Memoirs Of Jean Francois Paul De Gondi, Cardinal De Retz, Volume IV.

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MEMOIRS OF JEAN FRANCOIS PAUL de GONDI,
CARDINAL DE RETZ

Written by Himself

Being Historic Court Memoirs of the Great Events
during the Minority of Louis XIV.
and the Administration of Cardinal Mazarin.



Contents:
BOOK IV.
BOOK V.




BOOK IV.


In December, 1651, the Parliament agreed to the following resolution: To
send a deputation to the King to inform him of the rumours of Mazarin's
return, and to beseech him to confirm the royal promise which he had made
to his people upon that head; to forbid all governors to give the
Cardinal passage; to desire the King to acquaint the Pope and other
Princes with the reasons that had obliged him to remove the Cardinal; and
to send to all the Parliaments of the kingdom to make the like decree.

Somebody making a motion that a price might be set upon the Cardinal's
head, I and the rest of the spiritual councillors retired, because
clergymen are forbidden by the canon law to give their vote in cases of
life and death.

They agreed also to send deputies to the King to entreat him to write to
the Elector of Cologne to send the Cardinal out of his country, and to
forbid the magistrates of all cities to entertain any troops sent to
favour his return or any of his kindred or domestics. A certain
councillor who said, very judiciously, that the soldiers assembling for
Mazarin upon the frontiers would laugh at all the decrees of Parliament
unless they were proclaimed to them by good musketeers and pikemen, was
run down as if he had talked nonsense, and all the clamour was that it
belonged only to the King to disband soldiers.

The Duc d'Orleans acquainted the House, on the 29th, that Cardinal
Mazarin had arrived at Sedan; that Marechals de Hoquincourt and de la
Ferte were gone to join him with their army to bring him to Court; and
that it was high time to oppose his designs. Upon this it was
immediately resolved that deputies should be despatched forthwith to the
King; that the Cardinal and all his adherents should be declared guilty
of high treason; that the common people should be commanded to treat them
as such wherever they met them; that his library and all his household
goods should be sold, and that 150,000 livres premium should be given to
any man who should deliver up the said Cardinal, either dead or alive.
Upon this expression all the ecclesiastics retired, for the reason above
mentioned.

A new decree was passed on the 2d of January, 1652, wherein it was
decided that all the Parliaments of France should be invited to issue
their decrees against Mazarin, conformable to the last; that two more
councillors should be added to the four sent to guard the rivers and to
arm the common people; and that the troops of the Duc d'Orleans should
oppose the march of Mazarin.

On the 24th the deputies who had been to Poitiers to remonstrate with the
King against the return of the Cardinal, made their report in Parliament,
to the effect that his Majesty, after having consulted with the Queen and
her Council, returned for answer, that without doubt, when the Parliament
issued their late decrees, they did not know that Cardinal Mazarin had
made no levy of soldiers but by his Majesty's express orders; that it was
he who commanded him to enter France with his troops, and that therefore
the King did not resent what the company had done; but that, on the other
hand, he did not doubt that when they had heard the circumstances he had
just mentioned, and knew, moreover, that Cardinal Mazarin only desired an
opportunity to justify himself, they would not fail to give all his
subjects an exemplary proof of the obedience they owed to him. The
Parliament was highly provoked, and next day resolved to admit no more
dukes, peers, nor marshals of France till the Cardinal had left the
kingdom.

Mazarin, arriving at Court again, persuaded the King to go to Saumur,
though others advised him to march to Guienne against the Prince de
Conde, with whom the Duc d'Orleans was now resolved to join forces. The
King went from Saumur to Tours, where the Archbishop of Rouen carried
complaints to the King, in the name of the bishops there, against the
decrees of Parliament relating to the Cardinal.

The Duc d'Orleans complained in Parliament against the inconsistency of
their proceedings, and said the King had sent him carte blanche in order
to oblige him to consent to the restoration of the Cardinal, but that
nothing would ever cause him to do it, nor to act apart from the
Parliament. Yet their unaccountable proceedings perplexed him beyond
expression, so that he commanded, or rather permitted, M. de Beaufort to
put his troops in action. And because I told him that, considering the
declarations he had so often repeated against Mazarin, I thought his
conduct in setting his troops in motion against him did not add so much
to the measure of the disgust he had already given to the Court that he
need to apprehend much from it, he gave me for answer these memorable
words which I have reflected upon a thousand times: "If you," said he,
"had been born a Son of France, an Infante of Spain, a King of Hungary,
or a Prince of Pales, you would not talk as you do. You must know that,
with us Princes, words go for nothing, but that we never forget actions.
By to-morrow noon the Queen would not remember my declarations against
the Cardinal if I would admit him tomorrow morning; but if my troops were
to fire a musket she would not forgive me though we were to live two
thousand years hence."

In February, 1652, I was made a cardinal, and was to receive the hat, as
all French cardinals do, from the King. My enemies, who thought to ruin
my credit with the Duc d'Orleans, gave out that I had been obliged to the
Court for my dignity, attacked me in form as a secret favourer of
Mazarin, and, while their emissaries gained over such of the dregs of the
people as they could corrupt by money, they were supported by all the
intrigues of the Cabinet. But the Duke, who knew better, only laughed at
them; so that they confirmed me in his good opinion, instead of
supplanting me, because in cases of slander every reflection that does
not hurt the person attacked does him service. I said to the Duke that I
wondered he was not wearied out with the silly stories that were told him
every day against me, since they all harped upon one string; but he said,
"Do you take no account of the pleasure one takes every morning in
hearing how wicked men are under the cloak of religious zeal, and every
night how silly they are under the mask of politicians?"

The servants of the Prince de Conde gave out such stories against me
among the populace as were likely to have done me much more mischief.
They had a pack of brawling fellows in their pay who were more
troublesome to me now than formerly, when they did not dare to appear
before the numerous retinue of gentlemen and liverymen that accompanied
me, for as I had not yet had the hat, I was obliged, wherever I went, to
go incognito, according to the rules of the ceremonial. Those fellows
said that I had betrayed the Duc d'Orleans, and that they would be the
death of me. I told the Duke, who was afraid they would murder me, that
he should soon see how little those hired mobs ought to be regarded. He
offered me his guards, but though Marechal d'Estampes fell on his knees
in my way to stop me, I went down-stairs with only two persons in
company, and made directly towards the ruffians, demanding who was their
leader. Upon which a beggarly fellow, with an old yellow feather in his
hat, answered me, insolently, "I am." Then I called out to the guards at
the gate, saying, "Let me have this rascal hanged up at these grates."
Thereupon he made me a very low bow, and said that he did not mean to
affront me; that he only came with his comrades to tell me of the report
that I designed to carry the Duc d'Orleans to Court, and reconcile him
with Mazarin; that they did not believe it; that they were at my service,
and ready to venture their lives for me, provided I would but promise
them to be always an honest Frondeur.

The Duc d'Orleans took such delight in conversing with me that, on De
Goulas, one of his secretaries, telling him that all the foreign officers
took mighty umbrage at it, he pulled him up very sharply, and said, "Go
to the devil, you and your foreign officers. If they were as good
Frondeurs as Cardinal de Retz, they would be at their posts, and not
tippling in the taverns of Paris." There was such a strong faction in
the city of Orleans for the Court that his presence there was very
necessary; but as it was much more so at Paris, the Duke was prevailed
upon by his Duchess to let her go thither. M. Patru was pleased to say
that as the gates of Jericho fell at the sound of trumpets, those of
Orleans would open at the sound of fiddles, of which M. de Rohan was a
very great admirer. But, in fact, though the King was just at hand with
the troops, and though M. Mold, Keeper of the Seals, was at the gate
demanding entrance for the King, the Duchess crossed the river in a
barge, made the watermen break down a little postern, which had been
walled up for a long time, and marched, with the acclamations of
multitudes of the people, directly to the Hotel de Ville, where the
magistrates were assembled to consider if they should admit the Keeper of
the Seals. By this means she turned the scale, and MM. de Beaufort and
de Nemours joined her.

The Prince de Conde arriving at Paris from Guienne on the 11th of April,
the magistrates had a meeting in the Hotel de Ville, in which they
resolved that the Governor should wait on his Royal Highness, and tell
him that the company thought it contrary to order to receive him into the
city before he had cleared himself from the King's declaration, which had
been verified in Parliament against him.

The Duc d'Orleans, who was overjoyed at this speech, said that the Prince
had only come to discourse with him about private affairs, and that he
would stay but twenty-four hours at Paris. M. de Chavigni informed the
Duke that the Prince was able to stand his ground as long as he pleased,
without being obliged to anybody; and he gathered together a mob of
scoundrels upon the Pont-Neuf, whose fingers itched to be plundering the
house of M. du Plessis Guenegaut, and by whom the Duke was frightened to
a great degree.

The reflections I had leisure to make upon my new dignity obliged me to
take great care of my hat, whose dazzling flame of colour turns the heads
of many that are honoured with it. The most palpable of those delusions
is the claiming precedence of Princes of the blood, who may become our
masters the next moment, and who at the same time are generally the
masters of all our kindred. I have a veneration for the cardinals of my
family, who made me suck in humility after their example with my mother's
milk, and I found a very happy opportunity to practise it on the very day
that I received the news of my promotion. Chateaubriant said to me,
before a vast number of people at my levee, "Now we will pay our respects
no more to the best of them," which he said because, though I was upon
ill terms with the Prince de Conde, and though I always went well
attended, I yet saluted him wherever I met him with all the respect due
to him on the score of so many titles. I said to him:

"Pray pardon me, monsieur; we shall pay our respects to the great men
with greater complaisance than ever. God forbid that the red hat should
turn my head to that degree as to make me dispute precedence with the
Princes of the blood. It is honour enough for a gentleman to walk side
by side with them." This expression, I verily believe, afterwards
secured the rank of precedence to the hat in the kingdom of France, by
the courtesy of the Prince de Conde, and his friendship for me.

Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, the most fantastical lady upon earth,
suspecting that I held a secret correspondence with the Queen, could not
forbear murmuring and threatening what she would do. She said I had
declared to her a thousand times that I could not imagine how it was
possible for anybody to be in love with that Swiss woman. In short, she
said this so often that the Queen had a notion from somebody or other
that I had called her by that name. She never forgave me for it, as you
will perceive in the sequel. You may easily conceive that this
circumstance, which gave me no encouragement to hope for a very gracious
reception at Court for the time to come, did not weaken those resolutions
which I had already taken to retire from public business. The place of
my retreat was agreeable enough: the shadow of the towers of Notre-Dame
was a refreshment to it; and, moreover, the Cardinal's hat sheltered it
from bad weather. I had fine ideas of the sweetness of such a
retirement, and I would gladly have laid hold of it, but my stars would
not have it so. I return to my narrative.

On the 12th of April the Duc d'Orleans took the Prince de Conde with him
to the Parliament, assuring them that he had not, nor ever would have,
any other intention than to serve his King and country; that he would
always follow the sentiments of the Parliament; and that he was willing
to lay down his arms as soon as the decrees against Cardinal Mazarin were
put into execution.

The President Bailleul said that the members always thought it an honour
to see the Prince de Conde in his place, but that they could not
dissemble their real concern to see his hands stained with the blood of
the King's soldiers who were killed at Bleneau. Upon this a storm arose
from the benches, which fell with such fury upon the poor President that
he had scarcely room to put in a word for himself, for fifty or sixty
voices disowned him at one volley.

On the 13th the Parliament agreed that the declaration made by the Duc
d'Orleans and the Prince should be carried to the King; that the
remonstrances they had sent to the King should likewise be sent to all
the sovereign companies of Paris, and to all the Parliaments of the
kingdom, to invite them also to send a deputation on their own behalf;
and that a general assembly should be immediately held at the Hotel de
Ville, to which the Duc d'Orleans and the Prince should be invited to
make the same declarations as they made to the Parliament; and that, in
the meantime, the King's declaration against Cardinal Mazarin, and all
the decrees passed against him, should be put into execution.

On the 13th of May a councillor of Parliament and captain of his ward,
having brought his company to the Palace to act as ordinary guard, was
abandoned by all the burghers that composed it, who said they were not
created to guard Mazarins.

The mob, who at the same time appeared ready enough to murder some of the
magistrates in the streets, had nothing in their mouths but the names and
services of the Princes, who next day disowned their humble servants in
the assemblies of the several courts. Though this conduct gave occasion
to severe decrees, which the Parliament issued at every turn against the
seditious, it did not hinder the same Parliament from believing that
those who disowned the sedition were the authors of it, and consequently
did not lessen the hatred which many private men conceived against them.
Such were the various and complicated views every one had concerning the
then position of affairs, that I wrapped myself up, as one may say, in my
great dignities, to which I abandoned the hopes of my fortune; and I
remember one day the President Bellievre telling me that I ought not to
be so indolent. I answered him: "We are in a great storm, where,
methinks, we all row against the wind. I have two good oars in my hand,
one of which is the Cardinal's dignity, and the other the Archiepiscopal.
I am not willing to break them; and all I have to do now is to support
myself."

At the same time I had other disquietings of a more private nature.
Mademoiselle de Chevreuse fell in love with my rival, the Abbe Fouquet.
Little De Roye, who was a very, pretty German lass at her house, informed
me of it, and made me amends for the infidelity of the mistress, whose
choice, to tell you the truth, did not mortify me much, because she had
nothing but beauty, which cloys when it comes alone. She cared for
nobody besides him she loved; but as she was never long in love, so
neither was it long that she was in good temper. She used her cast-off
lovers as she did her old clothes, which other women lay aside, but she
burnt, so that her daughters had much ado to save a petticoat,
head-dress, gloves, or Venice point. And I verily believe that if she
could have committed her lovers to the flames when she left them off, she
would have done it with all her heart. Madame her mother, who
endeavoured to set her at variance with me when she was resolved to unite
herself entirely with the Court, could not succeed, though she went so
far that Madame de Guemenee caused a letter to be read to her in my
handwriting, whereby I devoted myself body and soul to her, as witches
give themselves to the devil.

It was at that time that Madame de Chevreuse, seeing herself neglected at
Paris, resolved to retire to Dampierre, where, depending upon what had
been told her from Court, she hoped to be well received. I gave vent to
my passion, which, in truth, was not very great, to Mademoiselle de
Chevreuse, and I took care to have both the mother and daughter
accompanied out of Paris, quite to Dampierre, by all the nobility and
gentlemen I had with me.

I cannot finish this slight sketch of the condition I was in at Paris
without acknowledging the debt I owe to the generosity of the Prince de
Conde, who, finding that a person was come from the Prince de Conti, at
Bordeaux, with a design to attack me, told him that he would have him
hanged if he did not go back to his master in two hours' time.

Marigny told me, almost at the same time, that, observing the Prince de
Conde to be very intent upon reading a book, he took the liberty to tell
him that it must needs be a very choice one, because he took such delight
in it; and that the Prince answered him, "It is true I am very fond of
it, for it shows me my faults, which nobody has the courage to tell me."
This book was entitled "The Right and False Steps of the Prince de Conde
and of the Cardinal de Retz."

There were divers negotiations between the parties, during which Mazarin
gave himself the pleasure of letting the public see MM. de Rohan, de
Chavigni, and de Goulas conferring with him, before the King as well as
in private, at that very instant when the Duc d'Orleans and the Prince de
Conde said publicly, in the assembly of the Chambers, that it ought to be
the preliminary of all treaties to have nothing to do with Mazarin. He
acted a perfect comedy in their presence, pretending to be forcibly
detained by the King, whom he begged with folded hands to let him return
to Italy.

On the 30th of April there was so great a murmuring in Parliament that
the Duc d'Orleans said they should never see him there again until the
Cardinal was gone.

On the 6th of May the remonstrances of the Parliament and the Chamber of
Accounts were carried to the King by a large deputation, as were, on the
7th, those of the Court of Aids and the city. The King's answer to both
was that he would cause his troops to retire when those of the Princes
were gone.

On the 10th it was resolved that the King's Council should be sent to
Saint Germain for a further answer touching the removal of Cardinal
Mazarin from the Court and kingdom, and the armies from the neighbourhood
of Paris.

On the 14th there was a great uproar again in the Parliament, where there
was a confused clamour for taking into consideration the best means for
hindering the riots and disorders daily committed in the city and in the
hall of the Palace; upon which the Duc d'Orleans, who was afraid that
under this pretence the Mazarinists should make the House take some steps
contrary to their interests, came to the Palace on a sudden, and proposed
that they should grant him full power.

The 29th being the day that the deputies of the Court of Inquiry desired
the Parliament to consider the ways and means for raising the 150,000
livres promised to him who should bring Cardinal Mazarin to justice, and
the Archbishop's Grand Vicar coming up at that moment to the bar of the
King's Council to confer about the descent of the shrine of Sainte
Genevieve, a member said, very pleasantly, "We are this day engaged in
devotion for a double festival: we are appointing processions, and
contriving how to murder a Cardinal."

On the 20th of June the King's answer to the Parliament's remonstrances
was reported in substance as follows: That though his Majesty was
sensible that the demand for the removal of Cardinal Mazarin was but a
pretence, yet, he was willing to grant it after justice was done to the
Cardinal's honour by such reparations as were due to his innocence,
provided the Princes would give him good security for the performance of
their proposals upon the removal of the said Cardinal. That therefore
his Majesty, desired to know: 1. Whether, in this case, they will
renounce all leagues and associations with foreign princes? 2. Whether
they will not form new pretensions? 3. Whether they will come to Court?
4. Whether they will dismiss all the foreigners that are in the kingdom?
5. Whether they will disband their forces? 6. Whether Bordeaux will
return to its duty, as well as the Prince de Conti and Madame de
Longueville? 7. Whether the places which the Prince de Conde has
fortified shall be put into the condition they were in before the breach?

The Duc d'Orleans, provoked at these propositions, said that a Son of
France and a Prince of the blood were never known to have been treated
like common criminals, and that the declaration which both had made was
more than sufficient to satisfy the Court.

On the 21st it was moved in Parliament that an inventory should be taken
of what remained of Mazarin's furniture. There having been in the
morning a great commotion at the Palace, when the President and some
others had run a risk of being killed by the mob, M. de Beaufort invited
his friends to meet him in the afternoon in the Palais Royal, and having
got together four or five thousand beggars, he harangued them as to the
obedience which they owed to the Parliament. But two or three days after
this fine sermon of his, the sedition was more violent than ever.

On the 25th the Princes declared in Parliament that, as soon as the
Cardinal had departed the kingdom, they would faithfully execute all the
articles contained in the King's answer, and immediately send deputies to
complete the rest.

On the 4th of July a mob assembled, who forced all that went by to put a
handful of straw in their hats, upon which the Duc d'Orleans and the
Prince de Conde went to the Hotel de Ville and convinced the assembly of
the necessity they were under of defending themselves against Mazarin.
Upon a trumpeter arriving from his Majesty with orders to adjourn the
assembly for a week, the people were much incensed, and called out to the
citizens to unite strictly with the Princes. They fell upon the first
thing they met in their way, threw stones into the windows of the Hotel
de Ville, set fire to its gates, and, entering with drawn swords,
murdered M. Le Gras, the Master of Requests, and the Master of Accounts,
and twenty or thirty citizens perished in the tumult. There was a
general consternation all over the city; all the shops were shut in an
instant, and in some parts they set up barricades to stop the rioters,
who had almost overrun the whole town. It was observed that the
appearance of the Duchesse de Beaufort prevailed more with the mob in
causing them to disperse than the exposing of the Host by the cure of St.
John's.

The late riot had such an effect on the Parliament that the President
Mortier and many of the councillors kept away from the public assemblies
for fear, notwithstanding they were enjoined, by a special decree, to
come and take their places. The magistrates, for the same reason, did
not go to the Hotel de Ville.

On the 18th the deputies of Parliament being ordered to follow the King
to Pontoise, the House passed a decree for their immediate return to
Parliament, and the Prince de Conde and the Duke de Beaufort brought them
into town with twelve hundred horse.

The Court in the meantime passed decrees of Council, annulling those of
the Parliament and the transactions of the assembly at the Hotel de
Ville.

On the 20th the Parliament declared by a decree that, the King being
prisoner to Cardinal Mazarin, the Duc d'Orleans should be desired to take
upon him the office of Lieutenant-General of his Majesty, and the Prince
to take upon him the command of the army as long as Mazarin should
continue in the kingdom, and that a copy of the said decree should be
sent to all the Parliaments of the kingdom, who should be desired to
publish the like; but not one complied, except that of Bordeaux. Nor was
the Duke better obeyed by the several governors of the provinces, for but
one vouchsafed him an answer when he acquainted them with his new
dignity, the Court having put them in mind of their duty by an order of
Council, published to annul that of the Parliament for establishing the
said lieutenancy; and in Paris itself the Duke's authority was despised,
for two wretches having been condemned for setting fire to the Hotel de
Ville, the citizens who were ordered to take charge of the execution
refused to obey.