninety—he could scarcely have deemed the boon of
liberty a blessing. In the common course of nature, all his kindred and
friends must have been gone, and as his habits were wholly unfitted for
the turmoil of the world, and he was, perhaps, exposed to want, it is
not unnatural to conclude that he may have been a solitary and starving
wanderer for the brief remainder of his existence. A situation more
forlorn than this it would be difficult to imagine.
CHAPTER VII.
Reign of Louis XIV.—Regency of Anne of Austria—Inauspicious
circumstances under which she assumed the regency—George
de Casselny—The count de Montresor—The marquis de
Fontrailles—Marshal de Rantzau—The count de Rieux—Bernard
Guyard—Broussel, governor of the Bastile—The duchess of
Montpensier orders the cannon of the Bastile to be fired on
the king’s army—Conclusion of the war of the Fronde—Surrender
of the Bastile—Despotism of Louis XIV.—Slavishness of the
nobles—John Herauld Gourville—The count de Guiche—Nicholas
Fouquet—Paul Pellisson-Fontainier—Charles St. Evremond—Simon
Morin—The Marquis de Vardes—Count Bussy Rabutin—Saci le
Maistre—The duke of Lauzun—Marquis of Cavoie—The chevalier
de Rohan—A nameless prisoner—Charles D’Assoucy—Miscellaneous
prisoners.
The regency of Anne of Austria commenced under auspices which were not
of the most favourable kind. For a long series of years she had been
persecuted by a tyrant minister, and discredited and humiliated, in every
possible manner, by an unfeeling husband. It would be a tedious task
to enumerate all the slights and injuries to which she was exposed; a
specimen may suffice. To avoid the disgrace of being sent back to Spain,
she had been compelled to confess before the Council a fault which she
everywhere else disavowed, and of which it is improbable that she was
guilty; on her bringing Louis XIV. into the world, she had suffered a
stinging insult from her consort, who had pertinaciously refused to give
her the embrace which was customary on such occasions—an insult which
affected her so deeply that her life was endangered; when he was on the
brink of the grave, and she earnestly sought to remove his prejudices
against her, he coldly replied to Chavigni, who was pleading her cause,
“In my situation I must forgive, but I am not obliged to believe her;”
and, in settling the regency, he would fain have excluded from it the
object of his hatred, but, that being impracticable, he took care to
shackle her authority in such a way as would have left her scarcely more
than the mere title of regent. Her having been childless for twenty-two
years, and been treated in child-bed with such marked aversion by him,
were also circumstances which were well calculated to throw dangerous
doubts on the legitimacy of the infant sovereign. Yet Anne of Austria
triumphed over all this, procured the setting aside of her deceased
husband’s arrangements, obtained unlimited power, and for five years
governed France without opposition, and with a considerable enhancement
of its military fame. It was not till the troubles of the Fronde broke
out that she encountered unpopularity and resistance.
During the peaceable period of the queen mother’s government, the
Bastile seems to have had but few inmates, at least few whom history has
deemed worthy of being recorded; and during the war of the Fronde, and
even before, the castle of Vincennes was the prison which received the
captives of the highest class, such as the duke of Beaufort, the prince
of Condé, and cardinal de Retz.
The first prisoner in the Bastile, of whom any notice occurs during
the regency, was a Spanish agent, named George de Casselny. Philip
IV. of Spain had recently lost his consort Elizabeth, and it appears
that Casselny was commissioned to make overtures for the monarch’s
marriage with that singular female the duchess of Montpensier, a woman
who had more manly qualities than her vacillating father, the duke of
Orleans. “There was a certain Spaniard, named George de Casselny (says
the duchess, in her memoirs), who had been made prisoner in Catalonia,
and was on his parole, he went to M. de Surgis, at Orleans, to request
that he would procure for him an interview with Monsieur (the duke of
Orleans), who put him off till he could see him at Paris. In consequence
of this delay, the Spaniard’s intention got wind, and he was put into
the Bastile, and the cardinal (Mazarin), told Monsieur that it was a man
who wanted to divert him from the service of the king by this proposal
of marriage; which Monsieur believed and still believes. Many persons,
however, affirm, that it was not a pretext, and that this gentleman had
orders to make solid and sincere propositions for the marriage of his
king with me, which he had thought it proper to communicate to Monsieur,
before he made them known to the court. Nevertheless, this poor creature
was kept a prisoner for several years, and when he was set at liberty, he
was sent out of the kingdom under a guard.”
The next prisoner was one who, for a long period, was closely connected
with Monsieur, the father of the duchess. Claude de Bourdeille, count de
Montresor, was born about 1608, and was a grand-nephew of that pleasant
but unscrupulous writer Brantome, who bequeathed to him his mansion of
Richemont. Montresor was early admitted into the train of the duke of
Orleans, and at length became his confidential friend, whom he consulted
on all occasions. He availed himself of his influence to keep at a
distance from the duke all the friends of Richelieu, to incite him still
more against that minister, and to link him in confederacy with the count
of Soissons. In 1636, he went much further. In conjunction with Saint
Ibal and others, he formed a plan for assassinating the cardinal, and to
this plan the duke and the count gave their assent. The murder was to
be perpetrated as the minister was leaving the council chamber; Saint
Ibal was behind him, ready to strike the blow, and waited only for an
affirmative sign from the duke; but at this critical moment, either the
courage of Orleans gave way, or his conscience smote him, for he turned
away his head, and hurried from the spot. The cardinal consequently
escaped.
While Montresor was subsequently busy in Guyenne, labouring to induce the
duke of Epernon and his son to take up arms for Monsieur, he was suddenly
abandoned by his employer, who made his own peace with Richelieu.
Montresor now retired to his estate, where, for more than five years,
he lived in the utmost privacy. He had, however, secret interviews with
Monsieur, and, at his solicitation, he engaged in the conspiracy of Cinq
Mars. Again he was deserted by him, and more disgracefully than in the
first instance; for the dishonourable prince did not scruple to disavow
the proceedings of his agent, and to aver that Cinq Mars and Montresor
were the persons who had misled him. Montresor would have ascended the
scaffold with Cinq Mars and de Thou, had he not prudently taken refuge in
England, whence he did not return till the cardinal was no more.
When the government devolved on Anne of Austria, the enemies of Richelieu
had reason to hope that they would become the dominant party. The
haughty bearing which this hope led them to assume, obtained for them
the appellation of “The Cabal of the Importants.” They soon, however,
contrived to disgust the queen-regent; and before twelve months had
elapsed, Montresor, Chateauneuf, the duchess of Chevreuse, and several
others of the faction, were ordered to quit the court. Montresor retired
for a while to Holland. Late in 1645, he visited Paris, and, soon after,
two letters to him, from the exiled duchess de Chevreuse, having been
intercepted, Mazarin sent him to the Bastile. The prisoner was removed
to Vincennes, where he was rigorously treated for fourteen months. At
length, moved by the solicitations of Montresor’s relatives, the cardinal
set him at liberty, and even offered him his friendship. Montresor,
however, chose rather to league himself with Mazarin’s bitterest foe,
the celebrated Coadjutor, afterwards the cardinal de Retz, and he took
an active part in the war of the Fronde. In 1653 he was reconciled to
the court, and from that time till his decease, which occurred in 1663,
he led a peaceable life. Though ambition and a propensity to political
intrigue could lead him to dip his hands in blood, Montresor is said to
have had many social qualities, to have been generous, sincere, and a
firm and ardent friend. His “Memoirs” form a valuable contribution to the
history of his times.
Among the agents of the duke of Orleans was Louis d’Astarac, marquis
of Fontrailles, a descendant from an ancient Armagnac family. When
the conspiracy of Cinq Mars was formed, Fontrailles was dispatched to
Spain, to negociate with the Spanish cabinet a treaty, for assistance
to the conspirators. By this treaty, Spain engaged to furnish the duke
of Orleans with 12,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, 400,000 crowns to
raise levies in France; and a monthly allowance of 12,000 crowns for
his private expenses. But, before any step could be taken to carry the
treaty into effect, the conspiracy was rendered abortive. Fontrailles,
against whom an order of arrest had been issued, was fortunate enough to
escape to England. The death of the cardinal and of his vassal sovereign,
which took place soon after, enabled the proscribed fugitive to return
to France. He became one of the Cabal of the Importants, and shared in
the downfall of that faction. In the summer of 1647, he was sent to
the Bastile; for what fault he was imprisoned I know not, or when he
was released. Guy Patin intimates that the charge was not of a capital
nature. Fontrailles died in 1677.
The next who passes before us is a brave and injured soldier. Count
Josias de Rantzau was descended from an ancient family of Holstein,
thirty-two members of which are said to have greatly distinguished
themselves. The fidelity of this family to its sovereigns was so
remarkable, that the expression “As faithful as a Rantzau to his king,”
passed into a proverb. Josias was born in 1610, and seems first to have
borne arms in the Swedish service; he commanded a body of Swedes at
the siege of Andernach, headed the Swedish left wing at the combat of
Pakenau, and was present at the siege of Brisac. In 1635, he accompanied
the celebrated Oxenstiern into France, where Louis XIII. appointed him
a major-general, and colonel of two regiments. The subsequent career of
Rantzau was often successful, and was never stained with disgrace. He
effectually covered the retreat of the French after the raising of the
siege of Dole, victoriously defended St. Jean de Lône against Galas, bore
a conspicuous part in the subsequent campaigns in Flanders and Germany,
and was twice maimed at the siege of Arras, and displayed signal valour
at the siege of Aire. Fortune deserted him at the combat of Honnecourt
and the battle of Dutlingen, in 1642 and 1643, and in both instances he
was taken prisoner. She, however, soon became favourable to him. Between
1645 and 1649, he made himself master of Gravelines, Dixmude, Lens, and
all the maritime towns of Flanders. To reward his services he received
the government of Gravelines and Dunkirk, and was raised to the rank of
marshal. Mazarin, nevertheless, suspected him of being connected with his
enemies, and in February, 1649, the marshal was conveyed to the Bastile,
where he remained for eleven months. His innocence being at length
ascertained, he was set at liberty; but a dropsy, which he had contracted
in his confinement, proved fatal to him in the course of a few months.
He died in September 1650. Rantzau was possessed of brilliant valour,
much talent and military skill, and spoke all the principal languages of
Europe; his only defect was an inordinate love of wine. Like our Nelson,
but even in a greater degree, his person had been severely mutilated; he
had lost an ear, an eye, a leg, and an arm. To this fact the following
epitaph alludes:
“But half of great Rantzau this tomb contains,
The other half in battle fields remains;
His limbs and fame he widely spread around,
And still, though mangled, conqueror was he found:
His blood a hundred victories did acquire,
And nothing but his heart by Mars was left entire!”
A brawl brought to the Bastile, in 1652, the count de Rieux, a son of the
duke of Elbœuf. A dispute with the prince of Tarentum, as to precedence,
gave rise to it. The prince of Condé, the great Condé, was the other
actor. “The prince of Condé,” says the duchess of Montpensier, “took the
part of the prince of Tarentum, who is nearly related to him, against the
count de Rieux, and one day he got heated in the dispute; he imagined
that the count de Rieux had pushed him, which obliged him to return it by
a box on the ear; the count de Rieux then gave him a blow. The prince,
who had no sword, made a dart at that of the baron de Migenne, who was
present. M. de Rohan, who was also there, put himself between them, and
got out the count de Rieux, whom his royal highness (the duke of Orleans)
sent to the Bastile, for having dared to fail in respect. Many persons
say, that the prince struck first; if he did so, he must have taken some
gesture of the count for an insult, for though he is very passionate,
he is not so much so as to do an action of this kind. I saw him after
dinner, and he said, ‘You see a man who has been beaten for the first
time in his life.’ The count de Rieux remained in the Bastile till the
arrival of M. de Lorraine, who set him free, and blamed him very much.”
It must have been a ludicrous sight, to see a prince of the blood, the
victor of Rocroi, Fribourg, Nordlingen, and Lens, at fisticuffs amidst a
ring of courtiers, in the palace of the duke of Orleans! “This was not
the way,” remarks Voltaire, “to regain the hearts of the Parisians.”
The leaders of the Frondeur faction were by no means tolerant of censure,
even when it came from clerical lips. Bernard Guyard, a dominican, had
reason to repent his having too honestly indulged in it. Guyard, who
was born in 1601, at Craon, in Anjou, took the religious habit, and was
admitted, in 1645, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and became popular for
his pulpit eloquence, so much so that Anne of Austria appointed him
her preacher, and the duchess of Orleans chose him as her confessor.
While the war of the Fronde was being carried on—a war of which it has
wittily and truly been said, that it ought to be recorded in burlesque
verse—Guyard ventured to reprobate, in the pulpit, the conduct of those
ambitious and unprincipled personages by whom its flames had been lighted
up. The punishment of his offence followed close upon the commission of
it. As he was leaving the church, he was arrested, and conveyed to the
Bastile, where he continued for some months. He died in 1674, at which
period he was theological professor in the convent of St. James. All
his works have long since ceased to attract notice, with the exception,
perhaps, of “The Fatality of St. Cloud,” which is a paradoxical attempt
to prove that not Clement, nor a Dominican, but a leaguer, disguised as a
monk, was the murderer of Henry III.
During the war of the Fronde, the Bastile, for a short time, and for
the last, was again a fortress as well as a prison; but in the latter
character its services were only once required. When, in 1649, the
queen-regent suddenly quitted Paris with the young king, she imprudently
neglected to throw into the Bastile a garrison. It was guarded by only
twenty-two soldiers, who had neither ammunition nor provisions. Du
Tremblai, the governor, was therefore obliged to yield. The custody of
the fortress was committed to Peter Broussel, for whose deliverance
the Parisians had risen in arms on the day of the Barricades, and from
whom he had received the flattering appellations of the father and
the protector of the people. As Broussel was an aged man, his son, La
Louvière, was joined with him in the government. In 1652, Broussel was
appointed provost of the merchants, and the keeping of the Bastile
remained with La Louvière alone.
The two pieces of cannon which, in 1649, the Parisians fired at the
Bastile to hasten its submission, would have been the only artillery
employed, either against it or by it, had not the daring of a woman
brought its guns into action. The duchess of Montpensier, who was called
Mademoiselle, had recently distinguished herself by her spirited conduct
at Orleans. Being sent by her father to that city, to encourage his
partisans, she was at first refused admittance, but she forced her way
in, through a hole in a gate, roused the people in her favour, and
succeeded in preventing the king’s troops from occupying that important
post. She was now at Paris, and soon found a fresh opportunity to display
her courage and presence of mind. On the second of July, 1652, the
sanguinary battle of the suburb of St. Anthony was raging; the army of
the prince of Condé, overborne by the far superior numbers which Turenne
led against him, could barely hold its ground; the prince had in vain
entreated for its admission at various gates; the enemy, reinforced,
was preparing for a new attack on its front and flanks; and, pent in
between the king’s troops and the city walls, its destruction seemed
to be inevitable. At this perilous moment it was saved by the duchess
of Montpensier. First from her father, and next from the municipal
authorities sitting at the Town Hall, she in a manner extorted an order
for opening the gate of St. Anthony to the nearly overwhelmed battalions
of Condé. She then ascended to the summit of the Bastile, and directed
the cannon to be charged, removed from the city side, and pointed to the
opposite quarter. They were opened upon the royalists, who pressed on the
retreating Condéans, and their commanding fire compelled the pursuers to
fall back beyond their range. Mademoiselle was at that time cherishing
a hope that she should be united to her cousin the king, or at least to
some crowned head; and it was with allusion to this circumstance that,
when he heard she had ordered the firing, Mazarin coolly remarked, “Those
cannon shots have killed her husband.”
Four months did not pass away before, tired of wasting their lives and
properties in a contest which could benefit only the privileged classes,
the Parisians invited the king to return to his capital. The monarch
entered it on the 21st of October, 1652. The faction of the Fronde was
annihilated, and its leaders were scattered in all directions; their
vanity, selfishness, and utter want of principle and patriotism,
deserved such a fate. Had they been animated by noble motives, had they
possessed even a moderate share of wisdom and virtue, they might have
laid the groundwork of a stable and beneficent government, and thereby
saved their country from innumerable immediate and remote evils. But
“The sensual and the base rebel in vain,
Slaves by their own compulsion!”
As soon as the king had entered Paris, the Bastile was summoned, and La
Louvière was informed that, if he were rash enough to stand a siege, the
gibbet would be his portion. Too prudent to run so useless and formidable
a risk, he readily gave up his charge. From the moment when Mademoiselle
directed its fire upon the king’s troops, a hundred and thirty-seven
years elapsed before the Bastile again heard the roar of artillery fired
in anger.
One of the first acts of Louis XIV. was to hold a bed of justice, in
which he ordered the registration of an edict to abridge the power of
the parliament. By this edict, the parliament was strictly prohibited
from deliberating on state and financial affairs, and instituting any
proceedings whatever against the ministers whom he might be pleased
to employ. Louis was then only a boy of fourteen, and this act was of
course the work of Mazarin; but, young as he was, the monarch was already
thoroughly imbued with the principles on which it was framed. Three
years afterwards he gave a striking proof of this. The parliament having
ventured to manifest a faint opposition to some of his many oppressive
fiscal edicts, he took a step which showed how deeply despotism was
ingrained into his character. He was engaged in the chase, at Vincennes,
when information was brought to him that his will was disputed. Hurrying
back to Paris, he entered the parliament chamber, the sanctuary of
justice, booted, spurred, whip in hand, and thus addressed the assembly
of venerable magistrates: “Sirs, everybody knows the calamities which
the meetings of the parliament have produced. I will henceforth prevent
those meetings. I order you, therefore, to desist from those which you
have begun, with respect to the edicts which, in my late bed of justice,
I directed to be registered. You, Mr. First President, I forbid to allow
of these assemblies; and I forbid every one of you to demand them.”
Having thus spoken he departed, leaving his hearers in astonishment. He
was then a beardless youth, who had not reached his seventeenth year. The
members of the parliament might well have called to mind the words of
Scripture—“If these things are done in the green tree, what will be done
in a dry?” Six years afterwards Mazarin died, and thenceforth Louis had
no prime minister; he became, in every sense of the word, the head of the
government, the autocrat of France.
A new era, that of abject submission to the monarch, and almost
idolatrous worship of his person and greatness, commenced when the war
of the Fronde was over. The slaves had had their Saturnalia, and they
sank back—we may almost say rushed back—into a slavery more degrading
than that from which they had for a moment emerged. There were no longer
any Epernons, ruling their provinces as they pleased, and bearding the
sovereign; the feudal pride was extinct. This would have been a happy
circumstance for France, had the nobles, in losing their pride, preserved
their dignity. But from one extreme they passed to the other. The power
which they had lost, which was, in fact, but the power of doing mischief,
they might have replaced by a power more honourable and durable, that
which would have arisen from promoting the welfare and happiness of those
whom they called their vassals. But their extensive domains were looked
on only as mines, from which the last grain of gold was to be extracted,
that they might squander it in the capital. It seemed as though it were
impossible for them to exist out of the king’s presence; and when they
were excluded from it, they lamented and whined in a manner which excites
at once wonder and contempt. The consequences of this general prostration
were slowly, but surely and fatally, unfolded.
Let us revert to the captives of the Bastile. The destiny of John Herauld
Gourville, who was born in 1625, was a singular one; he not only raised
himself from a humble state to be the companion and friend of princes,
but was appointed to be one of the representatives of his sovereign
while in exile, and while a Parisian court of justice was hanging him in
effigy as a convicted runaway peculator. After having received a scanty
education, he was placed in an attorney’s office by his widowed mother.
Having by his cleverness fortunately attracted the notice of the duke
de la Rochefaucault, the author of the “Maxims,” that nobleman made
him his secretary. During the war of the Fronde, Gourville displayed
such talent and activity, that he acquired the warm friendship of his
employer and the prince of Condé. His gratitude engaged him in many
desperate adventures for their service, and the mode in which he raised
the supplies for them was sometimes not much unlike that of a bandit; the
moral code of the Frondeurs was not remarkable for its strictness. When
Rochefaucault became weary of the inglorious contest in which he was an
actor, Gourville negotiated the duke’s peace with the court; and in doing
this he manifested so much ability and prudence, that Mazarin despatched
him to Bordeaux, to treat with the prince of Conti. In this mission he
was successful; and he was rewarded by being appointed commissary-general
of the French army in Catalonia. At the close of the campaign of 1655, he
returned to Paris, and Mazarin, who suspected that he came to intrigue
for the prince of Conti, shut him up in the Bastile. In his Memoirs,
Gourville candidly confesses that his six months’ imprisonment was
insufferably wearisome, and that he could think of little else than how
he should put an end to it. He was maturing a plan of escape, in concert
with six other prisoners, when the cardinal relented, took him again into
favour, and even prevailed on Fouquet to give him the lucrative place of
receiver-general of the province of Guienne. In this office Gourville
amassed an immense fortune, which he increased by his extraordinary
good luck at play. When Fouquet fell, the whole of his subalterns were
involved in his fall; but, far from deserting him in his calamity,
Gourville nobly furnished 100,000 livres to assist in gaining over some
of his enemies, and a still larger sum for the establishment of his
son, the count de Vaux. He soon, however, became himself an object of
impeachment, on a charge of peculation, and he deemed it prudent to quit
France. At that moment there was certainly no chance of his obtaining
a fair trial. After having visited England and Holland, he settled at
Brussels. Though he was compelled to live in a foreign country, Gourville
still preserved a strong affection for his native land, and he proved it,
by influencing the princes of Brunswick and Hanover in favour of France.
For this patriotic conduct Louis XIV. nominated him his plenipotentiary
at the court of Brunswick; while at the same moment his enemies at Paris
obtained against him a degrading sentence from his judges! That not a
love of justice, but a desire to extort money from him, gave rise to his
being prosecuted, is made evident by Colbert having offered a pardon,
at the price of 800,000 livres, which he afterwards reduced to 600,000.
Gourville, however, either could not or would not purchase this costly
commodity. He was subsequently employed as a diplomatist in Spain, and
again in Germany; and at length in 1681, a free pardon was granted to
him. From that time he led a tranquil life in the French capital, in
habits of friendship with, and much beloved by, the most eminent men of
genius and rank. At one period there was an intention of making him the
successor of Colbert, as comptroller-general of the finances, an office
for which he was well qualified; but he had ceased to be ambitious of
dangerous honours, and was happy to avoid them. The length of time which
his servants continued in his service, and the cordial manner in which he
speaks of them, afford strong proofs of his kind-heartedness: never did a
selfish or harsh master long retain a domestic. Haughtiness to inferiors
is the miserable make-shift of a man who has no true dignity to support
his pretensions. Gourville mentions four persons who had been with him
for fifteen, seventeen, twenty-five, and thirty-two years. He died in
1703, at the age of seventy-eight. His Memoirs, which he composed in four
months, to amuse himself while he was confined by a disease in the leg,
are deservedly praised by Madame de Sévigné and Voltaire.
The next who appears on the scene was a noble, whom Madame de Sévigné
characterizes as “a hero of romance, who does not resemble the rest of
mankind.” This is somewhat exaggerated, but not wholly untrue. Armand
de Grammont, Count de Guiche, who was born in 1638, was a proficient in
all manly exercises, splendid in dress and equipage, spirited, witty,
well educated, handsome in person, and cultivated in mind. His valour
was early proved, at the sieges of Landrecy, Valenciennes, and Dunkirk.
In a voluptuous court, and with his attractive qualities, it is not
wonderful that Guiche was engaged in amorous intrigues. His desire of
conquest aimed so high—Henrietta Stuart, Duchess of Orleans, was its
great object—that Louis XIV. thrice exiled him; and it was probably on
this account that he became an inmate of the Bastile, from which prison
he was released in the autumn of 1660. Having a third time offended, he
was sent to Poland, where he distinguished himself in the war against
the Turks. At the end of two years, he was recalled; but it was not long
before he again fell into disgrace, by participating in the despicable
conduct of the Marquis de Vardes, which will be described in the sketch
of that courtier’s career. Guiche was banished to Holland. Too active
to remain unemployed, he served in the campaign against the Bishop of
Munster, and on board the Dutch squadron, in the sea-fight with the
English, off the Texel. He was allowed to return to France in 1669,
but was not re-admitted at court till two years afterwards. It was he
who, in 1672, led the way at the celebrated passage of the Rhine, near
Tollhuis; an exploit which is extravagantly lauded by Boileau. He died
at Creutznach, in Germany, in 1673; excessive chagrin, occasioned by
Montecuculi having defeated him, was the cause of his death. Guiche is
the author of a volume of Memoirs concerning the United Provinces.
The first important act of Louis XIV., after his taking the
administration of public affairs into his own hands, was the disgracing
and ruining Fouquet, the superintendant of the finances. Nicholas
Fouquet, a son of Viscount de Vaux, was born at Paris, in 1615, and
was educated for the legal profession. At twenty he was master of
requests, and at thirty-five he filled the very considerable office of
attorney-general to the parliament of Paris. It would have been happy
for him had he steadily pursued his career in the magistracy, instead
of deviating into a path that was beset with dangers. During the
troubles of the Fronde he was unalterably faithful to the queen-mother,
and in gratitude for this she raised him, in 1652, to the post of
superintendant. It was a fatal boon.
By all who were connected with it, the French treasury seems, in those
days, to have been considered as a mine which they were privileged
to work for their own benefit. Mazarin had recently been a wholesale
plunderer of it; and there can be little doubt that Fouquet was a
peculator to a vast extent. Yet the superintendant had one merit, which
was wanting in other depredators—though he took, he likewise gave; for
at one period, when money ran short, he mortgaged his property and his
wife’s, and borrowed on his own bills, to supply the necessities of the
state.
The fatal failing of Fouquet was his magnificent extravagance. He had a
taste for splendour and lavish expenditure, which might have qualified
him for an oriental sovereign. On his estate at Vaux he built a mansion,
or rather a palace, which threw into the shade the country residences
of the French monarch—for Versailles was not then in existence. Whole
hamlets were levelled to the ground to afford space for its gardens. The
building was sumptuously decorated, and in every part of it was painted
his device, a squirrel, with the ambitious motto “_Quo non ascendam?_”
Whither shall I not rise? It is a curious circumstance, that the squirrel
was represented as being pursued by a snake, which was the arms of
Colbert, the bitter enemy of Fouquet. The edifice cost eighteen millions
of livres; a sum equivalent to three times as much at the present day.
The largesses of the superintendant, which in many cases deserve the name
of bribes, were immense. Great numbers of the courtiers did not blush
to become his pensioners. On extraordinary occasions they also received
presents from him. Each of the nobles, who was invited with Louis XIV. to
the grand entertainment at Vaux, found in his bed-chamber a purse filled
with gold; which, says a sarcastic writer, “the nobles did not forget to
take away.” There was another abundant source of expense, which arose
out of his licentious passions; he lavished immense sums in purchasing
the venal charms of the French ladies of distinction, and was eminently
successful in finding sellers. “There were few at court,” says Madame de
Motteville, “who did not sacrifice to the golden calf.” Policy, no doubt,
had a share in prompting his liberality to the courtiers; and, perhaps,
it sometimes was mingled with lust and vanity in his gifts to frail
females of rank; but we may attribute to a purer motive the kindness and
courtesy which he manifested to persons of talent. The result was quite
natural; the great deserted him in his hour of danger and disgrace, the
people of talent clung with more tenacity than ever to their fallen
benefactor and friend.
Mazarin, when on his death-bed, is said to have awakened the fears and
suspicions of Louis against Fouquet; and, to deepen the impression which
he had made, he left behind him two deadly foes of the superintendant.
These foes were Le Tellier and Colbert, of whom the latter was the most
inveterate and the most dangerous. When Louis formed the resolution of
being his own prime minister, Fouquet, who evidently wished to succeed to
the power of Richelieu and Mazarin, essayed to turn the monarch from his
purpose, by daily heaping on him a mass of dry, intricate, and erroneous
financial statements. He failed in his attempt. These papers the king
every evening examined, with the secret assistance of Colbert, whose
acuteness and practised skill instantly unravelled their artful tangles,
and exposed their errors.
It was not alone the squandering of the royal treasure that irritated
Louis; though that would have been a sufficiently exciting cause to a
man whose own lavish habits required large supplies. He asserted, and
might perhaps believe, that the offender aspired to sovereignty. In a
long conversation with the president Lamoignon, he said, “Fouquet wished
to make himself duke of Britanny, and king of the neighbouring isles;
he won over every body by his profusion: there was not a single soul in
whom I could put confidence.” So much was he impressed with this idea,
that he repeated it over and over to the president. For this absurd fear
there was no other ground than that the superintendant had purchased and
fortified Belleisle; a measure which was prompted by patriotic motives,
it being his design to make that island an emporium of commerce. There is
said to have been another and a not less powerful cause for the monarch’s
hatred of Fouquet; the superintendant had been imprudent enough to
attempt to include La Vallière in the long catalogue of his mistresses,
and this was an offence not to be pardoned by the proudest and vainest of
kings.
As soon as the ruin of Fouquet was determined upon, the most profound
dissimulation was used by the king and Colbert, to prevent him from
suspecting their purpose. All his measures seemed to give perfect
satisfaction; unlimited trust was apparently placed in him; and hints
were thrown out, that the coveted post of prime minister was within
his reach. The hints had a further purpose than that of blinding him
to the peril in which he stood; they were meant to rob him of a shield
against injustice. By virtue of his office, as attorney-general to the
parliament, he had the privilege of being tried only by the assembled
chambers; but, as it was intended that his trial should take place before
a packed tribunal, it was necessary to divest him of the privilege. For
this reason it was insinuated, that the post of attorney-general stood in
the way of his being raised to the premiership, and also of his obtaining
the blue riband. Fouquet fell into the snare, and sold his office for
1,400,000 livres, which sum, with a blind generosity, he instantly lent
to the Exchequer. To confirm Fouquet’s delusion, Louis graced with his
presence a gorgeous festival which was held at Vaux. But the splendour
of the place, the excessive magnificence of the entertainment, and the
presumptuousness of the superintendant’s motto, roused his anger to such
a pitch, that, had not the queen-mother remonstrated, he would have
committed the unkingly act of arresting Fouquet on the spot.
When the courage inspired by passion had evaporated, Louis delayed yet
awhile to effect his purpose, till he had guarded in all possible ways
against the danger which was to be apprehended from the formidable
conspirator. Had Fouquet been capable of calling up legions from the
earth by the stamp of his foot, more precautions could not have been
taken. The blow was struck at last. Louis was at Nantes, to which city
he had removed under the idea that it would be easier to accomplish the
arrest there than at Paris. Thither he was followed by Fouquet. Some of
the superintendant’s friends warned him of the peril which hung over him,
but he gave no credence to their tidings. On the 5th of September, 1661,
as he was leaving the council, he was arrested, and was conveyed without
delay to the castle of Angers. Messengers were immediately despatched
to Paris, to seize his papers, and to order the arrest of many of his
partisans.
Fouquet was bandied about from prison to prison, from Angers to Amboise,
Moret, and Vincennes, till he was finally lodged in the Bastile. He
bore his misfortune with an unshaken mind. His enemies, meanwhile,
were proceeding with the most malignant activity, and with a perfect
contempt of justice and decorum. It was the common talk of Paris, that
Colbert would be satisfied with nothing less than the execution of the
superintendant. He was even plainly charged by Fouquet with having
fraudulently made in his papers a multitude of alterations. Le Tellier,
though less openly violent than Colbert, was equally hostile. For the
trial of the prisoner twenty-two commissioners were picked out from
the French parliaments; nearly all—if not all—of them were notoriously
inimical to him, or connected with persons who were known to be so, and
at their head was the chancellor Seguier, one of his most deadly enemies.
One benefit the fallen minister derived from this injustice, and from
the protracted trial which ensued; public opinion, which at first had
been adverse to him, gradually grew more and more favourable. Fouquet the
peculator, brought to judgment before an honest and impartial tribunal,
would have excited no sympathy; Fouquet, persecuted by his rivals for
power, and destined to be legally assassinated, could not fail to excite
a warm interest in the mind of every one who was not destitute of
honourable feelings.
Those who were in habits of intimacy with Fouquet needed no other
stimulus than the benefits or the winning courtesies, which they had
experienced from him. He had on his side all who loved or practised
literature, all who could be captivated by prepossessing manners and
boundless generosity. “Never,” says Voltaire, “did a placeman have
more personal friends, never was a persecuted man better served in his
misfortunes.” Many men of letters wielded the pen in his behalf, with a
courage which deserves no small praise, when we consider that the Bastile
was staring them in the face. Pelisson in his dungeon tasked all his
powers to defend his ruined master; La Fontaine, in a touching elegy,
vainly strove to awake the clemency of Louis; Loret eulogized Fouquet in
his “Mercure Burlesque,” and was punished by the loss of his pension;
Hesnault, the translator of Lucretius, attacked Colbert in the bitterest
and boldest of sonnets; and a crowd of other assailants showered epigrams
and lampoons on the vindictive minister. The authors were, in general,
lucky enough to find impunity; but numbers of newswriters, printers, and
hawkers, were seized, all of whom were imprisoned, and some were sent
from prison to the galleys.
Fouquet began by denying the competency of the tribunal before which
he was summoned. He was, however, compelled to appear; but, though
he answered interrogatories, he persisted in protesting against the
authority of his judges. He defended himself with admirable skill,
eloquence, and moderation. There were, indeed, moments when he was roused
to retaliate. A single example of the pungency with which he could
reply, will show that his persecutors were not wise in provoking him.
Behind a mirror, at his country house of St. Mandé, was found a sketch
of a paper, drawn up by him fifteen years before, and evidently long
forgotten by him. It contained instructions to his friends how they were
to proceed, in case of an attempt being made to subvert his power. This
was construed into a proof of conspiracy. Seguier having pertinaciously
called on him to own that the drawing up of such a paper was a crime
against the state, Fouquet said, “I confess that it is a foolish and wild
act, but not a state crime. A crime against the state is when, holding
a principal office, and being entrusted with the secrets of the prince,
the individual all at once deserts to the enemy, engages the whole of his
family in the same interest, causes governors to open the gates of cities
to the enemy’s army, and to close them against their rightful master, and
betrays to the hostile party the secrets of the government—this, sir, is
what is called a crime against the state.” This was a stunning blow to
the chancellor, for it was the past conduct of that magistrate himself
that was thus forcibly described by the prisoner.
The trial lasted three years. It was not the fault of some of his
judges that it was not brought to a speedier issue. They listened with
reluctance to his eloquent defence, and would fain have cut it short.
Possort, one of them, who was an uncle of Colbert, once exclaimed, on
Fouquet closing his speech, “Thank Heaven! he cannot complain that he
has been prevented from talking his fill!” Others, still more insensible
to shame, made a motion, that he should be restricted to the mere
answering of questions; they were, however, overruled. It was not till
the middle of December, 1664, that Talon, the advocate-general, summed
up the evidence, and demanded that the culprit should be hanged on a
gallows, purposely erected in the Palace Court. But the time for this
excessive severity was gone by. Some of the judges had become accessible
to feelings of pity; others had been won over by the potent influence
of gold, of which the superintendant’s friends undoubtedly availed
themselves to a considerable extent. Among the most conspicuous of those
who leaned to the side of mercy were MM. d’Ormesson and Roquesante, men
of unquestionable integrity. Only nine voted for death; a majority of the
commissioners, thirteen in number, gave their suffrage for confiscation
of property and perpetual banishment.
The king is said to have been grievously disappointed by this sentence.
Colbert was furious. In one of her letters, written at the moment, Madame
de Sévigné, who had a warm esteem for Fouquet, says, “Colbert is so
exceedingly enraged, that we may expect from him something unjust and
atrocious enough to drive us all to despair again.” In another letter,
she hints her fears that poison may be employed; Guy Patin was also of
the same opinion. Neither poison nor steel was, however, resorted to; it
was probably thought that to render the life of Fouquet a burthen to him,
would be a more exquisite gratification than taking of it away. To grant
mercy has always been regarded as the noblest prerogative of a monarch;
to refuse it was more to the taste of Louis. He altered the sentence of
Fouquet from banishment to endless imprisonment in a remote fortress,
and this was in mockery called a commutation of the penalty. Fouquet was
immediately sent off to Pignerol, and the members of his family, who were
doomed to suffer for his errors, were scattered in various directions.
His judges did not wholly escape without marks of the king’s anger. M. de
Roquesante, a native of the sunny Provence, who had spoken in favour of
the prisoner, was banished, in the depth of winter, to the distant and
imperfectly civilised province of Lower Britanny.
On his way to Pignerol, and during his captivity there, Fouquet was
treated with great harshness. About six months after his arrival, he was
placed in imminent danger. The lightning fell on the citadel where he was
confined, and blew up the powder magazine. Numbers of persons were buried
under the ruins, but he stood in the recess of a window and remained
unhurt. There is a singular veil of mystery hanging over his last days.
He is generally said to have died at Pignerol, in 1680; yet Gourville,
his friend, positively states him to have been set at liberty before his
decease, and he adds, that he received a letter from him. Voltaire, too,
declares that the fact of the liberation was confirmed to him by the
Countess de Vaux, the daughter-in-law of Fouquet; but here all clue to
the subject is lost. It has recently been suggested that Fouquet may have
again been arrested, and that he was the individual who is known by the
appellation of the Man in the Iron Mask.
While fidelity in friendship, inviolably preserved under the most trying
circumstances, shall continue to be admired by mankind, the name of Paul
Pelisson will always be mentioned with respect. He had talents, too,
which were of no mean order. Pelisson, who from affection to his mother
assumed also her maiden name of Fontanier, was born in 1624, at Bezières,
and was brought up in the Protestant faith. He attained an early and
rapid proficiency in literature and languages; nor were severer studies
neglected—for at the age of only nineteen he produced an excellent Latin
paraphrase of the first book of Justinian’s Institutes. He was beginning
to shine at the bar when he was attacked by small-pox. The disease so
excessively disfigured his countenance, and impaired his constitution,
that he was under the necessity of relinquishing his profession, and
retiring into the country to recruit his health.
As soon as Pelisson was again able to take a part in active life, he
settled in Paris. It was not long before he acquired a multitude of
friends; and the French Academy, in return for a history which he wrote
of its early labours, made him a supernumerary member, and destined
for him the first vacancy which should occur. Fouquet, who knew his
abilities, appointed him his chief clerk, and reposed in him an implicit
confidence, which was well deserved. Had Fouquet followed the advice
of his assistant, who counselled him never to part with his office of
attorney-general, he would have done wisely. When this advice came to the
knowledge of Louis, he said “the clerk is more sharp-sighted than the
master.”
Pelisson shared the fate of Fouquet; he was sent to the Concièrgerie,
whence he was removed to the Bastile. All attempts to elicit from him the
secrets of the superintendant were made in vain. Once only, to answer a
purpose, he seemed to make a disclosure. Fearing that, from not knowing
whether the documents were in existence, Fouquet might commit himself
in his answers to certain questions, Pelisson feigned to divulge some
unimportant particulars which related to the subject. Fouquet, who was
astonished at this seeming defection of his friend, was confronted with
him, and denied the correctness of what had been stated: “Sir,” said
Pelisson, in an emphatic tone, “You would not deny so boldly if you did
not know that all the papers concerning that affair are destroyed.”
Fouquet instantly comprehended the stratagem, and acted accordingly.
In the early part of his confinement, Pelisson found means to compose
three memorials in defence of Fouquet. For eloquence and argument they
may be considered as his masterpieces; they were published, and produced
a strong impression. As a punishment, he was still more closely immured,
and pen and paper were withheld from him; but he contrived to foil his
persecutors, by writing, with ink made of burnt crust and wine, on the
blank leaves and margins of the religious works which he was allowed to
read. They were equally unsuccessful when, hoping that he might drop some
unguarded words, they gave him, as an attendant, a spy, who concealed
cunning under the mask of coarse simplicity. Pelisson saw through the
deception, and adroitly converted the spy into an instrument of his own.
The imprisonment of Pelisson lasted four years and a half. Among the
means which he employed to beguile his lonely hours is said to have been
that of taming a spider; a task which he effected so completely, that at
a signal, it would fetch its prey from the further end of the room, or
even take it out of his hand. It is, however, doubtful whether Pelisson
was the person who performed this. De Renneville, who is good authority
on this subject, ascribes the taming of the spider to the Count de
Lauzun, and adds, that the jailer, St. Mars, brutally crushed the insect,
and exclaimed that criminals like Lauzun did not deserve to enjoy the
slightest amusement.
The solicitations of Pelisson’s friends at length procured his release;
in memory of which he ever after yearly liberated some unfortunate
prisoner. After some lapse of time, he was even received into the good
graces of Louis, who probably thought that the man who had been faithful
to a ruined minister would not be wanting in fidelity to his sovereign.
It was, besides, no small merit in the king’s eyes, that Pelisson had
become a Catholic. Louis first appointed him his historiographer, with a
pension; then gave him several valuable benefices; and, lastly, entrusted
him with the management of the fund which was employed in purchasing
proselytes. Pelisson died in 1693.
Pelisson was not the only literary character who was drawn into
the vortex by the sinking of Fouquet. The gay and witty Epicurean
philosopher, St. Evremond, was punished for the crime of being a friend
of the fallen superintendant. Charles St. Evremond was born in 1613, at
St. Denis le Guast, near Coutances. From the study of the law, and the
prospect of a high station in the magistracy, he was seduced by his love
of arms, and, at the age of sixteen, he obtained an ensigncy. He still,
however, retained his taste for philosophy and literature. By his bravery
he acquired the esteem of his superiors; and that esteem was heightened
by his varied acquirements and the charm of his conversation. That he
might always enjoy the pleasure of his society, the Duke of Enghien
appointed him lieutenant of his guards. In this post St. Evremond fought
gallantly at Rocroi, Fribourg, and Nordlingen, in the last of which
battles he was dangerously wounded. His familiar intercourse with the
prince was not of long duration; Enghien delighted to see others exposed
to the wit and raillery of his lieutenant, but he could not endure to be
himself their object; St. Evremond ventured to aim some pleasantries
at his princely protector, and the great Condé had the littleness to
take offence, and to insist on the offender resigning his commission
in the guards. In the war of the Fronde, St. Evremond served the royal
cause with pen and sword, and he was rewarded with a pension and the
rank of major-general. Some satirical remarks on Mazarin, which he soon
after made at a dinner party, were the cause of his being thrown into
the Bastile. Mazarin, however, was not of an implacable nature, like
his predecessor Richelieu. At the expiration of three months he set the
prisoner free, took him into favour, and afterwards, from among a crowd
of rivals, selected him as his companion, when he went to negociate the
peace of the Pyrenees. Dissatisfied with the terms of that peace, St.
Evremond gave vent to his dissatisfaction, in a private letter to the
Marshal de Créqui. In writing it he unconsciously wrote his own sentence
of banishment. A copy of it was found among the papers of Fouquet; and
Colbert, who rejoiced to have an opportunity of injuring a friend of
Fouquet, malignantly represented it in such a light to Louis XIV. that
an order was issued to convey the author to the Bastile. St. Evremond
was riding in the forest of Orleans when he received intelligence from
his friends of the danger that hung over him. As he did not wish to
pay a second visit to a state prison, he provided for his safety by an
immediate and rapid flight. In England he was welcomed with open arms,
and was idolized by the wits and courtiers. In 1664 he visited Holland,
where he met with an equally cordial reception, and gained the friendship
of the Prince of Orange. Charles II. invited him to return to England, in
1670, and settled on him a pension. Henceforth, till his decease, which
took place in 1703, he continued to reside in London. His friends in
France made repeated efforts to obtain his recall; but they could not
succeed till 1689, when Louis XIV. was pleased to grant their request.
St. Evremond refused to accept the tardy boon. Living at his ease in a
free country, and in the highest society, and admired and esteemed by
the fair, the witty, and the noble, he was too wise to put himself into
“circumscription and confine,” and purchase the privilege of bending
before a despotic monarch, at the risk of being condemned to solitary
meditation in one of the towers of the Bastile. St. Evremond was ninety
when he died, but he preserved his faculties to the last. He was interred
in Westminster Abbey. His poetry never rises above mediocrity, and does
not always reach it; but his prose is often excellent. Justice has
scarcely been done to him either by La Harpe or Voltaire.
A harder fate than that of voluntary exile was the lot of Simon Morin,
an insane visionary, a man of humble birth, who was born about 1623,
at Richemont, in Normandy. His horrible death, which was in fact a
judicial murder, perpetrated by a fanaticism far worse than his own,
leaves an indelible stain on the character of the judges by whom it was
directed. Morin was originally a clerk in the war-office, but lost his
situation by neglecting his duties; and he subsequently gained a scanty
subsistence as a copyist, for which he was well qualified by the beauty
of his handwriting. His reason appears to have been early affected,
as he must have been under twenty when he was first put into prison
for his extravagant ideas in religious matters. After his release, he
seems to have gradually become more and more deranged. Like all madmen
of his class, however, he gained numerous proselytes, who listened to
his harangues, and read his printed reveries, with implicit belief.
His success drew on him the attention of the government, and, in July
1644, he was sent to the Bastile. At the expiration of twenty months he
was set at liberty. Imprisonment had only heightened his malady, and
he consequently laboured with more vigour than ever to disseminate his
opinions. Those opinions he embodied in a work intituled, “Thoughts of
Morin, with his Canticles and Spiritual Quatrains,” dedicated to the
king. He called himself the Son of Man, and maintained that Christ was
incorporated in him; that in his person was to take place the second
advent of the Saviour in a state of glory; and that the result would be
a general reformation of the Church, and the conversion of all people to
the true faith. There was much more of the same kind; he was in France
what Brothers, long afterwards, was in England. Of his tenets, several
bear a resemblance to those which, later in the 17th century, were held
by the Quietists. The publication of this volume again brought the police
upon him. For some time he eluded them, but he was at last discovered,
and re-committed to the Bastile. In 1649, he retracted his errors, and
was released, and he repeated his retractation four months after his
being set free. It was not long, however, before he relapsed, and for
this he was sent to the Concièrgerie, whence he was transferred to the
Petites Maisons, as an incurable lunatic. The last was the only sensible
measure which was adopted with respect to him. By another abjuration, he
once more recovered his liberty; and, as soon as he was let loose, he
once more asserted his claim to be an incarnation of the Deity. There can
be little doubt that he had short lucid intervals, and that it was during
these intervals that he renounced his errors.
Thus, alternately raving and recanting, Morin went on till 1661, when,
in an evil hour, he contracted an intimacy with a man who was no less a
visionary than he himself was, and whose nature was deeply tinctured with
malignity and deceit. This man, John Desmarets de St. Sorlin, a member
of the French Academy, was the author of several works, now sunk into
oblivion, among which are a ponderous epic, called Clovis, and several
theatrical pieces. From his own showing, he appears to have been in youth
a monster of immorality; and though in advanced life he affected piety,
his conduct did not prove his heart to be much ameliorated; he became
fanatical instead of becoming virtuous. A brief specimen, from some of
his rhapsodies, will show how completely his wits were “turned the seamy
side without.” He asserted, that God in his infinite goodness had given
him the key of the treasure of the Apocalypse; that he was Eliachim
Michael, a Prophet; that he had the Divine command to raise an army of
144,000 men, bearing the seal of God on their foreheads, which army was
to be headed by the king, to exterminate the impious and the Jansenists;
and that Louis XIV. was indicated by the prophets as the person who was
destined to drive out the Turks, and extend throughout the whole earth
the kingdom of Christ. Had not Desmarets been a hater of the Jansenists,
and a flatterer of the monarch, he would undoubtedly have been sent to
study the Apocalypse in the solitude of a prison.
The trite proverb, that “two of a trade cannot agree,” was verified by
Desmarets; he resolved to destroy the man who dared to make pretensions
that eclipsed his own. To effect his purpose, he acted with the cunning
of a lunatic, and the dark-heartedness of a fiend. By paying assiduous
court to Morin, by pretending to be one of his most submissive disciples,
and even by going so far as to write him a letter, unequivocally
recognising him as the Son of Man, he contrived to insinuate himself into
the confidence of his unfortunate victim, and to draw from him his most
secret thoughts. In the course of their conversations, Morin is said to
have declared, among other things, that unless the king acknowledged
his mission he would die. Having thus furnished himself with evidence
against the man whom he had deluded, Desmarets hastened to denounce him
as a heretic and traitor. Orders were issued for arresting Morin, who
was found engaged in copying out a “Discourse to the King,” which began
with “the Son of Man to the King of France.” He was brought to trial, and
was sentenced to be burned alive. Some of his followers were condemned
to whipping and the galleys. The iniquitous judgment passed on Morin was
executed on the 14th of March, 1663. At the stake his reason seems to
have returned; he repeatedly called on the Saviour and the Virgin, and
humbly prayed for mercy to the Creator of all things.
Little commiseration is due to him whose imprisonment is next recorded;
his baseness met with deserved punishment. Francis René Crispin du Bec,
Marquis of Vardes, was of a good family, and served with reputation in
Flanders, France, Italy, and Spain. During the war of the Fronde, he was
constant to the royal party; and it was doubtless his zeal and fidelity
on this occasion which acquired for him the friendship of Louis XIV. He
rose to high rank in the army; was made captain-colonel of the Hundred
Swiss in 1655; and, next year, succeeded the Duke of Orleans in the
government of Aigues-Mortes, and was invested with the various orders of
knighthood. He was on the point of being created a duke and peer, when
the discovery of a dishonourable act of which he had been guilty, stopped
his promotion, and deprived him of his liberty. Louis had chosen Vardes
as his friend, and had confided to him his passion for the celebrated
Mlle. de la Vallière, who was one of the maids of honour to the Duchess
of Orleans. It appears that the duchess and her friend, the Countess of
Soissons, and their lovers, the Count de Guiche and Vardes, had hoped,
by means of La Vallière, to obtain a predominant influence over Louis.
But the royal mistress loved Louis with a sincere and disinterested
affection, and was not disposed to become the instrument of court
intriguers. It was resolved, therefore, to oust her, and substitute in
her stead Mlle. de la Mothe Houdancourt, who, it was imagined, would
be more subservient. To effect this object, Vardes wrote a letter,
purporting to be from the Spanish monarch, to his daughter the French
queen, informing her of her consort’s connection with la Vallière; it
was translated into Spanish by Guiche. The letter, however, fell into
the hands of Louis. While endeavouring to discover the author, the king
consulted Vardes, and Vardes was so ineffably base as to lead him to
believe that the offender was the Duchess of Noailles. The duchess, a
woman of strict virtue, had the superintendence of the queen’s maids of
honour, and had already dissatisfied Louis by her vigilant care of her
charge. He therefore readily believed the suggestion of Vardes, and,
without farther inquiry, deprived the duchess and her husband of all
the places which they held, and ordered them to retire to their estate.
For three years the perfidy of Vardes remained a secret, and it would
perhaps always have remained so, had he not caused a disclosure of it, by
conduct which was at once a flagrant breach of confidence to his friend,
the Count de Guiche, and a gross insult to the Duchess of Orleans. He
obtained possession of the letters written by the count to the duchess,
and refused to give them up; and he incited the Chevalier de Lorraine to
make offensive advances to her. This proceeding brought on a quarrel, the
result of which was that the king became acquainted with the treachery of
the man whom he had trusted. Vardes was sent to the Bastile in December,
1664, from whence he was removed to the citadel of Montpellier, where he
was closely confined for eighteen months. He was at length allowed to
reside in his government of Aigues-Mortes; but eighteen years passed away
before he was recalled to the court. He is said to have employed in study
the period of his exile, and to have made himself generally esteemed in
Languedoc. When, after his long banishment, he was graciously received
by the king, Vardes was dressed in the fashion of his early days, and,
when Louis laughed at the antique cut of his coat, the supple courtier
replied, “Sire, when one is so wretched as to be banished from you, one
is not only unfortunate, but ridiculous!” Vardes did not long enjoy his
re-establishment in the royal favour; he died in 1688.
To Vardes succeeds another noble, Count Roger Bussy de Rabutin, who,
though he is not accused of such baseness as that of which Vardes was
guilty, was by no means a model of delicacy and virtue. He seems, indeed,
to have been of opinion, that honour and honesty were not necessary
qualities in the persons whom he had about him; for, in his Memoirs,
he coolly describes one gentleman, who was of his train, as having all
his life been a cutpurse; and another, on whom he bestows praise for
some things, as being addicted to every vice, and no less familiar
with robbery and murder than with eating and drinking. Such being his
laxity of principles, it is no wonder that he sometimes participated in
disgusting orgies, and was even suspected of feeling a more than parental
love for Madame de la Rivière, his daughter. Bussy de Rabutin was born
in 1618, entered the army when he was only twelve years of age, served
in all the campaigns between 1634 and 1663, and attained the rank of
lieutenant-general. His bravery was undoubted, but his vanity, arrogance,
and satirical spirit, made him numerous enemies among his brother
officers. On one occasion he lampooned Turenne, and that great general,
deviating from his usual magnanimity, avenged himself by writing to the
king, that “M de Bussy was the best officer in the army—for songs.” In
1641, Bussy was an inmate of the Bastile for five months. The defective
discipline of his regiment, and its having engaged in smuggling salt,
was the ostensible cause of his imprisonment; he himself assigned as
the reason, that his father was hated by Desnoyers the minister. The
same faults by which his companions in arms had been converted into
foes, proved his ruin at court. He wrote a libellous work, called “The
Amorous History of the Gauls,” which was published in 1665, and excited
a general outcry among the personages whom it describes. Bussy affirms,
that it was sent to the press without his consent, and even with
malignant alterations and additions, by an unfaithful mistress, to whom
he entrusted the manuscript. This production was made the pretext for
committing him to the Bastile; but it is said that his real offence was
a song, in which he ridiculed the king’s passion for the Duchess of la
Vallière. His imprisonment lasted twenty months, and he candidly owns, in
his Memoirs and Letters, that it was not very patiently endured. By dint
of importunity, seconded by an illness with which he was attacked, he at
length recovered his liberty. During his captivity, he was compelled to
resign, for a much less sum than it cost him, the major-generalship of
the light cavalry. But though Bussy was released, he was not pardoned;
he was banished to his estate. Notwithstanding his abject supplications,
which were incessantly renewed, he remained an exile for sixteen years.
At last, in 1682, he was graciously permitted to re-appear at court.
His happiness was, however, still incomplete; for the courtiers soon
began to cabal against him, and the monarch to treat him coldly; and,
though he succeeded in procuring a pension for himself, and pensions and
preferments for his children, he failed to obtain the blue riband and a
marshal’s staff, which were the great objects of his ambition. He died in
1693.
A longer term of imprisonment than was undergone by Bussy Rabutin fell to
the lot of the next prisoner. Among the victims of the persecution which
was carried on against the Jansenists, was Louis Isaac le Maistre, better
known by the name of Saci, which is an anagram formed by him from one of
his christian names. He was born in 1613, and was educated at the college
of Beauvais, along with his uncle, the celebrated Anthony Arnauld. Though
he was early destined to the clerical profession, he did not take orders
till he was in his thirty-fifth year; a praiseworthy humility having
long induced him to doubt his being competent to fulfill properly the
duties of a gospel minister. He was soon after appointed director of the
Port Royal nuns, on which occasion he took up his abode in the convent,
resigning to it all his property, except a small annuity, and of that he
distributed the largest portion to the poor. His time was spent in study,
prayer, and pious exercises. But a blameless life was not sufficient to
shield him from theological hatred. In 1661, he was compelled to fly
from the convent, and he remained in concealment till 1666, when he was
discovered and conveyed to the Bastile. In that prison he was immured for
three years and a half, and he solaced his lonely hours by undertaking a
translation of the Bible, a considerable part of which he accomplished
while he was held in durance. He, however, did not live to complete it.
In the autumn of 1669 he was set at liberty. The minister, to whom he was
presented on leaving the Bastile, seems to have been willing to grant him
some favour, as a compensation for his unmerited sufferings; but all that
Saci asked was, that the prisoners might be more leniently treated. After
the destruction of Port Royal, he found an asylum in the house of his
cousin, the Marquis of Pomponne, and there he ended his days, in 1684.
Saci was such an enemy to controversy that, though often attacked, he is
said never to have replied except in one instance. Voltaire speaks of him
as “one of the good writers of Port Royal.” In the poetical compositions
of Saci, which were his earliest literary attempts, there are passages
that rise above mediocrity. Among his principal works, besides his
version of the Bible, are translations of the Psalms, St. Thomas à
Kempis, two books of the Eneid, the Fables of Phædrus, and three of the
Comedies of Terence.
From the pious and humble pastor we must turn to a very different sort
of personage, to one of the courtier species, a man more remarkable for
his sudden rise, and for the vicissitudes which he experienced, than for
genius or virtue. Three of his eminent contemporaries have left on record
their opinion of Antoninus de Caumont, Count, and afterwards, Duke of
Lauzun. The witty Bussy Rabutin pithily describes him as being “one of
the least men, in mind as well as body, that God ever created.” The more
phlegmatic Duke of Berwick says of him, “he had a sort of talent, which,
however, consisted only in turning every thing into ridicule, insinuating
himself into every body’s confidence, worming out their secrets, and
playing upon their foibles. He was noble in his carriage, generous,
and lived in a splendid style. He loved high play, and played like a
gentleman. His figure was very diminutive, and it is incomprehensible how
he could ever have become a favourite with the ladies.” The satirical St.
Simon has drawn, in his best manner, a full-length portrait of Lauzun,
which has scarcely a single redeeming feature. He does, indeed, allow,
that he was a good friend, “when he chanced to be a friend, which was
rarely,” and a good relation; that he had noble manners, and was brave
to excess. This is the sole speck of light in the picture; the rest is
all shade. In the likeness drawn by St. Simon, we see Lauzun, “full
of ambition, caprices, and whimsies, jealous of every one, striving
always to go beyond the mark, never satisfied, illiterate, unadorned and
unattractive in mind, morose, solitary, and unsociable in disposition,
mischievous and spiteful by nature, and still more so from ambition and
jealousy, prompt to become an enemy, even to those who were not his
rivals, cruel in exposing defects, and in finding and making subjects for
ridicule, scattering his ill-natured wit about him without sparing any
one, and, to crown the whole, a courtier equally insolent, scoffing, and
base even to servility, and replete with arts, intrigues, and meannesses,
to accomplish his designs.” Such was the man whom the king long delighted
to honour.
Lauzun, who at his outset bore the title of Marquis de Puyguilhem, was
the youngest son of a noble Gascon family, and was introduced at court
by the Marshal de Grammont, his relation. He soon became the favourite
of Louis, who heaped riches and places upon him: some of the latter
were expressly created for him. When the Duke of Mazarin resigned the
mastership of the ordnance, the king promised it to Lauzun, but bound
him to keep the matter secret for a short time. The folly and vanity of
the favourite, who could not refrain from boasting of his good fortune,
were the cause of his disappointment. Louvois thus obtained a knowledge
of the nomination, and remonstrated against it so strongly, and with such
sound reasons, that it was revoked by the monarch. On this occasion a
scene took place such as has seldom occurred between monarch and subject.
After having vainly tried to persuade the king to carry into effect his
original intention, Lauzun burst into a furious passion, turned his
back on him, broke his own sword under his foot, and vowed that he would
never again serve a prince who had violated his word so shamefully.
Louis acted in this instance with true dignity. Opening the window, he
threw out his cane, and, as he was quitting the room, he coolly said, “I
should be sorry to have struck a man of rank.” The next morning, however,
Lauzun was conveyed to the Bastile. But Louis was soon induced to forgive
the offender, and even to offer him, as an indemnity for his loss, the
post of captain of the royal guards. It strongly marks the insolence of
Lauzun, that he at first refused the proffered grace, and that entreaties
were required to induce him to accept it.
Lauzun had scarcely been twelve months out of the Bastile, before
he had an opportunity of becoming the richest subject in Europe. A
grand-daughter of Henry IV., the celebrated Duchess of Montpensier,
usually known by the appellation of Mademoiselle, who had reached her
forty-second year, fell violently in love with him. In her Memoirs she
gives a curious and amusing account of her wooing, for the courtship
was all on the side of the lady. So completely had Lauzun recovered his
influence, that the king gave his consent to their union. The marriage
contract secured to him three duchies and twenty millions of livres. A
second time his fortune was marred by his vanity. His friends urged him
to hasten the nuptials, but he delayed, that they might be celebrated
with royal splendour. Of this delay his enemies availed themselves to
work upon the pride of the monarch, and they succeeded in breaking off
the match. The duchess was rendered inconsolable by this event; Lauzun
seems to have borne it with sufficient philosophy. A secret marriage
between them is believed to have subsequently taken place.
Lauzun was supposed to be now more firmly fixed than ever in the
king’s good graces. He was placed at the head of the army which, in
1670, escorted the king and the court to Flanders, and he displayed
extraordinary magnificence in this command. But, flattering as
appearances were, he was on the eve of his fall. He had two active and
powerful enemies; Louvois, whom he constantly thwarted and provoked in
various ways, and Madame de Montespan, the king’s mistress, whom he
had more than once grossly insulted. Political rivalry and hatred and
female revenge were finally triumphant. The minister and the mistress
so incessantly laboured to blacken Lauzun, whose private marriage with
Mademoiselle is said to have aided their efforts, that, in November 1671,
he was sent to the Bastile, whence he was soon after removed to the
fortress of Pignerol. In that fortress he was closely confined in a cell
for nearly five years. His situation was at length somewhat ameliorated,
but his imprisonment was continued for five years more. It is probable
that he would have spent the rest of his days at Pignerol, had not the
Duchess of Montpensier purchased his freedom, by sacrificing the duchy
of Aumale, the earldom of Eu, and the principality of Dombes, to form an
appanage for the illegitimate son of Louis by Madame de Montespan. It is
an additional stain on the character of Lauzun, that he proved ungrateful
to his deliverer.
Though Lauzun was released, he was not suffered to approach the court.
Tired of his exile from Versailles, he passed over to England. On the
revolution of 1688 breaking out, James placed the queen and the infant
prince under his care, to be conveyed to France. This trust opened the
way to his re-admission into the royal presence, and to his being created
a duke; but he never regained the confidence of the monarch. He led a
reinforcement of the French troops to James in Ireland; and displayed, as
the Duke of Berwick states, none of the qualities of a general. He died
in 1723, at the age of more than ninety. The closing scene of his life
was perhaps the only one for which he deserves praise. His disease was
cancer in the mouth, the protracted and horrible torture of which he bore
with astonishing temper and fortitude.
The severe example which was made of de Bouteville, in the reign of Louis
XIII., though it gave a temporary check to the practice of duelling,
was far from putting an end to it. Nor did better success attend the
ordinances issued in 1634 by Louis XIII., and in 1643, 1651, and 1670,
by Louis XIV. The feebleness of the royal authority, during a disturbed
regency, and the war of the Fronde, with the quarrels arising out of it,
doubtless tended to neutralize the laws. But, even when Louis XIV. was
in uncontested possession of despotic power, we find that the murderous
custom of fighting in parties was still existing. In 1663, a famous duel
took place between the two La Frettes, Saint Aignan, and Argenlieu,
on the one side, and Chalais, Noirmoutier, d’Antin, and Flamarens, on
the other. The axe was at length laid to the root of the evil, by the
edict of August 1679, which constituted the marshals of France, and the
governors of provinces, supreme judges in all cases where individuals
supposed their honour to have been wounded. This edict prohibited,
under the heaviest penalties, all private combats and rencounters, both
within and without the kingdom. One clause seems excellently calculated
to produce its intended effect, no less by the insinuation with which
it opens, than by the denunciations with which it concludes. “Those,”
it says, “who, doubting of their own courage, shall have called in the
aid of seconds, thirds, or a greater number of persons, shall, besides
the punishment of death and confiscation, be degraded from their
nobility, and have their coat of arms publicly blackened and broken by
the hangman; their successors shall be obliged to adopt new arms; and
the seconds, thirds, and other accomplices, shall be punished in the
same manner.” This salutary edict appears to have nearly accomplished
the purpose for which it was framed. The slavish fear of incurring the
displeasure of the sovereign, a feeling which was so prevalent among the
courtiers of Louis XIV., perhaps aided materially in producing obedience
to the law. It would have been well if a worse effect had never resulted
from that kind of fear.
Among the fashionable gladiators of those days was Philip d’Oger, Marquis
of Cavoie, a man whom nature had liberally endowed with the means of
shining in a nobler sphere. Cavoie, born in 1640, and descended from an
ancient Picard family, was the son of a woman of talent, who gained the
good graces of Anne of Austria, and availed herself of her influence
to forward the fortune of her offspring. His personal appearance was
greatly in his favour; he was one of the handsomest and best made men in
France, and he dressed with singular elegance. His courage, too, was no
less conspicuous than his corporeal qualities. In 1666, he served as a
volunteer on board of the Dutch fleet, under De Ruyter; and in the battle
with the Duke of Albemarle he distinguished himself by the perilous
exploit of proceeding in a boat to cut the cable with which some English
sloops were towing down a fire-ship on the Dutch admiral. He succeeded
in his daring attempt, and escaped unhurt. By this gallant action he
acquired the friendship of the celebrated Turenne. Long before this he
had become known as “the brave Cavoie,” in consequence of his gallant
bearing in the single combats which were still too common in France.
It was for having acted as second in one of these combats, that he was
immured in the Bastile. His imprisonment would, perhaps, have been
protracted, but for a curious circumstance, of which a pleasant account
is given by the Duke de St. Simon. Mlle. de Coetlogon, one of the
maids of honour to the consort of Louis XIV., had fallen madly in love
with Cavoie. St. Simon describes her as being “ugly, prudent, naïve,
much-liked, and a very good creature.” It is no slight proof of her
amiability, that, in a frivolous and satirical court, her sorrows were a
subject of pity instead of laughter. Cavoie was anything but delighted
with her idolatrous fondness, which she seemed to glory in manifesting;
and he strove to rid himself of it by being obdurate, and even downright
harsh. In spite of his repulsive conduct, however, she became every day
fonder. When he went to the army, her tears and cries were incessant, and
during the whole of the campaign she obstinately abstained from adorning
her person in the smallest degree. It was not till he came back that she
resumed her customary style of dress. His being committed to the Bastile
renewed her grief. “She spoke to the king in behalf of Cavoie,” says St.
Simon, “and not being able to obtain his deliverance, she scolded his
majesty so violently as to abuse him. The king laughed heartily, at which
she was so much incensed that she threatened him with her nails, and he
thought it prudent not to run the risk of them. He every day dined and
supped publicly with the queen; at dinner it was usual for the Duchess
of Richelieu and the queen’s maids of honour to wait upon them. On these
occasions, Coetlogon never would hand any thing to the king; either she
avoided him, or she flatly refused, and told him that he did not deserve
to be waited upon by her. Next, she was ill of jaundice, and had violent
hysterics, and fits of despair. This went so far, that the king and
queen seriously desired the Duchess of Richelieu to accompany her to the
Bastile, to see Cavoie; and this was twice or thrice repeated. At last
he was released, and Coetlogon, in raptures, again took to dressing; but
it was not without much difficulty that she could be reconciled to the
king.”
It is delightful to know that the devoted love of this warm-hearted
female was rewarded; and it is honourable to Louis XIV. that, instead
of meanly resenting her bursts of passion, he kindly and successfully
exerted himself to render her happy. In conjunction with the queen, he
more than once pleaded for the enamoured lady, but he found Cavoie averse
from a marriage. At length, the death of his grand maréchal-de-logis
enabled the king to attack Cavoie with advantage. This time, however, he
spoke in the tone of an absolute monarch; for he insisted that Cavoie
should wed Mlle. de Coetlogon; but, in return, he promised to put him in
the road to fortune, and, as a dowry to the portionless maid, he gave
him the splendid office which had just become vacant. Despotism thus
exercised may be forgiven, if only for its rarity. Cavoie yielded to the
command of his sovereign, and the desired union took place. The result
was more satisfactory than might have been expected. Cavoie proved to be
an indulgent husband, and she, on her part, never ceased to look up to
him as a sort of superior being. Neither in her maiden nor in her married
state, was her virtue for a moment doubted.
Cavoie accompanied Louis XIV. in all his campaigns. At the passage of
the Rhine, his intrepidity called forth praise from the king himself. A
report having soon after been spread, that Cavoie was among the slain,
Louis exclaimed, “O, how grieved M. de Turenne will be!” The courtiers
who surrounded him were joining in a general chorus of eulogium upon the
supposed dead man, when a horseman was seen plunging into the river on
the opposite side, and swimming over. It was Cavoie, whom the Prince de
Condé had sent to the monarch, to announce to him the complete success
of his army.
For many years Cavoie was held in high esteem at court, and enjoyed the
confidence of his master. A circumstance at length occurred to disturb
his peace. He had hoped to be included in the number of those on whom the
order of the Holy Ghost was conferred in 1688, but he was disappointed.
This disappointment was the work of Louvois, who hated him, because he
was the old and firm friend of the Marquis de Seignalai. Wounded by this
slight, the grand maréchal wrote a letter to Louis, informing him that he
intended to retire. But the vows of chagrined courtiers are as brittle
as those of lovers. The king called him into his cabinet, and, with that
graciousness which he well knew how to assume, he said to him, “We have
lived too long together to part now; I cannot let you quit me; I will see
that you shall be satisfied.” Cavoie abandoned his design of withdrawing
from court; but the promised blue riband was never bestowed on him.
At a later period, about twenty years before his decease, he resumed and
carried into execution his purpose of seceding from public life. He was
a patron of literary characters in general, and was in habits of close
intimacy with Racine, Boileau, and other eminent authors. Cavoie died in
1716, at the age of 76, leaving behind him the enviable reputation of
having been a man on whose sincerity and probity an implicit reliance
might with safety be placed.
From Cavoie we pass to an individual of a less estimable character.
Louis, Prince of Rohan, commonly known by the title of the Chevalier
Rohan, a degenerate descendant from illustrious ancestors, was born
about 1635. Rohan was endowed by nature with a handsome and graceful
person, and many intellectual qualities; but all these advantages were
nullified by his follies and vices. The Marquis de la Fare describes
him as being made up of contradictions; sometimes witty, at others the
contrary; sometimes dignified and brave, at others mean and dastardly.
In the annals of gallantry he seems to have been ambitious of holding a
conspicuous place. The most celebrated of his amorous adventures was his
carrying off, aided by her brother, the Duke of Nevers, the beautiful
and frail Hortensia Mancini, who was united to the contemptible Duke
of Mazarin. That he gamed high, and was careless of his gold, we learn
from an anecdote which is related of him. He had lost to the king, at
the gaming-table, a large sum, which was to be paid in louis-d’or. Rohan
counted out seven or eight hundred, but, not having enough of them, he
added two hundred Spanish pistoles. Louis objected to the latter, upon
which the chevalier snatched them up, and threw them out of the window,
saying at the same time, “Since your majesty will not have them, they
are good for nothing.” The king complained of this to Cardinal Mazarin,
who replied, “Sire, the Chevalier de Rohan played like a king, and you
played like a Chevalier de Rohan.” This action of Rohan has been praised
as a “piquant lesson” to Louis; it seems, however, to have been rather an
absurd mode of rebuking the monarch’s unprincely conduct.
Rohan continued in favour at court for several years, and in 1656 was
appointed grand huntsman of France, an office equivalent to our master
of the buck-hounds; he was afterwards made colonel of the guards. He
served in 1654, 1655, 1672, and 1677, and displayed great valour.
The commencement of his decline seems to have been his being obliged
to give up the office of grand huntsman, in consequence of his amour
with the Duchess of Mazarin. His extravagance and profligacy at length
ruined his fortune and reputation. To repair his shattered finances,
he engaged in a plot, at once treasonable and absurd, which completed
the destruction of his character, and brought him to the scaffold. Into
this scheme he was seduced by Latruaumont, a Norman officer, a man as
impoverished and licentious as himself. Their accomplices were Preault,
a young officer, the Marchioness of Villiers-Bourdeville, his mistress,
and a schoolmaster, named Van den Enden; all of whom are said to have
disbelieved that the soul is immortal. Their plan was, to put into the
hands of the Dutch the town of Quillebœuf, in Normandy, and to excite
the province to revolt, for which service they were to be liberally
rewarded. The magnitude of their project forms a striking contrast with
the scantiness of their means. The conspiracy was discovered by the
government, before the conspirators could begin their operations. Rohan
was committed to the Bastile, and M. de Brissac was sent into Normandy to
arrest Latruaumont. The latter defended himself, was mortally wounded,
and died in a few hours. He had at least some honourable feelings, for,
in order to save his confederates, he persisted to the last moment that
he was the sole criminal. The friends of Rohan nightly made the circuit
of the Bastile, and vociferated, through a speaking-trumpet, “Latruaumont
is dead, and has confessed nothing.” They were, however, unheard by the
chevalier. He, meanwhile, was perseveringly pressed to acknowledge his
guilt, but he refused; and, as his participation in the plot was known
only to the deceased, and no written proof existed against him, he
might have saved his life, had he not been circumvented by one of those
stratagems which were employed against prisoners. De Bezons, one of the
counsellors of state who interrogated the captive, had the baseness to
assure him that the king meant to pardon him if he would declare the
truth, although every thing was already known from the dying avowal
of Latruaumont. Trusting to the assurances of his treacherous adviser,
Rohan acknowledged his treason. He soon learned the deceit which had been
practised on him; and he burst into such violent paroxysms of rage, that
his keepers were compelled to manacle him that he might not lay violent
hands on himself. Rohan and his accomplices were soon after sentenced
to death; they were executed in front of the Bastile, on the 27th of
November, 1674. In spite of her erroneous principles, the sufferer most
worthy of pity was, perhaps, Madame de Villiers, who displayed a noble
fortitude and forgiving spirit. The only evidence against her was some of
her letters to Preault, which he had unwisely preserved. At first, she
uttered a few words of mild reproof for his fatal imprudence; but she
quickly changed her tone, and said with a smile, “We must not think on
what is passed, but only how to die.”
The same year that consigned Rohan to the scaffold, saw his place in the
Bastile filled by a youthful victim, who was doomed to waste a large part
of his life in captivity, for having offended a vindictive and powerful
religious body. His name is not recorded, but it is evident that he was
of a good family.
Louis XIV. was requested, by the Jesuits of Clermont College, to be
present at the representation of a tragedy by their pupils. He complied,
and was highly gratified by the piece; the more so, perhaps, as it was
thickly strewn with passages in praise of him. A nobleman in attendance
having spoken to him in terms of admiration, as to the manner in which
the drama had been played, the king replied, “Where’s the wonder? is it
not my college?” These words were not lost upon the principal of the
college, who was standing by. As soon as the king was gone, the old
inscription, “_Collegium Claromontanum Societati Jesus_,” which was on
the front of the building, was taken down, and workmen were all night
employed to inscribe the words, “_Collegium Ludovici Magni_,” in gold
letters, on a tablet of black marble.
In the morning the new inscription was seen conspicuously displayed on
the edifice. A youth of sixteen, a pupil in the college, had the good
sense and the good taste to be disgusted with this worse than indecorous
adulation, and he gave vent to his feelings in a Latin distich, which,
during the night, he fastened on the gate. The meaning of his lines may
be thus given:
“Christ’s name expunged, the king’s now fills the stone!
O impious race! by this is plainly shown
That Louis is the only god you own!”
The pungent lines excited a violent clamour among the Jesuits, and
no pains were spared to trace the writer. The juvenile offender was
discovered, and was shut up in the Bastile. After having been confined
there for a long while, he was transferred to the citadel of St.
Marguerite, on the coast of Provence. There he continued for several
years; after which he was taken back to the Bastile. One-and-thirty years
he passed in this manner, and the remainder of his life would doubtless
have been consumed in the same way, had he not, in 1705, become sole
heir to the estates of his family. The confessor of the Bastile, who was
a jesuit, now remonstrated with his brethren on the impolicy of keeping
in prison an individual from whom, by procuring his release, they might
reap such a golden harvest. His advice was taken, and the captive was set
free at their intercession. There can be no doubt that their tardy and
interested mercy received a liberal reward.
Among the fellow prisoners of the nameless satirist of the jesuits
was, for a short time, another writer of verses, but verses of a very
different kind. The person in question was Charles Dassouci, who
ludicrously designated himself as “Emperor of the Burlesque, the first
of that name.” He was born at Paris, about 1604, and was the son of a
barrister. His bringing up, and his early habits, were not calculated to
make him an estimable member of society. His parents were separated, and
the tyranny of a female, who was at once the servant and the concubine
of his father, drove him from his home. When he was only nine years
old, he wandered to Calais, where he passed himself off as an adept in
astrology, the son of Cesar, that dealer in magic whose fate has been
narrated in the preceding chapter. The boy having, by the power of
imagination, worked a cure upon a hypochondriacal individual, the wise
people of Calais considered this fact to be a decisive proof of his
intercourse with the devil, and were about to throw him into the sea, but
he was saved by some of his friends, who conveyed him privately out of
the place. After having led a roving life for some time, he became player
on the lute and singer to Christina, Duchess of Savoy, the daughter of
Henry IV. In 1640, he was introduced to Louis XIII., who gave him the
same situation that he had filled in the household of the duchess, and
he was continued in it during the minority of Louis XIV. Resolving to
return to Turin, he quitted Paris in 1655; but, before his departure
from the kingdom, he visited various parts in the south of France. He
was accompanied every where by two handsome youths, called his musical
pages; his connexion with whom afforded to his enemies a reason, or a
pretext, for fixing a deep stain on his moral character. Failing to
obtain patronage at Turin, he went to Rome, and there he was put into the
prison of the Inquisition, for having satirized some powerful prelates.
On being liberated he went back to Paris, where he was not more fortunate
than he had been in Italy, for he was committed to the Bastile, in 1675,
whence he was transferred to the Châtelet. To his licentious conduct and
writings he is said to have been indebted for his imprisonment, which
lasted six months. He died about 1679. His principal works are, “Ovid
in good humour,” which is a travestie upon part of the Metamorphoses;
Claudian’s Rape of Proserpine burlesqued; and many poems in a similar
style. Dassouci, who was sometimes called “the ape of Scarron,” received
a lash from the satirical scourge of Boileau, and he complained heavily
of the injury. In his Art of Poetry, Boileau thus alludes to the
popularity which Dassouci had once enjoyed:
“The scurviest joker charmed some kindred mind,
And even Dassouci could readers find.”
It must be owned, however, that in the works of “the emperor of the
Burlesque,” there are some passages which prove that, though his taste
and his morals were defective, he was not destitute of talent.
The reader has seen that, with very few exceptions, the prisoners who
have been mentioned in this chapter belonged to the courtier-class; that
they were men who seemed to feel a difficulty of breathing whenever they
did not inhale the vapours of a frivolous and voluptuous court. We ought
always to abhor injustice, and therefore we must hate the power which was
unjust to them; but they have no title to that liberal share of our pity
which is the right of humbler victims, for it was an implied condition of
their artificial existence that they should bend to a despot’s will; they
purchased the smiles of their master, the pleasures, such as they were,
of the Louvre and Versailles, and a portion of the public spoils, by the
renunciation of their free agency, and by encountering the risk of being
capriciously transferred from a palace to a dungeon. If, relying on his
good luck, a man will venture to play with a gambler whom he knows to
assert the privilege of now and then cogging the dice, his folly perhaps
deserves more compassion than his misfortune.
Let us now see in what manner other classes were affected by the
working of an arbitrary government; whether its tyranny was impartially
distributed among them. A few examples, taken between the years 1660
and 1670, will enable us to form a tolerably correct judgment upon this
subject. Before we proceed to give these examples, it may, however, be
well to apprise the reader, that committals to the Bastile were not
things of rare occurrence, but the contrary. In 1663, fifty-four persons
were sent to that dreary pile; in some years the number was fewer; in
others it rose to nearly a hundred and fifty. The Bastile was so crowded
in 1665, that a part of the prisoners were obliged to be removed to other
places of confinement. It must, indeed, have been full to overflowing,
before this removal could have been thought necessary. Such being the
case with the Bastile, it is probable that Vincennes, and many other
state prisons, were in a similar situation.
Though, as far as can be judged from imperfect registers, it appears
that a large majority of the persons incarcerated in the Bastile were
the victims of caprice, malice, or religious and political persecution,
there can be no doubt that many were really criminal. Some instances of
the latter class occur in the years between 1660 and 1670. The crime of
coining, which we have seen so common at an earlier period, was still
prevalent, and was still committed by men who held a respectable rank in
society. In 1666 twelve coiners were hanged within a fortnight, and they
accused several others, among whom was a M. Delcampe, who is described
as “the celebrated master of an academy in the suburb of St. Germain.”
He was escorted in a carriage to the Bastile, by three companies of the
guards, and little more than a week elapsed before he was beheaded. The
crowd to witness his execution was so great, that many persons were
killed or wounded by being pressed or trampled on.
The Bastile was often employed as an engine of extortion. To contribute
to the wants of the state, or, rather, to the prodigalities of the
court, immense sums were levied upon individuals holding offices, and
upon contractors, and all who had had any concern with the finances.
It must, of course, have been taken for granted that they had robbed
the public; and it could hardly have been expected that they would not
indemnify themselves, by future peculation, for their present loss.
Messat, a registrar of the council, was Bastiled for remonstrating
against a demand of six hundred thousand livres from himself and three
of his colleagues. Catalan, a contractor, shared the same fate, and was
threatened with death to boot; but after a confinement of several months,
he ransomed himself for six millions of livres. From another individual
nine hundred thousand livres, and from three of the treasurers of the
exchequer several millions, were squeezed by this powerful instrument. M.
Deschiens, one of M. Colbert’s head clerks, was also frightened into the
payment of a good round sum, by a visit to the Bastile.
Other equally honourable means of raising money were resorted to; all of
which helped to fill the prisons as well as the coffers of the monarch.
Among them were “free gifts,” once known in England under the name of
“benevolences.” From the city of Sens, for instance, twelve thousand
livres were demanded as a free gift, besides nearly thrice as much for
the pay of the gendarmerie. The citizens replied that they had no money,
but would give a thousand hogsheads of excellent wine. Whether the wine
was accepted, or whether any of the citizens were imprisoned for the
misdemeanour of being pennyless, I cannot say.
Immense sums were raised by the sale of offices. For the title of
counsellor of the court, 75,000 crowns were paid, and 90,000 for a place
at the board of exchequer. Numerous purchasers were found at far higher
prices. There is perhaps much truth in Patin’s sarcastic remark on this
occasion: “They must have robbed at a great rate,” says he, “or they
would not have so much money to squander.” Monopolies likewise lent
their aid to replenish the royal store. Niceron, a grocer, who appears
to have been an agent, or spokesman, of the Parisian companies of
tradesmen, was lodged in the Bastile for having ventured to remonstrate
against a projected monopoly of whale oil. Another article of supply
was the stopping of the annuities payable at the town hall; a measure
for which we have seen a precedent in the reign of Henry IV. Poignant,
a respectable citizen of Paris, was sent to the Bastile for having
spoken on this subject; and a female, named Madame de la Trousse, was,
for the same cause, prohibited from going to the town hall, or to any
other meeting, under pain of corporal punishment! On another occasion,
the President le Lievre was banished from Paris, for having made some
observations which were unfavourable to the taxes.
The money thus obtained was lavishly spent on the pomps and amusements of
the court. A part was dissipated at the gaming-table; Louis being then
a constant and an unlucky gamester. Theatrical entertainments absorbed
another portion. The getting up of a single grand ballet is said to
have cost no less than forty thousand pounds. Guy Patin had reason to
exclaim, “they talk much at the Louvre of balls, ballets, and rejoicings,
but nothing is said of relieving the people, who are dying of such
unexampled want, after so great and solemn a general peace has been
concluded. O pudor! ô mores! ô tempora!”
But though, in his private letters, Patin could venture to censure
profusion and exaction, he would soon have been fitted with what he
somewhere calls “a stone doublet,” had he dared to breathe a word
against them in public. It was dangerous even for a barrister to perform
faithfully his duty to a client. M. Burai, an eminent advocate, was
committed to the Bastile, in 1655, for having undertaken the defence of
Guenegaut, one of the treasurers, who was prosecuted by the government.
The press was completely muzzled. We find De Prez, a printer, sent to
the Bastile, for having printed a letter by the Bishop of Aleth, which
displeased the jesuits; a second unlucky typographer, for offending the
Archbishop of Paris; and a third, named Coquier, for privately printing
an answer to a work of the Chevalier Talon, who had attacked Coquier’s
former master, the superintendant Fouquet. It was a perilous task for
a man to defend himself against the minions of favour. The Journal des
Sçavans having abused Charles Patin, he was about to reply, when it was
intimated to him that if he did not desist, the Bastile would receive
him: the journal happened to be protected by M. Colbert, the minister.
Such protection gave a decisive advantage over a less fortunate rival.
The conduct of Renaudot, the printer of the Gazette, affords a strong
proof of the tyrannical use which was made of it. There appears to have
been at this period a sort of partnership, the members of which gained a
livelihood by compiling and vending a manuscript gazette. As the sale of
this paper diminished that of his own, Renaudot made a bold attempt to
get rid of his competitors. He is said to have been extremely desirous
that they should be hanged; but his benevolent wish was not gratified.
He had, however, the satisfaction of procuring seven of them to be sent
to the Bastile, one of whom was publicly whipped through the streets.
Yet these measures, harsh as they were, did not succeed in putting down
the manuscript gazetteers; for, five years afterwards, six more of them
were committed to prison. From its long continuance, and the risks which
the traders were willing to encounter, we may infer that the trade was
productive.
To have a different opinion from the sovereign, as to the merit of any
one whom he placed in office, was a heavy offence. M. de Montespan
expiated, by imprisonment in Fort-l’Evêque, his having doubted the
wisdom of choosing M. Montausier as governor to the dauphin. Some were
thrown into the Bastile for impossible crimes; such was the case of St.
Severin, a priest, who was accused of sorcery. Of others, the fault and
the meaning of their punishment are now undiscoverable. With respect to
L’Epine, a priest, for example, we are only told that he was discharged
from the Bastile, on condition of quitting Paris within twenty-four
hours, and going to Egypt. The reason of this singular species of
banishment must remain an enigma.
One of the instances in which despair prompted an inmate of the Bastile
to commit suicide, occurred in 1669, and is recorded by Patin. “A state
prisoner,” says he, “has poisoned himself in the Bastile, terrified by
the punishment which could not fail to be inflicted on him, for having
spoken very badly _de Domino Priore_.”
CHAPTER VIII.
The Poisoners—The Marchioness of Brinvilliers—Penautier—La
Voisin and her accomplices and dupes—The “Chambre Ardente”—The
Countess of Soissons—The Duchess of Bouillon—The Duke of
Luxembourg—Stephen de Bray—The Abbé Primi—Andrew Morell—Madame
Guyon—Courtils de Sandraz—Constantine de Renneville—The
Man with the Iron Mask—Jansenists—Tiron, Veillant,
and Lebrun Desmarets—The Count de Bucquoy—The Duke de
Richelieu—Miscellaneous Prisoners.
In the year 1676, the Bastile received a criminal, whose guilt was of the
blackest dye, and who was soon followed by a crowd of imitators, more
profoundly wicked, if possible, than she herself was. Poisoning was their
crime, and the practice of it became so common, that Madame de Sévigné
expresses a fear that, in foreign countries, the words Frenchman and
poisoner would be considered as synonymous.
Foremost in the dark catalogue stands the Marchioness of Brinvilliers,
the daughter of Dreux d’Aubrai, the Civil Lieutenant. She was beautiful,
reserved in her manners, and apparently devout; but her heart was
corrupted to the core. From her own confession, it appears, that when
she was only seven years old, she had already lost her maiden innocence,
and had also set fire to a house. Her later years were worthy of this
beginning. Between 1666 and 1670, she poisoned her father, two brothers,
a sister, and many of her acquaintance. She is said to have administered
poison to her husband, though without effect; and also, with fatal
success, to the poor, and the sick in the hospitals, to whom she gave
biscuits, in which deadly drugs were mixed. The latter facts are denied
by Voltaire; they are, however, positively affirmed by Madame de Sévigné.
The diabolical art which she so widely practised was learned from St.
Croix, a young officer, who was her paramour. He was a friend of her
husband, who, in opposition to her real or feigned remonstrances, made
him an inmate of his house. A criminal intimacy soon took place between
the wife and the friend. The husband, a man of dissipated habits,
seems to have been regardless of their intrigue; but her father was so
disgusted by its shameless publicity that he obtained a lettre-de-cachet,
and St. Croix was lodged in the Bastile, where he continued for twelve
months. There St. Croix was placed in the same apartment with Exili,
an Italian, who was confined on suspicion of being, as he really was,
a compounder and vender of poisons. Exili taught St. Croix all his
detestable secrets, and the latter communicated them to the marchioness,
who was a willing scholar.
St. Croix died suddenly in 1672, and, as he had no relatives, the
government took possession of his effects. Among them was a small box,
which was importunately claimed by the marchioness. It was opened, and
found to contain a note, desiring that it might be delivered, without the
contents being disturbed, to Madame de Brinvilliers. The box was filled
with poisons of all kinds, some of the marchioness’s letters to him, and
a note of hand to him, for 30,000 livres, bearing her signature.
Disappointed in all attempts to gain possession of the box, and finding
that suspicion began to fall heavily upon her, Brinvilliers took flight.
After having visited England, she fixed her residence at Liege. Fresh
presumptions of her guilt having arisen, it was resolved to arrest her.
Desgrais, the exempt of police, was accordingly despatched to Liege.
He disguised himself as an Abbé, pretended to be enamoured of her,
insinuated himself into her good graces, and ultimately succeeded in
seizing the lady and her papers, and conveying them to Paris.
Brinvilliers now disavowed all knowledge of the box; but it was too
late. For a little while her spirits deserted her, and she made an
ineffectual attempt at suicide. She, however, soon rallied them, and
preserved her courage to the last. Among her papers was found a written
confession of the numerous crimes which she had committed. To extort an
oral confession, it was resolved to put her to the ordinary question,
which consisted in forcing down the throat of the culprit an immense
quantity of water. When she saw three buckets in the torture room, she
coolly observed, “This must be for the purpose of drowning me, for they
can never expect to make a woman of my size drink it all.” She was saved
from the trial, by making a full avowal of her misdeeds. Her sentence she
heard with an unaltered countenance. In the last twenty-four hours of
her existence she is said to have manifested sincere penitence. She was
beheaded, and her remains were burned, on the 16th of July, 1676. It will
perhaps scarcely be believed that, on the morrow, the besotted populace
collected her ashes; assigning as their reason for so doing, that she was
a saint!
With Brinvilliers was implicated Penautier, who held the lucrative
offices of treasurer-general of the clergy, and of the states of
Languedoc. He was known to be her intimate friend, and was believed,
apparently with reason, to be one of her favoured lovers. It is asserted,
that in the box which was left by St. Croix, there was a packet of
poison, addressed to Penautier. That the receiver-general had the
reputation of making use of such packets is certain, and was a subject
of public jest. Cardinal de Bonzi, archbishop of Narbonne, who was his
strenuous protector, used to say laughingly, “None of those who have
pensions on my benefices are long-lived, for my star is fatal to them
all.” The caustic Abbé Fouquet one day saw the prelate and Penautier in
a carriage together, and he told everybody that he had just met Cardinal
de Bonzi and his star. Penautier was imprisoned, and appears to have been
in imminent danger; from which he is said to have been extricated only by
the most powerful influence, and the sacrifice of half his riches.
Instead of operating as a warning, the execution of the marchioness would
rather seem to have stimulated others to the commission of the horrible
species of crime for which she suffered. After her death, poisoning is
said to have become prevalent to an extraordinary degree. Loud complaints
arose from numbers of families, members of which were supposed to have
been taken off secretly by their enemies, or by those who were eager to
inherit their riches. It was with reference to the latter motive that
the name of “powder of succession” was given to the drug administered.
We may believe that the complaints were not unfrequently groundless—for
it has always been the practice of weak minds to ascribe sudden death to
poison—but still, it is certain that there were very many cases in which
the suspicion was borne out by facts.
So general did the clamour become, that, in January, 1660, the king
issued an ordinance, naming commissioners, who were to hold their
sittings at the Arsenal, for the purpose of trying poisoners and
magicians! This commission is known by the name of _la Chambre Ardente_.
It has been supposed, that it derived this appellation from its being
established to take cognizance of crimes which were punishable by fire.
This appears to be a mistake; the name having, in old times, been given
to the hall in which criminals of high birth were tried, and which was
so called because it was hung with black, and lighted with torches. The
same title was, however, borne by a sort of committee, which Francis II.
instituted in each parliament, for the trial of protestants, and which
mercilessly condemned them to the flames.
The principal distributor of the poisons, a widow, by the name of
Monvoisin, but who was known under the appellation of La Voisin,
was already in the Bastile, with about forty persons charged as her
accomplices. The most prominent of these subordinate culprits were, a
female, named La Vigoureux, and her brother, and Cœuvrit, a priest,
who was called Lesage. La Voisin was a midwife; but her profession not
proving lucrative, she deserted it for the more profitable speculation of
turning to account the credulity, the folly, and at last the vices, of
mankind. The most innocent part of her employment consisted in telling
fortunes on the cards, discovering stolen goods, casting nativities, and
selling charms and spells, to render women beautiful and beloved, and men
invulnerable and fortunate! Her pretensions to supernatural skill did not
stop here; for she boldly undertook to show spirits, and even the devil
himself, to her dupes. Such is the cullibility of the crowd, whether of
high or low degree, that the number of her visitors, the majority of whom
were people of rank, soon enabled her to remove from a mean lodging into
a splendid mansion, and keep an equipage and a train of attendants. That
her house was made a convenience for the purposes of seduction, and for
carrying on illicit connexions, there can be no doubt; many of those who
frequented it, of both sexes, being notorious profligates. The round of
La Voisin’s occupations was completed by the sale of poisons to those who
were desirous of destroying the proof of incontinence, taking vengeance
on a rival or an enemy, or getting rid of superannuated husbands and
long-lived relatives.
The newly-established tribunal found the whole of the prisoners guilty.
All but La Voisin were condemned to punishments short of death; to
imprisonment, exile, or the galleys. She alone was sentenced to be burned
alive on the Place de Grêve, and her ashes scattered to the winds. The
narrative of her last hours proves that, to a considerable portion of
brutal courage, or rather insensibility, she added the most disgusting
sensuality, vulgarity, and impiety. When she was informed of her doom,
she invited her guards to have a midnight revel with her, at which she
drank largely of wine, and sang twenty bacchanalian songs. The next
evening, after having undergone the question, she repeated the revel; and
when she was told that she had better think on God, and sing hymns, she
sang two hymns in a burlesque style. On the morning of her execution, she
was enraged at being refused any other food than soup. Before she was
placed in the sledge, she was advised to confess; but she obstinately
refused, and thrust away from her the confessor and the cross. At Nôtre
Dame, it was impossible to make her repeat the amende honorable, and when
she reached the Grêve she struggled furiously against the officers, and
it was not without using force that they could take her from the vehicle,
bind her, and place her on the pile. Consistent to the last, she several
times kicked off the straw, poured forth a volley of oaths, and did not
cease her violence till the flames deprived her of the power of motion
and speech.
Either with the hope of obtaining impunity, by implicating the great and
powerful in her crimes, or, which her character renders more probable,
that she might enjoy the malignant delight of involving them in her
ruin, La Voisin disclosed the names of many of the noblest personages
of the court, who had consulted her; and she stated circumstances which
gave rise to terrible suspicions against them. Among those whom she thus
dragged into public view, were the Countess of Soissons and the Duchess
of Bouillon, nieces of Cardinal Mazarin, the Princess de Tingri, Madame
de Polignac, and the Duke of Luxembourg. Against some of the suspected or
accused individuals, the Chamber issued warrants; others it summoned to
appear, and answer interrogatories.
The Countess of Soissons, mother of the celebrated Prince Eugene, was a
woman whose reputation was already sullied by the stains of political
and amorous intrigue. Among the crimes which were attributed to her,
was the death of her husband, who died suddenly in 1673. In her early
years, before he became enamoured of her sister Mary, Louis had paid her
some attentions. It was probably the remembrance of his transient flame
that induced him to send to the countess a message, that if she were
innocent he advised her to enter the Bastile, in which case he would
befriend her, but that, if she were guilty, she might retire wherever
she pleased. She replied that she was blameless, but that she could not
endure imprisonment. The countess immediately set off for Brussels, and
she never returned to France. It would, however, be doing her injustice
to conceal, that she offered to come back and justify herself, on
condition that she should not be confined while the trial was pending.
The condition was not granted, and she died in exile, in 1708.
The Duchess of Bouillon, her sister, passed through the ordeal more
triumphantly. There is something amusing in the flippant contempt with
which she treated her judges. The carriages of nine dukes went in
procession with her to the Chambre Ardente, into which she was handed
by her husband and the Duke of Vendôme. Before she would take notice of
any question that was put to her, she ordered the clerk to minute down,
“that she came there solely out of respect to the king’s orders, and not
at all to the Chamber, which she would not recognize, because she would
not derogate from the privilege of the ducal class.” She then answered,
but with no small disdain, the various questions, some of which were,
in truth, ridiculous enough. Her reason for going to La Voisin’s house
was, she said, that she wished to see the Sibyls, which that female had
promised to show her. La Reynie, one of the judges, being absurd enough
to ask if she had seen the devil, she replied that she saw him at that
moment, that he was very ugly and filthy, and was disguised in the garb
of a counsellor of state. As she quitted the court, she said aloud, that
she had never before heard so many foolish speeches so gravely uttered.
There being nothing more to urge against her than that she had been
credulous and sillily curious, no further proceedings were taken by the
court, but, angry at her having made laughing-stocks of his magistrates,
Louis sent her in exile to Nerac, in the distant province of Guienne.
If in France military talents of the highest order, and important
services rendered to the state, had possessed any protecting influence,
Francis Henry de Montmorenci, Duke of Luxembourg, would not have been
made a prisoner, and nearly a victim, by an implacable and unprincipled
minister. Luxembourg was the posthumous son of that Bouteville whom,
in a preceding chapter, we have seen consigned to the scaffold for the
crime of duelling. He was warmly patronised by the Princess of Condé,
who placed him as aide-de-camp to her son. The young Condé soon became
attached to him. At the battle of Lens, Bouteville distinguished himself
so greatly, that, though he was not more than twenty, Anne of Austria
made him a major-general.
During the war of the Fronde, Bouteville followed the fortunes of Condé;
he joined the Spaniards with him, acquired in numerous encounters a
well-merited reputation, and, finally, returned to his allegiance along
with his friend. There is an anecdote recorded of him, on the latter
occasion, which is much to his honour. After Bouteville had ceased to
bear arms against France, the Spanish monarch sent him 60,000 crowns, as
a reward for his services. He refused to take the money: “I never,” said
he, “considered myself in the service of Spain, and will receive favours
only from my own sovereign.” Soon after this, he married the heiress
of the house of Luxembourg, by which union he gained a dukedom, and a
splendid fortune. If we may believe St. Simon, rank and riches were all
that the husband derived from this match, the lady being “frightfully
ugly, both in figure and face,” and not at all atoning for her personal
defects by intellectual qualities. As far as regarded beauty, the pair
had no right to reproach each other; for Luxembourg himself had repulsive
features, a prominence on his chest, and another behind.
Between 1667 and 1679, Luxembourg, sometimes commander-in-chief,
sometimes as second to the great Condé and the Duke of Orleans,
displayed, in Franche Comté, Holland, and Flanders, a degree of skill
which gave him a conspicuous place in the first class of generals: in
fact, Turenne having fallen, and Condé retired, Luxembourg had no equal
in France. The marshal’s staff was conferred on him in 1675.
But neither the ancient descent, nor the high rank, nor the still higher
renown, of Luxembourg, were sufficient to shield him from the malice
of his potent enemy. That enemy was Louvois,—Louvois, the perpetual
inciter of Louis to war, the director of the horrible crimes committed
by the French troops in Holland, and the incendiary of the Palatinate.
He was, at one time, the friend of Luxembourg, but they quarrelled; and
he thenceforth hated him, with even a more deadly hatred than he had
cherished against Turenne. The affair of the poisoners seemed to afford
him an opportunity, which he eagerly seized, of disgracing, and perhaps
destroying, the duke.
It was by a credulous belief in the power of pretended sorcerers, that
Luxembourg was brought into peril. Bonnard, clerk to one of his lawyers,
had lost some papers, which were indispensable to the success of a
lawsuit instituted by the duke. To recover them, he applied to Lesage,
one of the confederates of La Voisin. Lesage required 2,000 crowns,
and the performance of certain mummeries by Bonnard; and his demand
was granted. The papers were then found to be in the hands of a girl
named Dupin, who refused to give them up. A power of attorney was now
obtained from the duke, by Bonnard, authorizing steps to be taken against
Dupin, to compel her to resign the papers. This he gave to Lesage, who,
between the body of the document and the signature, inserted two lines,
containing a transfer of the duke’s soul to his Satanic majesty. Luckily,
the clumsy forger had written these lines in a hand writing quite
different from that of the instrument itself. This compact with the devil
formed the main proof against Luxembourg. He appears, indeed, to have
afforded a further pretext for suspicion, by his weakness in applying to
Lesage for the horoscopes of various individuals.
It was on this slender foundation that the plot against him was built.
When his name began to be called in question, he is said to have been
insidiously counselled by Louvois, to save himself by flight. The brave
Cavoie, who was his friend, proved himself to be so, by advising him
to surrender himself voluntarily to the Bastile; and this advice was
wisely followed by the duke. On his arrival there, he was placed in a
comfortable chamber, and, on the second day, he underwent a preliminary
interrogation. But it was not the intention of the minister who had
driven him into a prison, that he should enjoy any comfort there; and
accordingly, on the third day, he was removed to one of the filthiest of
dungeons, not more than six feet and a half in diameter, and no further
notice was taken of him for five weeks. He claimed his privilege, as a
peer, of being tried by the Parliament, but no attention was paid to his
claim, and he was obliged to be contented with protesting against this
denial of justice. It was afterwards made a subject of reproach to him,
by some of the peers, that he had not stood up with sufficient boldness
for the rights of the peerage.
Luxembourg remained for fourteen months in the noisome den into which
Louvois had thrown him. The fetid atmosphere which he breathed, the want
of exercise, and the disturbed state of his mind, brought on a fit of
illness, and so much injured his constitution that he never thoroughly
recovered. It must have been no small aggravation of his sufferings, that
he was occasionally drawn forth, to be confronted with the profligate
Lesage, and others of the same class, and to hear them impudently charge
him with the foulest crimes. Lesage maintained, that the duke had entered
into the compact with Satan for the purpose of procuring the death of
Dupin; his accomplices added, that by his order they had murdered her,
cut the body into quarters, and thrown it into the river. Besides this
improbable story, they told another, equally improbable, that he had
given poisoned wine to a brother of Dupin, and to a mistress whom that
brother kept, and had endeavoured to destroy several persons by means of
sorcery. Their depositions may, indeed, contest the palm of absurdity and
falsehood with those of Titus Oates and his perjured associates.
This, however, was not all. It would seem, from their evidence, that
the duke had driven a hard bargain with the prince of darkness, for
they asserted that the compact was designed not only to bring about the
murder of Dupin, but also to obtain the government of a province or a
fortress, and the marriage of his son with the daughter of Louvois. In a
letter to a friend, Luxembourg has left on record his dignified answer
to the last of these stupid calumnies. After treating with ridicule the
idea that he would sell his soul for a government, he says, with respect
to the remainder, “I replied that when the villain (Lesage) told such an
untruth, he did not know that I was of a family which did not purchase
alliances by crimes; that it would have been a great honour to me had
my son married Mdlle. de Louvois, but that I would not have adopted for
the purpose any means which would have subjected me to self-reproach;
and that when Matthew de Montmorenci espoused a queen of France, the
mother of a minor king, he did not give himself to the devil for this
marriage, since the thing was done by a resolution of the States General,
who declared that, to gain for the monarch the services of the lords of
Montmorenci, it was necessary to form this union. It was even out of
delicacy that I used the word _services_, for I believe that, in the
declaration, the word _protection_ is used.”
Such testimony as was produced against Luxembourg was not deemed by his
judges sufficient to warrant his conviction, even though a minister
of state was eager for his ruin. He was, in consequence, set free on
the 14th of May, 1680. Notwithstanding the duke’s acquittal, Louis
banished him from the court, and he remained in exile till the summer
of 1681, when he was recalled, and resumed his duties as captain of
the body-guards. It is somewhat remarkable, that Louis never made the
slightest allusion to what had passed.
For ten years, Luxembourg remained without a command. In 1690, however,
Louis himself placed him at the head of the army in Flanders. Luxembourg
had scarcely taken the field, before he gained the splendid victory of
Fleurus. The fall of Namur, or of Charleroi, would probably have been
the result of this success, had he not been thwarted by the malignant
Louvois, who forbade his besieging either of those fortresses, and
deprived him of the best part of his army, to reinforce Boufflers. In the
succeeding campaigns, Luxembourg pursued his triumphant progress, and
won the battles of Leuze, Steenkirk, and Neerwinden. Such a number of
standards were taken, and sent to be hung up in the cathedral of Nôtre
Dame, at Paris, that the Prince of Conti wittily denominated him “the
tapestry-hanger of Nôtre Dame.” Irritated by his defeats, William III. is
said to have exclaimed, “Am I never to beat that hunchback?” “Hunchback!”
said the duke, when he was told of this speech, “what does he know about
it? He has never seen my back!” The career of Luxembourg was abruptly
closed, by an illness of only five days, on the 4th of January, 1695.
Several persons of distinction were censured by the “Chambre Ardente,”
and were, in consequence, forbidden the court, or sent into exile. Among
the latter was Madame de Polignac. The monarch was so decidedly hostile
to her, that, five years afterwards, he spoke of her with unmeasured
severity, and interfered to prevent the marriage of her son with Mdlle.
de Rambures. It was said, that she had once formed the scheme of giving
him a philtre, to inspire him with a passion for her.
One of the humbler class of culprits who was imprisoned in the Bastile,
and who finally suffered the extreme sentence of the law, was Stephen de
Bray, described as the accomplice of James Dechaux and Jane Chanfrain,
who were perhaps rivals of La Voisin and her confederates in their
detestable trade. The crimes alleged against him were blasphemy,
sacrilege, and poisoning, and he was burned at the Grêve.
From poisoners, and mercenary pretenders to sorcery, we turn to an
adventurer of a less noxious species. The Abbé Primi was a native of
Bologna, in which city his father was a cap-maker. He had acuteness, wit,
and a pleasing person, and with these mental and corporeal qualities
he hoped to make his way at Paris. On his journey thither he became
acquainted with a man of talent, named Duval. One of the travellers in
the coach smelt so offensively that the others were anxious to get rid
of him; and accordingly Duval and Primi secretly concerted a scheme for
that purpose. Primi was to pretend to the gift of foretelling, from only
seeing a person’s handwriting, what had happened, and would happen, to
him. Primi, being questioned by Duval on this head, gave him elaborate
answers, which the latter admitted to be correct. Specimens of the
penmanship of the rest of the travellers, who were in the plot, were then
handed to Primi, and, of course, they were satisfied with the result. The
obnoxious passenger at length begged the oracular Italian to do for him
the same favour that he had done for the rest. When Primi looked at the
paper, he pretended to be shocked, and hastily gave it back, declining to
say more than that “he hoped he was mistaken.” The applicant, however,
solicited so earnestly to know his fate, that Primi told him he was
destined to be assassinated at Paris, if he went thither. This startling
intelligence produced the designed effect; the strong-scented querist
took the first opportunity to discontinue his journey, and return to his
home.
When they reached Paris, Duval presented Primi to the Abbé de la Baume,
who was afterwards archbishop of Embrun; and the abbé introduced him to
the Duke of Vendôme, and his brother, the Grand Prior. The trick played
off in the stage was talked over, and it was agreed that a repetition
of it in the French capital would be productive of infinite amusement.
Primi was therefore kept carefully secluded, for nearly two months, till
he had learned by heart the genealogy and the secret history of most of
the persons about the court. When he had obtained a thorough knowledge of
their connexions, amours, rivalships, enmities, and presumed motives, his
skill in his novel kind of divination was spread about by his employers,
and all the rank and fashion of France soon flocked to consult him.
Among the distinguished females who patronized him, were the Countess
of Soissons and the Duchess of Orleans; the latter of whom Primi firmly
convinced of his powers, by mentioning many circumstances relative to
her correspondence with the Count de Guiche. The duchess prevailed on
Louis XIV. to let her show his handwriting to the Italian. To her utter
astonishment, Primi no sooner saw it than he declared it to be written
by a miserly curmudgeon, who was not possessed of a single good quality.
When she returned the paper to Louis, and told him what Primi had said,
the king was no less astonished than she was. The paper was indeed
written by a man of whom his enemies spoke in the same manner as Primi.
It was the handwriting of Rose, the king’s cabinet secretary, who wrote
exactly like Louis, and whom he often employed to answer letters, that
he might himself avoid trouble. To get at the bottom of this mystery,
the king ordered Primi to be brought into his cabinet. “Primi,” said the
monarch, “I have only two words to say—disclose to me your secret, for
which I will pay you with a pension of two thousand livres—or else make
up your mind to be hanged.” There was no resisting the bribe and the
threat, and Primi consequently related his own history, and all that had
come to his knowledge since he had lived in the capital. On going into
the queen’s apartment, Louis mentioned, before the courtiers, that he had
admitted Primi to an interview, and he added, “I must acknowledge that
he told me things which no being of his kind has ever before revealed to
any one.” This strong testimony to the merit of Primi contributed not a
little to enhance his reputation.
The pension granted to him by Louis placed Primi above the necessity of
resorting to deception for a livelihood; nor, indeed, was the part which
he had been playing one which could be carried on for any length of
time. He married the daughter of Frederic Leonard, an eminent Parisian
printer, and sought to gain reputation by chronicling the actions of the
French monarch. In an Italian narrative, which he wrote, of the Dutch
campaign of Louis, he divulged the secret of the private treaty between
that monarch and our Charles II. For this he was sent to the Bastile;
but he was soon released, and received an ample present. The publication
is believed to have, in fact, been authorized by the king, to punish
the defection of Charles; the imprisonment of the author being merely a
blind, to prevent his master from being suspected.
Louvois, who will for ever be infamously remembered for his outrages
upon humanity, was the tyrant who twice consigned to the Bastile the
celebrated medallist, Andrew Morell. Berne was the native place of
Morell, who was born in 1646. He was remarkable for his memory and
acuteness. The study of history led him to that of numismatics, in which
he made an almost unequalled progress; and he learned drawing, in order
to render his medallic knowledge more perfect and available. Charles
Patin, the son of Guy, then an exile from France, who was himself no mean
numismatist, became acquainted with Morell, and aided him by his counsel
and purse. It was probably by his advice that, in 1680, Morell visited
Paris, where he met with a warm reception from the most distinguished men
of learning and science. Encouraged by them, he undertook the laborious
task of publishing a description of all the antique medals which were
contained in the numerous cabinets of Europe. As a prelude, he gave a
specimen to the world. But his scheme was interrupted, for the moment,
by a circumstance which would ultimately have benefited it, had he not
been ungenerously treated. He was appointed coadjutor of Rainssart,
the keeper of the king’s medals. In assiduously arranging and reducing
to order the vast collection which was placed under his care, he spent
several years. When he claimed his promised reward it was withheld, and,
on his venturing to resent this breach of faith, he was committed to the
Bastile, in 1688, by Louvois. His friends obtained his release; but, in
little more than twelve months, he was again immured in that prison,
probably for the same reason as before. Yet, while he was thus persecuted
by an arrogant minister, he continued to enjoy the esteem of Louis XIV.;
a curious fact, which proves how strong was the influence of Louvois
over his master. While he was in the Bastile, his colleague died, and he
was offered the vacant place of sole keeper of the king’s cabinet, on
condition that he would change his religion. Morell, however, rejected
the offer.
It was not till 1691, nor till the government of Berne had interfered
in his behalf, that Morell was set free. Disgusted with the treatment
which he had experienced, he returned to his native country. His
subsequent existence was embittered by severe bodily suffering. His
health was so much injured by confinement, and by vexation at his
favourite project being frustrated, that palsy deprived him of the use
of one side, and rendered him incapable of handling pen or pencil. He
was somewhat recovered, and had acquired the patronage of the Count of
Schwartzenburg-Armstadt, a lover of medals, when he was overturned in a
carriage, and one of his shoulders dislocated. This accident brought on
another attack of palsy, to which he fell a victim in 1703. The materials
for his unfinished work were arranged and published, by Havercamp, in
1734, with the title of “Thesaurus Morellianus.” Another of his works, a
“Numismatic History of the Twelve Emperors,” was given to the public, in
1753, by Havercamp, Schlegel, and Gori, who overlaid it with a ponderous
mass of confused and discordant commentaries.
The doctrines of Quietism, the origin of which may be traced to oriental
climes, but of which a Spanish monk, Michael Molinos, was the European
apostle, and finally the victim, were espoused by one of the most amiable
of French enthusiasts, and they brought on her, as they had brought on
him, calumny, persecution, and imprisonment. Madam Guyon, whose maiden
name was Bouvier de la Motte, was born at Montargis, in 1648. Even in
very early youth she had a strong tendency to mysticism, and would have
adopted a monastic life, had her parents not prevented her. At sixteen
she was married; at eight-and-twenty she became a widow. The visionary
ideas which she had cherished before marriage now resumed their empire,
and a powerful stimulus was given to them by her confessor, and by the
titular bishop of Geneva, and other ecclesiastics, all of whom laboured
to fill her with the belief that Heaven had destined her to play an
extraordinary part for the advancement of religion. “Left a widow when
she was still tolerably young,” says Voltaire, “with riches, beauty, and
a mind fitted for society, she became infatuated with what is called
_spiritualism_. A monk of Anneci, near Geneva, named Lacombe, was her
director. This man, characterized by a not uncommon mixture of passions
and religion, and who died mad, plunged the mind of his penitent into
the mystic reveries by which it was already affected. The longing desire
to be a French St. Theresa did not allow her to perceive how different
the French character is from the Spanish, and made her go much further
than St. Theresa. The ambition of having disciples, which is perhaps the
strongest of all the kinds of ambition, took entire possession of her
heart.” In ascribing such a motive to Madame Guyon, Voltaire does her
wrong, there not being a shadow of a reason for supposing that she was
actuated by any thing but a sincere though erroneous belief, that she was
fulfilling a solemn duty. He is more correct in the description which
he gives of her doctrines. “She taught a complete renunciation of self,
the silence of the soul, the annihilation of all its faculties, internal
worship, and the pure and disinterested love of God, which is neither
degraded by fear, nor animated by the hope of reward.” It must be owned
that, both in language and ideas, she often fell into enormous absurdity,
in her efforts to explain and enforce these doctrines.
For five years Madame Guyon wandered through Piedmont, Dauphiny, and
the adjacent provinces, spreading her opinions by the press as well
as by oral Communication. As was to be expected, she made many ardent
proselytes, and not a few enemies. In 1686 she returned to Paris, and
continued her labours, and was left unmolested for two years. At length
she attracted the notice of the archbishop of Paris, who affected to be
shocked at the resemblance which her tenets bore to those of Molinos.
The see of Paris was at that time filled by Harlay de Chamvallon,
an individual infamously celebrated for his profligate debauchery.
This prelate, who certainly was not likely to comprehend a pure and
disinterested love of God, or of man or woman either, procured Lacombe
to be sent to the Bastile as a seducer, and Madame Guyon to the
Visitandines convent. At the Visitandines she was generally beloved, and
made several converts. She was soon after snatched from the clutches of
Harlay by Madame de Maintenon, who admitted her at St. Cyr, and became
much attached to her. It was at St. Cyr that she was also introduced to
Fenelon; a friendship took place between them which nothing could ever
shake.
But though Fenelon continued true to his friend, Madame de Maintenon
ultimately deserted her. This desertion was the work of Godet-Desmarais,
bishop of Chartres, who was the religious director of St. Cyr and of
Madame de Maintenon. The mind of the king was also poisoned against her;
and she was exposed to a long series of persecutions, not the least
painful of which was a slanderous attack on her character, made in the
form of a letter from Lacombe, exhorting her to repent of their criminal
intimacy. Lacombe was then insane. So irreproachable, however, was her
conduct, that her innocence was universally acknowledged.
In 1695 she was sent to Vincennes, whence she was removed to the Bastile;
but she was released through the intervention of Noailles, who had
succeeded the shameless Harlay in the archbishopric of Paris. In 1698
she was again immured in the Bastile, and was not liberated till 1702.
After her liberation, she was exiled to Blois, where, for fifteen years,
her patience, piety, and charity, were admired by every one. She died in
1717, at the age of sixty-nine.
Influenced by prejudice, Voltaire has been unjust to Madame Guyon;
he denies that she possessed talent, and sneeringly says, that “she
wrote verses like Cotin, and prose like Punchinello.” This is not the
first time that truth has been sacrificed, for the sake of giving an
epigrammatic turn to a sentence. To the opinion of Voltaire may be
opposed that of the shrewd Duke of St. Simon, which is very different.
Nor is it probable that Fenelon would have held in high estimation
a mere senseless enthusiast. That in her writings, which extend to
nine-and-thirty volumes, much erroneous reasoning, mystic jargon, and
even nonsense, may be found, admits of no dispute; but they also contain
many fine sentiments strikingly expressed. That she was endowed with
a prevailing eloquence appears to be undeniable. There is an anecdote
recorded of her which proves, likewise, that in the common business of
life, she was possessed of a large share of penetration and sound sense.
She was chosen as sole umpire in a cause in which she and twenty-two of
her relations were interested. After thirty days’ close investigation of
the documents and claims, she drew up an award, which received the prompt
and full approbation of all the contending parties. It may be doubted,
whether there have been many arbitrators who have given such universal
satisfaction as Madame Guyon.
About the time that Madame Guyon was released from the Bastile, that
prison became the abode of Gatien de Courtils de Sandraz, a fertile
writer, but whose productions are, for the most part, of a class which
merits censure rather than praise. This author, a Parisian, born in
1644, must be reckoned among those who poison the sources of history.
“He was,” says Voltaire, “one of the most culpable writers of this
kind. He inundated Europe with fictions under the name of histories.”
Many of those fictions profess to be written by persons who, during the
reigns of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., had borne a part in affairs of
state and court intrigues. More than forty volumes of memoirs of this
sort, biographies, romances, and political tracts, were produced by
his indefatigable pen. He was originally a captain in the regiment of
Champagne, but went to Holland in 1683, and staid in that country for
five years. It was while he was there that he gave some of his earliest
works to the press. In 1689, the partiality which he manifested on the
side of France occasioned him to be sent out of the Dutch territory,
and he went to Paris, where he continued till 1694. He then returned to
Holland, where he continued for eight years. In 1702, he went back to his
native land, but his reception was calculated to make him regret having
done so. He was immediately sent to the Bastile, where he languished for
nine years, during the first three of which he was very harshly treated.
His offence is not known; but his Annals of Paris and the court, in which
he attacked the character of some powerful personages, are conjectured to
have been the cause of his imprisonment. His decease took place in 1712.
Of those who suffered in the Bastile very few indeed revealed to the
world the secrets of the prison-house. The first who disclosed them was
René Augustus Constantine de Renneville, a Norman gentleman, who was born
at Caen, in 1650. De Renneville was the youngest of ten brothers, seven
of whom fell in the service of their country. After having borne arms in,
and retired from, the mousquetaires, he was patronised by Chamillart,
one of the ministers, who employed him in various confidential affairs,
and rewarded him by a respectable and lucrative office in Normandy. De
Renneville passed several years in his native province, filling up by
literary pursuits his intervals of leisure from his official duties.
The persecution of the protestants, of whom he was one, drove him, in
1699, into Holland. Being, however, unable to find there a satisfactory
establishment for his family, he yielded to the solicitations of
Chamillart, and returned, in 1702, to France. The minister received him
with open arms, gave him a pension, and promised him the first place
that might become vacant in his own department. But the scene soon
changed. Envy was excited by the reception which he had met with, and it
quickly found or made the means of crushing him. Some years before, in
a splenetic mood, he had written some _bouts rimés_, which were by no
means complimentary to France. As, however, this would hardly authorize
a heavy punishment, he was accused of being a spy, and of keeping up a
correspondence with foreign powers. In consequence of this he was sent
to the Bastile, in May 1702. He was placed in a wretched chamber, dirty,
gloomy, and swarming with fleas, and his bed was overrun with vermin of
a more disgusting kind. He was nevertheless tolerably well treated by
his jailers till after the escape of Count de Bucquoy, in which he was
supposed to have assisted. On this supposition he was thrown into one
of the worst dungeons of the fortress, where he remained till life was
nearly extinct. He tells us that his only sustenance was bread and water,
and that his sleeping place was the bare ground, where, without straw, or
even a stone to lay his head on, he lay stretched in the mire, and the
slaver of the toads. His situation when he was taken out was pitiable.
“My eyes,” says he, “were almost out of my head, my nose was as large
as a middling-sized cucumber, more than half my teeth, which previously
were very good, had fallen out by scurvy, my mouth was swelled, and
entirely covered with an eruption, and my bones came through my skin in
more than twenty places.” His captivity lasted for some years after his
removal from the dungeon, and as though he was not again reduced to the
same degree of misery, he was treated with much harshness. He bore his
misfortune with courage, and solaced his lonely hours by reading and
composition. His pen was a small bone, his ink was lampblack mixed with
wine, and he wrote between the lines, and on the margins, of books which
he had concealed. Under these disadvantages, he composed several works of
considerable length. Among these works was a “Treatise on the Duties of
a faithful Christian.” They were taken away from him by his persecutors,
and he deeply regretted the loss of them. After having been confined
for eleven years, he was set at liberty; but was ordered to quit France
for ever. It would have been strange had he wished to remain there.
De Renneville sought an asylum in England, where George I. gave him a
pension; and in 1715 he published his “French Inquisition, or the History
of the Bastile,” which went through three or four editions, and was
translated into various languages. It was probably at the instigation of
those who were branded in this book, that he was attacked in the street
by three cut-throats, whom, however, he bravely repulsed. De Renneville
was living in 1724; but the time and place of his decease are not known.
Among his works is a Collection of Voyages for the establishment, &c., of
the Dutch East India Company.
The next prisoner comes before us wrapped in such a mysterious cloud,
that he scarcely seems to wear the aspect of a being of this world. His
birth, his name, his country, his crime, are all unknown; all that we
really know of him is, that he was long a captive, and that he died. It
cannot be necessary to say, that the problematical individual alluded to
is the personage who is distinguished by the appellation of “The Man with
the Iron Mask.”
There appears to have been in France, during the first forty years of
the 18th century, a sort of indistinct tradition respecting a masked
prisoner, who had been in various state prisons. It was not, however,
till 1745 that any attempt was made to lift the veil which covered
the subject. In that year came out “Mémoires secrets pour servir à
l’histoire de Perse,” in which French characters were described under
oriental names. In these memoirs, which have been ascribed to several
writers, among whom is Voltaire, some particulars are given relative to
the masked man, and he is asserted to have been the Count de Vermandois,
natural son of Louis XIV., confined by his father for having struck the
dauphin.
The Memoirs gave rise to a controversy, and to an extravagant romance by
the Chevalier de Mouhy; but nothing definite was brought forward till
1751, when Voltaire published, under a feigned name, the first edition
of his “Age of Louis XIV.” Here he threw a ray of light on a part of the
question, leaving, however, the rest in as much darkness as ever.
“Some months after the decease of this minister (Mazarin) there
happened,” says he, “an event which has no parallel, and what is no
less singular is, that all the historians have been ignorant of it.
There was sent, with the utmost secrecy, to the castle of the isle of
St. Margaret, on the coast of Provence, an unknown prisoner, above the
common stature, young, and of a most handsome and noble figure. During
the journey, this prisoner wore a mask, the lower half of which had
steel springs, which allowed him to eat while the mask was on his face.
Orders were given to kill him if he uncovered himself. He remained in
the isle till a confidential officer, of the name of St. Marc, governor
of Pignerol, having been made governor of the Bastile in 1690, went to
the isle of St. Margaret to fetch him, and conducted him to the Bastile,
always masked. The Marquis de Louvois went to see him in that isle
before his removal, and spoke to him standing, and with a deference
which bordered on respect. This unknown personage was taken to the
Bastile, where he was lodged as comfortably as it was possible to be in
that fortress. Nothing that he asked for was refused. His predominant
taste was for linen of extreme fineness, and for lace. He played on the
guitar. His table was profusely served, and the governor rarely took a
seat in his presence. An old physician of the Bastile, who had often
attended this singular man when he was ill, said that he had never seen
his face, though he had frequently examined his tongue, and the rest of
his person. He was admirably made, said this physician; his skin was
rather brown; he excited an interest by the mere tone of his voice, but
never complained of his situation, nor gave any hint of who he was. This
unknown individual died in 1703, and was buried at night in the parish of
St. Paul’s.
“What renders these circumstances doubly astonishing is, that at the
time when he was sent to the isle of St. Margaret no eminent personage
disappeared in Europe. Yet that the prisoner was one is beyond all
doubt, for the following event took place during an early period of his
residence in the isle. The governor himself put the dishes on the table,
and then withdrew, after having locked him in. The prisoner one day
wrote with his knife on a silver plate, and threw the plate out of the
window, towards a boat, which was near the shore, almost at the foot of
the tower. A fisherman, to whom the boat belonged, picked up the plate,
and took it to the governor. Greatly astonished, the latter asked the
fisherman, ‘Have you read what is written on this plate, or has anybody
seen you with it?’—‘I cannot read,’ replied the fisherman, ‘I have only
just found it, and nobody has seen it,’ This countryman was detained till
the governor was thoroughly convinced that he could not read, and that no
one had seen the plate. ‘You may go now,’ said he, ‘and think yourself
lucky that you know not how to read.’ Of the persons who had a direct
knowledge of this fact there is one, of undoubted veracity, who is still
living. M. de Chamillart was the last minister who was intrusted with
this strange secret. The second Marshal de Feuillade, his son-in-law,
told me that, when his father-in-law was on his death-bed, he begged him
on his knees to tell him who was the man who was never known by any other
name than that of the man with the iron mask. Chamillart replied that it
was a state secret, and that he had taken an oath never to reveal it.
There are, besides, others of my contemporaries who can testify to my
statement, and I know no fact which is more extraordinary or more firmly
established.”
At a later period, Voltaire, in the “Philosophical Dictionary,” corrected
some trifling errors which he had made in his account of the masked
prisoner. He states that the captive was first confined at Pignerol,
whence he was removed to the isle of St. Margaret, and that, a few days
before his death, he said that he believed himself to be about sixty.
Voltaire then controverts various guesses which had been hazarded as
to the name of the individual, and then adds, that the concealment of
his face must have been occasioned by “the fear that a too striking
resemblance might be recognised in his features.” In conclusion, he
hints, that he is well informed on the subject, but that he will not
communicate his knowledge. It would seem, however, that, after the lapse
of a few years, he changed his mind,—for, in another edition of the
Dictionary, there was inserted an article, ostensibly by the editor, but
which is generally supposed to be written by Voltaire himself. It is
there roundly asserted that the masked captive was an elder brother of
Louis XIV., illegitimate, and brought up in secrecy, whom for obvious
reasons of state the reigning monarch was obliged to hold in durance. In
the original account by Voltaire, his pointed mention of the prisoner’s
fondness for fine linen and lace, which was also characteristic of Anne
of Austria, appears to indicate that he believed her to be the mother of
the mysterious individual.
There is in the human mind a restless longing, and perpetual struggle,
to penetrate into every thing that is shrouded in mystery. Ever since
the man with the iron mask was first mentioned, he has been a subject of
inquiry and controversy; dissertations and volumes innumerable have been
written to dispel the Egyptian darkness which surrounds him. With the
exception perhaps of Junius, there is probably no personage who has been
the cause of so many books and theories; and in both cases no approach
to certainty has been made. It is not improbable that Junius may yet be
unveiled; but, with respect to the masked captive, so long a time has
gone by, so much care was taken after his decease to destroy all traces
of his existence, and it is so likely that the remaining documents, if
any there were, perished during the French revolution, that there is not
a chance of the world being enabled to say, “_This_ is certainly the man.”
At least twelve or thirteen candidates have been brought forward for
the melancholy honour of being the personage in question. Two of them
are English—the Duke of Monmouth and Henry Cromwell. Of the latter it
is only necessary to state that he lived a quiet country life after the
restoration, and died in Huntingdonshire in 1679. The Duke of Monmouth
is supposed, by M. de St. Foix, to have found some one obliging enough
to mount the scaffold in his stead, and to have been sent to France, to
be kept in safe custody. This ineffably absurd theory is demolished by
the fact, that, when Monmouth was executed, the man with the mask had
been for twenty years in prison. Equally baseless is the system of the
Chevalier de Taulès, who made a claim for Ardewicks, the patriarch of the
Armenians at Constantinople, who was kidnapped, taken to France, and
lodged in the Bastile by the Jesuits, to whom he had given offence. But
Ardewicks was not carried off till 1699 or 1700, and he is known to have
embraced catholicism, recovered his liberty, and died at Paris. A recent
French writer, of very considerable talent and research, has revived
the idea that Fouquet was the prisoner, and has supported his argument
with great skill; but it is impossible to reconcile his supposition with
the story told by Voltaire. With respect to Fouquet the precautions and
deference, which Voltaire mentions, would not have been deemed necessary.
We have seen that the author of the “Secret Memoirs on Persia” asserts
the Count of Vermandois to have been the unknown captive. Voltaire
contemptuously denies the truth of this assertion; which is, indeed,
sufficiently refuted by the well-ascertained fact, that the count died,
of small-pox, at the army in Flanders, in 1683, and was buried at Arras;
his death was notorious to numbers of persons. The Duke of Beaufort has
been invested with the mask on no better authority. There can be no doubt
that he was slain, in a sally, at the siege of Candia, in 1669. But, say
those who adopt him as their hero, his body was never found. It certainly
was not recognised; and for this plain reason, that the Turks stripped
it, and cut off the head. The next asserted owner of the mask is backed
by no less than four champions, Dutens, Roux-Fazillac, Delort, and the
late Lord Dover, and his cause has been ably supported by them all. The
claimant for whom they contend is Matthioli, secretary of the Duke of
Mantua, who, for having outwitted Louis in a negotiation respecting the
cession of Casal, was seized by order of the monarch, and imprisoned at
Pignerol and other places. There are, however, circumstances which seem
decisive against his being the man with the iron mask. It will perhaps
suffice to mention that, instead of meeting with respect and indulgence,
he was treated with the utmost harshness, and even cruelty. It has been
argued, as a presumption on his side, that his name bears a resemblance
to that of Marchiali, under which the unknown captive was buried. The
resemblance, I think, is not a whit closer than that which Fluellin so
ingeniously discovers between Macedon and Monmouth, and is a sorry basis
on which to build an argument. Another supposition gives the mask to Don
John de Gonzaga, a natural brother of the Duke of Mantua, who is imagined
to have accompanied Matthioli in disguise to the conference at which he
was seized. This supposition is rendered untenable, by irrefragable proof
that Matthioli was alone.
We have now arrived at the only remaining name which has been mentioned
as that of the mysterious prisoner. Voltaire, as we have seen, affirms
that he was a son of Anne of Austria. This assertion seems to receive
support from the language which is said to have been held by Louis XV.
Laborde, the head valet-de-chambre of that monarch, who enjoyed much of
his confidence, once endeavoured to obtain from him the long-concealed
secret. He did not succeed. “I pity him,” replied the king, “but his
detention was injurious only to himself, and _averted great misfortunes_.
Thou must not know the secret.” It is manifest that such a speech
could not be made with reference to any of the persons who have been
enumerated. It is equally manifest that, as Voltaire has intimated, the
mask could have been worn for no other purpose than to prevent a striking
likeness from being recognised.
Various conjectures have been made as to the paternity of the unknown
child, to which Anne of Austria is thought to have given birth. By some
the Duke of Buckingham has been assigned as its father, others have
attributed it to a French nobleman; some have imagined that it was the
fruit of a legitimate union with Cardinal Mazarin, a kind of union which,
however, could not take place; and others, with more tenderness for the
character of the queen, have represented it to be a twin brother of Louis
XIV. The theory of his royal birth may, perhaps, be as erroneous as all
the rest; but it appears to me to be the only one by which we can account
for the close and perpetual imprisonment, the pains taken to confine the
secret to as few persons as possible, the carefully concealed features,
and the respect and indulgence which are asserted to have been uniformly
shown to the unfortunate captive[8].
We must now turn our attention from the victim of state policy to some of
the victims of religious persecution.
To enumerate all whom Jansenism led to the Bastile would be a tedious
labour, and no less uninteresting than tedious, as little more than a
dry list of names would be the result. Among the Jansenists who towards
the close of Louis XIV.’s reign were sent to the Bastile, we find Tiron,
a Benedictine, who was prior of Meulan; Germain Veillant, an author;
and Lebrun-Desmarets, a man of much theological erudition. Tiron was
committed “for different writings, on matters of religion and state,
and against the king and the Jesuits.” The coupling together of the
king and the disciples of Loyola, as though they were coequal powers,
is a striking proof of the vast influence which the Society of Jesus
had acquired. Veillant’s offence was his being “a violent Jansenist, in
connexion with Father Quesnel, and having got his works printed, and
managed his affairs at Paris.” He was examined eighty-nine times, and was
probably treated with more than common harshness, for he fell ill on the
day that he was released, and died in the course of a few days.
Lebrun-Desmarets, a native of Rouen, who entered the Bastile in 1707,
two years previous to the destruction of Port-Royal monastery, was of
a family which was strongly attached to that persecuted establishment.
His father, a bookseller of Rouen, was condemned to the galleys, for
having printed books in vindication of it. The son was partly educated
in the convent, and never ceased to regard its inmates with affection
and reverence. In 1707, when they were involved in a harassing lawsuit
by their enemies, Lebrun espoused their cause so ardently that he was
imprisoned. He was held in durance for five years, and was treated
with great severity. After he recovered his liberty, he took up his
abode at Orleans, where he died, in 1731, at the age of eighty. On Palm
Sunday, the day before his death, fearing that a priest would refuse
to administer the sacrament to him, he dragged his enfeebled frame to
the church, that he might not quit the world without the consolation of
having participated in the rites of religion. Lebrun’s principal work is
a “Liturgical Journey in France,” in which he gives an account of the
most remarkable customs and ceremonies of the various churches.
We now revert once more to prisoners whose sins were political. Count
John Albert de Bucquoy, the next individual who comes under our notice,
was of the family of the celebrated Spanish and Imperial general, who
bore the same name and title. He was a native of Champagne, in which
province he was born about 1650. A line in Dryden’s severe description of
Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, will partly characterize Bucquoy; he
“Was every thing by starts, and nothing long.”
The circumstances of his having been left an orphan at the age of four
years, and having received a very imperfect education, may, perhaps,
account for some of his eccentricities. He embraced the military life;
but when he had served for five years, an escape from danger, which
he considered as miraculous, induced him to make a vow to withdraw
from all worldly pursuits. The rules of the Carthusian monks not being
strict enough to satisfy him, he entered at La Trappe, where he so
much injured his health by supererogatory austerities that the Abbé de
Rancé, the superior of the convent, was obliged to dismiss him. Bucquoy
then abruptly resumed his warlike attire; but soon after, with equal
abruptness, again cast it off, to dress himself in rags, and become a
hermit. Flying from the temptations of Paris, he next settled at Rouen,
where, under the name of La Mort, he for two years kept a school, to give
gratuitous instruction to the poor. The Jesuits of that city admired
his talents and his humble demeanour, and fruitlessly endeavoured to
enrol him in their fraternity. Having been accidentally recognised by a
person who had been a brother officer, he could no longer preserve his
incognito, and he therefore quitted Rouen, and bent his way to Paris.
There he formed the plan of founding a new monastic order, destined to
prove to unbelievers the truth of the Christian religion. It appears
to have been about this time that he assumed the garb and title of an
abbé. But while he was thus planning the demolition of incredulity, he
so bewildered himself in his theological speculations and reasonings,
that he became a sceptic. One thing which contributed much to produce the
change in him was, that, notwithstanding his self-inflicted severities,
he had failed to obtain the power of working miracles. This alone would
suffice to prove that his intellects were disordered. At this period,
his relatives, who had long believed him dead, were made acquainted with
his being in existence, and they procured for him a benefice. Bucquoy,
however, had got rid of his religious schemes, and had relapsed into
a taste for the profession of a soldier. His wish was now to raise a
regiment. But while he was indulging this new freak, he attracted the
attention of the government by his invectives against despotism and
the abuse of power. He was mistaken for the Abbé de la Bourlie, who
afterwards became notorious in England under the name of Guiscard, and
was arrested. When the mistake was discovered, he would have been set
free, had not his indiscreet language and conduct caused him to be
detained. He was committed to Fort-l’Evêque, from whence, however, he
contrived to escape. After having been at large for a considerable time,
he was caught and shut up in the Bastile, with a strict charge to the
keepers, that he should be closely watched, as being an enterprising
and dangerous person. The officers of that prison were seldom slack in
executing such orders, yet, in spite of all their vigilance, Bucquoy took
his measures so skilfully, and carried them into effect with so much
secrecy, that, in May 1709, after having been confined for two years, he
left his jailors in the lurch, and made good his retreat to Switzerland.
As soon as he was in safety, he began to negotiate with the French
ministers for his return to France, and the restoration of his property.
Failing in this, he journeyed to Holland, and submitted to the allies a
project for converting France into a republic, and annihilating arbitrary
power. This scheme, too, fell to the ground. It was, nevertheless,
beneficial to him, as it gained for him the friendship of General
Schulemburg, who, in 1714, introduced him, at Hanover, to George I. The
monarch was pleased with his conversation, admitted him to his table, and
gave him a pension. Bucquoy lived to nearly the age of ninety. In his
latter days, he wholly neglected his dress, suffered his beard to grow,
and might well have been mistaken for a squalid mendicant.
There was perhaps a spice of madness in Bucquoy, which sufficiently
accounts for his eccentric conduct. For the faults, or rather crimes, of
the personage who now comes under our notice there was no such excuse.
Throughout the whole of his existence, which, like that of Bucquoy, was
protracted far beyond the period usually allotted to man, the Marshal
Duke of Richelieu displayed as few virtues, and as many vices, as any
courtier on record. He had superficial talents, some wit, polished
manners, a handsome person, and much bravery; and this is all that
can be said for him. On the other hand, he was wholly without honour,
morals, and religion; a supporter and adulator of despotism, a political
intriguer, who could stoop to use the basest means for the accomplishment
of his purposes, a reckless duellist, and a systematic and heartless
seducer; he was, in fact, an impersonation of the profligacy and
corruption which distinguished the courts of the regent Duke of Orleans
and the fifteenth Louis.
Richelieu, who, in his early years, was known as the Duke of Fronsac, was
born in 1696. He was a seven months’ child, whom after his birth it was
necessary to keep in a box filled with cotton, and the preservation of
whose existence was long doubtful. When his health was established, he
was put under able preceptors; but he derived little benefit from their
instructions, and he never could spell with tolerable correctness. He
acquired, however, those showy graces which, undoubtedly, are an ornament
to virtue, but which, when the possessor has no virtue, can captivate
only persons of frivolous minds. He was introduced to the court at the
early age of fourteen, and soon, as St. Simon tells us, became its
darling. The female portion of it was in raptures with him, and seems to
have expressed its feelings without any regard to decorum. Fronsac, whose
passions were uncommonly precocious, met the forward with equal ardour,
and spared no pains to ensnare the few who were more timid or more
modest. He went to such a length that censure began to fall heavily on
the Duchess of Burgundy, and his own father deemed it prudent to request
a lettre-de-cachet against him, under which he was for fourteen months
confined in the Bastile. During his seclusion, Fronsac was attended by a
preceptor; and he consequently came out of prison with some knowledge of
Latin, and some addition to his scanty stock of useful information; but,
as far as concerned dignity of mind and purity of heart, no improvement
whatever had taken place.
The licentious career of Richelieu was suspended for a while, by his
serving as a volunteer in the army. He was present at the battle of
Denain, and at the sieges of the fortresses which were recovered by
Villars in consequence of his victory; and he distinguished himself so
much, that he was made aide-de-camp to the marshal, and was chosen by
him to convey to Paris the news of the surrender of Friburg. In 1715,
he succeeded to the title of Richelieu. On this occasion he performed
an action which merits praise; the property which was available for the
debts of his father was far from sufficient to cover them, he generously
paid to the creditors the full amount of their claims.
Again all the faculties of Richelieu were devoted to licentious
pleasures, which were now and then interrupted by a duel. In 1716 he
had a desperate encounter with the Count de Gacé, for which the regent
committed both parties to the Bastile, where they remained from March
till August. This imprisonment was, however, less severe than that which
he had to endure two years afterwards. In the spring of 1719, he was
sent, for the third time, to the Bastile, but, in this instance, he went
with the brand of traitor upon him, and was treated accordingly. He was
concerned in the Cellamare conspiracy, and had promised to deliver up
Bayonne to the Spaniards, and to join in exciting the south of France
to revolt. “If the Duke of Richelieu had four heads,” said the regent,
“I have proof enough against him to deprive him of them all.” On his
first arrival at the Bastile, the duke was placed in a dungeon; but
female influence soon obtained his removal to more comfortable quarters,
and permission for him to walk daily on the ramparts of the fortress.
His walks gave rise to an occurrence, which speaks volumes as to the
unblushing depravity of the high-born dames of France. During the hour
that he was walking, a string of elegant carriages, filled with women who
notoriously were or had been his mistresses, passed slowly backward and
forward in front of the spot where he was, and an intercourse of signs
was kept up between the prisoner and these unscrupulous ladies. It was by
the intercession of two princesses, who were enamoured of him, that his
release was obtained, after he had suffered a captivity of five months.
The danger to which Richelieu had been exposed on this occasion, though
it did not render him less vicious, rendered him, at least in one
respect, more prudent; he did not again put his head in the way of being
brought to the block. Thenceforward he limited his political intrigues,
in France, to acquiring benefits for himself, circumventing his rivals,
providing mistresses for the king, and making those mistresses the
instruments of his designs; and by these arts he became a thriving
courtier. Honours of all kinds, military and civil, were showered
upon him. At the age of twenty-four, without any literary pretensions
whatever, he was unanimously chosen a member of the French Academy;
and, in 1734, he was nominated an honorary member of the Academy of
Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. In the army he rose to the rank
of marshal; but his titles as a soldier were not unearned. At Kehl,
Philipsburg, Dettingen, Friburg, Fontenoy, Laufeldt, Genoa, and Minorca,
they were fairly won. In his last campaign, however, that of Hanover, in
1757, he sullied his laurels by the most infamous conduct. His rapacity
and extortion were a scorpion scourge to the country which France
had subdued; and, as though he feared that his own endless exactions
would not suffice to make him hated, he allowed, if not encouraged,
his troops to be guilty of marauding, and of various other enormities.
The subsequent defeats of the French army were the righteous result of
these dishonourable proceedings. As a negotiator, Richelieu manifested
considerable skill. He was twice employed in that capacity; at Vienna,
from 1725 to 1729, and at Dresden, in 1746. In both instances he fully
accomplished the purpose of his mission, and in both he displayed a
degree of ostentatious magnificence which had seldom been equalled.
When he entered Vienna, his train consisted of seventy-five carriages;
and his horses, and those of his officers, were shod with silver, the
shoes being slightly fastened, that they might fall off and be left for
the populace. In the state employments which he held, there appears to
have been but a solitary instance in which he was entitled to praise.
As lieutenant-general of the king in Languedoc, he once deviated into
the right path; by a judicious mixture of firmness and mildness, he
averted the disturbances which were about to arise from the persecution
of the protestants. But it was not in his nature to be permanently good.
At a later period, his harshness, in the same country, was rewarded by
his being appointed governor of Guienne and Gascony; and his pride and
tyranny very soon rendered him an object of detestation in both of these
provinces. At court, his influence and his example had a baneful effect.
He for more than a quarter of a century possessed the friendship of Louis
XV., and he foully abused it; he pandered to the monarch’s lusts, and
strained every nerve, with too much success, to prevent the misguided
sovereign from carrying into effect his occasional resolves, to lead in
future a life more suitable to his years, and to the lofty station which
he filled. He was the Mephistopheles of his royal master.
Richelieu was so fortunate as not to be exposed to the revolutionary
tempest; his disgraceful career was brought to a close in August, 1788,
when he had attained the age of ninety-two.
Of prisoners less known, or less important, during the period to which
this chapter refers, it will suffice to give a scanty specimen. Religious
intolerance contributed largely to people the jails. To enumerate all
who expiated in dungeons the crime of being protestants, would be an
endless task; in 1686 a hundred and forty-seven persons, and in 1689
sixty-one, were sent to the Bastile alone, almost all of whom were
hugonots. To unite in marriage the members of that proscribed class was
a heinous offence; a priest, named John de Pardieu, was doomed to the
Bastile for committing it. Whole families were immured for endeavouring
to leave the kingdom. Some of the victims were driven to despair by the
manner in which they were treated. Such was the case with the Sieur
Braconneau, who, as the register specifies, was “imprisoned on account of
religion, and died of a wound which he gave to himself with a knife.” The
protestants were, however, not the sole sufferers; the Jansenists, too,
came in for an ample share of persecution.
Real or pretended plots and evil speaking against the king were another
fruitful source of commitments. The following are a few instances: Don
Thomas Crisafi “suspected of intrigues with the Spanish ambassador
against the interests of the king.” Joseph Jurin, a footman, for having
said, “Who can prevent me from killing the king?” The Sieur Beranger de
Berliere, “for a plot against the king’s person.” The Count de Morlot,
accused of “detestable purposes against the king’s life.” Desvallons,
“for speaking insolently of the king.” Laurence Lemierre, shoemaker,
and his wife, for dangerous discourse about the king; and Francis
Brindjoug for the same offence. The Sieur Cardel, “for important reasons,
regarding the safety of the king’s person.” Jonas de Lamas, a baker,
“for execrations against the king.” This man was twenty years in the
Bastile, and was then removed to the Bicêtre. The Sieur de la Perche,
a fencing-master, accused of having said that “the king oppressed his
subjects, and thought only of amusing himself with his old woman; that he
would soon be a king of beggars; that his officers were starving; that he
had ruined the kingdom by driving away the hugonots; and that he cared
not a pin for his people.” The last article of the Sieur de la Perche’s
charge against the sovereign was made in language which is too vulgar to
be translated.
Under the head of miscellaneous offences may be mentioned the following:
Pierre His, “for having assisted several persons to go clandestinely
to America.” Those persons were probably hugonots. The Sieur Marini,
envoy from Genoa. This commitment, for which no reason is assigned,
took place in 1684, the year in which Louis XIV. made his disgraceful
attack on Genoa. Besnoit, called Arnonville, “an evil-minded woman, who
held improper discourse.” Charles Combon, called Count de Longueval, “a
maker of horoscopes, a fortune-teller, and vender of drugs to procure
abortion.” The Abbé Dubois, “a wicked and troublesome person.” Papillard,
“a bad catholic.” Saint Vigor, “affecting to be a hermit, but a man
of licentious manners.” John Blondeau, a hermit, “a suspected person.”
Peter John Mere, professing himself a physician, “for selling improper
drugs.” After having been thirty years in the Bastile, Mere was sent to
the Bedlam at Charenton. Bailly, a hatter, “for a design to establish a
hat manufactory in a foreign country.” Louisa Simon, a widow, “pretends
to tell fortunes, to have secrets for inspiring love, and to be able to
make marriages.” John Galembert, of the gens-d’armes, “a great traveller,
suspected of corresponding with the enemies of the state.” He was
subsequently exiled to Languedoc, his native province, within the limits
of which he was ordered to remain. The Prince de Riccia, “one of the
party at Naples that is against the French succession.” Nicholas Buissen,
“for insolent letters against Samuel Bernard (the court banker), with an
intention to hurt his credit.” The Sieur de Soulange, formerly a captain
of infantry in the Orleannois regiment, “a rogue, and spy on both sides.”
It will be seen that, in some of those instances, the individuals
deserved legal punishment; that, in others, the charges were trivial, or
vague, or ridiculous; and that in at least one case the French monarch
displayed gross contempt of the law of nations. His imprisonment of
Marini, the Genoese envoy, can only be paralleled by the manner in which
the Turks used to treat Christian ambassadors on the breaking out of
hostilities. But it was of a piece with the rest of his conduct towards
the Genoese republic. It was retributive justice that he, the wanton
disturber and insulter of Europe, should himself live to have his pride
trodden into the dust, and to dread the approach of a hostile army to the
walls of his own capital.
CHAPTER IX.
Reign of Louis XV.—Regency of the Duke of Orleans—Oppressive
measures against all persons connected with the Finances—Their
failure—Prisoners in the Bastile—Freret—Voltaire—The
Cellamare conspiracy—The Duchess of Maine—Madame de
Staal—Malezieu—Bargeton—Mahudel—The Mississippi scheme—Count
de Horn—Death of the Regent—Administration of the Duke of
Bourbon—La Blanc—Paris Duverney—The Count de Belleisle—The
Chevalier de Belleisle—Madame de Tencin.
When the Duke of Orleans assumed the regency, the finances of the kingdom
were in a lamentable state. The protracted and expensive wars into which
Louis XIV. had wantonly plunged, the boundless extravagance in which he
had indulged, and the peculations, and wasteful expenditure of every
kind, which had so long prevailed, had not only drained the treasury, but
had also caused a heavy load of debt, and almost dried up the sources of
supply. The government was indebted to an enormous amount, the revenue
of three years had been anticipated, and public credit was destroyed.
From all quarters a loud cry was raised for fiscal reform. A national
bankruptcy was proposed in the council, but the proposal was unanimously
rejected. The means which were adopted in its stead were, however,
scarcely less unjust; they were the same clumsy and violent means which
former rulers had almost uniformly employed. Contracts, entered into by
the ministers of the late king, were capriciously annulled, annuities and
pensions were cut down to one half, offices, which the holders had bought
at a great price, were abolished without any compensation being given,
a new coinage was issued at a higher nominal value, and government
securities, to the amount of six hundred millions, were at one stroke
reduced to two hundred and fifty millions, and even of this diminished
sum the creditors were defrauded of more than a fifth part. But the grand
panacea, for restoring the consumptive exchequer to its pristine vigour,
was the establishment of a court, antithetically denominated a chamber of
justice. This chamber was directed to institute a rigorous inquiry into
the conduct of all persons who had any connection with the finances, or
with contracts of any kind, and compel them to disgorge their spoil. A
sweeping edict brought under the jurisdiction of this inquisitorial body
several thousands of individuals, from the richest farmer-general, or
contractor, down to the poorest clerk. “The custom,” says Lemontey, “of
drawing back by proscriptions the rapines which a vicious administration
has tolerated, is an Asiatic art which ill beseems regular governments.
But, condemned to a financial anarchy by its squandering habits,
France, for a long while, could find no other than this odious remedy.”
The remedy was indeed an odious one! The retrospective operation of
this edict extended as far back as seven-and-twenty years; so that it
clutched in its iron grasp not only living presumed criminals, but
the children, grandchildren, and relations of those who had ceased to
exist, and thus at once inflicted torment on a multitude of guiltless
victims, and shook property to its very basis. The means employed to
give effect to the edict were of the most base and barbarous kind.
Death was the penalty denounced against all who were convicted, whoever
made an incorrect declaration of his fortune was doomed to the galleys,
and, that there might be no lack of evidence, the pillory was held up
_in terrorem_ to negligent witnesses. But, bad as all this was, there
was something still worse. Informers were to be rewarded with a fifth
part of the confiscations, and to receive a certificate, stating that
they were under the king’s protection, and exempt from being sued by
their creditors; to slander them was rendered punishable with death.
By another enactment, servants were allowed to denounce their masters,
under fictitious names; a happy invention for destroying all domestic
confidence! To excite the people, already sufficiently excited, a medal
was struck, on which the culprits were typified by the robber Cacus,
horrible songs and prints were circulated, and it was ordered that a
portion of the confiscated property should be distributed among the
inhabitants of the place where the condemned individual resided. The
whole scheme of proceeding was consistently infamous; it never deviated
into anything like justice.
To prevent the escape of those who were marked out for prosecution, an
order was suddenly issued, forbidding them to leave their abodes on pain
of death. Such, however, was the terror inspired by this unexpected
measure that many took flight, and others put an end to their own
existence. Of those who remained, multitudes were dragged from their
homes in the most studiously disgraceful manner, amidst the hootings
of the populace, who lent their willing aid to the officers of police.
The Bastile and the other prisons were speedily so crowded, that
numbers were obliged to be left in their houses under a guard. For six
months the chamber proceeded in its career, purveying liberally for the
pillory, the galleys, and the scaffold. It was at last discovered, that
this was a tedious and unsatisfactory process; that though revenge and
malice were gratified, there was little profit; and the system was in
consequence changed. To levy enormous fines and impositions was the new
course which was adopted. Twenty lists of pecuniary proscription were
made out, containing the names of 4470 heads of families, from whom the
sum of two hundred and twenty millions of livres—about nine millions
sterling—was demanded. The celebrated Bourvalais, who had risen from
being a footman to be one of the richest financiers in France, was taxed
at 4,400,000 livres. In many instances envy or personal enmity contrived
to have insufferable burthens laid upon obnoxious individuals. Then, on
the part of the sufferers, ensued solicitations and bribes to men and
women in power, to procure more favourable terms; the golden harvest
was eagerly reaped by the courtiers, and the court became a theatre
of underhand manœuvres and gross corruption. The people, meanwhile,
were rapidly growing disgusted with the chamber of justice. They found
that they had derived no benefit whatever from its labours, the sums
extorted by it having chiefly been wasted in gifts and pensions to the
privileged classes. There was another and yet stronger reason for their
dissatisfaction. Trade, and the demand for labour, had fallen off to an
alarming degree, and money was rapidly disappearing; for no one would
display riches, and indulge in luxuries, when his so doing might render
him an object of persecution. So loud a cry was therefore raised against
the chamber that, after having been twelve months in existence, it was
suppressed. By the subsequent reversal of most of its sentences, and by a
declaration, that no measure of a similar kind should again be resorted
to, a severe but just censure was in fact passed upon the defunct
tribunal, and upon the whole transaction.
From tyranny in the gross we must now turn our attention again to tyranny
in the detail. Oriental despotism, in its most capricious mood, could
not have inflicted punishment more ridiculously and unjustly than the
French government inflicted it upon the celebrated Freret. This eminent
individual, who was born at Paris in 1688, was remarkable for his
precocious talents and multifarious learning. Chronology, geography,
mythology, history, and the laws, customs, and literature of ancient and
modern nations, were all thoroughly known to him, he was not ignorant
of the abstruse sciences, and his knowledge, instead of being a chaotic
mass, was well arranged, systematically linked together, and readily
available. An authoritative tone, and some ruggedness of manner, were the
only defects imputed to him; but they were merely superficial, and did
not prevent him from being kind, charitable, and a sincere and constant
friend. He died at the age of sixty-one, his constitution, which was
naturally strong, being worn out by incessant study. The edition of his
works, in twenty volumes, is incomplete. Several irreligious productions
have been calumniously attributed to him.
It was a “Memoir on the Origin of the French” which was the cause of his
being sent to the Bastile in 1705, and the Abbé de Vertot is asserted to
have been the person to whom he owed his imprisonment. His offence was,
that the origin which he assigned to his countrymen was an affront to the
national dignity. It is said that, after having been closely interrogated
at the Bastile, he begged leave to ask a single question, “Why am I
here?” To this the reply was, “You have a great deal of curiosity.” When
he was at length released, one of the magistrates sneeringly said to him,
“Let France, and the French, and modern subjects, alone; antiquity offers
such a wide field for your labours.” It is probable that no Turkish
cadi, in the fifteenth century, ever uttered a speech of such insolent
stupidity as is ascribed, three centuries later, to this magistrate of a
polished nation.
Various as were the acquirements of Freret, there was in the Bastile, and
nearly contemporaneously with him, a prisoner, who far transcended him on
that score, and who possessed a splendid genius. Poet, in almost every
style of poetry, dramatist, historian, novellist, essayist, philosopher,
controversialist, and commentator, the universal Voltaire was pre-eminent
in several departments of literature, and was below mediocrity in none.
“He was,” says a French author, “one of our greatest poets; the most
brilliant, the most elegant, the most fertile, of our prose writers.
There is not, in the literature of any country, either in verse or in
prose, an author who has written on so many opposite kinds of subjects,
and has so constantly displayed a superiority in all of them.” It has
been said that Voltaire is a superficial writer, but this assertion is
not borne out by the fact. On the contrary, it is wonderful that so gay
and witty and fertile a writer, who was so much in the whirl of society
as he was, should have displayed such profound research, such a vast
command of materials, as Voltaire has undoubtedly done.
As a man, Voltaire could be a warm friend, and was a champion of
humanity, and a strenuous opponent of intolerance, superstition, and
oppression. From our admiration of him a considerable drawback must,
however, be made, for the readiness with which he lavished incense upon
such worthless nobles as the Duke of Richelieu; for the aristocratical
feelings which occasionally peep out even from among his liberal
opinions; for his duplicity in showering praises and professions of
kindness upon men whom he was at the same moment devoting to ridicule;
for his meanness in stooping to falsehood, whenever he feared that
avowing the truth would expose him to inconvenience; for his inflammable
passions, which so often blinded his reason; for the sleepless animosity
with which he strove to hunt down, disgrace, and crush whoever had
offended him; for his obscenity and nauseating indelicacy; and for the
fury with which he attacked objects which, in all ages, wise and good men
have held sacred.
Voltaire, whose family name was Arouet, was born, in 1694, at Chatenay,
and received a thorough education at the Jesuits’ College, in the French
capital. One of his tutors predicted that he would be the Coryphæus of
deism in France; and the society which the youthful poet frequented,
elegant, but immeasurably licentious and irreligious, was not likely
to falsify the prediction. His father destined him for a place in the
magistracy, but the literary propensity of the son was unconquerable. In
his twenty-second year he was sent to the Bastile, by the regent Duke of
Orleans, on an unfounded suspicion of his being the author of a libel.
It was while he was in prison that he formed the plan of the Henriade,
and completed the tragedy of Œdipus. He was in the Bastile above a year
before the regent recognised his innocence, and set him free. The regent
desired to see him, and the Marquis de Nocé was ordered to introduce him.
While they were waiting in the ante-chamber, a circumstance occurred
which strongly marks the profaneness and indiscretion of Voltaire. A
violent storm burst over Paris, upon which the poet looked up at the
clouds, and exclaimed, “If it were a regent that governed above, things
could not be managed worse.” When de Nocé presented him to the duke, he
said, “Here, your highness, is young Arouet, whom you have just taken out
of the Bastile, and whom you will send back again,” and he then repeated
what had been said. The duke, however, did not send him back again; he
laughed heartily, and made the offender a liberal present. “I thank your
royal highness for taking care of my board,” said Voltaire, “but I must
request that you will not again provide me with lodging.”
Œdipus was represented in 1718, with complete success. Two other
tragedies, Artemise and Mariane, by which it was succeeded, were less
fortunate. The Duke of Orleans was dead, and the reins of government
were now held by the Duke of Bourbon. Voltaire having ventured to
resent a dastardly insult offered to him by the worthless Chevalier de
Rohan-Chabot, the chevalier thought it safer to imprison his adversary
than to meet him in the field. His friends applied to the Duke of
Bourbon, and raised his anger by showing him an epigram which the poet
had composed on him. Their plan was successful; Voltaire was committed
to the Bastile, and remained there for six months. This act of injustice
induced him to take up his residence in England. In this country he
lived for three years, was flatteringly received by many illustrious
characters, and obtained a splendid subscription for the Henriade. The
produce of this subscription formed the basis of that large fortune
which he subsequently obtained by various lucky speculations. In 1728 he
returned to his native land, and, between that year and 1749, he produced
his tragedies of Zara, Alzira, Mahomet, and Merope, and many other works,
was admitted into the French Academy, and was appointed gentleman in
ordinary of the king’s bed-chamber, and historiographer of France.
In 1750 Voltaire accepted an invitation to Berlin, which was given to him
by the king of Prussia. For a while the sovereign and the poet were on
the most amicable terms; but, in 1753, their friendship was broken, and
Voltaire quitted the Prussian dominions in disgust. Paris, in consequence
of the intrigues of his enemies, being no longer an eligible abode for
him, he lived for short periods at Geneva and other places, and at length
purchased an estate at Ferney, in the Pays de Gex, on which he finally
settled. There, in possession of an ample fortune, and surrounded by
friends, he gave free scope to his indefatigable pen. In April, 1778, he
went once more to Paris, after an absence of nearly thirty years. He was
received with almost a frenzy of enthusiasm, his bust was crowned on
the stage, and was placed by the academicians next to that of Corneille.
These honours, however, he did not long enjoy, for he expired on the 30th
of May; his death is supposed to have been hastened by an over-dose of
laudanum, which he took to calm the pain occasioned by strangury, and
to procure sleep, of which he had long been deprived. In the edition of
Beaumarchais, the collected works of Voltaire form seventy volumes.
By the detection of the Cellamare conspiracy, in 1718, a large accession
of prisoners fell to the share of the Bastile. Wounded female pride had
the chief share in getting up that conspiracy. The Duchess of Maine was
the prime mover. This princess, whose small frame was animated by a high
and restless spirit, had seen her family degraded in a manner which it
was not unnatural that she should violently resent. By an edict, dated
in 1710, Louis XIV. not only granted to the Duke of Maine, and his other
legitimated children, the same rank and honours which were enjoyed by
princes of the blood, but also declared them capable of inheriting
the crown, on failure of descendants in the legitimate branches. This
step was highly offensive to the French peers, and was opposed by the
parliament; but, while the king lived, resistance was unavailing. But
the scene was about to change. Though Louis had reinforced his decree by
a declaration in 1714, and by a clause in his testament, his death soon
afforded another proof of the little respect that is paid to a deceased
despot. The will, as every one knows, was set aside, without a voice
being heard in support of it. In 1717, at the instance of the Duke of
Bourbon, and the peers, the council of regency deprived the legitimated
princes of all the privileges of princes of the blood, with the exception
of a seat in the parliament. It was in vain that the Duchess of Maine
and her partisans moved heaven and earth to avert this blow; all
their writings, speeches, and manœuvres, were entirely thrown away. It
must, however, be owned, that the duchess displayed wonderful talent
and industry on this occasion; while the struggle continued, she was
constantly to be seen half buried in a pile of dusty volumes, records,
and other documents, in which she sought arguments and examples to
support her cause. When the dreaded blow was finally struck, her passion
rose to the highest pitch. “There is nothing left to me now,” exclaimed
she to her more patient husband, “but the shame of having married you!”
In the following year fresh fuel was heaped upon the flame. The Duke of
Maine was reduced to take rank below all the peers, except those who were
created posterior to 1694, and was likewise divested of the tutorship
of the young king, which was assumed by the Duke of Bourbon. This gave
rise to another outbreak of passion on the part of the duchess, who,
on receiving notice to give up to the triumphant Bourbon the official
apartments in the Tuileries, broke the glasses, the china, and everything
which she had strength enough to destroy. Thus stung to the quick, she
resorted to conspiracy for vengeance, and she speedily rallied round her
a band of subaltern intriguers and discontented politicians. To expel
the Duke of Orleans from the regency, and place the government under
the tutelage of Philip V. of Spain, was the design of the plotters. The
Spanish monarch, who detested the Duke of Orleans, and who, in spite of
his renunciation, had still views on the French crown, was by no means
averse from forwarding the scheme of the duchess. The correspondence was
carried on through the Prince de Cellamare, the Spanish ambassador at
Paris. The Duke of Orleans was, however, not in the dark with respect
to these proceedings; they were betrayed to him by some of the parties
concerned; and, as soon as the proof was complete, the whole of the
offenders were arrested. The Duchess of Maine was sent to the castle
of Dijon, and allowed only one female servant to attend her, the duke
was closely confined in the citadel of Dourlens; the Abbé Brigault, the
Marquis of Pompadour, the Count of Laval, the Chevalier Menil, Malezieu,
Mademoiselle de Launay, and many more, found lodgings in the Bastile;
and Vincennes and other prisons received their share of captives. Of de
Launay and Malezieu some account shall be given; the rest deserve no
record.
The Baroness de Staal, whose maiden name was de Launay, was born at
Paris, in 1693. Her father was a painter, who was compelled to retire
to England before her birth; her mother, who seems not to have been
overburdened with maternal feelings, found with her infant a retreat in
a convent at Rouen. Even in infancy, De Launay manifested the dawning
of a very superior intellect, and her manners were so fascinating that
she became the darling of the convent. She had an extreme longing for
knowledge, her questions were incessant, and, as all the nuns were
eager to gratify and improve her, she soon acquired a larger and more
valuable stock of ideas than falls to the lot of children in general.
Among her friends in the convent was Madame de Grieu, who, on being
nominated prioress of St. Louis at Rouen, took the child with her to
her new abode. “The convent of St. Louis,” says Madame de Staal, “was
like a little state in which I reigned sovereignly.” The abbess and her
sister enjoyed a small pension from their family, which they devoted to
the payment of masters for their favourite. By the time that she was
fourteen, De Launay had studied the philosophy of Descartes, and pondered
over the speculations of Malebranche, and, not long after, she turned her
attention to the science of geometry.
Her intellectual powers and her winning qualities brought many admirers
around her; among whom were the Abbé de Vertot, M. Brunel, and M. Rey.
None of them, however, made any impression on her heart. With respect to
the passion of M. Rey, she makes one of those quiet yet piquant remarks,
which are so common in her Memoirs. He was accustomed to escort her back
to the convent, when she had been visiting some neighbouring friends. “We
had to pass through a large open space,” says she, “and at the beginning
of our acquaintance, he used to take his way along the sides. I found
now, that he crossed over the middle of it; from which I concluded, that
his love was at least diminished in the proportion of the difference
between the diagonal and the two sides of a square.” It was not long ere
she ceased to be able to speak of love in a sportive tone. She became
deeply enamoured of the Marquis de Silly, the brother of a friend. He
respected her, and acted the part of a counsellor, and almost a brother,
but he could not return her affection: and the unfortunate fair one has
touchingly described the sufferings she endured from her idolatrous and
hopeless passion. Years elapsed before it was eradicated.
This woe was aggravated by another. The death of the prioress, Madame de
Grieu, in 1710, obliged her to quit the convent, and threw her without
resources on the world. She accompanied to Paris the sister of her late
patroness, and found a temporary refuge in the Presentation convent. To
the purses of her friends she resolutely determined to make no appeal,
while her means of repayment were uncertain, but rather to welcome
servitude than forfeit her self-estimation. Her finances and hopes were
almost at the lowest ebb, when the report of her astonishing abilities
reached the gay, frivolous, and volatile duchess of La Ferté. The duchess
was delighted with the idea of getting possession of, and exhibiting,
what in fashionable cant phrase is called “a lion.” She could not rest
till the new wonder was brought to her; an event which was somewhat
retarded by the necessity under which Mademoiselle de Launay was placed,
of borrowing decent clothes to appear in. The duchess was one of those
persons who are apt to take sudden and violent likings, and she instantly
pronounced her to be an absolute prodigy. She lauded her without measure
in all quarters, hurried her about from place to place, and showed her
off, much in the same way that a remarkably clever monkey is managed
by an itinerant exhibitor of wild beasts. Madame de Staal has given an
account, which is at once ludicrous and painful, of what she endured
at this period. Fortunately for her, she became acquainted with men of
talent, and acquired some valuable friends, among whom were Fontenelle
and Malazieu.
Disappointed in her hopes of being received into the household of the
Duchess of La Ferté, or of obtaining an establishment elsewhere through
her means, De Launay accepted an offer from the Duchess of Maine, to whom
she had been introduced. This defection, as it was deemed, threw her late
patroness into a paroxysm of rage. Her new situation was an unenviable
one. She filled the place of a lady’s maid, who had retired; her
apartment was a wretched low closet, in which it was impossible to move
about in an upright posture, and which had neither chimney nor window;
and her chief occupation was to make up shifts, in which she confesses
herself to have been so inexpert, that, when the duchess came to put on
some of her handywork, she found in the arm what ought to have been in
the elbow. By the duchess, and all the upper classes in the house, she
was utterly neglected, as a mere drudge; by those of her own class, she
was envied, hated, and persecuted, for her natural superiority over
them. Life at last became a burthen, and there was a moment when she
seriously meditated the commission of suicide.
A happy chance lifted her at once from this slough of despond into her
proper sphere. There was an exceedingly beautiful female, named Testard,
who laid claim to supernatural powers; by desire of the Duke of Orleans,
Fontenelle had visited her, and, prejudiced by her charms, is said to
have manifested too much faith in her. This folly of a philosopher,
who was not remarkable for believing too much, excited a loud clamour.
“You had better write to M. de Fontenelle, to let him hear what every
body is talking against him about Testard,” said the duchess one day
to her despised attendant. De Launay did write; and her letter, though
brief, was such a finished composition, such an admirable mixture of
delicate reproof and delicate praise, that, in the course of a few days,
innumerable copies of it were spread throughout Paris. She, meanwhile,
was unconscious of the effect which she had produced, till she was
apprised of it by the duchess’s visitors, who overwhelmed her with
compliments and attentions.
From this time Mademoiselle de Launay was looked upon by the duchess as
a person whose opinion was of some consequence, and was admitted into
her parties, and enjoyed her confidence. She now shared with Malezieu
the task of supplying plans and verses for the spectacles at Sceaux. Her
literary connections became more widely extended, and she had no lack
of lovers. Among those who paid the most devoted homage to her, was the
Abbé de Chaulieu; the passion, as she herself hints, could have been only
platonic, for he was then verging on eighty, but she owns that she had “a
despotic authority over everything in his house.” It must, however, be
mentioned, to her honour, that she displayed a rare disinterestedness,
and steadily refused presents from him, which would have tempted a
woman of a common mind, especially under De Launay’s circumstances. The
princely gift of a thousand pistoles, which the Abbé offered, would have
saved her from the slavery, endured night after night, of reading a
duchess to sleep, while her own health was endangered by want of rest.
In the memorial which the Duchess of Maine drew up in behalf of the
legitimated princes, she was assisted by De Launay. “I turned over,”
says the latter, “the old chronicles, and the ancient and modern
jurisconsults, till excessive fatigue disposed the princess to rest.
Then came my reading, to lull her to sleep; and then I went to seek for
slumber, which, however, I never found!”
In the proceedings of the duchess, with respect to the Cellamare
conspiracy, she was deeply implicated; a part at least of the
correspondence passed through her hands. Her good sense anticipated,
long before the event, what would be the final result. The storm burst
at last. She was arrested on the 19th of December, 1718, and, three days
after, was committed to the Bastile. With a truly philosophical spirit,
she soon became reconciled to her fate. Luckily, she had an invaluable
companion in her maid Rondel, faithful, affectionate, and acute, the
very model of domestics. But it must not be concealed, that she had
another consolation, to lighten her prison hours. She inspired two
persons with an ardent attachment. One of these was a fellow prisoner,
on the Cellamare score, the Chevalier de Menil; the other was the king’s
lieutenant in the fortress, M. de Maisonrouge. Reason would have chosen
the latter as the proper object of fondness; but her wayward heart
decided in favour of the former. No writer has ever imagined a more
elevated, devoted, self-sacrificing passion than that of Maisonrouge.
He lived and breathed but for her; ever watchful to forerun all her
wishes, having no delight but to behold and converse with her, he had
even the magnanimity to convey her letters to Menil, and to bring about
interviews, when he found that her heart was irrevocably bestowed on him.
The catastrophe is painful. The favoured Menil, who had solemnly pledged
himself to make her his wife, was no sooner set free than he proved
faithless to his vows. The noble-minded and unfortunate Maisonrouge never
recovered the shock which he sustained from his loss; he died the victim
of his unrequited love.
The confinement of Mademoiselle de Launay was continued for two years;
she was the last to be liberated. Her imprisonment was protracted by
her repeated resolute refusals to confess anything that could tend to
derogate from the safety and character of the Duchess of Maine. She
persisted in this course even after she had the duchess’s permission
to speak out, and she was released at last after having made only an
imperfect confession. This heroic conduct gained, as it deserved,
universal praise. It is mortifying to relate that, after her sufferings,
she was received by the duchess without that warm greeting which she had
a right to expect. The duchess even carried her indifference so far as
to let her remain almost in rags, all her clothes having been worn out
in the Bastile. Yet she would not hear of her quitting Sceaux, and when
Dacier, who was rich, would have married De Launay, she frustrated the
negotiation, in the dread of losing her. At length, when her ill-used and
exhausted dependent was meditating to retire into a convent, the duchess
bestirred herself, and brought about an union with the Baron de Staal, a
half-pay Swiss officer. The baroness was now admitted to all the honours
enjoyed by the highest ladies in the household, and from this period
till her decease in 1750, she was comparatively happy.
Nicholas de Malezieu, a native of Paris, was born in 1650. Like Madame
de Staal, he possessed much talent, and, like her, he displayed it in
childhood. By the time that he was four years old he had, with scarcely
any assistance, taught himself to read and write, and at twelve years of
age had gone through a complete course of philosophy. His merit gained
for him the friendship of Bossuet, and the Duke of Montausier, and so
highly did those eminent men rate it, that they recommended him as tutor
to the Duke of Maine. Fenelon was subsequently added to the list of his
friends, and, notwithstanding the breach between that amiable prelate and
Bossuet, he retained the good-will of both. He seems, too, to have lived
in harmony with all the principal contemporary authors. The marriage of
the Duke of Maine with the high-spirited and intelligent grand-daughter
of the great Condé drew still closer the ties which bound Malezieu to
the family of the duke. His learning embraced a wide circle, he was a
proficient in mathematics, elegant literature, Greek, and Hebrew, and his
extemporary translations from the Greek dramatists and poets, and his
illustrations and comments on them, are said to have been delivered with
a degree of eloquence which excited universal admiration. The duchess
listened to his instructions with delight. It is therefore not wonderful,
that he acquired an almost unbounded influence in the ducal palace.
“The decisions of M. Malezieu,” says Madame de Staal, “were thought as
infallible as were those of Pythagoras among his disciples. The warmest
disputes were at an end the moment any one pronounced the words ‘_He_
said it.’” There was another reason which had, perhaps no small effect
in rendering him a favourite with the duchess. He was not one of those
stately personages who think that it derogates from their dignity to
attend to graceful trifles. The duchess was fond of giving magnificent
spectacles and entertainments, and having plays acted, at Sceaux, where
she held a sort of miniature court. Malezieu had the management of them,
and when verses, and sometimes pieces, were wanted, his ready pen was
called in to supply them. From these light occupations he was taken away
for a time, to become mathematical preceptor to the youthful Duke of
Burgundy; in this task he was for four years engaged, and he performed
it in a manner which enhanced his reputation. The lessons which he
gave to his royal pupil were afterwards published, under the title of
“Elements of Geometry.” The days of Malezieu were spent in uninterrupted
tranquillity, till the period when the duchess rashly plunged into
intrigues with the Spanish court. It was not unnatural that he should
espouse warmly the cause of his noble patrons, and he was perhaps led to
the verge of treason before he was aware. His heaviest offence seems to
have been his writing, at the request of the Duchess of Maine, sketches
of two letters against the Duke of Orleans which were to be sent to the
Spanish monarch, for the purpose of being addressed by him to Louis
XV. and the parliaments. Malezieu long persisted in denying the fact,
and asserting the innocence of his employer, and for this persistency
he was kept in the Bastile after the whole of the plotters, with the
exception of himself and De Launay, had been discharged. It was not till
he knew that proof was in the hands of the government, and the duchess
had confessed, that he avowed the authorship of the letters. He was then
released, but was exiled for six months to Etampes. His decease took
place in 1727.
There remains yet another person who suffered by the Cellamare
conspiracy, though he was not one of its agents. He had the fate of the
unlucky stork in the fable, who got into dangerous company. Bargeton, one
of the most celebrated advocates of the parliament of Paris, was born,
about 1675, at Uzès, in Languedoc. If he was not of humble birth, his
parents at least were poor; for, before he had emerged from obscurity,
all relationship with him was disclaimed by a Languedocian family
which claimed to be noble. When, however, his fortune and fame were
established, one of that family was anxious to prove his consanguinity
with the formerly despised advocate, and hoped to flatter him, by
descanting on the antiquity of their common origin. Bargeton cut short
the harangue of his would-be kinsman. “As you are a gentleman by birth,”
said he, “it is impossible that we can be relations.”
Bargeton was the law adviser of some of the highest personages of the
kingdom. The duke and duchess of Maine placed entire confidence in him.
This circumstance gave rise to suspicion that he was connected with the
Cellamare plot, and he was consequently committed to the Bastile. In a
short time his innocence was recognized, and he was set at liberty.
The legal reputation of Bargeton, both as a civilian and common lawyer,
induced Machault, the comptroller-general of finances, to apply to him,
in 1749, for assistance. The clergy had hitherto contributed to the
wants of the state only by voluntary gifts; and, of course, asserted
the privilege of not being compelled to contribute at all. Machault
determined to put an end to this pretended privilege, by subjecting
them, like the rest of the people, to the payment of the twentieth. Had
he succeeded, his success would have put an end to one of the abuses
which contributed to produce the Revolution, and, most probably, would
at length have caused the downfall of another equally crying abuse with
respect to the nobles. Though Bargeton was thoroughly convinced that the
clergy had no right to an exemption from imposts, yet, being aware that
the firmness of Louis XV. was not to be relied on, he advised Machault
either to prohibit the ecclesiastics from holding meetings, or to
decline a contest with them. “I have the king’s promise to stand by me,”
said Machault. “He will break it,” replied the advocate, who, in this
instance, proved to be a prophet. Bargeton, nevertheless, lent his aid to
the comptroller-general, and wrote a series of admirable letters, on the
subject of the clerical immunity. His labour was in vain. Unchangeable
in nothing but sensuality and despotism, the king yielded; the clergy
triumphed; and the letters of Bargeton were suppressed by an order of
council. The author did not live to witness this event; he died early in
1753, before his work had passed through the press.
The suspicion of carrying on an improper correspondence with Spain,
though it does not appear that he was connected with the Duchess of
Maine’s party, gave another prisoner to the Bastile. Nicholas Mahudel,
who was born at Langres, in 1673, was by profession a physician; but
his celebrity was acquired by his profound knowledge of history and
numismatics. So extensive were his talents and information upon those
subjects, that he was chosen a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, and
he took a very active part in the proceedings of that learned body. His
servant having betrayed to the police some letters which his master had
written to Spain, at the period when all intercourse with that country
was looked upon with a jealous eye, the consequence was, that Mahudel was
lodged in the Bastile for several months. It was while he was in prison
that he wrote his “History of Medallions,” of which only four copies were
printed. His other productions are chiefly dissertations on medals, and
on historical questions. He died in 1747.
It has seldom happened that a captive has been reluctant to quit his
prison. Such an uncommon anomaly did, however, actually occur with
respect to an individual who was implicated in the Cellamare plot. Five
years had elapsed since the discomfiture of that plot, and the government
believed that all who were connected with it had been released, when it
was by mere chance discovered that one of them, the Marquis de Bon Repos,
had been left in the Bastile by mistake. Bon Repos, an aged officer, who,
notwithstanding his title, was miserably poor, was anything but grateful
for his proffered release. He had become habituated to confinement, and
was rejoiced to be safe from want, and he manifested a strong dislike to
“a crust of bread and liberty.” It was not without much murmuring that he
consented to change his quarters in the Bastile for others in the Hôtel
des Invalides.
It might have been supposed that the tremendous explosion of the
Mississippi scheme, which spread ruin over France, would have filled the
prisons with real or imagined offenders. But this was not the case. Law
himself, more unfortunate and imprudent perhaps than criminal, received
a passport from the regent, and reached Brussels in safety. The only
persons who appear to have at all suffered, were his brother, William
Law, and two of the directors, who were sent for a short time to the
Bastile.
The next remarkable inmate of the Bastile, the Count de Horn, a Flemish
noble, was no less infamous by crime than he was illustrious by birth. He
was allied to several princely houses, and could even claim relationship
with the regent Duke of Orleans. So thoroughly had he disgraced himself,
by his fraudulent and debauched conduct, that at the very time when he
was meditating the atrocity which drew on him the vengeance of the
law, his family had despatched a gentleman to pay his debts, to request
his expulsion from Paris, and to bring him back, by force if necessary,
to his own country. Their agent arrived too late. Some of the count’s
freaks, disgraceful as they were, might have been charitably ascribed to
the licentious manners of the age, and the turbulent passions of a youth
of twenty-two, had he not been guilty of a crime which proved that his
heart was still more faulty than his head.
The two indiscretions—if so mild a name may be given to them—for which
the Count de Horn was sent to the Bastile, were not too harshly punished
by his imprisonment; as they manifested a degree of brutality which was
ominous of worse deeds. In company with some of his libertine companions,
he was passing the cloisters of St. Germain, where a corpse was waiting
for interment. “What are you doing here? Get up!” he exclaimed to the
body, which was lying uncovered. He seconded his speech by striking the
corpse several blows with his sword, and overturning it among the sacred
vessels, which were placed in readiness for the funeral service.
As no notice was taken of this outrage, he was emboldened to make
the church of St. Germain once more the scene of his exploits. It is
necessary to mention that, at the period in question, almost the whole
population of Paris was labouring under the epidemic madness of the
famous Mississippi scheme. An ordinance relative to bank notes had just
been issued by the government, and a hawker was crying it for sale in the
street. From this man the count purchased a copy of the ordinance, and
gave him a crown for it, on condition of his placing a large stone at
the great door of the church. On this stone De Horn mounted, and while
high mass was being celebrated within the building, he thundered out the
anthem which is sung when the dead are committed to the ground, and he
concluded by proclaiming the burial of bank notes. This second insult to
public decency was too much to be borne; the priest laid his complaint
before the government, and the offender was conveyed to the Bastile.
In the course of a few days the youthful profligate was set at liberty.
But his brief imprisonment had worked no beneficial change upon him. It
seems, indeed, to have had a contrary effect. So slight a chastisement
perhaps induced him to calculate upon impunity for greater crimes. A
very short time elapsed before he dipped his hands in blood. In the
sanguinary deed which brought him to destruction, he had two accomplices,
Laurent de Mille, a half-pay captain, and Lestang, a youth of twenty, the
son of a Flemish banker. Every Frenchman, who could any how obtain the
means of speculating, was then busily engaged in the Rue Quincampoix,
which was the Parisian stock exchange. De Horn, too, was there; but his
speculation was of a more diabolical nature than that which engaged the
multitude. Having picked out a rich stock-jobber, who was known to carry
about with him a large sum in notes, he lured him by pretending to be in
possession of shares, which he was willing to sell considerably under the
market price. These bargains were usually concluded in a tavern; and,
accordingly, De Horn and his associates proceeded with their unsuspecting
victim to a house of that kind in the Rue de Venise. There he stabbed the
unfortunate stock-jobber, and robbed him of his pocket-book. He then,
with his accomplices, leaped out of the window, and endeavoured to make
his escape. Lestang got off, but the count and the half-pay captain were
less fortunate; they were overtaken, and lodged in prison.
Justice, on this occasion, was not delayed. The trial of the delinquents
followed close upon the commission of the murder; no circumstance of
mitigation could be pleaded in their behalf, and they were both condemned
to be broken on the wheel. No sooner did the sentence become known than
the whole of the aristocratical class in France, Flanders, and Germany,
was in commotion. To subject a nobleman to such a degrading punishment
was declared to be an unprecedented and abominable measure. The regent
was beset on all sides by solicitations for a pardon, or, at least,
for a change in the mode of executing the criminal. When the first of
these boons was found to be hopeless, redoubled exertions were made to
obtain the second. Among the arguments employed to move the regent, that
of the culprit being related to him was strongly urged. But, though
Philip of Orleans was stained by many vices, there were moments when his
better nature prevailed, and he was capable of acting nobly. To the near
relations of the count, who pressed him incessantly on the subject, he
replied, “When I have impure blood in my veins, I have it drawn out.”
Then, quoting the sentiment of Corneille, “’tis crime that brands with
shame, and not the scaffold,” he added, “I must share in the disgrace of
which you complain, and this ought to console the rest of his kindred.”
It is said, however, that he was at length on the point of yielding so
far as to commute the form of punishment for one less obnoxious; but
that Mr. Law and the Abbé Dubois insisted on the absolute necessity of
allowing justice to take its course. Popular indignation would, they
justly remarked, be roused by any favour being shown to the perpetrator
of such a heinous offence. The regent acquiesced in their opinion; and,
that he might not be harassed by further appeals to his clemency, he
went privately to St. Cloud, where he remained till the murderers were
executed.
Having lost all hope from the Regent, the Princes of Robecq and
Isengheim, who were nearly allied to De Horn, tried a new method of
evading the dreaded stigma. They gained admission to his prison, and
exhorted him to escape the wheel, by taking poison, which they offered.
But either religious scruples, or a lingering belief that he might yet be
pardoned, induced him to decline acceding to their wishes. Finding that
all their intreaties and remonstrances were unavailing, they quitted him
in a rage, exclaiming, “Go, wretch! you are fit only to die by the hand
of the executioner.”
The firmness of the regent was worthy of applause. It was, nevertheless,
looked upon as an inexpiable insult by the aristocracy in general, and
especially by the kinsfolk of the malefactor. The regent having directed
that the confiscated property of the count should be restored to the
prince, his brother, the haughty noble rejected the proffered boon, and
gave vent to his high displeasure in the following insolent letter.
“I do not complain, Sir, of the death of my brother; he had committed
so horrible a crime, that there was no punishment he did not deserve.
But I complain, that, in his person, you have violated the rights of
the kingdom, of the nobility, and of nations. For the offer of his
confiscated property, which you have been pleased to make, I thank you;
but I should think myself as infamous as he was, if I were to accept of
the slightest favour from your Royal Highness. I hope that God and the
king will, some day, mete out to you the same rigid justice that you have
dispensed to my unfortunate brother.”
By the death of the Duke of Orleans, in 1723, all the power of the state
fell into the worthless hands of the Duke of Bourbon. The vices of
Orleans had been at least palliated by great talents, some virtues, and a
heart which, though corrupted, was not dead to kind and noble feelings;
but Bourbon, harsh in disposition, rude in manners, repulsive in personal
appearance, and governed by an artful and profligate mistress, had no one
good quality to throw even a faint lustre over his numerous defects. The
sway of Bourbon lasted little more than two years, and, in that brief
space of time, he committed so many enormous political errors, springing
from ignorance, presumption, and intolerance, that the kingdom was thrown
into discontent and confusion.
The minister of the war department, Claude le Blanc, was one of those
who suffered by the change which took place on the death of the Duke of
Orleans. Le Blanc was born in 1669, and had filled several important
offices before he became one of the ministers. The machinations of his
enemies, one of the most inveterate of whom was the Marshal de Villeroi,
procured his temporary banishment from court in 1723, on suspicion of
his having participated in peculation committed by the treasurer. He was
confined in the Bastile by the Duke of Bourbon, and the parliament was
directed to bring him to trial. To secure his conviction, his adversaries
calumniously asserted, that he had employed an assassin to murder one of
his principal accusers. The parliament, however, fully acquitted him of
all the charges which were brought against him. He was, nevertheless,
exiled by the duke. In 1726, Cardinal de Fleury placed him once more at
the head of the war department, where he continued till his decease, in
1728. It is in favour of his character that he died poor, and that he was
beloved by the people.
Le Blanc was scarcely restored to his office, before his vacant place in
the Bastile was filled by one who had been among the most active of his
enemies. Joseph Paris Duverney, a native of Dauphiné, of humble birth,
was one of four brothers, all of whom were men of talent. A fortunate
chance gave them the opportunity of exercising their talents in a wider
field than, considering their primitive station in life, they could have
hoped to find. They were the sons of a man who kept a small solitary inn
at the foot of the Alps, and whom they assisted in his business. The
Duke of Vendôme was then at the head of the French army in Italy, and
all his plans were rendered abortive by the failure of supplies. This
want of subsistence was caused by the scandalous conduct of Bouchu, the
commissary general. Bouchu, who was old, had the folly to make love to
a young girl, and she had the good sense to prefer his deputy, who had
youth and personal appearance on his side. To revenge himself for this
slight, Bouchu retarded the collecting of provisions, in order to throw
the blame on his deputy, who was charged with the merely mechanical part
of the operations. Knowing that further delay would be ruin to him, the
deputy contrived to collect a portion of the supplies that were wanted;
but he was yet far from being out of his difficulties, for the Alps were
interposed between him and the French army, and he knew not where to find
in the neighbourhood a practicable pass. While he was labouring under
this embarrassment, he luckily fell in with the four brothers, and they
engaged to extricate him from it. They were thoroughly acquainted with
every path and goat track in that wild region, and they conducted the
convoy with so much skill, through apparently impassable ways, that they
reached the French camp without having suffered the slightest loss.
This service, for which they were liberally rewarded, laid the foundation
of their fortune. The contractors and commissaries employed them, and
promoted them rapidly; and, at no distant time, the brothers became
themselves contractors, and extensive commercial speculators. Riches
rapidly flowed in upon them, and they were called to take a share
in managing the finances of the state. They experienced, however, a
temporary eclipse during the ascendancy of Law, to whom they were
hostile, and who avenged himself by procuring their exile into Dauphiné.
The flight of Law put an end to their banishment; they returned to Paris,
were in higher credit than ever, and contributed much to mitigate the
evils which had been caused by the Mississippi scheme. They continued to
have great weight in the government, till they lost it in consequence of
a political intrigue, in which Joseph Paris imprudently engaged, with the
Marchioness de Prie, the Duke of Bourbon’s mistress. Their intent was to
exclude Cardinal de Fleury from public affairs, and to give the duke an
unbounded ascendancy over the youthful monarch. Fleury discovered the
plot; the duke was deprived of power; and the brothers were once more
exiled. Joseph was soon after arrested, at his asylum near Langres, and
was sent to the Bastile, where he remained for nearly two years. In 1730,
however, he recovered his influence, and he kept it till his death, in
1770. France is indebted to Joseph Duverney for the project of the Royal
Military School, which was carried into execution in 1751.
Two grandsons of the unfortunate Fouquet, the Count de Belleisle, and
the Chevalier de Belleisle, were involved in the fall of Le Blanc, and
were for some time inmates of the Bastile. The count was born in 1684;
the chevalier in 1693. The count had acquired a high military character,
in the war of the succession, and in the Spanish campaign of 1719, when,
with his brother, he was immured in a prison. After his release, he
served with distinction in various quarters, and rose to the rank of
marshal. Cardinal de Fleury placed entire confidence in his civil as well
as his military talents. It was not, however, till the breaking out
of the war of 1741 that his genius shone forth in its full lustre. The
secret negotiations for raising the Elector of Bavaria to the dignity of
emperor were carried on by him, and on this occasion he gave convincing
proof of his diplomatic skill. Placed at the head of the French army,
which was to maintain Charles VII. on the throne, Belleisle carried
Prague by assault. But while, as ambassador extraordinary of Louis XV.,
he was securing the election of Charles at Frankfort, the Austrians
threatened to deprive him of his recent conquests. He, therefore,
hastened back to his army, obtained some advantages, and would probably
have triumphed, had not the sudden defection of Prussia and Saxony left
him to bear the whole weight of Maria Theresa’s forces.
Prague, garrisoned by 28,000 French, was soon invested by 60,000 enemies.
Belleisle offered to give up the Bohemian capital, on condition of being
allowed to retire without molestation; but the besiegers would listen
to nothing short of a surrender at discretion. After having made a
protracted defence, he began to be threatened by famine, and, in this
extremity, he resolved to break through the Austrian quarters. At the
head of 15,000 men, with twelve days’ provisions, he sallied from Prague,
on the night of the 16th of December, 1742, and directed his march upon
Egra, which city was at the distance of thirty-eight leagues. He took
his measures so well, that, though he was closely pursued by the enemy’s
light troops, he sustained little injury. The sufferings of the French
army were, nevertheless, extreme. Compelled to bivouac for ten nights
among snow and ice, and often without wood for fires, the mortality among
the troops was appalling. The line of the retreat was marked throughout
by whole platoons frozen to death; seventeen hundred men perished in the
course of the ten days. In 1746 and 1747, Belleisle was charged with
the defence of Dauphiné; these were his last campaigns. In 1748 he was
created a duke and peer, and in 1757 he became war minister. He held the
war department for three years, and reformed many abuses. In 1761 he died
childless, the last of his family, his heir, the Count of Gisors, having
fallen at the battle of Crevelt.
His brother, the chevalier, had gone before him, the victim of an
intemperate courage. From 1734 to 1746, the chevalier was often actively
engaged, both in fighting and negotiating, and displayed equal talents
in each occupation. It being an object of importance to open a passage
into the heart of Piedmont, the two brothers agreed that an attack
should be made on the formidable intrenched post of the Piedmontese, at
the Col de l’Assiette. The chevalier was animated by the prospect of
gaining the rank of marshal, in case of success. The position of the
enemy was all but inaccessible, and was fortified with more than usual
care, well provided with artillery, and held by a large force. Belleisle
led his men to the attack, but found it impossible even to approach his
antagonists, who scattered death among his ranks, with almost perfect
impunity to themselves. Instead of retiring from a hopeless contest, he
madly persisted in his efforts, till the slaughter became horrible. He at
last put himself at the head of a body of officers, and made a desperate
but fruitless assault, in which he fell, along with most of those who
surrounded him. Nearly four thousand of the assailants were slain, and
half as many wounded, while the loss of the Piedmontese fell far short of
a hundred men.
We have, in the former part of this chapter seen one literary female an
inmate of the Bastile, we must now contemplate in the same situation
another, of equal talents, but with a more sullied character. The second
of these females was Madame de Tencin, sister of the cardinal of that
name. Though, like most Frenchwomen of that period, it is probable that
Madame de Staal did not preserve an inviolate chastity, she certainly
paid more respect to appearances than was paid by Madame de Tencin, and
was less stimulated by mere animal passion. “I shall paint only my bust,”
Madame de Staal is said to have replied, when she was asked how, in her
Memoirs, she would contrive to speak of her love affairs; with respect
to Madame de Tencin, it may be doubted whether, at least while she was
moving in the circle of the court, she would have hesitated to delineate
a whole-length likeness of herself.
Tencin was a name derived from a small estate; the family name was
Guerin. The lady in question was born in 1681, and her father was
president of the parliament of Grenoble. She was placed in the convent of
Montfleury, near Grenoble, where she resided for five years. If credit
may be given to the statements of St. Simon and others, her conduct while
she wore the veil was anything but pious and decorous. The consequence
of one of her amours is said to have rendered it indispensable for her
to leave the convent, of which she was already tired. Her great object
was to shine in Paris, and this she accomplished. Through the interest of
Fontenelle, who took a great interest in her, she obtained a dispensation
from the Pope, and she then gave full swing to her pleasures. She
became the mistress of the ultra profligate Dubois; and the scandalous
chronicles of the time charge her with having joined in the orgies of the
regent and his companions, and prostituted her talents by the composition
of obscene works. With Law, the Mississippi projector, she was intimate,
and she and her brother appear to have profited largely by speculations
during that period of national madness. It is one pleasing feature in
her character, that she was more anxious to establish her brother than
herself.
The celebrated d’Alembert was the fruit of one of her amours; the father
was the Chevalier Destouches. The infant was, in the first instance,
deserted by its parents; it was left on the steps of the church of St.
John de la Ronde, where it was found in such a state of weakness that,
instead of sending it to the Foundling Hospital, the commissary of police
humanely gave it to the wife of a poor glazier to be nursed. Such a want
of maternal feeling, had it not been in some measure atoned for, would
have justified a sarcasm of the Abbé Trublet, who, on some one praising
to him the mild disposition of Madame de Tencin, replied, “Oh, yes! if
she had an interest in poisoning you, she would choose the mildest poison
for the purpose.” The parents are, however, said to have relented in the
course of a few days; the father settled on him a pension of 1200 livres.
It was the fatal result of another of her amours that gave her a place
in the Bastile. In 1726, La Fresnaye, one of the members of the Great
Council, shot himself through the head at her house. A paper in his
handwriting was found, in which he declared that, if ever he died a
violent death, she would be the cause of it. From this paper, which
certainly bears on the face of it a very different meaning, it was
hastily and harshly concluded, that she had a hand in his murder. She was
consequently committed to the Concièrgerie, whence she was removed to the
Bastile; but she was not long a prisoner.
In her later years, the conduct of Madame de Tencin underwent a complete
reformation; the catastrophe of La Fresnaye perhaps contributed to the
change. She kept up a correspondence with Cardinal Lambertini, which
was not discontinued when he became Pope Benedict XIV., and her house
was the resort of all the wit and talent of Paris, with Fontenelle
and Montesquieu at their head. Her assemblage of literary men she
used jocosely to call her menagerie, and her animals, and it was her
custom, on New-year’s-day, to present each individual with two ells of
velvet, for a pair of breeches. It is not easy to suppress a smile at
the ludicrous idea of such a present. Madame de Tencin died in 1749.
Her three romances, the Count de Comminge, the Siege of Calais, and the
Misfortunes of Love, still deservedly maintain a high rank among works of
that class. It has been said, that she was assisted in writing them by
two of her nephews; but the truth of this is at least doubtful.
CHAPTER X.
Reign of Louis XV. continued—The Bull Unigenitus—A Notary
Public—G. N. Nivelle—G. C. Buffard—Death of Deacon Paris—Rise,
progress, and acts, of the Convulsionaries—Persecution
of them, and artifices employed by them to foil their
persecutors—Lenglet Dufresnoy—La Beaumelle—F. de
Marsy—Marmontel—The Abbé Morellet—Mirabeau the elder—The
Chevalier Resseguier—Groubendal and Dulaurens—Robbé
de Beauveset—Mahé de la Bourdonnais—Count Lally—La
Chalotais—Marin—Durosoi—Prévost de Beaumont—Barletti St.
Paul—Dumouriez.
Religious intolerance, on the one hand, and disgusting fanaticism, on
the other, contributed largely to swell the number of captives in the
Bastile, and in other places of confinement. For many years after Pope
Clement XI., at the instigation of the bigoted Le Tellier and Louis XIV.,
had thrown among the clergy of the Gallican church that ecclesiastical
firebrand the bull Unigenitus, it continued to spread the flames of
fierce contention, hatred, and persecution. The first individual for whom
the bull found an abode in a prison was, I believe, a notary public.
While the regency was held by the Duke of Orleans, the bishops of
Mirepoix, Senez, Montpellier, and Boulogne, had the boldness to sign an
act, protesting against the bull, and appealing from the pope to a future
council; and, accompanied by a notary, they solemnly presented this act
to the assembled Sorbonne. As to have imprisoned the four bishops would
scarcely have been politic, they were only ordered to retire to their
dioceses; the notary, of whom a scape-goat could more conveniently be
made, was sent to the Bastile.
Backed by power, the supporters of the bull were finally triumphant, and
they did not fail to make the vanquished party experience the consequence
of being defeated by men who did not consider forbearance as a virtue.
It would be useless to dwell upon the many appellants who were chastised
for having ventured to doubt the pontifical infallibility, and insist on
referring the question in dispute to a future council; I will, therefore,
only make mention of two individuals.
Among those who were most active in opposing the bull Unigenitus, and
who, consequently, were proscribed by its champions, was Gabriel Nicholas
Nivelle; he was indefatigable in drawing up memorials and tracts, and
soliciting appeals against it. He more than once contrived to elude his
pursuers; but, in 1730, he was taken and committed to the Bastile, where
he remained for four months. His zeal was, however, rather excited than
cooled by this imprisonment; and, till his decease in 1761, when he was
in his seventy-fourth year, he continued to be a determined opponent of
the bull. Nivelle edited several voluminous works relative to the contest
in which his party was engaged; the principal of which, in four folio
volumes, bears the title of The Constitution Unigenitus denounced to the
Universal Church, or a General Collection of the Acts of Appeal.
Equally hostile to the bull, and equally persecuted by its victorious
friends, was Gabriel Charles Buffard, a native of Bayeux, who was born
in 1683. He was rector of the university of Caen, and canon of Bayeux;
but was expelled from his offices, and banished out of the diocese, in
1722. Buffard settled at Paris, where he was not long allowed to remain
in quiet. He was conveyed to the Bastile, and, after having been there
for some time, he was exiled to Auxerre. From Auxerre he was speedily
dragged to suffer another imprisonment in the Bastile. Fortunately, he
found a protector in Cardinal des Gesvres, through whose intercession he
was set at liberty. Buffard thenceforth lived in retirement, and gained
a subsistence by giving opinions as a chamber counsel, and by assisting
young scholars in the study of the canon law. He died in 1763.
It was an opinion of Bishop Butler, the celebrated author of The Analogy
of Religion, that “whole communities and public bodies might be seized
with fits of insanity, as well as individuals;” and, indeed, that
“nothing but this principle, that they are liable to insanity, equally
at least with private persons, can account for the major part of those
transactions which we read of in history.” Singular as, at first sight,
this opinion may appear to be, there are many circumstances which ought
to induce us to pause, before we reject it as erroneous. The strange
scenes, for instance, which took place among the Jansenists,—scenes
arising out of the death of the deacon Paris,—may almost authorize a
belief, that large bodies of individuals can be simultaneously smitten
with monomania, or at least can communicate it to each other with
wonderful rapidity.
Francis Paris, a strenuous opponent of the bull Unigenitus, was the son
of a French counsellor. Pious, humble, and benevolent, Paris relinquished
to his brother all claim to the paternal succession, renounced the
world, lived by the labour of his own hands, and spent his leisure
moments in prayer, and in succouring, consoling, and instructing the
poor. His modest estimate of his own abilities deterred him from taking
holy orders. He died on the 1st of May, 1727, and was buried in the
church-yard of St. Medard. Many of those to whom he had been a comforter
and guide, looked upon him as a beatified being, and came to pray at
his tomb. Among the number were many females. Rumours soon began to
be spread, that miracles were worked by the influence of the sainted
defunct; sight was said to be restored, and contracted limbs extended to
their full longitude. Multitudes now flocked to the sacred ground. Then
ensued, especially among the women, contortions and convulsive movements,
attended by cries, shrieks, and groans, all of which were regarded as
manifestations of divine power. All convulsive movements are catching,
and consequently, the number of persons who displayed them at St. Medard,
increased daily to an enormous extent. The jargon which was uttered by
the convulsionaries, during their paroxysms, was next supposed to be the
language of prophecy; and a whole volume of it was actually published,
under the title of “A Collection of Interesting Predictions.” Before,
however, we laugh at our Gallic neighbours for such folly, it may be well
to remember some things which have happened in England, within the last
quarter of a century.
After these practices had gone on, with hourly increasing vigour,
for some years, the government closed the church-yard of St. Medard,
which was become the theatre of exhibitions calculated to mislead the
weak-minded, and disgust men of sound intellect. But the sect of the
convulsionaries—for it had by this time grown into a strong and regularly
organized sect,—was not discouraged by this measure. Earth from the
church-yard where the deacon Paris was interred, and water from the
spring which had supplied him with drink, became the symbols of this
buried idol, and the means of working miracles. Meetings were held in
private houses, and there fanaticism, of the darkest, wildest kind,
gave full scope to all its gloomy inspirations. A regular system of
torture was practised by the deluded votaries; women being the principal
sufferers. To be beaten with logs on the tenderest portions of the human
frame; to bend the body into a semi-circular form, and allow a weight of
fifty pounds to be dropped from the ceiling on to the abdomen; to lie
with a plank on the same part, while several men stood on it; to be tied
up with the head downwards; and to have the breasts and nipples torn
with pincers; were among the inflictions to which females submitted, and
apparently with delight. The blows were inflicted by vigorous young men,
who were called Secouristes. The highly sublimed madness of some pushed
them to still more dreadful extremities; it prompted them to be tied on
spits, and exposed to the flames, or to be nailed by the hands and feet
to a cross. The performance of these unnatural acts was denominated “the
work.”
The Convulsionaries did not form a homogeneous body; as was to be
expected, they were split into parties, bearing various appellations,
and being, in some instances, hostile to each other. There were the
Vaillantistes, the Augustinians, the Melangistes, the Margoullistes, the
Figuristes, and many more. The Vaillantistes took their name from Peter
Vaillant, a priest, who taught that the prophet Elijah was resuscitated,
and that he would appear on earth, to convert the Jews and the court of
Rome. His disciple, Housset, maintained that Vaillant himself was the
prophet. Darnaud, another priest, boldly assumed the character of the
prophet Enoch. The Augustinians, who carried their fanaticism to such
a pitch that they were looked upon as heretical by other convulsionary
sects, were the followers of a friar of the name of Augustin. Among their
peculiar follies, was that of making nocturnal processions, with torches
in their hands, and halters round their necks, to Nôtre Dame, and thence
to the place de Grêve; these processions were a sort of rehearsal of the
tragic scene in which they expected they should ultimately be called
upon to perform. The Melangistes were those who distinguished two causes
producing convulsions; one which gave rise to useless or improper acts,
another which inspired divine and supernatural acts. The tenets of the
Margoullistes have not been handed down to us. The Figuristes were so
called from their representing, in their convulsive paroxysms, various
phases of the passion of Christ, and the martyrdom of the saints.
The fierce enthusiasm of all these sectarians has never been exceeded.
Like American Indians, they set at defiance the utmost severity of pain.
Even slight stimulus would rouse them into violent action. “I have seen
them,” says Voltaire, “when they were talking of the miracles of St.
Paris, grow heated by degrees, till their whole frame trembled, their
faces were disfigured by rage, and they would have killed whoever dared
to contradict them. Yes, I have seen them writhe their limbs, and foam,
and cry out ‘There must be blood!’” Not the slightest concession would
they make to avoid punishment. A pardon was offered to several of them,
who were sentenced to the pillory; they refused it, for they could not,
they said, repent of having done right. No lapse of time could eradicate
this feeling from their minds. In 1775, when M. de Malesherbes visited
the Concièrgerie, he found there a male and a female convulsionary, who
had been imprisoned for forty-one years. Age had not chilled in them the
resentment which was excited by their wrongs. He offered them liberty, if
they would only ask for it; but they firmly replied, that they had been
unjustly detained, and that it was the business of justice to atone for
its errors, and to give the reparation to which they were entitled. They
were released.
It must not be imagined that the sect of the convulsionaries consisted
merely of poor and ignorant people. Such was not the case. Strange as the
fact may appear, the sect included great numbers of pious, learned, and
intellectual men. Very many rich individuals also belonged to it, and
contributed to the maintenance of their less fortunate brethren. A Count
Daverne was sent to the Bastile “for wasting his property in supporting
the convulsionaries;” and the same crime brought a similar penalty on
other individuals. That there were, however, numerous impostors, who
pretended to espouse the doctrines of the sect in order to further their
own purposes, admits of no doubt. There were men who gave regular lessons
in the art of bringing on convulsions.
A hot persecution was perseveringly carried on against this sect, and
with the usual result; the sect throve in spite of it, or rather,
perhaps, in consequence of it. For five-and-thirty years it mocked
all attempts to exterminate it, and it did not begin to decline till
it was left to the withering influence of ridicule and neglect. It
is believed to have retained a few votaries even to a recent period.
The Bastile and the other Parisian prisons were yearly crowded with
convulsionaries. Of those who were confined in the Bastile, one of the
earliest was Peter Vaillant, from whom the Vaillantistes derived their
name. He had previously suffered there an imprisonment of three years,
for his opposition to the bull Unigenitus. In 1734, he was again sent
thither, and, after having been there for two-and-twenty years, he was
transferred to Vincennes, where he died. Housset, his disciple; Darnaud,
who called himself the prophet Enoch; the Abbé Blondel, author of Lives
of the Saints; the Abbés Deffart, Planchon, and Deribat; Lequeux,
prior of St. Yves, the learned editor of Bossuet’s works; and Carré de
Montgeron, a counsellor of the parliament of Paris; were of the number
of those who were sent to the Bastile. Montgeron was born in the French
capital, in 1686, and we have his own word for it that, till he was
suddenly converted in St. Médard’s church-yard, he was a thoroughly
worthless unbeliever. By a natural transition, he became one of the most
credulous and enthusiastic of dupes. In 1737, he printed a quarto volume,
illustrated with twenty plates, “to demonstrate the truth of the miracles
operated by the intercession of the beatified Paris.” This volume he
presented to Louis XV. at Versailles, and the next day, by order of the
monarch, he was conveyed to the Bastile. He was afterwards an inmate of
various prisons, and died at last in the citadel of Valence. While he was
in confinement, he added two more volumes to his rhapsody.
In hunting down the humbler class of delinquents, the police found
abundant employment, and they performed their task in the most oppressive
manner. Hénault, the lieutenant of police, an irascible and unreasoning
man, was an ardent partisan of the Jesuits, and, of course, was a
violent enemy of the proscribed sect. His myrmidons spread terror in all
directions. They are charged with having, “even in the dead of night,
penetrated into the dwellings of individuals, scaled the walls, broken
open the doors, and shown no respect to age or sex, when their object
was to discover, imprison, consign to the pillory, banish, and ruin,
those who favoured the convulsionaries.” It was dangerous to be subject
to epileptic or other fits; persons who were attacked by them in the
streets having been pitilessly hurried off to jail.
The vigilance of the police was also kept on the stretch, and in a
majority of cases was eluded, by the prints, posting-bills, pamphlets,
and periodical writings of the convulsionaries, as well as by their
secret meetings. Of the prints, one represented the tree of religion, in
the branches of which were seated Quesnel, Paris, and other apostles of
Jansenism, while two Jesuits were striving to root it up. For this, a
rhymer and engraver, Cointre by name, was committed to the Bastile. In
another, Archbishop Vintimille was seen throwing a stone at the sainted
deacon Paris, and the lieutenant of police was holding the archiepiscopal
cross, and stimulating the prelate. This print procured for Mercier, the
vender of it, a place in the Bastile. In a third of these caricatures was
depicted the pope larded with a dozen Jesuits.
In placarding the walls, and distributing hand-bills, all sorts of
stratagems were employed. The following is one of the most ingenious
modes which was adopted by the bill-stickers. A woman, raggedly dressed,
with a large pannier strapped on her back, leaned her pannier against
the wall, as though she wished to rest herself. In the pannier was a
child, who, as soon as she stopped, opened the cover, and fixed a bill
on the wall. As soon as his task was performed he closed the aperture,
and his bearer proceeded with him to another convenient place. The bills
and short pamphlets, which were made public in this and other ways, were
innumerable. In the library of the Duke de la Vallière, there was an
imperfect collection of them, which formed thirteen quarto volumes. Most
of them seem to have been printed in the environs of the capital; they
were often brought into the city by females, and in searching for them,
the police officers were guilty of the grossest indecency.
But the great object which the police sought to obtain, and in which it
was utterly foiled, was the suppression of a periodical publication which
bore the title of Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques. This obnoxious work was
vigorously continued for more than twenty years, without the government
being able to lay hands on the writers, or to stop the printing and
distributing of it. Many persons were, indeed, committed to the Bastile
and other prisons, on suspicion of being its editors or contributors,
but no positive proof could ever be procured. The police were wholly at
fault; and the authors of the paper appear to have taken a provoking
pleasure in showing the lieutenant of police their contempt of his
efforts. In one instance, while his satellites were fruitlessly searching
a house which was suspected of being the printing-office, a bundle of the
papers, wet from the press, was thrown into his carriage almost before
his face. The paper was sometimes printed in the city, and sometimes in
the neighbourhood. At one time the press was secreted even under the
dome of the Luxembourg; at another, it was hidden among piles of timber,
and the printers were disguised as sawyers; on other occasions, it was
contained in a boat on the Seine. When the paper was printed in the
vicinity of Paris, various artifices were resorted to for smuggling it
into the town, one of which deserves especial notice. Water-dogs were
trained as carriers; they were closely shorn, the papers were wrapped
round them, a large rough skin was then sewn carefully over the whole,
and the sagacious animals then took their way, unsuspected, to their
several destinations.
But enough has been said on the victims of religious delusion; and we
must now turn our view to persons of a different class. The fertile
author of little short of thirty works, and the editor of an equal
number, nearly all of which are forgotten, Lenglet Dufresnoy, who was
born at Beauvais in 1764, was perhaps a more frequent visiter to the
Bastile than any other person. It is said that he was so accustomed to
lettres de cachet, that as soon as he saw M. Tapin, the officer, enter
his apartment, he would greet him with, “Ah, M. Tapin, good day to you;”
and then say to his servant, “Come, be quick; make up my little bundle,
and put in my linen and my snuff;” which being done, he would add, “Now,
M. Tapin, I am at your service.” Between 1718 and 1751, he was at least
five times in the Bastile. He was also acquainted with Vincennes and
other jails. His first committal to the Parisian state prison was perhaps
the one which was most dishonourable to him; he was sent there to act
the part of a spy, and worm out the secrets of the persons who were in
durance for being concerned in the Cellamare conspiracy. It is asserted,
that he had already appeared in a similar degrading character at Lille,
in 1708, where he was paid for intelligence by the allies and the French,
and betrayed both parties. Lenglet was of a quarrelsome and caustic
disposition, which involved him in personal disputes, and he appears to
have paid little respect to truth; but he had at least one estimable
quality, an unconquerable love of independence,—no offers, however
flattering or lucrative, could prevail on him to place himself under the
galling yoke of the rich and the great. His death, which took place in
1755, was occasioned by his falling into the fire while he was asleep.
The Bastile twice received Laurent Angliviel la Beaumelle, who was born
in 1727, at Vallerangue, in Lower Languedoc. His first imprisonment, in
1753, which lasted six months, was caused by his Notes on the Age of
Louis XIV.; for his second, in the following year, he was indebted to a
passage in his Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon, which charged the Austrian
court with keeping poisoners in its pay. His release, at the end of five
months, was generously obtained by the intercession of that court which
he had so grossly insulted. La Beaumelle was brought up in the Catholic
religion, but, during a residence of some years in Geneva, he became
a protestant. At the age of twenty-one, he was appointed professor of
French literature at Copenhagen, and his first work, “Mes Pensées,” was
published in the Danish capital. Lured by the patronage which Frederic of
Prussia held out to authors, La Beaumelle removed to Berlin. Voltaire,
who was then at the Prussian court, visited him, and expressed a wish
to be numbered among his friends; but their amicable intercourse was
soon changed into deadly hostility. There was a short paragraph in Mes
Pensées, which wounded the vanity of Voltaire, and La Beaumelle was
also guilty of having a respect for Maupertuis, whom Voltaire detested,
and missed no opportunity of ridiculing. The rabid hatred with which
Voltaire ever after pursued his foe, and the virulent and even low abuse
which he lavished on him, can excite only disgust. The malign influence
of Voltaire having rendered Berlin a disagreeable abode, La Beaumelle
returned to his native country. After having resided in peace at Toulouse
for several years, he obtained a place in the King’s Library, at Paris,
which, however, he did not long retain; his death, which happened in
1779, followed close upon his appointment. La Beaumelle had certainly no
mean talents; and it is much to be regretted, that they were so often
thrown away upon literary squabbles. Of his works, the best are Mes
Pensées; a Defence of the Spirit of Laws; and Letters to M. de Voltaire.
The literary successor of La Beaumelle in the Bastile, was Francis
de Marsy, a native of Paris, born in 1714. After he had finished his
studies, he was admitted a member of the society of Jesuits. His first
productions were two Latin poems, on Tragedy and Painting, from which,
particularly the latter, he derived considerable reputation, his Latinity
being good, his versification flowing and spirited, and his imagery
poetical. Encouraged perhaps by the praise which he received for these
works, he became an author by profession, and wasted, in the ungrateful
occupation of writing for booksellers, those talents which, otherwise
employed, might have given him permanent fame. One of his tasks, an
analysis of the works of Bayle, which he published in 1755, was condemned
by the parliament of Paris, and made him, for some months, an inmate
of the Bastile. He died in 1763. Among his works are the first twelve
volumes of the History of the Chinese, Japanese, &c.; and an edition of
Rabelais in eight volumes. The former is a hasty compilation; the latter
he spoiled, by retouching and modernizing the style—it is probable,
however, that the clothing of Rabelais in a modern garb was a sagacious
scheme of the publishers.
To hazard censure upon an individual of the privileged class, or even
to be suspected of having done so, was an infallible passport to the
Bastile. That versatile and elegant writer Marmontel was one of those who
were taught the danger of a courtier’s hostility. This enemy was the Duke
d’Aumont, whom, in his Memoirs, he truly describes as being “the most
stupid, the most vain, and the most choleric, of all the gentlemen of the
King’s chamber.”
John Francis Marmontel, the son of parents in a humble station, was
born in 1723, at the town of Bort, in the Limousin. He has drawn a
delightful picture of the comfort and content in which his family lived.
“The property on which we all subsisted was very small. Order, domestic
arrangement, labour, a little trade, and frugality, kept us above want.
Our little garden produced nearly as many vegetables as the consumption
of the family required; the orchard afforded us fruits; and our quinces,
our apples, and our pears, preserved with the honey of our bees, were, in
winter, most exquisite breakfasts for the good old women and children.
They were clothed by the small flock of sheep that folded at St. Thomas.
My aunts spun the wool, and the hemp of the field that furnished us with
linen; and in the evenings, when, by the light of a lamp, which our
nut-trees supplied with oil, the young people of the neighbourhood came
to help us to dress our flax, the picture was exquisite. The harvest
of the little farm secured us subsistence; the wax and honey of the
bees, to which one of my aunts carefully attended, formed a revenue
that cost but little; the oil pressed from our green walnuts had a
taste and smell that we preferred to the flavour and perfume of that
of the olive. Our buck-wheat cakes, moistened, smoking hot, with the
good butter of Mont d’Or, were a delicious treat to us. I know not what
dish would have appeared to us better than our turnips and chesnuts;
and on a winter evening, while these fine turnips were roasting round
the fire, and we heard the water boiling in the vase where our chesnuts
were cooling, so relishing and sweet, how did our hearts palpitate with
joy! I well remember, too, the perfume that a fine quince used to exhale
when roasting under the ashes, and the pleasure our grandmother used
to have in dividing it amongst us. The most moderate of women made us
all gluttons. Thus, in a family where nothing was lost, trivial objects
united made plenty, and left but little to expend, in order to satisfy
all our wants. In the neighbouring forest there was an abundance of dead
wood of trifling value—there my father was permitted to make his annual
provision. The excellent butter of the mountain, and the most delicate
cheese, were common, and cost but little; wine was not dear, and my
father himself drank of it soberly.”
Marmontel was designed by his father to be brought up to trade, but
his desire of learning was unconquerable, and was at last allowed to
be gratified. His early education he received from the Jesuits, at the
humble college of Mauriac, and he completed it at Clermont and Toulouse.
At one time he fancied that he had a vocation for the ecclesiastical
state, and he would have become one of the fraternity of Jesuits, had he
not been deterred by the pathetic entreaties and remonstrances of his
mother. It was at Toulouse that he made his first literary essay, in a
competition for one of the prizes bestowed by the academy for Floral
Games. A correspondence into which he entered with Voltaire, induced the
poet to advise him to take up his abode in Paris, and on this advice he
acted in 1745. For a considerable time after his settling in the capital,
he had to contend against poverty. The complete success which attended
his tragedy of Dionysius the Tyrant, lifted him at once into fortune
and fame. “In one day,” says he, “almost in one instant, I found myself
rich and celebrated. I made a worthy use of my riches, but it was not so
with my celebrity. My fame became the origin of my dissipation, and the
source of my errors. Till then my life had been obscure and retired.”
It is honourable to him that all his family benefited by his improved
circumstances; and, in palliation of his errors, we must consider how
difficult it was for a young and flattered poet to escape the contagious
effect of a corrupted capital. He finally renounced his licentious
habits, and became an affectionate and happy husband and father.
Dionysius was followed by Aristomenes, Cleopatra, and other tragedies,
of which only Aristomenes was eminently successful. His wide-spread
reputation at length gained for him the patronage of Madame de
Pompadour, through whom he obtained the place of Secretary of the Royal
Buildings, and a pension on the French Mercury. It was for the Mercury
that he began those tales, which have been translated into English under
the erroneous appellation of Moral Tales. On the death of Boissy in
1758, Marmontel, by the favour of Pompadour, received the patent of the
Mercury; and, under his management, the work rose into high repute. He,
however, enjoyed this lucrative employment for only two years. Cury,
a wit, who had been deeply injured by the stupid and spiteful Duke
d’Aumont, composed a satire on his titled enemy. He repeated the verses
to Marmontel, and the latter, who had an excellent memory, repeated
them to a company at Madame Geoffrin’s. This circumstance was instantly
reported to the Duke d’Aumont, who lost not a moment in procuring a
lettre de cachet, by virtue of which Marmontel was conveyed to the
Bastile, charged with being the author of the satire. His confinement
lasted only eleven days; but as he generously refused to betray the
writer’s name, the patent of the Mercury was taken from him, and nothing
was left to him except a pension payable out of the profits of the work.
In 1763, Marmontel became a member of the French Academy, and, twenty
years later, he was appointed its perpetual secretary. After he was
deprived of the Mercury, he pursued his literary labours, for many years,
with equal vigour and credit. Among the works which he produced during
that period are Belisarius, the Incas, a translation of the Pharsalia,
a new series of tales, various comic operas, miscellaneous pieces, a
History of the Regency of the Duke of Orleans, Elements of Literature,
and Memoirs of his own Life. During the fierce struggles between the
republican parties, after the downfall of the throne, Marmontel lived in
retirement, and in a state of penury which bordered upon poverty. He was
elected a member of the council of elders, in 1797, but the revolution
of the 18th Fructidor deprived him of his seat, and he withdrew to his
cottage in Normandy, happy in not being exiled to another hemisphere, as
was the case with many of his colleagues. Marmontel died of apoplexy, on
the last day of 1799.
Morellet, the friend, and by marriage the relative, of Marmontel, was,
like that writer, one who suffered from the vengeance of the great. It
must be owned, however, that there was less injustice in his punishment
than in that of his friend, as he was really the author of the satire for
which he was confined, and it was published under circumstances which
made even Voltaire doubt whether the conduct of the writer was perfectly
justifiable. Andrew Morellet, to whom some of his acquaintance gave the
punning appellation of Mord-les, or Bite-’em, was born at Lyons, in 1727.
He received the early part of his education at the Jesuits’ College
in that city, and he completed his studies at Paris, in the seminary
of Trente-Trois, and the Sorbonne. He appears, however, to have paid
at least as much attention to the works of modern philosophers as to
those of the theologians. At Paris he became intimate with D’Alembert,
Diderot, and other contributors to the Encyclopædia. Returning to Paris,
after a tour which he made with a pupil, he was gladly admitted into the
most talented society in the capital. Palissot, in his comedy of the
Philosophers, having ridiculed the philosophical party, Morellet resented
the insult by a satirical production, called The Vision. In this work
there were some severe lines on the princess of Robecq, an enemy of the
encyclopedists, who was then lying on her death-bed. For these lines
Morellet suffered an imprisonment of several months in the Bastile.
Morellet was admitted into the French Academy in 1784, and he contributed
much to the Dictionary of that body. In 1803 he became a member of the
Institute, and in 1807 attained a seat in the legislature. His life was
protracted to the age of ninety-two, and, for nearly the whole of that
time his pen was actively employed on subjects of political economy and
general literature, and in translations, principally from the English
language. A selection from his writings was made by himself, in four
volumes, with the title of Literary and Philosophical Miscellanies of the
18th Century. He died in 1819.
By Marmontel, who married his friend’s niece, he is thus characterized:
“The Abbé Morellet, with more order and clearness, in a very rich
magazine of every kind of knowledge, possessed in conversation a source
of sound, pure, profound ideas, that, without ever being exhausted, never
overflowed. He showed himself at our dinners with an openness of soul,
a just and firm mind, and with as much rectitude in his heart as in his
understanding. One of his talents, and the most distinguishing, was a
turn of pleasantry delicately ironical, of which Swift alone had found
the secret. With this facility of being severe, if he had been inclined,
no man was ever less so; and, if he ever permitted himself to indulge in
personal raillery, it was but a rod in his hand to chastise insolence or
punish malignity.”
A less amiable captive than Marmontel and Morellet next claims our
attention. Though he was by no means destitute of talent or information,
Victor Riquetti, Marquis of Mirabeau, owes the redemption of his name
from oblivion less to his numerous literary productions than to his being
the father of the celebrated Mirabeau. The marquis, who was descended
from a Florentine family, was born at Perthes in 1715. He became a
disciple of Quesnay, and published many works, to disseminate the
doctrines of the political economists. His compositions are disfigured
by a detestable style, great affectation, and a want of method. Of his
labours, which amount to more than twenty volumes, it will suffice to
mention L’Ami des Hommes and the Théorie de l’Impôt. With reference to
the former, Voltaire satirically speaks of Mirabeau as “the friend of
man, who talks, who talks, who talks, who decides, who dictates, who
is so fond of the feudal government, who commits so many blunders, and
who gets so often into the wrong box—the pretended friend of the human
race.” He bestows equal contempt on the second work—“I have read the
Theory of Taxation,” says he, “and it seems to me no less absurd than
ridiculously written. I do not like those friends of man, who are for
ever telling the enemies of the state ‘we are ruined;—come;—you will have
an easy task.’” The government seems to have been of the same opinion as
Voltaire, for the Theory of Taxation procured for its author a lodging
in the Bastile. Mirabeau, however, continued to write and to publish
till nearly his last moments; he died in 1789. This pretended friend of
the human race, as Voltaire with justice calls him, deserved abhorrence
in all the relations of social life. He was an oppressive master, and a
tyrannical and brutal husband and father. He was perpetually soliciting
for lettres de cachet to plunge some branch or other of his family into
a dungeon. Of those letters he is said to have obtained fifty-four, many
of which were enforced against his highly-gifted though erring son, the
Count de Mirabeau, whom he hated, and whom, by his persevering cruelty,
he contributed to drive into desperate courses.
Among those who felt the vengeance of the vindictive Pompadour was the
Chevalier Resseguier, a native of Toulouse, who was much admired in the
Parisian circles for his gaiety and wit. An epigram which he aimed at
the royal mistress, speedily made him an inmate of the Bastile. There,
like many other unfortunate victims of the marchioness, he might perhaps
have spent the rest of his days, had not his brother, a member of the
parliament of Toulouse, hastened up to the capital and succeeded in
mollifying Pompadour. In their way home from the Bastile, the grave
magistrate began to give his brother some prudent advice. Little disposed
to listen to it, the chevalier thrust his head out of the coach window,
and, in the words of Philoxenus of Syracuse, exclaimed, “take me back
to the quarries!” The brother still persisting to administer caution
and reproof, the chevalier lost all patience, censured him bitterly for
having stooped to ask a favour from the marchioness, and then leaped from
the carriage. Resseguier of course continued to scatter his sarcasms on
all sides. For one of them, directed against the notorious President
Maupeou, who was afterwards chancellor, he ran considerable risk of
paying a second visit to the Bastile. He was dining, on a fast-day, at
the house of M. de Sartine, and some of the guests were admiring the
size of the fish. “Yes,” said Marin, (whose name the reader will meet
with again) “they are very fine fish; but I dined yesterday with the
president, and we had still larger.” “Ah!” replied Resseguier, “I do not
wonder in the least at that; it is the place for everything monstrous.”
Louis XV. was informed of this pungent attack on the instrument of his
despotism, and was greatly irritated by it.
The next literary prisoner was the involuntary proxy of an offender,
who took care to get beyond the reach of the police. In 1761, Grouber
de Grouberdal, a German by birth, and barrister by profession, author
of Irus, ou le Savetier du Coin, and a poem with the title of Le Sexe
Triomphant, was sent to the Bastile, on suspicion of having written a
satire called the Jesuitics, to which he appears to have only contributed
some verses. Grouber, however, escaped with no more than a month’s
imprisonment. A friend of Grouber’s was the real author. Henry Joseph
Dulaurens was born at Douay, and very early displayed abilities of a
superior order. He was less amiable than talented; for he is said to
have been suspicious, sarcastic, hasty, restless, and turbulent: that he
was licentious, is proved by his works. Dulaurens was destined for the
church, but abandoned the clerical profession. His satire, the Jesuitics,
which was modelled on the celebrated Philippics of La Grange Chancel,
was aimed at the Jesuits, to whom he had long been bitterly hostile.
Fearing that it would bring him into peril, he set off for Holland, on
the morning after it was published, without warning his friend Grouber
that danger was to be apprehended. In Holland he became a writer for
the booksellers; but, though his pen was extremely fertile, and his
productions, which were generally marked by originality and spirit,
obtained an extensive sale, he was scarcely able to avoid sinking into
poverty: the booksellers throve on those fruits of his talent, by which
he himself was barely kept alive. By his flight from Paris, Dulaurens
had eluded a residence in the Bastile, but it ultimately brought on him
a more protracted confinement than he would have endured had he remained
in France. In the hope of bettering his condition, he quitted Amsterdam,
and went to Liege, whence he removed to Frankfort. While he was living
in the latter city, he was prosecuted by the ecclesiastical chamber
of Mentz, as an anti-religious writer, and was condemned to perpetual
imprisonment. He died in 1797, in a convent near Mentz, after having been
a prisoner during thirty years. Of his works, the most remarkable are, Le
Compère Mathieu, L’Evangile de la Raison, Irma, and L’Aretin Moderne, in
prose; and Le Balai, and La Chandelle d’Arras, two mock-heroic poems;—of
these poems, which are of considerable length, the first was composed in
twenty-two days, and the second in fifteen.
Of all the writers who, during the reign of Louis XV., found or deserved
a lodging in the Bastile, Peter Robbé de Beauveset may, perhaps, be
considered as one of the most degraded, in a moral point of view. He
was born at Vendôme, in 1714, received a good education, and was not
destitute of talent. At an early age, he began to write poems of the
coarsest obscenity, and he continued the practice till almost the close
of a long life. To repeat them to all companies that would listen,
seems to have been one of his greatest pleasures. Next to licentious
composition, he delighted in satire. His verses were insufferably harsh;
but they now and then displayed happy thoughts and forcible expressions.
To give an idea of his propensity to wallow in the mire, it will be
sufficient to say, that he chose for one of his themes the only disease
which is a disgrace to the sufferer, and that the song was worthy of
the theme. This drew on him the sarcasm, likely enough to be true, that
he was “the bard of the unclean malady, and that he was full of his
subject.” Having tried his satirical skill upon Louis XV., an order was
issued to seize his papers, and he would certainly have paid a visit to
the Bastile, had he not skilfully parried the blow. Being timely warned
of his danger, he destroyed the obnoxious piece, and substituted in its
place another of an opposite kind. This stratagem was successful. Instead
of sending him to prison, the king pensioned him, and gave him apartments
in the palace of St. Germain. Severe censors have hinted, that the
debauched monarch wished to have a monopoly of the poet’s obscene rhymes.
Robbé likewise received a pension from the Archbishop of Paris, on
condition that he should not publish his objectionable pieces. He kept to
the letter of his agreement; he did not print them; he contented himself
with reciting them to as many hearers as he could find. The motive of
the archbishop we can comprehend; but it is not easy to perceive what
could have induced the duchess of Olone to leave a legacy of 15,000
francs to so shameless a writer, and to speak in flattering terms of his
reputation as an author! Before his death, which took place in 1794, he
is said to have manifested some signs of reformation.
The liability to be thrust into a prison, for the purpose of gratifying a
courtier, or other powerful enemy, was not the fate of authors alone; the
men who devoted their talents, and shed their blood, to enlarge or defend
the dominion of their country, were equally subject to it. Striking proof
of this fact is afforded by the persecution which fell to the lot of Mahé
de la Bourdonnais and Count Lally.
Bernard Francis Mahé de la Bourdonnais was born in 1699, at St. Malo,
entered the service of the East India Company at an early period, and
displayed such talent, and such consummate knowledge of mercantile
as well as of naval concerns, that, in 1735, he was appointed
governor-general of the isles of France and Bourbon. On his arrival
in the Isle of France, he found everything in a state of penury and
confusion. In a very short time, however, he showed what can be done
by a man of abilities and perseverance. A new and vivifying spirit was
breathed by him into the languishing frame of the colony. Laws and police
were established; arsenals, docks, forts, magazines, and canals, were
constructed; and the cultivation of indigo, cotton, manioc, and sugar,
was introduced. All this was accomplished within the space of five
years. Twice La Bourdonnais was sent to the coast of Coromandel, with
succours for his ungenerous rival and enemy Dupleix; the first time in
1741, the second in 1746. To narrate all the exertions of La Bourdonnais,
on these occasions, would require a volume. His conduct was such as to
win the warm praise of the English, who suffered by his success. The
result of his operations, in 1746, was the surrender of Madras; but the
terms of the capitulation were dishonourably violated by Dupleix, in
spite of the remonstrances of the indignant conqueror. Dupleix having
appointed another governor at the Isle of France, La Bourdonnais returned
to Europe, and on his way homeward was taken by an English vessel. In
England he met with that reception which was due to a talented and noble
foe, and was allowed to proceed on parole to his native country. A far
different greeting awaited him in France, where his mean and malignant
enemies had long been labouring effectually for his ruin. He had only
been three days in Paris before all his papers were seized, and he was
hurried to the Bastile. There he was kept in solitary confinement for
twenty-six months, not even his wife and children being allowed access
to him; nor was he permitted to have the means of writing. One of the
charges against him, founded on the testimony of a soldier who had been
hired to perjure himself, was that he had secretly conveyed on board of
his vessel a large sum of money from Madras. To refute this charge, by
showing that it was impossible for the witness to have seen any such
proceeding from the spot where he was posted, La Bourdonnais, destitute
as he was of materials, drew from memory an exact plan of Madras, and
contrived to have it conveyed to the commissioners who were appointed
to investigate his conduct. The plan was drawn on a white handkerchief,
with a rude sort of pencil formed from a slip of box, and dipped in brown
and yellow colours, which he obtained from coffee, and the verdigris
scraped from copper coins. This curious document quickened the movements
of his judges, and they took steps to bring the question to an issue.
After having undergone an imprisonment of three years, he was pronounced
innocent, and was released. The gift of liberty came too late to
save his life; his health was undermined by grief, anxiety, and the
unwholesomeness of his dungeon, and his fortune had melted away in the
hands of his persecutors; he languished in severe pain, and in a state of
indigence, till 1755, when death put an end to his sufferings.
A doom still more severe than that of La Bourdonnais was assigned to
the unfortunate Count Lally. Thomas Arthur Lally was born in 1702, and
was the son of Sir Gerard Lally, one of those high-minded but mistaken
Irishmen, whose ideas of duty led them to expatriate themselves rather
than renounce their allegiance to the second James. Young Lally was early
conversant with war; he was not twelve years old when he first mounted
guard, in the trenches before Barcelona. In the course of the next thirty
years, he distinguished himself in numerous battle fields, particularly
at Dettingen and Fontenoy, and was employed in missions to England and
Russia, the former of which, not a little perilous, was undertaken in
1737, for the service of the Stuart family. To the house of Hanover he
was an inveterate foe, and he was fertile in plans for its overthrow. On
the breaking out of the war between England and France in 1756, he was
made a lieutenant-general, and appointed commandant of all the French
establishments in Hindostan. Unfortunately for him, the government
unwisely delayed his departure, and withdrew a part of the force which
had been intended to accompany him. When he reached Pondicherry he found
everything in confusion, none of the resources which he had expected to
find, and, worse than all, men in office who knew that he meant to punish
peculators, and who were therefore incessantly on the alert to thwart all
his plans. Their machinations were aided by his own defects; for he was
harsh, violent, and headstrong, in an extraordinary degree. Voltaire
says of him, that “he had found the secret of making himself hated by
everybody,” and that “every one, except the executioner, had a right to
kill him.” There is much exaggeration in this; but it is certain that
Lally was, and deserved to be, an unpopular man.
In spite of the scantiness of his means, Lally took the field against
the English, with a firm resolve to drive them out of India. His first
operations were successful. He made himself master of Goudalour, Fort St.
David, and Devicotta, but here his good fortune ended; he was foiled in
an attack on Tanjore, and was subsequently compelled to raise the siege
of Madras. His failure must not be attributed to want of military skill;
he was nearly without resources, and there was in his own army a powerful
faction which was hostile to him. The council of Pondicherry, too, hated
him with such a deadly hatred that it rejoiced in, and even helped to
cause, his disappointments. Invested at last in Pondicherry by the
English, he defended the place with desperate courage, but was compelled
by famine to surrender.
On his return to France, Lally attacked his enemies with his wonted
impetuosity. Their influence, however, was superior to his, and he
was sent to the Bastile. Nineteen months elapsed before he was even
questioned. The trial was at last commenced, and it occupied more than
two years. The whole of the proceedings teemed with the most flagrant
injustice; there was a manifest determination to send the prisoner to the
scaffold. The language used by some of his judges deserved the severest
punishment. Sentence of death was pronounced on the 6th May, 1766. On its
being made known to him, Lally stabbed himself with a pair of compasses,
but the wound was not mortal. Three days afterwards, he was taken to
execution, and, that nothing might be wanting to lacerate his feelings,
he was conveyed in a mud-cart, and his mouth was gagged. This brutality
had a contrary effect to that which was expected; it excited for him
the sympathy of the spectators, and covered his enemies with execration
and disgrace. The son of Count Lally, advantageously known during the
revolution as Count Lally-Tolendal, obtained, some years afterwards, a
solemn reversal of the sentence, and the restoration of his parent’s
honour.
Caradeuc de la Chalotais, a Breton magistrate, estimable for his talents
and rectitude, is the next who comes forward on the scene. He appears
to have been indebted for his misfortunes partly to the Jesuits,
whose order he had assisted to suppress in France, and partly to the
Duke d’Aiguillon, whom he had offended, by venturing to hint a doubt
of his courage. He was a native of Rennes, born in 1701, and became
attorney-general in the parliament of Brittany. His two Comptes Rendus,
against the Jesuits, which contributed much to their overthrow, and his
Essay on National Education, which forms a kind of supplement to them,
are spoken of in the most laudatory terms by Voltaire. La Chalotais
subsequently acted a conspicuous part, when the parliament of Brittany
refused to register some of the royal edicts, which violated the Breton
privileges. The Duke d’Aiguillon was then governor of the province, and
we may believe that he was not sorry to take vengeance for the sarcasm
which the attorney-general had aimed at him. The Jesuits, too, are
said to have spared no pains to accomplish their enemy’s destruction.
In November, 1765, La Chalotais, his son, and four of the parliament
counsellors, were arrested, and in the following month, they were placed
in close confinement in the citadel of St. Malo. The main charges against
La Chalotais were, that he had written two anonymous letters to one of
the secretaries of state, which contained insults upon the king and his
ministers, and that he had entered into a conspiracy against the regal
authority. With respect to the letters, though some persons accustomed
to examine handwritings asserted them to be his, the vulgar style and
incorrect spelling render it in the highest degree improbable that he
was their author. He himself denied the charge in the most emphatic
manner. La Chalotais was carefully secluded from all correspondence, and
deprived of pen and ink; he, nevertheless, contrived to produce three
eloquent memorials in his defence, and to procure a wide circulation of
them. They were written on scraps of paper which had contained sugar and
chocolate, with a pen made from a toothpick, and ink composed of soot,
sugar, vinegar, and water. A commission was at first formed to try the
prisoners, but the cause was afterwards removed into the council of
state, and the captives were transferred to the Bastile. A stop was,
however, put to the proceedings by the king, and the accused individuals
were exiled to Saintes. An attempt was made to prevail on La Chalotais
to resign his office, but he refused to listen to the messenger. On the
death of Louis XV. his successor allowed La Chalotais to resume his seat
in parliament, and the magistrate retained it till his decease in 1785.
The celebrated Curran, whose conversational talents no one that witnessed
them could possibly forget, once said to me, in allusion to the transient
intoxication produced by champagne, that it made a runaway rap at a man’s
head. It may, perhaps, from a similar reason, be allowable to say, that a
runaway rap was made at the liberty of the person who is the subject of
this sketch. Francis Louis Marin had scarcely time to lament the loss of
his liberty before it was restored to him. Marin was a Provençal, born at
Ciotat, in 1721; after having been a chorister, and then an organist, he
adopted the clerical profession, and went to Paris, where he became tutor
to the son of a nobleman. His manner and figure, which were good, and
his talents, which were far from contemptible, gained him many patrons
in the French capital. He now quitted his ecclesiastical pursuits, was
admitted a barrister, and published various works, one of which, the
History of Saladin, is perhaps the best of all his productions, and is
still in repute; it was dedicated to St. Florentin, one of the ministers,
and gained for its author the appointment of royal censor, to which was
subsequently added that of secretary-general to Sartine, who had been
placed at the head of the inquisitorial office, to which printers and
publishers were amenable. As secretary-general he seems to have satisfied
no one; he was desirous of befriending the philosophical party, in which
he had several friends, but was still more desirous of retaining his
lucrative post. The consequence was, that he sometimes winked at, and
even aided, infractions of the law, and then sought to propitiate his
employers by additional vigilance and severity. Marin was certainly not
overburthened with delicacy; and, unless he is much belied, he increased
his income by acting as purveyor to the disgraceful amours of his royal
master. In 1763, he was confined for twenty-four hours in the Bastile,
for having, in his censorial character, neglected to expunge some lines
from one of Dorat’s tragedies. A few years afterwards, he was deprived of
a pension of 2000 livres, because he had allowed Favart’s comic opera of
the Gleaner to be acted and published. In 1771, he was made editor of the
Gazette de France, in which capacity he brought upon himself a perpetual
shower of epigrams and sarcasms. Many of these annoying shafts were aimed
at him by the Nouvelles à la Main, and he had the weakness to demand that
the editor of the paper should be arrested. He had soon the misfortune or
the folly to provoke a much more formidable enemy, the witty and eloquent
Beaumarchais, who covered him with ridicule. To complete his vexation,
no long time elapsed before the Count de Vergennes dismissed him, and
in the most humiliating manner, from the royal censorship and the
superintendence of the Gazette. Marin then retired to his native town,
where he busied himself in literary pursuits. By the revolution he lost a
considerable part of his income; but to his credit it must be owned, that
he did not lose his temper or his spirits; he died in 1809. Marin had
some praiseworthy qualities; he is said to have been ready to do acts of
kindness, and even to have often run serious risks to serve his friends.
But here we must stop, for it appears that his principles and his morals
were lamentably defective; one of his biographers, who writes of him
in a friendly spirit, owns that in extreme old age he had “a taste for
pleasure, and even for libertinism.”
Less fortunate than Marin, Farmain De Rozoi, or, as he was generally
called Durosoi, did not pay a visit of only twenty-four hours to the
Bastile. Durosoi was a Parisian by birth, and seems to have early
betaken himself to “the idle trade” of literature. He tried many
kinds of authorship, and was far below mediocrity in all; novels,
histories, poems, and plays, especially the latter, he poured forth in
rapid succession, drawing down abundance of bitter sarcasms from the
critics, and gaining little emolument to himself. Among the dramatic
subjects which he chose was Henry IV., and he was so delighted with his
hero, that he brought him on the stage in three different pieces. The
appellation of “the Modern Ravaillac,” which he acquired by these pieces,
shows how woefully the monarch fared under his hands. But Durosoi had
worse enemies than the critics; on an erroneous suspicion of his being
the author of two obnoxious works, he was shut up for two months in the
Bastile. When the revolution broke out he espoused the royal cause, and
became editor of the Gazette de Paris. He was a zealous and certainly an
honest advocate of that cause. Though slenderly endowed with talents, he
was by no means deficient in courage and noble feelings. When Louis XVI.,
after his flight to the frontier, was under restraint in the Tuileries,
Durosoi formed the romantic but generous project of obtaining the king’s
liberty, by inducing the friends of Louis to offer themselves as hostages
for him; and a great number of individuals actually consented to render
themselves personally responsible for the sovereign’s conduct. Durosoi
did not slacken in his hostility to the revolutionists, till their
final success on the 10th of August compelled him to drop the pen. He
was one of their earliest victims on the scaffold, he being executed by
torch-light only nineteen days after the downfall of the monarchy. He
died with the utmost firmness; in a letter which he left behind him, he
declared, that “a royalist like him was worthy to die on St. Louis’s day,
for his religion and his king.” It is said that, with the laudable desire
of benefiting mankind by his death, he was desirous that his blood should
be employed in trying the experiment of transfusion.
The French revolution, which ultimately consigned Durosoi to death,
opened the prison-gates of a man, of whom few particulars are recorded,
but whose courage and unmerited sufferings deserve our admiration and
pity. It will scarcely be credited that, from a very early period of the
reign of Louis XV. there existed an infamous monopoly of grain, which was
managed for the benefit of the monarch. Corn, bought at a low price in
plentiful seasons, was hoarded up, and sold at an immense profit in times
of scarcity. The circumstance was kept as secret as possible for many
years, but the truth got out, and the name of “the compact of famine”
was popularly given to the monopoly. A patriotic individual, Prévost
de Beaumont, the secretary of the clergy, formed the daring project of
at one sweep gaining possession of all the documents relative to this
affair, and revealing to France the whole machinery of the scandalous
system. When, however, he was about to carry his plan into effect, he was
seized by the police, and conveyed to the Bastile. In that prison, and at
Vincennes, he spent twenty-two years, his hands and feet heavily ironed,
a bare board for his bed, and a scanty portion of bread and water for his
daily subsistence; he would no doubt have perished in his dungeon, had
not the chains which he had so long worn been broken by the strong hand
of the French people.
A striking proof how liable to abuse is irresponsible power, placed in
the hands of ministers of state and of monopolizing corporations, is
afforded by the persecution of Barletti St. Paul, a man of considerable
abilities, who was born at Paris, in 1734. So precocious was his talent,
that, at the age of sixteen, he had made himself master of all that the
best teachers could communicate to him. After having been for a while
sub-preceptor of the junior branches of the royal family, he was involved
in a quarrel, in consequence of which he quitted France. He resided for
six years at Naples, after which he was intrusted by the Dauphin with a
diplomatic mission at Rome; and, when he had fulfilled this mission, he
returned to his native country.
Rapidly as St. Paul had acquired knowledge, he was thoroughly
dissatisfied with the method of instruction then in use, and particularly
with the various and discordant systems which were followed by
preceptors. He, therefore, undertook the Herculean task of forming a
collection of elementary treatises on the sciences and arts, with new
modes of studying languages. On this encyclopedic labour he was, at
intervals, employed during nearly the whole of his life. Eighteen volumes
of it were completed, and he was on the point of seeing them brought
before the public, when his prospects were destroyed by the base jealousy
of one learned body, and the legal despotism of another. As the cost of
printing the work would be great, a society of his friends was formed,
for the purpose of accomplishing the publication in concert, and a public
meeting was announced, to deliberate on the necessary arrangements. But
the University of Paris had taken the alarm. Like all old and pampered
institutions, it hated novelty, and trembled lest its monopoly should be
shaken. To avert the dreaded evil, it had recourse to the parliament;
and the compliant parliament issued a prohibition against the meeting.
This step was backed by the appointment of four commissioners to
examine the work. It did not require the spirit of prophecy to predict
that commissioners, chosen under such auspices, would be anything but
impartial. The hackneyed joke, of suing his Satanic majesty in one of
the infernal courts, is pretty sure to be realised on such occasions.
The report which they made was so unfavourable, that a complete stop was
put to the scheme of publishing. St. Paul did not tamely submit to this
treatment. He procured to be printed, at Brussels, a pamphlet, which was
entitled The Secret Revealed. Sartine, the minister of police, who had
been one of his active enemies, was somewhat roughly handled in this
production. The king of spies, jails, and gibbets, was not a man to be
attacked with impunity, and he avenged himself in a manner which was
worthy of him, by suppressing the pamphlet, and sending its author to the
Bastile.
At the expiration of three months, the intercession of the Cardinal de
Rohan obtained the liberation of St. Paul. He then went to Spain, where
he became professor of belles-lettres at Segovia; an appointment which
he held for three years. Returning again to France, he published a New
System of Typography, to diminish the labour of compositors. For this
the government rewarded him by a grant of twenty thousand livres, and
by printing five hundred copies of his volume at the Louvre press. His
improvement consisted in casting in one mass the diphthongs, triphthongs,
and all the most frequently occurring combinations of letters. A similar
plan, with the name of the Logographic, was tried in London, a few years
afterwards, but it was soon abandoned.
St. Paul continued to labour indefatigably on his ameliorated system of
education; he gained in its favour the suffrage of Sicard, who was one of
three persons whom the National Institute nominated to examine it; but
he did not live to complete it, and only a small specimen of it was ever
published. He passed unhurt through the storms of the Revolution, and
died at Paris, in 1809. One of his best works, “The means of avoiding the
customary errors in the instruction of Youth,” suggests a mode by which
two scholars may reciprocally give lessons to each other.
Almost the last prisoner, perhaps the last of any note, who was committed
to the Bastile in the closing year of Louis the Fifteenth’s reign,
was a man who subsequently acted a conspicuous part in politics and
war. Charles Francis Duperier Dumouriez, born at Cambray, in 1739,
was the son of an army commissary, who translated the Ricciardetto,
and wrote some dramatic pieces. After having been educated with much
care, Dumouriez obtained a cornetcy, and, before the close of the seven
years’ war, he had received two-and-twenty wounds, nineteen of which
were inflicted on him in a combat which he gallantly maintained against
twenty hussars, five of whom he disabled. Peace being concluded, he
travelled in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. In 1768 and 1769, he served
with distinction in Corsica, and rose to the rank of colonel. The Duke
de Choiseul employed him, in 1770, on a mission in Poland, to support
the confederation of Bar against the Russians, but the dismissal of
the duke, which took place soon after, led to the recall of the envoy.
Dumouriez was next intrusted, by Louis XV., with a secret mission to
the court of Gustavus of Sweden, relative to the revolution which that
sovereign was then planning. This was done by Louis, who was in the habit
of taking similar steps, without the knowledge of the Duke d’Aiguillon,
the minister for foreign affairs. Dumouriez was, in consequence, arrested
at Hamburgh, by order of the duke, and conveyed to the Bastile, Louis
not having spirit enough to avow his own acts. During his six months’
imprisonment, Dumouriez wrote various works. The accession of Louis
XVI. restored the captive to liberty; and he successively obtained
the government of Cherbourg, and the command of the country between
Nantes and Bordeaux. That such a man should not take an active part in
the French revolution was impossible. But Dumouriez was not, as the
ultra-royalists have unjustly described him to be, an enemy of the
throne; he was, in truth, a constitutional royalist. In 1792, he was
promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general, and was appointed minister
for foreign affairs, from which office he was shortly afterwards removed
to the war department. That department, however, he held only for four
days, at the end of which term he resigned. The duration of his official
existence did not exceed three months. He was now placed at the head
of the army which was destined to repel the Prussians, who were led by
the Duke of Brunswick. By a masterly disposition of his troops, in the
defiles of Champagne, he completely foiled the enemy, and compelled
them to make a ruinous retreat. He then broke into the Netherlands,
gained the battle of Jemappe, revolutionized the whole country, and
carried the French arms into Holland. Quitting his army for a while, he
visited Paris, for the purpose of endeavouring to save the king, but in
that he failed, and rendered himself an object of suspicion. The tide
of military success, too, at length began to turn against him. He lost
the battle of Neerwinden, and was forced to abandon the Low Countries.
Commissioners were now sent by the Convention to arrest him; and, after
having vainly endeavoured to rally his army on his side, he was obliged
to seek for safety in flight. After having resided in various foreign
countries, he finally settled in England, where he was often consulted by
the ministers. Though he was decidedly hostile to the emperor Napoleon,
he took no share in the restoration of the Bourbons, nor did he approve
of their conduct. Dumouriez died on the 14th of March, 1823, and was
interred at Henley, in Oxfordshire. His works are numerous; the most
interesting of them are, his Memoirs, and the Present State of Portugal.
CHAPTER XI.
Captivity and Sufferings of Masers de Latude—Cause of his
Imprisonment—He is removed from the Bastile to Vincennes—He
escapes—He is retaken, and sent to the Bastile—Kindness of
M. Berryer—D’Alegre is confined in the same apartment with
him—Latude forms a plan for escaping—Preparations for executing
it—The Prisoners descend from the summit of the Bastile, and
escape—They are recaptured in Holland, and brought back—Latude
is thrown into a horrible dungeon—He tames rats, and makes a
musical pipe—Plans suggested by him—His writing materials—He
attempts suicide—Pigeons tamed by him—New plans suggested
by him—Finds means to fling a packet of papers from the top
of the Bastile—He is removed to Vincennes—He escapes—Is
recaptured—Opens a communication with his fellow-prisoners—Is
transferred to Charenton—His situation there—His momentary
liberation—He is re-arrested, and sent to the Bicêtre—Horrors
of that prison—Heroic benevolence of Madame Legros—She succeeds
in obtaining his release—Subsequent fate of Latude.
In one of the finest passages that ever flowed from his pen, Sterne
alludes to the comparatively trifling effect produced on the mind, when
it endeavours to form a collective idea of the misery which is felt by a
throng of sufferers. “Leaning my head upon my hand,” says he, “I began to
figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for
it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination.
“I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no
inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was,
that I could not bring it near me, but that the multitude of groups in it
did but distract me, I took a single captive, and having first shut him
up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door
to take his picture.
“I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and
confinement, and felt what sickness of the heart it was which arises
from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish; in
thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood; he had
seen no sun, no moon, in all that time—nor had the voice of friend or
kinsman breathed through his lattice.”
It is even as Sterne asserts. The contemplation of the woes which are
undergone by a large aggregate of persons, seems indeed to act on the
mind somewhat in the manner of a heavy misfortune; it bewilders and
benumbs the feelings. When we read of a single individual falling beneath
the knife of a murderer, we are more violently startled and thrilled, and
the impression made is more permanent, than when we read of the thousands
who groan out their lives on the field of battle; though, in the latter
case, the largest part of the victims, mutilated, torn, trampled on, and
slowly dying without succour, and distant from all that is dear to them,
endure agonies far beyond those which are inflicted by the stab of an
assassin.
Let us, therefore, now follow the example of Sterne. Hitherto the reader
has seen only a rapid succession of captives passing before him, like the
shadows of a magic lantern; he has had but glimpses of the wretchedness
that falls to the lot of a prisoner; for, with respect to nearly the
whole of the individuals chronicled in this volume, we know, as to
their situation while in durance, little beyond the circumstance of
their having been incarcerated; their persecutors ensured their silence
by retaining them till they sunk into the grave, or by the terror of
becoming once more inmates of a dungeon. While the Bastile was standing,
few would venture even to whisper what they had experienced within its
walls. Fortunately, however, there does exist one faithful record of
the severest woes, protracted by untirable tormentors, through a series
of years, extending to half the natural life of man. Let us then avail
ourselves of it, fix our attention steadily on a single individual, watch
his anguish, bodily and mental, his privations, his struggles, and his
despair, and mark how deeply the iron can be made to enter into his soul
by vindictive and ruthless tyrants.
Henry Masers de Latude, the person alluded to, spent thirty-five years
in the Bastile and other places of confinement. If we did not know that
power, when it is held by the base-minded, is exercised by them without
mercy, to punish whoever offends them, we might suppose that Latude
brought his long agonies upon himself by the commission of some enormous
crime. That he committed a fault is undeniable, and it was a fault of
that sort which most disgusts high-spirited men, because it bears the
stamp of meanness and fraud. It deserved a sharp reprimand, perhaps
even a moderate chastisement; but no heart that was not as hard as the
nether millstone, could have made it a pretext for the infliction of such
lengthened misery as he was doomed to undergo.
Latude, who was in his twenty-fifth year when his misfortunes began,
was the son of the Marquis de Latude, a military officer, and was born
in Languedoc. He was intended for the engineer service, but the peace
of Aix-la-Chapelle prevented him from being enrolled. The notorious
Marchioness de Pompadour, who united in herself the double demerit of
being the royal harlot and procuress, was then in the zenith of her
power, and was as much detested by the people as she was favoured by the
sovereign. As Latude was one day sitting in the garden of the Tuileries,
he heard two men vehemently inveighing against her; and a thought
struck him, that, by turning this circumstance to account, he might
obtain her patronage. His plan was a clumsy one, and it was clumsily
executed. He began by putting into the post-office a packet of harmless
powder, directed to the marchioness; he then waited on her, related the
conversation which he had overheard, said that he had seen them put a
packet into the post-office, and expressed his fears that it contained
some extremely subtle poison. She offered him a purse of gold, but he
refused it, and declared that he was only desirous of being rewarded
by her protection. Suspicious of his purpose, she wished to see his
handwriting; and therefore, under pretence of intending to communicate
with him, she asked for his address. He wrote it, and, unfortunately for
him, he wrote it in the same hand in which he had directed the pretended
poison. He was then graciously dismissed. The sameness of the writing,
and the result of the experiments which she ordered to be made on the
contents of the packet, convinced her that the whole was a fraud. It is
scarcely possible not to smile at the blundering folly of the youthful
impostor; had he sent real poison, and disguised his handwriting, he
would perhaps have succeeded.
But this proved to be no laughing matter to the luckless Latude. The
marchioness looked upon the trick as an unpardonable insult, and she
was not slow in revenging it. In the course of a few days, while he was
indulging in golden dreams, he was painfully awoke from them by the
appearance of the officers of justice. They carried him to the Bastile,
and there he was stripped, deprived of his money, jewels, and papers,
clothed in wretched rags, and shut up in the Tower du Coin. On the
following day, the 2nd of May, 1749, he was interrogated by M. Berryer,
the lieutenant of police. Unlike many of his class, Berryer was a man of
feeling; he promised to intercede for him with the marchioness, and, in
the meanwhile, he endeavoured to make him as comfortable as a man could
be who was robbed of his liberty. To make the time pass less heavily, he
gave him a comrade, a Jew, a man of abilities, Abuzaglo by name, who was
accused of being a secret British agent. The two captives soon became
friends; Abuzaglo had hopes of speedy liberation through the influence
of the Prince of Conti, and he promised to obtain the exercise of that
influence in behalf of his companion. Latude, on his part, in case of
his being first released, bound himself to strain every nerve to rescue
Abuzaglo.
Ever on the listen to catch the conversation of the prisoners, the
jailors appear to have obtained a knowledge of the hopes and reciprocal
engagements of the friends. When Latude had been four months at the
Bastile, three turnkeys entered, and said that an order was come to
set him free. Abuzaglo embraced him, and conjured him to remember his
promise. But no sooner had the joyful Latude crossed the threshold of
his prison, than he was told that he was only going to be removed to
Vincennes. Abuzaglo was liberated shortly after; but believing that
Latude was free, and had broken his word to him, he ceased to take an
interest in his fate.
It is not wonderful that the health of Latude gave way under the pressure
of grief and disappointment. M. Berryer came to console him, removed
him to the most comfortable apartment in the castle, and allowed him to
walk daily for two hours in the garden. But he did not conceal that the
marchioness was inflexible, and in consequence of this, the captive, who
felt a prophetic fear that he was destined to perpetual imprisonment,
resolved to make an attempt to escape. Nearly nine months elapsed before
he could find an opportunity to carry his plan into effect. The moment
at length arrived. One of his fellow-prisoners, an ecclesiastic, was
frequently visited by an abbé; and this circumstance he made the basis of
his project. To succeed, it was necessary for him to elude the vigilance
of two turnkeys, who guarded him when he walked, and of four sentinels,
who watched the outer doors, and this was no easy matter. Of the
turnkeys, one often waited in the garden, while the other went to fetch
the prisoner. Latude began by accustoming the second turnkey to see him
hurry down stairs, and join the first in the garden. When the day came on
which he was determined to take flight, he, as usual, passed rapidly down
the stairs without exciting any suspicion, his keeper having no doubt
that he should find him in the garden. At the bottom was a door, which he
hastily bolted to prevent the second turnkey from giving the alarm to his
companion. Successful thus far, he knocked at the gate which led out of
the castle. It was opened, and, with an appearance of much eagerness, he
asked for the abbé, and was answered that the sentinel had not seen him.
“Our priest has been waiting for him in the garden more than two hours,”
exclaimed Latude; “I have been running after him in all directions to no
purpose; but, egad, he shall pay me for my running!” He was allowed to
pass; he repeated the same inquiry to the three other sentinels, received
similar answers, and at last found himself beyond his prison walls.
Avoiding as much as possible the high road, he traversed the fields and
vineyards, and finally reached Paris, where he shut himself up in a
retired lodging.
In the first moments of recovered liberty, the feelings of Latude were
those of unmixed pleasure. They were, however, soon alloyed by doubt,
apprehension, and anxiety. What was he to do? whither was he to fly? To
remain concealed was impossible, and, even had it been possible, would
have been only another kind of captivity; to fly from the kingdom was
nearly, if not quite as difficult; and, besides, he was reluctant to give
up the gaieties of the capital and his prospects of advancement. In this
dilemma he romantically determined to throw himself upon the generosity
of his persecutor. “I drew up,” says he, “a memorial, which I addressed
to the king. I spoke in it of Madame de Pompadour with respect, and on
my fault towards her with repentance. I entreated she would be satisfied
with the punishment I had undergone; or, if fourteen months’ imprisonment
had not expiated my offence, I ventured to implore the clemency of her I
had offended, and threw myself on the mercy of my sovereign. I concluded
my memorial by naming the asylum I had chosen.” To use such language was,
indeed, sounding “the very base-string of humility.”
This appeal of the sheep to the wolf was answered in a wolf-like manner.
Latude was arrested without delay, and immured in the Bastile. It was a
part of the tactics of the prison to inspire hopes, for the purpose of
adding the pain of disappointment to the other sufferings of a prisoner.
He was accordingly told that he was taken into custody merely to
ascertain by what means he had escaped. He gave a candid account of the
stratagem to which he had resorted; but, instead of being set free, as he
had foolishly expected, he was thrown into a dungeon, and subjected to
the harshest treatment.
Again his compassionate friend, the lieutenant of police, came to his
relief. He could not release him from his dungeon, but did all that lay
in his power to render it less wearisome. He condoled with him; tried,
but in vain, to soften his tormentor; and, as a loop-hole in the vault
admitted light enough to allow of reading, he ordered him to be supplied
with books, pens, ink, and paper. For six months these resources enabled
Latude to bear his fate with some degree of fortitude. His patience was
then exhausted, and he gave way to rage and despair, in the paroxysms of
which he vented his angry feelings in epigrams and satirical verses. One
of these compositions, which is certainly not deficient in bitterness,
he was imprudent enough to write on the margin of a book which had been
lent to him—
“With no wit or allurements to tempt man to sin,
With no beauty and no virgin treasure in store,
In France you the highest of lovers may win—
For a proof do you ask? Then behold Pompadour.”
Latude had taken the precaution to write this in a feigned hand; but he
was not aware, that, whenever a prisoner returned a book, every page of
it was carefully examined. The jailers discovered the epigram, and took
the volume to John Lebel, the governor, who dutifully hastened to lay it
before the mistress of the king. The fury of the marchioness was extreme.
Sending for M. Berryer, she exclaimed to him, in a voice half smothered
with passion, “See here! learn to know the man for whom you are so much
interested, and dare again to solicit my clemency!”
Eighteen dreary months passed away, during which Latude was strictly
confined to his dungeon, scarcely hearing the sound of a human voice. At
last M. Berryer took upon himself the responsibility of removing him to
a better apartment, and even allowing him to have the attendance of a
servant. A young man, named Cochar, was found willing to undertake the
monotonous and soul-depressing task of being domestic to a prisoner. He
was gentle and sympathising, and in so far was qualified for his office;
but he had miscalculated his own strength, and the weight of the burden
which he was to bear. He drooped, and in a short time he was stretched on
the bed of mortal sickness. Fresh air and liberty might have saved him.
Those, however, he could not obtain; for it was a rule that the fate of
any one who entered into the service of a prisoner became linked with
that of his master, and that he must not expect to quit the Bastile till
his employer was set at large. It was not till Cochar was expiring, that
the jailers would so much as consent to remove him from the chamber of
Latude. Within three months from his entrance into the Bastile, he ceased
to exist.
Latude was inconsolable for the loss of the poor youth, who had always
endeavoured to comfort him, as long as he had spirits to do so. To
mitigate his grief, M. Berryer obtained for him the society of a
fellow-captive, who could scarcely fail to have a perfect communion of
feeling with him. This new associate, D’Alegre by name, was about his
own age, full of activity, spirit, and talent, and had committed the
irremissible crime of offending the Marchioness de Pompadour. Taking it
for granted that she was reclaimable, though on what ground he did so it
would be difficult to discover, he had written to her a letter, in which
he apprised her of the public hatred, and pointed out the means by which
he thought she might remove it, and become an object of affection. For
giving this advice, he had already spent three years within the walls
of the Bastile. Yet his woes were now only beginning. The unfortunate
D’Alegre had ample cause to lament his having forgotten the scriptural
injunction, not to cast pearls before swine.
M. Berryer took the same warm interest in D’Alegre as in Latude. He was
indefatigable in his exertions to obtain their pardon, and for a while
he flattered himself that he should succeed. At last, wearied by his
importunity, the marchioness vowed that her vengeance should be eternal,
and she commanded him never again to mention their names. He was,
therefore, obliged to communicate to them the melancholy tidings, that
their chains could be broken only by her disgrace or death.
D’Alegre was almost overwhelmed by the first shock of this intelligence;
it inspired Latude, on the contrary, with a sort of insane energy, and
his mind immediately began to revolve projects of escape. The very
idea of escaping would seem to be indicative of madness; egress through
the gates, tenfold guarded as they were, was utterly impossible, and to
ascend to the summit of the lofty tower, which must be done through the
grated chimney, then to descend from the dizzy height into the ditch,
and, lastly, to break through or climb the outward wall, appeared to be
equally impracticable. Yet, with no apparent means of accomplishing his
purpose, Latude firmly made up his mind to try the latter plan. He had
two things in his favour, time and perseverance, and their sovereign
efficacy has often been proved.
When Latude mentioned to him his scheme, D’Alegre considered it as
little better than the ravings of delirium. Latude, however, continued
to meditate deeply upon it, though in silence. The first step towards
the execution of it, without the success of which no other could be
taken, was to find a hiding-place for the tools and materials which must
be employed. From his being unable to hear any of the movements of the
prisoner in the chamber below, Latude concluded that there was a space
between the floor of his own room and the ceiling of his neighbour’s,
and he immediately set himself to ascertain whether this was the fact.
As he was returning with D’Alegre from mass, he contrived that his
fellow-prisoner should drop his toothpick to the bottom of the stairs,
and request the turnkey to pick it up. While the turnkey was descending,
Latude looked into the under chamber, and estimated its height at about
ten feet and a half. He then counted the number of stairs between the two
rooms, measured one of them, and found, to his infinite delight, that
there must be a vacancy of five feet and a half between the bottom of the
one room and the top of the other.
As soon as they were locked in, Latude embraced D’Alegre, and exclaimed
that, with patience and courage, they might be saved, now that they had a
spot where they could conceal their ropes and materials. At the mention
of ropes, D’Alegre thought that his companion’s wits were wandering, and,
when he heard him assert, that he had more than a thousand feet of rope
in his trunk, he felt sure that the assertion was prompted by madness.
“What!” said Latude, “have I not a vast quantity of linen[9]—thirteen
dozen and a half of shirts—many napkins, stockings, nightcaps, and other
articles? Will not these supply us? We will unravel them, and we shall
have abundance of rope.”
D’Alegre began to have a gleam of hope, but he still started numerous
difficulties, among which were the want of wood for ladders, and of tools
to make them, and to wrench the iron gratings from the chimney. Latude
silenced him by replying, “My friend, it is genius which creates, and we
have that which despair supplies. It will direct our hands; and once more
I tell you, we shall be saved.”
Their first essay in tool-making was to grind down to an edge, on the
tiled floor, two iron hooks, taken from a folding table; with these they
meant to remove the chimney gratings. The next was to convert a part
of the steel of their tinder-box into a knife, with which they made
handles for the hooks. The hooks were immediately applied to raise the
tiles, in order to find whether there was really a cavity beneath. After
six hours’ toil, the prisoners found that there was an empty space of
about four feet, and, having gained this satisfactory knowledge, they
carefully replaced the floor of their cell. The threads of two shirts
were then drawn out, one by one, tied together, wound into small balls,
and, subsequently, formed into two larger balls, each composed of fifty
threads, sixty feet in length. These were ultimately twisted into a rope,
from which was made a ladder of twenty feet, intended to support the
captives, while they extracted the bars by which the chimney was closed.
The removal of the bars was a work of horrible labour. Cramped into the
most painful postures, it was impossible for them to work more than an
hour at a stretch, and their hands were always covered with blood. The
mortar was nearly as hard as iron, they had no means of softening it but
by blowing water on it from their mouths, and they thought themselves
lucky when they could clear away as much as an eighth of an inch in the
course of a night. As fast as the bars were extracted they replaced them,
that their operations might not be betrayed. Six months’ unremitting toil
was bestowed upon this single object.
Having opened the passage up the chimney, they proceeded to construct
their ladders. Their fuel, which was in logs of about eighteen or twenty
inches long, supplied the rounds for the rope ladder, by which they
were to descend from the tower; and the whole of that by which they
were to scale the outward wall. More tools being required to cut the
wood, Latude converted an iron candlestick into a saw, by notching it
with the remaining half of the steel which belonged to the tinder-box.
To this implement he afterwards added others. They then set to work on
their wooden ladder, which it was necessary to make of the length of
twenty or five-and-twenty feet. It had only one upright, three inches
in diameter, through which the rounds passed, each round projecting six
inches on either side; the pieces of which it consisted were joined by
mortises and tenons, and each joint was fastened by two pegs, to keep
them perpendicular. As fast as the pieces were finished, the rounds were
tied to them with a string, that no mistake might occur when they were
put together in the dark. They were then carefully hidden under the floor.
As in case of the prison spies chancing to overhear them talking about
their employment, it was of consequence to prevent their enemies from
understanding what was said, they invented a vocabulary of names for
all the tools and the portions of the apparatus. For instance, the saw
was _the monkey_, the reel _Anubis_, the hooks _Tubal Cain_, the wooden
ladder _Jacob_, the rounds _sheep_, the ropes _doves_, a ball of thread
_the little brother_, and the knife _the puppy dog_; the hole in which
they concealed them was christened _Polyphemus_.
It now remained for them to make their principal rope ladder. This was
an arduous and almost endless task, as it was more than a hundred and
eighty feet long, and, consequently, double that length of rope was
wanted. “We began,” says Latude, “by unravelling all our linen, shirts,
towels, nightcaps, stockings, drawers, pocket-handkerchiefs,—every thing
which could supply thread or silk. When we had made a ball, we hid it in
_Polyphemus_; and when we had a sufficient quantity, we employed a whole
night in twisting it into a rope, and I defy the most skilful rope maker
to have done it better.”
There was still a pressing necessity for another enormous quantity of
rope. Along the upper part of the outside of the Bastile ran a kind
of cornice, which stood out three or four feet beyond the wall. The
effect of this would be, to make the ladder hang loosely in the air, and
vibrate in such a terrific manner, that there would be great danger of
the captive who led the way being precipitated headlong to the ground.
To avert this peril, they made a second rope, three hundred and sixty
feet long, to be tied round the person first descending, and passed
gradually through a sort of block fixed above, in order to steady him.
Shorter ropes were also provided, to fasten the ladder to a cannon, and
for any other occasion that might occur. On measuring the whole of their
manufacture, they found that it extended to more than fourteen hundred
feet. Two hundred and eight rounds were required for the ladders, and,
lest their knocking against the wall should give the alarm, they covered
them with the linings of their morning gowns, waistcoats, and under
waistcoats. These last preparations for flight occupied eighteen months.
It had originally been their intention, after having reached the ditch,
to climb the parapet, and get into the governor’s garden, and from thence
descend into the moat of the gate of St. Antoine. On consideration,
however, this plan was abandoned, because in this part they would be
more exposed than elsewhere to be detected by the sentinels. It was
therefore deemed advisable, though the labour would be greatly increased,
to break a way through the wall which divided the ditch of the Bastile
from that of the St. Antoine gate. Latude was of opinion that the mortar
of the wall on this side, having been weakened by frequent floods, might
be removed with comparative ease. Two bars from the chimney were to be
used as levers to raise the stones, and an auger, to make holes for the
insertion of the bars, was fabricated out of a screw from one of the
bedsteads, to which a wooden cross handle was added.
All was now prepared for their flight, and they had only to decide upon
the day for attempting their hazardous enterprise. The 25th of February,
1756, was the day which they chose. A portmanteau was filled with a
change of clothes, the rounds were fastened into the rope ladder, the
wooden ladder was got ready, the two crowbars were put into cases to
prevent them from clanging, and a bottle of brandy was prudently added to
their baggage, to hearten them while they worked in the water—for the
Seine had overflowed, and at that moment there was from four to five feet
water in the moat of the Bastile, and ice was floating upon it.
Supper being over, and the turnkey having locked them in for the
night, the captives, doubtless with throbbing hearts, began their
operations. Latude was the first to ascend the chimney. “I had the
rheumatism in my left arm,” says he, “but I thought little of the pain,
for I soon experienced one more severe.” Before he reached the top,
his knees and elbows were so excoriated, that the blood ran down from
them. When he arrived at the summit, he let down a rope, by means of
which he successively drew up the portmanteau, the ladders, and the
other articles. The end of the rope ladder he allowed to hang down,
and the upper part he fastened across the funnel with a large wooden
peg. D’Alegre was thus enabled to mount with less difficulty than his
predecessor had experienced.
At last they breathed the free air of heaven on the platform of the
Bastile. As the du Trésor tower appeared to be the most favourable for
their descent, they carried their apparatus thither. One end of the
rope ladder was made fast to a cannon, and it was gently let down. The
safety rope was next passed through a firmly fixed block, and it was tied
securely round the body of Latude. The daring adventurer now commenced
his fearful descent of more than fifty yards; D’Alegre meanwhile slowly
letting out the rope. It was well that they had taken this precaution;
for, at every step that he took, Latude swung so violently in the air
that it is probable he would have lost his hold, had not the safety rope
given him confidence. In a few moments, which however must have seemed
hours, he reached the ditch unhurt. The portmanteau and the other effects
were then lowered to him, and he placed them on a spot to which the
water had not risen. D’Alegre himself followed; and, as Latude applied
all his strength to steady the ladder, the descent of his companion was
effected with less annoyance and hazard than his own had been. That
regret, at being unable to carry away their ladder and implements, should
have found a place among the feelings by which they were agitated, may at
the first glance seem strange, but was certainly not unnatural; articles
on which they had bestowed such persevering toil, which had proved the
instruments of their deliverance, and were also the trophies of their
triumph, they must have regarded with something like affection.
As they heard a sentinel pacing along at the distance of ten yards, they
were obliged finally to relinquish the scheme of climbing the parapet,
which they had still cherished a hope of carrying into execution. There
was, therefore, no resource but to break a hole through the wall.
Accordingly they crossed the ditch of the Bastile, to the spot where
the wall separated it from that of the St. Antoine gate. Unluckily, the
ditch had been deepened here, and the water, on which ice was floating,
was up to their arm-pits. They, nevertheless, set to work with a vigour
which can be inspired only by circumstances like those under which they
were placed. Scarcely had they begun, when, about twelve feet above their
heads, they saw light cast upon them from the lantern which was carried
by a patrol major; they were compelled instantly to put their heads under
water, and this they had to do several times in the course of the night.
The wall at which they were working had a thickness of a yard and a half;
so that, although they plied their crowbars without intermission, they
were nine mortal hours in making a hole of sufficient size for them to
creep through. Their task was ultimately achieved, they passed through
the aperture, and were now beyond the walls of their prison. But even at
this moment of exultation, they had a narrow escape from perishing. In
their way to the road by which they were to go, there was an aqueduct;
it was not more than six feet wide, but it had ten feet of water and
two feet of mud. Into this they stumbled. Fortunately, Latude did not
lose his upright position; having shaken off his companion, who had
mechanically grasped him, he scrambled up the bank, and then drew out
D’Alegre by the hair of his head.
The clock struck five as they entered the high road. After having
joyously clasped each other in a long and close embrace, they dropped on
their knees, and poured forth fervent thanks to the Divine Being, who had
so miraculously aided them in their dangerous undertaking. In consequence
of the evaporation which was taking place, they now began to feel more
acutely than when they were in the water the effects of their immersion;
their whole frame was rapidly becoming rigid. They, therefore, drew a
change of clothes from the portmanteau; but they were so much benumbed
and exhausted, that neither of them could dress without being assisted by
his friend. When they were somewhat recovered, they took a hackney-coach,
and eventually found shelter in the house of a kind-hearted tailor, a
native of Languedoc, who was known to Latude.
To gain strength after their toils, as well as to let the hue and cry
die away, the friends remained nearly a month in concealment. It having
been settled between them that, in order to avoid being both caught at
once, they should quit the country separately, D’Alegre, in the disguise
of a peasant, set out on his journey to Brussels. He reached that city
in safety, and informed Latude of his success. Furnished with a parish
register of his host, who was nearly of his own age, and with some old
papers relative to a lawsuit, and dressed as a servant, Latude departed.
He went on foot a few leagues from Paris, and then took the diligence for
Valenciennes. He was several times stopped, searched, and questioned,
and, on one occasion, was in imminent danger of being detected. By dint,
however, of sticking to his story, that he was carrying law papers to his
master’s brother at Amsterdam, he got safely to Valenciennes, at which
town he removed into the stage for Brussels. He was walking when they
reached the boundary post which marks the frontier line of France and
the Netherlands. “My feelings,” says he, “got the better of my prudence;
I threw myself on the ground, and kissed it with transport. At length,
thought I, I can breathe without fear! My companions, with astonishment,
demanded the cause of this extravagance. I pretended that, just at the
very moment, in a preceding year, I had escaped a great danger, and that
I always expressed my gratitude to Providence by a similar prostration
when the day came round.”
Latude had appointed D’Alegre to meet him at the Hôtel de Coffi,
in Brussels. Thither he went immediately on his arrival; but there
disappointment and sorrow awaited him. The landlord at first denied any
knowledge of D’Alegre, and, when further pressed, he hesitated, and
became extremely embarrassed. This was enough to convince the inquirer
that his friend had been seized; and the conviction was strengthened, by
his having heard nothing from him, though D’Alegre knew the moment when
his companion would reach Brussels. As his friend could be arrested on
the Austrian territory, it was obvious that Latude could not remain in
it without danger; and, with a heavy heart, he resolved to fly instantly
from this inhospitable soil. He secured a place in the canal boat, which
was that night to proceed to Antwerp. In the course of the voyage, he
learned the fatal truth from a fellow-passenger. He was told, that
one of the two prisoners, escaped from the Bastile, had arrived at the
Hôtel de Coffi, had been apprehended by a police officer, and had been
ultimately sent under a strong escort to Lille, and there delivered into
the custody of a French exempt; and, moreover, that all this was kept as
secret as possible, in order not to alarm the other fugitive, the search
after whom was carried on with such activity that he must inevitably fall
into the hands of his pursuers.
Believing that, if he went on immediately to Amsterdam he would find
there an officer of the police waiting to seize him, he directed his
steps to Bergen-op-Zoom. But now another trouble fell upon him. He had
nearly exhausted his scanty stock of money, and had not found at Brussels
a remittance which he expected from his father; he afterwards learned
that it had been intercepted by the French exempt, who was employed
to trace him. While he remained at Bergen-op-Zoom, which was till he
supposed that his enemies would have lost the hope of his coming to
Amsterdam, he wrote to his father for a supply. But a considerable time
must elapse before he could receive it, and, in the meanwhile, he would
run the risk of starving. When he had paid the rent of his wretched
garret at Bergen-op-Zoom, and the fare of the boat which was to convey
him to Amsterdam, a few shillings was all that was left. In this state
of penury, unwilling to beg, he tried whether life could be supported
by grass and wild herbs alone. The experiment failed, for his stomach
rejected the loathsome food. To render his herbs less disgusting, he
bought four pounds of a black and clay-like rye bread, to eat with them.
Hoping that by this time the bloodhounds of the marchioness had desisted
from seeking him in the Dutch capital, Latude ventured to embark. To hide
his poverty, he kept aloof as much as possible from his fellow-voyagers.
He was, however, not unobserved. There was in the boat one John
Teerhorst, who kept a sort of humble public-house, in a cellar at
Amsterdam. Under his unprepossessing exterior, he had a heart as kind as
ever beat in a human breast. Chancing to catch a sight of Latude’s sorry
fare, he could not help exclaiming, “Good God! what an extraordinary
dinner you are making! You seem to have more appetite than money!” Latude
frankly owned that it was so. The good-natured Dutchman immediately led
him to his own table. “No compliments, Mr. Frenchman,” said he, “seat
yourself there, and eat and drink with me.” On further acquaintance with
him, Latude discovered that his host was not only a truly benevolent man,
but that he had also the rare talent of conferring favours with such
delicacy as not to wound the feelings of the person whom he obliged.
When they reached Amsterdam, Teerhorst offered to introduce him to
a Frenchman named Martin, who, judging from himself, he doubted not
would be delighted to serve him. Latude, however, found that his
fellow-countryman was one of the most soulless animals whom he had ever
seen; a being who cared only for self. He was better fitted to be a
turnkey of the Bastile than the consoler of one of its victims. The tears
and low spirits of his guest disclosed to the Dutchman the reception
which Latude had met with, and the forebodings that oppressed him. Taking
his hand, he said, “Do not weep—I will never abandon you: I am not rich,
it is true, but my heart is good; we will do the best we can for you, and
you will be satisfied.”
Teerhorst’s underground habitation was divided by a partition into two
rooms; one of which served as kitchen, while the other was at once shop,
sitting-room, and bed-room. Though the narrow tenement was already
crowded, Teerhorst contrived to make a sleeping place for Latude in
a large closet, and he and his wife cheerfully gave him a mattress
from their own bed. Not content with feeding and lodging the fugitive,
Teerhorst strove to divert him from melancholy thoughts, by taking
him wherever there was anything that could amuse him. His charitable
efforts were but partially successful; for the mind of Latude was
deeply begloomed by his own precarious situation, and still more by his
incessantly brooding over and regretting the fate of D’Alegre.
Though Latude had found no sympathy in Martin, he was more fortunate in
another of his countrymen, Louis Clergue, who was a native of Martagnac,
where the fugitive was born. Rich and compassionate, Clergue gave him
a room in his house, made him a constant partaker of his table, and
furnished him with clothes and linen. The linen was not the least
acceptable of these gifts; for Latude had been forty days without a
change of it. Clergue also assembled his friends, to hear the story of
his guest, and to consult what could be done for him. They were all of
opinion that Latude had nothing to fear, as neither the States General
nor the people of Amsterdam would ever consent to deliver up a persecuted
stranger, who had confidingly thrown himself on their protection. Even
Latude himself began to believe that at last he was safe.
The unfortunate man was soon woefully undeceived. Not for a moment had
his pursuers slackened in the chase, not a single precaution had they
neglected that could lead to success. In aid of the subaltern agents,
the French ambassador had also exerted himself. By representing the
fugitive as a desperate malefactor, he had obtained the consent of the
States to arrest him. Calumny was one of the weapons uniformly employed
against prisoners, in order to insulate them from their fellow-creatures,
by extinguishing pity. But, in this instance, there seems reason for
believing that bribery was an auxiliary to calumny; the expense of
following up the fugitives was no less than 9000_l._ sterling—a sum for
which it is impossible to account, without supposing that much of it was
expended in bribes.
Though Latude had changed his name, and the address to which his friends
were to direct their communications, the active agents of the marchioness
had succeeded in intercepting all his letters. One was at last allowed to
reach him, as the means of effecting his ruin. It does not appear whether
his residing in the house of M. Clergue was known to them; probably it
was; but, if it were, they perhaps thought that it would be imprudent
to seize him there, as his protector might proclaim to the populace the
innocence of his guest, and thus excite a tumult. A letter from Latude’s
father, containing a draft on a banker, was therefore forwarded to him.
Into this snare he fell. As he was proceeding to the banker’s, the Dutch
police officers pounced upon him, and he was immediately fettered and
dragged along. The crowd which had by this time gathered, were told that
he was a dangerous criminal; but, as the numbers nevertheless continued
to increase, the brutal officers, who were armed with heavy bludgeons,
dealt their blows liberally on all sides, to clear the way to the Town
Hall. One of these blows struck the prisoner with such violence, on the
nape of his neck, that he dropped senseless to the ground.
When consciousness returned, he was lying on a truss of straw, in a
dungeon; there was not a ray of light visible, not a sound to be heard.
He seemed to be cut off from the human race, and he resigned himself
wholly to despair. His tumultuous reflections were interrupted, in the
morning, by a visit from St. Marc, the French exempt, who had pursued
him from Paris. This brutal caitiff had the baseness to aggravate his
sufferings by an awkward attempt at irony. “He told me,” says Latude,
“that I ought to pronounce the name of the Marchioness de Pompadour with
the most profound respect; she was anxious only to load me with favours;
far from complaining, I ought to kiss the generous hand that struck
me, every blow from which was a compliment and an obligation.” In a
second visit, some time after, the exempt brought him an ounce of snuff,
which he strongly recommended, but which Latude did not use, because he
imagined, and not unreasonably, that it was poisoned.
Latude remained nine days in this dungeon, while his captors were
waiting for permission to carry him through the territory of the Empress
Maria Theresa. They were anxious to receive it without delay, for M.
Clergue and the other friends of the prisoner were loudly asserting his
innocence, and the citizens began to murmur at the disgrace which was
cast upon their country by his seizure being permitted. The permission
soon came, and the myrmidons of the Marchioness hastened to bear off
their prey.
In this instance, the Dutch and Austrian governments must bear the shame
of having been ready instruments of the persecutors. It is, however,
doubtful whether, had those governments acted otherwise, the fugitives
would have escaped. To effect their purpose, the emissaries of the
Bastile did not scruple to violate the territory of foreign powers.
In 1752, a M. Bertin de Fretaux was carried off from England. He was
secretly seized at Marylebone, put on board ship at Gravesend, and
conveyed to the Bastile, where he died after having been confined for
twenty-seven years. Even foreign subjects were not safe. The publisher of
a Leyden Gazette having printed a satire on Louis XIV., he was kidnapped
in Holland, and conveyed to the rock of St. Michael, on the Norman coast,
and shut up in a cage till he died.
At two in the morning, on the 9th of June, 1756, the jailers of Latude
came to remove him. Round his body they fastened a strong leathern belt,
on which were two large rings, fastened by padlocks. Through these rings
his hands were passed; so that his arms were pinioned down to his sides,
without the power of motion. He was then conveyed to a boat, into the
foulest corner of which he was thrown. As he could not feed himself, the
office of feeding him was committed to two men; they were so horribly
filthy that he refused, for four-and-twenty hours, to take nourishment
from them. Force was then employed to make him eat. “They brought me,”
says Latude, “a piece of beef swimming in gravy; they took the meat in
their hands, and thrust it into my mouth; they then took some bread,
which they steeped in the grease, and made me swallow it in a similar
manner. During this disgusting operation, one of these ruffians blew his
nose with his fingers, and, without wiping them, soaked some bread, and
approached it to my mouth. I turned my head aside, but it was too late.
I had seen these preliminaries, and my stomach revolted. The consequence
was, a long and severe fit of vomiting, which left me almost without
strength or motion.”
The mode of confinement by the belt was absolute torture to the prisoner.
At length, thanks to the compassionate interference of a servant on
board, who declared that, if no one else would, he himself would cut it,
the belt was removed, and Latude was indulged, by being only handcuffed
on the right arm, and chained to one of his guards. When they arrived at
Lille, St. Marc halted for the night, and sent the prisoner to the town
jail, where he was bolted to the chain of a deserter, scarcely nineteen,
who had been told that he was to be hanged on the morrow. The despairing
youth spent the night in trying to convince him that he, too, would
be hanged, and in proposing that they should elude a public execution
by strangling themselves with their shirts. For the remainder of the
journey, Latude, with his legs ironed, travelled in a carriage with St.
Marc, who took the precaution of carrying pistols, and had likewise an
armed servant by the side of the vehicle, whose orders were to shoot the
captive if he made the slightest motion.
By his associates at the Bastile, St. Marc was received like some victor
returning from the scene of his triumph. They swarmed round him, listened
with greedy ears to the tale of his exertions and stratagems, and
lavished praises and attentions upon him. The group must have borne no
very distant resemblance to fiends exulting over a lost soul.
Stripped, and reclothed in rags which were dropping to pieces, his hands
and feet heavily ironed, the prisoner was thrown into one of the most
noisome dungeons of the fortress. A sprinkling of straw formed his bed;
covering it had none. The only light and air which penetrated into this
den of torment came through a loop-hole, which narrowing gradually from
the inside to the outside, had a diameter of not more than five inches
at the furthest extremity. This loop-hole was secured and darkened by
a fourfold iron grating, so ingeniously contrived that the bars of one
net-work covered the interstices of another; but there was neither glass
nor shutters, to ward off the inclemency of the weather. The interior
extremity of this aperture reached within about two feet and a half of
the ground, and served the captive for a chair and a table, and sometimes
he rested his arms and elbows on it to lighten the weight of his fetters.
Shut out from all communication with his fellow-beings, Latude found some
amusement in the society of the rats which infested his dungeon. His
first attempt to make them companionable was tried upon a single rat,
which, in three days, by gently throwing bits of bread to it, he rendered
so tame that it would take food from his hands. The animal even changed
its abode, and established itself in another hole in order to be nearer
to him. In a few days a female joined the first comer. At the outset she
was timid; but it was not long before she acquired boldness, and would
quarrel and fight for the morsels which were given by the prisoner.
“When my dinner was brought in (says Latude) I called my companions: the
male ran to me directly; the female, according to custom, came slowly
and timidly, but at length approached close to me, and ventured to take
what I offered her from my hand. Some time after, a third appeared, who
was much less ceremonious than my first acquaintances. After his second
visit, he constituted himself one of the family, and made himself so
perfectly at home, that he resolved to introduce his comrades. The next
day, he came, accompanied by two others, who in the course of the week
brought five more; and, thus, in less than a fortnight, our family circle
consisted of ten large rats and myself. I gave each of them names, which
they learned to distinguish. When I called them they came to eat with me,
from the dish, or off the same plate; but I found this unpleasant, and
was soon forced to find them a dish for themselves, on account of their
slovenly habits. They became so tame that they allowed me to scratch
their necks, and appeared pleased when I did; but they would never permit
me to touch them on the back. Sometimes I amused myself with making them
play, and joining in their gambols. Occasionally I threw them a piece of
meat, scalding hot: the most eager ran to seize it, burned themselves,
cried out, and left it; while the less greedy, who had waited patiently,
took it when it was cold, and escaped into a corner, where they divided
their prize: sometimes I made them jump up, by holding a piece of bread
or meat suspended in the air.” In the course of a year, his four-footed
companions increased to twenty-six. Whenever an intruder appeared he met
with a hostile reception from the old standers, and had to fight his way
before he could obtain a footing. Latude endeavoured to familiarize a
spider, but in this he was unsuccessful.
Another source of comfort was unexpectedly opened to the solitary
captive. Among the straw which was brought for his bed, he found a piece
of elder, and he conceived the idea of converting it into a sort of
flageolet. This, however, was a task of no easy accomplishment, for his
hands were fettered, and he had no tools. But necessity is proverbially
inventive. He succeeded in getting off the buckle which fastened the
waistband of his breeches, and bending it into a kind of chisel by means
of his leg irons; and, with this clumsy instrument, after the labour of
many months, he contrived to form a rude kind of musical pipe. It was
probably much inferior to a child’s whistle, but his delight when he had
completed it was extreme; the feeling was natural, and the sounds must
have been absolute harmony to his ear.
Though his flageolet and his animal companions made his lonely hours
somewhat less burthensome, and at moments drew his attention wholly from
maddening thoughts, the longing for liberty would perpetually recur,
and he racked his mind for plans to shake off his chains. The thought
occurred to him, that if he could be fortunate enough to suggest some
plan which would benefit the state, it might be repaid by the gift of
freedom. At that time the non-commissioned military officers were armed
only with halberts, which could be of no use but in close engagement;
Latude proposed to substitute muskets for the halberts, and thus make
effective at least 20,000 men. But how was he to communicate his idea
to the king and the ministers? he had neither pen, ink, nor paper, and
strict orders had been given that he should be debarred from the use of
them. This obstacle, however, he got over. For paper, he moulded thin
tablets of bread, six inches square; for pens he used the triangular
bones out of a carp’s belly; for ink his blood was substituted—to obtain
it he tied round a finger some threads from his shirt, and punctured the
end. As only a few drops could be procured in this way, and as they dried
up rapidly, he was compelled to repeat the operation so often, that his
fingers were covered with wounds, and enormously swelled. The necessity
of frequent punctures he ultimately obviated, by diluting the blood with
water.
When the memorial was finished, there was yet another difficulty to be
surmounted; it must be copied. In this emergency, Latude clamorously
demanded to see the Major of the Bastile. To that officer he declared
that, being convinced he had not long to live, he wished to prepare
for his end, by receiving religious assistance. The confessor of the
prison was in consequence sent to him, was astonished and delighted by
the memorial, became interested in his favour, and obtained an order
that he should be supplied with materials for writing. The memorial was
accordingly transcribed, and presented to the king.
The suggestion was adopted by the government; the unfortunate prisoner
was, however, left to languish unnoticed in his dungeon. Again he tasked
his faculties for a project which might benefit at once his country and
himself. At this period no provision was made in France for the widows
of those who fell in battle. The king of Prussia had recently set the
example of granting pensions; and Latude deemed it worthy of being
imitated. But, knowing that an empty treasury would be pleaded in bar,
he proposed a trifling addition to the postage of letters, which he
calculated would raise an ample fund. His memorial and the data on which
it was founded, were forwarded to the monarch and the ministers. The tax
was soon after imposed, and nominally for the purpose pointed out by
Latude; but the widows, nevertheless, continued to be destitute, and the
projector unpitied.
Foiled in all his efforts, the firmness of Latude gave way. He had
been pent for three years and five months in a loathsome dungeon,
suffering more than pen can describe. Exposed in his horrible fireless
and windowless abode to all the blasts of heaven, three winters, one of
which was peculiarly severe, had sorely tortured his frame. The cold, the
keen winds, and a continual defluxion from his nostrils, had split his
upper lip, and destroyed his front teeth; his eyes were endangered from
the same causes, and from frequent weeping; his head was often suddenly
affected by a sort of apoplectic stroke; and his limbs were racked by
cramp and rheumatism. Hope was extinct; intense agony of mind and body
rendered existence insufferable; and the unhappy victim resolved to throw
off a burthen which he could no longer bear. No instrument of destruction
being within reach, he tried to effect his purpose by starving himself;
and for a hundred and thirty-three hours he obstinately persisted in
refusing all food. At last, his jailers wrenched open his mouth, and
frustrated his design. Still bent on dying, he contrived to obtain and
secrete a fragment of broken glass, with which he opened four of the
large veins. During the night he bled till life was all but extinct.
Once more, however, he was snatched from the grave, and he now sullenly
resigned himself to await his appointed time.
After he had been confined a considerable time longer, a fortunate
overflowing of the Seine occasioned his removal. The turnkey complained
heavily that he was obliged to walk through the water to the prisoner,
and Latude was in consequence removed to an apartment in the tower
of La Comté. It had no chimney, and was one of the worst rooms in the
tower, but it was a paradise when compared with the pestiferous hole from
which he had emerged. Yet, so strong is the yearning for society, that,
gladdened as he was by his removal, he could not help bitterly regretting
the loss of his sociable rats. As a substitute for them, he tried to
catch some of the pigeons which perched on the window; and, by means of a
noose, formed from threads drawn out of his linen, he finally succeeded
in snaring a male and a female. “I tried,” says he, “every means to
console them for the loss of liberty. I assisted them to make their nest
and to feed their young; my cares and attention equalled their own.
They seemed sensible of this, and repaid me by every possible mark of
affection. As soon as we had established this reciprocal understanding,
I occupied myself entirely with them. How I watched their actions, and
enjoyed their expressions of tenderness! I lost myself entirely while
with them, and in my dreams continued the enjoyment.”
This pleasure was too great to be lasting. He had been placed in his
present apartment because it was under the care of a brutal turnkey named
Daragon, who had been punished for Latude’s former escape, and cherished
a rankling feeling of revenge. It was Daragon who purchased the grain
for the pigeons, and for this service the prisoner, besides the large
profit which the turnkey made, gave him one out of the seven bottles of
wine which was his weekly allowance. Daragon now insisted on having four
bottles, without which he would purchase no more grain. It was to no
purpose that Latude pleaded that the wine was indispensably necessary to
restore his health; the turnkey was deaf to reason. Latude was provoked
into asperity; Daragon rushed out in a rage; and in a short time he
returned, pretending that he had an order from the governor to kill
the pigeons. “My despair at this,” says Latude, “exceeded all bounds,
and absolutely unsettled my reason; I could willingly have sacrificed
my life to satisfy my just vengeance on this monster. I saw him make a
motion towards the innocent victims of my misfortunes; I sprang forward
to prevent him. I seized them, and, in my agony, I crushed them myself.
This was perhaps the most miserable moment of my whole existence. I never
recall the memory of it without the bitterest pangs. I remained several
days without taking any nourishment; grief and indignation divided my
soul; my sighs were imprecations, and I held all mankind in mortal
horror.”
Fortunately, a humane and generous man, the Count de Jumilhac, was,
soon after, appointed governor of the Bastile. He compassionated the
sufferings of Latude, and exerted himself to relieve them. He obtained
for him an interview with M. de Sartine, the minister of police, who gave
him leave to walk for two hours daily on the platform of the Bastile,
and promised to befriend him. That promise he soon broke. Hope revived
in the breast of Latude, and he again set to work to form plans for the
good of the country. Schemes for issuing a new species of currency, and
for establishing public granaries in all the principal towns, were among
the first fruits of his meditations. With respect to the latter project,
he says, “nothing could be more simple than the mode I suggested of
constructing and provisioning these magazines. It consisted in a slight
duty upon marriage, which all rich people, or those who wished to appear
so, would have paid with eagerness, as I had the address to found it upon
their vanity.” This project pleased M. de Sartine so much, that he wished
to have the merit of it to himself, and, by means of a third person, he
sounded Latude, to know whether he would relinquish his claim to it, on
having a small pension secured to him. Latude gave a brief but peremptory
refusal, and M. de Sartine was thenceforth his enemy. All letters and
messages to him remained unnoticed.
While he was one day walking on the platform, he learned the death of
his father. The sentinel who guarded him had served under his father,
but did not know that the prisoner was the son of his old officer.
Latude was overwhelmed by this fatal intelligence, and he fainted on the
spot. His mother still lived; but she, too, was sinking into the grave
from grief. It was in vain that, in the most pathetic language, she
repeatedly implored the harlot marchioness to have mercy on the captive.
Her prayers might have moved a heart of flint, but they had no effect
on Madame de Pompadour. But the horrors of imprisonment were not enough
to be inflicted on him; he was made the victim of calumny, and a stain
was fixed upon his character. To get rid of importunity in his behalf,
the men in office replied to his advocates, “Beware how you solicit the
pardon of that miscreant. You would shudder if you knew the crimes he has
committed.”
Thus goaded almost to madness, it is not to be wondered at that he was
eager to take vengeance on his persecutors. Since the heart of Madame de
Pompadour was inaccessible to pity, he determined that it should at least
feel the stings of mortification and rage. His plan was, to draw up a
memorial, exposing her character, and to address it to La Beaumelle, who
had himself tasted the rigours of the Bastile. “I had only,” says he, “to
place in trusty hands the true history of her birth and infamous life,
with all the particulars of which I was well acquainted; in depriving
me of existence, she would dread my dying words, and even from the tomb
I should still be an object of terror to her. There was nothing then
to restrain the blow with which I had the power of crushing her. The
faithful friends who were to become the depositaries of my vengeance,
in apprising her of the danger, would merely give her a single moment to
escape it by doing me justice.”
It was while he was walking on the platform of the Bastile that he formed
this chimerical project, for chimerical it was, there being scarcely a
probability that any one would have courage enough to second his attack
on the potent and vindictive marchioness. Having calculated the distance
between the top of the tower and the street of St. Anthony, on which he
looked down, he perceived that it was possible to fling a packet into
the street. Nothing of this kind could, however, be done while he was
closely watched by Falconet the aid-major, and a serjeant, both of whom
always attended him in his walk. Falconet was insufferably garrulous,
particularly on his own exploits, and Latude hoped to disgust him by
perpetual sarcasm and contradiction. He succeeded in silencing him, but
Falconet still clung to him like his shadow. To tire him out, Latude
adopted the plan of almost running during the whole of the time that
he was on the platform. The aid-major remonstrated, but the prisoner
answered, that rapid motion was indispensably necessary to him, in order
to excite perspiration. At last, Falconet suffered him to move about as
he pleased, and fell into gossiping with the serjeant, in which they both
engaged so deeply that Latude was left unnoticed.
The next step of Latude was to gaze into the windows of the opposite
houses, and scrutinise the faces of the persons whom he saw, till
he could see some one whose countenance seemed indicative of humane
feelings. It was on the female sex, as having more sensibility than the
male, that he mainly relied for pity and succour; and his attention was
finally fixed on two young women, who were sitting by themselves at work
in a chamber, and whose looks appeared to betoken that they were of kind
dispositions. Having caught the eye of one of them, he respectfully
saluted her by a motion of his hand; the sign was answered by both of
them in a similar manner. After this dumb intercourse had continued for
some days, he showed them a packet, and they motioned to him to fling it;
but he gave them to understand that it was not yet ready.
The means of conveyance for his intended work were now secured, but, as
he no longer had materials for writing, he had still much to contrive.
But he was not of a nature to be discouraged even by serious obstacles.
He had fortunately been allowed to purchase some books, and he resolved
to write between the lines and on the margins of the pages. As a pen
made of a carp bone would not write a sufficiently small hand for
interlineations, he beat a halfpenny as thin as paper, and succeeded in
shaping it into a tolerable pen. Ink was yet to be provided, and this
was the worst task of all to accomplish. Having on the former occasion
narrowly escaped gangrene in his fingers, he was afraid to use blood,
and was therefore compelled to find a substitute. To make his ink of
lampblack was the mode which occurred to him; but as he was allowed
neither fire nor candle, how was the black to be obtained? By a series
of stratagems he managed to surmount the difficulty. Under pretence of
severe tooth-ache, he borrowed from the serjeant, who attended him on
the platform, a pipe and the articles for lighting it, and he secreted a
piece of the tinder. By a simulated fit of colic, he got some oil from
the doctor. This he put into a pomatum pot, and made a wick from threads
drawn out of the sheets. He then made a bow and peg, like a drill, and
with this and the piece of tinder, by dint of rapid friction, he ignited
two small bits of dry wood, and lighted his lamp. The first view of the
light threw him, he says, into a delirium of joy. The condensed smoke he
collected on the bottom of a plate, and in six hours he had sufficient
for his purpose. But here he was stopped short, and all his trouble
seemed likely to be thrown away; for the light and oily black floated
on the water instead of mixing with it. He got over this by affecting
to have a violent cold. The prison apothecary sent him some syrup, and
Latude employed it to render the lamp black miscible with water.
Thus provided with materials for writing, Latude sat down to compose
his work. “My whole heart and soul were in it,” says he, “and I steeped
my pen in the gall with which they were overflowing.” Having completed
the history of his persecutor, he wrote a letter of instructions to La
Beaumelle, another to a friend, the Chevalier de Mehegan, in case of La
Beaumelle being absent, and a third to his two female friends, in which
he directed them how to proceed, and entreated them to exert themselves
in his behalf. The whole of the papers he packed up in a leathern bag,
which he formed out of the lining of a pair of breeches. As the packet
was rather bulky, and the carrying of it about his person was dangerous,
he was anxious to get rid of it as soon as possible. Some time, however,
elapsed before he could catch sight of his friendly neighbours. At length
one of them saw his signal, descended into the street, and caught the
packet. Three months and a half passed away, during which he frequently
saw them, and they seemed to be pleased with something that related to
him, but he was unable to comprehend their signs. At last, on the 18th of
April, 1764, they approached the window, and displayed a roll of paper,
on which was written in large characters, “The Marchioness of Pompadour
died yesterday.”
“I thought I saw the heavens open before me!” exclaimed Latude. His
oppressor was gone, and he felt an undoubting confidence that his
liberation would immediately follow as a necessary consequence. He was
soon cruelly undeceived. After some days had passed over, he wrote to the
lieutenant of police, and claimed his freedom. Sartine had given strict
orders to all the officers of the Bastile to conceal the death of the
marchioness, and he instantly hurried to the prison, to discover how the
news had reached Latude. He summoned the prisoner into his presence, and
harshly questioned him on the subject. Latude perceived that a disclosure
might be prejudicial to the kind females, and, with equal firmness and
honour, he refused to make it. “The avowal,” said Sartine, “is the price
of your liberty.” The captive, however, again declared that he would
rather perish than purchase the blessing at such a cost. Finding him
inflexible, the baffled lieutenant of police retired in anger. Irritated
by repeated letters, petitions, and remonstrances being neglected, and
having been led to fear that he was to be perpetually imprisoned, to
prevent him from suing Pompadour’s heirs, Latude in an evil hour lost all
command over himself, and wrote a violent epistle to Sartine, avowedly
for the purpose of enraging him. This act of insane passion was punished
by instant removal to one of the worst dungeons, where his fare was bread
and water.
After Latude had been for eighteen days in the dungeon, M. de Sartine
obtained an order to transfer him to Vincennes, and immure him in an
oubliette. Before he removed the prisoner, he circulated a report “that
he meant to deliver him, but that, to accustom him by degrees to a change
of air, he was going to place him for a few months in a convent of
monks.” On the night of the 14th of August, 1764, an officer of police,
with two assistants, came to convey him to his new prison. “My keepers,”
says he, “fastened an iron chain round my neck, the end of which they
placed under the bend of my knees; one of them placed one hand upon my
mouth, and the other behind my head, whilst his companion pulled the
chain with all his might, and completely bent me double. The pain I
suffered was so intense, that I thought my loins and spine were crushed;
I have no doubt it equalled that endured by the wretch who is broken on
the wheel. In this state I was conveyed from the Bastile to Vincennes.”
At Vincennes he was placed in a cell. His mind and body were now both
overpowered by the severity of his fate, dangerous illness came on,
and he every day grew weaker. Fortunately for Latude, M. Guyonnet, the
governor of the fortress, had nothing of “the steeled jailer” about him;
he was a generous, humane man, of amiable manners. He listened to the
mournful tale of the captive, wept for his misfortunes, took on himself
the responsibility of giving him a good apartment, and obtained for him
the privilege of walking daily for two hours in the garden.
Despairing, as well he might, of being ever released by his inflexible
enemies, Latude meditated incessantly on the means of escaping. Fifteen
months elapsed before an opportunity occurred, and then it was brought
about by chance. He was walking in the garden, on a November afternoon,
when a thick fog suddenly came on. The idea of turning it to account
rushed into his mind. He was guarded by two sentries and a serjeant, who
never quitted his side for an instant; but he determined to make a bold
attempt. By a violent push of his elbows he threw off the sentries, then
pushed down the serjeant, and darted past a third sentry, who did not
perceive him till he was gone by. All four set up the cry of “Seize him!”
and Latude joined in it still more loudly, pointing with his finger, to
mislead the pursuers. There remained only one sentry to elude, but he
was on the alert, and unfortunately knew him. Presenting his bayonet, he
threatened to kill the prisoner if he did not stop. “My dear Chenu,”
said I to him, “you are incapable of such an action; your orders are
to arrest, and not to kill me. I had slackened my pace, and came up to
him slowly; as soon as I was close to him, I sprang upon his musket, I
wrenched it from him with such violence, that he was thrown down in the
struggle; I jumped over his body, flinging the musket to a distance of
ten paces, lest he should fire it after me, and once more I achieved my
liberty.”
Favoured by the fog, Latude contrived to hide himself in the park till
night, when he scaled the wall, and proceeded, by by-ways, to Paris.
He sought a refuge with the two kind females to whom he had entrusted
his packet. They were the daughters of a hair-dresser, named Lebrun.
The asylum for which he asked was granted in the kindest manner. They
procured for him some linen, and an apartment in the house, gave him
fifteen livres which they had saved, and supplied him with food from all
their own meals. The papers confided to them they had endeavoured, but in
vain, to deliver to the persons for whom they were intended: two of those
persons were absent from France; the third was recently married, and his
wife, on hearing that the packet was from the Bastile, would not suffer
her husband to receive it.
Latude was out of prison, but he was not out of danger. He was convinced
that, to whatever quarter he might bend his steps, it would be next
to impossible to elude M. de Sartine, who, by means of his spies, was
omnipresent. In this emergency, he deemed it prudent to conciliate
his persecutor; and he accordingly wrote a letter to him, entreating
forgiveness for insults offered in a moment of madness, promising future
silence and submission, and pathetically imploring him to become his
protector. This overture had no result. He tried the influence of various
persons, among whom was the prince of Conti, but everywhere he was met
by the prejudice which Sartine had raised against him; and, to add to his
alarm and vexation, he learned that a strict search was making for him,
and that a reward of a thousand crowns was offered for his apprehension.
As a last resource, he determined to make a personal appeal to the
duke of Choiseul, the first minister, who was then with the court at
Fontainebleau. It was mid-December when he set out, the ground was
covered with ice and snow, and the cold was intense. A morsel of bread
was his whole stock of provisions, he had no money, and he dared not
approach a house, proceed on the high road, or travel by day, lest he
should be intercepted. In his nightly circuitous journey, of more than
forty miles, he often fell into ditches, or tore himself in scrambling
through the hedges. “I hid myself in a field,” says he, “during the whole
of the 16th; and, after walking for two successive nights, I arrived on
the morning of the 17th at Fontainebleau, worn out by fatigue, hunger,
grief, and despair.”
Latude was too soon convinced that there was no chance of escaping from
the vengeance of M. de Sartine. As soon as he had announced his arrival
to the duke, two officers of the police came to convey him, as they said,
to the minister; but their mask was speedily thrown off, and he found
that they were to escort him back to Vincennes. They told him that every
road had been beset, and every vehicle watched, to discover him, and they
expressed their wonder at his having been able to reach Fontainebleau
undetected. “I now learned,” says he, “for the first time, that there
was no crime so great, or so severely punished, as a complaint against
a minister. These exempts quoted to me the case of some deputies from
the provinces, who, having been sent a short time before to denounce to
the king the exactions of certain intendants, had been arrested, and
punished as dangerous incendiaries!”
On his reaching Vincennes, he was thrown into a horrible dungeon, barely
six feet by six and a half in diameter, which was secured by four
iron-plated, treble-bolted doors, distant a foot from each other. To
aggravate his misery, he was told that he deserved a thousand times worse
treatment; for that he had been the cause of the serjeant who guarded
him being hanged. This appalling news entirely overwhelmed him; he gave
himself up to frantic despair, and incessantly accused himself as the
murderer of the unfortunate man. In the course of a few days, however, a
compassionate sentinel, who was moved by his cries and groans, relieved
his heart, by informing him that the serjeant was well, and had only been
imprisoned.
The kind-hearted governor sometimes visited Latude, but the information
which he brought was not consolatory. He had tried to move M. de Sartine,
and had found him inflexible. Sartine, however, sent to offer the
prisoner his liberty, on condition that he would name the person who held
his papers, and he pledged his honour that no harm should come to that
person. Latude knew him too well to trust him. He resolutely answered, “I
entered my dungeon an honest man, and I will die rather than leave it a
dastard and a knave.”
Into the den, where he was as it were walled up, no ray of light entered;
the air was never changed but at the moment when the turnkey opened the
wicket; the straw on which he lay was always rotten with damp, and the
narrowness of the space scarcely allowed him room to move. His health
of course rapidly declined, and his body swelled enormously, retaining
in every part of it, when touched, the impression of the finger. Such
were his agonies that he implored his keepers, as an act of mercy, to
terminate his existence. At last, after having endured months of intense
suffering, he was removed to a habitable apartment, where his strength
gradually returned.
Though his situation was improved, he was still entirely secluded from
society. Hopeless of escape, he pondered on the means of at least opening
an intercourse with his fellow-prisoners. On the outer side of his
chamber was the garden, in which each of the prisoners, Latude alone
being excluded, was daily allowed to walk by himself for a certain time.
This wall was five feet thick; so that to penetrate it seemed almost as
difficult as to escape. But what cannot time and perseverance accomplish!
His only instruments were a broken piece of a sword and an iron hoop of
a bucket, which he had contrived to secrete; yet with these, by dint of
twenty-six months’ labour, he managed to perforate the mass of stone.
The hole was made in a dark corner of the chimney, and he stopped the
interior opening with a plug, formed of sand and plaster. A long wooden
peg, rather shorter than the hole, was inserted into it, that, in case of
the external opening being noticed and sounded, it might seem to be not
more than three inches in depth.
For a signal to the prisoner walking in the garden, he tied several
pieces of wood so as to form a stick about six feet long, at the end of
which hung a bit of riband. The twine with which it was tied was made
from threads drawn out of his linen. He thrust the stick through the
hole, and succeeded in attracting the attention of a fellow-captive,
the Baron de Venac, who had been nineteen years confined for having
presumed to give advice to Madame de Pompadour. He successively became
acquainted with several others, two of whom were also the victims of
the marchioness; one of them had been seventeen years in prison, on
suspicion of having spoken ill of her; the other had been twenty-three
years, because he was suspected of having written against her a pamphlet,
which he had never even seen. The prisoners contrived to convey ink and
paper to Latude through the hole; he opened a correspondence with them,
encouraged them to write to each other, and became the medium through
which they transmitted their letters. The burthen of captivity was much
lightened to him by this new occupation.
An unfortunate change for the prisoners now took place. The benevolent
and amiable-mannered Guyonnet was succeeded by Rougemont, a man who was
a contrast to him in every respect; he was avaricious, flinty-hearted,
brutal, and a devoted tool of M. de Sartine. The diet which he provided
for the captives was of the worst kind; and their scanty comforts were
as much as possible abridged. That he might not be thwarted in the
exercise of his tyranny, he dismissed such of the prison attendants as he
suspected of being humane, and replaced them by men whose dispositions
harmonised with his own. How utterly devoid of feeling were the beings
whom he selected, may be judged by the language of his cook. This libel
on the human race is known to have said, “If the prisoners were ordered
to be fed upon straw, I would give them stable-litter;” and, on other
occasions, he declared, “If I thought there was a single drop of juice in
the meat of the prisoners, I would trample it under my foot to squeeze it
out.” Such a wretch would not have scrupled to put poison into the food,
had not his master had an interest in keeping the captives alive. When
any one complained of the provisions, he was insultingly answered, “It is
but too good for prisoners;” when he applied for the use of an article,
however insignificant, the reply was, “It is contrary to the rules.” So
horrible was the despotism of the governor that, within three months,
four of the prisoners strangled themselves in despair. “The Inquisition
itself,” says Latude, “might envy his proficiency in torture!”
Latude was one of the first to suffer from the brutality of Rougemont.
The apartment in which Guyonnet had placed him commanded a fine view.
The enjoyment of a prospect was thought to be too great a luxury for a
prisoner, and, accordingly, Rougemont set about depriving him of it. He
partly built up the windows, filled the interstices of the bars with
close iron net-work; and then, lest a blade of grass should still be
visible, blockaded the outside with a blind like a mill-hopper, so that
nothing could be perceived but a narrow slip of sky. But his situation
was soon made far worse. In a fit of anger, caused by his being refused
the means of writing to the lieutenant of police, he imprudently chanced
to wish himself in his former cell again. He was taken at his word. On
the following morning, when he had forgotten his unguarded speech, he was
led back to his dark and noisome dungeon. “Few will believe,” says he,
“that such inhuman jests could be practised in a civilised country.”
M. de Sartine, being now appointed minister of the marine, was replaced
by M. Le Noir. It was some time before Latude knew of this change, and
he derived no benefit from it, the new head of the police being the
friend of Sartine. He wished to address the minister, but the means were
refused, and he again tasked his skill to remove the obstacle. The only
light he enjoyed was when his food was brought to him. The turnkey then
set down the lamp at the entrance of the wicket, and went away to attend
to other business. Of the turnkey’s short absence Latude availed himself
to write a letter; it was written on a piece of his shirt, with a straw
dipped in blood. His appeal was disregarded; and, to prevent him from
repeating it in the same manner, the governor ordered a socket for the
candle to be fixed on the outside of the wicket, so that only a few
feeble rays might penetrate into the dungeon. But the captive was not
to be easily discouraged; and, besides, he took a delight in baffling
his persecutors. He had remaining in a pomatum pot some oil, sent by the
surgeon to alleviate the colic pains which were caused by the dampness
of his abode. Cotton drawn from his stockings supplied him with a wick.
He then twisted some of his straw into a rope, which he coiled up, and
fastened, in the shape of a bee-hive. With another portion of straw he
made a sort of stick, five feet long, with a bit of linen at the end of
it. The turnkey was always obliged to bring his food at twice; and, while
he was fetching the second portion, Latude thrust out the stick, obtained
a light from the candle, lighted his taper, and then closely covered it
over with the bee-hive basket. When he was left by himself he unhooded
the lamp, and wrote a second letter with his own blood. The only result
was, to make his jailers believe that he was aided by the prince of
darkness.
It was not till Latude was again at death’s-door that he was removed
from his dungeon; on being taken out he fainted, and remained for a long
while insensible. When he came to himself his mind wandered, and for
some time he imagined that he had passed into the other world. Medical
aid was granted to him, and he slowly recovered his health. The turnkeys
now occasionally dropped obscure hints of some beneficial change, which
he was at a loss to understand. The mystery was at length explained.
The benevolent M. de Malesherbes had lately been appointed a cabinet
minister, and one of his first acts was to inspect the state prisons.
He saw Latude, listened to his mournful story, was indignant at his
six-and-twenty years’ captivity, and promised redress.
Latude had been more than eleven years at Vincennes, when the order
arrived for his release. His heart beat high with exultation; but he was
doomed to suffer severe disappointment. At the moment when he imagined
that he was free, an officer informed him, that the minister thought
it expedient to accustom him gradually to a purer air, and that he was
therefore directed to convey him to a convent, where he was to remain for
a few months. These were the very same words which had been spoken to
him when he was sent from the Bastile to Vincennes; and, knowing their
meaning but too well, they almost palsied his faculties. His enemies
had been busily at work; by gross misrepresentations, and by forging in
his name an extravagant memorial to the king, they had induced M. de
Malesherbes to believe that the prisoner’s intellects were disordered,
and that he could not be immediately released without peril.
It was to the hospital of Charenton, the Parisian bedlam, that the
officers were removing Latude. When he was about to quit Vincennes,
he heard the brutal Rougemont describe him to them as a dangerous and
hardened criminal, who could not be too rigorously confined. It was also
hinted, that the prisoner was gifted with magical powers, by virtue of
which he had thrice escaped in an extraordinary manner. When he was
turned over to the monks, called the Brothers of Charity, who had the
management of Charenton, these particulars were faithfully reported to
them, and he was introduced under the name of Danger, in order to excite
an idea of his formidable character.
Unacquainted with the nature of Charenton, Latude, on seeing the monks,
had supposed that he was in a monastery. On finding that he was in a
mad-house, he dropped lifeless to the ground. He was conducted to a cell,
which was over the vault where the furious lunatics were chained, and
their shrieks and groans were horrible. In the night he heard the sound
of voices, and discovered that two prisoners, one in the adjoining
room, and the other in that above, were talking about him, out of their
windows. They were both of them state prisoners, the hospital being
occasionally converted into a jail by the ministers; one was named St.
Magloire, the other the Baron de Prilles. Latude introduced himself to
them, and they promised him all the services in their power. De Prilles
possessed considerable influence with the officers of the establishment,
and he exerted it so effectually, that he obtained permission for Latude
to be visited by his fellow-captives. He had, however, enjoyed this
comfort only for a short time, when Rougemont came and gave orders for
his being placed in close and solitary confinement.
Latude remained in seclusion for a considerable time; but, at length, by
dint of incessant remonstrances, De Prilles induced the superiors of the
hospital to allow his new friend to take his meals in the apartment of
St. Bernard, one of his fellow-captives. Another favour was soon after
granted; he was permitted to take some exercise in the smaller court,
when all the inmates of the place had been shut up for the night. It was
then winter; and, at eight o’clock, the keeper led him to the court; and,
when he was not disposed to walk with him, he placed his lantern on a
stone, and watched him through some holes purposely bored in the door.
Trifling as were these indulgences, the worthy monks had disobeyed
positive orders in allowing them. But they did not stop here. The head of
the hospital, Father Facio, was so deeply moved by the injustice done to
the captive, that he waited on M. de Malesherbes to intercede for him.
On his assuring the minister that the prisoner was submissive, docile,
and perfectly sane, his hearer, who had been told that Latude was a
furious madman, was astonished and indignant at having been deceived. He
promised that he would speedily release him, and desired that he might,
in the meanwhile, enjoy as much liberty as the hospital regulations would
allow. Unfortunately, however, for Latude, Malesherbes very shortly after
ceased to be one of the ministers.
Though he failed to obtain his freedom, the situation of Latude was
much ameliorated; he might roam wherever he would, within the bounds
of the establishment. He derived additional comfort from several of
the state prisoners being now suffered to take their meals together,
instead of having them separately in their apartments. The party thus
formed admitted to their society several of the lunatics who had been
liberally educated, and were harmless. One of these unfortunate men
asserted himself to be the Divinity, another claimed to be a son of
Louis XV., a third took a higher flight, and was the reigning monarch.
These aspiring pretensions were strongly contrasted with the humility
of others. A barrister, whose intellect love had shaken, manifested his
insanity by throwing himself at every one’s feet and imploring pardon.
Another individual, who had been a hermit, obstinately persisted in
believing that Latude was a German elector, and, in spite of all attempts
to prevent it, would perform for him the meanest domestic offices. “If
I told him in the morning,” says Latude, “that a flea had disturbed my
rest, he would not leave my chamber till he had killed it: he would bring
it to me in the hollow of his hand, to show me what he had done. ‘My
lord,’ he would say, ‘it will bite no more, and will never again disturb
the sleep of your most serene highness.’”
A fellow prisoner who had recently been confined in a cell during a
furious paroxysm of insanity, now gave some information to Latude,
which deeply wounded his feelings. From him Latude learned that his
early friend D’Alegre was in the prison, a raving maniac, shut up in an
iron cage. His entreaties were so pressing, that the monks granted him
permission to visit this unfortunate being. He found him a lamentable
spectacle, shrunk to a skeleton, his hair matted, and his eyes sunken
and haggard. Latude rushed to embrace him, but was repelled with signs
of aversion by the maniac. In vain he strove to recall himself to the
maniac’s recollection; the lost being only looked fiercely at him, and
exclaimed, in a hollow tone, “I know you not!—begone!—I am God!” This
victim of despotism had been ten years at Charenton, and he continued
there, in the same melancholy state, during the remainder of his
existence, which was protracted till a very late period.
After Latude had been for nearly two years at Charenton, his friends
succeeded in obtaining an order for his release, on condition that he
should permanently fix his abode at Montagnac, his native place. He
quitted the prison without hat or coat; all his dress consisting of
a tattered pair of breeches and stockings, a pair of slippers, and a
great-coat thirty years old, which damp had reduced to rottenness. He
was penniless, too; “but,” says he, “I was regardless of all these
circumstances; it was enough that I was free!”
With some money, which he borrowed from a person who knew his family,
Latude procured decent clothing. He called on M. Le Noir, who received
him not unfavourably, and desired him to depart without delay for
Montagnac. Unfortunately, he did not follow this advice. He lingered in
Paris to draw up a memorial to the king, soliciting a recompense for his
plans; and he had an interview with the Prince de Beauveau, to whom he
related his woeful story. In his memorial, he mentioned M. de Sartine;
and, though he intimates that he said nothing offensive, we may doubt
whether he manifested much forbearance. The ministers now gave him
peremptory orders to quit Paris; it is obvious that they were acquainted
with his memorial, and were irritated by it beyond measure. He had
proceeded forty-three leagues on his journey to the south of France, when
he was overtaken by an officer of police, who carried him back a prisoner
to the capital.
Latude was now taught that hitherto he had not reached the lowest depth
of misery; he was doomed to experience “a bitter change, severer for
severe.” Till this time his companions in suffering had been men with
whom it was no disgrace to associate; but, in this instance, he was
tossed among a horde of the most abandoned ruffians on earth; he was
immured in the Bicêtre, in that part of the jail which was appropriated
to swindlers, thieves, murderers, and other atrocious criminals, the scum
and offscouring of France. On his arrival there, he was stripped, clad
in the coarse and degrading prison attire, thrust into a dungeon, and
supplied with a scanty portion of bread and water.
He was now in the midst of wretches, who tormented him with questions
as to what robberies and murders he had committed, boasted of their own
numerous crimes, and laughed at his pretending to innocence. “I was
condemned,” says he, “to endure their gross and disgusting language,
to listen to their unprincipled projects, in short to breathe the very
atmosphere of vice.” It was in vain that, to procure his liberation from
this den of infamy, he wrote to the friends who had rescued him from
Charenton; some of them were silenced by the old falsehood that he was
a dangerous madman, and others were alienated by being told that he had
broken into the house of a lady of rank, and by threats had terrified
her into giving him a large sum of money. This last calumny stung him
to the soul, and he wrote to M. de Sartine to demand a trial; but his
letter produced no other effect than the issuing of an order to take from
him the means of writing. Such accumulated injustice soured his mind,
and, brooding over the hope of revenge, he assumed the name of Jedor, in
allusion to a dog so called, the figure of which he had seen on the gate
of a citadel, with a bone between its paws, and underneath, as a motto,
“I gnaw my bone, expecting the day when I may bite him who has bitten me.”
While the money lasted which Latude had taken into the prison, he could
obtain a supply of food, bad indeed in quality, and villanously cooked,
but still capable of supporting nature. But the money was soon spent,
and he was then reduced to the prison allowance, which was scanty in
quantity, of the worst kind, and often polluted by an admixture of filth
and vermin. Latude was a large eater, and the portion of food allowed to
him was so trifling, that he was tortured by hunger. To such extremity
was he driven, that he was compelled to petition the sweepers to give him
some of the hard crusts which were thrown into the passages by the richer
prisoners, and which were collected every morning for the pigs.
Bad as the fare of Latude was, his lodging was far worse. His windowless
cell, only eight feet square, swarmed with fleas and rats to such a
degree that to sleep was all but impossible; fifty rats at a time were
under his coverlet. He had neither fire nor candle, his clothing was
insufficient, and the wind, rain, and snow beat furiously through the
iron grating, which barely admitted the light. In rainy weather, and
during thaws, the water ran in streams down the walls of the dungeon.
Eight-and-thirty months were spent in this infernal abode. Rheumatism,
that prevented him from quitting his pallet, was the first consequence
of his exposed situation. This brought with it an aggravation of another
evil; for when Latude was unable to approach the wicket, the keeper flung
in his bread, and gave him no soup. Scurvy of the most inveterate kind
at length attacked him, his limbs were swelled and blackened, his gums
became spongy, and his teeth loose, and he could no longer masticate the
bread. For three days he lay without sustenance, voiceless and moveless,
and he was just on the point of expiring, when he was conveyed to the
infirmary. The infirmary was a loathsome place, little better than a
charnel-house, but the medical aid which he obtained there restored him,
after a struggle of many months, to a tolerable state of health.
On his recovery he was placed in a decent apartment. He did not,
however, long enjoy it. Having attempted to present a petition to a
princess of the house of Bouillon, who came to see the Bicêtre, he was
punished by being thrust into a dungeon more horrible than that which
he had previously inhabited. His own words will best describe what he
underwent. “I was,” says he, “still enduring a physical torture which I
had experienced before, though never to so cruel and dangerous an extent.
After having triumphed over so many disasters, and vanquished so many
enemies by my unshaken constancy, I was on the point of yielding to the
intolerable pain occasioned by the vermin which infested my person. My
dungeon was totally dark, my eye-sight was nearly extinguished, and I
tried in vain to deliver myself from the myriads of these noxious animals
that assailed me at once; the dreadful irritation made me tear my flesh
with my teeth and nails, until my whole body became covered with ulcers;
insects generated in the wounds, and literally devoured me alive. It was
impossible to sleep: I was driven mad with agony, my sufferings were
drawing to a close, and death in its most horrid shape awaited me.”
Gloomy as appearances were, the dawn of a brighter day was at hand. A
providential occurrence, which seemed calculated to destroy his last
hope, was the cause of his redemption. In 1781, the President de Gourgue
visited the Bicêtre, heard the story of Latude, desired that the captive
would draw up a memorial, and promised to exert himself in his behalf.
Latude wrote the memorial, and intrusted it to a careless messenger, who
dropped it in the street. The packet was found by a young female, Madame
Legros, who carried on in a humble way the business of a mercer, and
whose husband was a private teacher. The envelope being torn by lying
in the wet, and the seal broken, she looked at the contents, which were
signed “Masers de Latude, a prisoner during thirty-two years, at the
Bastile, at Vincennes, and at the Bicêtre, where he is confined on bread
and water, in a dungeon ten feet under ground.”
The gentle heart of Madame Legros was shocked at the idea of the
protracted agony which the prisoner must have suffered. After she
had taken a copy of the memorial, her husband, who participated in
her feelings, carried it to the president. But the magistrate had
been deceived by the falsehood, that the captive was a dangerous
incurable lunatic, and he advised them to desist from efforts which
must be fruitless. Madame Legros, however, who had much good sense and
acuteness, would not believe that the captive was mad; she again read
the memorial attentively, and could perceive in it no indication of
disordered intellect. She was firmly convinced that he was the victim of
persecution, and she resolved to devote her time and her faculties to
his deliverance. Never, perhaps, was the sublime of benevolence so fully
displayed as by this glorious woman, whose image ought to have been
handed down to posterity by the painter’s and the sculptor’s hand. In
the course of her philanthropic struggles, she had to endure calumny and
severe privations, she was reduced to sell her ornaments and part of her
furniture, and to subsist on hard and scanty fare, yet she never paused
for a moment from the pursuit of her object, never uttered a sentence
of regret that she had engaged in it. Her husband, too, though less
personally active, has the merit of having entirely coincided with her in
opinion, and aided her as far as he had the power.
It is delightful to know that her noble labours were crowned with
success. Her toils, and the result of them, are thus summed up by Latude,
who has also narrated them at great length. “Being thoroughly convinced
of my innocence, she resolved to attempt my liberation; she succeeded,
after occupying three years in unparalleled efforts, and unwearied
perseverance. Every feeling heart will be deeply moved at the recital
of the means she employed, and the difficulties she surmounted. Without
relations, friends, fortune, or assistance, she undertook everything,
and shrank from no danger and no fatigue. She penetrated to the levées
of ministers, and forced her way to the presence of the great; she spoke
with the natural eloquence of truth, and falsehood fled before her words.
They excited her hopes and extinguished them, received her with kindness
and repulsed her rudely; she reiterated her petitions, and returned a
hundred times to the attack, emboldened by defeat itself. The friends
her virtues had created trembled for her liberty, even for her life.
She resisted all their entreaties, disregarded their remonstrances, and
continued to plead the cause of humanity. When seven months pregnant, she
went on foot to Versailles, in the midst of winter; she returned home
exhausted with fatigue and worn out with disappointment; she worked more
than half the night to obtain subsistence for the following day, and then
repaired again to Versailles. At the expiration of eighteen months, she
visited me in my dungeon, and communicated her efforts and her hopes.
For the first time I saw my generous protectress; I became acquainted
with her exertions, and I poured forth my gratitude in her presence.
She redoubled her anxiety, and resolved to brave everything. Often, on
the same day, she has gone to Montmartre to visit her infant, which was
placed there at nurse, and then came to the Bicêtre to console me and
inform me of her progress. At last, after three years, she triumphed, and
procured my liberty!”
In the first instance, the boon of liberty could not be said to be more
than half granted; Latude being ordered to fix his abode at Montagnac,
and not to leave the town without the permission of the police officer
of the district. As his fortune was entirely lost, a miserable pension
of four hundred livres (about £16) was assigned for his subsistence. By
the renewed exertions of Madame Legros, however, the decree of exile was
rescinded, and he was allowed to remain at Paris, on condition of his
never appearing in the coffee-houses, on the public walks, or in any
place of public amusement. The government might well be ashamed that such
a living proof of its injustice should be contemplated by the people.
It was on the 24th of March, 1784, that Latude emerged into the world,
from which he had for five-and-thirty years been secluded. He and his
noble-minded benefactress were, for a considerable time, objects of
general curiosity. Happily, that curiosity did not end in barren pity and
wonder, but proved beneficial to those who excited it. A subscription
was raised, by which two annuities, each of 300 livres, were purchased,
one for Latude, the other for his deliverer. Two other pensions, of 600
livres and 100 crowns, were soon after granted by individuals to Madame
Legros, and the Montyon gold medal, annually given as the prize of
virtue, was unanimously adjudged to her by the French Academy. The income
of Latude also obtained some increase; but it was not till 1793 that it
received any addition of importance; in that year he brought an action
against the heirs of the Marchioness de Pompadour, and heavy damages
were awarded to him. Notwithstanding the severe shocks his frame had
undergone, the existence of Latude was protracted till 1805, when he died
at the age of eighty.
CHAPTER XII.
Reign of Louis XVI.—Enormous number of Lettres de Cachet
issued in two reigns—William Debure the elder—Blaizot
imprisoned for obeying the King—Pelisseri—Prisoners from
St. Domingo—Linguet—Duvernet—The Count de Paradès—Marquis
de Sade—Brissot—The Countess de la Motte—Cardinal de
Rohan—Cagliostro—The affair of the Diamond Necklace—Reveillon
takes shelter in the Bastile—Attack and capture of the Bastile
by the Parisians—Conclusion.
The reign of Louis XV., which, as far as regarded himself, was every
way inglorious, was protracted to the length of fifty-nine years; a
duration which has rarely been equalled. Popular enthusiasm, or rather
popular folly—the terms are often synonymous—at one time conferred on
him the title of “the Well-beloved;” he lived to be sincerely hated,
and he died unlamented, except by such of his flatterers and parasites
as feared that they would be cast off by a new monarch. Of the enormous
amount of private misery which, during the period of his sway, he must
have inflicted, in exercising only one attribute of his despotism, some
idea may be formed, from the circumstance of more than 150,000 _lettres
de cachet_ having been issued while he occupied the throne; an annual
average of more than 2500. How many wives, parents, children, must have
been yearly driven to despair by this atrocious tyranny! Though it is
certain that the prisoners were not all treated with the same brutality
as Masers de Latude, the mass of suffering must, nevertheless, have been
more than can be contemplated without a shudder by any one who is not
dead to the feelings of humanity.
In 1774, Louis XVI. ascended the throne. He was a perfect contrast to
his predecessor. In his manners there was little of the dignity of a
sovereign, and he was deficient in firmness and penetration; but, pure
in morals, kind in heart, and honest in principle, he was unfeignedly
desirous to do justice to his people, and to contribute to their welfare.
Yet, so difficult is it to uproot a long-established abuse, and such is
the power of ministers and men in office, that, even under the government
of this well-meaning king, no fewer than 14,000 _lettres de cachet_ are
said to have been granted in the fifteen years which elapsed between the
accession of Louis and the meeting of the States General.
The very first instances which I shall bring forward of the use made of
_lettres de cachet_, in this reign, will afford proof of the unprincipled
and arbitrary spirit of the men who held authority. We commence with
William Debure the elder, one of the most eminent and intelligent of the
Parisian booksellers. The family of the Debures carried on, from father
to son, the same business in Paris, for nearly two centuries. The subject
of this sketch was in habits of intimacy with the most distinguished
literary characters. His catalogues of celebrated libraries, to the
number of forty-three, are much esteemed. At the time of his decease,
in 1820, when he was eighty-six, he was the oldest bookseller in France,
and was considered as the patriarch of bibliography. It was in 1778
that he was sent to the Bastile. In 1777, the Council of State thought
proper to issue an ordinance, decreeing that the term of copyright should
not in future extend beyond the time which was required to defray the
expense of publishing. The Council followed this up by another ordinance,
authorizing the sale of pirated editions, on payment of a stamp duty.
These acts, equally absurd and unjust, were, in fact, licenses to commit
robbery upon authors and publishers, for the benefit of the treasury,
which shared the spoil with the robbers. Debure then held in his company
the place of syndic, which seems to be analogous to that of master in
our stationers’ company. To him fell the task of stamping the pirated
works. Well knowing that a great number of booksellers would inevitably
be ruined by the new law, or rather violation of law, which the Council
had promulgated, Debure declined to comply with it, and desired that he
might be allowed to resign. His resignation was not accepted, and he was
thrice summoned to proceed to the stamping of the spurious books; and in
each instance the significant hint was thrown out, “Stamp, or if you do
not——.” Debure remained immovable, and he was at length committed to the
Bastile. The ministers, however, either became ashamed of their conduct,
or, which is more probable, were overruled by the monarch; for, in the
course of a few days, he recovered his liberty.
Another bookseller is said to have been punished in the same manner, for
the extraordinary offence of executing, in the way of trade, an order
which was given to him by his sovereign. Suspecting that his ministers
kept him in ignorance of the sentiments and wishes of the people, Louis
determined to obtain some knowledge of them from another quarter. To
peruse the various political pamphlets of the day seemed to him the best
mode of accomplishing his purpose. Accordingly, he directed a bookseller,
named Blaizot, to send them regularly and secretly to a certain place,
whence they were to be conveyed to him. This was done for about two
months. Alarmed to find the king possessed of so much information,
upon subjects with which they had believed him to be unacquainted, the
ministers set to work to discover the source of it. Either Blaizot’s
imprudence, or the activity of their spies, soon made them masters of
the secret. The luckless bookseller was speedily taught that there
was an influence behind the throne which was greater than the throne
itself. The Bastile received him. This audacious act is attributed to
the Baron de Breteuil; of whom, however, it is but justice to state,
that he is said to have liberated many prisoners, and much ameliorated
the prison discipline. But he was at times harsh and impetuous, and may,
perhaps, on this occasion, have yielded to passion, or to the wish of his
colleagues. Surprised by the customary supply of pamphlets being abruptly
stopped, Louis inquired into the cause of it, and was equally astonished
and indignant to find that Blaizot had been lodged in the Bastile, by
virtue of one of those laconic billets which were signed Louis, and
countersigned by a cabinet minister. Blaizot was instantly released, and
the Baron de Breteuil was reprimanded, in the severest language, by his
offended master.
That Breteuil, highly aristocratic in his principles, and believing the
established order of things to be perfection itself, should consider it
as a matter of course to silence all opponents by means of the Bastile,
can excite no wonder; but, if a minister who sprang from the people,
a republican by birth, and a professed friend of reform, could punish
by imprisonment a man who ventured to criticise his measures, we must
wonder indeed! Yet, if M. Linguet was not misinformed, such a case did
actually happen. He tells us that, while he was in the Bastile, there
was in the prison a captive named Pelisseri, who had been three years
in confinement, and whose sole crime was that he had made some remarks
on the financial operations of M. Necker. The story is not probable.
With some important faults, the minister had many virtues, and certainly
had nothing cruel in his nature. It is very likely that the captivity
of Pelisseri was the work of some secret enemy, who hated both him and
Necker, and doubly gratified his vindictive feelings, by incarcerating
the one and calumniating the other.
The agents of the French government in the colonies seem not to have
been backward in following the example of tyranny which was set to them
by their superiors at home. In one instance, a governor of St. Domingo,
who had quarrelled with all the members of a court of justice, adopted a
summary mode of proceeding against them. He shipped the whole of them,
and sent them off to France as criminals. On their arrival they were
placed in the Bastile, and kept separate from each other; and in this
painful situation they remained for eight months. They were at length
pronounced innocent, and were conveyed back to St. Domingo; but they
received not the slightest compensation for more than a year’s endurance
of bodily and mental suffering.
The Bastile received, in September, 1780, a man whose talents were
more worthy of praise than his temper. This was Simon Nicholas Henry
Linguet, a native of Rheims, who was born in 1736. He was learned, acute,
and eloquent both in speech and writing; but paradoxical, changeful,
suspicious, violent, and wrong-headed. At the age of sixteen, he gained
the three highest University prizes. After having visited Poland with
the Duke of Deux Ponts, and Portugal with the Prince de Beauveau, he
commenced his literary career by a History of the Times of Alexander the
Great. Disappointed by D’Alembert, in his wish to obtain a seat in the
French Academy, he became an inveterate enemy of D’Alembert, and the
party which was called the philosophical. His works succeeded each other
with uncommon rapidity: the most remarkable of those which he published
at this period are, the History of the Revolutions of the Roman Empire,
and the Theory of Civil Laws. Both these works, which in many respects
have great merit, excited a loud clamour, especially the latter, by the
leaning which they manifest towards despotism. Linguet had soon reason to
change his opinion on this subject.
The literary labours of Linguet might seem sufficient to occupy all
his time; but the fact was not so. He was all the while a barrister
in extensive practice. In splendid eloquence, and in the successful
management of causes, he had few if any rivals. He boasted that he
never lost more than two causes, “and those,” said he, “I had a strong
inclination to lose.” It was mainly by his efforts that the obnoxious
Duke d’Aiguillon escaped from deserved punishment. The duke proved
ungrateful, and his irritated counsellor wrote him word that he had
“stolen him from the scaffold,” and that, if the peer did not do what was
right with regard to his advocate, “he would keep him hanging for ten
years at the point of his pen.” D’Aiguillon thought it prudent to yield,
but he took care to avenge himself in the end. The lucrative career of
Linguet, as a barrister, was suddenly brought to a close by his brethren
of the bar, some of whom envied his superior gains, and all of whom
had been irritated by his violent and sarcastic language. They refused
to plead with him, and the parliament sanctioned this resolution, and
expunged his name from the roll of counsellors.
Shut out from forensic honours and emoluments, Linguet devoted himself
to literature and politics. He began to publish a journal in 1774, but,
in 1776, it was suppressed by the minister Maurepas. Apprehensive for
his liberty, he quitted France, and successively resided in Switzerland,
Holland, and England. It was in 1777, while he was in exile, that he
established his well-known work, the Political, Civil, and Literary
Annals of the Eighteenth Century, which forms nineteen volumes. The Count
de Vergennes gave him permission to return to France; but scarcely had
he availed himself of it ere he was shut up in the Bastile, where he
continued for above two years. On his release, he settled at Brussels,
and gained the good-will of the emperor Joseph, which, however, he
soon lost, by espousing the party of the Belgian revolutionists. In
1791, he returned to France. During the reign of terror, he withdrew
into retirement. He was, however, unable to elude the vigilance of the
Jacobins; he was sent by them before the revolutionary tribunal, which,
without suffering him to make any defence, condemned him to death, and he
was accordingly executed in the summer of 1794.
While Linguet was in the Bastile, one of his opponents was sharing the
same fate, though for a much shorter term. Duvernet, an ecclesiastic,
published a pamphlet, anonymously, in 1781, in which he indulged his
wit at the expense of Linguet, D’Espremenil, and other well-known
characters. This he might have done with impunity; but he also attacked
the government; and the government, in return, sent him to the Bastile
for three weeks, to learn prudence. The lesson was thrown away upon him;
for, soon after his release, he ventured to animadvert upon the conduct
of the Count de Maurepas, and was again lodged in the Bastile. His
confinement lasted longer than in the first instance; and he availed
himself of this compulsory leisure to write a life of Voltaire. The
minister of police detained the manuscript; but the work, nevertheless,
found its way into print in 1786, and had such an extensive sale, that
the French bishops took the alarm, and commissioned the keeper of the
seals to complain to the king. Louis XVI., however, replied, “I will not
meddle with this affair; if Duvernet is wrong, let him be refuted,—that
is the business of the bishops.” The author afterwards enlarged and
remodelled his work; but he died in 1796, the year before the new edition
was published.
Another prisoner, who was also contemporary with Linguet in the Bastile,
was an individual of mysterious origin and conduct, who ought to have
found a place in an English prison rather than in a French one. This
was a person who assumed the title of the Count de Paradès. He himself
claimed to be descended from an ancient Spanish family of the same name;
some affirmed him to be the natural son of a Count de Paradès; but he
was generally believed to be of far humbler origin, the offspring of
a pastry-cook named Richard, who resided at Phalsburg. Of his early
life nothing is known; it is at the age of twenty-five that we find him
entering on his public career; and, by some means or other, he contrived
to procure an extremely flattering reception at the French court.
Fearing that he was too old to attain elevated rank in the military
profession, he looked about for another road to fortune, and thought he
had found it in adopting the perilous and undignified occupation of a
spy. France was at that period secretly preparing for hostilities against
England, the revolt of the British American colonies seeming to afford
her a favourable opportunity of taking vengeance for the defeats and
disgrace which she had suffered in the seven years’ war. Deeming this
an excellent opportunity to bring himself forward, Paradès voluntarily
visited England, where he gathered some valuable information relative to
our arsenals, ports, and naval and military establishments. The memorial
which, on his return, he presented to Sartine, the French minister of
marine, was so much approved of, that he was despatched to procure
further particulars. He was so successful in his inquiries, that he was
regularly engaged as a spy by Sartine, and was profusely supplied with
the means to purchase the services of British traitors. Paradès was not
idle; he bribed highly, and, if his own assertion may be credited, he
found no difficulty in corrupting many clerks and officers of an inferior
class. Though he may have exaggerated in this respect, there can be no
doubt that there were too many base-minded wretches who were willing
to sell their country. This fact is established by the circumstances
which came out on the trial of La Motte, his less fortunate successor.
Paradès reconnoitred all the English and Irish ports. In a part of his
journeys he was accompanied by an officer of engineers, and they were
several times in the utmost danger of being discovered. For the purpose
of keeping up an intercourse with the French ministry, he fitted out a
vessel, and had a regular establishment of messengers; the vessel served
the double purpose of trading and conveying his despatches. Many of
the communications which he made were highly important; he complains,
in his memoirs, that some of them, which would have enabled France to
strike fatal blows, were unaccountably neglected. One of his projects
was to set fire to the British fleet in the harbour of Portsmouth. His
services were not unrewarded; he was pensioned, and appointed a colonel
of cavalry. In the short time that he had been acting his part, he had
also contrived to amass about £35,000 by speculations in commerce
and the funds, and perhaps by pocketing a heavy per centage on the
remittances from the French ministry. Nearly £30,000 was sent to him by
his employers, and it is obvious that, as to the disbursement of it, they
could have no check whatever upon him. It was with a scheme for seizing
upon Plymouth that he closed his career as a spy. In that port he either
had, or pretended to have emissaries, and to have corrupted a serjeant
and several soldiers of the feeble garrison. It was in pursuance of this
plan that D’Orvilliers, with the combined French and Spanish squadrons,
consisting of sixty-five sail, entered the Channel. It is notorious that
Plymouth was then in an extremely imperfect state of defence, and would
have been much endangered by a vigorous attack. Fortunately, however,
D’Orvilliers, in spite of the remonstrances of Paradès, declined to make
an attempt upon the place. Paradès now visited France, and immediately
received instructions to return to England; but, before he could depart,
his adventurous occupation was brought to an abrupt close. He is said to
have been suspected of playing the Janus-faced traitor, equally bribed
by England and by France. The suspicion, though natural, was probably
unjust, and may have been prompted by the friends of those officers whom
he had accused of missing favourable opportunities. He was committed to
the Bastile in April 1780, and was not liberated till April 1781. He was
allowed to have what books he pleased, to carry on a free correspondence,
and to be visited by his friends. The presumptions against him could not
have been strong; if they had been so, he would have been rigorously
treated, and permanently confined. For three years after he was set free,
Paradès continued to press the government for the payment of £25,000,
which he asserted to be due to him. The war, however, had exhausted the
French treasury, and he consequently solicited in vain. In 1784 he
sailed to St. Domingo, where he had purchased an estate, and he died
there in the course of the following year.
He who appears next on the list of captives was a man—if indeed the name
of man is not misapplied to him—whose crimes were of so dark a dye that
to imprison him for them was unjust, solely because it was nothing less
than assisting him to evade the punishment which justice would have
inflicted on him. This abandoned individual has been correctly described,
by a French writer, as “the profound villain named the Marquis de Sade,
who, by his atrocious examples, and his equally horrible writings,
proved himself to be the apostle of every crime,—of assassination, of
poisoning,—and the enemy of all social order; this monster spent great
part of his life in prison, and was twenty times saved from the scaffold
by his title of marquis.”
The Marquis de Sade, who was descended from an ancient family of the
Comtat Venaissin, was born at Paris, in 1740. He embraced the military
profession, and served in all the German campaigns of the seven years’
war. In 1766, he married an amiable and virtuous woman, to whom he proved
a perpetual source of wretchedness. A sense of duty induced her, for a
considerable period, to aid in extricating him from the difficulties in
which he involved himself, but she was finally obliged to give him up. In
the same year that he was united to her, one of his infamous adventures
caused him to be imprisoned and exiled; and no sooner was he allowed
to return to Paris than he took an actress into keeping, carried her
to Provence, and introduced her as his wife to the gentry around his
mansion. These, however, were merely the venial offences of Sade. His
criminality took a far higher flight. In 1778, he would have fallen a
victim to the justice of his country, for horrible cruelty to a female,
had he not been snatched from it by a _lettre de cachet_, which confined
him for a time at Saumur, whence he was removed to Pierre-Encise.
This danger did not operate as a warning to him. At Marseilles, in 1772,
in company with his valet, who was the companion of his debaucheries,
he acted in such a manner that the parliament of Aix prosecuted him and
his servant, and ultimately pronounced them guilty of unnatural acts
and of poisoning; the persons poisoned are said to have been two loose
women, to whom they administered stimulants of the most dangerous kind.
Sade took flight, but was seized in Savoy by the king of Sardinia, and
sent to the castle of Miolans. He made his escape from the castle, and
concealed himself in Paris, where, in 1777, he was discovered, and sent
to Vincennes. He escaped, was retaken, was lodged again at Vincennes, and
was treated with great rigour for two years. In 1784, he was transferred
to the Bastile.
At Vincennes and the Bastile he wrote the earliest of those works which
alone would suffice to brand his name with indelible infamy. It is truly
said of them, that “everything the most monstrous and revolting, that
can be dreamt by the most frenzied, obscene, and sanguinary imagination,
seems to be combined in these works, the mere conception of which ought
to be looked upon as a crime against social order.” Sade was a voluminous
writer, and produced many other works, plays, romances, verses, and
miscellanies, which have never seen the light.
At the Bastile, but a short time before the attack on it, he quarrelled
with the governor, and, by means of a sort of speaking trumpet, harangued
the passengers in St. Anthony’s Street, and endeavoured to excite them
to arms. For this he was sent off to Charenton. In 1790, the decree of
the National Assembly, which liberated all the victims of _lettres des
cachet_, put an end to his imprisonment, after it had continued for
thirteen years. Sade was a partisan of the revolution, in its worst
aspect; but even the revolutionists of 1793 shrank from contact with
so foul a being. He was arrested by them, and for nearly a year was an
inmate of various prisons. After this, he remained at large till the
reins of government were assumed by Napoleon. The First Consul put a
stop, in 1801, to the publication of Sade’s works, and sent him to St.
Pelagie; from that prison he was removed to Charenton, in 1803, and there
he spent his days till the close of his dishonoured existence in 1814,
when he was seventy-five years of age. To the very last his detestable
doctrines and habits experienced not the slightest change.
One of the most eminent of the French revolutionists, from whom a
considerable party took its denomination, was among the latest prisoners
of the Bastile. John Peter Brissot was born in 1754, at the village of
Ouarville, near Chartres, where his father, who was a pastry-cook in
Chartres, had a trifling property. It was from his native place, the name
of which he anglicised, that he afterwards styled himself Brissot de
Warville. He received a good education, and, as he also read with great
avidity, he accumulated a large stock of miscellaneous but undigested
knowledge. In the English language he acquired a proficiency which was
unusual among Frenchmen at that period, and his study of it contributed
powerfully to give his sentiments a republican tinge; for he dwelt with
delight on the characters of the great men who withstood the tyranny
of Charles the First. Brissot was placed in an attorney’s office at
Paris; and it is a curious circumstance, that one of his fellow-clerks
was Robespierre, who afterwards became his deadly political foe. In
two years Brissot got tired of legal drudgery, and determined to look
to literature for subsistence. His first essay was a satire, which he
subsequently owned to contain much injustice, and for which he narrowly
escaped being lodged in the Bastile. A pamphlet which he published
attracted the notice of Swinton, an Englishman, a man utterly devoid of
honourable feelings, who engaged him to superintend the reprinting of the
Courrier de l’Europe, at Boulogne. This engagement was soon terminated;
and Brissot, who had received two hundred pounds on his father’s death,
purchased the necessary titles for practising at the bar. The money thus
laid out was thrown away, he being soon compelled to resign all hope of
succeeding as an advocate. His next scheme, of the success of which he
did not allow himself to doubt, was to establish, in the British capital,
a Lyceum, which was to serve as a point of union to literary men of all
countries, and was to carry on a universal correspondence with them,
and to issue a periodical work for the more wide diffusion of English
literature. As might have been foreseen, this magnificent institution, of
which he was of course to be the presiding genius, proved to be nothing
more than an abortion. Instead of reaping fame and profit from the
periodical, Brissot found that no one would buy it, and he was arrested
and imprisoned by the printer. Having, however, contrived to get free,
he returned penniless to France in 1784, where another prison was ready
to receive him. Merely, it is said, because he had spoken lightly of
the works of D’Aguesseau, he was sent to the Bastile. Others attribute
his imprisonment to the malice of his inveterate and unprincipled enemy
Morande, who accused him of having written a libel, entitled le Diable à
Quatre, which was from the pen of the Marquis de Pelleport. Through the
influence of Madame de Genlis, Brissot was released at the expiration
of two months. This visit to the Bastile was not calculated to diminish
his republican fervour. That fervour was no doubt much increased by his
visit to the United States, whither he went early in 1788, and whence he
returned in the following year.
Brissot, on his return, threw himself with all his heart and soul into
the Revolution. His mind was heated by the reading of ancient and
modern writers, who have held up republican heroes to our admiration,
and it was irritated by wrongs which arbitrary power had inflicted;
and he rashly and illogically concluded, that under a monarchy it was
impossible for liberty to exist. Such was the case, also, with many of
the talented, eloquent, and warm-hearted men who, acting in concert
with him, were known by the title of Brissotins and Girondists. No one
who has attentively perused the numerous documents relative to the
French revolution can deny that, at a moment when, according to their
own confession, there was not a handful of republicans in France, the
Brissotins had determined to subvert the monarchical government and
establish their favourite system. It is as certain, too, that they were
not delicate in the choice of means, and that truth was not allowed to
stand in the way of their designs. Believing a republican order of things
to be the perfection of human wisdom, they seem to have thought that, “to
do a great right, they might do a little wrong.” They were soon taught
by woeful experience that the strict rule of right can never be violated
without danger; and that, however good his intentions may be, he who does
a little wrong opens the way for the commission of the worst of crimes.
Brissot was elected a member of the Parisian Common Council, an assembly
which, in less than four years, became infamous for its ferocious and
sanguinary proceedings. It must have been gratifying to his feelings,
that one of the first acts which it fell to his lot to perform, was
to receive the keys of the Bastile. He now established a newspaper
called the French Patriot, in which he made daily violent attacks on the
monarch, the ministers, and all the institutions of the state. It was
he who, in conjunction with Laclos, after the flight of Louis XVI. to
Varennes, drew up the petition which called on the Constituent Assembly
to depose the king, and which gave rise to a riot that cost some blood.
At the period when the election of members to the Legislative Assembly
was going forward, the court exerted itself to prevent him from being
chosen a representative. Its misdirected efforts, however, as was the
case in many other instances, only produced a diametrically opposite
effect to that which was intended; the attention of the electors was
directed to Brissot, and he was unanimously returned as one of the
Parisian members.
Brissot was nominated a member of the diplomatic committee, and its
reports were almost uniformly drawn up by him. It was principally by
his exertions that a war was brought about with Austria; his purpose in
producing that war was to forward the dethroning of the king. In the
Legislative Assembly he, for a while, enjoyed great popularity, and
he availed himself of it to batter in breach the tottering fabric of
the monarchy. But the Jacobins, meanwhile, with Robespierre at their
head, all animated by a deadly hatred of Brissot and his friends,
were gradually gaining influence; and, in proportion as they won over
the populace and the most hot-headed of the legislators, the power
of Brissot declined. For a moment he meditated making common cause
with the constitutional royalists, in order to avert the disastrous
consequences which he began to dread would ensue, in case the Jacobins
should triumph. The plan, however, was abandoned. In the revolution
of the 10th of August he did not participate; Danton was the prime
mover in that transaction. The department of the Eure deputed Brissot
to the convention; and thenceforth, with a few exceptions, his conduct
was prudent and moderate. From the moment that he and his friends took
their seats, they were daily and furiously assailed by the Jacobins.
They maintained the contest for several months, but they were finally
overthrown, and the majority of them perished on the scaffold. Brissot
was put to death on the 31st of October, 1793, and met his fate as calmly
as though he had only been ascending the tribune to read a report to his
late colleagues. The few tears which he shed during his imprisonment were
not for himself, they were wrung from him by the agonizing thought that
he must leave a beloved wife and children in a state of destitution.
The last prisoners that remain to be noticed, owed their residence
in the Bastile to an affair which excited the public attention in an
extraordinary degree, and contributed greatly to render the Queen of
France an object of suspicion and unpopularity. This was the affair of
the diamond necklace, in which the principal part was played by the
Countess de la Motte. The countess, and a brother and sister, were
descendants of Henry de St. Remi, a natural son of Henry II., but her
family had been reduced to beggary. The three children, two of whom she
had found asking alms, were taken under the protection of the Marchioness
of Boulainvilliers, who charitably brought them up at her own expense.
D’Hozier, the eminent genealogist, having ascertained that they really
sprang from the house of Valois, the Duke of Brancas presented to the
queen a memorial in their favour, and a small pension was in consequence
granted to each of them.
In 1780, Jane, the eldest, married the Count de la Motte, who was
one of the guards of the Count d’Artois. Their united resources being
exceedingly scanty, the Countess looked about for the means of improving
them at the cost of some dupe. She had a prepossessing appearance,
fluency of speech, and considerable talents for intrigue, masked by
a semblance of openness and candour. The personage whom she selected
to try her experiment on, was the Cardinal Prince de Rohan, Bishop of
Strasburgh, who was then in his fiftieth year. Rohan, though a bishop
and a cardinal, did not think it necessary to assume even the appearance
of decorum and virtue. He was weak, vain, dissolute, presumptuous,
and extravagant. For a long time he had been in great disfavour with
Maria Antoinetta, the Queen of France. She, as well as her mother, the
Empress Queen, had been disgusted by his unseemly conduct, some years
before this, while he was ambassador at Vienna, and the queen’s disgust
was heightened by his indiscreet language respecting her, and by the
insulting manner in which he had spoken of her mother, in a letter to
the Duke d’Aiguillon. She, however, did not interfere to prevent his
obtaining several ill-deserved appointments from the government, but she
manifested her resentment by refusing to admit him into her presence, and
by expressing her unbounded contempt of him.
Rohan was in despair at not being admitted into the society of the
queen. All that he enjoyed seemed worthless, while he was denied that
privilege. It was on this egregious weakness that Madame de la Motte
founded her hopes of success. The deceiver acted her part with much
skill; she gradually led the besotted cardinal to believe that she
had acquired the queen’s entire confidence, and could exercise great
influence over her. She was, therefore, obviously the fittest person to
bring about the reconciliation for which he was so eager. The countess
readily undertook to be the mediator. Week after week she deluded him by
tales of her pleadings to the queen, and of the slow but sure progress
that she made in restoring him to the royal favour. At last he was told,
that though the queen had forgiven him, there were reasons why she could
not alter her behaviour towards him at court, and that all intercourse
between them must be carried on through the medium of Madame de la Motte.
Billets, forged by a M. Villette, now began to be addressed to him in her
Majesty’s name; twice the writer requested a loan from Rohan, and the
request was granted by the delighted dupe. To lure him on still further,
he was informed, that Maria Antoinetta would admit him to an interview at
night, in the Bois du Boulogne. To play this character, a lady of easy
virtue, named d’Oliva, whose person and voice resembled the queen’s,
was tutored by La Motte. The cardinal saw her for a moment, and was in
raptures, but he had not time to express them before the nocturnal farce
was put an end to, by a preconcerted interruption. This last fraud having
raised the infatuation of the cardinal to the highest pitch, measures
were taken to turn his folly to advantage. There was in the hands of
Bœhmer and Bossange, the court jewellers, a splendid diamond necklace,
valued at 1,800,000 francs, which the queen had recently declined to
purchase, on the ground that it was too expensive. It was this rich prize
which La Motte had in view. To get possession of it, she made Rohan her
tool; she succeeded in making him believe—for his fund of credulity
appears to have been inexhaustible—that the queen was extremely desirous
to be mistress of the necklace; but that, as she did not choose to be
seen in the affair, she wished him to negotiate for her, and to purchase
it on his own credit. A forged authority, from Maria Antoinetta, was
produced, in support of this fiction. Rohan rushed blindly into the
snare; he bought the necklace, giving for it four bills, payable at
intervals of six months, which the jewellers consented to receive, on his
showing them the paper authorizing him to treat with them. Another forged
document, bearing the queen’s signature, enabled Madame de la Motte to
get the necklace into her own possession. Her husband is said to have
been immediately sent off to London, to dispose of a part of the diamonds.
When the first bill became due, it was dishonoured, for Rohan had no
money, and had relied upon receiving the amount from the queen. The
alarmed jewellers hastened to the palace, to remonstrate with her majesty
on the subject. The queen was indignant and astonished at the story
which they told. Cardinal de Rohan, the Countess de la Motte, and some
others, were arrested, and conveyed to the Bastile. The parliament was
charged with the trial of the prisoners. The trial was not brought to a
conclusion till the 31st of May, 1786. Rohan was acquitted, but Madame
de la Motte was sentenced to make the _amende honorable_, to be branded
on both shoulders, and publicly whipped, and be confined for the rest
of her days in the prison of the Salpêtrière. Villette, the forger, and
d’Etionville, his accomplice, were condemned to the galleys for life.
After having undergone the ignominious part of her sentence, the countess
contrived to escape, and joined her husband in London, where she died in
1791.
Rohan, though acquitted, was compelled by the king to resign the office
of high almoner, and the Order of the Holy Ghost, and was exiled to one
of his abbeys. In the early part of the Revolution, he for a short time
seemed friendly to it; but, his aristocratic feelings soon getting the
upper hand, he became one of its most inveterate enemies, and strained
every nerve to forward the designs of the emigrants. He died in Germany,
in 1803.
Besides La Motte and Rohan, there were committed to the Bastile some
subordinate actors in the affair of the diamond necklace, and also a
singular adventurer, who was known to the world under the title of
Count Cagliostro. The count himself, while he threw a veil of mystery
over his birth, appeared to claim an oriental and illustrious origin;
but his enemies assert that his real name was Joseph Balsamo, and that
he was the son of poor parents at Palermo, where he was born in 1743.
They represent him, too, as a degraded being, sometimes living by the
sale of chemical compositions, sometimes by swindling, and, still more
frequently, by the prostitution of a handsome wife. Yet it is certain
that, in his travels over the largest portion of Europe, he gained the
esteem and confidence of many distinguished characters. That he was a man
of talents is undeniable; his person and manners were attractive, he was
acquainted with most of the European and Asiatic languages, his knowledge
is said to have been extensive, and he had a powerful flow of eloquence.
Where he procured the funds, by which he kept up the appearance of a man
of distinction, it would not be easy to ascertain. He was intimate with
Cardinal de Rohan, who had sought his friendship, and this intimacy was
the cause of his being incarcerated, on suspicion of being an accomplice
of the cardinal. He was acquitted by the parliament. Cagliostro
subsequently spent two years in England, whence he passed into Italy. At
Rome, his wanderings were brought to a close; he was arrested in 1791,
and sent to the castle of St. Angelo, on a charge of having established
a masonic lodge, and written a seditious, heretical, and blasphemous
work, entitled Egyptian Masonry. He was condemned to death, but for this
penalty the Pope substituted perpetual imprisonment. He is believed to
have died in confinement in 1795.
The long catalogue of captives is now exhausted; ruin impends over
the fortress in which they spent their solitary and mournful hours;
but, before its doom is sealed, we must see it changing its character,
and becoming, for the first time, a place of refuge to a persecuted
individual. In April 1789, at a period when the minds of all Frenchmen
were in a state of fermentation, and when, like the ground-swell, which
announces a coming tempest, popular outbreaks were happening in various
quarters, there occurred a riot of a very serious nature in the suburb of
St. Antoine. Reveillon, a man of good character, who had himself risen
from the working class, was the person against whom the fury of the mob
was directed. He was a paper-hanging manufacturer, and employed three
hundred men. The charge against him, which was calumniously made by an
abbé, who was in his debt, was, that he had declared bread to be not yet
dear enough, and expressed a hope that hunger would compel the workmen
to labour for half their present wages. The thoughtless multitude,
always too ready to credit such slanders, immediately determined to take
summary vengeance on him; the first step of the rioters was to hang him
in effigy. On the first day they were prevented from going further, but
on the following day, they returned to the charge with increased numbers
and means of offence. Reveillon’s house and manufactory were plundered
of everything that was portable, and were then burned to the ground. It
was not till the mischief was completed, that the troops arrived. They
seem to have thought it necessary to atone for their extraordinary delay
by extraordinary severity; a furious contest ensued, and between four
and five hundred of the rioters are said to have been slaughtered on
the spot. Each of the political parties accused its rival of having, for
sinister purposes, been the planner of this sanguinary scene. In the
midst of the confusion, Reveillon was so fortunate as to escape from the
mob, and he sought for shelter in the Bastile, where, during a whole
month, he deemed it prudent to remain.
In little more than three months after the destruction of Reveillon’s
establishment, the storm of popular anger, which had long been gathering
in the capital, burst forth with irresistible violence, and shook to its
very basis the throne of France. Matters were, indeed, come to a crisis,
between the royalist and the reforming parties. The court seemed resolved
to commit the question to the decision of the sword; a formidable
force, consisting chiefly of foreign troops, was accumulated around the
metropolis; and the language held by some of the courtiers and ministers
was of the most sanguinary kind. The Baron de Breteuil did not hesitate
to say, “If it should be necessary to burn Paris, it shall be burned,
and the inhabitants decimated: desperate diseases require desperate
remedies.” To dissolve the National Assembly by force, and to consign
to the scaffold its most distinguished members, were among the remedies
which this political Sangrado designed to administer for the purpose of
checking the disease.
As a preliminary to the projected operations, the ministry of M. Necker
was abruptly broken up, and another was formed, composed of men notorious
for their hostility to the rights of the people. It was a sufficient
indication of what was intended, that Necker, Montmorin, De la Lezarne,
De Puysegur, and De St. Priest, were replaced by Breteuil, Broglie, De la
Vauguyon, and others of the same stamp. Necker was ordered to quit the
kingdom, and to keep his departure a profound secret.
The dismissed minister obeyed the order so strictly that not even his
daughter knew of his setting out; but the ridiculous silence which
was required of him was of no avail. On the following day, which was
Sunday, the 12th of July, it was known at Paris that the favourite of
the people was expelled from office, and was leaving the country. All
the citizens were instantly in alarm. Groups assembled in every street,
and more than ten thousand persons were soon congregated at the Palais
Royal. Every one was enraged, but no one knew what to propose, till
Camille Desmoulins ascended a table, in the Palais Royal, and exhorted
his hearers to take up arms; he then plucked a green leaf, which he put
into his hat, as a rallying-sign, and the symbol of hope. His example
was universally followed. The crowd now proceeded to a waxwork museum,
took from it the busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans, covered
them with crape, carried them in procession through the streets, and
compelled the passengers to take off their hats. Near the place Vendôme,
they were assailed by a detachment of the Royal German regiment, and
several persons were wounded. The Germans were, however, repulsed. At
the place de Louis XV. there was another contest. They were charged by
the dragoons of the Prince de Lambesc, who dispersed them, and killed a
soldier of the French guards, and one of the bearers of the busts. The
prince himself, a brutal character, followed some of them into the garden
of the Tuileries, sabring indiscriminately the fugitives and those who
were walking; among those who fell beneath his hand were a female and
an aged man. The multitude rallied, and chairs, stones, and everything
that could be converted into a weapon, was employed against the dragoons,
who were finally compelled to fly. By this time the French guards, who
were confined in their barracks, because they favoured the people,
had learned the death of their comrade. It was impossible to restrain
their rage; they broke out, fired on the Royal German regiment, and then
took post to cover the multitude from further attack. Some of the Swiss
regiments were ordered to reduce them to obedience, but they refused
to obey; and it was thus rendered obvious, that the court had fatally
miscalculated in relying upon the army for support.
During that night, and the whole of the succeeding day, Paris was like a
hive about to send forth a swarm. In the course of the night, the most
disorderly part of the populace burned the custom-houses at the barriers,
and plundered the gunsmiths’ shops. Weapons of every kind, and of all
ages and countries, were eagerly sought for and brought into use. In
the morning, the electors met at the town-hall to decide upon the steps
which ought to be taken. It was manifest that they had nothing to expect
from the leniency of the court; it was, in fact, understood that Paris
was to be attacked on seven points in the evening of the 14th, and it
was therefore absolutely necessary to provide the means of defence. In
a few hours a plan was matured and proclaimed, for arraying forty-eight
thousand Parisian militia. The alarm-bells were kept incessantly ringing
throughout Paris, and drums were beating in every street, to summon
the inhabitants to their posts. The scanty supply of arms was the most
serious obstacle which the citizens had to overcome. To remove it in
part, pikes were fabricated, fifty thousand of which were distributed
within six-and-thirty hours. Fortunately, it was discovered that there
was a large quantity of arms at the Hôtel des Invalides; these were
immediately seized upon, and thus 28,000 muskets, besides sabres and some
cannon, were obtained. Sufficient powder was procured, and hundreds of
men were occupied in casting balls.
The position of the Bastile, interrupting the communication between
various parts of the capital, and commanding a considerable portion
of the city, was a cause of much embarrassment to the citizens. M.
de Launey had received instructions to defend his post to the last
extremity. He was provided with ample means, as far as regarded
ammunition and arms; for he had on the ramparts fifteen cannon, and
twelve wall-pieces, each of which carried a ball of a pound and a half;
he had also plenty of shot, 15,000 cartridges, and 31,000 pounds of
powder. Besides these, there were, on the summit of the building, six
cartloads of paving-stones, bars of iron, and other missiles, to hurl on
an approaching enemy, when the cannon could no longer reach him. But,
with unaccountable negligence, no magazine of provisions had been formed;
there was not food enough in the place to last for twenty-four hours. The
garrison consisted of 32 Swiss and 82 invalids.
It is certain that the Committee of Electors, sitting at the town-hall,
did not entertain any idea of reducing the Bastile by arms. A sort of
neutrality was the most for which they hoped. That this is the fact,
is proved by their having twice sent a deputation to the governor,
calling on him to admit a detachment of the Parisian militia, to act in
conjunction with the garrison. The ground on which they claimed this
admission was, that the city ought to have a control over any military
force which was stationed within its limits. To such a proposal the
governor could not accede without perilling his head.
A M. Thuriot was now sent, by the district of St. Louis de la Culture,
to desire that the cannon might be removed from the towers. De Launey
replied that this could not be done without the king’s orders, but that
he would withdraw them from the embrasures to prevent their appearance
from exciting alarm. Thuriot was permitted to ascend to the summit of the
fortress, that he might be enabled to report to those who sent him the
real state of things, and he availed himself of this permission to exhort
the soldiers to surrender. This they refused to do, but they unanimously
and solemnly promised that they would not be the first to fire.
But though the Committee of Electors was not disposed to engage in
hostilities which seemed likely to be both fruitless and dangerous, there
were others, who were more daring, and some, perhaps, who were aware that
the garrison had no provisions, and little inclination to fight. From
various parts, but especially from the suburb of St. Antoine, an enormous
multitude, with every variety of weapon, hurried to the fortress,
shouting “We will have the Bastile! down with the troops!” Two of them
boldly ascended the roof of the guard-house, and with axes broke the
chains of the great drawbridge. The throng then pressed into the court,
and advanced towards the second bridge, firing all the while upon the
garrison. The latter replied with such effect, that the assailants were
driven back; but they placed themselves under shelter, whence they kept
up an incessant discharge of musketry.
A despatch to the governor, informing him that succour was at hand,
having been intercepted by the committee, that body sent a third
deputation to prevail on him to admit the Parisian forces. It reached the
outer court, and was invited to enter the place by some officers of the
garrison; but either it mistook the meaning of the invitation, or was
intimidated by the scene of carnage, for it retired without fulfilling
its mission. The firing was recommenced by the people, and was answered
with deadly effect by their antagonists. Three waggon-loads of straw were
now brought in and set on fire, to burn the buildings near the fortress;
but they were so unskilfully managed, that they proved obstacles to the
besiegers, who were compelled to remove them. While they were thus
employed, they received a discharge of grape-shot from the only cannon
which the garrison fired during the conflict.
The French guards now arrived with four pieces of cannon, to take a part
in the attack. The sight of this reinforcement entirely depressed the
spirits of the besieged, which had already begun to sink. They called on
their commander to capitulate. Anticipating, no doubt, the fate which was
reserved for him, he is said to have seized a lighted match, intending
to apply it to the powder-magazine. A large portion of the neighbourhood
would have been destroyed with the Bastile, had not two non-commissioned
officers repelled him with their bayonets from the dangerous spot. A
white handkerchief was hoisted on one of the towers as a flag of truce,
and a parley was beaten by the drums of the invalids. These signs were
unnoticed for a considerable time by the besiegers, who continued their
fire. At length, finding that all was silent in the Bastile, they
advanced towards the last drawbridge, and called to the garrison to let
it down. A Swiss officer looked through a loop-hole, and required that
his comrades should be allowed to march out with the honours of war. That
being refused, he declared that they were willing to submit, on condition
of not being massacred. “Let down the bridge, and nothing shall happen to
you,” was the reply. On this assurance, the governor gave up the key of
the bridge, and the conquerors entered in triumph.
A vast majority of the assailants were undoubtedly brave and honourable
men; but there were among them numbers of the most infamous of mankind;
men who lent their aid in tumults only that they might gratify their
love of plunder and blood. To these degraded wretches must be attributed
the cruelties which sullied the victory. No sooner was the day won,
than they began to gratify their diabolical propensities. Their first
achievement was to attempt to throw into the flames a young girl, whom
they found in a fainting fit, and supposed to be the governor’s daughter.
She was, however, saved by one of the Parisian volunteers. Others were
less happy. The unfortunate De Launey was massacred on his way to the
town-hall, after having received innumerable sword and bayonet stabs from
the savages around him. Five of his officers were put to death in an
almost equally barbarous manner.
The loss of the besiegers was eighty-three killed on the spot, fifteen
who died afterwards, thirteen crippled, and sixty wounded.
In the Bastile there were found only seven prisoners; four of them had
forged bills to an immense amount, two were insane, and the last, the
Count de Solange, had been confined at the request of his father for
dissipated conduct.
The Bastile soon ceased to exist. It was demolished by order of the civic
authorities of Paris; and, when the demolition was completed, a grand
ball was given on the levelled space. The capture and downfall of this
obnoxious fabric were hailed with delight by the friends of liberty in
every part of the globe, and they long furnished a favourite and fertile
theme for moralists, orators, and poets.
THE END.
LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS,
WHITEFRIARS.
FOOTNOTES
[1] M. Linguet says, that each of these niches was but just large enough
for one person, and had neither light nor air except at the moment when
the door was opened.
[2] M. de Fratteaux was seized in England, and carried off, by the
French officers of police. “His misfortunes seem to have been owing to
an unnatural father, who being on terms of intimacy with the minister,
obtained a _lettre de cachet_ to arrest and confine his son.”
[3] Prisoners who were not allowed to have a servant of their own,
sometimes were indulged with an invalid soldier to attend them; but those
who had neither, made their bed, lighted their fire, and swept their
room, themselves.
[4] I have passed lightly over the life of Palissy, because I shall have
occasion to dwell upon it, in another volume of the Family Library.
[5] Henry pointed his advice with a pun, which is not translatable. He
recommended to Biron, “Qu’il l’otât d’auprès de lui, sinon que _La Fin
l’affineroit_.” In English, if such a deceiver’s name were Cousin, we
might similarly say, “If you do not get rid of that Cousin, he will cozen
you.”
[6] Biographers and historians differ with respect to the circumstances
which ensued on the pardon being announced. While some give the statement
which I have adopted, others affirm that, when de Jars was taken back to
prison, he remained for a long while speechless, and seemingly deprived
of all consciousness. This is asserted by Madame de Motteville; and,
as she was his intimate friend, her authority has considerable weight.
But her assertion may be correct, and yet it is more than probable
that de Jars may have made the reply which is attributed to him. I
think the conduct ascribed to him in the text more consonant than any
other with his intrepid character. Nature, however, can endure only to
a certain point, and the effort that is made to bear up, and which,
as long as danger is present, seldom fails with the honourable and
brave, necessarily produces exhaustion when the struggle is over. It
may therefore, easily be believed, that, though de Jars was capable of
answering Laffemas with his wonted spirit—and the very sight of such a
monster would stimulate that spirit—he might sink into insensibility on
his return to prison.
[7] It has been conjectured, by some writers, that Richelieu was
stimulated to this new attack upon the queen by the circumstance of her
being pregnant, which induced him to dread that her influence would be
greatly increased, if he did not find the means of rendering her an
object of suspicion. But the conjecture is erroneous, as a comparison
of dates will prove. The attack upon her was commenced in the summer of
1637 (La Porte was sent to the Bastile in August), and the queen was not
brought to bed till September 1638, thirteen months afterwards.
[8] The mask is said to have been improperly described as being of iron;
it being formed of black velvet. Only the frame work and the springs were
of metal.
[9] This seems to be a quantity of linen so enormous as to stagger
belief. But Latude is probably correct in his assertion. In some of the
French provinces, families have an immense stock of linen; and it is
necessary that they should, as the operation of washing is not performed
more than twice or thrice a year.
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