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Duchesses de Chevreuse
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE
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MARIE DE ROHAN, DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

(From a picture painted in Lorraine in 1627, and now in the Versailles Musersn)
4 LIFE OF INTRIGUE AND ADVENTURE
IN THE DAYS OF LOUIS XIII

BY

LOUIS BATIFFOL

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
DODD MEAD & COMPANY
EY
4443.
»>s—

A.354188

Printed in England

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INTRODUCTION

It may appear a somewhat bold undertaking, after the
publication of Victor Cousin’s highly valued work (Mme.
de Chevreuse, 1862), to write a life of the Duchesse de
Chevreuse. But I have ventured to treat the subject afresh,
because it has appeared to me that Victor Cousin was
unacquainted with a number of documents which throw a
new light on the life-story of Cardinal Richelieu’s famous
opponent; that he did not, perhaps, extract all the advan-
tage he might have gained from the texts published in the
Appendix to his work—texts of which, in some cases, fuller
and more extensive copies exist than those of which he
has made use; and finally, because, swayed by scruples far
removed from those which affect the rights of the historical
critic, he thought himself bound to soften down certain of
his heroine’s regrettable characteristics, and thus render
his portrait of her more flattering.

TI have taken all these documents in hand again, I have
sought out fresh ones, I have made a closer analysis of the
feelings of Mme. de Chevreuse. And I believe that I have
thus been able to produce a more life-like impression of
one of the most representative figures in the aristocracy of
the seventeenth century. If the theory that one of the chief
elements of history is to be found in the action of indi-
viduals—either in solitary instances, and thus ruled by
the variations of each person’s unstable temperament, or
grouped into crowds, and then swayed by the contradictory
tides of the collective phenomena produced by ‘mental
contagion ”—be a true one, such a psychological study as
that I offer here embodies a more exact contribution to the

v
CHAP,

Il

II

IV

vi

VII

Vl

1X

CONTENTS .

MARIE DE ROHAN: DUCHESSE DE LUYNES
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

BUCKINGHAM

THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

THE EXILE IN LORRAINE: THE PASSION OF
CHATEAUNEUF

THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

IN ENGLAND: MADAME DE CHEVREUSE AND
RICHELIEU

THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII: THE RETURN OF
MADAME DE CHEVREUSE

AMIDST THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE
RETIREMENT AND DEATH

INDEX

PAGE

28

54
86

118

156

193

224
262
393
337
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

To face page
MARIE DE ROHAN, THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE
(From a picture painted in Lorraine in 1627, and now in the
Versailles Museum) er
Frontispiece
ANNE OF AUSTRIA 18
(From a picture by Rubens in the Louvre Museum)
THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM 60
(From a picture by Rubens in the Pitti Palace, Florence)
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE 108
(From a painting in the possession of the Duc de Vendéme, ana
now at Belmont Castle)
THE CHATEAU DE COUZIERES, NEAR MONTBAZON IN
TOURAINE 156
THE COURT OF CHARLES I OF ENGLAND AT GREEN-
WICH 196
(From a picture attributed to Janssen in the Royal Collection at
Buckingham Palace)
THE DUC DE CHEVREUSE 218

(From a contemporary painting in the Museum at Blois)

THE CHATEAU DE DAMPIERRE AT THE BEGINNING
OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 304
(From an engraving by d’ Androuet du Cercean)

xi
CHAPTER I

MARIE DE ROHAN: DUCHESSE DE LUYNES

The Duc de Montbazon—Marie de Rohan Montbazon: her childhood,
her character—Her marriage to the Duc de Luynes—Anne of
Austria—Influence of the Duchess on the Queen—Madame de
Luynes disturbs the peace of Louis XIII—Her disgrace—1600-22.

Towarps the middle of the nineteenth century there still
stood in the city of Paris, at the corner of the Rue de
Arbre Sec and the Rue de Béthizy, an ancient dwelling,
the elegant decorations of which, defaced though they were,
proved it to have been the home, in bygone days, of some
important family. At the end of a courtyard to which the
action of the weather had imparted a shabby and sorry-
looking air, there rose a brick-built facade, with stone chain-
courses, crowned by a sharply pointed roof; the windows
(those on the ground floor were grated) were flanked, on the
upper floors, by pilasters adorned with Ionic capitals. The
house dated from the Renaissance period. The property,
in the sixteenth century, of Antoine du Bourg, Chancellor
of France, and let, at a later date, to Admiral de Coligny,
who was murdered within its walls on St. Bartholomew’s
Day, August 24, 1572; it was purchased, in 1617, by a
prominent nobleman, Hercule de Rohan, Duc de Mont-
bazon, Peer of France and Grand Veneur to His Majesty.
Sauval tells us that M. de Montbazon had the whole edifice
repaired and redecorated, that he caused the words “ Hotel
de Montbazon ” to be set over the door in letters of gold;
that within its walls he displayed an excessive luxury. The
somewhat moderate proportions of the building, as it
B
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

appeared before its final demolition in 1853, render any —
explanation of so sumptuous a manner of life somewhat .
difficult. In the days of Louis XIV the house was no more
than a tavern; previously to that period it had known some
palmy days. ,

This Duc de Montbazon was a great personage, indeed.
Born of a family whose records—so one of his forefathers
asserts, in a memorandum drawn up in the days of Henri
11]—covered. twelve centuries, which was descended from
the earliest kings of Brittany, was allied with “the greatest
monarchs in Europe, and all the greatest princes of
Christendom,” was connected with the royal family, and
had succeeded, for over a thousand years, in transmitting
“the rank and honour of its original stock and author”
by direct male descent, M. de Montbazon, with his
great stature, his imposing air, his broad and energetic
countenance, was a worthy representative of his race.
The third son of Louis de Rohan, Prince de Guéméné,
he had become duke on the death of an elder brother,
in whose favour King Henri III had erected the estate
of Montbazon into a duchy, and had at the same time
married that dead brother’s young fiancée, Madeleine de
Lenoncourt.

His contemporaries all agree in asserting his intelligence ©
to have been exceedingly moderate. Especially did they
consider him brutal in his habits. Bautru, who wrote a
biting libel on him, crammed with stinging taunts, and
entitled Ozonandre or the Coarse Fellow, a Satire, turned
him into utter ridicule, never vouchsafing him any name
save ‘Prince of Louts,” or “Prince of Béthizy ’—an allu-
sion to his house in the street of that name. To complete
the picture, M. de Montbazon, like most great gentlemen
of that epoch, had the morals of a horse-trooper. At a
later date he was to be accused, when Governor of Paris,
of going forth in full dress, and attended by mounted
guards, to “plunge into debauchery.” During his visits.

2
MARIE DE ROHAN

to Montbazon, his castle on the banks of the Indre, some
three leagues from Tours, or his still more frequent stays
at the charming Chateau of Couziéres, close by—a resid-
ence of which he was particularly fond—he indulged a
passion for a certain courtesan of Tours, named Louise
Roger, which supplied the whole province with entertain-
ment. As a just retribution, his wife, so we are told, was
constantly unfaithful to him.

The important position to which he rose is explained
by the fact that to his name, his title, and his brilliant
family descent, he added a perfect fidelity to his King, at a
period when fidelity was a virtue rare indeed. He had
followed the fortunes of Henry of Navarre. Henri IV,
when seated on the throne, kept his kindly feeling for him.
There was a story current in the family that when the
Dauphin, afterwards to become Louis XIII, was born,
Montbazon was in the Queen’s apartments at Fontaine-
bleau. The King, issuing from the chamber in which
Marie de Médicis lay, to present the newly born Prince to
his assembled courtiers, caught sight of Montbazon, and
laid the infant in his arms, with the words, ‘‘Here’s a
heavy burden! It needs a Hercules to carry it!” M. de
Montbazon was with the King when Ravaillac murdered
him, in 1610. He continued in the service of Marie de
Médicis, and defended her in the civil wars which ensued.
He was employed on confidential missions, and zealously
performed his duties.

As a reward, honours were showered upon him. He
was made the King’s Lieutenant in Normandy and his
Governor in Picardy; in the year 1619 he was appointed
Governor of Paris and the Ile de France, and ‘Grand
Veneur” of France shortly afterwards; he was one of the
foremost noblemen about the Court.

He married twice. By his first wife, who had been
betrothed to his brother, and who died in 1602, after four
years of wedded life, at the age of nineteen, he had two

3
ne

THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

children. Twenty-six years later, when he was sixty, he
married again. His second wife was “a beauteous damsel,”
so Souvigny tells us, of eighteen, Marie d’Auverjour de
Bretagne, daughter of Charles, Comte de Vertus, whom
he carried off from the convent in which the young lady
had proposed to take her vows; a magnificent creature, tall
and full bosomed, with a white skin and black hair, a nose
a trifle thick and lips a little thin, of imposing. presence
and passionate temperament: the famous Madame de
Montbazon of Anne of Austria’s Regency.

The elder of the two children by the first marriage was
a boy, Louis VII de Rohan, Prince de Guéméné; the
younger was a girl, and this girl was Marie-Aimée de
Rohan, destined, by her first marriage, to become Duchesse
de Luynes, and by her second, Duchesse de Chevreuse.
Marie-Aimée de Rohan was born in December, 1600, two
years after her brother, who came into the world on August
5, 1598. She was given the name borne, in Henri II’s
time, by a great aunt, Marie de Rohan-Guéméné, the
friend of the Constable de Montmorency. She could not
remember her mother, who died when she was only two
years old. Her childhood was a neglected one. The
education she received was not of a nature to inspire any
predisposition to a virtuous life.

If it be true that Madeleine de Lenoncourt had been
unfaithful to her husband before she had reached the age
of twenty, she thus gave proof of a temperament which
in her daughter’s case was sufficiently strongly developed.
The father was not in a position to counteract so regret-
table a tendency by any opposite qualities of his own, and
Marie de Rohan, thus affected by a double dose of
hereditary inclination, showed symptoms, at an early age,
of a fascinating gift of coquetry, and an alarming lightness
of behaviour. Brought up in the house of a parent who
certainly never thought of giving her good advice, even
when he was not actually setting her a bad example, left

4
MARIE DE ROHAN

to the care of governesses who possessed no authority
over her, she had nobody about her to correct any of the
dubious tendencies of her nature. Between Couziéres,
whither she often went, and Paris, which was her real
home, she led a life that was little short of being quite
independent, a life of pleasure, caprice, and liberty of
every kind.

As a comrade she had her brother. In later years they
were to go to law; as children the understanding between
them was excellent. Short of stature, ugly, with the small
grimacing face of a shortsighted creature trying to see
things clearly, short irregular features, and twisted at that,
Guéméné was far from attractive-looking : somebody de-
clared he looked like a professional “tooth-drawer.” But
he was exceedingly witty. Everything he said was
amusing. Marie de Rohan, who loved to laugh and scoff,
got on well with a brother so perfectly suited to her taste :
they were never apart. Tallemant des Réaux tells us that
people were ‘astonished that the son and daughter of
M. de Montbazon should have so much wit!”

Thus Marie de Rohan grew up, a spoilt child, in an
atmosphere of careless gaiety. Such things as principles
and prejudices she hardly possessed. Yet she was the
true daughter of her century. She was fully conscious of
the position occupied by her family, and that to which her
father had attained; she knew what was her own due, and
was never to forget who she was. But considerations of
honour were never to stand in her way. Her religious
sentiments, we shall see, were those suitable to a woman of
her rank, and they were sincere; but religion was not
destined to restrain her actions, any more than honour.

In early girlhood she revealed her possession of the
charms which were to have such enduring power. She
was pretty, full of refinement and distinction. Her small
face, the purest oval, possessed the delicate and aristocratic
features peculiar to an ancient and court-bred race. The

5
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

tempting scarlet lips of her well-modelled mouth offer us
some explanation of the passionate adorations she inspired.
The wide-open and sensitive nostrils betrayed their owner’s
inheritance of the maternal temperament. Beneath a
smooth forehead and widely opened golden eyelashes, the
eyes, above all, drew others to them—eyes that had a
certain reserve in them, a mysterious power of penetration,
too, youthful, full of life, haunting and spiritual, at once
scornful and captivating. Her hair was fair and silky,
her figure slight, supple, not over tall, but well propor-
tioned: altogether a very graceful, refined, and feminine
being.

Wherever she went Marie de Rohan stirred innumerable
hearts to love. Old and young, noblemen, bourgeois,
peasants, every man who approached her fell under the
charm. She wrote of herself, ‘I believe I am fated to be
the object of the madness of unreasonable men!” It was
as though she sent forth some heady perfume that had
the gift of disturbing even the staidest heart. For a
moment it even overcame Louis XIII and Richelieu. A
wondrous power of fascination! Few women of the seven-
teenth century have wielded so far-reaching and decisive an
influence over their contemporaries !

She was quite aware she possessed it, and made no
attempt to lessen its power. We shall see her give
herself up to her love affairs with a sort of amused and
careless indifference. The fact is that she was exceedingly
good-natured. And she delighted, besides, in loving and
in being loved. It mattered little to her whether the object
of her passion were always the same or not: as long
as he was in possession, she was faithful to her chosen one.
“Tt was not difficult,” said one who knew her well, “to
impose any particular lover upon her, but once she had
accepted him, she loved him solely and faithfully. She
once acknowledged to Mme. de Rhodes and to myself
that by some caprice of fortune, as she thought it to be,

6
MARIE DE ROHAN

she had never loved the person best whom she had es-
teemed the most, except, she added, in the case of her poor
Buckingham. In spite of a devotion to her passion,
which may be called eternal, though its object was occa-
sionally changed, a whim here and there would turn her
thoughts aside. But back she always came, and that with
a transport which made her slip appear delightful.”

And then Marie de Rohan delighted in fun. Wherever
she went she left behind her the fascinating memory of a
joyous being. Her cheerfulness vanquished the dreariness
of the most gloomy surroundings. “She makes our Court
so merry,” writes Lord Montague from London, in 1638,
to the Commandeur de Souvré, ‘“‘that you will find it no
less pleasing than that of Turin.” Her lively conversation,
full of quick repartee, proved an activity of mind
which was often remarked by Richelieu, whom she
drove to despair. Petted wheresoever she chose to go—
at Court, to begin with, in the earlier days, before Riche-
lieu’s time, at all events; then in Lorraine, where she was
treated like a queen; and in London, above all, where the
royal family, Charles I and his Queen Henrietta-Maria,
could not bear her out of their sight, and where all the
English lords vied with one another in offering her proofs
of their admiration, Marie de Rohan was everybody’s
delight. One understands how Fontenay-Mareuil came to
write of her, ‘Nothing was really impossible to a woman
of her beauty and her wit.”

Was her judgment sound? The numerous letters she
has left us, scrawled in an untidy and crabbed hand,
do not cast much light on the point. They show us a
nature that must have been sincere, self-contained, reserved,
somewhat precise and cold, as a rule, in business matters;
and never very warm-hearted. Mme. de Chevreuse wrote
a “Discourse on Love,” which still lies in the manuscript;
its text, which is brief enough, is no more than a vague
commentary on Montaigne: we learn nothing from it.

7
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Our best means of knowing her is to follow her in her
intrigues.

“An active and restless mind,” says Monglat; “more
clearly convicted of factiousness than any lady in the
kingdom,” declares Retz, Mme. de Chevreuse made
intrigue the favourite occupation of her whole life. No
other person has excelled her in the art of inventing com-
plications, spreading them abroad, tangling them together,
and rendering them so formidable as to end, thanks to
her external relations and the personal charm she exercised
over sovereigns and statesmen, in creating those political
dangers which cost the Cardinal de Richelieu many an
anxious thought. The author of a Mazarinade, which
appeared in the year 1652, “La Vérité pronongant ses
Oracles,” gives us the following outline of the activities
of Mme. de Chevreuse: ‘Everybody knows she has
given the first impulse to many great movements, and has
been the moving intelligence of several great designs;
the unhappy thing is that not one that is good has been
ascribed to her. She is said to be exceedingly busy, but
she never sets anything on a sure foundation; she is said
to be very clever at tangling the skein of an intrigue, but
she never can unrayel any. She is said to be very clever
at finding her way out of a labyrinth, but never does it
without first of all getting herself into another. She: is
said to be a thorough marplot, and that says everything !”
The conclusion the writer draws is that Mme. de Chev-
reuse was a person of incautious and meddling disposition,
and this estimate is fairly justified by facts.

But the author is mistaken on one point—when he
ascribes the activity of Mme. de Chevreuse to a regard for
her personal interest. St. Simon, too, has said: “Intrigue,
obedient to the star of the House of Rohan, served this
family’s interests.” Mme. de Chevreuse was not an inter-
ested person. Mme. de Motteville, who saw a great deal
of her, thought her rather absent-minded than otherwise,

8
MARIE DE ROHAN

full of fancies, and ruled by passion rather than by
reason. Marie de Rohan was neither selfish nor ambitious.
She intrigued her whole life long, but it was to amuse
herself, and serve the cause of those she loved. ‘I have
heard her say herself,’ continues Mme. de Motteville,
“that no ambition had ever touched her heart, and that
she had followed her own pleasure—that is to say, that
she had interested herself in worldly affairs solely out of
consideration for the persons who had been dear to her.”
Retz went still further, saying: “If the Duchesse de
Chevreuse had been born into the world in a century when
there had been no affairs of state, it would never have
entered her head that such things existed.” It may well
be that in other and calmer times Mme. de Chevreuse
might have spent her energies on peaceful and beneficent
undertakings. But living as she did at a period when her
social position and her relations with royalty enabled her
to exercise a certain political influence, and being by her
nature “fond of gallantry, lively, bold and enterprising,”
she was in a position, as La Rochefoucauld tells us, “to
use all her charms in the endeavour to ensure the success
of her plans”: she did attempt it. Unfortunately she
harmed all the causes and all the persons she tried to
serve. “There was no peace in France,” writes Mazarin,
“until she had left it.’ The continuous effort such an
existence presupposes makes its insignificant results
appear small indeed in proportion.

She had hardly reached her seventeenth year when her
father, who was anxious to get her off his hands, cast about
for a husband for her. A lucky chance was to bring her a
marriage at once brilliant, wealthy, and unexpected.

It was just at this moment—in 1617—that Louis XIII,
having put an end to his mother’s Regency by the execu-
tion of Concini, had taken the reins of government into his
own hands. His favourite, at that moment, was Honoré
d’Albert, shortly to become Duc de Luynes. M. de

9
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Luynes was a young gentleman of modest extraction, from
the Comtat Venaissin, who had reached his thirty-ninth
year, and owed his somewhat sudden rise in life to the
lively attachment with which he had inspired Louis XIII.
The King had showered honours upon him. He had
carried his affection to the length of desiring to make a
marriage between him and his own natural sister, Mlle. de
Vendéme. But the lady had refused, not considering
M. de Luynes a suitor worthy of her: she had set her
mind on marrying the Duc du Maine. Luynes, timid by
nature, alarmed by her resistance, and fearing he might
draw on himself the enmity of the Vendéme family and
of the Duc du Maine, conceived the idea of getting out of
his delicate position by marrying somebody else as soon
as he could manage it. And then it was that he cast his
eyes on Marie de Rohan. She was a most attractive
creature. Her family, said to be very rich, was one of the
greatest in the kingdom. Louis XIII gave his consent.
The Comte de Montguyon was despatched to ask for the
young lady’s hand. M. de Montbazon had not a moment’s
hesitation. His private affairs had fallen into confusion.
The objection that M. de Luynes came of a family far less
illustrious than his own was largely counterbalanced by
the prospect of the numberless advantages that should
accrue to Marie de Rohan and her kinsfolk from the
honour of being allied to the King’s favourite. Day by
day, the young wife’s position would rise higher, as M. de
Luynes’ favour with the King waxed greater. The father
agreed, the daughter made no objection. In those days,
and in such great families as those of which I write,
difference of age was held to be of no importance.

The marriage contract was discussed. M. de Mont-
bazon promised everything he was asked: a dowry of
200,000 livres—the lawyers agreed that he should pay
50,000 livres down the night before the wedding, 100,000
more a year later, and the rest in another two years, with

10
MARIE DE ROHAN

interest on all unpaid sums, and a yearly income of 10,000
livres, as well, to be taken out of the fortune of the bride’s
mother and grandmother. From the reports of a lawsuit
brought by Mme. de Chevreuse against her father, some
thirty years later, we learn that M. de Montbazon never
paid either the 200,000 livres or the promised interest, and
that Marie’s share of her mother’s and grandmother’s
fortune did not reach the sum of 10,000 livres a year. But
M. de Luynes was not very particular. And besides, com-
plications of this sort were common enough in great
families, in those days. The arrangements for the
ceremony were made.

Before it was celebrated, M. de Luynes bestowed a first
proof of his own favour on Marie. He himself was not
to become a duke and peer till 1619. According to the
custom of the Court of France, Mme. de Luynes, being
married to a man of no more than gentle birth, had
no right to a seat in the Queen’s presence, whereas
duchesses, and even the daughters of the other branches
of the House of Rohan, could claim a tabouret. Luynes
induced the King to decide that his bride should enjoy the
same privilege as that possessed by the other ladies of the
Rohan family—that of the tabouret, in fact—and that she
should preserve it after she became his wife. No protest
was raised, and M. de Montbazon was delighted.

There was no grand wedding. On Monday, September
11, in the Queen’s apartment in the Louvre, and in the
presence of the King and a few of the gentlemen about
the Court, the betrothal ceremony was performed and the
blessing pronounced, by the Archbishop of Tours, Bertrand
d’Eschaux. Two days later, on Wednesday the 13th, the
marriage properly so called was celebrated at five o’clock
in the morning, in the presence of a small company of
witnesses, in the Queen’s Chapel at the corner of the old
Louvre, on the side looking towards the Pont Neuf. Louis
XIII, who had risen at half-past three o’clock in the

II
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

morning, went to Luynes’ chamber to fetch him, and con-
ducted him to the chapel, where the couple were united by
that same Archbishop of Tours. In the evening the bride-
groom gave a great supper, and then departed with his
young wife to the chateau of Lésigny-en-Brie.

Lésigny-en-Brie, an ancient turreted dwelling, formed
part of the spoils snatched from Eleonora Galigai, the
wife of Concini, and Luynes had succeeded in obtaining
possession of it only a few weeks previously. He was
very much pleased with the property, he was to make great
improvements in it, and spend so much money upon it
that public opinion was to accuse him of having wasted
the treasure of the State in the process. He little dreamt,
when he took the new Mme. de Luynes there, that within
thirty years, and in the course of civil wars which she
would have partly stirred, his house was to be burnt down,
with all the papers and correspondence that would have
been so precious to the historian !

In Paris M. de Luynes bought his wife the Hotel de la
Vieuville, built by the architect Clément Métézeau in the
Street of St. Thomas du Louvre, on the site of the present
Place du Carrousel. He paid 175,000 livres for it, enlarged
and beautified it; in later days it was to become the Hétel
de Chevreuse.

As the wife of M. de Luynes, Marie de Rohan might
aspire to an exceptional position at Court. She was
appointed Superintendent of the Queen’s Household.
Thus did Anne of Austria and the future Mme. de Chev-
reuse—whose lives were to be so closely mingled for well-
nigh half a century—first meet, and meet for their own
misfortune.

Their age was the same—both were seventeen. Slight,
of middle height, with beautiful, rather short-sighted eyes,
quantities of fair hair that waved and curled, a fair white
skin, a small and “ruddy” mouth, Anne of Austria, so
it was said, was “one of the most beautiful women of her

12
MARIE DE ROHAN

century.” This, no doubt, was an exaggeration, for her
nose was thick, her eyes were a little too big, and her
complexion was not satisfactory. But the shape of her
face waS exquisite, her brow well modelled, her figure
charming. In the matter of intelligence she was less well
provided; though she was not a fool, her mind lacked
flexibility ; she said little, and her ideas were few and far
between. Indolent and lazy like the Spaniard she was,
with enough love of admiration to make her play with
fire, if not to expose her to the risk of letting it burn her,
she was a child, full of easy and passive carelessness,
always ready to laugh, rather superficial, and anything but
decided in character. Marie de Rohan, “pretty, roguish,
and lively,” as Tallemant des Réaux tells us, possessed
every quality best calculated to exercise the most detestable
influence on the young Queen, whom her impetuous gaiety
and passionate eagerness completely led astray.

The first meeting was chilly. Anne of Austria disliked
M. de Luynes. She had, so she told the English Ambas-
sador, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, “every possible reason
for hating him.” She endured the presence of the
favourite’s wife against her own will, and solely because
the King insisted upon it. Similarity of age and senti-
ment was to bring about an understanding, the under-
standing was to end in liking, and that was to grow into
friendship. Marie de Rohan spent all the resources of her
fertile mind on the,work of attracting the regard of the
princess in whose service she was destined to live. She
offered her endless proofs of attention to her wishes, gave
suppers for her, took an active part in the ballets in which
the sovereign danced; above all, she kept her amused with
her merry and frivolous talk. We have some knowledge’
of the nature of this talk. It was improper beyond all
bounds. Mme. de Luynes’ education, combined with her
own natural predisposition, had given the young wife a
strong taste for coarse conversation and coarse stories. At

13
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

a later period, when Chalais was under trial and cross-
examination, he asserted, with some severity, it may be,
that ‘All the said lady’s conversation turned on licentious
acts, giggling tales, gallantries, and taking God’s Name in
vain.” At the very best, Mme. de Luynes was caught
giving the Queen immoral books to read. All these pranks
amused Anne of Austria. She was sorry for it afterwards.
She told Mme. de Motteville that she “did not then know
the danger of living in the society of persons filled with
passion and vanity.” But by degrees an intimacy sprang
up between the Queen and her Superintendent, which was
all the closer because Anne of Austria—and she was much
blamed for it—somewhat distant and haughty in her treat-
ment of the ruck of her courtiers, admitted those who
formed her more immediate circle to a familiarity which
was considered excessive.

Favours, grants, dignities, all these things soon proved
the Queen’s affection for her Superintendent. It was in
December, 1618, that Mme. de Luynes had been appointed
“Superintendent of the Queen’s Household and Purse,
and Head of her Council,’—she was just eighteen. Her
office carried great prerogatives with it: she gave all the
orders within the Queen’s apartments, all the officers of
the Household made their oaths of fealty to her, she
handed the sovereign her napkin at dinner, “held her pin-
cushion, handed her shift, waited on the Queen at table, in
her coach, within her lodging,”’—all the privileges, in fact,
known as “the honours.” The Lady of Honour—next in
rank to the Superintendent, and who in this case was no
other than the Duchesse de Montmorency, widow of the
Constable, a respectable lady of fifty—objected to having
a child who was not even a Duchess put over her head,
made a protest, and retired from Court: she was allowed
to go. The Queen was to bestow many another public
mark of her affection on Mme. de Luynes.

Sixteen months after her marriage, Marie de Rohan

14
MARIE DE ROHAN

brought a daughter into the world. Her wish was to
betroth her at once to some great personage. Anne of
Austria helped her, and together they cast their choice on
a Prince of the House of Lorraine, M. de Joyeuse, son of
the Duc de Guise. According to the contract, M. de
Luynes was to give his daughter 600,000 livres, and the
Duc de Guise was to endow his son with the property
called Joyeuse, and a yearly income of 25,000 livres. The
King and Queen bestowed a gift of 100,000 livres upon the
baby betrothed. The child was too young, and the future
too uncertain: the marriage was never to become a reality.
On December 25, 1620, Mme. de Luynes bore a son.
Anne of Austria watched over her friend the whole night.
In the morning all the bells began to ring. Louis XIII,
who was at Calais with M. de Luynes, conveyed the fact
of his good fortune to the happy father by means of salvos
of cannon, fired from the castle of the town. He presented
8000 crowns to the man who brought the news. He gave
orders that the christening ceremony should be of the
most splendid kind, and granted a sum of 80,000 francs
for the purpose. The church in which the rite was per-
formed, and the Hétel de Luynes, where the subsequent
festivities were held, were profusely adorned. There were
banquets and comedies and ballets; princes, princesses,
courtiers and great lords, came in their crowds. The King
stood godfather to the child, Marie de Médicis was his
godmother, and the ceremonial was that used for a
Dauphin of France. Seldom, indeed, had any married
couple been so eminently and publicly favoured—the
husband by the King, his partner by the Queen.
Cardinal de Richelieu accuses Mme. de Luynes, in his
Memoirs, of having abused this favour by her exercise of
a lamentable influence over the Queen’s mind. ‘She was
the ruin of the Queen,” he says, ‘“‘whose natural good sense
was led astray by her bad example,” she took possession
of the sovereign’s mind, corrupted it, turned the princess

15
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

away from the King and her duty to him, and sowed
dissension between the royal pair!

Under a less severe form, Mme. de Motteville formulates
the same accusation. “The Queen’s misfortune,” she
writes, ““was that the King did not love her enough, and
so she was driven to fill her heart by giving it to ladies
who made a bad use of her affection, and who, in her
earlier years, instead of encouraging her to seek oppor-
tunities of pleasing him, and trying to gain his esteem,
separated her from him as much as they could, so as to
have her more completely under their own influence.”
Mme. de Motteville seems to lessen Mme. de Luynes’
responsibility by representing it as shared by other mem-
bers of the Queen’s circle. But Richelieu’s reproach still
holds good, for Mme. de Luynes really was the centre and
soul of the whole group.

The group in question was thus composed: Antoinette
de Luynes, the Duke’s sister, married to a certain Barthé-
lemy du Vernet, and who had been appointed “dame
d’atour” to Anne of Austria, a young lady of inconsistent
and superficial character; Mlle. de Verneuil, the natural
daughter of Henri IV, “as scatter-brained a creature as
any about the Court,” according to Tallemant des Réaux;
and above all, the Princesse de Conti, Louise Marguerite
de Lorraine, daughter of that Henri Duc de Guise who
had been murdered at Blois, and widow of the Prince de
Conti, an extraordinary creature—she had reached the age
of forty-four—the looseness of whose conversation and
conduct was notorious, who had done much to lead Mme.
de Luynes into adventures of a sentimental kind, and had
destroyed any remnant of scrupulous feeling she might
have preserved. “The Princesse de Conti,” wrote Louis
de Marcillac to Richelieu, with a pen that was far from
merciful (April 29, 1622), “has acted as the go-between in
Mme. de Luynes’ passing love affairs, which were going
on during the Constable’s lifetime.”

16
MARIE DE ROHAN

The Court soon found out that thanks to Mme. de
Luynes, Anhe of Austria’s intimate circle was an extremely
merry gathering, in which the liveliest kind of remarks
were in vogue. Some of these were whispered, with a
smile, from ear to ear. The thing grew into a scandal.
Well-intentioned persons took fright. Corsini, the Nuncio,
relates in one of his letters that he has been approached
with a request that he would use his influence with Anne of
Austria’s confessor, to put a stop to the cause of these
reports. “Many of these ladies, and the chief among
them,” he writes, “live licentiously in the Queen’s own
presence, and, not imposing any restraint on their tongues
nor their conversations, do not restrict their aspirations
within the limits of modesty or propriety. I have been
given to understand that my office demands that I should
find some means of remedying these disadvantages, so that
no report of them may reach the King’s ears, for this
might lead him to believe the mischief greater than it
really is. I have been begged to take such action as will
show the Queen the danger to which she is exposing her-
self. And I have resolved to speak of the business to her
confessor, using, of course, the greatest caution, for I know
how warily one must touch on certain subjects.” This
intervention bore no fruit. Matters reached such a point
that M. de Montbazon himself felt it his duty to warn
Louis XIII that his daughter Mme. de Luynes had given
the Queen a book entitled Le Cabinet satyrique, ou
recueil parfait des vers piquants et gaillards de ce temps,
a volume full of poetry on dubious subjects. Such a
course of education could not fail to produce its effect in
the long run on a nature so indolent as Anne of Austria’s,
and so predisposed already to what she herself called “la
galanterie.”

“The Queen,” writes Mme. de Motteville, “made no
difficulty about telling me that in her young days she did
not understand why ‘la belle conversation ’—what is

c 17
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

known as ‘virtuous gallantry’ into which no private
attachment enters—could ever be worthy of blame, any
more than the ordinary conversation of the Spanish ladies
within the palace. In the person of the Duchesse de
Luynes she had a favourite who allowed herself to be com-
pletely absorbed by these foolish amusements. Through
the entertainments she proposed for the Queen’s amuse-
ment, Mme. de Luynes imbued her, as much as she pos-
sibly could, with her own. propensities to gallantry and
merriment, and made the most grave and important matters
serve as food for gaiety and jests.” One subject of these
jests was love. The gay coterie found amusement in other
people’s intrigues, and then, by degrees, arrived at the
point of finding adorers for Anne of Austria herself.
Young and pretty as she was, the Queen was more than
likely to stir passionate attachments. These were pro-
voked, and encouraged, for the sake of the amusement they
provided. One of the first was that of the old Duc de
Bellegarde, Grand Ecuyer to the King, a former comrade
of Henri IV, a very courteous gentleman, full of old-
fashioned gallantry. Mme. de Luynes and the Princesse
de Conti filled him with high hopes, and everybody
laughed, Louis XIII leading the way. Malherbe has left
us two songs about this love.affair: M. de Bellegarde
was made to look ridiculous. Another passion might have
had more dangerous consequences—that of the Duc de
Montmorency, the brilliant and attractive nobleman who
was to die on the scaffold at Toulouse, at the age of thirty-
seven. He was a fine figure, though he did squint,
—both elegant and magnificent. And he fell in love
with the Queen. Luckily for that Princess, his heart was
also occupied by the fair Marquise de Sablé. Anne of
Austria, aware of this fact, made as though she were not
conscious of the Duke’s attentions to herself. “The
Queen,” writes Mme. de Motteville again, “did me the
honour of telling me she had never seriously considered
18
 

 

 

ANNE OF AUSTRIA

(Fron a picture by Rubens in the Louvre Museunz)
MARIE DE ROHAN

the feeling the Duc de Montmorency may have entertained
for her, and she only remarked and accepted what the
public voice had reported concerning him as a tribute to
her own beauty, being persuaded that his passion for her-
self had really been very moderate.” In reality it did
produce some effect upon Anne. Mme. de Luynes and
the other persons about the Queen soon proceeded to a far
more dangerous experiment, that on the Duke of Bucking-
ham. But, meanwhile, whether with her own will or
against it, Mme. de Luynes was to threaten the peace of
the royal couple after a very different fashion.

Cold though he was by temperament, and virtuous by
principle, Louis XIII was far from being devoid of passion.
As early as in the month of June, 1617, his courtiers had
observed that the beauty of one of the Queen’s maids-of-
honour, Mlle. de Maugiron, had not failed to attract his
attention. The King was fond of talking to the damsel,
and liked to look at her. Anne of Austria took alarm,
lost no time about finding a husband for her maid of
honour, and married her as far away as possible, in
Dauphiné, with a dowry of 10,000 crowns. Louis XIII
said nothing at all. In December, 1618, it became evident,
to the general surprise, that the King was taking a certain
interest in Mme. de Luynes. Was he attracted by the
intoxicating spell the young Duchess cast about her? Or
was it out of regard for M. de Luynes that he paid so
much attention to Marie de Rohan? The Nuncio Benti-
voglio asks himself this question in one of his letters, and
comes to the conclusion that the matter is in no wise
serious or alarming. But the Queen seemed to be aware
of the monarch’s feelings: they distressed her. In the
following year, 1619, the Spanish Ambassador, Giron,
noted that Mme. de Luynes appeared to cause some emotion
in the King’s breast. Louis XIII paid frequent visits to
his favourite’s wife, held lengthy converse with her,
allowed his eyes to dwell upon her for long moments.

19
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Anne of Austria, who had noted it too, still held her peace.
Was her Superintendent playing some coquettish game?
Had she perceived, provoked, the King’s emotion? Did
she encourage it? The Queen did not believe it. But
little by little the monarch’s attentions to Mme. de Luynes
became more evident. Deeply hurt, Anne of Austria
ended by opening her heart to the Spanish Ambassador.
The Ambassador communicated the facts confided to him
to the Court of Madrid. The Queen, he said, was deeply
affected, and avowed herself ‘the most unhappy woman
in the kingdom, the most forsaken and wretched of them
all.”

The Ambassador tried to calm her fears, assured her
she exaggerated the state of things, gave her counsels of
prudence. And yet, not over sure himself, he wrote that
his suspicions seemed likely to be confirmed. The Nuncio,
too, grew anxious: his opinion was that the Queen’s
sorrow had its foundation not so much in her jealousy, as
in her vexation at seeing that the King despised her own
charms. After some hesitation, he made up his mind to
speak to the King’s confessor, Father Arnoux; but the
confessor replied that he could answer for the purity of
the King’s intentions. And yet everybody’s testimony
agreed. The Venetian Envoy, Contarini, relates that in
January, 1621, when the King came back from Calais,
after the birth of the Duc de Luynes’ son, and arrived at
the Louvre, he paid a most hurried visit to his Queen, and
then proceeded at once to see the Duchesse de Luynes in
her apartment, found her in her bed, and kissed the new-
born baby with a ‘very tender affection.” Constantly,
after that, Louis XIII was supping with Mme. de Luynes.
His courtiers related, as a joke, how, during the siege of
Montauban in 1621, the King lived with Luynes in the
somewhat small and inconvenient Chateau of Piquecos,,
and sent the Queen and her suite to Moissac, from which
place she occasionally came to see him, arriving in the

20
MARIE DE ROHAN

morning and departing again at night. One day, it would
seem, the Duchesse, who was in attendance on the Queen,
expressed a wish to remain at Piquecos. “But there is
no bed!” objected the Queen. “Oh,” replied Mme. de
Luynes, heedlessly, we are told, “hasn’t the King a bed?”
Everybody began to talk! Bassompierre tells us in his
Journal that the King “had an extreme passion for Mme.
la Connétable.” In reality the story was to come to a
sudden end. Tallemant des Réaux, who had no friendly
feeling for Louis XIII, declares the King “never had wit
enough” to supplant the Duc de Luynes in his wife’s
affections. “Yet,” he affirms, ‘everybody would have been
delighted if he had done it, and she certainly was worth
the trouble it would have given him.” But the King,
virtuous, timid, and anything but enterprising, would never
have dared to try. To state the case more precisely, his
feeling for the Luynes, husband and wife, had undergone
a change.

In spite of the commonplace letters of condolence indited
by Louis XIII on the occasion of the Duke’s sudden death,
in December, 1621, there can be no doubt that the
favourite’s demise preceded a fall which all contemporary
witnesses coincide in describing as inevitable. Intoxicated
by the honours the King had consented to shower upon
him, Luynes, now a Duke and Constable of France, had
taken on airs of authority which had ended by wearing
out his master’s patience. The sentiment of affection,
more physical than anything else, which the King had
felt for his friend, was destined to die out when Luynes
himself disappeared from his sight. Once he was dead,
Louis XIII felt a sort of spite and bitterness against his
former favourite’s memory, which had their root partly
in his displeasure and partly in his sense of humiliation.
The dead man’s family, and the Duchess more especially,
were destined to suffer from the effects of this angry
antipathy.

21
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

In the main, even if the charms of Mme. de Luynes
had, for a moment, stirred the King’s passions, he had
never felt any esteem for her. Serious-minded and
thoughtful as he was, he well knew the nature of
the influence she wielded over his Queen, and the mani-
festation of his consequent displeasure only awaited a
favourable moment. Towards the close of the Constable’s
life the relations between his wife and the Duc de
Chevreuse—Prince of Lorraine, and brother of the Prin-
cesse de Conti—had assumed a most suspicious appearance.
Louis XIII ventured, one day, in a fit of bad temper, to
tell Luynes M. de Chevreuse was in love with his
wife, and Bassompierre, to whom the King repeated his
remark, was surprised by the animosity of the tone in
which the monarch added, “I was very glad to avenge
myself on her, and cause him discomfort.” When Luynes
lay on his deathbed at Longuetille near Monheurt, on
the banks of the Garonne, he committed his wife and
children to the King’s kind care, and Louis promised he
would never forsake them. But once the Constable was
out of sight his master’s real sentiments made themselves
apparent.

When the King returned to Paris, after the campaign
in the course of which Luynes had died, he did not go to
see Mme. de Luynes. The young widow was on the
brink of her confinement; the King sent her word that
she must quit the Louvre, because it was not proper for
her to remain there in her condition,—that honour, he
declared, being reserved for princesses of the blood royal
only. Remonstrances were addressed to him, and as Mme.
de Luynes, being Superintendent of the Queen’s House-
hold, must necessarily reside in the Louvre, he consented
to countermand his order, but forced her to change her
apartment, and relegated her to a dark and distant corner
of the palace. She bore a daughter. But the King was
slow about paying her a visit. “He did not show her any

22
MARIE DE ROHAN

sign of tenderness,” writes the Venetian Ambassador. The
Constable’s sister, Mme. du Vernet, had already been
requested to leave the Louvre. ‘Louis XIII now informed
Luynes’ brothers that they must not show themselves in
future at the Council Board, and that they, too, must dis-
appear from the palace precincts: they obeyed. The
persons known as “‘the Constable’s remains,” feeling their
day was done, went their way in silence. But not so Marie
de Rohan!

Startled for a moment by her disgrace, Mme. de Luynes
soon regained her courage. One refuge she possessed
against the King’s wrath—Anne of Austria, whose Super-
intendent she still was. The young Queen, glad in her
heart to see the Constable depart, clung more than ever
to her friendship with Mme. de Luynes. She had troubles
of her own. Her mother-in-law, Marie de Médicis, who
had been reconciled to the King after his favourite’s death,
had come back, and, with her jealous, domineering, unruly
temper, was disturbing the peace of the royal couple. It
was to Mme. de Luynes that Anne poured out her sorrows.
“The Queen’s only consolation,” writes Mme. de Motte-
ville, ““was the sympathy the Duchesse de Luynes showed
her in her troubles.” But while she consoled the Queen,
she also amused her with the usual diversions of her dis-
sipated circle. There were young gentlemen connected
with these. The courtiers began to talk again about the
too great freedom of the Queen’s circle, and the far from
modest conversation that went on around her. Ministers
took alarm, and requested the Nuncio to speak to Anne of
Austria’s confessor once more. ‘They have asked me,”
writes the Nuncio, on February 23, 1622, “to convey to
the Queen Regnant that certain gentlemen of evil life hold
conversations of so licentious a kind with ladies of her
court, whose behaviour is no better than theirs, that they
exceed all the limits of decency and respect, which might

23
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

have regrettable results, by exposing the Queen to the
ill-natured tongues of persons of good birth and of her
people. The desire is that she should get rid of the
Princesse de Conti,-of Mlle. de Verneuil, of the Constable’s
widow. I shall endeavour, as dexterously as I may, to
use her confessor for this purpose.” Louis XIII knew all
about it. His anger against the Duchess grew deeper every
day. One final incident was to make the storm burst at last.

At that moment—in March, 1622—the Queen had hopes
of shortly giving a Dauphin to France. This was not the
first time: all her earlier expectations of the kind had been
disappointed, to the King’s great grief. The most extreme
precautions had been recommended to Her Majesty: she
was to avoid the smallest imprudence, to take every care
of herself. Matters were following their normal course,
and the physicians were reckoning on the longed-for
success, when the hope of the whole nation was dashed
once more, and that by the fault of Mme. de Luynes.

On Monday evening, March 14, 1622, the Princesse
de Condé held a reception after supper—‘tenir le lit”
it was called in those days—in her apartment in the
Louvre. The Queen, attended by the Superintendent and
by Mlle. de Verneuil, was present at the gathering. The
entertainment had been a brilliant one, princesses and court
ladies had been there in numbers. Quite late—it was
after midnight—Anne of Austria thought of returning to
her own apartments. She had to cross the great apartment
on the first floor of the Louvre, then used as a hall, or for
great banquets, and now known as the Salle Lacaze. At
one end of this room stood a low platform, upon which,
on days of great ceremony, the King’s throne was placed
under a dais. Mme. de Luynes was seized with the foolish
notion of making the Queen run along, with Mlle. de
Verneuil holding one of her arms and the Duchess herself
the other. When Anne came to the step of the throne, she
stumbled and fell. A sharp pain seized her, she was put

24
MARIE DE ROHAN

to bed, and two days later, on Wednesday the 16th, the
“hopes” had melted into thin air.

There was great distress at Court. Some of the Ambas-
sadors came to present their compliments of condolence.
Nothing was said to the King, who departed to Orleans
and the South on the following Sunday (Palm Sunday),
March the 2oth. The Queen’s indisposition was attributed
to some ordinary cause.

But at Orleans, on the 25th, the King had to be told.
He flew into a violent passion, caused by his disappoint-
ment as a sovereign and a father, his distress as a husband,
his annoyance as a ruler. Punishment was to follow
swiftly. One of the Gentlemen of his Bedchamber, M. de
la Folaine, was despatched to Paris, bearing three letters :
one for Mme. de Luynes, one for Mlle. de Verneuil, and
one for the Queen. To Mme. de Luynes the King wrote:
“‘“Cousin,—Having come to the conclusion that it is neces-
sary for the good of my service that the Queen’s Household
shall in future be ordered in a manner different from that
which has obtained in it hitherto, I have decided that this
cannot be better done than in the form, and by the means,
which will be notified to you by the Sieur de la Folaine,
whom I depute to express my will to you.” This will was
that Mme. de Luynes should immediately leave the Court.
Mile. de Verneuil was dismissed likewise, and made over
to the charge of the Duchesse d’Angouléme. To the
Queen, Louis wrote as follows: ‘The care which it is my
duty to take, to keep good order in your household, has led
me to decide on a change which will only bring it greater
good, as you will recognize in time. I send La Folaine
to explain my will in this matter to you, and beg you will
carry it into effect at once, and be as prompt about giving
me the satisfaction I expect it to bring me, as I believe
you ready to ensure me that I confidently expect from
you.” Not a word of affection, just a curt note.

These measures, and above all the form in which they

25
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

were couched, produced an effect which my readers will
easily imagine on the Queen and her friends. Anne of
Austria was deeply offended. “The Queen,” writes Mme.
de Motteville, “who knew herself, and felt herself blame-
less, considered she had not heen treated as she deserved.
Human pride, always too strong in the heart of the great
ones of the earth, made her a lenient judge of her own
cause, and feeling Mme. de Luynes’ disgrace to be an
outrage she herself could hardly endure, she allowed others
to perceive that she did not realize, as she ought, that to
a virtuous wife a husband’s will must be her immutable
law.” Anne of Austria sent her equerry, M. de Putange,
to Orleans with a letter for the King, expressing her deep
affliction. She had always, she protested, ordered her
household in the proper way. She implored the monarch
to tell her of what fault Mme. de Luynes had been guilty,
so that she herself might take suitable measures on her
own account, and she ended by assuring the King that
in any case she would carry out whatever commands he
laid upon her.

Louis XIII, already uneasy about his wife’s health,
grew softer. On March 27, he replied to her letter:
“J did not intend, when I ordered my sister De Ver-
neuil and the Connétable de Luynes to reside outside
the Louvre, to forbid them to enter it, nor to deprive you
of the freedom of seeing them.” But that was not to
happen often. Anne sent Putange again, and after him
M. de Bonneuil, Introducer of Ambassadors, to press her
request. Louis grew angry. Then the Queen begged
M. de Montbazon to go to the King, who by this time
had started for Blois; M. de Montbazon was received with
downright rudeness. She sent M. de Verneuil, the Duc
de Guise, the Duc de Chevreuse. The King lost his
patience. On April 15th he ordered President Jeannin to
wait on his Consort and communicate his final decision to
her. “I am writing to the Queen,” said the monarch, “to

26
MARIE DE ROHAN

tell her my will, which is that I absolutely will not allow
her to see the Connétable de Luynes, except occasionally
and rarely. To this end you will hand my letter to her,
and I beg you will give her with it your own wise and
salutary advice, so that she may conform to my desire in
every particular.” This was the final warning. Président
Jeannin, in the King’s name, gave Mme. de Luynes three
days. If she had not left the Court at their expiration she
would expose herself to the harshest treatment. There
was nothing for it but to obey. Anne of Austria bowed her
head.

So Mme. de Luynes was driven out! It was reported
that her place as Superintendent of the Queen’s Household
was to be taken from her and bestowed on Mme. de Mont-
morency. Widowed, without helper or support, since the
Queen herself could not defend her, an object of antipathy
to the King, who could not bear the sight of her, Marie
de Rohan seemed to have risen so high, thanks to her
marriage with the Constable de Luynes, only to fall to the
lowest depths, in the crash and scandal of her sudden ruin,
But she was a woman of resource. She did not mean to
capitulate, she meant to fight, and she was to find means
to hold her own against the King, and triumph over evil
fortune!

27
CHAPTER II

THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

The Guise Family—The Duc de Chevreuse—His Marriage with Mme.
de Luynes—The Duchy of Chevreuse—Dampierre—Return to Court
—M. and Mme. de Chevreuse and the King of England—The
Marriage of Charles I and Henrietta- Maria—1622-25

EVER since the time, early in the preceding century, when
a younger son of the reigning House of Lorraine (then a
German country) had settled in France, to push his fortunes
there, and, after doing signal service to Francois the First,
had been created Duc de Guise (his family name had been
Claude de Lorraine, Duc d’Aumale), the prestige and
power of the House of Guise had risen steadily higher,
from generation to generation. The eldest of Claude’s
eight sons and four daughters had been that brilliant
Duke Francois de Guise—a matchless soldier, one of the
best leaders of the sixteenth century—murdered near
Orleans, by Poltrot de Méré. His younger brothers weré
the Cardinals of Lorraine and Guise, both of them valued
counsellors of the Valois kings. Their sister, Queen
of Scotland, was the mother of Mary Stuart, married
to King Francois II of France. So, through Mary
Stuart’s marriage, this younger branch of a foreign house
became related to the royal family; the Guises of the
second generation, brothers and uncles of the Queen,
already stood higher than any of the greatest families of
France. In the third generation they only just missed —
becoming kings. It was in the memory of all men that

towards the year 1620, the son of Duke Francois, Henri de
Guise, the popular hero known as “le Balafré,’ who had

28
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

led the League formed to defend the national religion, at
that time imperilled by the weakness of the King, had
attained an authority unequalled in the kingdom, and
so vigorously maintained the struggle against the sove-
reign (who was far too much inclined to accept Henri
de Navarre, the Huguenot, as his successor), that the ques-
tion of the wisdom on the part of the States-General, of
calling him to the throne, instead of choosing a Protestant
King, had been seriously debated. Henri J, in his dread
of being dethroned, and even put to death, and his alarm
at the all-powerful position the Duke seemed likely to attain,
caused him to be murdered at Blois, in 1588.

Of the five children left by the Duc de Guise, the eldest,
Charles, was a man of very moderate worth; the second,
Louis, had taken orders, was Cardinal de Guise, and Arch-
bishop of Rheims, and considered a man of very dubious
morals. The fourth, Francois, Chevalier de Guise, was
to be celebrated during the reign of Louis XIII for his love
of fighting duels which were lamentably like assassina-
tions. The daughter was that Princesse de Conti, whose
reputation was so compromised. The third son was
Claude de Lorraine, who was first Prince de Joinville, and
ultimately Duc de Chevreuse.

This Duc de Chevreuse was not entirely devoid of good
qualities. We have a pretty picture of him as a child,
painted by Leonard Gaultier. The long face, with its high
and slightly prominent forehead, reminds us of Henri de
Guise. The countenance is refined and distinguished-
looking ; the lower part well modelled. As a young man,
the Prince was attractive, charming, well-bred looking.
As time went on, his face altered. War, and the habit
of command, gave him a masculine and energetic air.
Towards 1622, when he had reached his forty-fifth year, he
was a good-looking nobleman, powerful in frame, with
large and pronounced features, the appearance natural to an
active man. Only the calm eyes and good-natured glance

29
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

revealed his easy-going nature, ready to accept things as
they were, full of careless resignation, touched with a
certain naive simplicity. Gaston d’Orléans used to say
to Chalais, ‘‘M. le Duc de Chevreuse is faithless, soft, and
devoted to his own ease.” But he misjudged him. M. de
Chevreuse, though possessed of what Tallemant des Réaux
calls “a tolerable wit,” was somewhat weak-minded and
pusillanimous in ordinary life. But on the field of battle,
he was extremely brave. He had joined the cause of
Henri IV, after that monarch embraced Catholicism, and
fought valiantly at his side. Men would quote his exploits
during the sieges of La Fére and Amiens, during which last
he had saved the life of the Maréchal de Biron, who had
been surrounded by the enemy, and had brought him back
to safety, covered, himself, with blood and wounds. ‘As
to bravery,” says Tallemant des Réaux, “nothing cooler
was ever seen.” When peace was signed, M. de Chevreuse
went and fought against the Turks. When there were no
more infidels, Huguenots, or Spaniards for him to run
through, he fought duels. A first-class swordsman, he was
well-known for his hot-blooded and .quarrelsome ways with
other men of his own age; Schomberg, Termes, Somme-
rive, Saint-Luc, Pompignan, all of them fashionable young
bloods, and accomplished performers in the Court ballets.
Over and over again, Henri IV had been obliged to inter-
fere, and prevent him from going out to fight. As was sure
to happen to a man of this character, and crowned with such
a reputation, Claude de Lorraine had won endless favours
from the tender sex.

By an unlucky chance, he had principally fallen in love
with the mistresses of Henri IV—an unfortunate coinci-
_ dence. First of all with the Comtesse de Moret; that time
the King invited him to travel to England, and then sent
him into quarantine at the Chateau of Marchais, the house
of his brother, the Duke. Then came the Marquise de
Verneil; this time, Chevreuse having only just failed in

30
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

killing the Duc de Bellegarde, one fine evening, in the Rue
de la Cerisaie, in the Marais, the King, in a fury, talked
about “cutting his throat.” Everybody knew the story
of Claude de Lorraine’s liaison with Mme. de Villars, wife
of the Governor of the Havre: with Angélique Paulet, a
famous singer of that day: and especially with the
Maréchale de Fervaques, a widow past her first youth, who,
being exceedingly enamoured of him, allowed him to
dissipate her fortune on the plea that he had promised
to marry her. His love affair with Mme. de Luynes was
to be the decisive one of his life.

Marie de Rohan and he had seen a great deal of each
other at Court, meeting in the rooms of M. de Chevreuse’s
sister, the Princesse de Conti. It would have been a
surprising thing in that easy going society, if Claude de
Lorraine, accustomed as he was to be kindly treated by
fair ladies, had not remarked the captivating charm of Mme.
de Luynes, and dangled about her skirts. Mme. de Conti,
guessing her brother’s feelings, made it easy for them to
meet. M. de Luynes was still alive. His Duchess,
dazzled by the prestige and glory of Claude de Lorraine,
and urged on by Mme. de Conti, granted her lover’s prayer.
We understand what Louis de Marillac meant when he
wrote to Richelieu that the Princesse de Conti had been the
go-between in the love-affairs that went on in the
Constable’s lifetime.

Before long, everybody about the Court was aware of the
intrigue between Marie de Rohan and M. de Chevreuse.
The husband, as usual, was the only person who knew
nothing at all. He and M. de Chevreuse continued on
the most friendly terms. “I have read M. de Luynes the
letter you have written him,” writes Rucellai to Chevreuse,
“and have transmitted the protestations of amity and
sefvice you make him: he is very much pleased with them,
and holds you in dear esteem.” Louis XIII, as we have
seen, had ended, in a moment of irritation, by making an

31
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

allusion: to his wife’s misconduct in the favourite’s pre-
sence. When Bassompierre ventured to remark to the
King, in this connection, ‘that it was a sin to sow dissen-
sion” between a husband and wife, “in this fashion,” the
monarch replied with a smile, ‘God will forgive it me, if
He chooses!” He knew right well that the secret was no
secret at all.

After the death of Luynes, in December, 1621, the two
lovers exhibited their passion shamelessly. They were
constantly seen together in public. The whole Court rang
with it. When Mme. de Luynes fell into disgrace, in April
1622, she realized that her only chance of getting out of her
difficulties, and inducing the King to revoke his decision,
was to marry M. de Chevreuse.

According to the rules which governed the French Court,
a Prince of Lorraine was not a Frenchman; he had no
place in the hierarchy of the nobility of the kingdom, and
in public ceremonies, as the records had it, ‘“‘no regard was
paid him.” At the very most, and as a matter of courtesy,
he was granted some special treatment within the apart-
ments of the King and Queen. But if he could succeed
in obtaining the title of a French Duke, his position would
be totally changed. He would not cease to be a foreigner,
as a matter of principle, but once his title had been
verified and registered in Parliament, he would be bound
by his oath to the King of France, he would be answerable
to the jurisdiction of the sovereign courts of the kingdom,
entitled to assume the position assigned to persons of his
rank in the French aristocracy, and consequently would
be, in a certain sense, a native of the country. Persons
occupying this situation enjoyed, at one and the same
time, the respect paid to their ducal title, and the attentions
due to their rank as foreign princes related to a reigning
family in Europe. This was the position occupied by the
Guise family. They were treated with consideration.
And besides, the alarm their political power had inspired

32
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

for the past half-century inclined the Kings of France and
their ministers to more than a little prudence in their
dealings with a family which had come within an ace of
dethroning one of the successors of St. Louis. By this time
the Guises were related to the Royal Family; the sister of
the Duc de Chevreuse, Mme. de Conti, being the King’s
cousin, and a Princess of the blood royal.

Personally, Claude de Lorraine enjoyed the King’s
special regard, on account of his fidelity, and the signal
services he had rendered to the sovereign. He had taken
Marie de Médicis’ part in the troublous times of her
regency, and that of Louis XIII through all the civil wars
arising out of the revolt of the nobles and the Queen-
Mother, subsequently to the year 1617. “The diligence
you have made in His Majesty’s service,” so runs a letter
from Rucellai to the Prince, written in 1620, in the King’s
name, “has exceedingly strengthened the esteem in which
your person is held here, and as you are one of the few
noblemen who have served the King, and as among those
few, your services have been held valuable above all others,
you may rest assured that you will be the most privileged
henceforward.”

To marry M. de Chevreuse meant, therefore, for Mme.
de Luynes, to make her entry into a family which would
ensure her the enjoyment of all the privileges—legal, moral,
and political—its members possessed. It meant being the
wife of an important nobleman, to whom profound respect
was paid. Nobody would dare to strike at her; she would
have the House of Guise, and all its numerous ramifications,
a most powerful cabal, behind her. There would be no
possibility of driving her from Court. The Princesse de
Conti, once she was her sister-in-law, would see to that.
Further, such a marriage meant, for Mme. de Luynes,
the realization of a splendid dream. She would be allied
to the reigning family of a foreign kingdom, related to
the King of England, who treated the Duc de Chevreuse

D 33
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

as his personal friend. M. de Chevreuse was “that very
high and illustrious Prince, Monseigneur Claude de Lor-
raine, Peer, Grand Chamberlain of France, the King’s
Governor and Lieutenant-General in Upper and Lower
Auvergne.” The courtiers called him “ Monseigneur,” and
“Your Highness”: Marie de Médicis called him
“Nephew”: when he went abroad, foreign courts re-
ceived him with all the honours due to members of
quasi-sovereign houses. In London, for instance, he
dined in “the King’s Bedchamber,” a most signal
favour! He had his own chamber at the Louvre, just
over the King’s. He was said to be very rich: he had
a pension of 40,000 livres a year from the King, who made
him presents as well, from time to time, 12,000 and 15,000
livres at once! Quite recently, on the death of the Duc du
Maine, in 1621, the office of Grand Chamberlain, the second
in importance of the “domestic offices of the Crown,” had
been conferred on him, in proof of the absolute confidence
and esteem in which the monarch held him. He enjoyed
the highest possible favour.

He had never married. At one time he had wished to
espouse Mlle. de Vendéme, the natural daughter of Henri
IV, but the Duc du Maine came forward as her suitor, and
Chevreuse retired. For a moment he had thought of
Mile. du Maine; the negotiations were carried to a certain
point, and then broken off. Mme. de Luynes was not
likely to find it difficult to induce him to marry her.

Had the idea already been discussed between them?
Mme. de Luynes was to declare it had. M. de Chevreuse
will seem to have been unaware of it. It is quite probable
that the plan had been talked over, and no final decision
reached.

In the course of the three days that followed the summons
to retire from Court, of which Jeannin had been the
bearer, Marie de Rohan despatched a gentleman, a friend
of her own, to M. de Chevreuse. M. de Chevreuse was
not in Paris; he had gone on pilgrimage to Notre-Dame de

34
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

Liesse, near Laon, with M. de Liancourt, M. de Blain-
ville, MM. Zamet and Fontenay-Mareuil. This gentleman
found M. de Chevreuse and explained his errand. Mme.
de Luynes made no mystery of the fact that she had been
ordered to retire from Court, and that she could devise
no other way of escape from her disgrace, save that of
marrying the Duc de Chevreuse. She begged the Duke to
consent to this union, and inform the King of it, adding
that “nobody doubted that, out of consideration for him,
His Majesty’s order would be cancelled.” But haste was
urgent, because “if she once left the Louvre, it would be
more difficult to put the matter right.”

Surprised, M. de Chevreuse hesitated. He began by
cross-questioning the messenger as to the reasons of Mme.
de Luynes’s disgrace. What had happened? Then he
consulted his travelling companions. Fontenay-Mareuil,
who was present, tells us in his Memoirs that each of them
in turn tried to dissuade the Duke. His own position, they
urged, would be compromised: he was certain to meet
with all sorts of annoyances : after all the benefits the King
had bestowed on him, and especially the office of Grand
Chamberlain, to which he had just been appointed, he
would fail in his duty to His Majesty if he married a person
so little liked by him. Convinced by their arguments,
M. de Chevreuse told the gentleman he was unable to
accede to Mme. de Luynes’ proposal.

He went back to Paris, and he went to see Mme. de
Luynes. That was a very imprudent thing todo. He had
reckoned without her powers of seduction. She cast her
toils about him, pleaded with him; he began to weaken.
She redoubled her entreaties, he gave in. To make assur-
ance doubly sure, she told him she would write at once
to the King to announce their marriage, and solicit his
permission, in the usual manner. He had not strength to
resist her.

When Louis XIII received Mme. de Luynes’ letter, he
became furiously angry. His first impulse was to refuse

35
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

his consent. Those about him dissuaded him. After all,
it was suggested, it would be against his conscience to
prevent two persons who had notoriously compromised
each other, from marrying now. If His Majesty desired
to keep Mme. de Luynes away from Court, he would
always find means of carrying out his wish: if he preferred
to show consideration for M. de Chevreuse, things might
be settled quietly, without any open break, and the King’s
dignity would be safeguarded. Louis XIII allowed him-
self to be convinced.

But before he had made his decision known, he heard
that Mme. de Luynes, without waiting for his answer, had
caused her marriage to be celebrated forthwith. Did
she fear a refusal from the King? More probably, know-
ing his weak and irresolute nature, she thought M. de
Chevreuse might change his mind. The ceremony was
hurriedly performed, in the presence of a few persons only,
on the 2oth of April, just four months after the death of the
Constable de Luynes. “I know not what the conse-
quences will be,” wrote Marillac, when he announced the
news to Richelieu. There was a chorus of derisive
laughter. The King was exceedingly angry. ‘The
King,” writes Marillac to Richelieu again, “is deeply
offended with the Connétable and M. de Chevreuse, and
has conceived a great hatred against them. He says
that not one of the relations would sign the marriage
contract.”

But the thing was done. And what could others do,
save endure what they were powerless to prevent? Within
a few days, Louis XIII, following the correct formula, sent
a letter of congratulation to the newly married couple;
the courtiers’ compliments were quickly added. There
may well have been a touch of irony in all these congratula-
tions. Everybody thought Mme. de Luynes far the most
fortunate of the two partners; she was held to acquire “a
great deal of glory—widow of the Constable though she

36
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

was—by her marriage with a Prince of the House of
Lorraine!”

None of the relations, so the King had asserted, would
sign the marriage contract. He was to some extent
mistaken. ‘This contract is still in existence. On the side
of the Duc de Chevreuse, at all events, sixteen of his
relations, and these the most important, did append their
names to the document: the bridegroom’s brother, the
Duc de Guise, his uncle, the Duc de Nemours, his cousins,
Charles de Gonzague and the Comte d’Harcourt, his aunt,
the Dowager Princesse de Condé, his cousin, the Princesse
de Condé, his mother, Catherine de Cléves, widow of “‘le
Balafré,” besides the Princesse de Conti, the young
Duchesse de Guise, and four of his cousins, the Duchesses
de Mercceur, de Longueville, d’Elbeuf, and de Vendéme.
The abstentions were on Mme. de Luynes’ side. Nobody
belonging to her would sign, in fact. Even her father,
M. de Montbazon, in whose house in the Rue de Béthizy
the lawyers prepared the document, empowered a third
person to sign for him.

Under the terms of this contract, the newly married
persons were to have the independent enjoyment of their
respective patrimonies. Marie de Rohan was to pay a
sum of 300,000 livres into the common purse, and M. de
Chevreuse, in return, ensured his widow the possession of
a dowry of 10,000 livres a year, charged on the income of
the Duchy of Chevreuse, and the enjoyment as a residence
of the Chateau de Dampierre, furnished ‘in a manner fitted
to her quality, with its poultry-yards, gardens, and canals.”
If Mme. de Chevreuse married again, she was to give up
Dampierre. The bride and bridegroom made over to each
other everything either of them had acquired in the way of
fortune, apart from the personal patrimony of each, and it
was specifically provided that each was to pay his or her
own debts. This precaution was to prove anything but
superfluous.

37
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Public opinion was somewhat exercised by the fact that
Marie de Rohan, who had only received 200,000 livres from
her father, on the occasion of her first marriage, and even
that sum not fully paid, was able to give 300,000 livres
to M. de Chevreuse. “According to the contract,” writes
Marillac to Richelieu, on April the 26th, “the bride
gives all her fortune, whatever it may be, to the children
that may be born of this marriage, to the exclusion of those
of her first.” The lawsuits of later years were to prove that
this donation of 300,000 livres was fictitious. Besides, the
children of the Connétable de Luynes had their father’s
fortune. They did not depend on their mother, and were,
indeed, to come to her help in hours of difficulty.

In the letters of congratulation addressed by Louis XIII
to the newly married couple, he made no reference to his
order that Marie de Rohan should leave the Court. Thus
it remained uncancelled. There was nothing for it but to
wait, and husband and wife retired from Paris till the
question should be definitely settled. The marriage took
place on the 20th of April, and on the 21st Mme. de
Chevreuse carried off her husband to Lésigny-en-Brie.
“The happy lovers,” writes Marillac, “have gone to praise
God for their prosperity in the chapel at Lésigny, and take
possession together of the house the dead man prepared for
them without ever thinking of it! It is the joke of the
whole Court!” Presently M. de Chevreuse took his wife
to the Chateau de Dampierre, there to do her the honours
of his Duchy of Chevreuse. And thus did Marie de Rohan
enter into possession of the domain on the name of which
she was to shed lustre, and of the house she was to love so
dearly, and inhabit so long, through so many hours of joy
and sorrow !

Once a small and unpretending manor, the Chateau of
Chevreuse, with the property surrounding it, had been
erected into a barony in the first place, and then, in 1545,
transformed into a Duchy, by King Francis the First, for

38
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

the benefit of the Duke and Duchess d’Etampes. Parlia-
ment had refused to register the letters of erection on the
plea that the manor of Chevreuse lacked the importance
requisite for such an honour. It was, in fact, a maxim
among the Crown lawyers that the title of Duke, the most
important in the country, was not to follow any landed
property unless the value of the lands warranted the
honour, and unless the income they brought in would
permit the owner to make a fine figure at Court. After the
Duchesse d’Etampes’ time, the Cardinal de Lorraine,
brother of the Duc de Guise, bought the place, added to
the landed property, and then petitioned Henri II to renew
the erection of the barony into a dukedom. To this the
King agreed, in 1555. And this time Parliament did
register the act. From the Cardinal, the Duchy of Chev-
reuse passed to his nephew, the Duke Henri, “le Balafré,”
and after his murder at Blois, to his eldest son, Charles de
Guise. Henri IV had often told Duke Charles that if he
would make over Chevreuse to one of his brothers, he (the
King) would add a peerage to the dukedom. In 1606,
Charles handed over the property to his brother Claude
de Lorraine, Prince de Joinville. Henri IV forgot his
promise, but Louis XIII kept it for him in 1612. Once
more Parliament made difficulties. It did not give way
until 1627.

A feudal property brought in two kinds of revenue; the
income returned by the owner’s own personal estates, his
private property, which he either let out in farms or farmed
himself; and the feudal revenues made up of the dues
and rights paid to the feudal lord by the people who lived
on the manor lands, or on the fiefs belonging to it. In the
sixteenth century, the lordship of Chevreuse included,
besides the village of Chevreuse itself, the lands, fiefs, and
manors of Maurepas, Damvilliers, Maincourt, and some
others. Dampierre did not, at that moment, form part of
the property. The whole was a dependency of the diocese

39

me
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

of Paris, and the Baron de Chevreuse swore his oath of
homage and fealty to the Bishop. The Cardinal de Lor-
raine enlarged the property by the addition of the manor of
Meudon, the lands of Dampierre, the fiefs of Saclay and
Cottigny, and thus succeeded in getting together a property
that represented an income of some 6000 livres tournois.

When Parliament consented, on May 10, 1555, to
authorize the erection of Chevreuse into a duchy, a
stipulation was made that this sum of 6000 livres was only
to be accepted provisionally, and on condition that the Duc
de Chevreuse should increase it to 10,000 livres. In July
1564, the Cardinal de Lorraine .obtained letters-patent,
issued by Charles IX, whereby the King took the place of
the Bishop of Paris, as the immediate over-lord of the lands
of Chevreuse. Successive dukes added to the property.,
Claude de Lorraine was to enlarge its borders so
considerably that it was valued towards the middle of the
seventeenth century at something like six or seven millions
of francs of our money. Marie de Rohan had not been
mistaken. M. de Chevreuse did not appear to be a very’
wealthy man.

A splendid reception was prepared for the new Duchess.
The small and ancient village of Chevreuse, peaceful and
neat-looking, like all the villages in the fle de France,
stood within its hoary walls, even as it stands to this day,
at the foot of the Madeleine, and its ancient castle, built in
the Middle Ages. People talked of “the town and castle
of Chevreuse,” the manants et habitants. To the lands and
fiefs which had composed the Duchy of Chevreuse in the
sixteenth century, others had been added—Villepreux and
the adjoining parishes, Choisel, at the end of the present
park of Dampierre, the Chateau of Becquencourt; and the
private domains of the owner had been increased by the
addition of the lands of La Tuilerie, Mousseaux, the Mare
aux Bois, and the mills of Tan, the Pont de Beauce, etc.

All the officials who managed the estates: the officers of

40
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE:

justice, a bailiff, who sat at Chevreuse, assisted by a clerk
and an official scribe ; local justices, sitting in several places,
and deciding cases that did not exceed a certain fixed value,
against which decisions appeal could be made to the bailiff
of Chevreuse, and ultimately to the Parliament of Paris:
—for the woods, which were of considerable extent, necessi-
tating the employment of special foresters, to watch and
protect the trees, and make them return a profit, there were
chief Rangers and chief Foresters—all these came to
present their duty to the Duchess.

In her coach, Mme. de Chevreuse visited every village
and hamlet. She was shown all her husband’s domains.
The inhabitants welcomed her with rejoicings. The spot
that was to attract her most was the place where she was
ultimately to fix her residence, Dampierre, in the pretty
valley of the Yvette.

The Chateau of Dampierre was not in those days the
stately edifice we now admire, which was built by Mansard,
in 1618. The old house, constructed in the sixteenth
century by a Treasurer of France, and embellished by the
Cardinal de Lorraine, consisted of a group of low buildings
in the style of the Renaissance, with tiled roofs and corner
towers, all in red brick with stone courses, set round
several courtyards of various sizes. Moats full of water
encircled it. The general effect was picturesque; the
tall steep roofs, the slender shafted chimneys, the high
windows adorned with sculptured stone decorations that
stood out against the roofs, imparted a varied and pleasing
appearance to the whole pile. For those days, the house
was an unpretending one.

From the road, which ran straight across the valley,
between a large sheet of water, still there, and the
Chateau, the traveller reached the entrance gate, a steep-
roofed pavilion, with three windows. ‘The outer court was
small, surrounded by low outbuildings, and beyond them,
to the eastern side, lay a larger court, the poultry-yard,

41
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

with outhouses all round it—a remnant of which still
remains in the shape of a large open-raftered hall, entered
by a doorway which is not devoid of character. On the
right side of the outer court, and behind a drawbridge, was
the second entrance of the Chateau, 2 one-storied pavilion,
with a steep roof in the style of Henri IV. Then came the
inner courtyard, very plain, square, the buildings all round
it of one story only, except those on the western side,
which had another story looking over the water. In the
middle of these stood the entrance door of the house,
rather low, arched, and without any kind of ornament,
and in this central part of the dwelling, on the left, was the
great hall, a fine room with open rafters and a tall monu-
mental stone chimney-piece, lighted by six windows.
The rest of the house was taken up with living-rooms and
servants’ quarters.

On the other side of the main ‘building, towards the
south, there was a square grass-plot, with flower-beds cut
in it, surrounded by a portico, along the outer edge of
which a ditch full of water ran. Another lawn of still
larger dimensions, also cut up into flower-beds, and
bounded by the waters of a canal, completed the garden on
the Chevreuse side. There was no park at all. All about
the place lay a perpetual succession of woods, cultivated
fields, meadow-land, ‘“‘warrens,”’ and vineyards. The
thing that struck one was the quantities of water. People
used to say, ‘“‘the enclosures, gardens, ponds, canals and
fountains of Dampierre.” In its frame of woodland and
greenery, Dampierre was the picture of a delightful rural
habitation, an ideal retreat, buried in the solitude and calm
of the quiet country.

Madame de Chevreuse took a fancy to the place; she
liked the squat homelike dwelling and its view over the
great pond; the walk under the stone portico that ran
round the flower lawn, and reminded her of the finest
houses of the preceding century—Gaillon, for instance—

42
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

delighted her. At her instigation, the duke her husband
began to take an interest in the place. Not caring to
construct another dwelling—he was no house-builder—
he made up his mind to enlarge the flower gardens, and
create a large park all round them. He it was who made
the great park of Dampierre. He followed the methods
of an opulent nobleman, to whom the complaints of his
humbler neighbours and his own outlay mattered but
little. He bought the land he wanted by sheer compulsion,
without taking the trouble to do things delicately. He
enlarged his borders as far as the parishes of Choisel and
Senlis, three-quarters of a league away. He was not the
only person who did such things. ‘‘He made his park,”
explains Tallemant, “after the fashion of old d’Angouléme
at Grosbois. He simply enclosed everybody else’s land!”
To quiet the uproar, he promised keys of the park to all
the injured persons. But he never gave away one. A
“Captain of the Chateau of Dampierre,” aided by “the
Steward of the Household of Monseigneur the Duc de
Chevreuse, and Forester of that place,” was put in charge
of the Chateau, and kept all things in order there.

But great as the delights of Dampierre, its woods and
its duchy, might be, the new Duchess had no notion of
spending her life there. How did she stand with the
King? Could she go back to Court or not? She applied
for information to her sister-in-law, the Princesse de Conti.

This lady, as the author, though indirectly, of their
marriage, owed it to her brother and her friend to help them
out of their uncertainty. Alone and unaided, she might
have found some difficulty in doing it; she summoned
Bassompierre to her assistance.

‘Bassompierre, at that time in high favour with Louis
NII, was attending the King on his campaign against the
Southern Huguenots. He had the sovereign’s ear, and
could reckon on being favourably received. Louis
delighted in the company of this handsome nobleman,

43
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

unfailingly gay, jovial, witty, deferential, and devoted to
his master. In July of that same year (1622) he was to
make him a Marshal of France. Now Bassompierre doted
on the Princesse de Conti, whose faithful lover he remained
for thirty years. He undertook to perform the com-
mission suggested to him. The attempt to get Mme. de
Chevreuse recalled was soon known at Court. The affair
was nick-named “the ladies’ cabal.” Well-informed
people doubted its success. ‘‘Bassompierre,” wrote
Marillac to Richelieu, “has nothing to go on except his
own cunning and effrontery. The Princess will find his
favour will give her no better support than her own legs
just after she had lain in. His favour is as slight as her
legs were shaky.” He was mistaken. Bassompierre had
excellent means at his command.

As a matter of fact, the position of M. de Chevreuse
was by no means so compromised by his marriage as
might have been imagined. He was too powerful for
that. Louis XIII, at war with the Huguenots, did not
care to provoke a quarrel with his great nobles as well.
The memory of the seven or eight years of civil strife
they had already waged against him was too present
to his mind for his Ministers to fail in advising all
necessary caution. The Guise family was one of the most
influential in the country; its following was large; its
renown would quite probably attract many partisans.
All these circumstances had served M. de Chevreuse.
His personal favour with the King was still high, and that
for reasons which rendered his marriage without the
King’s leave, to a lady who was in disgrace with the
monarch, a fault not so particularly grave as to outweigh
his credit. At that very moment, indeed, Louis stood in
need of his services, and was making use of them. The
Court of France had been trying, for a considerable period,
to arrange a marriage between the King’s young sister,
Henrietta-Maria, and the son of the King of England, who

44.
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

afterwards became Charles I. There were many diffi-
culties in the way, and the negotiations had been broken
off several times. M. de Chevreuse, who was in friendly
relations with the King of England, his kinsman, acted as
unofficial go-between. The King depended on his help.
This was not the moment to fall out with him over a
marriage in which he had been the victim of the lady’s
cunning rather than a deliberate offender against his
master’s will.

Bassompierre felt his way. Might M. de Chevreuse
come and make his bow to the King, who was carrying on
his campaign against the Huguenots in Guyenne? A
favourable answer was vouchsafed, and a month after his
marriage, on May 20, 1622, the Duc de Chevreuse reached
the camp before St. Emilion, near Libourne, whither the
King had come after the surrender of Royan.

He was well received. Louis XIII seemed to have for-
gotten all about his marriage, and never mentioned it to
him. He showed him just as much favour as before, to
such a point, indeed, that on the 27th, M. de Chevreuse
was appointed Grand Falconer of France! Everybody
concluded Marie de Rohan’s business was on the way to a
satisfactory settlement. M. de Chevreuse’s conduct justi-
fied the royal affection for him. Nobody was braver in
the field; in June, when the attack on Négrepelisse was
delivered, he took command of the forlorn hope—a flying
column of attack—and hurled himself, with Bassompierre
and Praslin, upon the enemy’s defences. He only just
escaped with his life. Louis XIII sought his advice,
invited him to attend his councils of war, listened to his
opinions. It would have been difficult to desire a more
established position.

So Chevreuse, having concerted measures with Bassom-
pierre, ventured to speak to the King of his wife, and to
ask His Majesty for a word which would permit her to
return to Court. The moment he opened his mouth he

45
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

was snubbed ;—Louis XIII was a suspicious man. There
was nothing for it but to wait. It was a well-known fact
that the Council of Ministers, with the exception of M. de
Puisieux, who favoured the Duchess for personal reasons
of his own, was strongly opposed to her return. From
the 2oth of May till the 3rd of July, Chevreuse and
Bassompierre carried on a siege, prudent, methodical,
gradual. Louis XIII could not well hold out for ever.
By the end of the sixth week the petitioners had gained
their point. The King consented to allow Mme. de
Chevreuse to take up her duties about the Queen. She
was to continue in her offices, including that of Super-
intendent of the Household; but the royal forgiveness was
only bestowed out of regard for M. de Chevreuse. “Out
of the affection I bear my cousin the Duc de Chevreuse,”
wrote the King to Anne of Austria, “I am very glad his
wife should come back.” He was never to lose any oppor-
tunity of stating, in the most specific manner, that
anything he did for Mme. de Chevreuse was granted solely
on her husband’s account. The winding up of M. de
Luynes’ affairs had been a somewhat complicated business
(it had been necessary, in fact, to appeal to the King
for leave to include moneys belonging to the Constable,
and found, after his death, in the Citadel of Amiens,
in the sum at the disposal of his heirs), and Louis
XIII had facilitated the arrangements, on condition that
the money thus secured should be handed over directly
to M. de Chevreuse, as an instalment of the 300,000 livres
the Duchess his wife was bound to pay into the common
purse. “Now that it has been explained to me,” writes
Louis to M. de Luynes’ brother, M. de Chaulnes, “that
the sums held in common by the Duchesse de Chevreuse
and my late cousin the Constable, have been liquidated, it
has been my pleasure to inform you that once you have set
aside the share of his children in the inheritance of the
moneys found in my Citadel of Amiens, belonging to my
46
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

said cousin the Constable, you are at liberty to hand over
to my cousin the Duc de Chevreuse, without making any
difficulty at all, all that he acquires through his marriage.
The duties he performs about my person, to my own
satisfaction and the benefit of my service, lead me to aid
the arrangement of his affairs which he expects thereby.”
Precarious indeed was the return of Mme. de Chevreuse to
Court, as long as the King nourished such feelings con-
cerning her!

Quietly she crept back to Paris, unobtrusively she
retook her place in the Queen’s circle. From the earliest
moments of her reappearance, she was to feel the effect of
the King’s displeasure.

During the life-time of the Duc de Luynes, the old
Duchesse de Montmorency, Anne of Austria’s Lady of
Honour, had not renewed her protest against the appoint-
ment of so young a woman to the post of. Superintendent of
the Queen’s Household; she had been content with absent-
ing herself from Court, and not performing her duties
there. Once M. de Luynes was dead, his family fallen into
disgrace, and his widow’s position sorely shaken, she
decided to make a fresh claim. Her stepson, the Duc de
Montmorency, took up her quarrel: he set forth that when
Mme. de Montmorency had been appointed Lady of
Honour, there had been a promise that, to save her
dignity, no Superintendent should be appointed at all. The
appointment of Mme. de Chevreuse had been a contraven-
tion of this undertaking, and ought to be cancelled. Mme.
de Chevreuse defended her own cause. Two-years earlier,
Louis XIII would have imposed silence on Mme. de
Montmorency. This time, he affected a desire to do what
was just and fair. A commissary was deputed to examine
the documents connected with the case, and make his report
to the Council, which was to decide the matter.

The verdict was that both ladies were to resign their
functions. This decision displeased everybody. ‘The

47
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

judgment,” wrote Bassompierre, “is the worst they could
have come to, seeing it gives offence to both parties.” And
these parties “two such powerful houses as those of Lor-
raine and Montmorency!” To calm this emotion, the
King promised the Duc de Chevreuse he would make it up
to him, and appointed him First Gentleman of his Bed-
chamber, an office that had remained vacant since the death
of the Duc de Luynes. It was the Duke, not the Duchess,
who was given the compensation! The office of Super-
intendent of the Queen’s Household was suppressed, and
Mme. de Lannoy was appointed Lady of Honour.

Mme. de Chevreuse consoled herself. Though she had
no official functions to perform in the Household of Anne
of Austria, none the less was she the sovereign’s constant
companion and friend. She was perpetually in her com-
pany, the old intimacy had been resumed, and she herself
was still the same merry, lively being, the pet of the
Queen’s circle. She had contrived, in short, except for the
King’s personal dislike of her, to save the situation; and
her position, in a sense, was even better than it had been
before.

Marie dé Rohan was no longer the wife of a King’s
favourite, risen from a comparatively low estate,—risen
extremely high, indeed, but exposed to any sudden fall.
She was a member of a foreign princely house, she was
called “Your Highness,” she was far better armed,
now, against the “slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune!”

An important conjuncture of circumstances was shortly
to shed still greater lustre, in the eyes of courtiers and
people alike, on the proud position she had regained.

After much difficult negotiation, the marriage of
Henrietta-Maria and the Prince of Wales was practically
arranged. This union had been earnestly desired by the
English Princes. Their letters to M. de Chevreuse prove
the fact. They express their writers’ gratitude for the

48
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

Duke’s zeal in promoting the success of the business. In
spite of perpetual disappointments, M. de Chevreuse
continued to press the advisers of Louis XIII to
adhere to a plan conceived by Henri IV, and cherished
for years by Marie de Médicis. He kept up constant
intercourse with the English Ambassadors, and was in
regular correspondence with London. And from London,
answers to his letters reached him. King James I’s
Minister and favourite, who voiced the sentiments of
his Master and his Master’s son, the Prince of Wales,
assured M. de Chevreuse that he possessed his ‘‘ whole
affection,” invited him to come over to England, sent him
splendid gifts in the meantime, and in April, 1620,
despatched three splendid saddle-horses for his acceptance.
“Had it not been for my desire to send you some earnest
of my passion for your service, I would have awaited your
arrival, so that you might choose out of all that I possess
that which might be most agreeable to you, to give you
pleasure when you ride abroad.” And M. de Chevreuse,
delighted to have his share in so important an undertaking,
put fresh pressure on the Ministers of the French King,
urging them not to insist so pertinaciously on the con-
ditions they thought it right to impose, and striving to
clear up every misunderstanding. ‘‘We know not,” wrote
King James to him, on July .24, 1624, “which we should
value most, the constancy of your affection, or the kindness
and sincerity of your contribution in favour of this negotia-
tion, so necessary to Christendom, so fitting for the two
crowns, so equally balanced as regards the individuals!
And although the certainty we feel takes away all reason
for begging you to persevere in your good offices, we
cannot refrain from esteeming your mediation, and thank-
ing you for it.” The Prince of Wales added the expression
of his own gratitude to his father’s. “You are my dear
-friend,” he wrote to M. de Chevreuse, “and daily you give
me proofs of it. Render me all the good services that the
nearness of my blood to yours demands!” If he won

z 49
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Henrietta~Maria for his wife, he was resolved he would
accept his bride from no hand but that of M. de Chevreuse;
he would request it might be M. de Chevreuse who should
conduct his betrothed to meet him. “I shall be more glad
to receive that gentle Princess from you, as her conductor,
than from any other person in the world.” And Chevreuse,
touched by the friendship and confidence shown him by
the English Prince, answered with fervent expressions of
his own devotion. ‘My blood and my life,” he wrote,
“are not too poor a thank-offering ! ”

It was in the autumn of the year 1624 that the marriage,
after endless discussion, was finally arranged. The Prince
of Wales was to have travelled to France to espouse the
Princess, and conduct her back to London. But in the
meantime James I died, and the new King, Charles I,
could not leave his kingdom. Thus the nuptial ceremony,
according to the usual custom, was to be solemnized in
Paris, and the King of England to be represented by a
person chosen by him, and to whom he delegated power
to espouse the French Princess in his name and stead.
According to the promise given, the personage thus
chosen by Charles I was M. de Chevreuse.

Joyfully M. de Chevreuse accepted the honour. His
letter in reply to the King’s overflowed with delight. After
the ceremony he was to attend the bride to England; Mme.
de Chevreuse was to follow. The pomp of the wedding
ceremony, performed in the most magnificent surround-
ings, busying the whole Court, attracting the whole
populace, drew every eye upon the happy Duke. Honours,
respect, all good things were to be showered on him who,
by a diplomatic fiction, was to be assimilated, for the
nonce, to the King of England. Mme. de Chevreuse was
to have her share in this glory and good fortune.

On the morning of the day fixed for the betrothal
ceremony, May 8, 1625, the two Ambassadors Extra-
ordinary from the English Court, the Earls of Carlisle and

50
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

Holland, attended by a numerous train of gentlemen, went
in solemn procession to fetch M. de Chevreuse from his
chamber in the Louvre, and conduct him to the King’s
Bedchamber, where Louis XIII, surrounded by the Royal
Family, the Princes of the Blood, his great nobles, and his
Ministers, awaited him. The Duke was dressed in black,
with diamond-studded bands, the tags or aiguillettes of
which were adorned with precious stones. Henrietta-
Maria wore a gown of gold and silver tissue, worked with
fleurs de lis, and ornamented with pearls. The Chancellor
of France read the marriage contract aloud, the terms of the
procuration sent to M. de Chevreuse by the King of
England were transcribed on to the document, and then the
King, Henrietta-Maria, the two Queens, M. de Chevreuse,
and the Ambassadors, affixed their signatures. This done,
the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, Grand Almoner of
France, blessed the betrothed pair, the Duc de Chevreuse
acting as fiancé.

On Sunday, the 11th of May, the marriage was solem-
nized at Notre-Dame de Paris. The church had been
hung, for the occasion, with beautiful tapestries worked
with gold and silver threads, belonging to the King. In
front of the great door a huge scaffolding had been erected,
and covered with hangings. This was connected with the
entrance to the cathedral choir by a gently sloping plat-
form, and with the archiepiscopal palace—an ancient
edifice, dating from the Middle Ages, which stood on the
southern arm of the Seine—by a covered gallery, along
which the procession was to pass. At nine o’clock in the
morning, Henrietta-Maria was conducted to the Arch-
bishop’s palace. At eleven, one of the Queen’s coaches,
in which the Earls of Carlisle and Holland were seated,
carried the Duc de Chevreuse from his house in the Rue St.
Thomas du Louvre to the palace, likewise. Meanwhile,
all the state authorities were passing into Notre-Dame, and
taking up their places there, Members of Parliament

51
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

in their red robes, judges of the courts, sheriffs, the
Mayor of Paris, officials of every order and every jurisdic-
tion. The King, attended by the Court, Princes and
Princesses, Dukes, great lords and ladies, all in full dress,
was to go and fetch the bride and lead her into church.
He never came till half-past four in the afternoon. At
five the procession began to move. At its head, after the
Grand Master of the King’s Household and the Grand
Master of the Ceremonies, surrounded by noblemen, and
with the Earls of Holland and Carlisle on either side of
him, walked the Duc de Chevreuse, magnificently attired
in black, with a scarf studded with diamond roses,
and a black velvet cap clasped with a diamond
badge. After him came the Captain of the Louvre Gate,
the Cent-Suisses of, the Bodyguard, hautboy players,
drummers and trumpeters, the Knights of the Holy
Ghost, seven heralds at arms, three Marshals of France,
Dukes and Peers, Princes, and then Louis XIII, covered
with gold and silver embroideries, and leading Henrietta-
Maria by one of her hands, while her other was held
by Gaston d’Orléans, and her long train was borne by the
Princesses de Condé and de Conti, and the Comtesse de
Soissons. The two Queens followed, also in gowns with
long trains: Marie de Médicis with an equerry on either
side, Anne of Austria between the Duc d’Uzés and the
Marquis de Mauny. Then came Mlle. de Montpensier,
the Duchesse de Guise, and in her proper place, Marie de
Rohan, between two courtiers, her train borne by an
equerry. The Dowager of Elbeuf and the reigning
Duchess closed the procession. Slowly the array passed
on, to the sound of the music, and the clanging of the
bells, and the cheers of the assembled crowds. On the
‘scaffolding there was a pause. The King of England being
a “Huguenot,” his marriage could not take place within
the church; it was solemnized on this exterior platform;
Louis XIII and Monsieur gave away their sister to M. de

52
THE CHEVREUSE MARRIAGE

Chevreuse; the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld pronounced
the liturgical prayers appointed for the benediction of the
marriage ceremony, and once more the procession moved
on into Notre-Dame. When it reached the choir, M. de
Chevreuse and the two English Ambassadors made their
obeisance to the King, and left the church. Mass was
said—late though it was—by the Cardinal de la Roche-
foucauld. That over, the Duc de Chevreuse returned,
reassumed his office at the entrance to the choir, and the
procession wended its way back to the archiepiscopal palace.

In the evening, a splendid banquet was served in the
great hall of that same palace, at which Louis XIII was
present. Qn his right sat Marie de Médicis and Anne of
Austria; on his left Henrietta-Maria, the Duc de Chev-
reuse, Holland, Carlisle and Mme. de Chevreuse. According
to custom, the greatest lords of the Court served the Royal
personages, and the other guests were waited on by noble-
men. Paris was illuminated, there were bonfires at all the
crossways, the Place de la Gréve resounded with the noise
of cannon and mortars. In the courtiers’ eyes, the splendour
of these festivities underlined the exceptional importance of
the position attained by M. and Mme. de Chevreuse.

The hand of Fate which had once threatened Marie de
Rohan had been turned aside. She was free to take up her
old existence. In the Queen’s inner circle her impulsive
gaiety, her giddy humour, her love of pleasure and adven-
ture might run their course unchecked. Once more she
fed Anne of Austria’s mind on that in which her own
delighted—love and intrigue. And more than that, she
was soon to do her best to draw the Queen into a love-
affair of the most dangerous kind: within a fortnight of the
marriage of Henrietta~-Maria, on May 24, 1625, the young
and fascinating Duke of Buckingham, the King of
England’s all-powerful Minister, sent by his Royal Master
to conduct the newly married Sovereign of Great Britain
to her future home, arrived in Paris.

53
CHAPTER III

BUCKINGHAM

Love-affairs of Mme. de Chevreuse and the Earl of Holland—Bucking-
ham—His journey to Paris—Buckingham and Anne of Austria—
The Amiens episode—Mme. de Chevreuse in England—Richelieu’s
displeasure—1625

AmoncG the various English ambassadors with whom the
Duc and the Duchesse de Chevreuse had had dealings in the
course of the negotiations connected with the marriage of
Henrietta-Maria, their closest intercourse had been with
the Earl of Holland. Henry Rich, Lord Kensington, and
afterwards Earl of Holland, belonged to the illustrious
family of Warwick. He was destined to play his part in
the English Revolution, and to die on the scaffold. King
James I had sent him into France as early as in the spring
of 1624, with orders to hurry on the negotiations, and he
had asked to be assisted by the Earl of Carlisle, as second
Ambassador Extraordinary.

Still young, with a fine figure and elegant manners,
Holland was a very attractive man. Tallemant des Réaux
thought his good looks had something “insipid” about
them, and La Porte, in his Memoirs, declares that “though
he was one of the handsomest men in the world, Holland
was effeminate.” He was very well received at the Hotel
de Chevreuse.

This house, to which frequent reference will be made
in the course of this book, was the dwelling the Duc
de Luynes had bought for his young wife in the Rue St.
Thomas du Louvre, which he had left to his widow, and
which had been sold to the Duc de Chevreuse in March,
1622. A great entrance in the Rue St. Thomas, between

54
BUCKINGHAM

the Rue du Doyenné and the Rue St. Honoré, adorned
with pilasters, statues and trophies, and closed by doors
of carved wood, embellished with medallions representing
various personages, opened on a square inner courtyard,
in the charming style of that earlier half of the sixteenth
century, which inherited all the best of the Renaissance
work. The architect, Métézeau, had gone for his inspira-
tion to Lescot’s work on the Louvre. Between the
windows were niches filled with statues, framed by
pilasters, surmounted by flat entablatures. Higher up,
windows with sculptured stone frontals stood out, breaking
the line of the roof. The general effect was distinctly
pleasing. A large garden ran westward to the Rue St.
Nicaise, where it was closed by a railing. From that side
the facade of the house, which consisted of a central build-
ing with a raised pavilion on either hand, was very hand-
some. Set in a quiet quarter between the Louvre and the
Tuileries, in the midst of the network of small streets that
covered the space now occupied by the Place du Carrousel,
the dwelling was considered one of the pleasantest and
most luxurious abodes in the city.

The Earl of Holland, who had begun by coming
to the house on business connected with the marriage,
soon returned, and came more and more _ often,
for a quite different reason. The brilliant beauty of
the lady whose merriment enlivened the whole dwelling
had produced its effect upon him. His heart became
engaged. Mme. de Chevreuse did not resist his flame.
Holland, and not M. de Chevreuse, was her first, and her
real, love. Some years later M. de Chateauneuf was to
declare that the young Englishman had been “the man
whom Mme. de Chevreuse had loved the best, and whom
she loved still.” Holland was ,invited to the Hétel de
Chevreuse, and the house became the scene of an endless
series of merrymakings, entertainments, and secret meet-
ings. The husband saw nothing at all. Anne of Austria,

55
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

who was constantly in her friend’s society, soon found out
all about it. She thought the adventure very entertaining,
and became the lovers’ confidante. Holland, who had his
entrées into the Louvre, had long conversations there with
the Queen and Mme. de Chevreuse. In the course of these
conversations, Buckingham came under discussion.

Holland was Buckingham’s friend. He never tired of
singing the praises of the King of England’s favourite.
He was the most attractive man in the kingdom, so he
declared, “young, open-handed, dashing,” successful in all
his adventures, and, since he had gained the affections of
the King of Great Britain, James I, and his son Charles I,
strangely powerful. The influence he wielded was due to
the qualities he possessed : brilliant, supple, with a fascinat-
ing glance, smiling sensual lips, gentle, coaxing, haughty,
passionate, violent, all at once, Buckingham’s personality
might well have disturbed the most placid imagination.
Anne of Austria’s interest was roused, she listened eagerly,
she began to ask questions. Then it was that Holland
and Mme. de Chevreuse were inspired with the adventur-
ous idea of fomenting an intrigue between the Queen of
France and the English Duke. Princess and favourite
alike were young, charming, and likely to attract the
other; their minds should be worked up to the necessary
pitch of emotion, then Buckingham, for some reason or
other, should come to Paris, and nature would do the rest.
Hardly had the plan been conceived before the pleasure
its execution might afford became apparent. Holland and
Mme. de Chevreuse threw themselves into the business
with the fullest enjoyment. ‘To do honour to their own
passion,” writes La Rochefoucauld, “they planned an
adventure of interest and gallantry between the Queen and
the Duke of Buckingham, though neither had ever seen
the other.”

Mme. de Chevreuse set about her work cleverly. ‘Mme.
de Chevreuse told me,” writes Mme. de Motteville, “when

56
BUCKINGHAM

she was relating the follies of her youth, that she used to
force the Queen’s thoughts toward Buckingham by per-
petually talking to her about him, and ridding her of the
scruples she felt concerning such conversation.” Portraits
were exhibited. The business was not an easy one. “I
have also heard Mme. de Chevreuse declare,” adds Mme.
de Motteville, ‘““and with many exclamations on the subject,
that the Queen’s soul was noble and her heart pure, and
that in spite of the climate in which she had been born—
and in which, as I have already said, the name of lover is a
fashionable one—she had found it the most difficult thing
in the world to induce her to take some pleasure in the
glory of being loved.”

Holland and Carlisle, on their side, were at work in
England. Certain persons talked to Buckingham, and he,
being so pleased with himself as to believe no creature
could resist him, was flattered at the thought of stirring
the heart of a Queen of France. He had already seen
Anne of Austria, whatever La Rochefoucald may say to
the contrary. During a secret journey to Spain with the
Prince of Wales, in 1623—there was a question at that
moment of marrying the Prince to a Spanish Infanta—he
had passed through Paris, and had been able, without
revealing his identity, to be present at a ballet at
the Louvre, where one of the King’s under-tutors, M. de
Préaux, quite unaware of his real quality, gave him a
place from which he was able to indulge in a leisurely
contemplation of Anne of Austria, whose charms found
so brilliant a setting in the splendid festivities of her
Court. He had never forgotten the fresh young beauty
of the fair Princess. :

And besides, moved, as it were, by some vague presenti-
ment, he had long been seeking, by dint of humble atten-
tions, to attract the sovereign’s sympathetic interest. “TI
dare beseech you,” he writes to the Duc de Chevreuse on
April 26, 1620, “to take the trouble to cast your eyes on

57
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

eight coach horses which I am sending to the Queen, and
to command that they shall be presented before her at
some time when you yourself will be there, so that the
wings of your authority may hide the blame which so
much boldness will deserve; I rely on your favour for this
protection.” Now that he knew the way was being pre-
pared before him, he entered eagerly into the plan.
Whether sincerely or not, he fell in love. Anne of Austria
was informed; she seemed touched, the adventure amused
her. She had not realized, as yet, the import of the intrigue,
nor the consequences it was likely to involve. “Thanks
to the counsels of Mme. de Chevreuse,” says Mme. de
Motteville, “the Queen, in spite of the purity of her soul,
had not been able to help finding pleasure in the charm
of this passion (Buckingham’s), which gave her a sense of
complacency that flattered her pride more than it offended
her virtue.” Thus, on one side and the other, was a
sentiment engendered which absence and the effect of a
clever handling of the imagination were to cultivate, till a
personal meeting should ripen it to a warmer feeling.
This meeting had yet to be arranged.

Once the marriage of Henrietta~-Maria had been decided,
Holland and Carlisle suggested that Buckingham should
travel to France to arrange the final details of the marriage
contract. Louis XIII’s Ambassador in England, M.
Léveneur de Tilliéres, wrote, ‘‘The English Ambassadors
in France ask that Buckingham should come to Paris, so
that he may seem to have concluded the marriage, and
keep the glory of it.” The King of England accepted the
proposal “joyfully.”

The Cardinal de Richelieu was one of the French King’s
Ministers at this time. Contrary to general opinion,
according to which the Cardinal ruled the whole govern-
ment of the country from the very outset, Richelieu, at
that date, was simply a Councillor, who gave his opinion,
which was, indeed, treated with great respect, but who

58
BUCKINGHAM

by no means directed the affairs of the State. This
matter of Buckingham’s journey to Paris was debated in
the Council. All its members were much perplexed. The
French Ambassador in London was asked for his opinion.
It was unfavourable to the plan. M. Leveneur de Tilliéres
pointed out that Buckingham’s character was “hot and
haughty,” that there were certain clauses in the contract
over which he “would fly into a passion.” M. de Tilliéres
was quite aware of the intrigue in preparation as to the
favourite of the King of England and Anne of Austria;
he did not mention it, supposing, as he explained in his
Memoirs at a later date, “that the understanding that was
being formed between the Queen and the Duke was a
known thing, and that, knowing it, all the drawbacks it
entailed must have been foreseen.” In reality the King’s
Council would seem to have known nothing at all about
the matter. Richelieu wrote from his house at Limours,
where he was then living in somewhat poor health, that
Buckingham’s journey was certainly not a desirable thing,
but that it would have to be endured for fear of disobliging
the King of England’s Minister, and thus spoiling the
whole situation. Marie de Médicis had set her heart on
the English marriage for her daughter: she was begging
that nothing might be done to retard it. Louis XIII, as
though he had some obscure premonition of what was to
come, stood out. These equivocations filled up the time a
little : the arrangements for the marriage were actually con-
cluded without Buckingham’s presence. But Holland and
Carlisle then put forward a proposal that the Duke should
come to France to fetch the new Queen of England—he
would seize the opportunity to settle various political ques-
tions. There was no possibility of getting out of it. The
authorities in Paris agreed, and so it came about that a
few days after the ceremony in the Cathedral of Notre-
Dame, the English nobleman, so feared by some, so
anxiously desired by others, entered Paris.

59
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was at that time
just three-and-thirty years of age. Of modest extraction,
descended from a Norman family, and brought up in
France, where he had learned the language, he had
appeared when still a youth at the English Court, where
he had been first noticed, and then doted upon, by James I,
who soon raised him to high fortune. “Tall, good look-
ing, of a pleasant wit, magnificent, liberal, fond of polite
society,” he seemed, so Fontenay-Mareuil tells us, “well
suited to a Court.” His fine presence was especially
praised: he was a tall, strapping fellow, slight and vigor-
ous, “the best built and the best looking man in the
world,” writes La Porte, ““he appeared at Court with so
much charm and so much splendour that he filled the
populace with admiration, the ladies with delight and
something more, the gallants with jealousy, and the
husbands with something worse than that.”

His character was disfigured by grave faults. His pride
in his success among women made him exceedingly self-
conceited. He was considered vain beyond all words.
Fontenay-Mareuil considered him “so frivolous and so
vain that he was quite unfitted for serious business, and
still less for war.” As a politician he proved himself
capricious, violent, overbearing, carrying a spirit of muddle
and imprudence into every negotiation he touched. Riche-
lieu, whose Memoirs reveal the inextricable difficulties
which the English Minister’s behaviour caused him,
describes him as a madman. “His enterprises,” he says,
“which were devoid of reason, were carried out in misfor-
tune, but that did not prevent them from placing us in
great peril and doing us a great deal of harm: for the wild
folly of an enemy is more to be feared than his wisdom,
seeing the madman does not act on principles which are
common to all men.” The favour with which Charles I
regarded his Minister can only be explained bya lack of
judgment on the sovereign’s part, and a frivolity of mind,

60
 

 

 

THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM

(From a picture by Rubens in the Pitti Palace, Florence)
BUCKINGHAM

in the Prince’s case, strongly resembling that of his
favourite.

On the evening of May 24, 1625, Buckingham, who had
travelled post, made his entry into Paris, accompanied by
the Earl of Montgomery and a small following of English
gentlemen. While he came, as the Mercure announced,
“to pray his most Christian Majesty to permit the departure
of the spouse of his King, and to place his confidence in
the person of the said Duke to conduct her,” he also pro-
posed to define the exact meaning of certain clauses in the
marriage settlement, and to discuss two questions of
policy: that of preventing a peace between France and
Spain, and that of laying the foundations of an alliance
between France and England touching German affairs.

As was quite proper, considering the friendly relations
subsisting between the family of Chevreuse and the Court
of England, and more particularly Buckingham himself,
the Minister took up his quarters in the family mansion
in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre. This had been decided
by Louis XIII himself. Was the King still unaware of
the plot Buckingham and Mme. de Chevreuse were
hatching between them? We may well believe he was.

The Government, which was resolved not to annoy the
Duke, had decided to make sure of various concessions
it was anxious to obtain by treating him in the most
friendly manner. Buckingham was received with great
courtesy : he had audiences with Louis XIII, with Marie
de Médicis, and with Richelieu. The moment for which
those in the secret longed was that of the meeting between
the Duke and Anne of Austria.

It took place in the Queen’s apartments in the Louvre.
Buckingham knew beforehand that he would think the
Princess charming. Anne of Austria, moved by what had
been told her of the fascinating nobleman, and aware of the
feelings he nursed for her, felt herself drawn towards him
by a lively and inexplicable sympathy. When they found

61
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

themselves together the result was that which might easily
have been anticipated. ‘The Queen,” writes La Roche-
foucauld, ‘seemed even more charming to Buckingham
than his imagination had painted her, and he seemed to
the Queen the man in the whole world most worthy to be
loved.” By some spontaneous phenomenon, each recog-
nized in the other a being whose heart overflowed with an
infinite and mutual tenderness. “Buckingham,” writes
Leveneur de Tilliéres,“ was seen by the Queen Regnant
with a great joy, which was not only written on her face,
but went straight to her heart.” From that moment there
was a sort of intimacy between them, as if they had known
each other for years. And this intimacy, thanks to
Buckingham’s assurance and the Queen’s inexperience,
soon became familiarity. ‘‘From the very first day,” says
Leveneur de Tilliéres, “the freedom between them was as
great as if they had known each other for a long time.
This was caused by Buckingham’s boldness, and by the
character of the Queen Regnant.” There was some aston-
ishment in Anne of Austria’s circle. The Duchesse de
Chevreuse calmed the Queen’s mind, assuring her that
when intentions were upright and behaviour irreproach-
able, mere talk should not stir scruples of conscience which
were devoid of any justification. ‘Certainly,’ adds M.
de Tilliéres, “this passion was perfectly harmless in its
effects, but its appearances were anything but that, and in
this matter the said Queen conducted herself as many other
women have done, in the belief they have, and she herself
thought she had, or assumed on the advice of others, that
evil appearances are of little consequence, so long as the
reality is good and innocent, and that if that was safe-
guarded, God and the world would both be content—which
I do not believe.” Thus, according to Mme. de Chevreuse
and M. de Tilliéres, appearances only were wrong. After
another, and a coarser fashion, the Princesse de Conti
confirmed this impression when she declared that she would
62
BUCKINGHAM

answer to the King for the Queen’s virtue, depuis la
ceinture jusqu’aux pieds.

And indeed, the life led by Anne of Austria in the
Louvre was so busy from morning till night, she was so
constantly surrounded by her many servants and her house-
hold courtiers, she was so exposed to the general view, in
that great apartment of hers on the first floor of the Louvre,
next to the King’s bed-chamber and his cabinet, that it
would have been difficult for her to escape the watchful
and curious eyes about her. Cardinal de Retz relates, in
his Memoirs, a strange story, which he enlivens with some-
what objectionable details, and declares he heard from
Mme. de Chevreuse, of an incident said to have taken place
between Buckingham and Anne of Austria in the garden
of the Louvre, now known as the Jardin de l’Infante. The
Queen, so he avers, had appointed to meet Buckingham in
this garden after nightfall. Mme. de Chevreuse accom-
panied her to the place of meeting, and then retired some
distance, leaving the lovers together. After a time she
heard an unusual and curious noise, “as of a struggle,” she
ran forward, found the Queen in great agitation, and
Buckingham on his knees before her. In a state of feverish
excitement, Anne of Austria took her way back to her own
chamber, angrily exclaiming that “all men were brutal
and insolent.” And next morning she sent Mme. de
Chevreuse to ask the English Duke whether he was sure
she ran no risk of giving a Dauphin, who would be no
Dauphin, to France.

This is not a likely story. Among all the spots in the
Louvre which Buckingham and Anne of Austria might
have chosen, had they desired to meet unseen, the very last
would have been a corner overlooked by more than sixty
of the palace windows—those of the King, the Queen, the
Queen-Mother, the great officers of the Court, Anne of
Austria’s own Household, besides those of the much-
frequented passage now known as the Galerie d’ Apollon—

63
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

whence the whole Court might easily have detected the
Sovereign’s misconduct. Besides this, Retz is the only
writer who makes any allusion to the episode, and historical
critics are agreed in the opinion that the Cardinal’s story
arises out of some confusion with an incident of a similar
nature which others have related, and which seems to have
taken place shortly afterwards, at Amiens. His version is
a mere transformation, with aggravations, of what then
occurred.

During the very short time—not more than a week—
Buckingham spent in Paris, the unceasing series of
banquets, receptions and suppers offered to the English
Minister certainly filled up all his leisure. Richelieu
gave him a great dinner, about the splendour of which
there was a world of talk. “All night long,” says the
Mercure, “the air was filled with the noise of cannon and
mortar shots, and in the morning, with the story of the
banquets given.”

A great concert was organized at the Hétel de Ram-
bouillet in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, just next door
to the Hétel de Chevreuse, at which the famous singer of
those days, Mlle. Paulet, sang before Buckingham. These
gatherings must have been the only occasions on which
the Duke can have contrived to meet Anne of Austria and
approach her nearly. He did speak to her: we know he
avowed his passion. The young Queen, in her agita-
tion, did not know how to reply : Buckingham pressed her.
She ended by giving him to understand that she did not
regard him with indifference. In later days she was to
confide te Mme. de Motteville that she had confessed to
the Duke that “if it had been possible for a virtuous woman
to love any man except her husband, he would have been
the only one for whom she could have cared.” She thought
she had an inclination for him. The Duke, adds Mme. de
Motteville, ‘‘was the person of whom I have heard the
Queen speak in better terms than of any other. His suit

64
BUCKINGHAM

had been received with a certain sense of satisfaction: the
Queen made no secret of the fact.”

But in the midst of this Court crammed with idlers, who
had promptly guessed what was going on—many had
remarked and grasped the significance of certain gestures
and glances, of asides that were far too confidential and
talk that was all too tender—Louis XIII, the Queen-Mother,
the Ministers, could hardly fail to be aware of that which
formed the subject of every courtier’s conversation. The
King was deeply grieved. Cold and reserved by nature,
he contained himself. But he resolved, in agreement with
his advisers, to hurry Buckingham’s departure from
Paris. His decision met with universal approval. ‘“No-
body was able to conceal,” writes Brienne, “the general
satisfaction at the thought of being rid of the presumptuous
foreigner, and sending him back to his own country.” The
Government at once evaded the settlement of the two
questions which had formed the essential object of the
English Minister’s visit: the debate concerning the clauses
of the marriage contract had caused some lively discussion,
but however great the anxiety in Paris to oblige England,
it was absolutely necessary that an end should be put to
a state of things so painful for the King: the business was
cut short. “The perpetual interviews and familiarities
between the Duke and the Queen Regnant” were begin-
ning to exceed the bounds. It was evident to every one,
says Tilliéres, “that the Queen’s affection was increasing
day by day, and appearances were growing worse and
worse, which enraged both the King her husband and
the Queen her mother-in-law.” Henrietta-Maria’s de-
parture was fixed for June 2, in the hope that “once the
Duke of Buckingham had departed all these affections
would die down.” As a matter of fact, though Bucking-
ham had been able to ascertain that the Queen nursed
kindly feelings for him, he had not attained the full success
fer which he had hoped: there were too many obstacles in

F 65
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

that overpopulated Court to permit of so private a meeting
as that for which he longed. In the course of the journey
to conduct the new Queen of England to Boulogne, amidst
the chances furnished by traveller's lodgings, a more
favourable opportunity might perhaps occur.

According to the usual practice of the Court of France,
the Royal Family was to accompany the young Queen as
long as she travelled on French soil. Louis XIII himself
was to go as far as Compiégne, the Queens—Marie
de Médicis and Anne of Austria—and Monsieur, the
King’s brother, were to journey to Calais, and a bevy of
French noblemen were to attend her to London. Precau-
tions were forthwith taken to ensure that Anne of Austria
and Buckingham should see as little of each other as
possible, and that, when they did meet, the Queen should
always be surrounded by a numerous court. On June-2,
Henrietta-Maria, having bidden farewell to those she was
to leave behind her, quitted the Louvre at five o’clock in
the afternoon, carried in a litter covered with red velvet
and gold embroideries, borne by two mules in red velvet
trappings, and escorted by all the companies of the
mounted archers of the city of Paris, by five hundred
citizens, also mounted, and by all the officials of the city—
the mayor, sheriffs, district police, for it was the privilege
of the Paris burghers thus to escort any daughter of the
Royal House who had espoused a foreigner and was about
to quit the kingdom. Buckingham travelled with her.
The Queens were neither of them present: they had
already started by another route, attended by a numerous
following of princesses, ladies, and court lords, mounted or
in coaches. The two troops of travellers were not to meet
till they reached Montdidier. Half-way to St. Denis the
Parisians took their leave of the Queen of England; that
night she slept at Stains, the next at Compiégne, and the
third at Montdidier, where she was joined, on June 6, by
Marie de Médicis and Anne of Austria: almost the whole

66
BUCKINGHAM

of the Court was present; the escort consisted of two com-
panies of the Body-guard, strengthened by detachments
from the Swiss Regiment of the King’s Guard. Louis
XII] had returned to Fontainebleau.

The solemn entry into Amiens took place on the 7th.
The King had given orders that the same honours were to
be rendered to his sister as to himself. The Duc de
Chaulnes, governor of the province, was there to welcome
the Princess, with all the nobility of the province, three
hundred mounted gentlemen, about him. Five thousand
armed burghers of the town of Amiens, divided up into
companies, kept the road. The chief sheriff, garbed in a
violet gown, harangued the Queen in the official terms
habitual at that time. ‘‘Madam,” he said, ‘when the sun
rises, we see all things smiling/ipon us: a thousand gay
colours adorn the sky, the birds pour out their little songs
to greet his noble light, and the earth enamels her verdant
bosom with a thousand flowers pearled with dew. So, too,
when you do us the honour to come into this town, we open
all its gates to you, and with them those of our eyes and
of our hearts!” To the sound of trumpets and drums, of
cannonades and arquebusades, the procession passed into
the town, and after a Te Deum had been sung in the
cathedral, the Queen took up her lodging in the episcopal
palace.

Then there were merry-makings, balls, splendid banquets.
Marie de Médicis fell ill—a cold, ’twas said—and the
travellers stayed on. This delay filled Buckingham’s
heart with joy.

He was more splendid than ever. Bois d’Annemets,
who saw him just then, relates in his Memoirs that the
Duke did all he could to dazzle men’s eyes. “It must
be acknowledged,” he writes, “that he wore the finest suit,
and the best chosen, that ever will be seen.” The English
Minister was always covered with diamonds and pearls.
At the receptions and collations and great banquets his

67
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

magnificence astounded every one who saw him. But
all he had been able to snatch for himself was a word, a
glance here and there, exchanged with the Queen. Was
he to leave France with nothing more? It was clear
that stringent orders had been given to the people about
Anne of Austria: Putange, her equerry, never left her;
La Porte, her “cloak-bearer,” was always on the watch;
ladies and servants were perpetually on guard around hee:
Mme. de Chevreuse and Holland were to provide the much
desired opportunity.

Anne of Austria was not lodged in the episcopal palace
with her sister-in-law. She had been assigned a spacious
dwelling with a good-sized garden which ran along the
bank of the Somme. It was a very pleasant garden, and
all the persons at Amiens connected with the Court knew
it, and used to walk in it. One evening Mme. de Chev-
reuse came to pay a visit to the Queen, and with her,
Buckingham and Holland. The sky was clear and the
air was balmy. Somebody suggested a walk in the
garden. The Queen agreed. Buckingham led the Queen,
Mme. de Chevreuse took Holland’s arm. A few paces
behind them came Putange, La Porte, and a few ladies.
Holland and Mme. de Chevreuse, as though by accident,
contrived to let Buckingham and the Queen out-distance
them, while they held back the attendants. The spot was
a lonely one. Buckingham spoke. He was tender, press-
ing. Anne of Austria, frightened, stopped, and sat down.
Her ladies joined her. After a moment, the Queen moved
on again. Holland and Mme. de Chevreuse followed
the same tactics. The moment was propitious: the half-
solitude, the falling dusk, the emotion stirred in the young
Queen’s breast by a téte-d-téte, in the course of which
Buckingham’s declarations of adoration grew more and
more fervent, threatened to end by moving her deeply.
The Duke, bold as he was, fancied his hour had come.
They were just at the corner of a wooded alley, hidden by

68
BUCKINGHAM

clustering shrubs, nobody could see them. He ventured.
What happened ?

There are two versions. According to Tallemant des
Réaux and Retz—this last places the whole incident in
Paris—there was a regular scene, and a violent one. But
this story, a mere echo of the talk of courtiers, who em-
broidered on their theme to their hearts’ content, will not
bear investigation. The Queen did, as a matter of fact, call
out loudly, and at once, hearing her cry, everybody hurried
to her. If she had not called out, her attendants were so
near her that they must have come up with her before
Buckingham could have put his design into execution.
Thus, if she did call out, it was because she was not a con-
senting party. In reality, La Porte, who was present, La
Rochefoucauld, who had his information from witnesses of
the incident, and Mme. de Motteville, to whom the Queen
told the whole story, all agree in giving us an explanation
which seems sufficiently satisfactory.

“Favoured by the darkness,” writes La Porte, “the Duke
of Buckingham permitted himself very insolent liberties,
and even went so far as to attempt to caress the Queen,
who at once gave a shriek, at the sound of which every-
body ran to her.” ‘One evening,” says La Rochefoucald,
“when the Queen was walking in her garden, they found
themselves alone together; the Duke of Buckingham was
bold and enterprising, the chance was a favourable one,
and he tried to take advantage of it in so disrespectful a
manner that the Queen was forced to call out for her
women.” Mme. de Motteville reduces the episode to still
more modest proportions. ‘‘A great deal has been said,”
she writes, “(about this scene,) but it was very unjustly
spoken, for I know from herself (the Queen), who did me
the honour of confiding it to me in the simplest way, that
finding herself at the corner of an alley where a palisade
might hide them from the public glance, the Queen,
startled at perceiving that she was alone, and apparently

69
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

worried by some over-passionate feelings on the part of
the Duke of Buckingham, cried out, and calling her equerry
to her, reprimanded him for having left her.” Thus the
nature of the scene is easily guessed; it was short, im-
pudent, and commonplace. Its true commentary may be
found in the rider added by the Princesse de Conti to her
affirmation that she would answer to the King for his wife’s
virtue “de la ceinture aux pieds,” to the effect that she
would not undertake the same responsibility “de la ceinture
en haut!”

Buckingham’s behaviour proves that he knew very little
about Anne of Austria. Out of youthful curiosity and
childish giddiness, out of the vanity and caprice of a pretty
woman, the young Queen, whose life had hitherto been
dull enough, may have let herself be tempted for a moment
to feelings that were new to her, and to a closer inspection
of a forbidden delight to which she was a stranger; but
her sentiment, whatever it may have been, was so weak,
she was so cold by temperament, her regard for her own
dignity was so great, that the brutal reality of an ill-judged
and far too sudden gesture was more than enough to recall
her to a sense of what she owed herself, and to stir all the
scruples dormant in her conscience. Buckingham had
bungled !

When everybody, hearing the Queen’s cry, rushed to
her side, the English Duke seemed quite put out of counten-
ance: the best thing he could do was to disappear: he
stepped backwards, and was lost in the darkness. The
people about the Queen asked questions. Anne of Austria,
in her embarrassment, stammered this thing and that. A:
few words were exchanged, and then, by common accord,
it was resolved that nothing should come out. The King
must be kept absolutely in the dark.

But in any case, Marie de Médicis was told. The very
first consequence of the adventure was that the Queen-
Mother, on the plea that her own health was still bad, and

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BUCKINGHAM

gave no promise of immediate improvement, ordered Hen-
rietta-Maria’s immediate departure for Boulogne, under the
escort of Monsieur only. On June 16, the Queen of England
left Amiens. Anne of Austria was bound by etiquette to
travel with her, in her own coach, two leagues out of the
town. She accompanied her sister-in-law for the pre-
scribed distance, and when she had reached the spot beyond
which she was not to proceed, she bade her farewell. At
that moment Buckingham approached her coach to take
his leave. Anne of Austria, who had not seen him since
the scene in the garden, treated him with great coldness.
The Duke, deeply affected, bent forward between the
curtains of the coach, as though he would have spoken a
few words; he was weeping, and strove to hide his tears.
The Queen continued quite unmoved. The Princesse de
Conti, who sat beside her, was to reproach her, later, for
what she called her “cruelty.” Buckingham bowed low,
and departed, more in love than ever, bitterly grieved by
his failure, humiliated by the thought of his own folly, and
in despair at the idea of the dislike which he believed the
Queen had now conceived for him.

Henrietta-Maria and her train travelled by Abbeville
and Montreux to Boulogne, where the Queen was to em-
bark. There was a violent storm, and she had to wait,
for the ships despatched by the King of England to carry
over his bride had not yet come into harbour. A sloop
conveying letters for the Court was anchored in the port.
Mme. de Chevreuse and Holland suggested that Bucking-
ham, under colour of treating some political matter with
the Queen-Mother, might himself carry these despatches
to Amiens. He would thus see Anne of Austria again, and
his departure might perhaps have altered the feeling of
that Princess towards him. The Duke took post-horses,
and rode to Amiens without a stop.

He waited on Marie de Médicis. The Queen-Mother
was still ailing, and in her bed. She received the English

71
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Minister with some appearance of surprise. Buckingham
explained the reason of his coming, and asked if he might
pay his respects to Anne of Austria. The young Queen,
who had been bled that morning and was likewise in bed,
was extremely astonished. “Back again!” she cried. “I
thought we were rid of him!” She sent word that she
could not see anybody. Buckingham pressed his request.
The Queen-Mother, he pointed out, had deigned to receive
him while she was in bed. Mme. de Lannoy, the Lady of
Honour, went herself to Buckingham to explain that “it
would not be agreeable to the King that the Queen should
allow any gentleman to come into her chamber, she being
in bed at the time.” Buckingham appealed to Marie de
Médicis, and she, wearied by his persistence, replied to
the objections put forward by Mme. de Lannoy, “Why
not, after all? I do it myself!” There was nothing for
it but to givein. Mme. de Lannoy took measures to ensure
that the Queen’s chamber should be full of people when
the English Minister entered it. The Princesses de Condé
and de Conti were both of them beside her bed. When
Buckingham came into the room, he advanced to the bed-
side, fell on his knees, took the Queen’s hand and burst
into sobs. It was a painful scene. Mme. de Lannoy
pointed out to the Duke that it was against the custom of
the French Court for any man to speak to the Queen of
France on his knees, and offered him a seat. Buckingham
replied that he was no Frenchman, and was not bound by
the laws of that kingdom. Anne of Austria remained as
cold as ice. Everybody felt thoroughly uncomfortable.
It was impossible that the interview should continue.
The Duke retired, and took his way back to Boulogne,
humiliated and sick at heart. He was resolved to find
some pretext for returning to France at the earliest possible
moment, even if he had to jeopardize and compromise his
master’s policy to do it.

Meanwhile, and in spite of the good resolutions as.to the

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BUCKINGHAM

complete silence to be observed, the story of the Queen’s
adventure, which every courtier was delightedly whispering
to his neighbour, was handed on from one person to
another till it reached Fontainebleau, and the King’s ears.
Mindful of his own dignity, Louis XIII held his peace.
When Marie de Médicis became aware that her son knew
all, she thought it her duty to undertake her daughter-in-
law’s defence. Nothing at all serious had taken place, she
declared, and the King had no right to doubt the correct-
ness of his wife’s behaviour. “The Queen-Mother could
not refrain from testifying to the truth, and asserting that
there was nothing in the matter at all, and that even if
the Queen had desired to do wrong, it would have been
impossible, for there were so many people about her who
watched her doings, and that it had not been in her power
to prevent the Duke of Buckingham from feeling esteem
and even love for her. She also quoted a number of
incidents of a similar kind which had happened to herself
in her own youth. These reasons, though they were
unanswerable, did not extinguish the King’s jealousy.”
But at all events, though Louis XIII did not choose to
say anything either to Buckingham or to his wife, he did
not intend to leave the persons who should have watched
over the Queen, and whose carelessness had been the cause
of the incident, unpunished. He struck at the male
members of her Household. The Queen had been attended
in the Amiens garden by Putange, her equerry; La Porte,
her “cloak-bearer ; a gentleman in waiting, M. de Jars, and
a servant of the name of Datel. On the morning of July
20—the two Queens had joined the King at Fontaine-
bleau—the monarch’s confessor, the Pére Séguiran, waited
on Anne of Austria, and informed her, in the King’s name,
that all the above-named persons were dismissed from the
Court. The Queen was very much affected. She made
no protest, she only sent the King a message to the effect
that “she besought him to name all the persons he wished

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

to remove from her Household, so that there might be no
more of that kind to be done.” She bestowed gifts of
money on the dismissed persons, and before long she was
to take them back into her service.

As far as Buckingham was concerned, the King’s mind
was made up: never again was the English Minister to
set his foot in France. Every effort the Duke made to
attain this end was doomed to failure. Buckingham did
all he could to win over Richelieu, who still continued to
treat him with consideration; but on this particular head
Richelieu refused to attempt to alter the King’s mind.
“Neither did Buckingham’s departure diminish the feel-
ings he nursed for the Queen Regnant,” writes Leveneur
de Tilliéres, ‘‘nor did his extravagances prevent him from
believing he might get back into France and there assuage
his passion. As he knew his only hope of obtaining this
was to gain the support of the Cardinal de Richelieu, he
paid him frequent compliments by letter, and the Cardinal,
who was bent on carrying out his designs for ruining the
Huguenots, would accept them, on some occasions, with
great civility, but on others with hearty scorn.” In
November, 1625, when Buckingham had made a fresh
attempt, the Secretary of State de la Ville aux Clercs wrote
as follows to Richelieu, in the King’s name: “The King
continues to be of the same mind, and cannot consent to
allow the Duke of Buckingham to come here.” In the
earliest days of the married life of the young English
sovereigns, when a bitter quarrel marred the understanding
between Charles I and Henrietta-Maria, that Princess, in
great distress, expressed a desire to go to France and seek
some consolation in her mother’s arms. Buckingham
announced his readiness to consent to her taking the
journey, provided he himself attended her. And Louis
XIII, so great was his dislike of seeing the man he
abhorred, preferred to refuse his sister leave to visit him,
under such an escort. A thousand shifts and subterfuges

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BUCKINGHAM

were planned by the Duke and Mme. de Chevreuse: on
August 2, 1626, M. de Lamothe-Houdancourt, Grand
‘Almoner to Henrietta-Maria in London, wrote to Richelieu
as follows: ‘‘Pembrock tells me that it had been settled
between Mme. de Chevreuse, the ladies (the Princesse de
Conti and others), and the gallants (Buckingham and Lord
Holland), that twice every year they would cross the water
under pretext of settling the difficulties between the King
and Queen of England, and that the Queen-Mother,
in her fear that her daughter might be badly treated, would
obtain this freedom for them. As they believe the Cardinal
may cross their plans, they desire to bring about his ruin.”
Louis XIII was not to give in. Mme. de Chevreuse was
to go on talking about Buckingham to Anne of Austria,
and Holland was to continue expatiating on the subject
of Anne of Austria to Buckingham; but the lovers were
never to meet again. Many observers held Buckingham’s
hostile attitude with regard to France in 1627, his alliance
with the Huguenot rebels, and his descent on the fle de
Ré to be the outcome of his personal spite. Mme. de
Motteville insinuates that “he set up a quarrel between
the two crowns solely to create the necessity for his own
return to France to negotiate a treaty of peace.”
Meanwhile, at noon on Sunday, June 25, 1625, Queen
Henrietta-Maria, who had been rejoined by Buckingham
on his return from Amiens, embarked at Boulogne on
board the great ship The Prince, which, attended by a
splendid squadron numbering two hundred British sail,
was to convey her to the English shores. In her marriage
contract the number, rank and quality of her French attend-
ants had been duly specified. Under the leadership of a
Grand Almoner, M. de Lamothe-Houdancourt, Bishop of
Mende, cousin to the Cardinal de Richelieu, a man still
in the ardour of his youth, who was to correspond
regularly with the Cardinal and keep the Court of France
thoroughly well informed as to everything that happened

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

at Whitehall, some two score ecclesiastics, gentlemen,
secretaries, equerries, serving-men, musicians, and
physicians, with half-a-score of women—ladies-in-waiting,
and waiting women—all of them of French nationality,
were to travel to London with the young sovereign. They
followed in her train. Besides these, there were three or
four Ambassadors Extraordinary—Comte Leveneur de
Tilliéres, the Comte d’Effiat, father of Cinq-Mars, the Duc
de Chevreuse, and, at a later date, Brienne. M. de Chev-
reuse had been given his instructions. His mission was to
secure the “satisfactory carrying out of the contract and
of the marriage ceremony,” which was to have nothing
religious—that is to say, nothing Protestant—about it. A
sprinkling of ladies accompanied the Ambassadors: the
Comtesse de Tilliéres, the Comtesse de Sipierre, a charm-
ing young creature who was to die very young and deeply
regretted, and finally, the Duchesse de Chevreuse. The
Duke had at first refused to bring his wife over with him.
He declared she was in an interesting condition, and
ought not to undertake the journey. But she wept so
much and begged so hard that he had been obliged to give
in. Holland never left her side.

The ship on which Henrietta-Maria had embarked, a
three-decker, “one of the greatest to be seen on the ocean,”
had been prepared for her reception with all the luxury.
known to that period: there were three saloons all on the
same deck, hung with “high warp tapestries, adorned with
golden threads.” Henrietta-Maria dreaded the thought of
being sick at sea, and an “orchestra of lutes, viols and other
delicate instruments ” had been provided on board, to enter-
tain her, and “prevent the inconveniences of the voyage.”
The crossing lasted twenty-four hours. When the ship
hove in sight of the English coast at Dover, it was saluted
by salvos of cannon; the new Queen was greeted by the
acclamations of the multitudes assembled on the shore,
and the blaring of trumpets and bugles. She landed, and

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BUCKINGHAM

was received in a wooden pavilion, “wherein sweet scents,
perfume-burners and odours of the most pleasing kind
caused the too strong air of the sea to change, for her, into
a pleasant softness.”

The next morning, at ten o’clock, Charles I arrived:
“the flower of his nobility attending him.” On the follow-
ing day the young couple started for Canterbury, and
thence they went to London. An epidemic was raging in
‘the city, six hundred persons, it was said, dying there
every day. The new Queen’s solemn entry into her
capital was hurried, and anything but brilliant. A special
session of Parliament had been convoked to confirm the
marriage arrangements, and on this occasion the King
gave a great banquet, followed by a ball, at which M. and
Mme. de Chevreuse were present. Then, on account of
the sickness, Charles I retired to his palace at Hampton
Court, outside London. He had assigned M. and Mme. de
Chevreuse lodgings in Richmond Palace, about three miles
away.

The beginnings of the -married life of the English
sovereigns were anything but peaceful. The King’s first
interview with his wife had not produced an agreeable
impression on him. She was thin and puny in appearance,
with but little beauty about her. The meeting with her
husband had been a great disappointment to the young
Queen. She had taken her way to London in sadness and
melancholy. Charles had lost his temper. Hard words
had passed between the two. Buckingham had made things
worse by insisting on his own wife, sister, and niece being
placed about the Queen, instead of three of her French
ladies: the Ambassadors of Louis XIII had interfered.
The Queen, speaking of her husband to M. de Tilliéres,
told him that “with regard to his mind she had been
deceived.” She wept. And then Buckingham reproached
her with being bad-tempered, and told her she must be
merry with the King, or else she would be unhappy.

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Everything suffered. The King of England, as though
to atone to his people for having married a princess of a
Catholic house, and permitted a Catholic bishop and bevy
of priests to be about her, began to persecute the Catholics.
This persecution was a contravention of the agreement
entered into with the Court of France, and the Court.
of France protested against it. Louis XIII sent over M.
de Blainville to express his displeasure, and Blainville was
coldly received. Buckingham offered to go to France to
arrange matters, and Louis XIII refused to receive him.
The violence of the treatment meted out to Henrietta-Maria
and to Catholics in England increased twofold. The
Bishop of Mende writes to Richelieu in August 1625:
“We have no more bitter enemy than Buckingham: he
tries to damage the Queen in the King’s mind; and the
Queen, on the other hand, does not do all she might to
win over the King: she sees him not at all, or no more
than she is obliged. Buckingham’s spirit is an evil one.”
Attacks were made on the French attendants of the young
Queen: the English fomented complaints against them,
and especially against the ecclesiastics. The situation was
growing very difficult. Sorely puzzled, the French Govern-
ment, in its inability to discover any efficacious means of
obtaining satisfaction, tried one shift after another. Riche-
lieu wrote to the Bishop of Mende that he “wept tears of
blood over the sad position of the Queen of England.”

Now, while Louis XIII did not know which way to turn,
and while his Ambassadors in London, and notably M. de
Chevreuse, were straining every nerve to discover some
basis of settlement, Madame de Chevreuse was supply-
ing the King of France, overwhelmed with annoyances
already, with various other subjects of vexation and
displeasure.

Both the Duke and his wife had been heartily welcomed
in London. When the King assigned them lodgings at
Richmond, he also provided them with a town residence,

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BUCKINGHAM

Denmark House. The English were filled with admiration
of the splendour of M. de Chevreuse. He sparkled with
gems and diamonds, and never went abroad without “mules
covered with the most splendid trappings that ever were
seen.” Great attentions were lavished on the Duchess.
Her merriment and high spirits were immensely liked in
a circle where the French of both sexes were otherwise
but little appreciated. Lord Holland was constantly at her
side. Thanks to the fashions then in vogue, when gowns
were worn full and ample, draping the figure in their folds,
the young Duchess was able to conceal her condition, which
had indeed imparted a wonderful freshness and brilliancy
to her skin. Buckingham was frequently in her company,
and these three made up a little coterie of the most delight-
ful kind, which grew more and more intimate as the days
went on. At last, people began to gossip.

The Bishop of Mende, in his private correspondence,
categorically accuses Holland of having permitted Buck-
ingham to share the favours bestowed on him by Mme. de
Chevreuse. ‘‘ Mme. de Chevreuse,” he writes, ‘is shut up
for five or six hours every day with Buckingham : Holland
has made over his prize to him.” And indeed, Mme. de
Chevreuse was to avow, in later years, that Buckingham
had been very dear to her. Was the correspondence she |
kept up with Anne of Austria the cause of the English
Minister’s devotion to her? Or had her charm and her
well-known easy sense of virtue inspired Buckingham with
a fancy to number her among his many passing conquests ?
It was a strange sight! Then Holland suggested that
Mme. de Chevreuse should go to his house to lie in: he
himself, he declared, would only keep one small set of
rooms for his own use. Mme. de Chevreuse was spending
weeks on end, at this time, in Buckingham’s mansion, and
without her husband. M. de Chevreuse did not appear to
know or understand anything of what was going on. On
account of the strained relations between Buckingham and

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Henrietta-Maria, Mme. de Chevreuse hardly ever appeared
in the Queen’s presence. She lived apart from all the
French members of the Household. When she wrote to
France, to Marie de Médicis, she gave her none but
excellent news of the royal couple.

At last the Bishop of Mende, stung into anger, denounced
the scandal caused by the misconduct of Mme. de
Chevreuse and her husband’s weakness, to Cardinal de
Richelieu. “I am ashamed,” he writes, ‘‘of the impudence
of Mme. de Chevreuse, and of her husband’s simplicity.”
He had endeavoured to prevent the Duchess from going to
Lord Holland’s house for her confinement. ‘‘ Ashamed,”
he wrote, “of the fact that M. de Chevreuse was not
(ashamed), I gave him to understand that it would give
offence in Paris if she did not lodge in his own house. It
is a public jest, and one which can only serve to dishonour
the State. If it had been desired to ruin everything,
nothing worse could have been devised.” The French
Government had flattered itself that the English marriage
and the conditions imposed in favour of the Catholics,
amongst others the despatch of a body of ecclesiastics to
London, would have done some service to the Roman
Catholic Faith in England: truly the result seemed likely
to be of a quite contrary nature! ‘It seems,” says the
Bishop, somewhat coarsely, “as if these ladies had come
over to establish brothels, rather than to serve religion!”
As for the husband, he was simply ridiculous. “M. de
Chevreuse is playing a shabby part over here: it is a
vexation to me that he should be the laughing-stock of the
foreigners as well as of the French.”

These reports impressed Louis XIII and Richelieu in
the most unfavourable way. The Cardinal’s opinion was
that Mme. de Chevreuse ought to be sent back to France
at once. To this Charles I objected, on the pretext that
the young Duchess was so far advanced in pregnancy as
to be unfit to undertake so long a journey. The Bishop

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BUCKINGHAM

of Mende then reported that she was lodged in Lord
Holland’s house. ‘‘So great is the husband’s weakness,”
he writes, “that one blushes for him.” He adds that Mme.
de Chevreuse was seeing a great deal of Mme. de Thémines,
and that both these ladies were holding long conferences
with Dumoulins, the Protestant pastor, and that they eat
meat in public on fast days. Did they mean to turn
Huguenot? What an example! It was unendurable!
From Paris, Richelieu, in his rage, wrote in the most in-
sulting manner regarding Mme. de Chevreuse. “When
she does come back,” he says, in one of his letters to the
Bishop, “there will be no necessity for sending to fetch
des guilledines from England! ”—an allusion to the class
of persons sought after by men who couraient le guilledou.
To Schomberg he mentioned her in still more scathing
terms: “These English, whom we call bouquins (in France
Buckingham’s name was pronounced Bouquinquant), say
we may well call them so, seeing some of them have
bouquiné une de nos chévres! This billet will be seen, if
you please, by no eye save your own!” Mme. de Chev-
reuse was to become aware of the language the Cardinal
had applied to her: she never forgave him. From that
moment there grew up between her and Richelieu a
deep and bitter hatred, the effects of which were to make
themselves felt till the mighty Minister was laid in his
grave.

The Duchess was brought to bed at Hampton Court,
the palace of the King of England, of a daughter, who
received the names of Anne-Marie, and was ultimately to
become a professed nun, and Abbess of Pont-aux-Dames.
By M. de Chevreuse, Marie de Rohan had daughters
only: this Anne-Marie, born in 1625; Henriette, born in
1631, who also became a nun, and Abbess of Jouarre; and
Charlotte, who was born in 1627, was known as Mile. de
Chevreuse, and to whom I shall frequently refer in the
course of this work. If there were other children their

G 81
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

birth was necessarily concealed, and she bore them in
secret: we find no trace of them in history.

Once she was thoroughly recovered, Mme. de Chevreuse
could find no excuse for remaining in England. A
message from Paris warned her, and her husband too, that
they must return forthwith. The Duke’s mission was con-
cluded: he asserted that the English Government had
formally undertaken faithfully to adhere to every clause
of the marriage contract. On the other hand, the violence
of the epidemic which afflicted London had not abated:
it was high time to get back to France.

The departure of Mme. de Chevreuse was viewed with
the deepest regret by the English Court. “We do not
know where to begin,” wrote Charles I to the Duke,
“whether by thanking you for your company and that of
my dear cousin your spouse, or by complaining against
Fortune, who, after long feeding us with the hope of a
lengthy enjoyment of your presence, and the pleasure of
your good company in our rustic sports, has deprived us
of that happiness by the call and necessity of business,
and the accident of this infection. Our dear cousin carries
back with her the satisfaction we lose by her return, and
with it the honour, the respect, the prayers and good
wishes of all sorts, not of our own Court only, but of all
other persons who have had the honour of seeing her, or
hearing others speak of her.”

Charles I also wrote to Louis XIII to thank him for
having sent him Mme. de Chevreuse, and to sing the
praises of the Duchess. “I would fain derive as happy an
advantage from the return of our cousin the Duchesse de
Chevreuse as you yourself have done by her coming here,
the charms and perfections of which have so greatly in-
creased and added lustre to the honour and favour you
have been pleased to bestow on myself and my well-beloved
spouse, that we feel ourselves in duty bound to express all
the gratitude in our power for so singular an affection and

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BUCKINGHAM

favour, and also for the wisdom with which you made your
choice of a person in whom we have found so many causes
of contentment and satisfaction: this it is which leads me
to beg you to show me the kindness of assisting me to
render her the honour and the thanks I owe her, for the
great honour and felicity we have received through her,
who now returns to you, well fitted to be the ornament of
any place, and the very worthy pledge of our mutual
affection.”

As a proof of his regard, Charles desired to make M. de
Chevreuse a Knight of his Order of the Garter. The Duke
took the precaution of requesting his King’s permission to
accept the honour. “You did wisely not to accept the
Garter without my permission,” replied Louis XIII on
July 9, 1625; “I have laid the matter before the Senior
Knights of the Order (of the Holy Ghost): I give you
leave to accept, on condition that the Garter is conferred
upon you without any religious ceremony and independ-
ently of any Church.” Neither the oath taken nor the
service promised clashed in any way with the statutes of
the Order of the Holy Ghost. The Garter was duly
bestowed, and a handsome gift of jewels along with it.

On-July 15, 1625, M. and Mme. de Chevreuse took their
departure from London: two other French Ambassadors,
d’Effiat and Brienne, travelled with them. The final inter-
view of these two gentlemen with Buckingham took place
at Richmond. “My lord,” quoth Brienne, ‘I am not sur-
prised that two of the greatest of our ladies should have
falfen in love with you.” The reference was to the Queen
and to Mme. de Chevreuse. “It would have been difficult
for me to gain the victory,” replied Buckingham, “for I was
nothing but a poor foreigner.” ‘My lord,” said Brienne,
“it is the glory of our French ladies that they can stir love
without accepting it, and if any of them cannot but accept
it, their only care, when they bestow their good graces, is
to be wooed by a gallant belonging to the Court, and not

83
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

by a foreigner, who, in our country, is held to be no more
than a passe-volant.”? It was a “setting down”: Buck-
ingham listened, and made no rejoinder.

M. and Mme. de Chevreuse were civilly received at Court
—they were of use there. Richelieu, in spite of his just
anger against the Duchess, remembered she was the friend
of Anne of Austria, of Charles I, of Buckingham : he must
treat her with consideration. He was very polite. “The
news of your generosity to their cousin, Mme. de Chev-
reuse,” writes Holland to Richelieu from London, “has
been very agreeable to His Majesty and to the Queen : this
is an action so noble that it adds to your own glory and
serves those who serve you, for the whole of this Court,
which has been honoured by the presence and the know-
ledge of this lady, holds her as good as she is beautiful,
her perfections walking equally, hand in hand.”

And still the discussions with the English authorities
went on. The “solemn” promises given to the Duc de
Chevreuse as to the articles of the marriage contract had
not been kept. There was now some question of driving
all the French members of Henrietta-~Maria’s household
out of the country, and Charles had just signed a merciless
proclamation against the Catholics. For many reasons,
the French Government did not desire to break off relations
and declare war. There was nothing for it but to nego-

' Under the old French Monarchy the great noblemen were colonels
and owners of their regiments. They chose their own arms, uniforms,
etc. Their obligation as regards the King only amounted, in time of
peace, to keeping up the effective strength of the regiment to a certain
minimum. This obligation, as a matter of fact, was not very strictly
observed, and except in war time, the regiments were always far below
their specified strength, and frequently mere skeletons. For this reason,
whenever the King, through his military representatives or governors
of provinces, or other deputies, ordered a review of any kind, the
strength of the regiments affected was hurriedly made up by borrowing
men from other corps, on the understanding that a like service should
be rendered in return when the necessity arose, or by enlisting, for a few
days only, any straggling trooper, or hired bravo, or good-for-nothing

wandering fellow, on whom the colonel and his officers could lay theit
hands ; and these stop-gap soldiers were known as des passe-volants.

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BUCKINGHAM

tiate, and for that purpose “the best means of repairing
the damage was to appeal to the private influence of
M. and Mme. de Chevreuse.” Cardinal de Richelieu kept
M. de Chevreuse informed of the displeasure of Louis XIII
as to the disregard of the promises given by the English
Government: once, in a moment of irritation, the King
had taxed the Duke and his wife with keeping up
communications with England prejudicial to his own
service and to the cause of religion. “As they had
done the mischief,” he went on to say, “he insisted on
their applying the remedy.” Richelieu had added, in
conversation with M. de Chevreuse, ‘that he warned him,
as a friend, that he had better see to the matter, otherwise
the blame would be laid on him.” Much abashed, M. de
Chevreuse offered to send one of his friends, M. de Bautru,
to London, to remind the English Government of the
engagement into which it had entered. Bautru duly
departed to London; to Charles I he pointed out that M.
and Mme. de Chevreuse were being blamed for what was’
happening in England, and that if matters did not improve,
the Duke and Duchess would both be obliged to retire from
Court; to Buckingham he suggested, in the name of Mme.
de Chevreuse, that he should himself come to France, to
smooth over the various difficulties. In consequence of
these representations, Holland and Carlton were despatched
to Paris, to discuss the whole business: this was a result
of a kind.

While he was thus using the Duke in his dealings
with England, Richelieu was endeavouring to employ
the Duchess as his tool to work on Anne of Austria and
Gaston, the King’s brother. La Rochefoucauld declares,
in reference to these attempts, that the Cardinal, aware
of the hostile frame of mind, as to himself, in which
the Duchess had returned from England, trusted her but
a very little way; Richelieu was right: the future was to
prove it, and in cruel fashion !

85
CHAPTER IV

THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

Richelieu and Anne of Austria’s Circle—The Ornano Plot—The activity
of Mme. de Chevreuse—She appeals to Chalais—Chalais in love;
his arrest ; his death—Flight of Mme. de Chevreuse into Lorraine.
1626.

IT was the peculiar lot of Cardinal de Richelieu to inspire
not only the most unbounded devotion and the most ardent
affection, but also the most implacable hatred. The merit
—or the fault—that brought this about lay in his own
character. His intelligence was transcendent, his feelings
were most keen, and he inspired all who approached him
with the liveliest admiration, to begin with, and fascinated
them, in the next place, by his courteous manner, his eager
politeness, and his great anxiety to please. But when he
took action, the man was so positive and so resolute that,
whether intentionally or not, he gave offence by the very
harshness and severity of his will. His imperiousness made
itself sharply felt. The tension of his mind alarmed those
about him: he would stop at nothing to attain success,
and thus inspired feelings of dismay. His one idea was
to guide all the affairs of the country on continuous and
rational lines, and his unswerving logic put the poor
courtiers, with their futile and vacillating passions, quite
out of countenance. Between him and Mme. de Chevreuse
there was a radical divergence of temper. Even if the
Cardinal had not offended her by his hard words, the
Duchess would soon have become the great statesman’s
bitter enemy. \

In Lorraine she found a field ready for her operations.
As Louis XIII, who had the gift of sound judgment, learnt

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THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

to value Richelieu’s talents more and more highly, his
attachment to the exceptionally remarkable man, who, so
he would declare, had been sent him by Providence, had
deepened. But as Richelieu’s credit grew stronger the
inevitable consequence had made itself felt, and an opposi-
tion had also grown up and was gaining strength. Louis
XIII was known to be self-willed and harsh: people were
well aware that he himself was generally responsible for
the severe decrees issued by his Ministers; but as nothing
could be done against His Majesty, a belief was simulated
and disseminated that Richelieu alone was to blame: he
became an object of general dislike.

Nowhere was this animosity stronger than in Anne of
Austria’s own circle. The young lords and ladies, giddy
and superficial every one of them, who clustered about ‘the
little Queen,” were even less able than most people to
reconcile themselves to the Cardinal’s severe and unbend-
ing views. When Mme. de Chevreuse returned from
London, she found the tone, when the Cardinal was men-
tioned in Anne of Austria’s household, was one of ridicule.
And there was more than that. Ever since the Buckingham
incident there had lingered in the Queen’s heart—with the
indignation caused by the Duke’s imprudent behaviour
and that continued stir in her sentimental existence of
which he was the author, and which had really been very
agreeable to her—a secret grudge against the King, who
had been aware of what had happened, and in his inability
to strike herself, had punished those about her; and above
all, against Richelieu, who, when informed of the incident,
had no doubt advised the monarch to take the measures
he had adopted. The Queen’s own courtiers had guessed
the sovereign’s prejudices, and her friends of the female
sex, while they poked daily scorn at the Minister, would
occasionally venture on a veiled allusion to the King his
master. Mme. de Chevreuse returned just in the nick of
time to transform a mere inclination into a living force.

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Chalais wrote of her to Richelieu, “She has a bitter
animosity against your person.” Mme. de Chevreuse
stirred up the Queen against the Cardinal. “She never
ceased,” writes Mme. de Motteville, “talking about him to
the Queen. The mistress and her favourite both hated
Cardinal de Richelieu, and nothing delighted them so
much as to annoy him, all the more so because the Queen
was persuaded that he made mischief about her with the
King.” Finding herself listened to, the Duchess went a
step further. She ventured on attacking the person of the
King himself: she pointed out the possibility that Louis
XIII, with his delicate and uncertain health, might very
likely die, and his brother Gaston would succeed to the
throne. Why should not Anne of Austrita marry Gaston,
then, and so continue Queen of France? The Queen
lent an ear to these suggestions; but such fancies would
have remained buried in the secrecy of confidential inter-
course if an unexpected series of favourable circum-
stances had not given the audacious Duchess a chance of
trying to realize them. Her love of intrigue and her
constitutional impetuosity led her to engage in a wild
conspiracy.

Gaston, then Duc d’Anjou, and later to become Duc
d’Orléans, was then a lad of seventeen. He was an inferior
sort of fellow. His great staring eyes, pendulous lower
lip, and perpetually open mouth gave him a far from intel-
ligent expression. His character was considered anything
but sympathetic: he was timid, lazy, fidgety, nervous; he
never could sit quiet, and was always making faces.
Familiar, ill-mannered too, vain, insisting to the last tittle
on the honours due to his rank, never allowing a woman
to be seated in his presence, nor a man to speak to him
save with uncovered head, he proved himself, as his con-
fessor, the Pére de Coudren, described it, “both violent-
tempered and debauched.” Chalais, when he lay in his
prison, was to say: “ Monseigneur is, of all men, the most

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frivolous. He is of small mind, and of no resolution: he
has already lost the few servants he had by his own weak-
ness.” Later, when Anne of Austria’s eyes had been
opened, she was to reply scornfully to the King’s reproach-
ful accusation of having desired his death so as to marry
his brother, that ‘“ she would have gained but little by the
change.” At the moment of which we write, Gaston was
still young, there was some hope of improvement on his
part; in any case, he was heir to the throne. The little
Queen fell in with the plan suggested to her. From the
confession made by Gaston to the King on August 2, 1626,
it is clear that this plan had been mentioned to her by
Mme. de Chevreuse even before 1624. And in 1625 came
the announcement that Gaston was going to marry, and to
marry Mlle. de Montpensier! This marriage would
shatter all the cherished dreams !

It was Queen Marie de Médicis who desired the match.
For years she had been working for it. Mlle. de Mont-
pensier, the only child of a Bourbon of the Montpensier
branch, and the last of his line, was one of the richest
heiresses in France. Marie de Médicis had made much of
the mother, a Joyeuse. She had showered proofs of a
touching affection on the child from her earliest years,
calling her ‘‘my daughter.” After having destined her to
be the bride of a son born before Gaston, and who died
young, after having even gone so far as to get the marriage
contract signed, in 1608—a wonderful contract it was, with
a list of all the splendid domains of the ancient family
of Bourbon, the duchies of Montpensier, Auvergne, St.
Fargeau, Combraille, Dombes, and Beaujolais—she had
lost no time, when her elder son was taken from her, about
arranging the same alliance for the younger brother.
Gaston was then three years old, his betrothed was six.
Since that time the Queen had waited patiently. But now,
the young man having reached his seventeenth year, and
the young lady her twentieth, she felt it was time to

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

conclude the matter. Louis XIII, after some hesitation, had
given his consent, and the news had been made public.

It came as a surprise. Everybody had known, of course,
that such a project had been in existence, but it was
believed to have fallen to the ground. In the absence of
an heir, the families of Condé and Soissons had both con-
ceived the hope of being some day called to the crown.
They were sorely vexed: and the Comte de Soissons had
made up his mind to marry Mlle. de Montpensier into the
bargain! But of all the persons affected by the news, none
was so severely hit as Anne of Austria.

If Gaston married and had children, while she herself
had none, how humiliating would her position be, and how
diminished her importance! What would become of her
if the King were to die? ‘Ah, the poor Prince!” said
Marsillac to Villelongue, “how badly is the King advised !
That a childless King of five-and-twenty should marry a
brother of eighteen or twenty, who may have children
within a year! What harm may that not bring about!
And that poor Princess (the Queen)! What is to become
of her?”

Mme. de Chevreuse raised Anne of Austria’s courage.
Nothing was done yet, she pointed out: there was only
one. course open to her, the marriage must be opposed and
stopped at any price. The best thing would be to persuade
Gaston to refuse to marry Mlle. de Montpensier. “It is
Mme. de Chevreuse,” wrote Chalais to Richelieu, ‘who is
the cause of the whole world’s opposition to the consent
(of Monsieur to the marriage), and she incited everybody
to do harm to Mile. de Montpensier.” It was necessary
to find somebody with influence over Gaston sufficiently
strong to carry him away. Mme. de Chevreuse addressed
herself to the Prince’s Governor, Colonel d’Ornano.

Jean-Baptiste d’Ornano, a Corsican by birth, was the
grandson of one Sampietro Bastelica, who had raised his
fellow-countrymen in revolt against the Genoese, and the

go
THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

son of a certain Corsican called Alfonso and surnamed
d’Ornano, who had come to France in the sixteenth century,
had distinguished himself, been appointed Colonel of the
Corsican bands, made a Marshal of France in 1596, and
died in 1610. Jean-Baptiste, who was born in 1581, had
succeeded his father in the colonelcy of the Corsicans;
his intelligence, energy and power of command had won
him rapid advancement, he had been made a Councillor of
State in 1610, Maréchal de Camp in 1614, Lieutenant of
Normandy in 1618, and in the following year, i619,
Governor to Gaston. Thanks to his prestige and his firm-
ness of character, he had acquired great authority over
the Prince, and was the only person able to lead him and
make him do what he desired.

To tell the real truth, Ornano cared but little about the
Montpensier marriage. The Colonel’s chief consideration
was connected with the fact that if Gaston succeeded to
the throne, he himself, his favourite and confidential
counsellor would become the most powerful person in the
realm. Till that time arrived, the absence of a direct heir,
which had a singularly weakening effect on Louis XIII,
proportionately strengthened the hand of Gaston, whom
the King was fain to treat with great consideration. It
was quite possible that, as the result of a series of
internal complications, the King might be driven to resign
his crown. Complications, therefore, should be regarded
with favour. Ornano might at all events, by dint of creat-
ing difficulties, make himself feared, and force the King
into buying his temporary fidelity or submission by the
bestowal of honours and dignities.

Mme. de Chevreuse offered him the alliance of the Queen
Regnant. She proposed that he should foment a cabal
between Anne of Austria and the heir to the throne, with
a view to preventing the Montpensier marriage. The
sovereign was sure to endeavour to procure peace by pay-
ing off the conspirators. The risks were slight and there

gi
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

was profit to be made—past difficulties of the kind proved
that fact. The offer was a tempting one, and Ornano
closed with it.

The ladies about the Queen, Mme. de Chevreuse, the
Princesse de Conti, Mme. de La Valette (formerly Mlle. de
Verneuil), held long conferences with him. He was ill:
they went to see him as he lay in bed, “which was of no
consequence at all,” says Fontenay-Mareuil, “because he
was so ugly.” Richelieu grew uneasy. His spies brought
him warnings. To lay a finger on the Colonel was im-
possible. So powerful was his influence with the heir to
the throne that his master would not endure it. Richelieu
suggested that the King should draw Ornano over to his
side, and bind his hands, by conferring favours upon him.
He was made a Marshal of France, and appeared grateful
for the honour. He took the necessary oaths early in
1626; and the Cardinal questioned him about Gaston’s
marriage, inquiring whether he had given the Prince any
advice on the subject. The new Marshal replied that he
never interfered in that matter, and left Monsieur to settle
it as he chose. Some time afterwards Gaston asked to be
admitted to share in the deliberations of the King’s
Council. Louis XIII took this to be a move of Ornano’s,
destined to lead to his own admission to the Council
Chamber, where the heir-apparent’s confidant might en-
deavour to exercise a preponderating action likely to end
by creating a difficult situation. He refused. Gaston and
the Marshal were both much annoyed, and Mme. de Chev-
reuse took advantage of their vexation to lay a complete
plan of campaign before Ornano, which was to be carried
out in opposition to the Montpensier marriage, and would
result in serious changes in the State, likely to ensure a
great advance in the Marshal’s own fortunes. Deliberately,
Ornano entered on the adventure.

Advised by him, Gaston made it known that he refused
to accept the proposed marriage : the reason he put forward

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THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

was not that he had “any aversion to the person of Mlle.
de Montpensier, but that he was afraid to bind himself.”
Then the Prince, with his habitual inconsistency, told
Richelieu, when the Cardinal came to see him, that he was
ready to marry if a fine apanage was secured to him.
Ornano was on the watch. Mme. de Chevreuse scarcely
left his side, Anne of Austria, in the shadow, was close on
her heels. Later on the Queen was to deny any active
participation in the business. When Louis XIII lay at
the point of death she sent M. de Chavigny to “beseech
him not to believe that she had dabbled in the Ornano
affair, or that she had ever had anything to do with the
plan for her marriage with Monsieur.” And the King
replied sadly, “In my present state I am bound to forgive
her, but I am not obliged to believe her!” It did not prove
a difficult matter to induce Gaston to change his mind once
more.

That done, the conspirators laid the foundations of an
understanding with the grandees of the kingdom. At a
later period Monsieur was to confess this, under cross-
examination. “Monsieur,” so runs the report, “acknow-
ledged to his mother, in the presence of the Cardinal de
Richelieu, that it was true that the Colonel had incited
him to keep up habitual relations with as many as possible
of the great nobility of the kingdom.” Mme. de Chevreuse
was busy too: she opened correspondence with the Prince
de Condé, the Comte de Soissons, the Ducs de Mont-
morency and de Nevers, and even, to reach the Huguenots
through her, with Mme. de Rohan. She found a ready
and attentive hearing. Great lady as she was, the Queen’s
favourite, dealing with an affair in which Monsieur and
Anne of Austria were both interested, and which was to
involve a struggle with a too-powerful Minister, Mme. de
Chevreuse was sure to find favourable ears. All these
great lords knew, like Ornano, by their experience of the
past fifteen years, how little danger there was about risings

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

of this sort, and how much profit was to be made out of
them. They sent replies. M. de Nevers said that if war
broke out he would raise troops in the province of Cham-
pagne; the Comte de Soissons promised 400,000 crowns on
condition that Gaston made Mile. de Montpensier over to
him; Longueville undertook to bring 800 horsemen out
of Normandy, and a group of smaller gentlemen, La Meil-
leraye, Mauny, Guitry, Bertechéres; a force of from 500
to 600 men should be raised in that province as well.
Let Monsieur give the signal for revolt by his own sudden
departure from the Court, just as Marie de Médicis had
done at the time of the last rising. Of all these accomplices,
the members of the Vendéme family were the most eager.
Czsar, Duc de Vendéme, and Alexandre de Vendéme,
Grand Prior of France, the natural sons of Henri IV and
Gabrielle d’Estrées, had never loved Louis XIII. As
children their disagreeable and quarrelsome tempers had
rendered them the objects of the young King’s dislike, '
and this antipathy had grown and strengthened with age.
In the course of the inquiry which followed on the Ornano
plot, a letter from the Duc de Vendéme to the Marshal was
produced, which explained his reasons for joining the con-
spiracy : he complained that “since the death of Henri IV,
the King and Marie de Médicis had done him every sort
of injustice,” that they had tried to strip him and reduce
him to a nonentity, and that he intended to-defend himself;
he added, and this flattered Ornano’s secret hopes, “that
the crown would look well on Monsieur’s head.” Four
accusations were brought against the Grand Prior by his
judges: that he had opposed Gaston’s marriage, that he
had openly professed his hatred for the King, that he had
incited Monsieur to leave the kingdom, and proposed to
play the Ministers an evil trick. The co-operation of the
Duc de Vendéme was promised through his secretary,
Dunault: he demanded that Gaston should leave the Court
and proceed to Metz, Sedan, or the Havre, that if necessary

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THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

he should “use threats and violence to Richelieu,” and
above all things, that he should take up arms.

The great families of the kingdom were not the only
persons to whom application was made. An appeal was
addressed to foreign countries. This was no new fashion.
In the course of the three-quarters of a century during
which civil wars had been raging in France, the habit of
asking for extraneous help had grown up. The feeling
of the country was against the practice. “I think it a
shameful thing for me,” writes Alexandre de Campion,
later to become the faithful friend of Mme. de Chevreuse,
“to serve the King of Spain against my native country.”
“T cannot honourably serve Spain against my country.”
Gaston, cross-questioned by Richelieu on July 23, 1626,
himself admitted the gravity of the act: ‘Monsieur said
that the greatest fault he had committed had been to
treat with foreigners.” When the Cardinal told him,
thereupon, that this fault on the Colonel’s part con-
stituted a capital offence, he openly testified that he knew
it very well. But the answers came in from abroad:
efficacious help was promised; Mme. de Chevreuse and
Ornano did not hesitate.

They entered into negotiations with England. Through
Mme. de Chevreuse, Gaston was put into communication
with the Earl of Carlisle. Monsieur’s theory was that the
King his brother treated him in a humiliating manner,
that he did not give him his due, and tried to force him
into a marriage he disliked. Guided by Bucking-
ham, who sought to make every possible difficulty with
France, Carlisle replied that he was to express the “‘annoy-
ance with which it was realized that he was badly treated,
and to assure him that if he would only make his views
known, he would be served by England in whatever manner
he might desire.” Blainville, the French Ambassador in
London, warned Louis XIII’s Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, on July 4, 1626, in these words: “The

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Earl of Carlisle has reported Monsieur’s discourse to him,
which is so full of hatred and scorn for the King that, out
of respect, I dare not write it.” The Bishop of Mende
wrote, for his part: “The King of England is expecting
great results from the understanding between Monsieur
and the Queen, and nearly the whole Court is conspiring
in this design.” The English Government, it must be
said, was struggling at that moment with internal diffi-
culties which made it far from easy for it to afford any
really effectual help. It gave “fine hopes and promises.”

Gaston wrote letters to Savoy. In his cross-examination
he was to confess that “it was true he had written letters
to Piedmont.” The Duke of Savoy, who was watching
the complications in French politics in the hope of snatch-
ing some addition to his own territories, replied that he
would send ten thousand men.

Negotiations were opened with the Ambassador of the
United Provinces, Aarsens, but he avoided replying—he
had no faith in the business. The conspirators applied to
the Nuncio, and tried to win him over: to the Spanish
Ambassador as well. Gaston declared he had “tried in a
general way to make himself as many friends on every side
as he could get.”

Thus the plot was being gradually organized. And the
conspirators began to discuss the details of its execution.
According to the confession made by Gaston to the King
on July 12, 1626, it was arranged that advantage was to be
taken of the King’s absence in a distant province to raise
the people of Paris, and take possession of the fortresses
of Vincennes and the Bastille. If, as was most probable,
the King hurried up with his troops, Monsieur was to fly
to Dieppe or to the Havre. The Protestants of La Rochelle
had offered to receive him in their town, but Gaston, advised
by two of his confidants, Bois d’Annemets and Puylaurens,
had refused the invitation. As the Duc de Longueville,
Governor of Normandy, was his adherent, Dieppe or the

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THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

Havre would be safe refuges for him. In case there should
be any failure in that quarter, Gaston wrote, or was made
to write, to the Duc d’Epernon, Governor of Metz, and
deputed the Abbé d’Obazine to beg he would open the gates
of the city to him. Everything was being set in order.

The Vendomes, on their side, were hoping to get some-
thing out of the adventure. The Duke, who was Governor
of Bretagne, had long dreamt of setting up an independent
government in that province. He had been paving the
way, gaining over the local nobility, bestowing pensions
and gifts of money, “seeking the favour of the people by
every means which seemed to him likely to make him
popular.” The accusation against him, as it was eventu-
ally formulated, runs as follows: “M. de Vendéme’s inten-
tion of making himself the sovereign of Brittany is
apparent by various conjectures and various actions, for
which he deserves to be called a madman.” He, too, recog-
nized the possibility of the disappearance of Louis XIII.
The persons about him, his family, his brother, stood on no
ceremony whatever: they all talked openly of the King’s
eventual deposition. And why should not a Vendéme, own
son of Henri IV, ascend the throne? And if the King con-
tinued to hold out, what was there to prevent an end being
put to his resistance by putting him out of the way? “The
whole family,” so the document concludes, “has been very
free in its criminal talk against the person of the King.
One said a Louis had been deposed once before, another,
that bastards had reigned just as well as kings born in
wedlock, another, that he would rather hang the King than
let the King hang him.”

Here we reach the most serious point of the whole plot.
Was there really any idea of deposing Louis XIII, or of
putting him to death? The King and Richelieu both
believed it. ‘‘The vile attempt against the King’s person,”
writes Richelieu, ‘(has been confirmed, in the first place, by
Chalais, who formally confessed that Mme. de Chevreuse

H 97
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

nursed a special hatred against his Majesty.” Dunault,
secretary to the Grand Prior de Venddéme, told the Sieur
du Fossé, in the presence of Mme. d’Elbeuf, that his
master “begged for mercy, and acknowledged his two
separate undertakings against the King’s person and the
State. ” Bullion reported to the King, on October 17, that
“nothing was expected in Savoy save an absolute change
in the State, to the prejudice of the person of the King,
whom it was proposed to shut up.” And the Cardinal
repeats his assertion elsewhere: “Two persons of quality
revealed to the King that there was a design to cast him
down and lift Monsieur up. Confessors at the Jubilee
reported that penitents had applied to them, accusing
themselves of a great plan and party to elevate Monsieur
at the King’s expense.” And Louis XIII, in his public
declaration of August 5, 1626, which instituted a court of
criminal justice to try the conspirators, affirms that he
has “received notice of several conspiracies against our
person and our authority.” Richelieu thus concluded:
“Here is the most fearful conspiracy ever mentioned in
history: if this be so on account of the multitude of
plotters, it is yet more so because of the horribleness of
their design—for this design was not only to lift up their
master (Gaston) above his proper condition, but to lower
and destroy the sacred person of the King.”
As a matter of fact, an examination of the evidence does
not permit us to reach so decisive a conclusion. When
Du Fossé and Dunault were confronted with the Vendome
brothers, and asked to repeat their asertions, the Grand
Prior did not acknowledge the truth of what Dunault
had said as to a design on the King’s person. “My
friend,” said he to Dunault, ‘“‘you have said a thing which
will bring you into trouble, and me too.” The judges
followed up the track of certain compromising remarks in
the hope of getting at their origin, but the results attained
were exceedingly nebulous. When Chalais was cross-
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THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

questioned, and even threatened with the torture, he denied
having “ever heard anybody mention, or known of the
existence of, any plan to touch the King’s person, or of
any evil talk against his said Majesty.” He repeated that
“he had never heard the King’s person mentioned.” And
Gaston’s favourite, Bois d’Annemets, enters an indignant
protest in his Memoirs: “It is so great a wickedness to
accuse Monsieur of having desired to have the King killed,
that the mention of it fills me with horror.” La Roche-
foucauld comes to the conclusion that the “crime was not
fully proven,” and he is right. Mme. de Chevreuse,
Ornano, and their confederates do not seem to have deliber-
ately planned an attempt on the King’s life. In their
private conversations the eventuality of the King’s dis-
appearance by deposition or otherwise was no doubt
discussed; but the idea never assumed any definite shape,
and no steps were taken for its realization. The Vendédme
family certainly indulged, in the presence of other persons,
in imprudent language, which was reported to the King
and stirred his fears. Further than this the matter does
not seem to have gone.

It was towards the beginning of 1626 that the King and
Richelieu became fully aware of the plot that was hatching.
At first Louis XIII paid no attention to the warnings.
Then things began to look threatening, and Ministers grew
uneasy. No violent measure could be taken against
Ornano. He ruled Gaston so completely, and was so well
guarded, besides, that it was difficult to take any step
regarding him without causing serious complications. He
was privately warned that he must be careful, that the King
had his suspicions, that he had better clear things up
with His Majesty. He boldly replied that he would see
about it in a month. And then, scorning the danger, or
else desiring to aggravate matters so as to force on the
wished-for rupture, he had Monsieur’s request to be admitted —
to the Council Board renewed: with the addition that

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Monsieur demanded an apanage of 500,000 livres a year as
well. Mme. de Chevreuse, on her part, announced in the
Queen’s circle that a demand was to be made for the
Marshal’s own nomination to the Council—this, she
declared, would make the Government’s decision clear.
The conspirators’ course was taking definite shape.

Louis XIII summoned Richelieu and Schomberg to
Fontainebleau, and the three sat in council. The proofs
of the conspiracy were absolutely clear, so the two Ministers
asserted. It was for the King, “by his own will, to see
what it pleased him to do, and for his servants to carry
it out.” Two lines might be taken, so Richelieu explained.
To exercise caution, to win over the conspirators by
dignities and favours—which, it must be acknowledged,
had not as yet succeeded very well, or to remove all the
guilty persons from the vicinity of Monsieur—and this
last course needed serious consideration, for Monsieur
must not be allowed to flee from the Court. Louis XIII
said he would think it over. Thereupon came a report—
falsé or true, we know not—that the Vendéme brothers,
taking advantage of the fact that Richelieu, who lived at the
Chateau of Fleury, was in the habit of crossing the forest,
with but scanty attendance, to sit at the King’s Council
Board at Fontainebleau, intended to waylay the Cardinal
and kill him. Louis XIII ordered a troop of cavalry to
escort his Minister’s coach, and then he made up his mind.

On the plea of manceuvres to be performed in his pre-
sence, he summoned his regiment of French Guards to
Fontainebleau. On the day of its arrival, May 4, 1626,
and after it had occupied the Castle, he sent to his brother’s
Governor, desiring him to wait on him after supper that
evening. At ten o’clock Ornano made his appearance at
the door of the King’s Cabinet : he was placed under arrest
by a captain of the Guard, M. du Hallier. Resistance was
out of the question. The Marshal was taken to the Castle
of Vincennes and imprisoned there.

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There was a great to-do. Gaston hurried to the King’s
chamber. He wanted to see the King, he wanted to see
the Queen-Mother. He was not admitted. The next
morning he saw the Chancellor d’Aligre, and angrily de-
manded an explanation. D’Aligre replied that he knew
nothing about the matter. Monsieur wandered to and fro,
not knowing what to do next. Very soon, by his brother’s
command, he was to sign a declaration in which he cast
off all his accomplices, and swore fidelity to the King.

In Anne of Austria’s rooms there was general consterna-
tion. One witness, who saw Mme. de Chevreuse at that
moment, said of her (with a thrust at her easy virtue) :
“T thought there could not be a man left in the kingdom,
so deep was the dejection written on her features and her
countenance!” For six whole days she stayed shut up in
her rooms, terrified, expecting to be arrested every moment.
Then, as time went on, and the danger seemed to pass
away, she gathered courage again. Louis XIII had no
proofs against her, he could not well put her in prison:
such a measure would rouse the wrath of great and power-
ful families, whom it would be as well not to disoblige at
such a moment. The instant she thought herself safe she
began to plot again. Ornano must be delivered, at any
cost, and the enterprise must be carried on. To secure
her hold on Gaston, now his Governor was lying in prison,
she turned her attention to M. de Chalais.

Henri de Talleyrand, Marquis de Chalais, third son
of Daniel de Talleyrand and Jeanne de Monluc, was a
youth of eighteen, well-built, pleasant-looking, “skilful in
exercises of every kind,” so Fontenay-Mareuil informs us;
and the charm of whose manner had won him many suc-
cesses among the ladies of the Court. He was well-
received in every quarter. In his infancy he had been
placed about the person of Louis XIII as a “child of
honour,” and he had grown up in close intimacy with
the King and with Monsieur. His mother left no stone

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unturned to secure his future. As soon as he reached
man’s estate she purchased him the post of Keeper of
the King’s Wardrobe. ‘It had cost her the greater part
of her fortune, and left her with hardly anything to live
on.” But what would she not have done to advance the
fortunes of the son she loved so tenderly? Thanks to the
good offices of the Duc de Bellegarde, Grand Equerry to
His Majesty, she had married him to a rich wife; Chalais
had espoused the widow of the Comte de Charny, Charlotte
de Castille, sister to the Treasurer Jeannin de Castille, an
opulent financier. Thus he had everything, both dignities
and riches. His post as Keeper of the Wardrobe gave
him access to the Sovereign, he was “one of the King’s
servants,” had his master’s ear, was constantly in the
company of Monsieur, and from every point of view, a
prominent personage.

Unfortunately, so far as intelligence and character
were concerned, he was a poor creature, vain, superficial,
unconscientious, weak. We possess the letters he wrote
from his prison: they are a medley of undignified self-
abasement and tasteless pleasantries, supplications for
mercy, offers to betray anybody, and everybody so long as
he himself may escape, denunciations, retractations, tears.
There can be no excuse for him, save his youth, his lack
of experience, and, no doubt, the distractingly difficult
position in which he found himself.

If Mme. de Chevreuse cast her choice on him it was
certainly because he was in love with her. His venal
marriage had soon lost its hold on his heart. He threw
himself with the greatest ardour into the passion with which
the Duchess had inspired him. ‘He was passionately in
love,” writes Bois d’Annemets. ‘“ His attachment to Mme.
de Chevreuse was something extraordinary,” affirms La
Rochefoucauld. He was observed following the fair lady
whithersoever she went, “to the churches, to the public
promenades, and more especially to the Chapel of the

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THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

Louvre.” He made a boast of his adoration. At his trial
one witness deposed that “he had heard the said Chalais
declare a hundred times over that he was in love with
Mme. de Chevreuse and that he had the most beautiful
mistress in the whole kingdom.” Chalais was to reiterate
the fact of his love for her to Richelieu : he was to speak of
Mme. de Chevreuse as “that person whom I was known
to have loved.”

It would appear certain, in spite of Mme. de Motteville’s
assertions, that Mme. de Chevreuse did not respond to this
passion: she did not love Chalais, and she did not yield
to his prayers: the letters the unhappy man wrote from
his prison prove this fact. But when Ornano was arrested,
the Duchess perceived the advantage to which she might
turn his adoration. Chalais, thanks to his post, was in a
position to discover the intentions of the Government;
being Gaston’s friend, he might be able, just when Mon-
sieur, all astray, knew not in whom to confide, to gain
an ascendency over that Prince and lead him as the Marshal
had led him. She resolved to make the attempt.

She pretended to accept the young man’s adoration,
she let him hope, and practised her arts upon him. As
Chalais wrote to Richelieu, some time later: “I was in
love with her: she did all she could to make me think she
was well pleased it should be so.” He was taken in, he
allowed himself to be persuaded, they made him do what-
ever they wanted: done. A bargain was struck: the
Duchess was to accept the young man’s homage, and he,
in return, was to do his best to lead Monsieur according
to the directions that were to be imparted to him. “This
little bargain,” wrote Chalais to Richelieu, “was very like
those a man makes with the devil. She told me that if I
gave myself over to her utterly she would scorn all the rest
of the world. I replied that her good will would be very
dearly bought. I failed in judgment. But I swear before
God that, though I was well aware of the faction, I never

103
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

was its counsellor. It is very difficult not to be deceived
by such devilish artifices; for who could escape a Princess
so kindly looked upon at the Court of two of the greatest
Queens in the world, whose commerce is so easy, and her
rouge so well laid on?” Chalais pleaded extenuating
circumstances, but in reality he gave way readily enough.
Mme. de Chevreuse left no stone unturned. To excite his
feelings against Richelieu, she went so far as to tell him
the Cardinal was in love with herself, and consequently his
rival. ‘When this Lady Lucretia spoke to me about this
business,” writes the young man to the Cardinal, “I had
never failed in my service to you, and when she saw that
I, thought her proposal a dangerous one she tried to work
round me from a different direction, telling me you were
in love with her, and so to arouse my jealousy.” What
Chalais does not add is that he was all the more willing
to be persuaded because he had a grievance of his own
against the Ministers. He thought the two or three
services he had rendered them had not received a sufficient
reward. Certain astrologers and diviners who had cast
his horoscope had told him he would be fortunate and
powerful, or else, indeed, most unhappy: full of faith in
the earlier part of this prediction, he fancied he now saw
his chance of winning fortune, and made his venture.

If he was over-confident, Mme. de Chevreuse was hardly
less so. It was an imprudent proceeding on her part to
address herself to a young man of whom she knew scarcely
anything, a youth so inconsistent and so devoid of strength
of character. Chalais had given her a sample of his real
nature when he came and acknowledged to her, as
Bassompierre asserts, that it was he who had warned the
Government of the Duc de Vendéme’s plan to attack
Richelieu on his way from Fleury: he explained to the
Queen and the Duchess that when he had mentioned
the secret to the Commandeur de Valencay, Achille
d’Etampes, that officer had threatened to denounce him to

104
THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

the Ministers unless he went and reported the matter to
them himself; but he begged the ladies to calm their
minds, since his confession would be regarded as a proof
of the straightforwardness of his character. And then,
added Chalais, at his trial, “the ladies spent the whole
afternoon, when dinner was over, laughing over the story
of this affair.”

Chalais opened his campaign. He spoke to Monsieur,
he entered into an understanding with the Prince’s imme-
diate circle: Bois d’Annemets, who was a member of it,
tells us that these overtures were at first somewhat coldly
received. But Chalais was Keeper of the King’s Ward-
tobe, he was in a position that ensured him the sovereign’s
ear: it was only wise to treat him with consideration;
and then the new recruit did possess a certain value: he
obtained a hearing. To Monsieur himself Calais
addressed the most fervent protestations of devotion.
Gaston told Louis XIII that the young courtier even
offered to sell his post about the King, so as to be more free
to serve his brother. The conspiracy, which had been
paralysed for a moment by Ornano’s arrest, began to lift
its head once more. The Government was warned afresh.

Richelieu’s first advice, as in the Marshal’s case, was to
try and win Chalais over. He might then be used to
betray his accomplices. Advances were made to the young
man. Much flattered, and thinking he would thus rise
sooner and higher in the King’s service, Chalais unhesitat-
ingly accepted these proposals. The Commandeur de
Valencay acted as intermediary. According to Fontenay-
Mareuil, Chalais sent word that “if he was given some-
thing considerable he would get the marriage accepted,
and anything else that was desired.” His hand was
trumped already. Richelieu offered him a post as Maitre
de Camp in the cavalry, to which he was to be appointed
as soon as Monsieur was married. Chalais sent his
acceptance of the bargain.

105
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Meanwhile, and as a corollary to the imprisonment of
Marshal d’Ornano, Louis XIII decided to arrest the
Vendéme brothers. The thing would have to be carefully
done; the Duc de Vendéme was fortifying his position in
Brittany ; he had openly declared he hoped he might never
lay his eyes on the King again. Without a word of what
he meant to do, Louis XIII left Paris, started for Brittany,
and got as far as Blois. The Grand Prior took alarm,
interfered, tried to induce his brother to come and wait on
the King, and besought the sovereign to receive him.
Louis refused. The Government began to collect troops,
the situation became threatening for the Vendéme family.
The two princes, thoroughly frightened, decided to proceed
to Blois. They reached that town on June 11: on the
12th they were both in prison.

This arrest produced the same effect as that of Ornano;
but it was less unexpected. Mme. de Chevreuse, who had
received a warning of it, despatched a lackey to the Grand
Prior, to advise him not to come to Court. As soon as
the brothers arrived at Blois, Gaston sent them word that
“they were very wrong to come to the King.” But the
event was calculated to cause Mme. de Chevreuse the most
acute alarm. What was Chalais doing? What effect was
he producing on Monsieur? It was given out that Gaston
had now decided to agree to the marriage. The King, it
was said, was resolved to have Mile. de Montpensier
brought to Blois forthwith, and have the betrothal formally
celebrated: the Marquis de Fontenay had departed to
Paris with orders to bring the Princess back, under the
escort of fifty mounted men. And as a prologue to the
marriage ceremony, the Duc de Vendéme and his brother
were to be put in prison. Was Chalais playing.a dis-
honest game? Or was he powerless?

The Duchess questioned the young gentleman: Riche-
lieu had bought him over, there could be no doubt about
it. She was not dismayed, she meant to win him back.

106
THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

Convinced, writes Fontenay-Mareuil, “since the imprison-
ment of Messieurs de Vend6éme, that there was an under-
standing between Chalais and the Cardinal de Richelieu,
she cast so many reproaches on him, and pressed him so
hard, that he preferred failing the Cardinal and himself to
failing her, and thus, having caused Monsieur to change
once more, as well, he made him more rebellious than ever
against the marriage.” Once again Chalais had been
turned round, and Louis XIII and the Cardinal, when
they knew it, conceived a bitter animosity against the
youth. The Cardinal cross-questioned him, and _ he,
greatly embarrassed, answered in vague phrases, affirming
his fidelity. The Minister ordered him to keep his
promises, and he, so that he might boast later to Gaston
of his devotion to him, evaded them. ‘The poor man,”
writes Bois d’Annemets, “tried to find his advantage with
every party. He promised the Cardinal wonders and then
came and told us the very opposite.”

While this was going on, Mme. de Chevreuse decided
that Gaston must fly at once. There had been some idea
of sending the Prince to La Rochelle, but on reflection
it was thought wiser for him to go eastward, so as to be
near Lorraine, where the fugitive was sure to find a refuge.
Chalais carried out the orders given him by the Duchess;
he sent a gentleman who acted as his equerry, Gaston de la
Louviére, to Sedan, with a letter to the Comte de Soissons.
La Louviére came back without any answer: he had been
shown the door! Then Chalais sent the same equerry to
Metz, with another missive addressed to the Governor of
that town, M. de la Valette, son of the Duc d’Epernon.
“If you are disposed to entertain proposals from Mon-
sieur,” it ran, ‘I will undertake to have them made to you.”
M. de la Valette told M. de la Louviére that “he was sur
prised that Chalais, who belonged to the King’s House:
hold, should mix himself up with such matters. He had
no power over the town of Metz—it was his father who

107
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

commanded there: let them apply to the Duc d’Epernon.”
Both attempts had failed !

The Government was on the watch. It was remarked at
Blois that Chalais, who was lodged in the Castle close to
Gaston, went to the Prince’s chamber every night, and
spent whole hours with him. Louis XIII decided to leave
Blois. On June 27 he was at Tours, and thence he travelled
to Nantes. Mlle. de Montpensier was expected. Richelieu
kept telling Chalais that the King called on him to per-
suade Gaston to agree to the betrothal. Chalais shifted
this way and that. He ended by declaring he was no
longer in a position to keep his promises, and took back
his word. But at the same time, feeling the ground
crumbling ‘under his feet, and convinced that his only
hope of escaping from his difficulties was to take to flight
himself, and make Gaston fly as well, he made his
preparations.

His first idea was to make a sudden start, with the
Prince and five or six gentlemen, ‘‘on swift horses”; but
there could be no doubt, unluckily, that the party would
soon be caught. He decided that a more prudent course
would be to ride quietly out of Nantes on pretence of some
excursion, as to Ingrandes, for instance. Once that far,
they could have the King informed that Monsieur, not
feeling himself safe at Nantes, was returning to Blois, and
that done, they would gallop as fast as their horses could
carry them to Chartres, and on to Paris. The day of
departure was fixed, and then everything fell through,
because, so Gaston asserted under cross-examination, “the
maitres d’hétel had not had their dinner”: the real
reason was that the Government, duly warned, had sent
companies of light horse along the roads to stop the
fugitives. Chalais looked about him for some other plan:
in any case, flight was an imminent necessity.

Thereupon Louis XIII told his Ministers that he was
worn out by the behaviour of the Keeper of his Wardrobe,

108
 

THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

(From a painting in the possession of the Duc de Vendime, and now at Belmont Castle)
THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

and intended to have him arrested forthwith. This was
on July 8. At daybreak on the oth, M. de Tresmes,
Captain of the Guard, proceeded to Chalais’ room in the
Castle of Nantes and took him into custody. He made
no resistance. He was made over to an Exempt of the
Body-guard,! and shut up in one of the Castle dungeons.
A Commission of judges was appointed, and charged, so
ran the royal decree which called it into existence, with the
duty of inquiring into the accusation of high treason
brought against Chalais. This trial was not to be mixed
up with that of Ornano, who was still lying in prison at
Vincennes, and whose condemnation had been delayed by
various political considerations. The magistrates were to
proceed diligently about their business.

That very day the Commissioners, d’Effiat and
Valengay, proceeded to interview Chalais in his prison.
He, quite crestfallen, only answered that he had never
failed in his duty to the King, and that if it was desired
to make use of him with regard to Monsieur’s business he
was ready to reveal anything and everything. The court
began to hear witnesses, the prisoner was confronted with
them: Richelieu took a hand in the cross-examination.

The accused man’s behaviour was pitiful. He wrote to
everybody, and his letters proved him foolish, terrified and
worthless. He besought the Cardinal to get him pardoned,
praised the King’s virtues in the most exaggerated terms,
loaded Richelieu with heavy and pompous flattery : he ran
down all his friends of Gaston’s set, vowing they were
“great disturbers of heaven and earth,” who were only fit
to “danser, baller, et coucher ensemble”; he denounced
their plots against Richelieu’s life, telling the Cardinal
about “all the great dagger-thrusts that were meant for

1 The “ Exempts ” of the Guard, under the old French kings, performed
certain police duties. They were half soldiers and half police officers.
A prisoner condemned to the Bastille was conducted there by one or

more exempts, who also had charge of prisoners when they were moved
from place to place, and kept order at executions.

109

1
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

you”; he again offered to serve the King with Monsieur
by giving that Prince good advice and playing him false.
“I dare swear,” he said to Richelieu, “that you will find
yourself in great need of a very zealous, affectionate, and
tolerably watchful man, such as your Lordship’s humble
servant.” “I will bring everything into order,” he wrote.
But his letters lay unanswered.

As to Mme. de Chevreuse, Chalais’ first act, after his
arrest, had been to write to her, repeating the asseveration
of his passion, and beseeching her to help him. “It is not
at this hour,” he wrote, “that I first recognized the divinity
of your beauty, but I have now begun to learn that you
must be served like a goddess, since I am not permitted
to prove my love to you without running the risk of
losing my life. Take care of it, then, since it is utterly
dedicated to you, and if you judge it worthy to be pre-
served, tell this companion of my misfortune that you will
sometimes remember that no man ever loved as I do.”
Mme. de Chevreuse, herself suspected, and sorely alarmed
as to her own fate, could do nothing for him: she did not
even answer his letter. Her silence stung Chalais: so the
Duchess, having compromised him, was now going to
leave him to his fate! During his next cross-examina-
tion he mentioned the part Mme. de Chevreuse had
played in connection with himself, and then, growing
angry, he made known her sentiments, her plans and her
intrigues. Mme. de Chevreuse, counselled by Bautru, had
just made up her mind to wait on Richelieu at Beauregard,
and intercede with him in the prisoner’s favour. Scoffingly,
the Cardinal told her what her protégé ws saying about
her. The Duchess, furious, lost her self-control.. Her
rage broke forth, and she brought counter-charges against
her accomplice. Richelieu, of course, reported these asser-
tions to the prisoner, who made still further revelations.
He even wrote her vehement letters, which the Cardinal
intercepted. Later he was to regret the intemperance of

110
THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

his language: he was to protest that “he had never said
anything untrue in any of his answers except in those
concerning Mme. de Chevreuse,” but it was too late.

Then Chalais gave himself up to the darkest despair.
He let his beard grow, “a wild beard”; the guards who
watched over him related that he would rage up and down
his cell foaming at the mouth, and crying out that he would
rather be in hell, that he was “worse than damned,” and
when his keepers reminded him, “in God’s name, that he
belonged to a Christian communion,” he exclaimed, “A
fig for Christianity!” (the expression was far stronger,)
“TI am not in a state to have my duty shown me!” They
strove to quiet him, he grew more and more excited. “He
felt ready to do like the ancient Romans,” he declared,
“and was inclined to poison himself; he would crack his
skull against the wall.” Thoroughly scandalized, his
guards remarked that “there was no paradise for those
who destroyed themselves!” His answer was to the effect
that ‘‘his misery was too great,” and he swore he would
“crack his head into four separate pieces.” All these say-
ings were reported to his judges: the culprit, they were
told, did nothing but utter impieties, would not say his
prayers, blasphemed all the day long. The King’s opinion
of him was completely formed.

On August 5 Louis XIII signed letters-patent to insti-
tute a Court of Criminal Justice, charged with the duty
of finally deciding the prisoner’s fate. The court held its
first sitting on the 11th, in one of the halls of the Franciscan
Monastery at Nantes. After the usual formalities, the
documents connected with the trial were read aloud. On
the following day, the 12th, the Attorney-General asked for
an adjournment, to summon several persons for the purpose
of including them in the prosecution—among them Mme.
de Chevreuse, M. de la Louviére, Bois d’Annemets, Puy-
laurens, and four other gentlemen. The court, in con-
formity with these conclusions, issued a warrant for the

Iii
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

arrest of the inculpated persons, with the proviso that the
decree was not to be executed until the King had signed
it. The King did not sign. Mme. de Chevreuse was inter-
rogated, but privately, and she remained at liberty. On
the 18th, the examination of the accused and the deposi-
tions of the witnesses were concluded and the court
delivered sentence: Chalais was condemned to death!

When the condemned man learned his fate he was filled
with bitter sorrow at the thought that he had denounced
and compromised Mme. de Chevreuse. He declared to
his keepers that his deposition concerning ‘‘that lady” had
been false, and when one of his -guards, Lamont, pointed
out that it agreed with what he himself had told them in
the course of conversation, and that it was confirmed by
letters he had written and which had been intercepted,
Chalais protested that “what he had written had been
written out of the extreme fury into which he had been
thrown by a false idea he had had, that she had deceived
him.” He was once more brought before his judges, and
renewed his retractation.

The sentence, which dealt with the crime of high treason
only, condemned Chalais to be beheaded in one of the
public squares of Nantes; his head to be set up on a pike
over one of the rampart gates, and his body quartered and
hung on four gibbets erected in the four chief streets of
the town. His mother wrote an imploring letter to the
King: “Sire, I beseech you on my knees to grant me my
son’s life! Do not let the child whom J have bred up with
so much tenderness cause the few years left to me to be
desolate! I gave him to you when he was eight years old:
he is the grandson of the Marshal de Monluc and of
President Jeannin. . . .”. The King consented to suppress
the ignominious additions that aggravated the death
sentence. The execution was carried out on Wednesday,
August 19. Its details were of a horrible nature. The
regular executioner was away, and the authorities had

112
THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

recourse to the assistance of a poor wretch who had been
condemned to be hung, and who knew nothing of the
grisly trade. Thirty-six blows were delivered with a
“cooper’s broad-axe” before the head was parted from
the trunk, and the headsman had to “turn the head round
the other way before he could cut it quite off.” The victim
groaned till the twentieth blow had been delivered, crying
out “Jésus, Maria!”

On August 2, Chalais had written to the King, “May
it please you to remember that I only belonged to the
faction for thirteen days. Permit me, Sire, to appeal to
your Majesty, with tears in my eyes, and as the most
repentant of men, to grant me pardon, out of your extreme
goodness.” If Louis XIII showed him no mercy it was
because, humiliated as he felt himself to be by this attempt
to sow disturbance in his family and in the State, by this
reckoning on his own death or deposition, and by the fact
that one of the gentlemen of his own Household had dared
to dip his hands into so vile a conspiracy, he allowed him-
self to be swayed by that instinctive and inflexible spirit
of severity which was peculiar to him all his life.

But what fate had he reserved for the original authors
of the plot, and more especially for Marshal d’Ornano
and for Mme. de Chevreuse ?

Ornano was still at Vincennes, awaiting the King’s
pleasure. There were great difficulties about his prosecu-
tion. Monsieur would have to be brought into it, cross-
questioned, confronted with the prisoner. The judges
would have to deal with the Queen, with the greatest nobles
in the kingdom, with foreign States. And further, Gaston
had declared that if his Governor was tried he himself
would leave the Court. The Ministers, thoroughly puzzled,
sought to gain time. Circumstances were to settle their
difficulties for them.

For on September 2, after only a few days’ illness,
Ornano breathed his last. His death occurred too

I 113
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

conveniently for it to escape suspicious comment. The
public vowed the Marshal had been poisoned. In vain did
Ministers deny the report: the greatest publicity was given
to the details of Ornano’s illness: physicians made a post-
mortem examination, and found no trace of poison; their
report was printed ; Louis XIII took the trouble of sending
a letter to all the officials in the kingdom, which set forth
that the prisoner had “been attacked by a sickness of
dysentery and a retention of the urine, with constant fever,
which had carried him out of the world after two or three
weeks ; that the person in charge of him had called in every
assistance that could be desired, both as to remedies and
advice, from the best and most experienced physicians in
Paris.” Still the world doubted. But these doubts were
really unfounded. An examination of all the documents
proves that the Marshal died a natural death. In any case,
his departure simplified the King’s business.

The King had settled it, to begin with, by insisting that
Gaston should marry Mlle. de Montpensier at once. The
young lady arrived on August 2: the King sent for his
brother to the Council Chamber, and there, before the
assembled Councillors, informed him of his “decision to
give him a fine apanage and approve his marriage.” It
was a veiled order. In a fright, Gaston acquiesced. “Are
you now speaking without the equivocations you have
several times employed?” inquired the King. Monsieur
vowed he was giving his honest word. That very evening
there had been a scene in Anne of Austria’s apartment.
Mme. de Chevreuse had made it a case of conscience on
Gaston’s part not to give in and agree to the marriage.
The Queen had added her own entreaties to her friend’s.
The two ladies had begged and prayed the Prince to such
a degree, so Gaston afterwards acknowledged, “that they
had both gone on their knees to me, to beseech me not to
marry Mlle. de Montpensier.” And he added that “the
Queen Regnant had entreated him several times over, in

114
THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

the course of three days, not to carry out the marriage.”
But there was no possibility of retreat now.

On August 5, in the King’s Cabinet at the Castle of
Nantes, and in the presence of the parish priest, Cardinal
de Richelieu himself performed the betrothal ceremony,
and the marriage itself was celebrated, very quietly and in
the most simple fashion, on the following day. Bois
d’Annemets wrote that the business was a dull one, no
music, no show, and the bride and bridegroom dressed in
their ordinary clothes. “By the God who made me! ” cried
Chalais, when he heard the news in his prison. “Here’s
a high-handed stroke! They have caught Monseigneur
on the hop! May the devil take me if ever there was a
man as bold in his management of State affairs as the Lord
Cardinal!”

And now, what was to be done with Mme. de Chev-
reuse? A council was held. Richelieu, with his usual
precision and lucidity, summed up all the griefs against
her. ‘She had done more harm,” he asserted, “than any
other person.” She had personally acknowledged to him,
on the occasion of her interview with him at Beauregard,
the existence of the agreement between the great nobles
to prevent Monsieur’s marriage: Chalais had denounced
her as the author of the whole cabal; through Mme. de
Rohan, she had put the nobles into. communication with
the Huguenot rebels; she it was who had suggested the
criminal plot against himself at Fleury ; she it was who had
constantly instigated Gaston to leave the Court, she, who
had led Chalais astray, even as she had led the Vendéme
brothers; and the Cardinal, piling proof on proof, recalled
the prayer Mme. de Chevreuse had addressed to Gaston,
on her knees, to refuse to make the marriage, “whatever
it might cost him.” She was the most guilty of all. But
what was to be done? There was no possibility of arrest-
ing her and making her stand her trial: the difficulties in
the Marshal’s case would be repeated in hers, and in a

115
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

particularly aggravated form. Besides, it was against all
custom to imprison a lady belonging to a great family, and
hale her before Parliament or any Court of Justice, for
criminal proceedings: such a measure would rouse several
powerful houses to fury. The Ministers discussed the
matter. The King broke in upon their debate by declaring
that, to begin with, Mme. de Chevreuse should be sent
into exile.

It was Bautru who brought the Duchess the news of
the measure to be taken against her. Her blood
boiled, her rage was ungovernable. “They little knew
her!” she broke out; “they thought her mind was only
equal to flirtations! She would show them, when the time
came, that she was good for other work.” She vented a
string of imprecations. She poured forth a stream of
threats: she swore she would have every Frenchman in
England treated just as she was being treated in France;
she fell on the King and the Cardinal and heaped abuse
upon them. “The King was an incapable idiot!” she
cried. “It was a disgrace that such a rogue as the Cardinal
should hold the reins of Government !”’

Anne of Austria, who had been informed of the King’s
decision by M. de Nogent, was in much the same con-
dition of mind: she, too, flew into a fury. “Her anger
burst forth. She said a great many spiteful things, to the
effect that she would rather never bear a child than be
parted from that creature (Mme. de Chevreuse), and she
threatened that she would have her vengeance on the
Cardinal, whatever it might cost her.”

The Duc de Chevreuse was most painfully affected, he
said some hard words of the Cardinal, declared he “had
a deadly hatred of him.” But just then the King wrote
him a letter commanding him to hurry his wife’s departure,
and Chevreuse forthwith replied : “Sire, the bearer of this
letter having joined me some four leagues from Dampierre,
I have not been able sooner to satisfy your Majesty’s will.

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THE CHALAIS AFFAIR

I shall be at Dampierre to-morrow morning, to give orders,
at the same time, for the departure of my wife, with all the
obedience I owe your Majesty’s commands.”

There was nothing for it but to submit. Louis XIII
had decided, so the Duc de Rohan writes, that Mme. de
Chevreuse was to go to the Chateau du Verger, in Poitou,
which belonged to her brother, the Prince de Guéméné,
and there remain, without leaving its precincts, until
further orders. Mme. de Chevreuse resolved to escape
the performance of the King’s behest by taking to flight.
Secretly she took her way to Paris, and thence to the
east of France, crossed the frontier, and took refuge in
the Duchy of Lorraine. Thus, of her own free will, she
began her first exile in a foreign country.

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CHAPTER V
THE EXILE IN LORRAINE: THE PASSION OF CHATEAUNEUF

Montague’s love for Mme. de Chevreuse—Their intrigues—Arrest of
Montague—The Death of Buckingham—Mme. de Chevreuse returns
to Paris—Chateauneuf’s love for her—His disgrace—Mme. de
Chevreuse is exiled to Touraine—1627 -33.

“LET my reader imagine great villages full of inhabitants,
set beside fine rivers, the banks of which are dotted with
cattle of all kinds, hills covered with trees and vineyards,
plains so rich that there is hardly any need to sow the wheat
and other grain they. bear: peasants who live in glass-
windowed houses, and every one of whom has a great
silver goblet in his oaken chest :—thus will he attain some
faint idea of what this happy province is. Never did I
behold so brilliant a picture of abundance, nor of labours
that provide a better image of the felicity of human
existence.” Such is the description of Lorraine given by
Nicolas Goulas in his Memoirs, just about the time when
Mme. de Chevreuse sought a refuge in that Duchy. But it
was not the charm of the country that had attracted her.
Through her husband, the Duc de Chevreuse, she was the
kinswoman of Charles IV, reigning Duke of Lorraine,
and to him she had appealed for refuge, protection, and
support.

The Duke was just one-and-twenty, five years younger
than his visitor. Tall, thin, fair, with a bony face and
highly arched eyebrows that gave him an astonished air,
and an active body well-fitted for athletic exercises, and
more especially for horsemanship, in which he excelled,
Charles IV had an open and smiling countenance. He

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was brilliant and amusing. A contemporary biographer
declared he had “a nose that smelt things a long way
off.” Though his studies had not been profound, he was
no fool; he had a great power of assimilation, he was a
good listener, a still better talker; but he was considered
proud, heedless, and restless. Brought up in France, he
had spent a great deal of time with the Guises, his own
cousins, and had often been at Dampierre; he loved sport
and pleasure; he was a frivolous prince. He had suc-
ceeded his uncle, Henri II, whose only daughter, Nicole, he
had married. It was not a happy marriage. Henri II
had not entertained any very high opinion of his son-in-
law. “You will see that blundering fellow will ruin
everything!” he had declared. The young Duke was
certainly destined to bring his State into a very dangerous
position.

Charles IV was overjoyed by the arrival of Mme. de
Chevreuse. In her company he would have a whiff of the
air of the French Court, of which he had so agreeable a
recollection. “Not being able to forget the memories he
had brought with him from France, he was to find great
delight in the company of a person who would bring all
the breeding of that country into his palace.” Mme. de
Chevreuse came to Lorraine heralded by her reputation
as a fascinating woman, “beautiful and witty, very well
informed as to Court intrigues, with a gallantry of appear-
ance and a style of conversation quite different from
those of this country, the proximity of which to Germany
renders the methods of its people heavy and coarse.”
The Prince, who sighed for the “pleasantness of life in
Paris,” and had little taste for ‘German pride,” would call
on all the resources of his modest court to receive his
cousin, the young and beauteous Duchess, in worthy
fashion. The result was to exceed his wildest hopes.

What, indeed, was the most likely consequence of a
meeting between a prince of one-and-twenty and a lady

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

five years his senior, a finished coquette, bent on using
every fascination she possessed to charm the Duke whose
protection she had come to claim? Charles IV fell in love
with Mme. de Chevreuse. ‘Everything,” says Richelieu,
“began with love.” ‘Though the relationship served as
a pretext,” writes Brienne, “it was her beauty which won
Mme. de Chevreuse the power she obtained.” Charles IV
qute forgot Nicole !

There were entertainments of all sorts, hunts and
joustings and horse-races, that delighted the Court of
Lorraine, and of all these Mme. de Chevreuse was the
queen. One of the most brilliant of these gatherings took
place during Lent, at Shrovetide (February 14, 1627), in
the great hall of the ducal castle at Nancy, at nine o’clock
at night.’ The story of it is told us by Henri Humbert,
and it was illustrated by Jacques Callot: “It is you,
Madame,” said Callot, in a dedicatory epistle to Mme. de
Chevreuse, which reveals the depth of the impression
produced at Nancy by the beauty of the Duchess and the
passionate admiration with which it had inspired the Duke,
“it is you who, France having recognized in you the
light of all perfection, have come hither to receive the same
approbation from our eyes, our voices, and our hearts.
We confess, O fair Princess! that never before did
Lorraine behold so many beauties, and all the more
glorious because they are not of foreign growth. Madame,
this is the sky wherein your sun must most naturally shine,
there to be joined to that great Mars who draws from it
his origin!” On a great platform, all the Duchesses,
Princesses, and ladies of the Court had taken their places.
Charles IV made his entry, sumptuously dressed. He was
followed by a series of cars, magnificently adorned,
surrounded by trumpeters, buglers, and torchbearers, and
bearing the Princes of the House of Lorraine, garbed as
classic gods, and ladies robed in carnation-coloured satin,
who played on lutes. Then, the Duke of Lorraine having

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put on his armour, a barrier was set up across the arena, and
the champions dashed upon each other, lance in hand. The
‘victor of them all was to win the prize—a sword. It fell to
the Duke, who instantly presented it to Mme. de Chevreuse.

But while the Duchess was thus apparently forgetting
her distresses amidst the delights of this adoring little
court, the Government of Louis XIII was preparing to act.

The King had not seen the Duchess pass over the
frontier and into Lorraine without a feeling of extreme
vexation. Once at Nancy, she was sure to cabal against
France, and incite the Duke to raise all kinds of difficulties.
Richelieu desired the King’s Lieutenant at Metz, M. de
Flavigny, to collect information for him. Precautions
were taken. The garrisons of the three bishoprics of Metz,
Toul, Verdun, were strengthened, and orders were given to
rebuild the citadel of Verdun, all this to intimidate the
Duke of Lorraine. When Charles IV begged the
Bishop of Verdun to stop the building and excommunicate
the workmen labouring on it, and the Bishop complied with
his request, the French Government sent a judge, M.
Charpentier, to Verdun, who declared the excommunica-
tion null and void, sentenced the Bishop to pay a fine of
10,000 livres, and had the works begun again.

Mme. de Chevreuse was not easy in her mind. Remorse
was beginning to assail her. She had kept up her
correspondence with Anne of Austria, and made an
attempt, through her, to repair the mischief she had done,
and get leave to return to France; if the King, she wrote,
would only withdraw the order of banishment he had
intended to send her, she would come back. Anne of
Austria put forward this request as if it had been pre-
sented to her by some third person.

“T think,” replied Richelieu to Bouthillier, on October 1,
1626, “that the Queen should content herself with telling
the persons who speak for Mme. de Chevreuse that all she
can do is to induce the King not to press for her return.

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As for withdrawing the order he has given, that is quite
impossible.” Mme. de Chevreuse then applied to her own
husband. M. de Chevreuse suggested that his wife should
retire into the Bourbonnais or into Auvergne. He would
conduct her there himself. Louis XIII expressed no
objection. The Duchess made as though she would go a
little way into France; then she changed her mind and
went back over the frontier. A little later she made another
appeal, this time through the Duke of Lorraine: “His
Majesty has done me the honour of telling me,” wrote
Richelieu, “that I was to answer in his name that he cannot
believe that this Princess, who finds so great a pleasure in
living amongst foreigners that she has left his kingdom
twice over, not only without his leave, but against his will,
can really desire to return to his Court; that M. de Chev-
reuse, having asked as an act of grace that she might come
back into the Bourbonnais, had set her on the road she
should have taken to get back altogether, but that since
that time, she had testified, by leaving it, that she had
no desire for that which others were asking for her; and
further, that the present time does not permit of His
Majesty’s doing what M. de Lorraine requests in this
particular: in a word, her return is impossible, for the
moment ! ”

Mme. de Chevreuse was exceedingly annoyed. It was
clear, then, that she was despised; she was to be treated
with severity. All that remained to her was to avenge
herself. She would make use of the influence she had
acquired over the Duke of Lorraine to stir him up against
France. At that period, the King’s Government, which
found the Huguenot business very troublesome and
difficult, was about to begin that siege of La Rochelle,
which was to absorb all its energies for so long a time.
Before long the effects of the Duchess’s animosity began
to ‘make themselves felt. The Duke of Lorraine put
forward unjustifiable pretensions, and made claims that

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were really nothing but spiteful attempts to stir up a
quarrel. “In Paris,” says Brienne, ‘everybody was
persuaded the Duke was acting on the instigation of Mme.
de Chevreuse.” Just at this juncture there appeared at
Nancy an Englishman, Lord Montague, who was to be
singularly useful to the Duchess for the development of her
gift of intrigue, and was to help her to spin one of those
huge plots destined to prove the source of so much anxiety
to the Cardinal.

Displeased by the King’s periodical refusals to allow
him to return to Paris, Buckingham was growing more
and more bitter against Louis XIII. The perpetual
violations of the treaty of marriage between Charles I and
Henrietta-Maria gave rise to constant complaints on the
part of the King of France, which were rudely received,
and left without any answer. The relations between the
two Courts were of the most precarious kind. Buckingham,
resolved to do France a mischief if he could, was always
on the look-out for favourable opportunities. The
Huguenots were active, and he decided to support the
rebels. As the plan worked itself out, the Duke began
to dream of a grand coalition against Louis, in which
Savoy, Piedmont, and Spain were all to be included;
communications would be kept up with the interior of
France, the King would find himself in a cleft stick,
between the Huguenots and the great nobles, on one side,
and the foreigners, on the other. It was in connection
with the preparations for this understanding that Montague,
Lord of King Charles’s Bedchamber, arrived in Lorraine,
to open negotiations with the Duke.

Montague was a young Englishman, reserved in manner,
distinguished in appearance, elegant, very good-looking,
who wrote and spoke French well; in later years he became
a Catholic, took priest’s orders, “‘an abbé, and a devout
one,” says La Porte, and he assisted Anne of Austria in her
last moments. At the time of which we now speak, he was

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a merry boon companion, not overburdened with prejudices.
Having been mixed up in all the Duchess’s affairs in
London, he knew her well; he knew Anne of Austria also,
and he was Buckingham’s friend. Informed, too, of the
conditions under which his mission must be performed, it
was his intention, when he reached Lorraine, to enter into
communications with Mme. de Chevreuse: the influence
wielded by the Duchess over Charles IV was well-known
in London: her continued correspondence with Anne of
Austria was suspected there; thanks to her help, Montague
would be able to treat both with the Duke of Lorraine and
with the great families in France.

Mme. de Chevreuse was not at Nancy; she had settled
at Bar-le-Duc, which at that time belonged to Lorraine,
and was even the subject of a dispute with the French
King, with regard to the investiture necessary if the Duke
was to hold the place. “Mme. de Chevreuse,’ says
Hugo in his Vie de Charles IV, “made this her usual
place of residence, less for the sake of propriety than to
avoid the offence her continued presence at Nancy would
have given in France.” The scruple was a very tardy one!
Montague saw the Duchess, and unfolded Buckingham’s
plan to her. Buckingham, he said, proposed to equip
three fleets, each to carry 10,000 men. One was to go to
La Rochelle, one to the coasts of Guyenne, and one to
Normandy. Each was to disembark the troops it carried,
and then to blockade the mouths of the Seine, the Loire,
and the Garonne. In return for this, England wanted the
Duke of Lorraine and the Emperor to invade France, the
Duke of Savoy to march on Dauphiné and Provence, and
the Duc de Rohan to raise the Huguenots in the South.
To attain all this, Montague begged Mme. de Chevreuse
to help him.

Joyfully, Mme. de Chevreuse fell in with the plan. She
received Montague in the most friendly fashion; and made
herself so agreeable to him that the young man, fascinated

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by her beauty, was quite unable to resist the strength of
the passion that soon fired him, and Hugo asserts that
Mme. de Chevreuse offered no resistance. Thanks to her
intervention, Montague was placed in communication with
the Duke of Lorraine: thanks to her, once more, the Duke
followed Montague’s lead: “She pushed him over the
precipice,” says Richelieu. The French Government was
kept informed, and Mme. de Chevreuse, on her side, was in
correspondence with Anne of Austria, who was watching
the progress of the business. The Duke of Lorraine sent
word that he would declare himself as soon as the English
had disembarked their troops.

Mme. de Chevreuse sent letters in all directions. By
arrangement with Anne of Austria—so, at least, Richelieu
clearly insinuates in his Memoirs—she entered into commu-
nication with the Comte de Soissons and the Rohan family.
Women, adds the Cardinal, were intriguing for her,
“feeding the Queen with perpetual discontents,” stirring
up the Comtesse de Soissons, urging Monsieur to take
to flight. A message was sent to the Comte de Soissons
that if the King died, he would be placed upon the throne.
Wider and wider the net was being spread.

Meanwhile, Montague travelled to Savoy, and thence
into Switzerland, to Holland, and to Venice, and entered
into negotiations with the Duc de Rohan, on whom he
waited. Buckingham, Rohan tells us in his Memoirs, was,
so Montagu affirmed, to send over 500 horsemen; the
Huguenot leader was to take up arms in Languedoc, to
march to Montauban, to endeavour to make a junction
with the English troops that were to land at Bordeaux.
Rohan contented himself with sending a reply to the effect
that he too would make up his mind once the English
troops had succeeded in effecting their landing.

It became known at Court that the plot was to be put
into execution forthwith Mme. de Chevreuse had per-
suaded the Duke of Lorraine to give the signal to the

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

rebels by taking the field himself. Flavigny wrote from
Metz that 10,000 men were being raised. Charles IV had
asked his Germanic Majesty to send him a corps: d’armée,
and was only awaiting the arrival of these troops to
cast off the mask. The English fleet, on its side, was
preparing to disembark troops on the Isle of Ré.

The French Government took rapid measures. The
Army of Champagne, under the command of Louis de
Marillac, was reinforced, so as to be able to hold any
invasion from the Lorraine side in check. Louis XIII
himself started for the Isle of Ré, to meet the English in
person. A captain of Chevau-légers, Blagny by name,
volunteered to abduct Charles IV “close to a house
whither he frequently went alone, to see the Duchesse de
Chevreuse,” but Richelieu advised against this step,
because of the too great scandal such an attempt was likely
to cause. Still, if the Duke’s person was not to be touched,
why not try to carry off Montague? The documents thus
seized would provide useful information for the King’s.
Government.

Montague, after his visits to sey and Lorraine, had
gone back to London, to give an account of his mission
to Buckingham, and had failed to find him, the Duke
having departed with the English fleet to the Isle of Ré.
Charles I gave him orders to return to the Continent.
Richelieu had him watched, and two Basques, in conve-
nient disguises, followed the English nobleman.

Having crossed the Channel, he travelled along the
frontier, so as to keep out of France, and pushed towards
Lorraine. French posts had been established all along
that frontier. One evening, while the traveller was
riding a stage in the Barrois, one of the Basque spies
slipped away and warned the officer in command of the
nearest post, M. de Bourbonne, that Montague was in his
power, and quite close by. Bourbonne put a bold face on
it, collected some half-score of his own friends, made a dash

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THE EXILE IN LORRAINE

across the frontier, laid sudden hands on Montague and his
serving-man (who carried a cloak-bag crammed with
papers), conducted his prisoner to Bourbonne, in the first
place, thence to Coiffy, a great fortress with mighty walls,
and finally, to the Bastille.

This arrest, as might have been expected, made a great
stir. The Duke of Lorraine vehemently protested against
such a violation of his territory,: he demanded the imme-
diate release of Lord Montague, and the punishment of
M. de Bourbonne. Louis XIII refused satisfaction. And
meanwhile, Bullion and Fouquet proceeded to examine the
English nobleman’s papers.

They were exceedingly instructive: they revealed, as
Richelieu put it, “that England, Savoy, Lorraine, the
Emperor, and the Heretics in France, were all bound
together in a pernicious design against the State: that they
meant to make war both by sea and by land—by sea in
Poitou and Normandy, by land in Champagne—attacking
Verdun with the forces of the Duke of Lorraine and the
Emperor, and Burgundy with those of the Duke of Savoy;
that it seemed more than likely that Venice was mixed up in
the business to some extent; that the Dutch had likewise
proved by their actions, not only their connivance but |
their strong support: that the whole business had been
set a-going by the Chevreuse, who had acted in the matter
with the consent of the Queen Regnant.”

The cloak-bag contained instructions from the King of
England, memoranda in Montague’s own hand, a quantity
of correspondence, and a number of letters from Mme. de
Chevreuse.

Everyone was very much alarmed. The Duke of
Lorraine sent once more, this time by the Marquis of
Lenoncourt, to demand Montague’s release within the
space of twenty-four hours, and added a threat that if he
was not given satisfaction, he would not “fail to use any
of the legitimate methods that justice permitted of his

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

employing, to obtain reparation for the insult offered to
his person.” No answer was vouchsafed him. The Duke
of Savoy commissioned his confidential representative in
Paris to “reply, if necessary, to anything found in Mon-
tague’s papers which might be displeasing to his Majesty.”
The most alarmed of all was Anne of Austria. La
Porte has left us the story of her terrors. She fully
expected her name would be found in Montague’s corre-
spondence. What would the King do? He would drive
her out, no doubt—send her back to Spain! She “could
neither eat nor sleep” for thinking of it. She sent for La
Porte, bade him go to Coiffy, mingle with the armed men
of the escort that was bringing Montague to Paris; get at
the Englishman, and find out from him exactly what the
perusal of the documents seized was likely to entail on her.
La Porte departed, reached Coiffy just as the seven or
eight hundred horsemen commanded by MM. de Bour-
bonne and de Boulogne were starting on their ride to Paris,
with Montague in their midst, contrived to get near the
prisoner, and was happy enough to learn from him that the
Queen’s name did not appear: if he was questioned, he
would not say one word. When La Porte repeated his
words to Anne of Austria, she “shook with joy.”
Montague, in his prison in the Bastille, pleaded extenu-
ating circumstances. In a letter to Louis XIII, he
explained that “the King of England had only taken up
arms against the King because he had thought His
Majesty did not respond to the esteem and affection he felt
for him; and that Savoy, Lorraine, and Soissons had
joined him because they were hurt at the small regard the
King bestowed upon them, and that if they could all be
persuaded of the contrary, they might be led to make
the hearty peace so needful in the interests of both
kingdoms.” Whether genuine or not, reasons put for-
ward at so critical a moment were necessarily accepted.
Louis XIII, whose hands were over-full with the business
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of the Isle of Ré, preferred an attempt to break up
the confederation gently to an endeavour to reduce it by
main force. He was willing, consequently, to negotiate.
There was, indeed, the matter of the Duchesse de Chev-
reuse. Present events, as Goulas said, were ‘due to her
instigation”: Montague himself had insinuated that she
had “induced Buckingham to do what he had done.”
Richelieu confirmed these assertions, and related that after
the defeat of the English in the Isle of Ré, various
papers had been discovered in Buckingham’s lodging, and
amongst them, a memorandum the Duke had drawn
up to send to England, and which set forth that he
had undertaken his enterprise ‘because Gerbier” (the
English Resident in Flanders) “had reported to him from
a person in whom he was bound to have confidence”’ (he
meant Mme. de Chevreuse), “that this was what he must
do.” The Duchess was guilty indeed! But even with her,
it would be wiser to use gentle means and recall her to her
duty, than to put forward demands that would not prove
obtainable.

Advised by the Ministers, Marie de Médicis, who was
acting as Regent during the King’s absence in Saintonge,
explained to the Duke of Lorraine’s Envoy, M. de Bréval,
that His Majesty, who had been informed of his master’s
plans by the perusal of Lord Montague’s correspondence,
could hardly believe in their truth, and desiring to clear
the matter up, requested the Duke would come to Paris;
once there, he could ‘“‘say his say.” What was the matter
with him? What was the cause of the attitude he had
been assuming for the past six months? Bouthillier, the
Secretary of State, undertook to speak to Bréval about
Mme. de Chevreuse. To do this, he resorted to a subter-
fuge. He enlarged on the satisfaction the conduct of
M. de Chevreuse had given the King, and declared His
Majesty desired to show his appreciation of it by
treating his wife with benevolence: that this lady need

K 129
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

only alter her line of conduct, and use her influence, in
future, to settle the trouble, after having made it, and she
would be allowed to return to France. Bouthillier even
went so far as to hint at the possibility of Buckingham’s
travelling to Paris. The Duc de Chevreuse, duly warned,
communicated with his wife: he was urgent with her: “I
rejoice,” replied Richelieu, when Bréval notified this fact
to him, “that M. de Chevreuse should be undoing what
others are said to have done,” and he added, to save the
King’s dignity : “If M. de Lorraine does not lay down his
arms, the King will take up his, and that as powerfully as
he ought.”

Meanwhile, and as a proof of his desire to conciliate,
Louis XIII set Montague at liberty. Montague waited
on the sovereign to express his thanks: he explained that
the whole misunderstanding had arisen out of the refusal to
receive Buckingham in Paris, and “‘the ill-treatment meted
out to Mme. de Chevreuse,” and added that when the
agreement between the two crowns came under discus-
sion, England would demand that the Duchess should be
included in it. Louis XIII returned an evasive answer.

The Duke of Lorraine had agreed to come to Paris and
discuss the situation with the French Government. He
set forth his claims: they included one concerning Mme.
de Chevreuse: he asked that the Duchess might, at all
events, be allowed to go to Dampierre, or to settle at
Jouarre; Mme. des Essarts—Charlotte des Essarts, Com-
tesse de Romorantin, a former mistress of Henri IV, who
had become the wife of M. du Hallier—intervened, and
assured the Ministers, in the name of Charles IV, that “in
consideration of this change, the Duke of Lorraine would
do anything he was asked to do”: this proves the import-
ance attached to the Duchess’s pardon. “I think,” wrote
Richelieu to Marie de Médicis, on April 30, 1628, “that it is
of no consequence whether Mme. de Chevreuse lives at
Dampierre or at Jouarre, and that although the des Essarts

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is a bad woman, it will not be well to refuse her intervention
to begin with, seeing that even as one thief can manage
another of his own kidney better than any Capuchin, so the
des Essarts is fitter to treat with Mme. de Chevreuse than
the Marquise de Maignelay!” Thus his opinion, too,
was that the King had better give in. So that the royal
dignity might be safeguarded in the process, M. de
Chevreuse was to be put forward. He had rendered many
services, the authorities would give out that as a reward for
these, his wife’s situation was to be made less unpleasant,
and Richelieu would write him gracious letters, preparing
the way for the pardon, to the idea of which the public mind
was to be accustomed. After all, so the Cardinal pointed
out to his master, Mme. de Chevreuse was too dangerous in
Lorraine; she spent her whole time hatching plots; it
would be far better to have her in France, where they could
keep an eye upon her. They would impose certain
conditions for her return: she was not to come to Paris;
she was to avoid any place where the King or Queen
might be; if she desired it, she might live in the Abbey
of Jouarre, of which one of her kinswomen was Prioress ;
she might even go and pay her respects to Marie de
Médicis, whenever the Queen-Mother went to Monceaux;
she might reside at Dampierre whenever the French
Court was not in Paris. M. de Chevreuse agreed to all
these conditions, offered to append his own signature to
them, and undertook to make his wife accept them too.
The King gave his consent.

Mme. de Chevreuse, duly informed of her husband’s
undertaking on her behalf, made no sign. A person who
had been in her service, and whom she had turned away,
came and reported that she was talking more scornfully
than ever about both the King and Richelieu. The same
informant added that the intercourse between the Duchess
and Anne of Austria had never been so close; that Mme. de
Chevreuse kept on telling the Queen she had nothing to

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fear, because Buckingham, England, the Emperor,
Spain, Lorraine, and other forces were all on her side.
A tragic event was to shatter all this splendid con-
fidence.

On August 23, 1628, Buckingham was at Portsmouth,
whither he had gone to hurry on the preparations for
sending important reinforcements to La Rochelle. He had
just accompanied a visitor to the door of his cabinet, when
a man of the name of Fulton, a Puritan, and the son of a
sergeant, came close up to him, and suddenly plunged a
knife into his heart! Death was instantaneous. This
sudden departure was singularly favourable to the arrange-
ment of French affairs.

Mme. de Chevreuse was unspeakably affected. She
fainted away, and had to be bled several times over before
her consciousness returned ; she was distracted with despair.
Her love for Buckingham, who was her strongest sup-
porter, still endured. His death broke up all her dreams,
and destroyed all her plans. She was thoroughly over-
whelmed.

All this time, Louis XIII and Richelieu were actively
prosecuting the siege of La Rochelle. Now that Bucking-
ham was no more, and that all hope of help from England
had failed them, the besieged rebels, already exhausted by
a struggle that had lasted over a year, felt the end of their
resistance was at hand. Two months later, the capitula-
tion was signed, and on November 1, 1628, Louis rode
into the vanquished town at the head of his victorious
troops.

His triumph was a brilliant one, and produced a deep
effect on the mind of his contemporaries. The Huguenots
were believed to be finally undone, and the King’s
Government free, consequently, to turn all its forces against
the foreigner. The King’s prestige was strengthened, and
his adversaries were proportionately weakened.

By degrees they gave in. England sued for peace, and

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discussion ensued. Mme. de Chevreuse, who clearly
perceived that, as far as she was concerned, the game was
up, did not propose to be left out of all the arrange-
ments. She appealed to Charles I to secure her interests in
the course of the negotiations. The English King con-
sented to tell Louis XIII “that he felt a particular affection
for Mme. de Chevreuse, and would certainly demand that
she should be included in the Peace, if he were not ashamed
to mention any woman in connection with it.” Louis XIII
and his advisors feigned to attach no importance to this
communication. “His Majesty,” wrote Richelieu, “finds
great difficulties concerning the return of Mme. de Chev-
reuse, who has done a great deal of mischief, and may do
more in future, and may, for the same reasons, do good,
and bring advantage to the King’s service.”

But one by one, discouraged by the victory at La
Rochelle, all the prominent persons compromised in the
late intrigues were obtaining the King’s pardon; His
Majesty would certainly have to end by granting the
Duchess hers. But in any case, Louis XIII did not intend
to allow her name to figure in his Treaty of Peace with
England. Nevertheless, before that document was actually
signed-—this was to take place on April 24, 1629,—he
consented to her return to Dampierre; she was to go back
unobserved, to live there quietly—there were to be no more
cabals. The Duchess acquiesced.

Thus, towards the end of 1628, less than two months
after the fall of La Rochelle, Mme. de Chevreuse was back
in France. She returned as untamed as ever, as full of
bitterness against Cardinal Richelieu. At Court, the
King’s pardon produced divers impressions. Gaston
d’Orléans made a mock of it, remarking to Marcheville
with his usual levity (and a thrust at the part Mme. de
Chevreuse had played as go-between in the business of
Anne of Austria and Buckingham), that the lady had
“been brought back so that the Queen might have more

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

opportunities of bearing a child!” “A devilish idea!”
adds Richelieu, who reports the observation.

The Duchess had hardly reached Dampierre when,
having no intention of living shut up in her country-house,
she caused a request to be addressed to the King of
England to intercede in her favour, and get her leave to go
back to Court. The Duke of Lorraine and Anne of Austria
added their prayers to the English King’s request.
Charles I spoke to the French Ambassador, M. de
Chateauneuf: he wrote to Louis XIII “in order that it
might please his Majesty to reinstate the Duchesse de
Chevreuse within his Court”: he added that “she was his
kinswoman, that she had suffered for her love for him, that
he felt himself obliged to assist her and address this prayer
to His Majesty, that he would confide the business to
his Ambassador, and would request him to write the King
the instances he had remitted to him.” Chateauneuf
replied that there were difficulties; Mme. de Chevreuse, he
declared, ‘‘was a woman whose spite surpassed that of
her sex, however spiteful that might be, and it was a
proved thing that several persons of power and condition
had been turned away from their duty to the King by their
adherence to her passions.” Then Charles I sent a special
messenger to Louis XIII to press his request.

This fresh interference made the King angry. Just
at that moment, a sharp discussion was going on with
the English authorities about a French Lady of the Bed-
chamber, whom the King of France desired to place about
the person of his sister Henrietta-Maria, according to the
terms of the marriage contract, which Charles refused to
carry out. “He makes difficulties,” wrote the King of his
brother-in-law, “about a Lady of the Bedchamber whom
he does not know, and whom I would choose gentle and
good-tempered, because he says she would disturb the
peace of his Household and the understanding between
himself and the Queen, and he wants me to take one whom

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I know only too well, and who has always brought
trouble into my house!” On April 30, 1629, Richelieu
wrote to M. de Rancé, private secretary to Marie de
Médicis: “England asks for Mme. de Chevreuse: we do
not care to agree, for reasons well known to the Queen-
Mother.”

These reasons grew more and more numerous. That
very year, 1629, when Louis XIII and the Cardinal had
departed to the Italian frontier, whither they had been
summoned by external complications, Gaston d’Orléans,
then a widower—for Mlle. de Montpensier had died in
childbirth, not very long after her marriage—had betrayed
his intention of marrying the Princess Marie, daughter of
the Duc de Nevers, as his second wife. Louis XIII was
determined this marriage should not take place. As early
as in March 1629, he had been cognizant of the fresh
intrigues to which the plan was giving rise. The foreign
foe was finding its account in them. Both Charles I of
England, who still clung to a policy hostile to France and
Spain, and the Duke of Lorraine, regarded these external
dissensions as a means of causing difficulties for Louis
XIIT on his Alpine frontier. Bérulle reported to Richelieu,
in the name of Marie de Médicis, then acting as Regent in
Paris, that Anne of Austria had arranged with Mirabel, the
Spanish Ambassador, that Gaston should slip over into
Flanders, so as to be married at once. This idea had come
from Mme. de Chevreuse. She had wanted to go into
Flanders herself, nobody knew why, or rather people
easily guessed: Marie de Médicis had forbidden her to
move.

On the other hand, the business with the Duke of
Lorraine was in a bad way. Mme. de Chevreuse kept
Charles IV informed of everything that could affect him;
and Anne of Austria, instigated by the Duchess, gave the
Duke information too, sent La Porte to him, and opened
communications of her own with Spain, through Mirabel.

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

A gentleman who had been sent to Paris by the Duke of
Lorraine travelled to Dampierre to see Mme. de Chevreuse.
On July 7, 1629, Richelieu writes to M. de Rancé: “The
cabals in Lorraine and Spain, due to the Duchesse de
Chevreuse, are unendurable. The King very much wishes
Mme. de Chevreuse could be seized and taken to the Forest
of Vincennes, in that case it would be necessary that
nobody should see her.” But once more unexpected
events were to alter the views of the Government, and lead
it to show favour to the dangerous Duchess it would fain
have seen in prison!

To prevent her son Gaston from marrying the Princess
Marie, the Regent had induced the young girl to come to
Paris, and had then shut her up—or something very like
it—in the Castle of Vincennes. Louis XIII and Richelieu
both disapproved of this step; they considered it quite
incorrect. Marie de Médicis took offence. Monsieur
was so furious that he left France, and took refuge in
Lorraine; whence he was only got back with the greatest
difficulty. This business hurried on the quarrel that
had long been brewing between the Queen-Mother and
Richelieu. :

From the day on which the King’s mother succeeded, in
spite of her son’s wishes, in procuring the entrance of
Richelieu into the Council—a thing she had done out of her
conviction that she was thus introducing a creature of her
own, and that she herself would now be sovereign mistress
of everything—the Cardinal, deeply conscious of what he
owed the King and the State, and impelled by the highest
sense of his duty, had been far more zealous in his defence
of the interests of the kingdom, than in his obedience to
the suggestions of his former benefactress. Marie de
Médicis, harsh-tempered, shrewish, and anything but
intelligent, had not been able to stomach what she called
the Cardinal’s “ingratitude”: the relations between her
and Richelieu had become embittered. But, and this was

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only just, Louis XIII, who had stood out so long against
his mother’s wishes, before he would admit the prelate,
whom he so heartily disliked, to his council board, having
learnt, as he had, day by day, to appreciate more and more
highly the merits of a Minister whose incomparable value
made itself increasingly apparent, now defended the Car-
dinal against his mother’s attacks. When she, in her rage,
suggested that Richelieu should be driven out of the post
of high confidence in which she herself had laboured to
place him, the King refused to listen to her; the disagree-
ment between the Queen-Mother and the Cardinal was to
transform itself into a struggle between mother and son,
and to end in steps of the most extreme nature.

Anne of Austria, who had never liked Marie de Médicis,
to whom she ascribed her own domestic unhappiness, took
up the cudgels against her. Mme. de Chevreuse, faithful
to her sovereign, did the same. Richelieu fancied the two
fair ladies were pronouncing in his favour; he was grati-
fied : ““Mme. de Bouillon has told me,” wrote the Cardinal,
“that Mme. de Chevreuse is going on well, and giving
good advice to the Queen.” From one episode to another,
the Queen-Mother’s aggressive hostility reached such a
pitch, at last, that Louis XIII, thoroughly wearied out,
resolved to bring matters toa crisis. In the month of July,
1631, he was at Compiégne, and his mother with him.
Suddenly, one morning, he quitted the palace, leaving the
castle—an ancient edifice dating from the Middle Ages,
and built against the walls of the town, on the site of the
present one—surrounded by troops, and caused it to be
signified to Marie de Médicis that she must retire to
Moulins and remain confined to that place for the future;
he was sending her into exile, in fact. The Queen refused
to obey, and in her anger, took to flight, crossed the
frontier, and shortly afterwards sought refuge on foreign
territory, in Flanders. She never was to enter the kingdom
again.

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

In the course of all these events, Richelieu had drawn
nearer to Anne of Austria. The price of their reconcilia-
tion was the return of Mme. de Chevreuse. ‘‘The Cardinal
de Richelieu,” says Mme. de Motteville, “to win her (the
Queen) over, brought back Mme. de Chevreuse. No
doubt she promised everything he asked of her. After his
quarrel with the Queen-Mother, his benefactress, he tried
to make it up with the Queen (Anne of Austria), and bind
her to him through her favourite, and so put her back about
her.”

Highly delighted, Mme. de Chevreuse paid a visit to the
Cardinal. “She made him a thousand protestations of
friendship and sincerity in the King’s service and his own.”
A conversation ensued. Agreement was likely to serve
both parties’ ends. They came to an arrangement. Mme..
de Chevreuse vowed she would be frank and loyal, that she
would henceforward avoid all commerce with the Duke of
Lorraine and other foreigners, and reveal everything that
might come to her knowledge to the Cardinal; Richelieu
promised to stand by her.

Then she and the Cardinal began to vie with each other
in attentions, civilities, and mutual respect. Mme. de
Chevreuse having fancied, for a moment, that the Cardinal
had betrayed the existence of their understanding, Riche-
lieu lost no time about writing to reassure her: “I should
esteem myself very unworthy to be honoured by your
kindness if I were capable of abusing it as I have heard
you had some idea I might have done. If I had been guilty
of such a meanness as to reveal that which it pleased you
to confide to me, I should have been a traitor to myself.
I confess to you that I could not have believed you would
-have suspected me of committing such a fault. But instead
of being scandalized at that, I only beseech you to have
greater confidence in me for the future, and to believe I
would rather fail to my own self than fail to prove to you,
on every occasion, that J am, and always shall be, ready

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THE EXILE IN LORRAINE

to give you testimonies far more difficult than those in
question here.” ,

Was the Cardinal sincere? He was making use of
Mme. de Chevreuse for the time being, at any rate. The
French Government was desirous of detaching the Duke of
Lorraine from the cause of the House of Austria, and the
Duchess served its purpose in this matter. The Duke
pledged his faith. Urged by Mme. de Chevreuse, he came
to Paris. A treaty between Lorraine and France was
signed at Vic on January 6, 1632. Mme. de Chevreuse was
the author of the agreement; she had kept her word.

Her fortunes had risen high indeed! After having in-
spired Richelieu and Louis XIII with the feelings of which
I have made my readers aware, after having herself given
vent to opinions which should naturally have proved an
eternal barrier to her return to the Court, she found herself
back in that same Court, considered, respected, spoilt,
powerful, hedged in with homage and deference. A short
time after her return to France, M. de Chevreuse had a
quarrel with M. de Montmorency, whom he had called a
knave, because he had written some insulting rhymes
about him. He drew his sword, in the lower court of the
Louvre, between the guardroom of the Swiss Guard, and
that of the French Guard; several thrusts were exchanged,
and before the soldiers were able to part them, both com-
batants were lying on the ground. It was a serious busi-
ness! M. de Chevreuse jumped upon his horse and fled.
Any other man would have lost his head for his pains.
Richelieu went to Mme. de Chevreuse, and told her the
Duke might come back. He returned, and was made over,
as a matter of form, to an officer of the Guard, who was
ordered to keep his eye upon him; and he was desired to
go and spend a fortnight at Dampierre; the punishment
was light, and he owed it to the favour his wife enjoyed.

And Mme. de Chevreuse responded to Richelieu’s asse-
verations by expressing the deepest feelings of devotion.

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

“Sir,’ she wrote, in the course of the earlier months
of the year 1632, “I should not have thought myself so
fortunate as to be reraembered by you amidst the occupa-
tions you now have: I find myself agreeably mistaken in
this opinion; this leads me to hope that I may be so to my
still greater advantage, touching the sentiments you
entertain for me; I desire it with equal passion and
sincerity. I am resolved to prove to you by every action
of my life that I am, Sir, your very humble and obedient
servant.” So close was the understanding between the
Duchess and the Cardinal, that Richelieu would dictate the
letters he desired she should write to Lorraine, for instance,
with the object of preventing the Duke from listening to
the suggestions of Gaston d’Orléans; we still possess rough
drafts of these missives in Richelieu’s own hand; on the
back of the documents we find, written by the Cardinal’s
secretary, de Cherré, the words, “To M. de la Ville, the
Duke of Lorraine’s Gentleman-in-waiting, by the hand of
Mme. de Chevreuse.” Was she sincere either? Had not
Richelieu his own reasons for doubting her faithfulness?
Among these, one, surely, ought to have stirred his sus-
picions, and kept them on the alert—the intimacy between
the Duchess and Anne of Austria!

It was a very close intimacy. The Duchess and the
Queen were never apart: they were seen together every-
where. Now Anne of Austria had never forgiven the
Cardinal. Richelieu was perfectly well aware of this; he
suspected that any conversation concerning him, in which
the sovereign bore her part, handled him in a manner the
reverse of kind. Just about this time, he received intelli-
gence that the then Keeper of the Privy Seal, Charles
de |’Aubespine, Marquis de Chateauneuf, was holding
long interviews and frequent conferences with the Queen
and Mme. de Chevreuse. What was the meaning of all
these secret meetings? What was the Keeper hatching
with the two Princesses? Richelieu began to wonder.

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THE EXILE IN LORRAINE

M. de Chateauneuf, the scion of an ancient race, many
members of which had been Privy Councillors and
Secretaries of State, had, as was customary amongst such
families, spent a regular career in the King’s Household.
He had subsequently been appointed to the Treasury, with
Jeannin and de Thou, in 1611; had been selected for special
missions, such as that of Ambassador to the English
Court, and had shown much intelligence in his perform-
ance of these functions. After one of the crises in the
struggle between Marie de Médicis and Richelieu, he had
been appointed Keeper of the Seals, in the place of
Marillac, who had fallen into disgrace. He was an active,
hard-working, and what was exceedingly precious, a very.
compliant man; he had been selected to preside over the
judicial commission charged with the prosecution of his
predecessor’s brother, Marshal Louis de Marillac, who had
been compromised with him in the same intrigues, and had
sentenced him to the scaffold—the punishment had been
considered severe. Appointed, at a later date, head of the
commission that was to decide the fate of the Duc de
Montmorency, he had sent that nobleman to his death: he
gained the reputation of being an over-obsequious courtier.
He was full of ardour, energy, and fire; he thirsted for
glory: he was well versed in business affairs, and his
friends were many. His enemies, who reproached him
with his sentences on Marillac and Montmorency, declared
his ambition had led him basely to betray his conscience
and his honour, but they nevertheless treated him with ex-
treme consideration; of this Mme. de Motteville assures us.

One grave weakness disfigured his character : he was too
fond of women, and this brought about his ruin. He
delighted in female society, in paying compliments, and
being flattered by fair ladies. When he rose to be a
Minister, in whose hands the power of showing grace and
favour lay, he was immensely courted; he could hardly
have stood out against his flatterers. In spite of his two

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

and fifty years, his feelings were still easily fired; his love
affairs had been numberless. ‘His weakness,” writes
Mme. de Motteville, “was the cause of that the ladies
had for him; their intrigues contributed greatly to his
grandeur and good fortune, and also to his wretchedness.”

He was fascinated by the Duchesse de Chevreuse.
Where was the man who was not? She was thirty-one, in
all the splendour of her fresh and brilliant beauty. The
man of fifty could not resist her. This autumnal passion
was fierce, devoid of reserve, devoid of dignity. We have
his love-letters. “I await your commands with impa-
tience,” he writes, with reference to some service she had
asked him to do two of her friends, “‘if you would give them
to me by word of mouth, I should be happier than I
deserve, or dare expect to be. The King will be here to-
morrow, and will only stay two days. Good God! Must
I spend one day of my life without serving you? How
mean I think myself to spend my care on any other thing,
and how good you are to permit me to swear my eternal
fidelity and obedience to you, without being able to prove
them by my service! As to the two persons concerning
whom you have spoken to me, it is enough that you should
say ‘I desire,’ for it is for you to command, and for me to
obey.”

And with reference to another recommendation he
writes :

“Tt is enough that I should know the person of whom
you speak is your servant, to oblige me to do what he
wishes. Good God! How unhappy am I to find so few
means of serving you, with all my desire to do it! But
your bodily resemblance to the divinities is too great for
you to fail in possessing all the qualities of their souls.
That is the cause which makes you accept, even as they
do, the adoration which is rendered you, though that can
in nowise add to your glory, when it is paid you from a
heart filled with obedience, fidelity and respect!”

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THE EXILE IN LORRAINE

After Chateauneuf’s arrest, at a later date, his papers
were searched, and some threescore letters from Mme. de
Chevreuse discovered among them. Charpentier, secre-
tary to Cardinal Richelieu, made a copy of them for his
master’s use. That copy is now in our hands. In its pages
we follow the Duchess day by day, amidst the refined
subtleties of an extraordinarily finished coquette, applied to
the service of the boldest possible spirit of intrigue. Few
of the documents left us so thoroughly portray her real
character. She did not care for Chateauneuf, of that there
can be no doubt whatever; but she made it her business to
feed his passion, keep it alive, and continually excite it;
she made advances to him; she kindled his jealousy; she
drove him distracted: her aim (and she attained it)
was to have him at her beck and call, so as to use him
to carry out her plans: the strangest thing of all was
the part played by Richelieu in the course of this
correspondence.

Alarmed, in fact, by the lengthy conversations that were
going on, as he discovered, between Mme. de Chevreuse
and the Keeper of: the Seals, the Cardinal commanded
his people to be on the watch. The execution at Toulouse
of the Duc de Montmorency, betrayed by Gaston d’Or-
léans, might quite conceivably drive that Prince to seek
safety in flight. Could it be that Anne of Austria, Mme. de
Chevreuse, Chateauneuf, and his friend the Chevalier de
Jars were in connivance with Monsieur, and endeavouring
to induce him to take this step? Some certainty must be
obtained. The Cardinal grew restless and anxious. The
complications of his political existence—Heaven knows
they had been numberless enough !—had thoroughly upset
his over-sensitive nerves. He ended by watching the
sayings and doings of Mme. de Chevreuse and Chateau-
neuf with an attention so anxious that his irritation, at
times, assumed all the appearances of downright jealousy.
Was he in love with the lady himself? The Duchess gives

143
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

us to understand he was; Richelieu was Chateauneuf’s
junior, he was only forty-seven. Then the Keeper of the
Seals took fright. Mme. de Chevreuse vowed she cared
for no one but him, but at the same time laid artful stress
on the Cardinal’s attentions to her.

“T think,” she wrote, “the Cardinal is resolved to have
no patience with me, night or day ; he sends at nine o’clock
in the morning to know how lam. I sent him word I have
necessary business to transact with you. Since that he
has written to me twice; the first time to know what the
business was, about which I had to speak to you, the
second, to beg me not to proceed until he had first seen
you, or sent me word: you perceive his foolishness, and
how much trouble he gives me! You shall soon have news
of me, and hear when I can see you.” And again: “It is
not because I have promised you, but because I believe
you deserve it, that I hold you in such high esteem; do
not grieve at not having let:me see all the pain it cost you
to leave me, if only it be as great as that you showed me:
I am well-pleased with that, and glad to have seen your
true feelings for once, shorn of all pretence, and to have
reason to be content with them.”

When Chateauneuf reproaches her with having neg-
lected him, because, as he believes, she has promised
Richelieu to do so, she protests: “You are wrong to have
nursed such a thought,” she writes, ‘“and my soul is too
noble to admit a feeling so vile; for that reason I regard
the Cardinal’s favour no more than | dread his power, and
never will I do anything that is unworthy of myself; I
shall take great delight in pleasing you, and it will be a
great trouble to me to cause you pain.” Notwithstanding
all this, she proceeds to reveal the advances Richelieu is
making to win her over. A person had come to see her
from the Cardinal, she says, who offered her the Minister’s
support, and told her in his name, “that it is his great
desire to oblige me in the most important matters, and that’

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THE EXILE IN LORRAINE

he alone is in a position to do it; that nobody can be
equal to him: all his protestations,” she adds, “are mere
fine words, followed by very paltry doings, and I put
but little faith in any of them.” And she continues: “1
believe you so heartily mine that the best news I can give
you is news of my health, which is better than it has
been: for as to my resolve to value you above any-
thing else in France, it is so firm that nothing can ever
alter it.”

And, thereupon, she holds forth to Chateauneuf concern-
ing a young nobleman who is likewise in love with her,
and passionately too, and whose presence about her is a
source of much annoyance to the Keeper of the Seals,
M. de Brion, to wit: Francois de Lévis Ventadour, the
future Duc d’Amville, Chief Equerry to Monsieur.

This behaviour only makes the lover’s heart more sore.
The Duchess tells him a long story of a scene she has had
with Richelieu, in the Queen’s apartments. Richelieu had
come to see Anne of Austria; he stayed two hours: “He
paid her (the Queen),” writes Mme. de Chevreuse, “many
compliments, and loaded her with praises in my presence,
whereas to me he spoke most coldly, and with a great
affectation of carelessness and indifference, while I, accord-
ing to my custom, behaved as if I did not notice his bad
temper. When he tried to tease me about some small
matter, I jested at him to the point of crying scorn upon his
power : he was more astonished than angry, for he changed
his tune then, and plunged into civilities and humilities of
the lowliest kind. I know not whether it was because he
would not betray his bad humour in the Queen’s presence,
or because he did not want to quarrel with me. To-morrow
I am to see him at two o’clock: I will let you know what
happens. Rest assured that when I cease to be yours, it
will be because I have left this world altogether.”

And then she goes on to M. de Brion. That gentleman
is growing urgent, and passionately eager; he might be

L 145
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

taken to be a lover who had rights over her: he talks like
her master ; Mme. de Chevreuse declares herself very much
vexed: but that is on Richelieu’s account. “M. de Brion
has sent to me, and, without any regard for my entreaties,
or for the reasons I have represented to him, insists on
going whithersoever I go, and says that nothing can pre-
vent him from so doing, even if, in my fear of the Car-
dinal’s anger if he should find it out, I should desire the
contrary. I assure you this talk on de Brion’s part has both
vexed and afflicted me, for I really could not endure it, and
am very much grieved that he should have given me so
great cause for quarrel, after having given me’so much
reason for praising him: I am resolved I will not see him,
if he comes against my will, and I will not even accept
messages from him, if he does not repent him of the fashion
in which he has spoken to me.”

Then, at last, Chateauneuf lost patience. Was the
Duchess his property or not? He insisted on being told!
Rather alarmed, Mme. de Chevreuse protested her devotion
in still stronger terms. She found herself impelled to make
advances on her own account: “It will never grieve me to
see marks of your affection,” she writes to the Keeper of
the Seals, “so do not fear to weary me with your letters,
but continue rather to delight me by giving me proofs
of your recollection of me as often as you can: I promise
you a larger share of mine than that you have asked of
me.”

But, unfortunately, the position taken up by Richelieu
was meanwhile growing more and more alarming. Mme.
de Chevreuse is not playing with Chateauneuf, this time,
when she communicates the fears with which the Cardinal’s
sentiments inspire her. “Never,” writes the Duchess to
her friend, “have I had so much trouble about holding
converse with you as at this moment. You shall know all
the details of my conversation with the Cardinal at our
first meeting, for I can say no more in writing, except that

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THE EXILE IN LORRAINE

it was not without good reason that I begged you to speak
ill of me to the Cardinal. I shall not see you till to-
morrow: M. de Chevreuse will speak to you at six o’clock
in the evening: he is going to see the Cardinal, who is
beside himself.”

Richelieu seems, indeed, to have grown more and more
angry about the dangerous understanding he had dis-
covered between the Queen, Mme. de Chevreuse, and the
Keeper of the Seals. His rage betrayed itself: he grew
impatient, domineering, tormenting. The Duchess attri-
buted his jangling nerves to his passion for herself!
“The Cardinal’s tyranny,” she writes, “increases every
moment, and his extravagances are worse than those of
M. de Brion. He rages and swears because I do not go to
see him, and because I do see various people here, and
amongst them M. de Brion, whom | am resolved not to have
in my own house again, because I know the King vows
he isaspy. Judge of the point the Cardinal’s spite reaches
when he makes an affair of State out of that! The thing
that vexes me is that the reason I have, on account of the
love I bear my own self, for not seeing him, will be taken
by the Cardinal to be my fear of making him angry again,
which has led him to act in this fashion. I wrote to him
twice, paying him compliments of which he is quite
unworthy, and which I would never have made him but
for the persecution of M. de Chevreuse, who told me I
should thus purchase peace. I think the King’s favour
has swelled his arrogance beyond all measure. He
thinks he will terrify me with his fury, and persuades
himself, in my opinion, that there is nothing I would not
do to appease it: but I would rather make up my mind to
perish than make my submission to the Cardinal! His
glory is not only unendurable to me, but odious! He told
M. de Chevreuse that my temper was insufferable to a man
of feeling like himself (it is his meanness that has led him
to this opinion of it), and that he was resolved not to pay

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

me any particular duty, since | was not capable of bestow-
ing my friendship and confidence on him alone! M. de
Chevreuse has had a little quarrel with me, because
the Cardinal’s insolence has so intimidated him that he
would fain have persecuted me into basely submitting
to it.”

The Cardinal appears to have done everything he could
to bring Mme. de Chevreuse back to the performance of
her former promises. Did he feign to be in love with her?
The Duchess herself wondered. ‘I hardly know how to
represent my interview with the Cardinal to you,” she
writes, “except by telling you that he betrays as deep
a passion for me as I perceived, in old days, in the heart
of Lord Holland. But even as I have always held that
one to be real, I believe it (the passion) to be false in the
case of the Cardinal, who vows he keeps nothing back
from me, and desires to do absolutely everything I
command him, on condition that I live with him after
such a fashion that he may feel certain he stands higher
in my esteem and confidence than any other person on
the earth.”

Richelieu persevered, raining supplications on her; his
persistence became alarming. He tormented Mme. de
Chevreuse. “I am in despair,” writes that lady, “over
what the Cardinal has communicated to me this evening.
He has sent me an express messenger, to beseech two
things of me. One for my own interest, and the other for
his satisfaction; which were: the first—not to speak to
M. de Brion, the second—not to see you: this last, alone,
is any trial to me. Nevertheless, my determination to
prove my affection for you is stronger than all the
Cardinal’s importance. Send me word how I may see you
without the Cardinal’s knowledge, for I will do whatever
you think best for that purpose, since I passionately long
to talk with you.”

And in another letter: “I have seen him this evening

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[the Cardinal], and find him more resolved than ever to
persecute me: never have I found him so troubled in mind
as to-day, nor heard him so uneven in his talk, so that
often he was in a desperation of anger, and in another
moment he would calm down, and fall into the most
extreme humility. He cannot endure that I should esteem
you, and can do nothing to prevent it. Farewell! I
must see you at all costs! Send me an answer, and beware
of the Cardinal, for he is spying on us, both you and
me!”

And in yet another: “ Although I am not well, I will not
omit to tell you how my visit to the Cardinal passed off.
He spoke to me of his love, which he declares to be so
great as to have caused his illness, by the distress of my
behaviour to him! He enlarged on my conduct in long
speeches of complaint, especially as regards your person,
and concluded that he cannot live on, in his present
feeling for me, if I do not assure him I have changed my
feeling for him: to which I replied that I had always
endeavoured to give him reason to be pleased with me, and
desired to do so more than ever. He pressed me hard to
know how things were between you and me, saying that
all the world believed us to be in the closest possible
understanding, which I absolutely denied. I will say no
more at this moment, but believe me that I esteem you as
much as I despise him, and that I shall never have a
secret for you, nor any confidence in him! ”

A curious situation, indeed! Chateauneuf, bitterly
annoyed, poured forth his rage against Richelieu, and
Mme. de Chevreuse responded: “I have a hatred of the
Cardinal’s tyranny, which is even greater than yours; but
I am resolved to overcome it, and not to complain about it.
Never have I so longed to talk with you as in this hour.
The Cardinal vows that I shall soon be on bad terms with
you, that you do not care for me, and jeers about it: as
far as I am concerned, I laugh at all that : I believe in your

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

fidelity and your affection, and will give you the same all my
life, provided that, even as you have deserved that I should
form this good opinion of you, you do not make yourself
worthy that I should lose it. I counsel you, not being able
as yet to say that I command you, and not choosing to say,
that I beg you, to wear the diamond I now send you, so
that when you look at the stone, which has two qualities—
one, that of hardness, and the other, of a brilliance so great
that it can be seen afar off, and reveals its smallest
blemish—you may remember that you must hold firmly to
your promises, if they are to be pleasing to me, and that
you must never make a blunder.”

And as Chateauneuf’s bitterness against Richelieu rose
higher, Mme. de Chevreuse increased the fervour of the
expression of her attachment to the Keeper of the Seals:
“T believe you to be mine utterly,” she writes, “and I
promise that I will treat you eternally as mine; though the
whole world should neglect you, I shall esteem you so
faithfully, all my life long, that if you love me truly, as you
say you do, you will have reason to rejoice at your good
fortune, for all the powers of the earth will never drive me
to change my mind: this I swear to you, and charge you to
believe it, and to love me faithfully.” And then comes
her final word, to which she has been leading up. “I
assure you I will command you always, and I order you to
obey me, not only so as to follow your own inclination, if
it so leads you, but to satisfy my desire, which is to dispose
absolutely of your will: this is the secret which I did not
tell you yesterday, and which I promised you should know
to-day.”

From that time forward she ceased coquetting with
Chateauneuf, she swore that Richelieu might do what he
chose, she would never yield to his advances: ‘Not all
his prosperity,” she writes, “will have the power of
bringing me into subjection to the point of making me
dependent on his whims; if he has an extravagant fancy

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for me, do not let that matter disturb you. Never was there
anything to compare with his folly! he has sent, and
written me, the strangest complaints: he says I am per-
petually making game of him, that he knows of a surety
that I have an understanding with you, and that your
people never budge out of my house: that I see Brion
because he is his enemy, and on purpose to vex him: that
the whole world says he is in love with me, that the King
believes it, that he cannot endure my behaviour any
longer: this is the Cardinal’s condition ! ”

Was the Cardinal really in love with Mme. de Chev-
reuse? She thought so, and desired to produce that
impression on others. But could Richelieu himself have
discerned, in his own eager and passionate heart, how
much of his feeling was pure political anxiety, and how
much a disturbance of his sentimental being? His
Memoirs confine themselves to the political aspect of the
business. They set forth his anxiety in connection with
the understanding between Chateauneuf and Mme. de
Chevreuse: and assert that the Keeper of the Seals,
swept off his feet by his passion for the Duchess, had
thrown himself into the cabals of the “factious ladies”:
that these ladies were plotting with foreign powers against
the safety of the State: and events were destined to justify
the correctness of this version of the story.

Affected by a multiplicity of causes, the incidents of
Gaston’s revolt, the growing hostility of Anne of Austria
to the Cardinal, and Mme. de Chevreuse’s own hatred of
him, the Queen and her adherents had again begun to
intrigue with foreign courts. Chateauneuf had allowed
himself to be carried in their train. He was in a position
to supply information as to the councils of the Government.
Richelieu was soon advised of the “sincere and faithful
admiration” for Spain professed by the Queen’s circle:
he knew the praises of the Spanish alliance were being
constantly sung in that quarter; that through Mme. de

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Chevreuse, the Keeper of the Seals was in communication
with divers persons in the service of England; that he was
well acquainted with all Monsieur’s projects. Louis XIII,
in his anger, desired to take severe steps at once. But
Richelieu thought it wiser to wait: “I have just received
notice,” writes the King to his Minister, on February 4,
1633, “that a craftsman, newly come from England, has
gone to wait on Mme. de Chevreuse at Jouarre. If she
reports this to you herself, it will be some proof of her
amendment; if she says nothing of it, confess at least, for
the last time, that she is deceiving you and laughing at
both you and me. I will confess to you that two things
vex me beyond measure, and sometimes rob me of my
sleep !—the insolence of Parliament, and the mock the
persons you wot of make of me, not forgetting you.
. You know how I trust you in every business of mine;
believe me in these two matters, and we shall set them
right.”

It was useless to fly in the face of facts. Before long,
they demonstrated that Chateauneuf, at the prayer of Mme.
de Chevreuse, was betraying State secrets to her; he had
given the Duchess notice of an attack to be made on a
fortress in Lorraine; she had warned the Duke, who had
taken his measures accordingly, and the attempt had failed.
Plans of campaign had leaked out, the Duke of Lorraine
was kept informed of the undertakings against him dis-
cussed at the King’s Council Board. Certain letters written
by Chateauneuf were intercepted, they contained proofs of
his treason. From the English Court, Louis XIII received
warning that the Keeper of the Seals intended to get the
Cardinal driven out, and to step himself into his shoes.
The adherents of Gaston d’Orléans, it was asserted,
reckoned on Chateauneuf’s help, and were in correspon-
dence with him. Mme. de Chevreuse went about openly
retailing information which could not have reached her
through any channel save that of the Keeper of the Seals.

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In a Memorandum dated the end of February, '1633,
Richelieu set forth the piled up grievances of the Govern-
ment against Chateauneuf; it was impossible for the King
to retain a Minister who had behaved himself in such a
fashion; he announced his intention of dismissing
the Duchess’s friend; he had come to the end of his
patience.

On the morning of February 25, 1633, the King, then
at his palace of St. Germain en Laye, sent an order to
Chateauneuf to deliver up the Seals; very shortly after-
wards, a Captain of the Guard, M. de Gordes, arrested the
Minister. Chateauneuf made no complaint. He was
conducted to Angouléme, and placed in confinement there.
His nephew was arrested likewise, and the Chevalier de
Jars.as well; the family and friends of the disgraced
Minister took to flight. By the King’s order, Bouthillier
and Buffon searched Chateauneuf’s lodging, and there
found a quantity of correspondence, amongst which were
three-and-thirty letters from Montague, two-and-thirty
from Henrietta-Maria, and all those of Mme. de Chev-
reuse. The prisoner, under cross-examination, “accused
himself, as much as anybody chose, of having loved the
ladies too dearly,” but declared all the rest to be “women’s
nonsense and silly talk.” He was left in his prison, and
was to lie there till the death of Louis XIII.

As to Mme. de Chevreuse, the Government’s perplexity,
as always, was extreme. Any rigorous treatment of her
seemed fraught with the most serious difficulties. And
further, her services were really needed at that particular
moment. Monsieur had left the kingdom, and was stirring
up the Duke of Lorraine against the King. The Duke
had raised an army, and there was a fear that he would call
on the Emperor to come and help him: in Richelieu’s
opinion, Mme. de Chevreuse was the only person likely
to be able to induce him to lay down his arms. The
Duchess was invited to proceed to Lorraine and enter into

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

negotiations for this purpose. She, who had been living
in great anxiety ever since the arrest of Chateauneuf, and
was, indeed, thoroughly frightened, did not dare to refuse.
“Although this negotiation was not to her taste,” writes
La Porte, “Mme. de Chevreuse, to prove her zeal, acted in
the matter against her own feelings, in the belief that the
Duke of Lorraine would not be so easily moved: but she
was deceived, for the Abbé du Dorat (who had been sent
to act with her), so exerted himself that he induced his
Highness to disband his army.”

But this service once obtained, Louis XIII found it
impossible to endure the idea of having Mme. de Chev-
reuse, whom he so detested, against whom he had so many
just reasons of complaint, under his eyes, at his own Court.
He waited awhile; but in the month of June, he made up
his mind, and requested M. de Chevreuse to be so good as
to conduct his wife to Couziéres, near Tours. ‘There was
nothing for it but to obey.

Anne of Austria begged the King’s leave to see the
Duchess before she departed: unwillingly, His Majesty
consented. Richelieu sought the same permission, on the
plea that Mines de Chevreuse desired to speak to him.
‘You ask me,” wrote the King, “if you may see Mme. de
Chevreuse, who wishes to bid you farewell; you know
very well what pleasure the Queen has given me by asking
my leave to see her; I know that her visit cannot serve
your interests: you know very well that it will not be
agreeable to me: that said, do what you will, and be
assured that I will always be the best master to you that
the world has ever seen.”

Mme. de Chevreuse departed; she made no protest.
The punishment meted out to her was, on the whole, a
gentle one: it was better for her to betake herself to
Touraine, than to go and vegetate in some foreign country,
which would have been the only other resource open to her.

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THE EXILE IN LORRAINE

Before she quitted Paris, she had a long interview with
Anne of Austria; and they agreed to exchange constant
letters. Did Louis XIII gain much by driving the fair
intriguer out of his Court? Far or near, at home or
abroad, the Duchesse de Chevreuse was destined to remain
a thorn in his side!

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CHAPTER VI

THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

Couziéres—Mme. de Chevreuse intrigues with Anne of Austria—The
affair of the Val de Grace—Mme. de Chevreuse in danger—She
takes to flight—Her journey across France in disguise—Marsillac,
Malbati, Spain—1634-37.

CouzizREs is a charming little country house on the slopes
of the valley of the Indre, near Tours. Woods lie all round
it. A great pleasure-ground, the outline of which may even
yet be traced, though its area is now covered by a thick
growth of trees, stretched its wide space, bright with sun-
light and gay with flowers, in front of the cheerful dwelling.
The house, though of small dimensions, is tolerably con-
venient. The partitions of the rooms as they were in the
old days may still be traced. In one-wing there remains
a room, with a heavy stone chimney-piece and open rafters,
which has preserved its ancient title, ‘‘the chamber of M.
le Prince ”»—the Prince de Guéméné. The park, with its
ancient walls, is just as it was in the seventeenth century.
The surrounding country is pretty, one of those smiling
landscapes characteristic of Touraine, with undulating lines
full of dignity and charm. Couziéres had known its hour
of fame when, after a quarrel followed by a brief armed
struggle, Marie de Médicis and Louis XIII met within
its park walls, for the purposes of a temporary reconcilia-
tion. This was in 1619. Mme. de Chevreuse took up her
quarters in her new residence attended by a numerous
following—comptroller, equerries, lackeys, waline omen,
grooms, and so forth.

She had not been condemned to live in seclusion; she

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GNIVUNOL NI NOZVYELNON UVAN ‘SauaiZN0o 4d OVALVHO FHL

 

 
THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

was free to go to Tours. She was even obliged to be there
frequently, to see her men of business and discuss her
affairs, which had fallen into great confusion, with them.
And having no taste for living alone, she desired to
frequent the society of the province, which included several
of her personal friends. Further, she was sure to
find better facilities, inside the town, for carrying on
her secret correspondence without attracting attention, or
being caught by Richelieu’s agents. So she hired a house
at Tours, belonging to the Archbishop, and called the
Hétel de la Massetiére, and in it she often stayed.

The life she led in this new residence was active and
brilliant. She entertained, she went out hunting. Local
gossip credited her with love affairs; so at least Talle-
ment des Réaux assures us. Of one of these, the Arch-
bishop of Tours was the harmless hero.

He was an aged prelate—eighty years old—and had
already been Bishop of Bayonne. M. Bertrand d’Eschaux
—this was the Archbishop’s name—by birth a Basque, far
from good-looking, blind of one eye, very learned and very
kind-hearted, had performed the marriage ceremony
between Marie de Rohan and the Duc de Luynes. He was
a constant visitor in the house of Mme. de Chevreuse, who
had the greatest confidence in him. Once, when she found
herself in a difficulty, he lent her money, 25,000 livres, and
looked after her correspondence. In spite of his great age
and the dignity of his high rank in the Church, the charms
of the young Duchess had produced their effect upon him,
so at least she believed and declared: her boast was that
she could make him do anything she chose. At certain
critical junctures in her life he was to give her proofs of
a really touching fidelity and devotion.

As a member of their social circle, the ladies of the city
of Tours found Mme. de Chevreuse less satisfactory. They
thought her decidedly in the way. The Duc d’Orléans,
passing through the town at a slightly later date, wrote

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

to M. de Chavigny, in the somewhat cavalier style he
usually affected: “The players are at Tours. Every-
body there is in good health. Mme. de Chevreuse came to
see the performance of Le Cid, and stayed one day, on
which I paid her as short a visit as I could contrive.
Neither I nor the ladies of the town were the least grieved
at her departure; rather the contrary, for she played us a
thousand dirty tricks.” Two other persons were even less
pleased with the goings on of Mme. de Chevreuse: these
were Louis XIII and the Cardinal de Richelieu.

They knew a regular correspondence was being carried
on between the Duchess and Anne of Austria. What
did those letters convey? The King would fain have
found out. “On my arrival here,’ he writes to the
Cardinal, “I found, in the Queen’s apartments, a certain
Plainville, who goes to and fro for Mme. de Chevreuse,
and who was welcomed into the Queen’s presence like the
Messiah. I write you this, to find out whether you think
that when I know he has been dismissed I had better have
him arrested and his letters taken from him.” But Riche-
lieu did not think it wise to act too hurriedly. And, indeed,
apart from Plainville, Mme. de Chevreuse possessed many
other means of corresponding with her friends in Paris:
modest and obscure folk, some of them, others who were
important personages; amongst these last, some English-
men.

First and foremost there was Lord Montague. He had
been sent into France on a diplomatic mission by the King
his master, and had betaken himself to Tours, to pay his
duty to Mme. de Chevreuse. As much in love with her
as ever, he had placed himself at her disposal, to ensure
the safety of her communications with Paris. His atten-
tions to Anne of Austria and to the Duchess were the
subject of many a merry jest and gibe between the two
young ladies. “The excess of your kindness,” writes
Mme. de Chevreuse to the Queen, “which leads you to

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wish you could spend an hour in this place, so as to make
the happiness of those who live in it, gives me freedom to
answer the joke you make at M. de Montague’s expense,
as to his stay here. I acknowledge that you have good
cause to think it an advantage to him to spend some time
at Tours, but for a reason very different from that you
give, for it is certain that he needs to be a great deal away
from you, to make him see that he is still a mortal man,
since he is no longer dwelling with the angels. If I have
any credit with you, he will soon be enjoying that felicity.”

Montague had not come over alone. He had brought
a young English gentleman with him. His name was
Craft. He had been presented to the Duchess, and the
usual fate had overtaken him—he had fallen madly in love
with her: Mme. de Chevreuse accepted his adoration.
This young man’s letters, which were intercepted, are still
in existence. They afford proofs of one of the liveliest
passions the Duchess ever inspired. “I cannot rest two
days in the same place,” he writes her from Calais, where
he was waiting for weather calm enough to permit of his
crossing to England, “without rendering an account of
them to you: I hope to embark when I have finished this
letter, and the thought of you will console me in all my
misfortunes. I often see your portrait, and often kiss it.
I pray you to think upon your poor servant, and upon the
love he bears and always will bear you, having nothing
in the world that is worth a thought, save yourself! My
heart and my soul are both yours utterly!” “My passion
for you is greater than I can express, and the resolve I
have taken to be true to it will never suffer change! I
dread my own country, for I can never hope to see any-
thing there that will bring me contentment. ... I will
never love any but you, and that with all my heart and soul,
and all my life long.” Then, after he has reached London :
“You owe me less thanks than ever for the passion I feel
for you, for everybody here is so mean and contemptible

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

that I know neither contentment nor comfort till the night
falls, and I can be alone, and think of you.”

Apart from these Englishmen, there were other persons
on whom the Duchess could rely to forward her correspond-
ence: Marsillac, son of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, the
future author of the Maximes, who had been presented to
her by Anne of Austria, and whose regard for her was
tinged with a deeper feeling; he was only twenty-four;
M. de la Thibaudiére, a gentleman from the province of
Poitou; M. Chennetier, a burgher of Tours, who lived
in the Hétel de la Massetiére; a certain M. Julien, who
gave writing lessons; and above all, La Porte, Anne of
Austria’s own confidential servitor, the Queen’s “cloak-
bearer,’ a young man from Anjou, three-and-thirty years
of age, intelligent, devoted, discreet, and, in a certain sense,
the soul of honour. La Porte acted as secretary to Anne
of Austria, kept the cyphers and seals, copied and sent or
carried the letters.

What was the object of all this correspondence ?

On November 8, 1636, Richelieu wrote as follows to
Chavigny: “As for the Queen, I will not tell you anything
more, save that the old-established generosity of Mme. de
Chevreuse has ever been the cause of the fact that in
that country” (the Queen’s circle) ‘‘the reverse of the
King’s will is always what is desired.” To avenge herself
on King and Cardinal, the Duchess had resolved to oppose
his Majesty’s policy in every foreign Court to which she
herself had access. She would negotiate, and the Queen
should back her up: Anne of Austria simply sailed in her
wake. In England, the two Princesses made use of Craft
and Montague; in Lorraine they had a sister-in-law of
Mme. de Chevreuse, the Abbess of Jouarre, who had the
letters brought her by La Porte delivered in Nancy; in
Flanders, the secretary of the English Ambassador, Auger,
took in the letters, and passed them on to the Spanish
Ambassador in Brussels, the Marquis de Mirabel, who

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THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

undertook to see they reached their various destinations.
“Thus,” says La Porte in his Memoirs, “the Queen
had news from every quarter without anybody being aware
of it; and this’ went on for some considerable time.” It
went on for nearly four years.

The letters which the Government of Louis XIII suc-
ceeded in stopping give us the general outline of the plot
in which Mme. de Chevreuse was the chief mover.

The first idea was to stir up Spain against France, and
induce that country to join forces with those of Lorraine,
Savoy, and the Empire. Instead of corresponding directly
with Madrid, which was too far off, Mme. de Chevreuse
addressed herself to the great personages of Spanish nation-
ality then ruling the Low Countries. At Brussels she had
lighted upon an intriguing woman, worthy of the part
assigned her, in the person of Madeleine de Silly, wife
of Charles d’Angennes du Fargis, a former Lady of the
Bedchamber to Anne of Austria, who, after having dis-
graced herself by her numerous love affairs, had been
driven from Court because her foolish imprudence during
her husband’s embassy to the Court of Spain had deeply
irritated the French Government. She had taken refuge
in Brussels, and spent her time there fomenting cabals
against her own country. Since open war had been
declared between France and Spain, she had been keeping
the Cardinal-Infante, brother of Anne of Austria, who
commanded the Spanish troops in the Low Countries, fully
informed of the movements of the French army, and sug-
gesting to the Spanish authorities the measures they
should take, the diversions they should create, and the
attacks most likely to be attended with success, so as to
embarrass the Cardinal’s government.

We have her letters to Anne of Austria, the Queen’s
replies, and the letters addressed by Anne of Austria and
by the Duchess to Mirabel and to the Cardinal-Infante.
Word was sent from Brussels to the Sovereign and to

M 161
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Mme. de Chevreuse of every happening in the camp of
those of Richelieu’s enemies who had sought refuge in
Flanders, among whom Marie de Médicis was the chief
figure. It was the scene common to all emigrations—
illusions, jealousies, discord, suspicion and penury. Mme.
du Fargis, a most needy woman, was perpetually begging.
“I beg to point out,” she writes, “as I did in my last
letter, how extremely necessitous my condition is, without
a serving-man, without a coach, without any attendants,
and without even the wherewithal to make me a gown!
What the Infante has given me hitherto has just sufficed
to pay the debts my husband contracted! Good God!
will these times never change? I am dying of hunger!”
She entreats the Queen to recommend her to the Cardinal-
Infante, so that he may increase the pension he gives her.
She promises to write every week. Anne of Austria
watches eagerly for her letters. Everybody in the Low
Countries seems to be involved in this correspondence.
Craft carries letters from Anne of Austria to Mme. du
Fargis which tell her what she is to say to Mirabel, to
the Cardinal-Infante; the Queen writes to them direct, and
Mme. du Fargis reports to her. And, more serious still,
the Queen, under the guidance of Mme. de Chevreuse,
writes other letters to the King of Spain’s Prime Minister,
the Duque d’Olivares.

The results attained are not, indeed, commensurate with
the efforts made. The Spaniards do not attach much
importance to these feminine tricks. The frivolity of the
French refugees in the Low Countries has prejudiced their
hosts against them: these “Frenchmen,” according to
Mirabel, “have not a grain of prudence in their heads!”
Mirabel sends no reply to the letters from the Queen and
the Duchess. Mme. de Fargis makes a complaint about it.
Anne of Austria has to write three times over to the Infante
before he condescends to give her any sign of life. “I beg

. you will tell Mirabel,” she writes to Mme. du Fargis, “that
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I do not write to him until I see letters from him, because
1 think mine weary him, and if you have a convenient
opportunity, say the same thing to the Infante on my
behalf.” The humiliation of it! But why should the
Spaniards have taken the plottings of two foolish young
women, who had no real influence in France, to be any-
thing serious? The Queen herself acknowledges this.
“I would gladly shed my blood to serve the Queen-
Mother,” she writes to Mme. du Fargis, “but that is not
in my power, for I have very little influence over the
Cardinal, though we appear to be on very good terms:
but this is not the case, in fact, whatever anybody may
think: here, in a few words, is the absolute truth.” And
in another letter: “Do not rely on my intervention in the
matter’ of the Queen-Mother, and seek out some other
means, for that you count on is not good. From my side
you must expect nothing, for it is impossible for me to do
anything.” Marie de Médicis herself is so well aware of
it that in her poverty and dejection she begins to think
of being reconciled to her son, if he will only consent,
and of abandoning her advocacy of the Spanish cause.
But how, indeed, was any confidence to be, placed in her,
in the Frenchmen about her, in the people in Paris who
were keeping up intercourse with her?

Mme. de Chevreuse, alone among them all, held on her
way. The more hopeless her undertakings began to look,
the more fiercely she laboured on them. In a document
Anne of Austria was forced, at a later period, to draw
up for the satisfaction of the King her husband, she
supplies proof of the untiring activity of the Duchess.
She admits that Mme. de Chevreuse received at Tours
not only the intermediaries who habitually transmitted her
correspondence, but persons who came to her direct from
Lorraine; she confesses that her friend was in the habit
of sending this correspondence on to her, to the convent
at the Val de Grace, in Paris, whither she herself repaired

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

under pretence of performing her devotions, but with the
real object of being alone, away from the Court, and
free to deal at her convenience with the business of these
intrigues; and that when she was absent from Paris, the
letters were forwarded to her by the Superior of the nuns,
Mother Saint-Etienne, who, when she saw the superscrip-
tion, “Give this letter to your kinswoman, who is in the
county of Burgundy,” knew what that meant and for whom
the letter was intended.

Did Anne of Austria realize the gravity of her own acts,
and the danger to which she was exposing herself? La
Porte, in his endeavour to save his mistress, was to protest
that the letters written by the Sovereign contained
“nothing but gibes against the Cardinal de Richelieu,
and that assuredly she never spoke of anything that was
against the King or the State.’ But he was mistaken.
Anne of Austria was a traitor. When one of the Cardinal’s
agents, the Abbé du Dorat, said to him on August 28,
1637, ““You must be prepared for every kind of frivolity
and impertinence in that sex,’ he accurately defined the
qualities of levity and thoughtlessness inherent in ‘ladies
who dabbled in such intrigues as this one. The most
conclusive proof of this thoughtlessness lies in the fact
that it never for one moment occurred to either of them
that the day might come when Louis XIII would find out
all about it!

From the very outset, in fact, Louis XIII and Richelieu,
fully advised of the comings and goings between Couziéres
and Paris, had been on the watch. “According to the
orders of your Eminence,” wrote Bullion to the Cardinal,
“I have kept my eyes open. It is true, and I have always
recognized the fact, that the Queen has no kindly feel-
ing for you, and if she has not sinned with her tongue,
her ears, it may be, have played you false—and this I do
not doubt. I am working to find out all particulars with-
out betraying myself. There can be no doubt that the

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THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

cabals at Tours are still being carried on.” Information
came in from divers quarters. It was reported that two
gentlemen had travelled out of Lorraine to Couziéres to
see Mme. de Chevreuse, ‘‘one, named Mortale, a cavalry
officer, dark, curly-haired, tall and stout, with full lips
and wide nostrils; the other, Rochevalon, fair and blue-
eyed, riding a white horse, and wearing a scarlet coat, a
hat trimmed with a silver braid, and two white feathers
and a yellow one.” La Porte’s movements were watched.
The King was informed, one day, that he had gone to
Tours, to request Mme. de Chevreuse to proceed in dis-
guise to Orleans, there to meet Anne of Austria, who
would be passing through the town. Ina fury, Louis XIII
vowed that if the story turned out true he would have La
Porte thrown out of the palace windows. Thereupon La
Porte, who had come to join his mistress at Orleans,
entered the Queen’s chamber, where the King was
standing in front of the fire.

“Whence come you?” said the King sharply.

“From Fontainebleau.”

“T did not see you there!”

“T arrived very late at night, and your Majesty left very
early the next morning.”

“But I met the Queen close to Artenay, and I did not
see you in her suite!”

La Porte explained that his horse had lost a shoe, which
had delayed him, and that he had galloped after his
mistress to Artenay, where he had actually seen the King
“hawking magpies in the vineyards.”

“Indeed!” quoth the King.

But how find out the truth? How acquire the initial
proof that would place the authorities in a position to
open an inquiry, and force the culprits to confess their
guilt? The King and the Cardinal waited—they waited
for months. It was not till early in the summer of 1637
that they were to discover the document they longed to

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

find: it was La Porte who, all unwittingly, was to deliver
it into their hands.

La Porte had a room in the Hétel de Chevreuse, in the
Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, which he had furnished him-
self, and in which he lived. He went for his meals to a
tavern in the Rue Fromenteau, but it was in the Duchess’s
house that he made the necessary premarations for his
missions and kept all his papers.

Now one fine day, a letter from Anne of Austria,
addressed to Mirabel, and which he was to hand to Auger,
the secretary of the English Embassy, was intercepted—
how, we know not—and carried to Louis XIII. This time
there could be no doubt about the matter. The proofs
were in the King’s possession. Richelieu, alarmed, would
have temporized even then; but Louis XIII had made up
his mind. The letter was known to have passed through
La Porte’s hands. ‘Of his own accord,” writes the Cardinal
in his Memoirs, “the King decided to arrest La Porte.”
This was in August. On the 1oth of that month, Louis
XIII, who was at St. Germain, sent a message to Anne of
Austria, desiring her to repair at once to Chantilly, where
he desired to speak with her. La Porte suspected nothing.
He had to send another letter of the Queen’s for Mme. de
Chevreuse, of which M. de la Thibaudiére, who was going
to Tours, was to take charge. Meeting La Thibaudiére in
the courtyard of the Louvre, he tried to give him the
packet, but the other, on the plea that he was not to start
quite yet, begged the Queen’s servant to keep it till the
next day. After supper La Porte went into the St.
Eustache quarter of the town to inquire, in the Queen’s
name, after the health of M. de Guitaut, a captain of the
Guard, who had received a bullet wound in the thigh.
About ten o’clock at night he left M. de Guitaut’s lodging,
and was just about to pass between a two-horsed coach
and the wall close to which it was standing, at the corner
of the Rue des Vieux-Augustins and the Rue Coquilliére,

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THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

when he was suddenly seized from behind, one person put
his hands over his eyes, others laid hold of his arms and
legs, and in the twinkling of an eye he was picked up,
thrown, before he could utter a cry, into the coach, and
held down, while the vehicle was driven rapidly away.
When it stopped, and La Porte was allowed to get out,
he saw he was in the gloomy courtyard of the Bastille;
his assailants had been five of the King’s Musketeers,
commanded by their lieutenant, M. Goulard, and fifteen or
sixteen other Musketeers had formed the escort.

He was searched. The letter to Mme. de Chevreuse was
found. Who was the writer of that letter? demanded
Goulard. They only had to look at it, replied La Porte;
it bore the Queen’s seal. He was thrown into a dungeon,
protected by three locked doors; a truckle-bed and an
earthen pot were the only pieces of furniture it contained.
A soldier was left to guard the prisoner. Food was
brought; then La Porte was left under lock and key.

An official, M. le Roy de la Poterie, was deputed to
make a search at the Hétel de Chevreuse. This search
revealed nothing but some unimportant letters and cyphers.
La Porte had hidden all the compromising papers in a
hole in the wall at the corner of one of the windows. The
hiding-place was concealed under a lump of plaster, and
nobody knew anything about it. A servant-boy was
seized, but he could only cry and vow he had nothing to
tell. When La Porte was questioned about the letters and
the cyphers, he gave the most hazy answers.

The only real proof, in fact, was Anne of Austria’s letter,
but that was sufficient testimony of her relations with
Flanders and with Spain. The letter to Mme. de Chev-
reuse established that lady’s complicity in the business.
Richelieu decided to question La Porte himself.

At eight o’clock the next evening, a coach escorted by
tha Provost’s Lieutenant and four archers carried the
prisoner from the Bastille to the Cardinal’s palace. By

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

way of the kitchen yard, the gardens and the ante-chamber,
La Porte was led into Richelieu’s chamber, where the
Minister awaited him, attended by Séguier, the Chancellor,
and Des Noyers, a Secretary of State. Richelieu began
his examination. It was proved, he said, that the Queen
had been keeping up a correspondence with Flanders and
Spain, and that La Porte had been her intermediary. If
he would acknowledge the facts, his fortune was made;
he would not even have to go back to the Bastille. La
Porte, who was quite unaware that the Queen’s letter to
Mirabel had been found, denied everything; he was
absolutely in the dark. Then, said Richelieu, some other
person had been carrying the letters: who was it? La
Porte declared he did not know. Thereupon Richelieu
grew angry. If La Porte would not tell him anything, he
should be tried, and the business would be a short one;
a subject’s first duty, when his King ordered him to speak,
was to obey. La Porte protested: his conscience could
not command him to accuse the Queen of sending letters
into Spain if he did not know she had been doing it!
“But she has given us proofs of it!” cried Richelieu, in
a rage, ‘““and we know she makes use of you to carry her
correspondence!” “If the Queen says that, it is because
she wants to save the persons who serve her to keep
up these communications, by saying it is I who did it!”
Richelieu mentioned the letter addressed to Mme. de
Chevreuse which had been found on the prisoner’s person,
and which was to have been handed to M. de la Thibau-
diére. La Thibaudiére, as a matter of fact, having heard
what was happening, and fearing he might be com-
promised, had spontaneously reported what had passed
between La Porte and himself. La Porte, who knew
nothing of this, told a story. “You are a liar!” cried
Richelieu. ‘You tried to give the letter to La Thibaudiére
in the courtyard of the Louvre; he asked you to keep it till
the next day; and after that you expect me to believe
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you! ‘You must write to the Queen, and tell her she does
not know what she says when she declares she has no
communications with foreigners and enemies of the State,
and that it is of yourself she makes use for her intrigues!”
La Porte refused; he could not, he said, take such liberties
with the Queen. ‘Very well,” was the Cardinal’s reply;
“you shall go back to the Bastille!” At one o’clock in
the morning La Porte was taken back to his prison!

Meanwhile, Louis XIII had commanded that a search
should be made at the Val de Grace. The convent was not
then the magnificent building of the present day. It was
at a later date that Anne of Austria commissioned Mansard
to erect the great pile as it now stands. The convent
of those days, a far more modest edifice, was that the
Queen had built when she founded the house in 1624.
Its Abbess, Mother St. Etienne—Louise de Milly, the
daughter of a family belonging to the Franche-Comté, but
in the service of the King of Spain, and whose brother was
governor of the town of Besancon—was an intelligent and
strong-minded woman of fifty-six. Respect for canonical
rights rendered caution indispensable. Louis XIII wrote
to the Archbishop of Paris that, having ordered the
Chancellor to proceed to a search in the Val de Grace,
on account “of certain despatches which were there, and
which might cause great prejudice to his affairs,” he begged
the prelate to accompany his Minister, induce the Superior
to furnish all the information she might be requested to
give him, and that done, send the said Superior into exile
in some provincial convent.

The Archbishop and the Chancellor proceeded together
to the Val de Grace. They found nothing except some
unimportant letters. Yhe Superior had begun by declaring
she could not receive the gentlemen, because she was ill.
A doctor was consulted, and gave it as his opinion that
she was well enough to answer questions. The Archbishop
and the Chancellor were conducted to the nun’s cell, and

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§
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

cross-examined her. After he had made her take an oath
‘on the damnation of her own soul and the truth of the
Holy Eucharist, which is the most religious thing on earth,
and the most potent for the human conscience,” so runs
the official report, the Archbishop commanded her to reveal
everything, “in virtue of her holy obedience, and on pain
of excommunication.” The Superior denied everything.
The Queen, she said, certainly received visitors in the
parlour, but she was never present, and so could not know
who came there; she did not know La Porte; and the
Queen had never confided any papers to her care. There-
upon the Archbishop called together the chapter of the
community, gave it notice that he was deposing the
Superior from her office, sent her to the Convent of La
Charité-sur-Loire, and ordered the nuns to proceed forth-
with to the election of another abbess; all of which was
done on the spot.

Mother St. Etienne protested that the treatment meted
out to her was unjust, “and that it would not last long!”

The inquiry at the Val de Grace had borne no fruit at
all. The only thing left to be done was to question Anne
of Austria.

The news of all these discoveries had overwhelmed the
Queen. The impression produced at Court had been
disastrous for her. At Chantilly, whither she had gone
by the King’s order, everybody avoided her. The King
and the Cardinal did not see her at all; the courtiers
passed beneath her windows and never looked up. The
people about her hardly waited on her as they should.
She felt herself an object of universal scorn. She fell into
a state of terror; twice the physicians had to bleed her;
she could not eat and could not sleep.

The Chancellor, sent by the King, waited upon her; he
questioned her. Had she really been in communication
with the Spaniards? She denied it. Then he laid the
intercepted letter to Mirabel before her. With a sudden

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gesture she snatched the paper up and tried to hide it
in the bosom of her gown. La Porte and Monglat both
assert that the Chancellor did his best to take it back by
force! This closed the conversation !

On the following morning the Queen sent her secretary,
Le Gras, to assure the Cardinal she had never employed
La Porte to carry any letters but those to Mme. de Chev-
reuse. On August 15 she received Holy Communion,
and again requested Le Gras to go and tell the Cardinal
that she swore by the Blessed Sacrament she had not
had any dealings with foreign Courts. She was beside
herself! Two days later her secretary came and told her
the authorities knew more than she thought. Then she
sent Le Gras to ask Richelieu to come and speak to her.

He came; and she acknowledged, in substance, that she
had written to the Cardinal-Infante in Flanders; but, she
declared, “it was only on subjects of no importance.”
“There was more than that, Madame!” was the Cardinal’s
grave reply; but if her Majesty would make a clean breast
of everything, the King would certainly forgive and forget.
Desperately agitated, Anne commanded the persons present
in the room to retire. Yes! she then confessed, she had
written to her brother the Infante, and to the Marquis de
Mirabel; she had complained, in the letters transmitted to
Auger by La Porte, of the situation in which she was kept
in France; she had warned Mirabel to be careful to counter-
act the understanding in preparation between the King and
Lorraine, or the King and England; yes! M. de la Thibau-
diére was to have carried one of her letters to Mme. de
Chevreuse; yes! she had forced Mme. de Chevreuse to
come and see her in disguise! And she wept, and talked
of her remorse, and confessed she had been false to her
oaths, and acknowledged the sins of which she had been
guilty. Richelieu was touched; the King, he told her
once more, would certainly grant her his pardon. As for
himself, he would do his best to serve her. “Ah, Monseig-

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

neur,” cried the Queen, “how full of kindness you must
be!” And she would have taken him by the hand, but
Richelieu, embarrassed, respectfully eluded the honour,
and took his leave. ,

He made his report to the King. But what action could
they possibly take against the Queen of France, whose
bestowal of a Dauphin on the nation was so eagerly and
impatiently awaited? They must e’en bow their heads and
forgive her !

The King was determined that the Queen should at all
events renew her confession and sign it. Anne of Austria
obeyed. This was on August 17. She wrote the docu-
ment from dictation. After acknowledging that she had
sent letters into Flanders and received answers to them,
she added: “Among other things, I have sometimes
expressed my discontent with the situation I myself
occupied, and I have written letters to the Marquis de
Mirabel, and received letters from him, which were couched
in terms that must have been displeasing to the King. I
warned the Marquis de Mirabel that there was talk of an
understanding with Lorraine, and that he must take his
measures. I have manifested my anxiety and distress
about the news that the English were making peace with
France, instead of remaining at one with Spain. The
letter that was found on La Porte was to have been given
to the Duchesse de Chevreuse, and the said letter referred
to a journey which the said Dame de Chevreuse intended
to take, and nominally without our knowledge.” She
closed her confession by a promise never to offend again.
Below this statement Louis XIII added, with his own hand,
one of his own, to the effect that, in consideration of this
confession and of the oath the Queen had taken never
again to place herself in a similar position, he pardoned
her. The husband and wife exchanged kisses. As far as
they were concerned, there was an end of it all.

But the King meant to take his compensation out of the

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THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

Queen’s accomplices. He gave orders for the cross-
examinations to begin afresh, and be actively carried on.
La Porte continued to deny everything, so he was handed
a letter which Anne of Austria had been forced to write,
and in which she told him: “I desire you will acknow-
ledge the truth about everything concerning which you
may be questioned.” Still La Porte refused to confess.
He would not, he declared, be guilty of such a piece
of “meanness”; the Queen’s letter had been dictated
to her! Under fresh pressure from the Chancellor, he
wrote to Anne of Austria, to ask what she really wished
him to reveal. Through Mlle. de Hautefort, the Queen
contrived to give him an idea, to some extent, of what had
happened. La Porte behaved in a most chivalrous way.
That formidable agent of the Cardinal’s justice, Laffemas,
entered his cell, and, finding all his attempts to break down
his opposition useless, held out a paper, saying, “Here is
an order to put you to the question, ordinary and extra-
ordinary!” La Porte did not flinch. He was led into the
torture-chamber; the instruments of torture were laid out
before him—planks, wedges, cords, and so forth. The
prisoner’s sole reply was that he would only speak if the
Queen ordered him to do it. “But she has written order-
ing you to speak!” ‘That letter was dictated to her!”
If the Comptroller-General of the Queen’s Household,
M. de la Riviére, came and repeated her order by word
of mouth, said La Porte, perhaps he might obey him.
M. de la Riviére came. In his presence the Chancellor
asked his questions. Then La Porte consented to confess
the business of the intercepted letter to Mirabel. All the
rest he denied. They threatened him; but it was all in
vain. Tired out, his judges left him in the Bastille; he
was to lie there for nine months, and at last, in 1638, the
Queen was to be granted her faithful servant’s freedom,
on condition that he went into exile at Saumur.

But what was to be done with Mme. de Chevreuse?

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Once more the question arose, and, as always, full of
inextricable difficulties. There was no doubt as to her
guilt. There were proofs by the score of what she had
, done. Louis XIII began by notifying the Queen that he
forbade her to have anything to do with the Duchess in
future. He put his order into writing : “I do not wish the
Queen to write to Mme. de Chevreuse in future, and prin-
cipally because this pretext has covered all the letters she
has written elsewhere.” Anne of Austria pledged her
word.

Apart from the Queen, this business of the Duchess was
full of complications. Since the month of April the
Government had been aware that she was planning to get
out of France, and take refuge in England. In a
memorandum laid before the King, Richelieu detailed
the dangers to the Government this course involved.
“Mme. de Chevreuse,” he said, ‘is in friendly relations
with the Duc de Lorraine, with the English, with the
Queen, with the Fargis, and, generally speaking, with all
the mischief-makers. If she is outside the kingdom, she
will prevent the Duc de Lorraine from coming to any
arrangement, as much on her own account as because the
Queen, who favours the Spanish party, will desire it; she
will give a great impulse to the English to do what she
wants them to do; she will be open to all the impressions
conveyed by the mischief-makers. Hence my conclusion is
that she must not be allowed to leave the kingdom.”

But how was it to be prevented? There were two
methods: the first was to use force; to this course, which
must end in failure, Richelieu saw serious objections; the
other was “the ways of civility”; in other words, to write
to the Duchess, and make her understand that if her desire
to go abroad was caused by reasons connected with her
own necessities—she was known to be heavily in debt—
the Government was ready to come to her assistance : that,
if it was only “for the satisfaction of her own mind, the

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THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

Government had nothing against it, but that she ought to
consider that she would leave her whole family. in per-
dition.” The Cardinal’s final conclusion was that it
would be better to send her money. “So dangerous is
her spirit,” he said, as he closed his statement, “that, once
outside the kingdom, it may cause one knows not what
unforeseen disturbances.” Louis XIII approved this
view. A large sum of money was despatched to Tours.
Mme. de Chevreuse expressed her thanks, but refused to
accept the gift; she declared she was in no need of money.
Finally, after thinking it over, she did accept it, but merely
as a loan.

What was to be done next? The King decided that
anyhow he would send somebody to Tours to question the
Duchess. After that he would see. He confided the mission
to an old servant of the House of Lorraine, an ecclesiastic,
treasurer of the Sainte-Chapelle in ,Paris, the Abbé du
Dorat, a man of faithful and reliable character. ‘“‘ Madame,”
wrote the Cardinal to the Duchess, on August 15, “I
have requested M. du Dorat to wait on you for an affair
that you will consider of some importance. As I desire to
give you fresh proofs of my affection and my good offices,
I beseech you will give me proofs of your sincerity, and
assure yourself that by this conduct you will extricate
yourself from the business in question without any annoy-
ance whatsoever, even as you have been extricated, in the
past, from others which were of not less importance.” On
second thoughts, a certain Abbé de Cinq-Mars was ap-
pointed to act with du Dorat. The duty imposed on the
envoys was to induce Mme. de Chevreuse, to give them
all the information they could extract from her as to her
dealings with foreign Powers. Despatches from the Duc
de Lorraine and from the Spanish Ministers, containing
certain circumstantial details, had been seized in Burgundy.
If the Duchess would make a frank confession, she would
be given a full pardon.

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Du Dorat and Cinq-Mars found Mme. de Chevreuse in
an extraordinary state of agitation. When the news of
what had been happening in Paris reached her, the
Duchess, like the Queen, had been quite overwhelmed.
She was too conscious of the gravity of her own faults,
and too well informed, by the fate of Chalais, Boutteville
and Montmorency, of the fashion in which the King knew
‘how to punish, not to dread chastisement of the most
terrible description. The arrival of the two inquisitors put
' the finishing-touch to her terror. She denied everything
wholesale. When they pressed her with questions, she
ended by acknowledging that several times over she had
intended to go and see the Queen in secret, but that the
Queen had dissuaded her from carrying out the plan,
because of the insuperable difficulties attending its execu-
tion. As-regarded the Duc de Lorraine, she had no under-
standing with him, and it had never entered her head to
prevent him from treating with France. As to the
despatches intercepted in Burgundy and which were now
being held over her head, she knew nothing at all about
them. When du Dorat made his report to Richelieu, he
declared himself convinced that Mme. de Chevreuse had
_ induced the Queen to prevent the alliance between France
~ and England, and concluded thus: ‘Your Eminence will
permit me, if it so please you, to assure you that this
lady is the greatest enemy you have, and the one who
has done you the most displeasure.” On August 24 he
made Mme. de Chevreuse set down in writing, and sign,
the few items to which she had confessed, and carried the
document with him to Paris, after having assured the
Duchess he would keep her informed of the progress of
events.

The effect produced in Paris was exceedingly bad.
Mme. de Chevreuse was made acquainted of this by her
friends. The King and the Cardinal were both of them
deeply irritated. La Rochefoucauld sent Craft to warn the

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Duchess. She lost her head. Du Dorat wrote her not to
fret herself, reiterating his assurance that all the cross-
questioning had only been a test of her frankness; that
everything would come right; that his Majesty was
resolved to pardon her, whatever she had done. The
Duchess, beside herself with terror, watched anxiously for
his letters. She besought the Queen and her friends in
Paris to give her timely warning of any decision to take
strong measures against her. It was arranged with Mlle.
de Hautefort that within the next week she was to send
Mme. de Chevreuse a Book of Hours. If the binding was
green, it would mean that all was going well, but if it was
red, the Duchess was lost; she must think of nothing but
her own safety. Mme. de Chevreuse watched on.

Then what happened? Du Dorat’s letters ceased. Later
on she was to know that he had fallen ill. Next, at Tours,
on Saturday, September 5, at eleven o’clock in the day,
the Duchess received two packets: the Book of Hours—
in a red binding! The fatal colour!—and a letter from
Anne of Austria: “Her Majesty sent her word that as
soon as she received it” (this letter) “she must escape,

—

somehow or other; if she did not, she was lost, and would .

certainly be arrested on the Sunday morning !.”

Mme. de Chevreuse was distracted. For two hours she —

lay prostrate. Towards one o’clock she called for her
coach, and went to the King’s Lieutenant-General at
Tours, M. Georges Catinat. She told him she was
exceedingly anxious, that she had no news of du Dorat,
and that it was a very serious matter. The Lieutenant-
General, standing leaning against the window, told her
several times over that she need not be so much alarmed;
that something must have happened to prevent du Dorat
from writing; that he was sure to send her a letter by the
next post. The Duchess, who had been walking up and
down in a fever, suddenly moved towards the door, saying
she was going back to Couziéres, and would first go and bid

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

the Archbishop farewell. Her state of agitation surprised
Catinat.

At the archiepiscopal palace, Monseigneur d’Eschaux
had been ill in bed for five or six days. Mme. de Chev-
reuse was admitted to his chamber, and sat down on the
edge of his bed. To him she told all she had in her heart.
There was no letter from du Dorat: his silence had filled
her with deadly fear, and this fear had been transformed
into certainty that very morning by the Queen’s missive.
She held out the letter—a very long one—and only read
him one passage, that concerning her present danger.
Now she must fly; she must get out of France! The
Archbishop, greatly surprised, asked her if she had ever
thought of flight before? No! she replied. And whither
did she intend to go? To Spain! The Archbishop was
at a loss to know what he should say. The Duchess
reminded him that he had a nephew, the Vicomte
d’Eschaux, who lived on his property at Eschaux, near
the Spanish frontier, in the Basque country, some six or
seven leagues from Bayonne. Let the prelate give her a
letter of recommendation to his kinsman! After some
hesitation, the Archbishop complied. He even went so far
as to make out the itinerary of the journey to the Pyrenees.
The Duchess asked for a pen; she wrote three or four
letters, and then tore them up. The Archbishop began to
make more inquiries: And who was she taking with her?
Only one manservant, Hilaire. Indeed, she meant to put
on male attire herself. The Archbishop pointed out that
one manservant was really not enough; the Duchess replied
that she would take Renault as well. Towards four o’clock
in the afternoon, M. Catinat put in an appearance. Alarmed
by the state of agitation in which the Duchess had been
when she left him, he had gone to inquire for her at the
Hétel de la Massetiére, and, not finding her there, had
come on to the palace. Mme. de Chevreuse bade farewell
to the Archbishop and to the Lieutenant-General, returned

178
THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

to her town house, took several packages and a sum of
money, and started for Couziéres, attended by her equerry
and a couple of waiting-women. She was deadly pale,
absorbed in her own thoughts, sorely troubled; now in a
sort of dream, now shedding tears.

By seven o’clock she had reached Couziéres. Supper
was served—meat of some kind. She scarcely touched it.
Then she went to her own chamber, and, calling her women
together, told them she had received reliable warning that
she was to be arrested, and that she was about to depart.
She did not tell them where she meant to go, because she
was sure to be sought for at Couziéres; and the King’s
emissaries, finding her gone, would persecute them to find
out whither she had betaken herself. If she could: only
get two and a half days’ start she would be out of danger.
She desired her waiting-woman, Anne, to order the comp-
troller of her household, whom she had left at Tours, to
keep her house there going as if she was still in it, and
to tell everybody that she was ill and not receiving any
visitors. She wrote a letter to M. Catinat, and confided it
also to her waiting-woman: in it she confessed to the
Lieutenant-General that she was leaving France, and
begged him to look after her affairs for her. Secrecy was
enjoined on all; nothing was to be said even to the other
members of the household, except that their mistress was
ill; then everybody was dismissed, except Anne. The two '
menservants, Hilaire and Renault, had received their orders |
to be in the road close to a certain gate into the park, at |
nine o’clock, with three horses, one of which was the
Duchess’s own ambling hackney, ‘‘a mare, all white,
splashed with black, like a magpie.”

She dressed herself in man’s attire: a black coat, jerkin
and breeches, and high boots. To conceal her features, she
dyed her face with a mixture of soot and brickdust, which
made her look like a gipsy; on her head she put a fair
wig, which she fastened on with a strip of black silk bound

179
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

round her forehead—meaning to say she had been wounded
in the head in a duel; she was quite unrecognizable. When
she was ready, she betook herself to the park gate, where
Hilaire and Renault were waiting for her : “She had neither
linen, nor clothes, nor packages, nor bags”; nothing but
a little enamel watch, and some rowleaux of gold in her
pocket. She gave her final orders to her waiting-woman,
mounted her horse, and passed out of sight.

All that night she travelled, all the next day (Sunday,
the 6th). That evening, worn out with fatigue, she reached
the little market town of Couhé, some eight leagues beyond
Poitiers: she had ridden thirty leagues! At dawn next
morning she was off again, and by eight o’clock she was
at Ruffec. She could not go another step! At the hostelry
of the Chéne Vert she asked for a room, three napkins, and
a fire; she took off her jerkin, threw herself on the bed,
and slept for two hours. At ten o’clock Hilaire and
Renault came to tell her she must dine. When the meal
was over, she remounted her horse. The inn servants stood
around, watching the handsome young gentleman; one of
the maids remarked that he seemed hardly able to sit in
his saddle, into which, helped by a stableman, he had
climbed with considerable difficulty. Mme. de Chevreuse
answered that she was ‘“‘extremely weary and ill”; she was
going to seek repose in a friend’s house; she gave the
servants a crown, and they judged her to be a “person of
condition.” The little party departed once more on its
travels.

But the Duchess had come to the end of her strength;
there could be no doubt about it! Thereupon she recol-
lected that she was not very far from Verteuil, the home
of M. de la Rochefoucauld and his son, M. de Marsillac.
Why not send and ask M. de Marsillac to lend her a coach ?
She would write that young gentleman an anonymous note,
which Hilaire should carry to him, and in which she would
tell him a tale. Her servant had his inkhorn on him. So

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THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

she wrote: “Sir, I am a French gentleman, who asks you
to do him a service to save his liberty and perhaps his
life. I have had the misfortune to fight a duel, and I have
killed a well-known nobleman. This drives me to leave
France, and that quickly, because I am being searched for.
I believe you to be sufficiently generous to serve me with-
out knowing me; I want a coach, and a few lackeys to
attend me.” Then it struck her that M. de Marsillac was
not likely to act on so vague a request. She told Hilaire
what he had better say, and gave him another letter. He
rode off, on the Duchess’s own hackney.

He reached Verteuil, and was ushered into M. de Mar-
sillac’s chamber, where he was still in bed. He tendered
him the note the Duchess had given him; he explained the
position: the Duchess was close by; she was on her way
to Saintes, in a great hurry about some urgent business;
she had not the time to stop now, but on her way back she
would visit Mme. de la Rochefoucauld; she begged M. de
Marsillac would be good enough to lend her a coach and
four saddle-horses.

Marsillac was living alone at the chateau with his mother
and his wife. He hastened to do as he was asked. What! he
cried, Mme. de Chevreuse was in the woods close by? But
he would go to her himself, and at once! He would be
pleased to do nothing of the sort, protested Hilaire. The
Duchess would not see him on any account. Marsillac did
not press it. He called his own bodyservant, Thuillin, had
four horses harnessed to a coach driven by a coachman of
the name of Ardouin, ordered four more to be saddled, and
desired the two servants to follow Hilaire and carry out
whatever orders they were given. Hilaire helped them to
harness the horses; and when he departed he left the
Duchess’s hackney, which was broken down with fatigue,
in the stables at Verteuil.

Some five hundred paces from Ruffec they found Mme.
de Chevreuse. She asked Thuillin “if there was not any

181
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

place in the neighbourhood where she might go and rest
for afew hours?” Yes, replied the man, only two leagues
off there was another house belonging to M. de la Roche-
foucauld, called La Terne. Mme. de Chevreuse got into
the coach and lay down. Very soon they reached La
Terne. The man who took care of the house—Potet was
his name—made ready a room and a bed, on which Mme.
de Chevreuse stretched herself out, without taking off her
clothes. He inquired whether she would not have some-
thing to eat. She asked for some fresh eggs. Then she
desired Renault to give her the itinerary the Archbishop
had made out for her; it was not to be found. She ques-
tioned Potet and Thuillin as to the best road to take so as
to get to Eschaux, on the Spanish frontier. Thuillin said
that Potet knew the way, and would be too happy to con-
duct her. Potet, who had been in the service of the Duc
de Luynes, had recognized the Duchess. Mme. de Chev-
reuse, too, kept telling him she had certainly seen him
somewhere; Potet was only too glad to put himself at her
disposal. He pointed out that they must go either by
Cahuzac or by Tonneins; for the first stage, they might go
as far as Condour, near Marthon, and sleep there in the
house of a certain Dulorier, who was an acquaintance of
M. de la Rochefoucauld’s; at Cahuzac they would find a
lodging in the house of one of M. de la Rochefoucauld’s
men of business, Malbati by name.

When night fell, Mme. de Chevreuse got into the
coach once more. Potet, Hilaire, Thuillin and Renault
rode after it. Towards three o’clock in the morning they
were at Condour, and the following evening they reached
Saint-Vincent de Connezac. Mme. de Chevreuse was a
little rested; and she could not keep M. de Marsillac’s
coach for ever. At Saint-Vincent she bought a tolerable
mare for eight pistoles, and the next morning, when she
had reached a spot about two leagues from Mussidan, she
told Ardouin he might drive the coach back to Verteuil.

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THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

As a precaution, she kept Thuillin with her. In the course
of the night between Wednesday the oth and Thursday
the 10th of September she reached Cahuzac.

Potet and Thuillin went and knocked at the door of the
attorney, M. Jean-Paul, otherwise called Malbati. It was
opened by his wife; her husband was out. Potet and
Thuillin made themselves known; they had with them,
they told the good lady, a gentleman of quality, and friend
of M. de Marsillac’s, who had been fighting a duel, and
whom M. de Marsillac commended to her husband as
though he had been his own self. They were admitted.
As they were all sitting down to table, Malbati himself
appeared. He was a good-looking man of about sixty,
with a straightforward and friendly countenance. He gave
his five visitors a most cordial reception. He made a very
favourable impression on Mme. de Chevreuse. During the
repast, she told him she wanted to go and take the waters,
“to cure a wound received in a recent duel, which still
caused a great deal of pain.” Malbdati replied that the only
waters he knew of for that kind of trouble were those of
Ax. No, said the Duchess, those were not the waters she
desired to take; she wanted to go to Bagnéres: did he not
know the way there? Ah! quoth the attorney, if the
traveller had only come five or six days later, when the
vintage would have been over, he would gladly have ridden
with him as far as Notre-Dame de Garaison, close to
Bagnéres, whither he himself was bound to go, to accom-
plish a vow. The Duchess asked him if he could not come
at once. No! he said, that was quite impossible. But she
pressed him so hard that he ended by giving in. Every-
body went to bed, Malbati giving up his own room to the
young gentleman, as he believed him to be.

The next morning, when the whole household was up and
about, Mme. de Chevreuse asked her host if he had not a suit
of clothes he could sell her. Yes, he replied, he had a suit
that M. de Marsillac had given him two years previously,

183
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

and which he had never put on. Though it would be
rather large, it might do. Reassured at finding herself
with Malbati, a sensible man of experience and respect-
ability, the Duchess requested Thuillin to go back to M. de
Marsillac, taking two of the saddle-horses with him, and
to assure him that she would “everlastingly feel the obliga-
tions under which she was to him.” She directed Renault
and Hilaire to stay on at Cahuzac until they had fresh
orders from her, and then she started forth once more,
accompanied by Potet and Malbati.

The grace and charm and delicate features of the young
traveller had not passed unnoticed by Malbati. He drew
Potet aside: Who was this young gentleman ? he inquired.
Potet made a gesture indicating his own uncertainty. He
would hear that later. Mme. de Chevreuse, guessing the
purport of the conversation, broke in upon it by inquiring
about the noble families living in the part of the country
through which they were travelling.

That evening they slept at an inn about five leagues
from Douzains. Malbati was thoroughly puzzled. The
evident exhaustion of the young man, when he had dis-
mounted at the end of this last stage, ‘“‘and the beauty of
the said young gentleman,” so the good man was to assert
at a later date, ‘“‘made me somewhat suspect that this
was a lady in disguise; which led me to resolve I would
discover the truth the next day, by frequent questions,
and by the entreaties I would make that I might be told
ee

That next day, Friday, the 11th, the three horsemen
crossed the Garonne at Agen, and slept at Gondrin. Mal-
bati cross-questioned the Duchess. At last he said, in the
most determined fashion, ‘‘Who are you?” The Duchess
gave evasive replies, but he pressed her so hard that she
finally confessed she was the Duc d’Enghien, son of the
Prince de Condé; and then, to change the conversation,
she began to talk about the Cid, poured forth praises of
Corneille, and recited whole passages out of the play.

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THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

On the morrow, Saturday, the 12th, the halt for the night
was at Montastruc. Malbati returned to the charge.
“How is it,” he inquired, “that a great Prince like you
travels as you are travelling, alone, in such distant parts
as these?” Mme. de Chevreuse said something about
the duel she had been fighting, and began to spout poetry
again.

On the Sunday, September 13, they stopped at Ber-
nadets. It was a wretched lodging, and Mme. de Chev-
reuse preferred sleeping on some straw in a barn. The
next morning she was offered, for her breakfast, a quarter
of a goose, boiled in a very dirty earthenware pot. She
refused to eat anything at all. A peasant woman, who had
seen her as she slept, and been struck by her appearance,
brought her four fresh eggs on a pewter dish, covered with
a clean napkin. “That’s the prettiest boy I ever saw in
my’ life!” quoth she. Mme. de Chevreuse smiled at her,
and accepted her eggs.

They had five leagues more to ride before reaching
Bagnéres. Touched by Malbati’s devotion, the Duchess
told him she was not the Duc d’Enghien, but another
person, whose name she would reveal to him when they
reached the end of their journey the next day. Potet con-
fided to the attorney that though he might admire their
comrade’s face now, “it was nothing to what it was
when the gentleman had not rubbed tile-dust and soot all
over it.” 5

At two o’clock in the morning the three horsemen rode
into Bagnéres, and dismounted at a hostelry close to the
baths. Mme. de Chevreuse asked the innkeeper which
waters were the best, those of Bagnéres or those of Baréges.
He replied that it would depend on the sort of illness
the patient had. The Duchess said she thought she had
better consult a physician. She knew one at Tarbes, a
man of high reputation; she would go and see him the
very next day. The innkeeper pointed out that the road
to Tarbes was long and difficult to travel.

185
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

On the morning of Monday the 14th, Mme. de Chevreuse
went over to the baths. There were a great many people
there, and one of them, a gentleman, recognized her, and,
with an air of great surprise, respectfully approached her.
The Duchess at once begged him to conceal his former
acquaintance with her, and asked him to do her the kind-
ness of procuring her a guide to take her into Spain. The
arrangements were made : it was settled that the guide was
to meet her in the mountains at an appointed spot. Then
she returned to her inn.

Malbati had promised to accompany the young gentle-
man as far as Bagnéres; he had never said he would go
on from there to Tarbes. He was very ill-pleased at ‘this
fresh development of the Duchess’s plans, and tried to
dissuade her from attempting the journey, saying the
country was full of thieves, and the roads most unsafe.
Mme. de Chevreuse persuaded him to come with her.

Once more they got into their saddles, led by a single
guide. The attorney of Cahuzac wore a gloomy look; the
Duchess told him she saw clearly how vexed he was; that
he was very possibly thinking of forsaking her; but he had
served her so faithfully thus far that she could not doubt
he would render her the final service of accompanying her
this once more. They travelled across the mountains all
that day and the next night. Towards three o’clock in the
morning they reached one of the little huts that serve as
shelter for the shepherds of that country. Mme. de Chev-
reuse had deceived Malbati. She was not taking him to
Tarbes, but to the frontier. While the horses were being
fed, the travellers stretched themselves out upon the hay
and slept.

At dawn Mme. de Chevreuse rose to her feet and led
Malbati aside. She had promised, she said, to tell him
who she really was, and now the hour had come: she was
notthe Duc d’Enghien; she was a woman, and the Duchesse
de Chevreuse. She was deeply grateful to him for the

186
THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

service he had just done her. She was going to Spain.
She was leaving France against her will, because if she
did not, ruin would overtake her. And she added, so that
Malbati might repeat her assertion, that she was on her
way to England, and had not been able to discover any
other means than this of getting there. She had escaped
from Tours because she knew she was to be arrested. Her
conscience was clear: she had never done, and would never
do, anything against the King or the Cardinal; she would.
write to them to that effect; she would rather “throw her-
self into the fire than be shut up in a prison.” She trusted
Malbati would report all she had said: let him say she was
only going to stay a few days in Spain; that she did not
intend to see either the King or the Queen; that she meant
to go straight to a seaport, whence the King of England
was to have her fetched on one of his ships of war. She
was expecting a guide from Bagnéres to meet her at the
spot they had now reached. Now they must part; she
would be able to spare Malbati and Potet, and they might
return to their own homes.

Malbati was amazed. He listened in the deepest
astonishment. His heart was filled with mingled feelings
of emotion, regret and pity combined. What could she be
thinking of, he asked at last, gently, to dream of crossing
the mountains alone, and in such troublous times, with a
man of whom she knew nothing at all? She would come
to destruction, she would fall among ‘‘a thousand thieves ! ”
Mme. de Chevreuse replied that she was quite confident
about her journey, which would not cost her more than two
or three hundred pistoles: she would halt at the hospice,
four leagues away, where there were Spanish priests who
would take care of her; she would then write to the Viceroy
of Saragossa to send her a coach to Barbastro. There
was no danger at all. She would send back news by the
guide.

Malbati was sorely troubled. He had not spent so many

187
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

long hours in the company of the beautiful woman whose
life he had been sharing for some days without experienc-
ing a dim sense of her charm, and an inner feeling that
was alike mysterious and tender. But just at this moment
a Spanish peasant—the promised guide—made his appear-
ance, climbing up the path. Mme. de Chevreuse asked
Malbati to take charge of a letter for the Archbishop of
Tours, and after a certain amount of hesitation the attorney
consented. If you have any fears, said the Duchess, burn
it, but “if he would take her word, she swore to him, on
the faith of an honourable woman, that it contained nothing
against the King’s service.” She also asked him to return
M. de Marsillac’s horse to him, and to thank him for the
service he had done her: “She would never forget the
obligations and the courtesies she had received from him.”
To indemnify Malbati for his outlay, she offered him a
rouleau of pistoles. He would not accept it. But she
succeeded in making him take a sum to cover the expenses
of his return journey—seven pistoles.

The moment of parting had come. Malbati was shaking
with agitation. With an impulsive gesture, the Duchess
threw her arms round his neck and kissed him. The guide
was in a hurry to start. Mme. de Chevreuse made Potet
give her the map and the inkhorn, reminded him as to the
road he would have to follow on his return, and then,
having bestowed a final embrace upon Malbati, took hold
of her horse’s bridle, and walked briskly up the mountain
path....

Malbati, lost in thought, took his way down the moun-
tain-side. The next day he made his Communion at
Notre-Dame de Garaison; then he went home to Cahuzac,
and despatched Hilaire and Renault to perform the com-
missions with which the Duchess had entrusted him,
amongst them the letter to the Archbishop, which he sent
to M. de Marsillac; this gentleman had it carried to Tours
by a lackey in the service of M. d’Estissac. Meanwhile,

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THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

Mme. de Chevreuse had succeeded without any difficulty
whatever in crossing the frontier and reaching Spanish
territory. j

She had fled from Couziéres on the evening of Saturday,
September 6. On Monday, the 8th, at Tours, M. Catinat

“received the letter the Duchess had desired her waiting-
woman to send him. The Lieutenant-General asked the
lackey who brought it ‘where his mistress was?” ‘At
Couzieéres,” he replied, knowing no better. Catinat at once
sent a messenger to Couziéres, who returned with the news,
which he had already suspected, that the Duchess had fled.
He instantly wrote three despatches, one to the Duc de
Chevreuse, one to du Dorat, and the third to his own
brother, a Councillor of the Parliament of Paris, telling
all three of his correspondents what had just happened,
and requesting them to inform the Government.

On the receipt of this letter, M. de Chevreuse, greatly
alarmed, fetched the Abbé du Dorat and the steward of
his own household, M. de Boispillé, and waited on Louis
XIII, who was at Conflans. There had been no intention
on his part of placing Mme. de Chevreuse under arrest.
Anne of Austria and Mlle. de Hautefort, deceived by flying
rumours, had acted too precipitately.

Both the King and Richelieu were exceedingly annoyed.
They requested Boispillé to proceed at once to Tours, to
find out exactly what had happened, and to report to them.
Finally, on Saturday, the rath, Richelieu, after thinking
the matter over, ordered Boispillé, in the King’s name, to
hurry after the Duchess, catch her up, and assure her that
if she would come back at once, her flight would be
overlooked; she might even return to Dampierre.

On the Sunday, Boispillé started on his journey. At
Tours he saw the Archbishop and the Lieutenant-General.
From the Archbishop he learnt the road the Duchess was
to take, as he believed, to get to Eschaux. Boispillé went
on his way. On Sunday, the 6th, the prelate had received

189
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

letters from Paris which assured him Mme. de Chevreuse
had no reason to be so alarmed. He had at once despatched
two men, Dolce and Mazuel, to join her, reassure her, and

induce her to turn back. These two men had not returned. a

Boispillé found them at Bordeaux. It was then arranged
that Dolce should go to Eschaux, that Mazuel should
search the banks of the Garonne, and that Boispillé should
endeavour to collect information on the spot. When, after
a few days, the three men met again, none of them had
found out anything. There was no news of Mme. de
Chevreuse at-Eschaux. Mazuel turned back towards
Tours, going by Blaye, Saintes and Saint-Maixent, look-
ing about in case the Duchess should be lying ill anywhere
along the road. Boispillé remained at Bordeaux till the
22nd. It was then over a fortnight since Mme. de Chev-
reuse had started. He went back to Tours, and there heard
that the Duchess had ridden by Ruffec and Verteuil, where
she had borrowed M. de Marsillac’s coach. He hurried
to Verteuil, and when he put his horse into the stable there,
he recognized the Duchess’s hackney. Marsillac assured
him he did not know what had become of the lady; he
told him all that had happened as far as he himself was
concerned; beyond that he knew nothing. Boispillé
brought the hackney back to Tours.

Then he went to see the Archbishop again. That prelate,
meanwhile, had received the letter Mme. de Chevreuse had
written him from the Spanish frontier, and confided to
Malbati. “Ah,” said he, “you have been working hard
to try and get news, and I, who have never set my foot
outside this place, have news to give you!” He read
the letter aloud. Boispillé thought the Duchess was at
Eschaux.. He took post-horses, and went there as fast
as he could. He arrived on Sunday, October 11; but Mme.
de Chevreuse had not been there as yet. He returned
to Tours, and thence to Paris. His undertaking had
failed.

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THE FLIGHT INTO SPAIN

Meanwhile, Louis XIII and Richelieu had received
information from other quarters.

When Marsillac’s servants and his coach returned to
Verteuil, he learnt, to his great astonishment, that instead
of going to Saintes, as she had declared she intended
doing, Mme. de Chevreuse had gone in a quite different
direction. And the strange disguise she wore, and which
his servants described to him, caused him still greater
perplexity. Suspecting some unpleasant business at the
bottom of it all, he at once wrote and desired his
secretary, who happened to be in Paris, to report the
whole matter to his father. And at the same time Mme.
de la Rochefoucauld, whose mind was as uneasy as her
son’s, wrote to her husband, giving him every detail. “If
it is all of no consequence,” wrote Marsillac, “I should be
very glad if no fuss were made about it.” M. de la Roche-
foucauld, as soon as he received the two letters, went to
see the Chancellor, and then hurried down to Rueil to
speak to Richelieu. He was very much alarmed, and
accused his son of carelessness. Five or six days after
that, Potet returned to Verteuil with the horses, and told
Marsillac that Mme. de Chevreuse had crossed over into
Spain. Marsillac instantly sent the news to his father,
who carried it to Richelieu. He was received in the most
frigid fashion. “This business places me in such a
difficulty,” he wrote angrily to his brother, M. de Lian-
court, “that I cannot write to you about anything else. It
is not that my son can be excused, either as regards myself
or other persons, for he has shown me very little considera-
tion; I pray God he may be wiser in future.”

But Mme. de Chevreuse was safe in Spain. There was
no use in trying to stop her. At all events, Louis XIII
and Richelieu would now find out exactly what had hap-
pened, and if there had been accomplices, they should be
chastised. An inquiry was opened, and placed in the
hands of a magistrate of the Parliament of Metz, President

1g!
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Vignier. He departed to Tours, cross-examined the Arch
bishop, the Lieutenant-General, the servants at Couziéres;
he went on to Verteuil, saw Marsillac and the servants
there; he questioned the owners of the taverns and inns
where Mme. de Chevreuse had rested, and finally he
questioned Malbati himself. Then he sent in his report.
Thanks to this inquiry and report, we know all the details
of the flight. It seemed far from easy, all things con-
sidered, to lay the blame anywhere, since the King, at the
very beginning of the business, had declared himself ready
to forgive the chief offender.

Public rumour accused Marsillac: he, so it was said,
had carried off Mme. de Chevreuse, had helped her out of
the kingdom, had even brought her to La Terne, and there
“held revels” with her. He was ordered to Paris to give
an explanation of his conduct. His friends, M. de la
Meilleraie and M. de Chavigny, were defending and
excusing him, on the score of his having been the lover
of Mme. de Chevreuse, which was quite untrue. Riche-
lieu commanded him to tell him the whole truth. Marsillac
took a high tone, and gave sharp replies. Richelieu
grew angry. When the young man answered somewhat
haughtily, the Cardinal said: “Very good. Then you
must go to the Bastille.” The next day Marsillac was in
prison. His friends pleaded his cause, and after a week
had gone by, Meilleraie managed to obtain his release.
He was to be the only victim of the flight of the Duchess,
and his punishment was of the lightest kind.

192
CHAPTER VII

IN ENGLAND: MADAME DE CHEVREUSE AND RICHELIEU

Mme. de Chevreuse in Madrid—In London—Her negotiations with
Richelieu : she slips through his fingers—M. de Chevreuse is sent to
London: Mme. de Chevreuse flees into Flanders—Death of
Richelieu— 1638-42.

From the Hospice, where the monks had received her with
great kindness, Mme. de Chevreuse had pursued her
journey into Spain. From Sant Esteban, the first fortified
town she reached, she wrote a letter to Cardinal de
Richelieu. In it she set forth the reasons of her con-
duct: since the Chateauneuf business, she asserted, she
had striven to live in peace, and to avoid anything likely
to cause displeasure: she had been suddenly warned that
she was about to be arrested, to answer for things “of
which she had never even thought, and to be told that the
truth of them was in her accusers’ hands. This had made
her imagine her destruction was a settled thing.” So she
had departed! She also wrote to the Archbishop of Tours,
telling him she had reached Spanish territory, requesting
him to do certain things for various people, and adding
that she had not yet decided what her next step should be.

From Sant Esteban, she went to Saragossa. Thence
she sent more letters into France. Forgetful of her
promise to Malbati, she resolved to go to Madrid. From
that city she sent news of herself to Boispillé. But a
courier from France brought her a curt message. “We
send no answers into Spain.” The Government had issued
its orders.

Mme. de Chevreuse solicited an audience with the King

oO 193
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

of Spain. She was kindly received: the fact that she was
the friend of Anne of Austria was not forgotten. Philip
IV, the sovereign of the Spanish kingdom, was then a
man of thirty-five. ‘Splendid presents were given to
Mme. de Chevreuse,” writes Mme. de Motteville, and she
adds: “The King of Spain appeared to have some little
tenderness for her, and although she told me, in the days
of the Regency, that the prince had never said a soft word
to her except once, and then only as he passed by, report
tells quite another story.” There was a persistent belief,
indeed, that the King of Spain had been on the most
intimate terms with Mme. de Chevreuse. Louis XIII was
pleased to affirm the fact to Anne of Austria, before her.
assembled Court, after a decidedly coarse fashion. “The
Queen,” writes the English Ambassador, Digby, to
Montague, on May 19, 1638, ‘“‘told me, with great emotion,
that the King had given her a very pleasant piece of news,
to wit, that the King of Spain had certainly ‘ couché avec
Mme. de Chevreuse!’” He used these very words in a
loud voice.”

But for many reasons it was not possible for Mme. de
Chevreuse to remain at Madrid. Her position there was
of the most precarious kind. She had made an attempt to
obtain a certain rank at Court by getting herself appointed
what was called posada en palacio: her application had
been refused. This had deeply offended her. Lost in that
stiff serious society, in which her lively French ways were
very ill received, she soon felt it would be wiser to leave
the country and make up her mind to go to London. The
King of Spain courteously provided her with all the
necessary facilities. He even charged one of his gentle-
men, Don Domingo di Gonsalvo, to conduct her to
Fontarabia, and attend her to England. So after a stay
of a few months on Spanish soil, the Duchess took ship,
and on Sunday, April 25, 1638, she disembarked at
Portsmouth. Her fate was to undergo a change, indeed !

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IN ENGLAND

She was joyfylly received. Lord Goring and Lord
Montague, who had been sent to meet her by Charles I,
welcomed her when she landed: she settled for a time
at Greenwich. Friends crowded about her. The English
Court had not forgotten the merry days of 1625, and
- hailed with delight the return of the fair lady who, in
spite of her eight-and-thirty years, was still the fascinating
Duchess it had then admired.

Mme. de Chevreuse recovered her confidence. Now that
she was no longer in an enemy’s country, the powers in
Paris would perhaps agree to enter into relations with
her. And besides, she was short of money, she must
really look into her affairs, which had been sorely
neglected.

The pregnancy of Anne of Austria had been formally
announced in February 1638, and she lost no time about
writing to the Queen to offer her congratulations, and
thus reopen intercourse with her. It was the first time
she had communicated with her since she had left
Couziéres. “The remembrance,” she wrote, “which I
cannot doubt your Majesty has of what I owe you, and
that I have of what I should pay you, will persuade your
Majesty, without a word from me, of the pain it has been
to me to remove myself so far away from you, so as to
escape penalties which I feared the unjust suspicions
stirred up against me might cause me to suffer.” Neces-
sity alone had forced her over the Spanish border, where
the respect felt for her Majesty had caused her to be
received and treated far better than she deserved. “That
I bear you led me to hold my peace till I was in this
kingdom (England), which, being in a good understand-
ing with France, gives me no reason to apprehend that
it will cause you displeasure to receive letters coming
thence.”

And she congratulates the Queen on her condition, and
beseeches her to help her: “May your Majesty’s protection

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

preserve me from the misfortune that the anger of the
King and the bad graces of Monseigneur the Cardinal
would bring on me!”

Anne of Austria, who had learnt prudence, showed the a

letter to Louis XIII. As it happened, Mme. de Chevreuse
had done just what the King most desired when she
wrote it. Now that she was out of Spain, so Richelieu
opined, it was as well to reopen relations with her, and
bring her to reason. The Queen should make a begin-
ning, and initiate a corespondence which might ultimately
assume wider proportions. The sovereign’s interesting
condition supplied the necessary opening. Anne of
Austria had better announce it to her friend herself: a
rough draft of her letter was supplied her, and that rough
draft we now possess. Anne of Austria was to make no
reference to the terrors with which she herself had inspired
the Duchess, and which had really been at the bottom of
her sudden flight : she was to reassure her, saying, “There
is no intention here of doing you any harm”; she was
to make a joking reference to the hurried journey across
France, the details of which, revealed by the inquiry con-
ducted by President Vignier, had so entertained the Court
that certain facetious persons had embellished the tale,
which did indeed lend itself to the process, with all sorts
of merry adventures, the echoes of which have been trans-
mitted to us by Tallemant des Réaux. “TI have not been
able to help laughing over certain adventures with which I
know you have met.” She was to advise the Duchess
to repair the mischief done in the past by adopting, during
her stay in England, an attitude the very opposite of that
she had hitherto assumed with regard to France: “I
entreat you, for the love of your own self, and of me,
to do nothing in the country in which you are, likely to
rouse any just displeasure against you outside it, and I
confess to you that while I have a passionate desire for
peace, I should be in despair if England, either during the:
196
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HOIMNGAUD LV GNVIONG AO LSald AHL SH1INVHO JO LYNOO AHL

 

 
IN ENGLAND

time you are there, or after you have left it, should do
anything against France.” The request was as definite
as possible. But on consideration, some doubt was felt,
and the letter was not sent.

Thus Madame de Chevreuse’s letter to the Queen
arrived in the nick of time. In response to it, Richelieu
caused the Duchess to be informed by a third person, but
on his own authority, that her attempt to correspond with
Anne of Austria had not been ill received, and that she
might write again. Mme. de Chevreuse at once wrote to
the Cardinal himself. “Having learnt,” she said, on
June 1, “that which I easily believe, seeing how great
is my desire to do so, that it will be agreeable to you
to receive this letter, I write it to you with much content-
ment. I hope the misfortune which has constrained me
to leave France has grown weary of having pursued me
for so long, and that the suspicions which have filled me
with dread may have partly justified that fear, of which I
should be well pleased to be cured, by the knowledge
that my enemies are not more powerful than my own
innocence. I thought myself obliged to remove myself
far away, so as to gain the only thing needful for my
justification, that is to say, time. The assurances I have
received of your kindness towards me, since my arrival
here, make me hope for the success on which I have set
my desires.” She begged Charles I and Henrietta-Maria
to write and urgently plead her cause both with Louis XIII
and with Richelieu. And at her request the King of
England went so far as to desire his Ambassador in Paris
to intercede in her favour, and beg an immediate per-
mission for her return to France.

But this time Richelieu thought things were going too
fast. In a carefully prepared memorandum, the Cardinal
set forth, for the King’s information, the reasons which
made it necessary to take indispensable precautions before
Mme. de Chevreuse was given leave to come back: “If

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

the English Ambassador mentions Mme. de Chevreuse,”
he wrote, “the King will say that when she acknowledges
her faults, he will be ready to grant her his pardon.”
There were to be conditions, and these were still more
clearly set forth by Chavigny, the Secretary of State, to
M. de Belliévre, the French King’s Ambassador in
London: “We impatiently await news of what may have
passed between you and Mme. de Chevreuse, and whether,
in your judgment, she intends to render some useful
service in the place where she is, so as to reconcile herself
with France.’ The Government meant Mme. de
Chevreuse to pay for her pardon, and to give pledges
beforehand. These conditions were exceedingly distaste-
ful to her. Counselled by Montague, she was to fool
the Cardinal, and enter on a perfidious struggle with him,
in the course of which she was to give proofs of extra-
ordinary subtlety and consummate duplicity.

From Greenwich she had removed to London. She
had no money, and was living ‘‘at the King of England’s
table”’—in other words, at his expense. Her first care
was to have a lodging of her own and her own furniture.
She applied to her husband: she made Montague write
to the English Ambassador in Paris, Digby, requesting
him to see M. de Chevreuse on the subject. M. de
Chevreuse replied that the matter was one that required
looking into, and that he was sending the Abbé du Dorat
to London for that purpose, subject to the Cardinal’s
consent to his taking the journey.

But it was not du Dorat who arrived, it was a mere
serving man. Digby wrote to Montague: “The Sieur de
Boispillé brought M. de Chevreuse leave from Court
yesterday to send a servant to ask after the health of
Mme. de Chevreuse.” It was a mockery. Mme. de
Chevreuse sent the lackey back with a eivil letter to her
husband. “I promise myself that you will take care to
send me what I ask. I beseech you to do it, for I cannot

198
IN ENGLAND

remain much longer in the state in which I now am, and I
trust it will not become so bad as to drive me to use any
other help than that I expect from you, for my subsist-
ence.” Thus pressed by his wife, M. de Chevreuse made
up his mind to send over Boispillé. Boispillé was a
faithful servant, devoted, but somewhat credulous. Riche-
lieu sent for him, and told him he would consent to his
going to England, but on one condition only, that he
should take the Duchess in hand and induce her to make
her submission to the King. He gave him a letter for
the Duchess: he was to address all his correspondence
to du Dorat, who would transmit it to the Cardinal.

The letter carried by Boispillé from the Cardinal was
somewhat haughty in tone. “Madame,” wrote Richelieu,
“M. de Chevreuse having desired the King’s permission
to send the Sieur de Boispillé to you, I have not chosen
to let him go without testifying to you by these few
words that even as I have an interest in all that affects
you, I shall never feel content when I think that you
have not reason to be so. If you are innocent, your
safety depends on yourself, and if the frivolity of the
human mind, not to say that of your sex, has led you
to stumble in a manner that has given His Majesty
reason to complain, you will find in his goodness that
which you may expect, and should desire.”

Mme. de Chevreuse made as though she would accept
the Cardinal’s overtures. Boispillé wrote that he had been
very well received, that Mme. de Chevreuse was in an
excellent frame of mind, that there was nothing in the
world for which she longed so much as to get back to
France. Only whenever he tried to have a clear explana-
tion with her, she put him off. He begged and prayed
her to tell him what her wishes were, at all events. “We
are in treaty for Mme. de Chevreuse,” writes Montague;
‘““we are much pressed to formulate her demands, but
we have not made any at all.” In the meantime Montague

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

contrived to have a snub administered to the French
Ambassador, M. de Belliévre. Mme. de Belliévre was
informed that she must not expect a seat in the Queen’s
coach: only a few days previously a “tabouret” had been
granted to the Duchess, and the same honour had been
withdrawn from the French Ambassadress. Mme. de
Chevreuse and her friends were to continue to set Richelieu
at naught by dint of a cunning mixture of apparent good-
will and real hostility.

Boispillé urged matters on. He was full of confidence.
The Duchess, he wrote, “charges me to say anything that
is desired on her part, to hurry on the moment of her
return, promising to give every kind of satisfaction in the
future, and never to fail: she protests that she will do
so well, and so faithfully serve and attach herself to the
interests and the orders she may receive from his
Eminence, that she will repair all her past faults, and
that every one will find the greatest satisfaction in her.”
By dint of entreaties, he had induced her to confess that
she must, at the least, have a formal declaration from
the King, which would constitute a general abolition of
her whole past, including her departure from France.
And she insisted that this promise should also be made
to the King of England, who would be answerable for
its being kept.

Louis XIII and Richelieu were well inclined to grant
this abolition; Boispillé had sent over a memorandum
setting forth various affirmations made by Mme. de
Chevreuse, which were of a nature to satisfy the
Government. The Duchess declared, he said, that she
had never entered into any undertaking either with
England or with Spain. She had never received any
pension from either country; she had no dealings with
Lorraine: she certainly did see the Spanish Ambassador
and the other foreign envoys, but that was simply because
they came to pay their respects to her. Her present conduct

200
IN ENGLAND

appeared quite correct, and she had promised that she
would behave well in future. Under these circumstances,
thought Boispillé, the Government might safely send the
document for which she asked. Louis XIII and Richelieu
came to a decision. ‘‘Madame,” wrote Richelieu to the
Duchess on July 24, “the King has given his willing
consent to your request. Since you feel you are free from
all guilt, save for having left the kingdom, he has com-
manded me to inform you that he gladly grants you
the abolition, as he would have granted it for any other
thing you had declared to be on your conscience. The
sureties you have asked for are being sent to you. If you
need others still greater, 1 will gladly serve you in that
particular.”

The abolition was couched in solemn terms: “Louis,
by the grace of God, King of France and of Navarre... .”
The King “remitted, forgave, pardoned, and abolished”
all the faults committed by Mme. de Chevreuse, assured
her she should never be pursued or punished on their
account, forbade all officers of his justice to prosecute her
because of them; but twice over in the document did he
enumerate the sins of which the Duchess had been guilty,
to wit: that she had fled from Tours without the King’s
consent; that she had left the confines of his kingdom
without his permission ; that she had retired into a country
belonging to the open enemies of the State; and that she
had “negotiated with le Duc de Lorraine against the
service” of his Majesty.

When Mme. de Chevreuse read this document she
started, and flew into a rage. What! she cried. She
was accused of having been in treaty with the Duke of
Lorraine? But it was a lie! She could not possibly
accept a document enshrining such a calumny as that!
She would have nothing to do with their abolition! She
would not go back to France! “After the certainty
expressed to me,” she wrote to du Dorat, “that I used my

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

entreaties to prevent Monsieur le Duc de Lorraine from
coming to an arrangement with the King, and to keep
him on the side of Spain, a thing of which I never thought,
I cannot believe myself to be safe in France; for I could
not, while he holds such an opinion, hope for the pro-
tection of Monseigneur the Cardinal, unless it shall please
him to rid himself of this suspicion by giving me the
means of justifying myself, and himself that of thinking
me worthy that my fault in leaving France should be for-
gotten, for which I will wait till his goodness affords me the
necessary surety.” Nothing had been gained, after all!
From that moment all Belliévre’s letters were full of
warnings that in all her dealings with him Mme. de
Chevreuse was affecting an air of open hostility. She
openly consorted with the enemies of France. She held
frequent conversations with the agent of the Spanish
Court, she spoke publicly in favour of Spain. Richelieu
was very much vexed. He made an attempt to reopen
negotiations. He had it conveyed to Mme. de Chevreuse
that his personal feelings for her were unchanged, that she
might reckon on his friendly offices, that the great thing
was to find some common ground on which they might
come to an arrangement. ‘Consider, sir,” wrote Mme. de
Chevreuse, “the position in which I am, quite content, on
one hand, with the assurance you send me of your con-
tinued friendship for me, and much distressed, on the
other, by the suspicions, or I should rather say the
certainty, you declare you possess as to a fault which I
have never committed, and which I confess would be
doubled by another if, once committed, I were to deny it.
I confess, sir, that all this places me in so great a difficulty
that I can see no repose for myself in such a meeting.
If indeed you had not so certainly persuaded yourself that
you know it (the fault), or that I could acknowledge it,
it would be a means to an understanding: but since you
let yourself be carried away to such a firm conviction
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IN ENGLAND

against me that it will not admit of any justification, and
since I cannot make myself guilty without becoming so, I
have recourse to yourself, sir, and entreat you, by that
quality of friendship which your generosity promises me,
to find some expedient whereby his Majesty may have
satisfaction, and I may be able to return to France in
safety.” The only possible course was to wait.

Thereupon Richelieu was informed that the Duchess
was trying to get Marie de Médicis brought over to
London, so as to set up a more efficacious opposition to
the French Government in England. “Ah,” exclaimed
the poor Cardinal, quite disheartened, ‘men think some-
times that animals can do no great harm because they
can do no good at all, but there is nothing more capable
of bringing a State to ruin than evil minds protected by
the weakness of their sex!”” The King of England did
not care, indeed, to have his mother-in-law at his Court,
for her bad temper was well known to him, and he refused
to allow her to come. Then Mme. de Chevreuse made
Henrietta-Maria write and advise her mother to take ship
without the King’s leave. Marie de Médicis acted on the
hint. Unwelcome wherever she went, first driven out of
Flanders, and now forced to leave Holland, where every-
body was sick of her presence, the only refuge left her
was her son-in-law’s kingdom. She reached England in
the course of the month of November.

Immediately a great friendship was struck up between
the old Queen and the Duchesse de Chevreuse. They
saw each other every day: Mme. de Chevreuse, well
knowing that nothing could be more disagreeable to
Louis XIII, kept entreating the King of England to press
the Queen Mother’s recall to Paris on his brother-in-law.
She kept up the closest relations, too, with the Spanish
Ambassador. Richelieu asserts in his Memoirs that she
was even in correspondence with the Spanish Prime
Minister, Olivares. She welcomed all the Cardinal’s per-

203
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

sonal enemies, as, for instance, the Duc de la Valette,—
who had fallen into disgrace with Louis XIII on account
of his humiliating defeat before Fontarabia, and_ had
crossed the Channel rather than face his judges—Le
Coigneux, Monsigot, and others. Belliévre wrote that
Mme. de Chevreuse was making arrangements to go over
to Flanders, so as to be in more direct communication
with the Spaniards. Never had the Duchess been so
dangerous! How reopen negotiations with her, bring her
back to her duty? Richelieu appealed to her husband.

Distressed beyond measure by his wife’s behaviour,
living in perpetual terror of being compromised by her
proceedings, M. de Chevreuse was doing everything he
could invent to prove his personal zeal for the King’s
service. He was more than attentive to Richelieu: he
sent big game, snared in his park at Dampierre, to
stock the Cardinal’s lands in Poitou: he never lost any
opportunity of affirming the fact that he was too good a
servant of his Majesty to dream of undertaking any
business without his master’s consent. Somebody sug-
gested that he should beseech the King to permit his wife
to return to France. He did it. Richelieu pretended to
take his petition seriously. “Madame,” he wrote to the
Duchess on January 5, 1639, when he sent du Dorat and
Boispillé over to her, “the perpetual entreaties of M. de
Chevreuse to save you from your ruin, joined with the
affection I have always felt for whatever concerns you,
have led me to obtain from a King a passport for the
Abbé du Dorat and the Sieur de Boispillé, who go to you
with the intention of doing you service, and leading you
to think of yourself more than you have ever done.” As
always, Mme. de Chevreuse received this suggestion with
the most perfect courtesy. “I could hardly receive,” she
mks in her answer to the Cardinal, dated January 28,
“greater proofs of my husband’s regard for me than his
prayers that I may be able to return to France; nor

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IN ENGLAND

can I hope for their success, save by your assistance, to
which I acknowledge I owe the good beginnings I see,
and I trust I may owe their happy ending to your good
offices.” But she warned him beforehand that if there
was any more talk of the abolition, she would never give
in on the subject of her negotiations with the Duke of
Lorraine—such negotiations never having had any exist-
ence in fact. “If the suspicions of me which my misfor-
tune has engendered,” she wrote, “touching the business
of M. le Duc de Lorraine, were true, I would confess
them to you, not doubting that your generosity would
obtain me pardon for that, as well as for my departure
from France.”

When du Dorat and Boispillé reached London, they
found the Duchess on her guard. She paid them com-
pliments. “What I have been able to discover as to
her intentions,” writes du Dorat to Richelieu on
January 31, “is an extreme passion to return, a feeling
of gratitude for the kindness shewn her by your Eminence,
and a longing to tell you many things, if she had the
good fortune to be able to see you.” But when the two
envoys tried to arrive at some definite conclusion, the con-
viction that Mme. de Chevreuse was evading the question
forced itself upon them.

Their mission was a difficult one: Richelieu had
given them the very same abolition that Mme. de
Chevreuse had refused to accept; and had even forbidden
them to hand it over to the Duchess till she had furnished
them with a written acknowledgment, signed with her
own hand, of the truth of the facts it set forth. Mme. de
Chevreuse had been furious. “I will confess to you,”
she wrote to Richelieu, “that I was doubly astounded to
see it (the reference to Lorraine) in the abolition shown
me by du Dorat, and to hear on what conditions he had
undertaken to hand it to me!” On the other hand, du
Dorat and Boispillé had informed the Duchess that the

205
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

King would allow her to return to France, but not to
Court—only to Dampierre ;—and even then they did not
know how long she would be permitted to stay, nor
whether she would enjoy her liberty there. She had
thereupon demanded an abolition, pure and simple, without
any mention of the Lorraine business, and with full liberty
to go and come as she chose, all over the kingdom.

Du Dorat and Boispillé tried to reason with her. She
would have leave to go to Dampierre to begin with, and
after that she would certainly be allowed to come back
to the Court. The Duchess replied that she refused
everything. “If your Eminence,’ wrote du Dorat, in his
despair, to Richelieu, on February 25, “will give me
leave to say what I think of this person, I will assure
you that there never was so unquiet a spirit: necessity
and the loss of her liberty are two furies that tear her
in pieces.”

In Paris, now, all was silence. Boispillé and du Dorat
did not know what to do next. “Time is getting on,”
wrote Boispillé on March 10; “I had better get back.
As for the poor Abbé du Dorat, he is bored to death.”
And.on the 17th: “We are in a state of misery and
impatience here which cannot be described. We are quite
at a loss, the poor Abbé and I. M. du Dorat has fallen
into such a state of melancholy that truly I think he will
fall ill of it!” On that very day, the 17th, Richelieu
despatched his answer to du Dorat. If the Government,
he said, insisted that Mme. de Chevreuse should acknow-
ledge her negotiations with Lorraine, it was because this
“was necessary to its safety.’ The Cardinal declared he
would keep her confession a dead secret. Nevertheless, he
announced, in his desire to reach some solution, he had
induced the King to grant the abolition pure and simple,
without any reference to the Lorraine business, which the
Duchess had insisted on obtaining. Mme. de Chevreuse,
he added, expressed her astonishment at not being

206
IN ENGLAND

allowed to go and come as she chose within the frontiers
of France. ‘Only a year previously, just before her flight
from Couziéres, she had been ordered to keep within the
boundaries of Touraine. There was no evidence that she
had done anything since then to deserve any amelioration
of her condition. From this Richelieu drew the con-
clusion that the lady’s fate lay in her own hands. With
his letter he enclosed the new abolition: the passage
touching the Lorraine business had really been suppressed.

When the Cardinal’s courier arrived, at nine o’clock at
night, Boispillé and du Dorat at once hastened to wait on
Mme. de Chevreuse, and informed her of the contents of
the packet sent them from Paris. Then permission to
move about within the borders of France was refused her ?
She would not go back, the Duchess answered curtly.
In vain did the two envoys, in sore distress, return to
the charge on the following day. “Never was there
unreasonableness nor ingratitude to compare with hers!”
wrote the indignant du Dorat to Chavigny on the 24th.
They discussed, they entreated. “She bade us retire,”
wrote Boispillé, “telling us the thing was settled, and
that no amount of rhetoric would now persuade her. We
saw her again, at three o’clock in the afternoon, a short
time before the despatch of this letter—just the same
thing! So we have resolved to depart on our way back
on Saturday or Sunday, God helping us. I can say
naught, save that this is a very poor, unfortunate lady,
with a temper that is very contrary to her own good, and
an enemy of her own self.”

On the 28th, Mme. de Chevreuse sent her own answer
direct to Richelieu: her letter was full of ironic defer-
ence. “Sir,” said she to the Cardinal, “I have seen the
answer you were pleased to make me by your letter to
M. du Dorat. How deeply you have obliged me! And
how unhappy am I to find you so good to me, and yet to
remain in so much evil fortune! I pray God that some

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

day my services may prove to you that I am not altogether
unworthy of the kindnesses I have received from you!”

Before du Dorat and Boispillé left London, they made
one final effort. At all events, they said to the Duchess,
would she acknowledge that she had behaved ill in the
past, and that she was sorry for it now? If she was given
leave to return to France in perfect freedom, would she
promise to have no more intercourse, inside the frontiers
or beyond them, with persons whom the King regarded
with suspicion? If she was convicted of guilt, would she
consent to be considered guilty? After some little reflec-
tion, Mme. de Chevreuse agreed to reply in the affirm-
ative. Du Dorat and Boispillé then added that they:
themselves would vouch for the truth of her assertions to
the Cardinal. Mme. de Chevreuse assented.

When the travellers reached Rueil, they explained the
concession they had succeeded in obtaining. The Cardinal
accepted the indirect method thus suggested tohim. ‘“ We,
the undersigned,” the two envoys now wrote, “declare to
Monseigneur the Cardinal that the Duchesse de Chevreuse
sincerely acknowledges the evil conduct of which she has
been guilty in the past, and repents of it with her whole
heart,” etc. . . . No more explicit attestation was forth-
coming, and the Cardinal must e’en be content with this
declaration. Louis XIII thought it would be better to give
in. He would allow Mme. de Chevreuse to go to Dam-
pierre, provided she would undertake to live there quietly,
and enter into no more cabals. Richelieu himself informed
the Duchess of the King’s decision.

From London, whither they had returned, du Dorat and
Boispillé wrote that Mme. de Chevreuse was behaving in
a quite satisfactory manner. Everything was going on
well: the business was apparently quite settled, all that
remained to be done was the winding-up, when letters from
the Duchess were delivered to du Dorat and to Richelieu.
In her letter to du Dorat, she said: “I will only, write you

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IN ENGLAND

three lines, to bid you express to Monseigneur the Cardinal
the sense I have of the kindness he has induced His
Majesty to show me. I leave the rest to Boispillé, who
will write you, within the next two days, in the most par-
ticular way, concerning the reasons which delay me here.”
To Richelieu she wrote: “Sir, I have no words wherewith
to thank you in a sufficiently worthy manner for the kind-
ness you have won for me from the King, but I have the
determination it is my duty to feel, to deserve it by my
very humble services. You will hear, sir, through M. du
Dorat, the reasons which prevent me from going to enjoy
it as soon as I should have desired, and I pray you to
believe that I continue to preserve the deepest sense of
the kindness you show me, and in which I have the fullest
confidence.”

What was the matter now? Boispillé made inquiries:
the Duchess, it appeared, was hampered by difficulties
about money. She was heavily in debt, and her creditors
would not let her depart: it was a question, so Boispillé
wrote, of paying up or letting the whole thing go. Mme.
de Chevreuse wanted the Government to help her to
find 12,000 livres. Was that all? Richelieu was not so
pinched that he could not find money: he sent over 18,000
livres. This time every difficulty seemed cleared away.

Boispillé made his preparations for the journey: the
route had been chosen—the travellers were to go by
Dieppe; the governors of Dieppe and Rouen had received
orders to welcome the Duchess with every sign of respect.
The Queen of England had undertaken to get a ship sup-
plied by the Government, and as this ship could not sail
for another fortnight, the date of the departure from Dover
had been fixed for the 13th of June. The Duchess had
bidden all her farewells: she had waited on Queen
Henrietta-Maria; she had written to the King of England;
she had asked her husband to send her coaches and horses
to meet her at Dieppe, and had requested the Abbé du

P 209
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Dorat to await her there ; Boispillé was counting the hours,
when all of a sudden, on the 4th of June, Mme. de
Chevreuse sent for him.

He found her in a state of extreme agitation. She told
him she had just received two letters from Lorraine which
had caused her the greatest perplexity ; she held them out
to him: the first, which was anonymous, informed her that
if she went to France her ruin was a certain thing; she was
only being coaxed back to Dampierre so that her enemies
might more easily lay hands upon her. The Cardinal had
said too much about her conduct with respect to Spain and
Lorraine for him to allow her to go unpunished now. The
second letter, which was dated from Sierck, on the 26th of
May, bore the signature of the Duc de Lorraine. “I am
certain,” he wrote, “of the designs of the Cardinal de
Richelieu, which are to offer you every imaginable thing,
so as to oblige you to return to France, and then at once
to cause you to perish miserably. The Marquis de Ville,
who has talked both with him and with M. de Chavigny,
can make you more learned on this subject, since he heard
it with his own ears. I expect him every minute, and if
I believed I had enough power over your mind to divert
you from taking this resolution, I would go and cast myself
at your feet, to make you realize your absolute destruction,
and beseech you, by everything that may be most dear to
you in this world, to avoid this misfortune, too cruel for
the whole of this earth, and more unbearable to me than
to all the rest of the world.”

Boispillé exclaimed loudly : What did these letters mean ?
He tried hard to nullify the effect they had produced. But
the impression on the Duchess’s mind had been too deep.
After all, she said, the Cardinal had not given her any
assurance! As the Marquis de Ville was coming over to
explain matters to her, she desired at any rate to wait and
see him. “A wretched business,” wrote Boispillé to Paris;
and he advised: Richelieu to send Mme. de Chevreuse the

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IN ENGLAND

assurances for which she seemed to wish. ‘‘ Remember,
sir,” he wrote, “if it so please you, that in the letters you
have done her the honour to write to her, and which are
truly full to the brim of affection and kindness, you say
nothing to her as to her safety, for which she looks to you
alone. I think that if it pleased your Eminence to write
a word as to this, to her, or to me, it would overthrow all
these counsels, past or to come.”

Richelieu was irritated beyond expression. He con-
tented himself with writing three lines, as follows, and
desiring Boispillé to lay them before the Duchess: “‘ Those
who alarm Mme. de Chevreuse are in the wrong: she has
nothing to fear in France; anybody who tries to make her
believe to the contrary is wickedly deceiving her.” Mme.
de Chevreuse merely replied that she intended to wait for
M. de Ville. “I have told her, and represented to her,”
wrote Boispillé on the gth of June, “all the reasons which
I believe led the Duke Charles to write as he did to her,
which was simply to prevent her from going back on
account of their own private interests. I still hope,
Monseigneur, that the goodness and generosity of your
Eminence will overlook all this, and pardon all these form-
alities, or, if I dare call them so, these tendernesses, of a
mind which, I believe, only needs a little time to learn
patience and gentleness.” Madame de Chevreuse, for her
part, wrote to du Dorat, who was then in France, on the
13th of June: “I am in the same state as Boispillé has
told you, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the person
he has mentioned to you (M. de Ville), to obtain a complete
explanation, without which I cannot, and must not, leave
this country.”

So they had to wait; and they waited till the grd of
August: then, at last, M. de Ville arrived. Mme. de
Chevreuse insisted that his explanation should be given
in Boispillé’s own presence. M. de Ville related that in
the course of the preceding winter he had travelled, on his

211
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

way from Paris, with a certain Lange, who had told him
that, knowing the affection with which Mme. de Chevreuse
was regarded in Lorraine, he felt it his duty, to warn him
that if the Duchess returned to France she was lost. Two
days previously, it appeared, the Cardinal, in the course
of a conversation with M. de Chavigny as to the Duchess,
had declared himself exceedingly angry because that lady
denied having advised the Duc de Lorraine not to treat
with France, and added that he had letters of hers which
formally attested the fact, “that this affair was perfectly
clear, and that when Mme. de Chevreuse came back to
France, they would force her to talk good French, and that
if she fancied she could deceive them, she was deceiving
herself!” Boispillé protested. Who had told Lange this
tale? That he had not divulged. The discussion was
carried on apart from Mme. de Chevreuse: no definite
result was possible. M. de Ville, having consented to
draw up a copy of his communication and sign it, departed
on the 7th: he had formally advised the Duchess not to
go back to France!

On the oth she wrote to Richelieu, formulating her
definite request for his categorical assurance as to her
safety. ‘I very humbly entreat you, sir,” she wrote, “to
do me the kindness of telling me frankly whether you are
so satisfied as to the past that I need not preserve. the
smallest reason for suspicion as regards either the business
of M. de Lorraine before I left France, or other things
which have happened since.”

Richelieu was sick of it all. He replied on August 30
—a curt letter, in which he consented to give the ftesh
assurance demanded from him. ‘ Madame,” he said, “the
King has thought it very extraordinary that after having
received your abolition more than three months ago, just as
it had been desired for you at that time, you should have
made difficulties about using it as you had said you in-
tended to do.” She was being deceived, he added, by

oT
IN ENGLAND

imaginary fears. “You are too judicious not to be aware
that for nothing on earth would his Majesty grant you an
abolition of a thing for which he intended to prosecute you
in France, later. However, since the Sieur de Ville has
tried to persuade you that there was an intention of prose-
cuting you for that business of M. de Lorraine, I do not
fear to declare to you that the King’s intention has never
been, and is not, such; and that you will enjoy the benefit
of your abolition in its full and complete effects, without
any further mention of the negotiations with M. de
Lorraine.” That was clear enough: what more could she
want ?

Mme. de Chevreuse responded, in dilatory fashion, in a
letter dated September 16. She thanked the Cardinal,
“but,” she added, ‘the apprehensions with which I have
been filled have been so great that my mind has not been
able to cast them off, all at once, so as to permit of my
returning to France at present. You must, if you please,
forgive my weakness.” To du Dorat and Boispillé she
wrote that she had received fresh details, which prevented
her from setting off.

“T despair of inducing Mme. de Chevreuse to return,”
wrote the disgusted du Dorat to Richelieu on Septem-
ber 23, “after so many evasions and puttings off.” The
reasons the Duchess put forward were “ridiculous,” she
was asking for “leisure to rest her mind, after all the terrors
which, she declares, have been inflicted upon her! She
thinks minds ought to be dieted as well as bodies! That
is a treatment to which hers should not be subjected, for
it might very easily escape for good!” ‘TI have neglected
nothing,” added Boispillé on September 24, when he had
returned to France, “that might make Mme. la Duchesse
de Chevreuse realize the deep obligations she owes your
Eminence.” Nothing moved her! “So being convinced,
Monseigneur, that my presence with her was no longer
necessary, I have thought your Eminence would not take

213
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

it ill that I should travel to this place.” Mme. de Chev-
reuse was to hold her peace, and let six months roll by,
before she gave the Cardinal another sign of life.

But her existence during that period was anything but
inactive. Day after day despatches reached the Cardinal
from London, crammed with details of the annoyances
caused by her sayings and her doings. It was the
Secretary of the Embassy, M. de Montreuil, in the
absence of M. de Belliévre, the Ambassador, who kept
Richelieu informed. Mme. de Chevreuse was making her
house the meeting-place of all those of the Cardinal’s
enemies who had emigrated to England—La Valette,
Soubise (the Protestant leader, who had fled from France
after the defeat of his co-religionists), La Vieuville (a
former Minister who had fallen into disgrace, and had been
tried and sentenced), Monsigot, Le Coigneux, etc. She
was on the most intimate terms with the representatives of
the foreign powers at war with France. M. de Ville had
come back to England to recruit a thousand men who were
to fight on the Continent against the troops of France.
“Mme. de Chevreuse had used her credit” to aid the
success of his undertaking. M. de Ville lodged in her
house, sat at her table, used her coaches. Another time
it was the Spanish Ambassador, the Marquis de Velada,
who had gone to see Mme. de Chevreuse the moment he
arrived in London: the Duchess lent him her finest coach;
she went to considerable expense to do him honour. An
anonymous informant, signing himself “Titus” supplied
details of the splendour of this gathering. On another
occasion M. de Montreuil reported the intercourse between
Mme. de Chevreuse and Prince Thomas of Savoy, com-
manding the armies acting in Flanders against the troops
of Louis XIII. The Savoyard Envoy in London, Hallot,
was constantly in the Duchess’s house. Even Rossetti,
the Nuncio, was inveigled by her into opposing the French
Government. In years to come, when Rossetti (who has

214
IN ENGLAND

been made a Cardinal meanwhile) is sent by the Pope to
represent him at the Congress of Miinster, Mazarin will
put his pen through his name, with a reminder that
Rossetti, when in London, “held very secret and frequent
communications with the Duchesse de Chevreuse,’ and
that the Pope’s Ministers know how Mme. de Chevreuse
“strove to harm the State” at that period.

Richelieu knew not what to do. MHis exasperation
against Mme. de Chevreuse had reached the boiling-point.
Boispillé relates in one of his letters that it had become
impossible to mention the name of the Duchess in the
Cardinal’s presence, so furious did the subject make him.
Was there no possible means at all of putting an end to
this noxious creature’s caballing, and making sure of her?
Thereupon—this was in May, 1640—the Duc de Chevreuse
once more offered his services: he proposed to go to
England himself, and to bring his wifé back with him
to France by fair means or foul.

The Duke had been groaning more and more under his
wife’s conduct. He had stood by the Government to the
utmost of his power. He had always prevented the send-
ing over of anything the Duchess had asked for. In vain
had she begged him to let her have the most humble or the
most useful of her possessions: ‘the small wearing apparel
in my cabinet, the perfume-box mounted in silver with the
papers in it, at Couziéres; above all, the coffer with the
silver nails, and, if possible, La Porte, my tailor, with my
clothes.” The Duke had sent no answer. He openly com-
plained of his wife. One day, at St. Germain, the Queen
met him and asked him for news of the Duchess. He
replied, with much bitterness, that he was sorry indeed
that Her Majesty was preventing her from coming back.
He had written over and over again to the exile, setting
forth the dangers in which she was involving himself and
all their house, and the difficulties in which she was placing
him, even reducing him “to starvation.” He had gone so

215
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

far as to send Renault, the serving-man, to her, to beg her
to return. “I have learnt by Renault,” wrote the Duchess
in reply, “the feelings you have as to my return, and your
desire to be informed as to mine. To which I will answer
you very truly that I’dare to say they are even greater than
yours, in my longing to find myself in France, and in a
position to remedy the state of our affairs, and live in peace
with you and my children.” Unhappily, that was not pos-
sible! Some means had yet to be discovered. “That, I
swear to you, is what I daily pray God to grant me, and
I do all I can to find it.” M. de Chevreuse had replied
stiffly that she was telling him untruths, and that she was
not making any effort to get back. “I have laboured for
my return as much as you, and more,” answered the
Duchess; “I have been so overwhelmed with various
terrors that I know you would have pitied me for the
anxieties in which I have lived.” It was after the endless
evasions and equivocations of the year 1639 and the early
part of 1640, that the Duke made up his mind to join his
wife in England, and bring her back on his own authority
as her lord and master.

He asked Richelieu’s leave. ‘‘Sir,” he wrote to the Car-
dinal, “permit me, if it so please you, to speak to you of
the despair into which the slowness of my wife’s return
has cast me. Having considered all the care and impor-
tunity she has caused your Eminence, her promises and
her delays as to her return, none of which she has carried
out, notwithstanding the entreaties I myself have addressed
to her; considering your Eminence has always done me the
honour of treating me with kindness, I have resolved
humbly to beseech and entreat you to get me leave from
the King to go to England and fetch her back, with the
assurance of being honoured by the kindness of His
Majesty, and your own, sir.” Richelieu gave his con-
sent. But he had not much confidence in this particular
method.

1

216
IN ENGLAND

And, in fact, when, thanks to an indiscretion on the part
of Auger, the Secretary to the English Embassy, the news
of the Duke’s intended journey reached London, a most
indescribable scene took place in the Duchess’s house.
“Never was such agitation seen,” wrote M. de Montreuil.
Mme. de Chevreuse vowed she would not wait for her
husband; that if he persisted in coming over, she would
go away to Flanders. She waited on the King of England,
to entreat him to stand by her. To calm her mind, Charles
assured her that “since she had placed herself under his
protection he would not allow her to be forced to go back
to France.” Mme. de Chevreuse sent a courier to her
husband, beseeching him not to undertake the journey.
The Duke replied that his only intention in going to
London was to see her, and talk over their business matters
with her. Why was she in such a state of alarm?

He had begun his preparations. Louis XIII had given
him a letter to the King of England, passports for himself
and the Duchess, a note containing the names of the
persons he had better avoid while he was in London—
La Valette, La Vieuville, Le Coigneux, Monsigot. Chev-
reuse had not a halfpenny left: he was in debt in all
directions; he had asked for an advance of 12,000 crowns,
and it had been granted. He was just about to depart.

When the Duchess heard of all these arrangements, she
wrote her husband another letter, dated April 23. She
besought him to “change his intention, which was
capable,” she declared, “‘of absolutely preventing her return
to France instead of hastening it,’ she being firmly re-
solved, she added, “if you override all the reasons I have
given you, and come here, to start the instant you arrive,
and pass over into the countries of the King of Spain.”
An ultimatum and a threat!

When that letter reached M. de Chevreuse, he took up
his pen, and the poor man poured out all his distress and
indignation and alarm, in his answer to his wife. “I cannot

217
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

understand,” he said, “‘on what pretext you can desire to
fly when I want to go and see you, after having written you
the reason for my journey, and made you so clearly under-
stand that I have no definite object save that of seeing
you and finding out the state of your affairs. I speak to
you now as your husband, and one who loves you as he
should, but who is beginning, too, to open his eyes and his
ears. The times, our private affairs, and your behaviour,
force me to this: for as for trying to make me believe you
really fear my using violence to force you to return, I am
quite certain you do not dream of that! Why, then, this
pretence? It must be to my person alone that you have
so much aversion: that is passing strange! After having
assured me, this long time, that you desired to return, and
when, amidst all these uncertainties, I desire to go and see
you, and fetch you back, you are pleased to tell me that as
soon as I arrive you will take to flight and retire into an
enemy’s country. How can I, in my own person, cause
so great an extremity and change in your intentions
as not only to make you delay them, but absolutely alter
them, and so bring us both to ruin and destruction?
Think well of this! Avoid your own shame and mine,
rather than my person! To conclude: I cannot change
my plan, and if I could; I would not; I have gone too far
in this matter of my journey. I must depart: and with
the promise that I shall not only be at Calais on the fourth
day of next month, but I will there await news from you
until the eighth, and then, if you are still in the same wise
mind as that you have so often written me, and which you
would have all the world believe is yours, I will not travel
farther, and will wait for you in France, wherever you
choose. But remember, I pray you, that you must not
deceive me again! I am not a fool; I know very well
what I am writing to you: I have thought about it only too
much! It is a very sore thing to me to see you treat me
as you do, and to see myself and our children brought
218
 

 

THE DUC DE CHEVREUSE

(From a contentporary painting in the Blois Museum)
IN ENGLAND

down to starvation and to the extremities to which your
behaviour has reduced us, with the impending ruin of our
house. I will confess to you that I am in great distress,
and that I do not know to what cause I am to ascribe
your behaviour, which is that of a very worthless person.
Recollect, once more, that I well know what I am saying!”

M. de Chevreuse was resolved to start. He was to leave
Paris on May 3, a Thursday; Friday, the 4th, would see
him at Calais, as he had explained to his wife. He would
cross afterwards. Just as he was departing, he received the
news that his Duchess had put her threat into execution,
had left England, and landed in Flanders, on Spanish
territory !

She had taken her departure on Tuesday, May 1, at
eleven o’clock in the morning, accompanied by the Spanish
Ambassador, the Marquis de Velada; the Duc de la Valette,
La Vieuville, Montague, Craft, and De Ville. By the
King’s order, Lord Newport had attended her as far as the
Downs, in case she should meet M. de Chevreuse. Charles
had presented her, as a parting gift, with a diamond worth
10,000 crowns. She had embarked at Rochester on the 5th,
and on the 8th, after an alarm, had landed, with Craft, at
Dunkirk, then a foreign port.

M. de Chevreuse was quite overwhelmed. He sent word
at once to Chavigny, the Secretary of State: he waited
on Richelieu ; he handed over all the letters he had received
from his wife, so terrified was he lest he should be suspected
of being in the plot with her. Richelieu desired him to
write to Charles I and beg the King to have the goodness
not to receive the Duchess into his kingdom in future.
M. de Chevreuse obeyed: he presented his request, so he
declared, on bended knees and with clasped hands.”
Charles I replied: “Your wife being of the quality she
is, and never having given me, during her stay at my
Court, the smallest cause for displeasure, I do not see how
I can refuse to allow her to return if she so decides. That

219
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

is a favour that all private persons may claim; how much
more, then, may it be hoped for by a lady of eminent
quality!” He was in the right.

Meanwhile, Mme. de Chevreuse, at Dunkirk, was suffer-
ing, from the very moment of her landing, from the miser-
able consequences of the false position in which she had
placed herself. She had no money, and hardly a friend.
She hesitated about proceeding to Brussels. But where
else was she to go? In her dismay, she made up her mind
to try her chance in Paris. She wrote a letter to
Louis XIII, accusing her “misfortune” as the cause of
what had just happened: she had gone to Dunkirk, she
said, with as much regret as “I felt when I went into
Spain, and with the same determination to leave it as
soon as the necessity which has brought me here permits
it.’ She made a great declaration of her respect for the
King, and “the affection she owed his person and his
service.” It was too late. Louis XIII did not reply.

Then she wrote to Anne of Austria, appealing to her
kindness, begging her to pity her in her suffering, beseech-
ing her to influence the King in her favour. The letter was
intercepted. By the King’s orders, it was handed un-
opened to the Queen. Her Majesty refused to take it, and
said, “she did not care to open any letter from a person
who conducted herself as Mme. de Chevreuse did, and who
was in the place where she was. She did not know what
fancy or what artifice had induced that woman to write to
her!”

Mme. de Chevreuse addressed herself to Richelieu. “I
acknowledge,” she wailed, “that at this hour I do not know
what to think of my misfortunes!” She implored the
Cardinal to show her mercy; she mentioned the dangers
to which her husband’s journey to London had exposed
her, without specifying what those dangers were: she
avowed “the pain it cost her to make up her mind to go
further into this country”: she wanted to return to France;

220
IN ENGLAND

she besought the “good graces of the King,” the “good-
will” of the Cardinal. Richelieu, too, sent no answer.

She wrote to her husband. M. de Chevreuse ordered
the servant who brought him the letter to carry it instantly,
with the seal unbroken, to the Secretary of State, M. de
Chavigny.

The Duchess was in despair. Nobody at Brussels
seemed to desire her presence; she was advised to go to
Bruges. The King of Spain and Olivares were disposed
to think she had better come to Madrid. At the bottom of
her heart she would rather have gone back to France. She
was forsaken, without resource of any kind. “Iam ruined,
and as it were in a desert,” she wrote; “nobody gives me
any consolation, I cannot see any one without render-
ing them an object of suspicion, and my solitude is stuffed
with a thousand mortifications.”

But she was not the sort of woman to let herself be dis-
heartened for long at a time. She would pull herself
together ; she would defy misfortune. What did it matter,
after all? “I shall always have the satisfaction,” she said
proudly, “of having tried to sacrifice myself a second time
for my own blood, and despised all the dangers I risked
in the doing of it! Nothing makes one so bold as a good
conscience! Nobody shall ever have cause to cast the
smallest reproach on me, but rather the reverse: I will
always behave to every one like a Christian, and a very
generous one!” M. de Chevreuse, she said, was the cause
of everything that had happened to her. “If the husband
had not ruined everything, things might have been ordered
just as people desired!” She invoked the help of Provi-
dence: “I have so recommended my intentions to God that
I shall accept all that may come of them as being sent by
His hand. . .. I hope, God putting His hand to this
business, that all things will shortly fade away!”

It was impossible for her to stay on at Dunkirk. She
went to Brussels. She busied herself there, began her old

221
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

tricks. She saw the governor of the Low Countries, Don
Antonio Sarmiento, circumvented him, made love to him.
Though she was near her fortieth year, her charm must still
have been irresistible, for—so Mazarin tells us—Antonio
Sarmiento fell into her clutches. Through him she
recovered her power. On November 6, 1640, M. de Mon-
treuil reported to Belliévre that she was offering to act as
go-between for the King of Spain on one hand, and La
Valette and Soubise on the other—these gentlemen having
promised to raise a rebellion against Louis XIII in
Guyenne, in consideration of their being allowed a thou-
sand crowns a month. A few weeks later, she was throwing
herself heart and soul into the revolt of the Comte de
Soissons.

The Comte de Soissons, who had taken up arms against
Louis XIII on the frontier, near Sedan, had sent one of
his gentlemen, Alexandre de Campion, a young and
brilliant cavalier about thirty years of age, as his envoy to
win over the Duchess. Campion had not found it difficult
co obtain the adhesion of Mme. de Chevreuse. She wrote
to Olivares, she swept Don Antonio Sarmiento into the
business; she helped Campion to raise troops and to find
officers for them. The sudden close of the undertaking is
a matter of history. Soissons was killed on the battle-
field of Marfée, in the moment of victory. “I was so per-
suaded,” wrote Campion to the Duchess on July 21, 1641,
“of the sorrow the death of M. le Comte would cause you,
that even if you had not testified it in your letter, I should
have believed in it none the less. The interests of all those
to whom Monseigneur the Cardinal bears ill will were so
bound up with his, that as many illustrious and unhappy
persons lose all their hope in losing him, and as of these
you are the chief, you lose in proportion to the advantage
you would have gained by his victory.”

“You are the chief of all those to whom the Cardinal
bears ill-will.’ Campion was right! Till Richelieu

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IN ENGLAND

breathed his last, the Duchess was to continue his in-
veterate enemy, and obstinately to adhere to her refusal
to return to France: she was never to see his face again.

In a Memorandum, tinged with melancholy, drawn up
by the Cardinal on June 15, 1640, he demonstrates to the
King that there is no hope of peace with external
enemies, the Spaniards being determined not to conclude
any treaty, and Mme. de Chevreuse having set forth to
them all the reasons likely to make them adhere to this
resolve. He sums these reasons up: A sick monarch,
weary of the war; an invalid prime minister, who has but
a short time to live; and, when both Sovereign and
Cardinal shall have passed away, the return of all the
exiles, and France a prey to disorders in which the
Spaniards will surely find their account. Richelieu was
a true prophet!

Mme. de Chevreuse was resolved to await the realiza-
tion of his prediction. She was not to await it long. On
December 2, 1642, after a few weeks’ illness, the Cardinal,
worn out in body, exhausted by prolonged bad health,
drew his last breath.

223
CHAPTER VIII

THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII: THE RETURN OF MADAME
DE CHEVREUSE

Animosity or Louis XIII against Mme. de Chevreuse—The King’s
Death—Return of Mme. de Chevreuse—Her Intrigues: The “Im-
portants ”—The plot against Mazarin--Mme. de Chevreuse in exile
—Her underhand dealings—Her flight into Flanders—1643-47.

As long as Richelieu lived, and Louis XIII, worn by
suffering, grew weaker and weaker, the contemporary con-
viction that the monarch was the Cardinal’s prisoner, a
mere toy in his Minister's hands, grew continually
stronger. The King’s attitude, on the very morrow of the
Cardinal’s death, may well have undeceived it.

To the great surprise of Louis XIII, St. Germain was
invaded, the moment the breath was out of the Cardinal’s
body, by a host of suitors, all convinced that everything
in the kingdom would now be changed, that Richelieu’s
friends were to be driven out, fresh Ministers summoned to
power, the exiles recalled, the prisoners set free, and all
the victims of the late régime reinstated in their dignities
and honours. The King grew angry. He was well aware
of the theory which represented him to be a “sluggard
king,” ruled with absolute power by a “mayor of the
palace.” All that had been seen in print, often enough,
in the libels published during the fifteen years of his
reign: his own brother had written it to him, in dis-
respectful letters which their disputes had made public
property. A score of times Louis had endeavoured, directly
or indirectly, to assert the contrary: no attention had ever
been paid to his denials.

He now began by making it known all over the king-

224
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII ‘

dom, in letters addressed to the Governor of every province,
that the Cardinal’s death did not in any sense modify the
policy of the Government: the Minister’s former colla-
borators retained their offices, the exiles remained in
banishment; as for the suitors, His Majesty announced that
“he would send those who had the boldness to speak to him
of banished persons, prisoners, and other wretches, to the
Bastille.” One of his former favourites, Barradas, fancy-
ing he had only been sacrificed to a personal antipathy
on Richelieu’s part, caused his entreaty for leave to return
to the Louvre to be submitted to the King, and Louis
XIII “curtly replied that he (Barradas) had better stay
quietly at home, and if he should need his services he
would let him know it.” Wearied at last by the influx of
people, Louis XIII left Saint-Germain and betook himself
to Versailles, where etiquette permitted of his living alone,
far from the Court and Court intriguers. Goulas thus
sums it up: “All the persons who presented themselves
in the hope of serving their friends or relations who had
been persecuted under the late Government, or of finding
their advantage in the death of his Eminence, were
extremely disappointed, and as the same Ministers
remained in office, and followed the same maxims, there
was no sign that the Cardinal de Richelieu was dead, and
that fortune was likely to disturb and confuse the affairs of
France.”

Less than any other person was Mme. de Chevreuse
warranted in the hope the King’s displeasure might be
softened. She knew how deeply he disliked her, she knew
too well how many and various were the elements that went
to make up his personal animosity against her. She
thought it wiser to put no request forward. In the course
of the few months he had to live, Louis XIII was to give
public proof of his inveterate rage and hostility against her.

Even while his vital powers slowly failed, consumed as he
was by a slow decline, his mind, clear and resolute as ever,

Q 225
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

was haunted as by a fixed idea—the thought of Mme.
de Chevreuse. In his talks with Mazarin, with Anne of
Austria, with Chavigny, he constantly referred to her, and
spoke of her “hotly, saying that confusion, disorder
and misfortune would never be absent from the place where
the said lady might be, and that wherever she had gone
she had done fatal harm!” Not only did he refuse to
admit he could possibly be asked to allow Mme. de
Chevreuse to return to France, but he was careful to say,
over and over again, that she must not be allowed, at
any price, to come back after his own death. He laid the
greatest stress on this, asserting that no one knew better
than himself what complications that woman was capable
of causing: they must protect themselves against her
“like the plague.” In one of his letters Mazarin, recall-
ing this advice, sadly writes: “The late King was inspired
by God for the good of this kingdom!”

And it was this particular anxiety, in part, which caused
Louis XIII so much perplexity as to the arrangements he
should make for his son’s Regency. One of his reasons
for refusing to leave Anne of Austria full authority as
Regent was that he feared the Duchess might recover her
former influence over the Queen’s mind, and foresaw the
lamentable results, from the political point of view, of the
power of a creature concerning whose intrigues with the
Spaniards he was only too well informed. “He could not
make up his mind,” writes La Rochefoucald, “to proclaim
the Queen Regent, having always suspected her of a secret
understanding with Spain, and not doubting that it (the
understanding) would be still further fomented by Mme.
de Chevreuse.” Mme. de Chevreuse, to carry her own
ideas through in the Council Chamber, would certainly
demand the recall of Chateauneuf to the Ministry: so the
necessity for keeping Chateauneuf at a distance was bound
up, in the mind of Louis XIII, with that of leaving the
Duchess in her exile.

226
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

Thus when, on April 21, 1643, just three weeks before
he actually passed away, the King, feeling death close
upon him, at last drew up the Declaration whereby he
refused Anne of Austria sovereign authority as Regent,
and nominated the Council which was to rule the State in
the name of his infant son, Louis XIV, he took care that
the exclusion of Mme. de Chevreuse from the kingdom and
the continued absence of Chateauneuf should be speci-
fically mentioned in it. ‘Seeing it is our intention,” he
wrote, “to provide for all the subjects which might in any
manner disturb the good settlement we here make, to pre-
serve the peace and quietness of our realm, our know-
ledge of the evil conduct of the Lady Duchess of Chev-
reuse and the artifices she has hitherto used to make
quarrels within our kingdom, the factions and intelligences
she keeps up outside it, and with our enemies, leads us to
judge it wise to forbid her—as we do now forbid her—to
come into our kingdom during the war; and our will is
that, even when peace has been made and carried out,
she shall not return into this kingdom save by the order
of the said Lady Regent, with the consent of the said
Council, and nevertheless on condition that she shall never
make her dwelling, nor be, in any place near the Court, or
the said Lady Queen.”

And as to Chateauneuf: ‘Seeing that for great and im-
portant reasons, affecting the welfare of our service, we
have been constrained to deprive the Sieur de Chateauneuf
of the office of Keeper of the Seals of France, and to have
him taken to the Castle of Angouléme, where he has
remained until this present time, according to our orders,
our will and pleasure are that the said Sieur de.Chateauneuf
shall remain in the same state, and in the same said
Castle of Angouléme, until after peace shall havé been con-
cluded and carried out, on condition, nevertheless, that he
shall only then be set at liberty by the order of the said
Lady Regent and with the consent of the said Council,

227
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

which will give orders concerning the place to which he
shall retire, either within the kingdom, or beyond the
borders of the kingdom, as may be thought most
expedient.”

Mme. de Motteville, in her Memoirs, and Mazarin, in one
of his letters, tell us how, while the rough draft of this
Declaration was being read aloud to the dying King, he
lay listening, in silence and with closed eyes. When the
reader reached the passage dealing with Mme. de Chev-
reuse, Louis roused himself, and lifted himself up in the
bed, with a feverish light in his eyes; then, when the
last words had been spoken, he cried, with anger in his
voice, “That is the devil! There! That is the devil!”
Goulas adds that M. de Chevreuse, who was in the
adjoining room, was much distressed by the King’s
words, and Louis sent him a message to the effect that he
had the greatest personal esteem for him, and “testified
that he had always served him well.”

On May 14, 1643, Louis XIII died.

Anne of Austria, advised by Mazarin, caused the King’s
will to be set aside by Parliament, laid hands on the
sovereign power as Regent which her husband had refused
to give her, and set out to rule the kingdom. At the
solemn session held to proclaim the Parliament’s decision,
the little King, ‘“‘a baby in a bib, was carried in by the
Duc de Chevreuse, his Great Chamberlain.” Was this a
portent? M. de Chevreuse was full of hope. If the new
Government, thought he, had paid so little heed to the late
King’s wishes on the point which had lain nearest his
heart, surely it was still less likely to insist on less im-
portant injunctions, such as that connected with the exile
of his Duchess! M. de Chevreuse was mistaken !

When Anne of Austria took up the Regency she
assumed the reins of power with a heart that was far from
brave. She knew nothing at all about State affairs, and
besides, “her lack of confidence in herself and her humility

228
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

were so great,” writes Mme. de Motteville, “that she could
not be otherwise than convinced of her own incapacity for
government.” Convinced himself as to this incapacity,
Louis XIII, on his death-bed, had earnestly charged her not
to part with the Minister he was leaving with her—Mazarin.
An Italian by birth, noted by Richelieu and by the King
himself on account of his remarkable qualities as a
politician, his immense experience of business, and his
exceedingly sound sense, Mazarin had devoted himself to
the service of France. Louis XIII, anxious to leave a
statesman behind him who—amidst frivolous and carping
courtiers, and a public opinion that varied from day to
day, and was apt to call out for peace at any price—
would realize the object of the policy of the country
and carry that policy. through, had made Mazarin a
Cardinal and his Minister, had initiated him into his own
views, had insisted on his standing Godfather to the future
Louis XIV, so as to force on him certain duties as the
boy’s helper and: protector which would bind him closer
to the child, and had extracted a promise from him that
he would never abandon Anne of Austria or the young
King. Mazarin had given his word. Anne of Austria, in
her ignorance and her alarm, could not do otherwise than
accept the statesman thus recommended to her; she con-
tinued him in his office, and learning as she did, day by
day, to value his powers, she kept him about her, faithfully,
till he died. History and her own contemporaries have
been surprised by this fidelity. They have sought to
explain it by asserting that the two were bound together
by an affair of the heart, and that in the end they were
married. The correspondence of Anne of Austria and
Mazarin, which proves the exceedingly lively friendship
and close understanding that existed between them, has
seemed to confirm this explanation, put forward originally
by various pamphleteers. But, mysterious though some
passages in these letters are, as a matter of fact they supply
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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

no decisive proof. The silence on this subject of all those
who approached the Queen and her Minister most nearly,
whether as enemies or friends, strengthens our doubt. As
yet we have no clear reason for believing there was
any feeling between Anne of Austria and Mazarin beyond
that affectionate friendship and perfect mutual understand-
ing which naturally grows up out of the necessity of
sharing daily duties.

Now Mazarin, who had spent many months in close
intercourse with Louis XIII and Richelieu, knew how the
King had hated Mme. de Chevreuse. In his own hand
we shall find, in later days—and how much more richly
deserved—the very same complaints against the Duchess!
Mme. de Chevreuse could not reckon on any goodwill on
the part of the new Minister. Luckily for her, Mazarin’s
nature was neither adamant, like that of the dead
Cardinal, nor inexorable, like that of the late King. A
foreigner, with few friends, and little prestige, his cue was
to wear his adversaries out instead of breaking them down,
like his mighty predecessor; he must be supple, conciliat-
ing. He has been accused of cowardice: Ritz wrote of
him: “On the steps of the throne, whence Richelieu, the
harsh and terrible, had crushed, rather than ruled, the
human race, we saw a successor who was gentle, mild, who
asked for nothing, who was grieved to the heart because
his dignity forbade him to humble himself in the sight of
all men, as he would fain have done!” The Minister’s
foes were to turn his weakness and lack of energy to the
best advantage. The first to benefit by them was Mme.
de Chevreuse.

The dawn of the Regency was full of promise. This
time the reaction which had failed to appear when Riche-
lieu died was really taking place. Anne of Austria was
said to be very kind-hearted. The Queen and Mazarin,
not feeling strong enough to stand against the reaction,
began to give way. “All those who had been beyond

230
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

the frontiers of the kingdom,” writes Lenet, ‘came back,
one after the other, and at that poor Prince’s funeral
(Louis XIII), we beheld all the people who had been
banished, hung, broken on the wheel, beheaded, or thrown
into prison!” In the eyes of the public the Government
of the Regency seemed a Government of reparation.
The victims of the previous reign were all hurrying back.
Mme. de Chevreuse was quite sure she might come back
too!

But her dignity demanded that she should not do it too
quickly. Now that her old friend Anne of Austria, whose
sorrows she had shared for so many years, either as con-
fidant or accomplice, for whom she had suffered so much,
and endured all the severities of her long exile, was
sovereign mistress of the realm, she owed her a brilliant
reception, at least! Who, as Mme. de Motteville puts it,
“had reigned” like her “in the Queen’s heart, and through
all her disgrace had kept up her intercourse with her, and
had appeared to possess her friendship more completely ?”
But Mme. de Chevreuse was deceiving herself.

Towards the end of the life of Louis XIII the Queen’s
feelings for Mme. de Chevreuse had undergone a change.
Was it as a matter of prudence that she began, in‘ Riche-
lieu’s presence, to express hostility to the Duchess? Once
already she had refused, and in somewhat scornful
language, to accept a letter from her friend. On July 28,
1642, Chavigny wrote to Richelieu: ‘The Queen has care-
fully inquired from me whether it is true that Mme. de
Chevreuse is coming back, and has intimated to me that
she would be grieved to see her shortly in France again,
that she knew her for what she really was, and com-
manded me to beg your Eminence from her, if you desire
to do something for Mme. de Chevreuse, to do it without
allowing her to return to France. I assured Her Majesty
she should have satisfaction on this head.” And again on
August 12: “The Queen protests that not only will she

231
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

not permit Mme. de Chevreuse to come near her, but that
she is resolved, as on her own salvation, never again to
allow any person to say one word to her against her duty.”
Was the Cing-Mars business, in which Mme. de Chevreuse
was suspected of having had a hand, and thus, possibly, the
Queen as well, the cause of these prudent assertions? That
may have been, but far more probably Anne of Austria,
as she grew older, as her experience widened and her
intelligence matured, was beginning to realize the frivolity
and inconsistency of character of the woman who had led
her to play parts so unworthy of herself. She came to the
conclusion that the influence exercised over her had been
disastrous, and made up her mind to free herself from it.

When, after the death of Louis XIII, she took up the
reins of power, her anxiety as to her responsibilities, the
gravity of mind resulting from the habit of exercising
power, a clearer appreciation of real political necessities,
strengthened feelings which had already taken firm root
in her heart. Mme. de Chevreuse found her former crony
had become a Princess to whom her return to France
was no more welcome than to Richelieu or Louis XIII:
and in this feeling she was approved and encouraged by
Mazarin.

Amongst the friends of the Duchess, Marsillac—la
Rochefoucauld—was the first to realize the change in the
Queen’s views. He had remarked the coldness of the
Regent’s manner whenever Mme. de Chevreuse was men-
tioned to her. He tried to obtain an explanation, and
Anne of Austria made no difficulty about declaring to him
that she still regarded the Duchess with affection, but that
after the late King’s express orders that she should not
be allowed to return to France, she found it very difficult
to grant her permission to do so. And, she added, with
some hesitation, that “as she (the Queen) had no taste
now for the amusements that had bound them together in
their youth, she feared she might appear changed to her.”

232
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

Much astonished, La Rochefoucauld argued the question.
In the course of the conversation, Anne of Austria went so
far as to say “that she knew by her own experience how
well able Mme. de Chevreuse was to disturb the repose of
her Regency ”; that she was sure to plot against Mazarin
just as she had plotted against Richelieu, that she would
make endless difficulties for the Government. La Roche-
foucauld tried to defend his friend: he pleaded her cause
eagerly. “I pointed out to her,” he writes, “what con-
fusion and surprise so unexpected a change would cause
in the public mind and among her own old servants, when
they saw her first marks of severity fall on Mme. de
Chevreuse. I set forth the fidelity of her attachment to
her, and the long duration of the misfortunes it had entailed
on her; I besought her to consider the levity of which she
herself would be thought capable, and the interpretation
that would be put on that levity. The conversation was
long and stormy.” There was something in the arguments
put before her, and Anne of Austria was sorely perplexed.
If everybody else was to come back, how could she, indeed,
keep out Mme. de Chevreuse, whose former friendship with
the Regent was a matter of common knowledge? “Ah!”
cried the poor Queen to one of her ladies, Mme. de Fruges,
“T was much happier at Saint-Germain, where I had
nothing to do with State affairs, for I understand nothing
about governing, and yet govern I must! Still, I trust to
God to help me, since He has given me good intentions,
and a very well-disposed Minister, full of wisdom and
impartiality.”

Just at that moment the position of that same Minister
was beginning to cause her serious alarm. A most
threatening opposition was rising up against him. The
Duc de Vendéme’s son, Francois, Duc de Beaufort, a
young fellow of eight-and-twenty, presumptuous, thought-
less, passionate, was attacking him fiercely. Thanks to the
name he bore, and the power and splendour of his family,

233
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

he had succeeded in gathering a dangerous group of
partisans about him. Anne of Austria grew anxious.
The friends of Mme. de Chevreuse took advantage of the
situation to point out to the Queen, and to Mazarin, that
there was a method of counterbalancing the too great
influence wielded by the Vendéme Princes—this was to
use the Guise-Lorraine Princes against them. Now,
through Mme. de Chevreuse, the Regent might lay her
hand on these! Let her bring back the Duchess, and she
would stand by the Government. Thus, the return of the
exile was becoming a political necessity. Anne of Austria
wavered, she knew not what to do.

At all events she would write to Mme. de Chevreuse.
She advised her, vaguely, to live, when she did come back
to Paris, “in good understanding” with the Cardinal.
Mazarin, on his part, sent Lord Montague with a some-
what clumsy offer to the Duchess of any sum of money she
might need to pay off her debts. “He hoped there would
be a close friendship between her and him.” Here was
a change, indeed, and more—these were advances! Mme.
de Chevreuse felt some surprise. She had been informed
that neither the Regent nor the Cardinal had at first been
favourably disposed towards her. This sudden right-about
filled her with satisfaction, but it puzzled her, too. So
they wanted to make use of her! On the other hand, she
had been warned not to trust the Cardinal: her friends,
she had been told, had already declared themselves against
the Minister: she must not leave them in the lurch. And
besides, Mazarin was certainly playing some deceitful
game: he was on the best terms with Richelieu’s family,
and the Duchess loathed them all. Alexandre de Campion,
who was still her close friend, advised her to decide
nothing, to wait, to see for herself: “The advice I take
the liberty of giving you on this subject,” he wrote, “is
that you should make no final decision till you have seen
the Queen, according to whose feelings you will have the

234
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

joy of guiding your conduct.” On this advice Mme. de
Chevreuse resolved to act.

She now had virtual leave to return to Paris. She
begged Alexandre de Campion to come as far as Péronne
to meet her, desired La Rochefoucauld to join her at Roye,
and then, Boispillé, the faithful steward, having brought
her all she wanted for her journey, she set out.

She left Brussels on June 6, 1643. Her coach was
followed by twenty more, filled with ladies and gentlemen,
Spaniards and Flemings, wha desired to do her honour
by attending her a few leagues on her way. She reached
Mons, where she traversed the lines of the Spanish army.
Passing through Condé, on the oth, she arrived at
Cambrai. By Mazarin’s orders she was received at every
halt with the greatest respect. Governors of castles and
governors of towns went to meet her a league outside each
fortress, and attended her for another league beyond it.
Monsieur d’ Hocquincourt, who had gone to receive her on
the frontier, conducted her to Péronne; here the Duc de
Chaulnes and his Duchess entertained her splendidly.
Thence’ Mme. de Chevreuse travelled to Roye, where she
found La Rochefoucauld waiting for her, and likewise
Montague, sent once again by Mazarin to make her “all
the advances which might draw her into his friendship
and his interests.” She and La Rochefoucauld held a long
conference. He warned her that she would find great
changes at Court: he advised her to follow the Queen’s
lead, to get herself into the Cardinal’s good books, to accept
any offers he might make her, if she wished them to be
continued. Mazarin, he declared, was not guilty of any
crime: he had had nothing to do with the violent measures
taken by Richelieu: he was almost the only man who
knew anything about foreign politics. As for thinking
she would lead the Queen as she had done in old times,
she must put that idea out of her head. ‘Mme. de Chev-
reuse,” writes La Rochefoucauld, “assured me she was

235
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

resolved to follow my advice in every particular.” Her
counsellor had perhaps made her realize that what he said
to her was said in the Queen’s name.

From Roye, on the 13th, Mme. de Chevreuse went to
Versine. On the 14th, ten years after she had left the city,
she was in Paris! Her return took the proportions of an
event! Everybody talked about it. Crowds of people
went to the house in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre to
greet the Duchess. In the Gazette we read: “The great
procession of continual visitors from the Court, which
makes the great spaces of her hotel seem all too small, does
not fill any of us with so deep an admiration as the remark
made that the fatigues of her long journeys, and the effects
of the severity of her fortunes have not brought about the
smallest change in her natural magnanimity, nor, which is
still more extraordinary, in her beauty!” Mazarin’s per-
mission for the insertion of this notice in the “official”
newspaper of that period proves the importance he attached
to the co-operation of the Duchess. He stood in need of it!

The struggle between the Cardinal and the Beaufort-
Vendéme party had, in fact, taken evident shape. On
each side the adversaries were reckoning on help from
Mme. de Chevreuse. ‘‘The Court was so divided,” says
La Rochefoucauld, “that the return of Mme. de Chevreuse
was being waited for to decide everything: she was not
looked on.as a person who would be satisfied with support-
ing one side, but as one who would certainly destroy
whichever side was the least connected with her.” The
Duchess estimated her own power very highly. In spite
of the counsels given her by La Rochefoucauld, she was
persuaded that once she was back with the Queen she
would recover her former influence, be told all about public
affairs, and called on to give her advice. These pretensions
disturbed Anne of Austria’s mind. And further, “not
knowing,” as d’Estrées tells us, “what engagements the
Duchess might still be under to the Spaniards, from whose

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THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

company she was so lately come,” the Regent was quite
determined to maintain the greatest reserve in her dealings
with her former friend.

Wherefore, when Mme. de Chevreuse went to the Louvre
to pay her duty to her sovereign, she had a most chilly
reception. La Chatre tells us that after a few civil words,
Anne of Austria, looking somewhat uncomfortable, ex-
plained to the Duchess that “the allies of France might
become suspicious if they knew her to be with her so soon
after her return from Flanders, and that for this reason
she must take a little journey into the country ”’—to
Dampierre! The Duchess was amazed. After a certain
amount of hesitation she replied that she was ready to
obey, “but that she besought the Queen to recollect that
the whole of Europe knew she had been persecuted for her
love of Her Majesty, and that she would perhaps be doing
herself an injury if she sent her away so quickly”; she
entreated the Queen to ask the opinion of the Cardinal,
who was present. Mazarin, thus tackled, did not dare to
advise the Queen to persist.

This first meeting had been unsatisfactory. As a matter
of fact, the two ladies hardly recognized each other. Mme.
de Chevreuse “no longer found the Queen as she had
left her; and as a consequence of this change the Queen,
on her side, no longer found in her the charms which had
delighted her in former days.” After a period of dissimula-
tion, Mme. de Chevreuse declared herself openly against
Mazarin. The plot was thickening!

She put herself into communication with the Beaufort
party, and was soon informed of all that party’s interests
and ambitions. Greatly distressed, Mazarin went to her,
questioned her: what did she really want? He was ready
to do anything to be agreeable to her! Would she like
20,000 francs? Or 200,000? Mme. de Chevreuse refused ;
she held forth about the complaints and claims of her
friends: the Duc de Vendéme wanted the Admiralty and

237
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

the Governorship of Brittany, which Richelieu had taken
from him; the Duc d’Epernon wanted to be reinstated in
his offices; M. de Marsillac wanted to be Governor. of the
Havre. But all these demands were dangerous, expostu-
lated Mazarin: to give away the governship of the Havre
he must take it from Richelieu’s heirs; to please Vendéme
he would have to make the Duc de Brézé, another of the
late Cardinal’s relations, resign the Admiralty. Well, he
would do his best! And Brienne, who carried out the
negotiations, did attain a measure of success. Then Mme.
de Chevreuse demanded the release of Chateauneuf, -and
his appointment to the Ministry. This time Mazarin gave
her a flat refusal: nothing would induce him to consent
to Chateauneuf’s return. ‘He plainly showed the Queen,”
says Goulas, ‘the inconveniences to which she would
expose herself if she summoned Chateauneuf to the Council
Board.”

Then Mme. de Chevreuse, emboldened by Mazarin’s
apparent humility, and by the concessions she had already
obtained, took a high tone. She grew impatient: she
ventured: to speak to the Queen, ‘complaining of the
Cardinal, and expressing herself in terms which led the
Regent to suspect she had come back persuaded she
still had full power over her mind.” Anne of Austria was
much displeased. She, too, was resolved Chateauneuf
should not come back. There was thunder in the air!
Mazarin, like his predecessor, was sick and tired of the
the Duchess. “You are most happy!” he said, later, to
the Spanish Minister, Don Luis de Haro. “In your
country, as in all others, you have two sorts of women, an
abundance of coquettes, and very few good women: the
first think of nothing but pleasing their lovers, the second
of nothing but pleasing their husbands; in both cases
their only ambition is for luxury and vanity. But our
women, on the contrary, whether they be prudes or light
women, old or young, clever or fools, all want to interfere

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THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

in everything! An honest woman would not sleep with
her husband, nor a loose one with her lover, unless he had
first told her something about the affairs of the State.
They must know everything, see everything, be told every-
thing, and what is worse, they must do everything and
muddle everything. We have some here who daily throw
us into a greater confusion than ever there was in
Babylon!”

The reason for which Mme. de Chevreuse insisted so
much on Chateauneuf’s return was not only on account of
the personal interests of her accomplices: she had certain
theories as to general politics which she proposed to realize,
thanks to the return to power of the former Keeper of the
Seals. Now these theories were neither more nor less than
peace at any price with Spain, and a reconciliation with
the House of Austria—in other words, a complete reversal
of the policy of Richelieu.

Chateauneuf, after his ten years of vegetation in his
prison at Angouléme—whence, on March 23, 1643, he had
written to Chavigny concerning his great longing to
“leave the rough and miserable condition in which he was
kept there, at an advanced age, and full of sicknesses which
left him no peace,” had been set at liberty early in the
Regency, and allowed to live in his own house at Mont-
rouge, near Paris: he kept very quiet indeed.

Mme. de Chevreuse opened her campaign. She began
by praising the former Minister’s qualities to the Queen :
she talked about his ‘lengthened business experience; he
was firm and decided,” she declared; ‘“‘he cared for the
State, and was more fitted than any other man to re-estab-
lish the old form of government, the destruction of which
Cardinal de Richelieu had begun.” Anne of Austria gave
her evasive answers. By this time she was deliberately
putting aside whatever Mme. de Chevreuse asked her to
do, while Mazarin amused the lady “with submissive and
flattering words.” AIme. de Chevreuse lost her patience.

239
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

“Nothing,” she said over and over again, “was being
done for her nor for her friends, and the Cardinal’s power
was growing greater every day.” The civilities Mazarin
heaped on her were nothing but ‘‘artifices.” She made
noisy complaints. ‘She expressed her dissatisfaction to
the Queen,” writes La Rochefoucauld, “‘and with her
complaints she always mingled something sharp and
scornful about the Cardinal’s personal weaknesses.” She
certainly had immense confidence in her own strength.

This strength had its root in the power her friends of
the Beaufort-Vendéme party claimed to possess. The
members of this party were derisively nicknamed “The
Importants.” They thought themselves, masters of the
position. But a very strong opposition was rising up
against them. When Mme. de Chevreuse had demanded
the recall of Chateauneuf, the Princesse de Condé, by birth
a Montmorency, who had never forgiven the former Keeper
of the Seals his death-sentence on her brother, the Duc
Henri de Montmorency, at whose trial he had presided, had
made a fierce attack on the Duchess and her partisans. Her
daughter, the brilliant Duchesse de Longueville, who was
to play so active a part in the intrigues of the Fronde,
shared her mother’s indignation. Mazarin was overjoyed:
here were allies!’ The Condé family poured out the vials
of its wrath on Mme. de Chevreuse: its members com-
plained of her to the Queen; she was an intriguing
woman, they cried, as dangerous to the Regent as she
had been to the late King, a criminal! Willingly enough,
Anne of Austria listened. She was realizing the extent
of the justification for the late King’s hatred of Mme. de
Chevreuse, and the necessity for the measures he had
taken respecting her.

Informed as to the Government’s arrangements, or
ignorant of them, we know not which, Mme. de Chevreuse,
either as a deliberate move in her tactics, or out of sheer
imprudence, made herself twice as troublesome as before.

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THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

In June and July, Mazarin set down in his notebooks that,
thanks to her, the Vendéme party was gaining adherents :
she had brought over the Duc de Guise, who had consented
to act as mediator in the hope of attracting the Duc
d’Elbeuf. The Cardinal had also been warned that the
Duchess was preparing the way for the realization of her
projects, and to that end was thinking of buying an island
on the Breton coast, where she might find a refuge in case
of danger: she was actually negotiating with Mme.
d’Assérac for the purchase of Belle-le; Campion was to
be governor of the island; she was to piroosed there with
her lover, Don Antonio Sarmiento: with the Vendéme
Princes masters of the Admiralty and of Brittany, Belle-Ile
would be a safe resort. Mazarin was resolved to put a stop
at all costs to these arrangements. His notebooks prove
him to have been very much taken up, at this moment, by
the Duchess’s behaviour: he mentions her constantly,
notes her smallest actions, grows angry, breaks out into
expressions of rage and impatience: “We must get rid
of this Chevreuse, who sets up a thousand plots!” he says.
“This woman will be the ruin of France! All this will
grow worse and worse as time goes on, till at last there
will be no possibility of curing it!” But what was to be
done? At one moment the Cardinal, thoroughly dis-
heartened, thought of giving up the struggle, and leaving
France himself. But circumstances were leading up to
a crisis that was to give him a chance of using strong
measures, and the difficulty was thus to be solved.
Court life had begun again, more brilliant than ever:
banquets and festive gatherings followed one upon the
other in quick succession, all of them crowded with numer-
ous and busy guests, frivolous enough as far as their out-
ward appearance went, but whose passions, well alight,
were none the less smouldering just below the sur-
face. The hatred between the Oitehces and the Condé
family grew deeper every day. The most trivial incident

R 241
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

might cause a scene at any moment. The incident did
crop up, thanks to Mme. de Montbazon, step-mother of
Mime. de Chevreuse.

Madame de Montbazon was then a woman of thirty-
three. Tall, well-proportioned, flexible in figure, with a
bosom, so Mme. de Motteville used to say, “modelled like
that the most gifted sculptors shew us as having been
possessed by the ancient Greek and Roman beauties”;
“fine-looking, of a noble stature and an exquisite carriage,”
adds Goulas—Mme. de Montbazon was one of the most
admired beauties of the Court. She was not reckoned
intelligent, it is true—she was vain, haughty, full of dis-
dain; but she had “a free and bold manner which was
natural to her,” and which was considered most attractive.
Very much sought after, a great coquette, many men had
fallen in love with her, and she had been kind to them all.
“Never,” says Retz, “was there a woman of so easy-going
a composition. ...I1 never saw anybody who, in the
midst of vice, had preserved so little respect for virtue.”
She had lived with Gaston d’Orléans, she had lived with

_her own husband’s son-in-law, the Duc de Chevreuse: at
that moment she was living with Beaufort.

Exceedingly intimate with Mme. de Chevreuse, her
senior by ten years, the Duchesse de Montbazon, for Beau-
fort’s sake, was one of her step-daughter’s most eager
partisans. No other was so aggressive, nor so quarrel-
some. It was in her house that the incident took place.

One day in August, 1643, not being very well, she was
receiving her friends in her bedroom. A number of people
had come to see her, and amongst them Comte Maurice
de Coligny. Some anonymous letters of a passionate
nature, written in a feminine hand, and filled with
reproaches, threats of rupture, and expressions of a tender
and melancholy affection, fell out of this gentleman’s
pocket, and were picked up in the room. M. de Coligny
was believed to be the lover of Mme. de Longueville, and

242
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

Mme. de Montbazon concluded these love-letters had come
from the Duc de Condé’s fascinating sister: this was per-
fectly untrue. They were proved, at a later period, to
have been written by Mme. de Fouquerolles, and addressed
to M. de Maulévrier. Beaufort published the incident
abroad : he carried the story from house to house, there was
a world of talk about it. The Condé family rose up in
wrath, protested fiercely against the calumny, accused
Mme. de Montbazon and Mme. de Chevreuse of having
slandered a member of their house. Anne of Austria,
thoroughly annoyed, sent for the letters, showed them to
Mme. de Longueville’s friends, convinced herself they had
not been written by the Duchess, and caused them to be
burnt. She forced Mme. de Montbazon to apologize, and
formal communications of the most curt and chilly kind
were exchanged between the ladies—somewhat stiff on
Mme. de Montbazon’s side, and haughty on that of the
Condé Princess.

Now very shortly after this episode, Mme. de Chevreuse
was to entertain the Queen at a “collation ’—an afternoon
lunch—in an exceedingly fashionable garden, which a man
of the name of Renard had planted at one end of the
Tuileries, and made, as Guy Joly tells us, “a delightful
retreat, where people of the highest quality went to divert
themselves.” Mme. de Montbazon was of the party, and
helped her step-daughter to do the honours. Anne of
Austria arrived, accompanied by the Princesse de Condé,
who had only consented to go with the Queen because she
had been assured Mme. de Montbazon was ill and would
not be present at the gathering. When she saw the
Duchess she would herself have retired, but Anne of
Austria begged her to remain. Pressed by the Princess,
the Queen sent a message requesting Mme. de Montbazon
would be good enough to help her out of the difficulty by
taking her departure. This Mme. de Montbazon refused
to do. In great displeasure, the Queen took her leave, and

243
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

a large proportion of the lady guests followed her example:
there was a regular scandal.

Great was the perturbation that ensued! The affront
had been a public one! All the “Importants” took sides
with Mme. de Montbazon and Mme. de Chevreuse. Anne
of Austria commanded Mme. de Montbazon to go into
exile at the Castle of Rochefort-en-Y veline, which belonged
to her husband. This piece of severity made matters worse.
Excitement reached the boiling-point, and the most excited
person of all was Beaufort. Bold, ‘‘clumsy-minded and
false, with an intelligence much below the average” (thus
does Retz describe him), Beaufort was ‘‘an uncivil man,”
with “coarse manners, an envious creature, spiteful and
unreliable.” The members of the cabal poured forth
threats innumerable. The sole responsibility for every-
thing that had happened was cast on Mazarin, and the
whole attack was levelled at him. Secret meetings took
place at the Hétel de Guise: Beaufort, the Guise Princes,
a certain M. de Beaupuis, son of the Comte de Maillé,
the two Campion brothers, Henri and Alexandre, attended
them. A spy named Carré, a Dominican monk, who had
bombarded Richelieu with his reports, in the Cardinal’s
lifetime, kept Mazarin informed.

The outcome of all these secret councils was a deliberate
plan to carry Mazarin off and put him to death. From
what Henri de Campion says in his Memoirs, the idea of
this attempt appears to have originated with Mme. de
Chevreuse : she mentioned it to Beaufort, he agreed to her
proposal, and then secured the assistance of Beaupuis and
Alexandre de Campion. The theory the Duchess put for-
ward was that Mazarin was re-establishing Richelieu’s old
tyranny in a more autocratic and merciless form, and that
the only way to get the better of the Minister was to take
his life. When Alexandre de Campion had promised his
adhesion, an attempt was made to secure that of his brother
Henri. He refused: he simply was being asked, he

244
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

pointed out, to commit a murder: it was a vengeance taken
on Mazarin for Richelieu’s violent measures: they were
jealous of Mazarin. Seeing how Henri held out, Beaufort
and Alexandre began to hesitate. Mme. de Chevreuse
raised their drooping spirits. Henri ended by giving in,
on condition the Cardinal’s life was not attempted, and
he himself should not be expected to do anything except
defend Beaufort in case of necessity. The other con-
spirators pretended to accept his terms. Beaufort also
enlisted the services of the captain of his guard, De Lie,
his equerry, Brillet, and a few resolute fellows—Ganseville,
Héricourt, and Avancourt.

All the details were planned out. Some evening, when
the Cardinal, as was his wont, drove out of the Hétel de
Cléves, attended by a mere handful of lackeys—five or
six at most—and some churchman or other, the coach was
to be attacked. Servants posted in all the neighbouring
taverns were to watch and give the signal. The con-
spirators would crowd round the coach in one of the small,
narrow, ill-lighted, deserted streets that lay round the
King’s palace; Brillet and Ganseville were to stop the
horses, Héricourt and Avancourt were to open the coach-
doors and strike, Beaufort and the rest, who would stay
behind it on their horses, were to prevent any interference
from outsiders. Once the work was done, everybody was
to make himself scarce. Mme. de Chevreuse was to remain
at Court, to appease the Queen’s rage, and try to bring
about a reconciliation between her and Beaufort—a strange
fancy, for “this Duchess,” as Campion writes, “was but
little able, at that moment, to do anything for her friends’
advantage!” Retz scoffs at the whole plot, which, he
asserts, was invented “by four or five melancholy wights
who looked as if their brains were of the shallowest! A
cabal,” he adds, “‘got up by people who all died mad!”
Some contemporary authorities deny its existence; but
Campion’s Memoirs leave us in no doubt as to that.

245
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Mazarin’s notebooks, too, prove him to have had vague
information about it, though all its details did not reach
him.

For a moment the conspirators thought they would be
able to execute their plan outside Paris. It was announced
that the Cardinal intended to make an excursion to La
Barre, a property belonging to Mme. de Vigean, at the
mouth of the Montmorency valley: in this case it would
have been easy to attack him in the open fields. Unfortun-
ately, Mazarin took the Comte d’Harcourt with him on a
journey into Lorraine: the assassins would have been
obliged to kill him too, and he was related to Mme. de
Chevreuse; the idea was relinquished. Another time the
Cardinal was to go to Maisons, but the Duc d’Orléans went
with him: again the plotters had to defer their attempt.
The least eager among them, such as Henri de Campion,
began to waver again. If no opportunity for doing the
deed offered itself, they said, it surely was because the hand
of God was against them! Beaufort, too, vain and change-
able as ever, grew unsettled in his mind. Mme. de Chev-
reuse resolved to put an end to all these hesitations.

She settled that Mazarin was to be attacked at night,
on his way to the Louvre. She took all her precautions.
The Colonel’s company of the Guard was on duty at the
palace, and she arranged that the commanding officer, the
Duc d’Epernon, should order his men not to budge, what-
ever noise they might hear, and simply to see the palace
doors were kept shut. The date fixed was August 30.
On that evening the accomplices were to meet at the tavern
of “The Two Angels” on the Quai du Louvre, after sun-
set. They all assembled at the appointed hour. But the
sight of eight or ten horses, saddled and bridled, at the
door of an inn close to the King’s palace was remarked,
and with surprise. The matter was mentioned to Anne
of Austria, who warned the Cardinal. That night he
never left his house.

246
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

At dawn next morning the incident was noised about the
Court. What was the meaning of those horses and riders
all clustered together so close to the Louvre? There was
only one possible explanation: Mazarin was to have been
attacked. With one consent Beaufort and his friends were
accused of having plotted to kill the Cardinal. Feeling ran
high: the Government was forced into taking strong
measures. A Council was called, at which the Duc
d’Orléans, the Prince de Condé, the Ministers, were all
present. The proofs were in Mazarin’s hands, and it was
settled that Beaufort must be arrested.

That very day, September 1, Beaufort attended an enter-
tainment given by the Comte de Chavigny, Governor of
Vincennes, in the Queen’s honour. Mazarin was not pre-
sent. Anne of Austria treated the Duke with the most
distant coldness. His friends warned him to be careful.
He only shrugged his shoulders. The next day, heedless
as ever, he presented himself at the Louvre: M. de Guitaut,
Captain of the Guard, arrested him, took him to Vin-
cennes, and left him in confinement there: the whole thing
was done in the quietest manner.

The measure, as may be imagined, produced a deep
impression. “This severe blow,” writes Retz, “delivered
at a time when authority had been so gently wielded
as to be well-nigh imperceptible, made a great stir.”
Terrified, the conspirators fled, and took refuge with
Beaufort’s father, the Duc de Vendéme, at Anet; he wel-
comed them, concealed them, and said he would protect
them.

Meanwhile, Mme. de Chevreuse, in her house in the
Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, was more than anxious, and
asked herself what her own fate was to be?

Anne of Austria thought it better to proceed with
caution. She would wait a little, some five or six weeks,
and then she would send the Duchess into exile, and do it in
a somewhat ceremonious way, telling her it was necessary

247
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

she should retire from Court for a time. “She would
advise her to live contentedly in France, not to mix herself
up in any intrigue, to enjoy, under her Regency, the repose
she had not been able to obtain in the late King’s time;
she would point out that it was time for her to find pleasure
in a life of retirement, and to order her existence according
to thoughts of the next world, and she would assure her of
her own friendship for her, under these conditions.”
When, in the month of October, the Queen made up her
mind to speak to Mme. de Chevreuse after this fashion,
that lady received what she called ‘‘these remonstrances
and counsels,” in a very rebellious spirit. She forced
Anne of Austria to lay her formal commands on her. The
Duchess received orders to retire to Dampierre, and thence
to Couziéres. She was granted a sum of 200,000 livres,
and she had to do as she was told.

She departed: she went to Dampierre. Her exile seemed
to give universal satisfaction. ‘The Sieur de 1’Estrade,”
wrote Gaudin to Servien, a Secretary of State, on October
31, “has complimented Her Majesty in the name of the
Prince of Orange, on the departure of Mme. de Chev-
reuse, saying that by this action the Queen has demon-
strated her good intentions with regard to her considera-
tion for her allies: for immediately on her arrival, the
said lady had proposed peace to her on very easy terms,
and that the Spaniards would very willingly give up
everything France had taken from them, if they were
granted only one thing—which was, to abandon the
Swedes and the Dutch.”

Under the Regency, as in the days of Louis XIII, Mme.
de Chevreuse was never to give the Government a moment’s
peace.

When she reached Dampierre she begged Alexandre de
Campion to come and join her there secretly, travelling
at night. “I could not desire any greater consolation in
my misfortunes,” writes Campion to her, in reply, “than

248
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

the permission you give me to go to Dampierre. The fear
you express lest I should be surprised on the highroads is
most kind, but I will be so careful that this mischance will
not overtake me. I do not travel in the daytime, and the
nights are so dark that nobody will see me.” He arrived.
Through him Mme. de Chevreuse reckoned on reopening
communications with all her accomplices. She organized
the whole business; she would write to the Vendédme
Princes, to Bouillon, to Spain, to England. She put her-
self into direct correspondence with Charles I’s Ambas-
sador, Lord Goring. According to Mazarin’s notebooks,
Goring was quite convinced that if the French Ministry
underwent a change, and the Cardinal was dismissed, the
friends of Mme. de Chevreuse—Spain, in other words—
would come into power; and a peace would ensue, which
could not be otherwise than favourable to the interests of
English internal politics, then in a most difficult situation.
Advised by the Duchess, those of her accomplices who had
taken refuge at Anet crossed the frontier. Brillet and
Henri de Campion, disguised and “wearing great beards,”
contrived to reach Holland; Mazarin, learning this, desired
the French Envoy to the Prince of Orange, Beringhen, to
keep his eye upon them. Beaufort took refuge on Papal
territory.

From Dampierre, whether she would or not, Mme. de
Chevreuse had been fain to take her way to Couziéres.
There she was to remain for many a month. She had leave
to go to Tours; but the Government had taken measures
to ensure her isolation. The Queen, it had been given out,
would not look kindly on courtiers who frequented the
Duchess. Anne of Austria personally expressed her vexa-
tion to La Rochefoucauld, telling him how great had been
the ingratitude displayed by Beaufort, by the “Import-
ants,” above all by Mme. de Chevreuse; she particularly
begged him “to have no more dealings with the Duchess,
and to cease to be the instgument of her friends.” La

249
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Rochefoucauld, with some emotion, replied that he would
certainly obey, but that he*could not, “with justice, cease
to be the friend of Mme. de Chevreuse, so long as she
committed no other crime save that of being disliked by
the Cardinal.” His boldness was to involve him in
disgrace.

Mazarin issued orders that Couziéres was to be watched.
He was quite sure everything would begin again, just as
in Richelieu’s time. Things had altered strangely! No
longer was the Duchess plotting with Anne of Austria
against a mighty Minister! This time it was the Queen
herself who was suffering from the actions of her quondam
friend. The Regent knew right well how dangerous she
could be, and the measures taken by her Government grew
more and more severe.

One of the Duchess’s comptrollers, suspected of carry-
ing her letters abroad, was seized and thrown into prison.
An Italian physician, who had come to see her in his pro-
fessional capacity, and on whom suspicion of having under-
taken to carry letters for her had fallen, was arrested like-
wise, and his arrest was carried out after a most brutal
fashion : he was dragged out of the coach in which Mlle. de
Chevreuse and her waiting-women were seated with him.
Police officers put their pistols to his throat, with shouts
of “Kill! Kill!” and forced everybody out of the coach.
Mme. de Chevreuse was furious. ‘‘Madame,” she wrote
the Queen from Tours, on November 20, 1644, ‘‘although
the only good I had hoped from the withdrawal of the
honour of your presence was to deserve that of your
remembrance, by a continuation of the duty I paid you, I
deprived myself of both, as soon as I became aware that
this deprivation would be a more welcome sign of my
obedience. But I confess that fresh one which has occurred
within the last four or five days, by the imprisonment of
_ an Italian physician who has been with me for some time,
has touched me so nearly that I cannot believe your

250
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

Majesty will refuse access to my just indignation: this has
been done with a violence such as has never been seen
before in such a matter, the occasion having been seized
when he was in my daughter’s coach, who was forced to get
out of it, while two police officers held a pistol to her throat,
constantly crying out ‘Kill! Kill!’ to her, and likewise
to the women who were with her. This proceeding is so
extraordinary that even as | reckon on your justice to give
me Satisfaction as to what I feel so keenly on account of
my daughter’s person, I dare promise myself your kind-
ness will ensure my own future safety against such
encounters!” Anne of Austria sent no reply.

Thanks to his spies, Mazarin knew every little thing the
Duchess said and did. Through a certain nobleman,
M. Cangé de la Brétonniére, he had the names of all the
persons who frequented her society: a Mlle. Galland, a
M. de Vaumorin, who was in the service of the Duc de
Vendéme, M. du Tillac, who was about the Comte de Mon-
trésor. To M. de Cangé’s thinking, Mme. de Chevreuse
made use of all these people for her communications with
foreign parts, especially with England. Craft had been
seen at Tours: he had lodged in the house of the Abbé
de St. Julien, and had held divers conferences with the
trusty friends of the Duchess, especially with Mlle. Galland,
with whom he had sat up talking one night, in the Abbé’s
lodging, from eleven o’clock till two in the morning. M.
de Cangé asserted the subject of this long interview to
have been the escape of Beaufort.

In Paris, continued Cangé, Mme. de Chevreuse had a
correspondent of the name of Mandat, who was in the habit
of holding frequent conversations with the Magistrates of
the Parliament, then carrying on a struggle with Mazarin—
the prelude to the Fronde. A gentleman named M. de
Moliére had been sent to see Mme. de Chevreuse by the
Duc d’Enghien: M. de Cangé had made his acquaintance,
had made him talk, and had found out that Campion had

251
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

been in Paris for some days, disguised as an Englishman,
and lodged in the Hétel de Nemours. Another person who
served Mme. de Chevreuse in connection with her private
correspondence was a young Carmelite monk, five- or six-
and-twenty years of age, the son of an official connected
with the Parliament of Rennes, and a M. de Lussan, of
Amboise, whom she was in the habit of sending to Paris,
and who was always lodged, on these occasions, in the
house of the Duc de Chevreuse, in that of M. de Mont-
bazon, or in that of M. de la Rochefoucauld. M. de Cangé
would shortly “send news of their intentions in these
quarters.”

From this and other information—though the details
were not absolutely clear—Anne of Austria and the Car-
dinal arrived at the conclusion that Mme. de Chevreuse
was certainly plotting with foreign powers. If peace with
Spain was so difficult of-attainment, if the dilatory methods
of the Spanish Court rendered the discussion of its condi-
tions so endlessly slow, that was surely because Mme.
de Chevreuse was always stirring up hopes at Madrid!
“Letters from Spain have been intercepted,” writes Nani,
the Venetian Ambassador, “which prove that the delays
about making peace are attributable to the hopes enter-
tained in Spain that there will soon be changes and dis-
turbances in France.” These changes and disturbances,
he adds, were foretold by Mme. de Chevreuse and her
friends: the Spanish Government reckoned on them, and
was waiting for them.

Thus the Duchess’s love of intrigue was an incorrigible
vice, and a never-ceasing danger to the good management
of public affairs. Anne of Austria became extremely
angry. She gave orders that nobody was to consort with
Mme. de Chevreuse on any pretext whatever, on pain of
incurring her displeasure. Her commands were obeyed.
Little by little the Duchess found herself forsaken, every-
body left her alone. Montrésor tells us in his Memoirs that

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THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

living as he did close to Tours, he watched the steady
growth of this state of isolation. “The fact that Mme. de
Chevreuse lived near Tours,” he says, “resulted in my
seeing her from time to time. The way in which she had
been forsaken by all those on whom she had conferred
obligations, and who had been bound to her by ties of
friendship and interest, led me to judge how little reliance
can be placed on the men of the present century, by the
state in which I saw a person of her quality so universally
forsaken in her disgrace, which increased my own desire
to render her my services with all the more care and affec-
tion, on any occasion that might present itself. The
esteem and interest I felt for her person led me willingly
to run the risks involved, only taking care to regulate
them in such a manner that no one could remark them
as being too frequent, nor any affectation about them
on her side or my own.” ‘Thus, and in spite of his good
will, Montrésor himself was careful. He knew how angry
the Government was. When the Queen of England came
to France, the Regent requested her not to have anything
to do with Mme. de Chevreuse; Henrietta-Maria, wrote
Mazarin in his notebooks, was not to have any meetings
with ‘‘a person who, by her bad conduct, had lost the good
graces of Her Majesty.”

It would have been difficult, under such conditions, for
the Government to abstain from further action, and Anne
of Austria, seeing the plotting was still going on in
Touraine, could hardly have failed to come to the con-
clusion, that it was impossible for her to tolerate that
Couziéres should continue indefinitely to be used as a
permanent centre of cabals against the State, carried on
by Mme. de Chevreuse in perfect freedom.

And, indeed, the Duchess manifested no particular sur-
prise when, one April morning in 1645, an exempt of the
King’s Bodyguard—his name was Riquetti—appeared
upon the scene. He came to inform her, by the Queen’s

253
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

order, that she must leave Touraine and betake herself to
Angouléme, there to stay in the castle, and not move
beyond its walls, till further orders: he himself was to
conduct her thither. Instantly Mme. de Chevreuse per-
ceived the extent of her misfortune. This time she would
not have the semi-freedom she had enjoyed at Couzieéres,
she was to be shut up in the citadel at Angouléme, and
kept under lock and key. This prospect, so Montrésor
tells us, ‘‘made such an impression on her mind that she
resolved she would expose herself to every other peril that
might threaten her so long as she escaped from that of
being imprisoned, and which she thought inevitable.” Her
terrors of the year 1637 were on her again, and this time
they were not imaginary, but most real and pressing.
Instantly she made up her mind: she would take to flight
once more. She asked the officer to give her a few hours
for her preparations, and he, unsuspectingly, it may have
been, or perhaps because he had private orders, granted her
request. That night, with her daughter Charlotte and two
attendants, Mme. de Chevreuse got into her coach, and
had herself driven, by La Fliéche and Laval, straight to
St. Malo. According to the custom of that time, she took
jewels with her, to be turned into money. When she
reached St. Malo she went boldly to the governor of the
fortress, a gentleman of her acquaintance, the Marquis de
Coatquin, and asked him to help her to get over to Eng-
land. If Richelieu had been in power, M. de Coatquin
would have lost no time about stopping the fugitive, only
too certain, as he would have been, that any other course
would have brought down the thunder of the sovereign
upon his own head. But times were changed. He sent
down to the port, and found an English barque just sailing
for Dartmouth; the skipper agreed to take the passengers;
Mme. de Chevreuse confided her jewels to the governor’s
care, and the boat hoisted sail and steered for the Cornish
coast. The hull had hardly disappeared before M. de

254
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

Coatquin, like a faithful servant of the King, began a letter
to Mazarin, informing him of the departure of the Duchess,
and setting forth the excellent reasons that had prevented
him from arresting her. He deputed one of his gentlemen
to carry the missive to the Cardinal, and give him further
explanations by word of mouth. Mazarin’s reply—it may
have been ironically intended—ran: “I have seen, by that
(the letter) you have been so good as to write me, the notice
you give me that Mme. de Chevreuse has passed through.
I have received, as I should, the proofs you give me of
your affection for the King’s service in this matter: I have
not failed to represent everything I ought to the Queen,
excusing what has happened by the reasons you send me,
and those which the said gentleman has deduced.” In
Louis XIII’s time, M. de Coatquin would not have got out
of it so easily.

Mme. de Chevreuse intended, as soon as she landed at
Dartmouth, to ask for a passport, get to Dover, and so
across to Dunkirk, and thence to Liége. Once there, she
would plead her innocence to Anne of Austria and crave
her mercy. She did not care to make a long stay in Eng-
land. The moment was one of the most critical of the
Revolution in that country. In the course of his struggle
with Parliament, Charles I had taken up arms. Crom-
well’s Roundheads had beaten the King’s men at Newbury
and Marston Moor, and within a few weeks Charles was to
undergo a crushing defeat at Naseby, and to be forced to
take refuge with the Scots, who were ultimately to hand
him over to his own subjects. Mme. de Chevreuse, who
was the King’s kinswoman and friend, was anxiously
wondering what reception she herself was likely to be given
by the Parliamentarians: she had no desire to have any
dealings with them. Her fears were not without reasonable
foundation.

Hardly, in fact, had her boat come within sight of the
English coast when two ships of war, flying the Parlia-

255
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

ment’s flag, bore down upon her. The vessel was searched. .
Mme. de Chevreuse was recognized, and the English cap-
tains informed her they could not allow her to land; they
would convey her to the Isle of Wight, where she must
await the decision of Parliament regarding her: she had
to submit. When she reached the Isle of Wight she found
that the Governor of the island was the Earl of Pembroke,
with whom she had been intimately acquainted in old days,
at the English Court. He was absent in London. She
wrote him a letter: “Sir,” she said—this was on April 29,
1645, “my continued misfortunes having forced me to
leave France hurriedly, so as to preserve, in a neutral
country, the liberty of which the power of my enemies
would have deprived me in my own, the only favourable
means I could find to escape this ill-fortune has been to
embark at St. Malo and cross into England, and thence
over into Flanders, and so go to the country of Liége,
whence I shall assuredly be able to justify my innocence. |
trust to your virtue and courtesy not to refuse the supplica-
tion I make you to entreat the gentlemen of the Parliament
to grant me a passport to get me hence to Dover, and so
pass over to Dunkirk, whither the wretched state of my
affairs forces me to betake myself as soon as possible. This
is a grace for which I hope from the justice of the gentle-
men of the Parliament, and which they will be free to
confer on me without delay.”

But Parliament refused. The order given was that
Mme. de Chevreuse was not to be set at liberty. On May
20, 1645, Gaudin writes to Servien: “Letters from Eng-
land inform us that Mme. de Chevreuse is still in the Isle
of Wight, that the gentlemen of the Parliament have
refused to give her either a ship or a passport to get to
Dunkirk.” Better still, the English offered to hand the
Duchess over to Mazarin! The Cardinal, delighted to
know her safely detained in the Isle of Wight, declined this
offer. What could he have done with her? Like Riche-

256
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

lieu, he had no wish either to shut her up or to bring her
to trial: if he sent her to the most retired spot in the king-
dom of France she would contrive to flee out of it! Far
the best thing was that she should be kept a prisoner by
the English! ‘It may be imagined,” he wrote in a letter
dated June 22, 1645, ‘“‘how much Mme. de Chevreuse is
hated, since when she was in the power of the English
Parliamentarians they offered to hand her over to us, and
we did not care to accept her.”

June came, and still the Duchess was in prison. She
was in despair. She fell ill; digestion and heart, she de-
clared, were both seriously affected, and she was in a high
fever. To provide herself with means of subsistence she
had requested M. de Coatquin to send over her jewels,
which were to be despatched to the care of Montrésor, in
Paris, whence a reliable man would bring them over to her.
A Breton gentleman, M. de Chateaubriant-Beaufort, did
convey them from St. Malo and handed them over to
Montrésor, from whose hands the person sent by the
Duchess received them. But Mazarin, hearing of the inci-
dent, had Montrésor arrested and shut up in the Bastille.
His house was searched, but nothing incriminating was
found: a judicial cross-examination bore no more con-
clusive fruit; after a fortnight’s detention in the Bastille
Montrésor was transferred to Vincennes, where he spent
fourteen months; at last, thanks to the intervention of the
Guises and of the Prince of Orange, he was set at liberty.

Not knowing which way to turn, Mme. de Chevreuse
finally addressed herself to the Spanish Ambassador. He
expressed his willingness to come to her aid, and thanks
to his intervention she at last obtained leave from the
Parliament to depart from England; the Ambassador
advanced her a sum of money—400 jacobuses.

She started, went to Brussels, and thence to Liége.
Mazarin had her followed, every day he noted down the
reports he had received about her. He could not flatter

s 257
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

himself the Duchess would not continue her intrigues. He
had entered into correspondence with the Duke of Lor-
raine’s sister, the Princesse de Phalsbourg, in the hope of

using her to detach Lorraine from the Austrian cause.

This Princess kept him informed as to the movements of
Mme. de Chevreuse; from her he knew she was writing to
the Duke of Lorraine to counteract the Cardinal’s own
efforts ; to Piccolomini, the Emperor’s general, to enlighten

him as to the movements of the French troops; to the Duc ~
de Bouillon, to stir him up against France. His notebooks.

reveal the fact that she was abusing him in every letter she
wrote, and working more ardently than ever in the cause
of Spain. He even adds that it really would be very diffi-
cult to desire greatness for France and please Mme. de
Chevreuse at one and the same time! How merrily had
she gone to her ruin! he exclaimed, she who might, if she
had chosen, have been one of the most fortunate women
upon earth! On September 30 he wrote that the Duchess
served her friends in Madrid very ill when she made them
believe there was any hope for them, and begged the
Princesse de Phalsbourg to find out what proposals she
really was making to the Spaniards. ‘We have some
light here already,” he writes, “from Liége, on the subject
of certain proposals she has made’to the Spanish Ministers
over there.”

Thanks to a memorandum drawn up for the Archduke
Leopold, Governor-General of the Low Countries, by a
certain Abbé Ernest de Mercy, with the object of acquaint-
ing the Spanish Government with the nature of the
assistance to be expected from Mme. de Chevreuse, we
know what these proposals were.

At that moment Mme. de Chevreuse had a friend and
confidant in the person of a French gentleman named
M. de Saint-Ibal. Henry d’Escars de Saint-Bonnet, Lord of
Saint-Ibal, was a thoughtless man, stoically brave, wanting
in judgment, exceedingly broad-minded, independent, of

258
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

uncertain temper, low-spirited and melancholy—thus at least
he is described by Lenet: Saint-Evremond considered
him simply a madman. Mme. de Chevreuse proposed to
make a league between Spain and the Condés, the secret
of which was to be confided to Saint-Ibal, and for the pur-
poses of which he was to act as go-between. Condé hesi-
tated to cast in his lot with the plotters, but only—so at
least the French party at Brussels asserted—because he
did not think the Spanish Ministers in the Low Countries
set a sufficiently high value on Saint-Ibal : all they had to
do was to come to an understanding with him. This Saint-
Ibal was the mainspring of the whole business. Mme. de
Chevreuse guaranteed the adhesion of d’Epernon, la
Rochelle, the Huguenots; they would carry off Tancred de
Rohan, a posthumous son of Henri de Rohan, the former
chief of the Huguenot party, and place him at the head of
the Protestant rebellion; let Spain have troops ready to dis-
embark at the mouth of the Gironde: Saint-Ibal would go
to Miinster to the Duc de Longueville, and beg him to
join the plot; Spain must give him a sum of 12,000 francs,
and a monthly pension of 1000 francs. Thus Mazarin
would be overthrown,-and peace would be imposed on
France! These plans proved Mme. de Chevreuse to be
a prey to strange illusions.

And yet the Condé family, at that moment, seemed to
be making a great effort to induce Anne of Austria to bring
the war with Spain to an end. Henrietta~-Maria, who had
sought refuge in Paris, was adding her entreaties to those
of the Princess Dowager. Had she a hope that if peace
was restored on the Continent, France would intervene in
English affairs, and come to the help of her unhappy
husband in his defeat? That may well be! No stone
that might influence Anne of Austria was left unturned.
The nuns of the Val de Grace were entreated to speak to
the Queen: M. Vincent (de Paul) of the Mission, the
Oratorian priests, were all canvassed.

259
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

But Mazarin, faithful to his task, was resolved to carry
the policy bequeathed to him by Louis XIII and Richelieu
to its logical conclusion: he was determined not to give
in until the Spaniards accepted the consequences of the
struggle as he foresaw them. The Venetian Ambassador,
Nani, tells us that to protect Anne of Austria from the
pressure put upon her he suddenly removed her out of
Paris.

And we have a proof that Mme. de Chevreuse had no
very great personal confidence in the complicated and
foolish plan she had communicated to the Abbé de Mercy,
in the fact that, at that very moment, and quite privately,
she was making M. de Chevreuse entreat Mazarin to grant
her his forgiveness and give her leave to return to Paris.

True to his old-standing habit of keeping on good terms
with the man in power, M. de Chevreuse had openly sided
with Mazarin against the Duchess his wife. ‘‘Chevreuse
has been to see me,” writes Mazarin in his notebooks;
“he blames his wife.’ The Duke had written to the
fugitive, had endeavoured to read her a lecture, had
addressed her in his usual good-natured strain. “I can
have no greater consolation in the retirement to which
necessity has reduced me, replied the Duchess on August
23, 1647, “than that of learning that you are in good
health, and seeing the recollection you have of me and the
kindness you express to me: continue them, I beseech of
you, so as to secure me my return to France, with a safety
I have not hitherto been able to obtain there; assuring you
that I desire nothing so much as to be with you in peace,
and see the affairs of our house in good condition. But I
fear my usual evil fortune will prevent me from enjoying
this great good.” On September 24, at Namur, she
returns to the charge: ‘‘I am well pleased when I see that
you remember me, and should be yet more so if you could
obtain a safe return for me to you, but I fear that happiness
will not come to me yet awhile. I impatiently await the

260
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIII

news you tell me you will send me on that head, for I am
now in a place where there is not much comfort, seeing it
is a frontier town; I am much troubled, for it is only
necessity which causes me to stop in Flanders—but to that
I am forced to submit. It is not that I do not receive much
politeness from the Governors of the Flemish fortresses,
but as my aim is not to do anything for which I shall
reasonably have cause to reproach myself, nothing but the
necessity of which I tell you could ever keep me here.”

Neither Mazarin nor Anne of Austria were to capitulate.
Mme. de Chevreuse could not hope to return to France.
And indeed, how uncertain would her position there have
been! “The steps of the Palais Royal,” wrote Guy Patin,
“are as slippery as those of the Louvre ever were: this is a
strange country, where there is little to be done by honest
folk. M.de Mazarin is the chief ruler: all the rest tremble
or bow down before the grandeur of his Cardinalship!”

But, happily for Mme. de Chevreuse, in France, that
country of fickleness and change, political circumstances
were soon to alter the face of all things, and thanks to a
popular tumult of the most unusual kind, which was to
shake the Cardinal’s power to its foundations, and even,
for a moment, to overthrow it altogether, she was once
more to find a way of escape from her exile.

261
CHAPTER IX
AMIDST THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

The Intricacies of the Fronde—The return of Mme. de Chevreuse—An
understanding with Mazarin—Flight of Mazarin—The majority of
Louis XIV—The Cardinal’s return—Mme. de Chevreuse goes into
retirement— 1648-53.

Ir is a singular historical fact that the duty of carrying
forward the essentially French policy of Richelieu should
have devolved, after the death of Louis XIII, on a
moderately intelligent Spanish Queen, and an_ Italian
Minister whose energy was not his strongest point. Anne
of Austria and Mazarin felt their position to be a difficult
one, and their authority suffered. Haunted by thoughts
of the revolution in England, in which Charles I had been
punished for his opposition to the will of his people by
the loss of his throne, they strove to avoid a similar
catastrophe by coming to an arrangement with their
enemies. The confusion grew proportionately greater, and
the outcome of it all was the Fronde. In the face of the
weakness of the sovereign’s authority, the Parliament of
Paris, which was no more than a mere judicial assembly,
sought to play the part of States-General, tried to lord it
over the Government, cut down taxes, dismiss treasury
officials. The only answer. Anne of Austria and Mazarin
dared make to these usurping measures took the shape
of concessions and delays. The King’s power began to
fall into abeyance, and the autocratic reaction of the reign
of Louis XIV gives the measure of the depths the evil
had reached.

Financial difficulties were at the bottom of the begin-

262
THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

nings of the struggle, but a great many other causes
had led up to it. Parliament opposed the registering of
fiscal edicts. The sovereign courts—Parliament, the
Court of Accounts, the Board of Excise, the Grand
Council—all joined together to oppose the creation of new
posts: that was a revolutionary proceeding. They deputed
a certain number of their members to form a common
chamber, known as the “‘Chambre de St. Louis,” which
undertook to reform the kingdom: here was another
revolutionary act—it took place in May 1648. Parliament
would not have been so bold, but that public opinion,
which loathed Mazarin, supported it. When the Govern-
ment, after the Prince de Condé had won his brilliant
victory at Lens, thought itself strong enough to try
energetic measures, and arrested certain of the magistrates
who had compromised themselves the most, such as
Roussel, the populace, on August. 27, 1648, rose up, and
barricaded the streets. It became necessary to release the
prisoners. Among the most fervent partisans of the
popular cause was the coadjutor of the Archbishop of
Paris, Paul de Gondi, afterwards Cardinal de Retz.
After a whole succession of incidents, attempts at resist-
ance, and conferences, Anne of Austria and Mazarin, con-
vinced that the intrigues of the coadjutor and the flood
of abuse poured out upon their heads in the innumerable
pamphlets known as “ Mazarinades” had rendered their
position utterly untenable, suddenly left Paris, with the
whole Court, in the course of the night between the 5th
and 6th of January, 1649: that spelt open rupture. The
Government was about to take up arms and lay siege to
the city.

From Flanders, where she was living, Mme. de Chev-
reuse attentively watched the course of events. She
was overwhelmed with delight. With Saint-Ibal, and
through the Abbé de Mercy, she was inciting the Spaniards
to increase the Regent’s difficulties by moving their troops

263
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

forward. She laid stress on the success the Spanish arms
might expect, thanks to her own intelligences within the
kingdom. “It is her habit (Mme. de Chevreuse),” writes
Mazarin, who had been duly warned, to M. de Coatquin,
on September 16, 1648, “to talk very big about the under-
standings she has in France, so as to make the Spaniards
think more of her; and I know that in the last conference,
held at Spa a few days since, between her, Saint-Ibal, the
Abbé de Mercy and the secretary Galareta, she spoke very
freely of the absolute power which, she declared, she had
over you and other persons of quality within the kingdom,
who know no more about it than you do.” In the course
of that summer of 1648, the Archduke Leopold did, in fact,
set out for Flanders with some 25,000 or 30,000 men, to
attack Condé. ‘Mme. de Chevreuse,” notes the Cardinal,
“and the other French persons who supply information
outside this country ” (Saint-Ibal and others), ‘‘assert that
when that is done, everything will be in disorder ”—Paris
in an uproar and the whole kingdom in a state of revolu-
tion; but the bloody defeat at Lens was soon to prove the
futility of the suggestions put forward by the Duchess.
She did not lose courage. And, indeed, the subsequent
complications caused by the Fronde were of a nature well
calculated to raise her hopes. The news, in January 1649,
that the Court had fled from Paris, that the city was in
a state of insurrection, and that the King was about to be
constrained to lay siege to his own capital, increased her
confidence. It was the story of the League over again.
Like Henri III, Louis XIV had been driven out of Paris.
In the absence of States-General, the Parliament had
assumed the responsibilities of the power reft from the
sovereign’s hand. Why should not the Spaniards offer
their help, as they had done in the days of the League, to
the Parisian insurgents? Thereupon there arrived in
Brussels a gentleman who was destined to play an
important part in the rest of the life of Mme. de Chevreuse,
264
THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

and who, for the moment, was to give form to the ideas
that bubbled in her brain. This was M. Geoffroy de
Laigue, Baron du Plessis-Patay, and Seigneur de
Bondoufle.

Laigue, whose family was settled in Dauphiné, a brave
man and a fine horseman, but, so Retz affirms, “exceed-
ingly coarse, and of the most changeable character ever
seen, with little sense and a great deal of presumption,”
was then thirty-five years of age, the fifth son of a family
of ten children. He had been intended for the Church,
but this idea had been relinquished on account of his
turbulent nature, and he had found his way to Paris, had
obtained a company in the Gardes Francaises, had been at
the siege of Gravelines in 1644, during which he had been
one of the leaders of the assault, and at the battle of Lens,
where he had behaved with great valour. His close
intimacy with the head of the younger branch of the la
Trémoille family, first Marquis and then Duc de Noir-
moutier, had attracted attention to his person. During
the Lens campaign, the two friends, as a consequence of
some difficulty with the Prince de Condé, and a scene
with him which had resulted from it, had left the army
in a fit of temper: Laigue had sold his company, and they
had both gone back to Paris, where they had thrown
themselves into the agitation of the Fronde.

After the rupture between the Court and the members
of the Fronde, Gondi, like Mme. de Chevreuse, thought
it necessary to appeal to Spain. “A grain of Spanish
catholicon,” he said, was indispensable. Laigue offered
the Coadjutor his services. He would go to Brussels,
he said, he would see Mme. de Chevreuse, and through
her he would get into communication with the Spanish
authorities. Gondi accepted his proposal unsuspectingly.
“TI had some repugnance,” he wrote in his Memoirs, “to
sending a man of my own cloth to Brussels.” Laigue had
had himself recommended to the Coadjutor by Montrésor.

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

A strange idea now occurred to them both: this was, to
propose to Gondi that Laigue, to win over the Duchess to
the cause, should go to Flanders and become her lover.
The situation was vacant. Mme. de Chevreuse was forty-
eight, of course, but age had not destroyed the coquette
in her; she would be flattered. The Coadjutor laughed,
and agreed. “We told Laigue,” he writes, “that he was
to live near the Archduke.”

Laigue started. Arrived at Brussels, he began to pay
his court to Mme. de Chevreuse. His first experiences
were not encouraging. The Duchess acknowledged, at a
later date, that her suitor had struck her as being an insipid
sort of fellow, and that ‘his dull face had reminded her
unpleasantly of an actor at the Hétel de Bourgogne,
Bellerose by name. But by degrees her prejudices wore
off. She allowed herself to be conquered; and Laigue was
her final and her most enduring passion.

They took their steps in unison. It was high time.
Mazarin’s blockade of Paris was drawing closer and closer;
Saint-Cloud, Saint-Denis, Meudon had been occupied by
the King’s troops. With feverish haste the Parliament
had raised an army, which, during an attempt to seize
Corbeil, on January 23, 1649, took to precipitate flight.
On February 8, Condé, who had remained faithful to the
Regent, attacked Charenton and took possession of the
town, and 40,000 Parisians, who had sallied forth to repulse
him, retired ingloriously. Haste was becoming urgent.
Mme. de Chevreuse and Laigue asked the Archduke to
write a letter to the Parliament offering peace: this step
would prove that the Court of Spain was disposed to put
an end to the war, and all the odium of its continuation
would thus fall on Mazarin; the Archduke complied. The
Duchess herself chose the herald-at-arms who was to carry
the letter—a certain Don Joseph Illesca Arnolphini. When
this herald reached Paris, he had to wait: there was a
difficulty about his credentials; as a matter of fact, a great

266
THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

many of the magistrates objected to treating with
foreigners; finally, the Parliament referred him to Anne
of Austria; the business was a failure.

Laigue and Mme. de Chevreuse looked about for some-
thing else. The Archduke must be persuaded to make
some decided move into French territory. Laigue, in
his letters, declared he was already sure of the Archduke
and the commander of his troops, the Conde di Fuensal- °
dagna. “I never met such a fool!” said Gondi; “he
thinks he can manage Fuensaldagna already!” Noir-
moutier, who likewise thought his friend’s assertions were
“impertinent,” suggested going to Brussels himself to
make sure of things. Retz let him go. At the bottom
of his heart, the Coadjutor was in a difficulty. In view of
the successive defeats suffered by the troops of the Fronde,
the murmurs of the populace, which was greatly divided in
opinion, and the famine which was beginning to make
itself felt, the Parliament had resolved, on February 28,
to attempt to reach some agreement with the Court.
Conferences had already begun at Rueil. This was a bad
moment for trying to get the Spaniards to interfere!
Gondi had written to Brussels and declined the proffered
intervention, and Noirmoutier and Laigue had replied by
setting forth the reasons which made the help of Spain
so necessary. The Coadjutor had answered that these
reasons did not meet with his approval. Early in March,
just when the representatives of the Parliament and the
Court were beginning to come to an understanding, Laigue
was writing Gondi a series of despatches in cypher, in
which he announced that the promised intervention was
about to take effect. ‘‘The bulk of the Spanish army,” he
said, “would be at Vadencourt” (near Guise, in the Aisne)
“on such a day; the advance-guard at Pontavert, on such
another; it would stay there a few days, and then the
Archduke intended to come and take up his quarters at
Dammartin ” (near Meaux). These letters threw the Coad-

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

jutor into “cruel agitations”: “there was not a syllable
in them,” he moaned, “that did not cause him mortal
pain.”

Mme. de Chevreuse shared Laigue’s illusions. The
Prince de Conti, who had kept on the side of the Fronde,
sent his equerry, de Bréquigny, to Flanders, to talk with
the Archduke and see Mme. de Chevreuse; this lady told
him she was just about to start for France with the Spanish
army, 25,000 men strong. The Archduke, so Mathieu
Molé tells us in his Memoirs, confided to Bréquigny that
he had hesitated a great deal before entering on this cam-
paign, and had only made up his mind to it at last under
pressure from Mme. de Chevreuse.

But Mazarin had no intention of waiting for the
Spaniards: he was hurrying on the Rueil conferences,
and things were very nearly settled.

Then Mme. de Chevreuse, finding this out, turned round
again. If peace was to be concluded, thought she to
herself, she had better give up the struggle and secure
her own inclusion in it. Instantly she wrote to her friends,
begging them to do their best for her.

She applied to everybody. Through Bréquigny she
obtained the intercession of the Prince de Conti; she
addressed herself to her own son, the Duc de Luynes, to
her husband, who had sided with the Fronde because he
had fancied it the strongest. They all did what they
could. M. de Luynes, who had also adhered to the
Parliament, and had suffered from the war—the Comte de
Grancey, at the head of a body of the King’s troops, had
seized, and sacked, and burnt his house at Lésigny—was
formulating a whole list of claims, and inserted one with
regard to his mother. “To bring back the Duchesse de
Chevreuse, his mother,” it ran, “with all the necessary
provisions for her safety, so that she may go here and
there, and live in any part of the kingdom, as it may
please her, without being sought for on any account what-

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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

ever, Of on any pretext of any kind.” The Prince de
Conti, who was also sending in his claims, likewise added
a clause touching the Duchess: “That Mme. de Chevreuse
may return to France, and live there in complete safety
and liberty, either at Court, or wherever else she
may prefer.” As for M. de Chevreuse, he went to Saint-
Cloud, with the intention of making a direct appeal to the
Regent.

The scene has been related by Mme. de Motteville and
by Monglat. M. de Chevreuse had reached his seventy-
second year; he was deaf. When Anne of Austria saw
him, she began to reproach him, at the top of her voice,
for having kept to the rebel side, and been present on
horseback with the insurgents, during the engagement at
Charenton. ‘He replied to the Queen,” writes Monglat,
“that he was her very humble servant, but that he would
never forsake Paris, his very good friend; that he would
always be on that side as long as he was comfortable there ;
and that if she desired to have him on hers, she must not
go out of it” (the city). When the Duke had laid the
object of his suit before her, Anne of Austria, schooled
by Mazarin, refused his prayer: she could not, she said,
allow the Duchesse de Chevreuse to come back into “a
town that was still full of rebellion; she had made a
thousand plots against her service; she” (the Queen)
“could not be pleased with her, nor content with the
submission she offered, if she did not show her a real
repentance of her last behaviour.” M. de Chevreuse pro-
tested that he would answer for his wife’s fidelity, but the
Queen burst out laughing: what power had he over her?
M. de Chevreuse said something about his daughter Char-
lotte, who, he declared, had immensely improved in looks:
“she had eyes that were capable of setting the whole world
on fire.” ‘You are too fond of beauty,” said the Queen,
with a smile; “you must begin to turn your affections on
virtue and on Heaven!”

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Anne of Austria’s refusal was only a feint. In reality,
Mazarin had no intention of making any difficulties as to
the Duchess, and she was to be included in the treaty
arrangements. There was stiffer discussion about Laigue
and Noirmoutier, to whom the Minister was not disposed
to grant more than an abolition, considering them more
guilty than the others, on account of their having served
in the ranks of the Spanish army.

Peace was concluded at Rueil on April 1. Mme. de
Chevreuse was pardoned.

In accordance with custom, she could not return to
France without a special permission from the Queen. She
waited a week, ten days; no sign! What did this silence
portend? Laigue, a much humbler personage, had taken
on himself to go back at once; the Duchess decided to
follow his example. Quite suddenly, she left Brussels with
her daughter Charlotte, and travelling all at a stretch—
she drove the thirty-four leagues from Cambrai to Paris
without any rest at all—she reached the capital towards
eleven o’clock on the morning of April 12.

Her unexpected arrival astonished Anne of Austria
extremely. The Queen, so Goulas tells us, considered this
behaviour on the part of Mme. de Chevreuse as “a low
and most shabby proceeding.” The Duchess had con-
tented herself with writing a short letter of excuse; the
Queen refused to take it from the messenger. She insisted
that Mme. de Chevreuse should leave Paris instantly, and
at all events go as far away as Dampierre. The Duchess
was very much mortified. She addressed herself to Molé,
the First President of the Parliament, as though to seek
shelter with that body, once so formidable to its opponents.
But Molé had been won over by the Court. On April 16
he wrote to Le Tellier, the Secretary of State, that he had
seen Mme. de Chevreuse, and had tried to “keep her to
her duty.” Le Tellier, in reply, reiterated the order for
her immediate departure to Dampierre, and added, threat-

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eningly : ‘I do not doubt that what you said to Mme. de
Chevreuse, in the conversation you had with her yesterday,
invites her, more than anything else could do, to return
to her duty, and if she fails in that respect, I can assure
you there are means of forcing her to do it: we have that
in hand which will bring her to reason, without the
smallest contradiction ! ”

When the First President failed her, the Duchess
appealed to the Coadjutor. The matter was pressing:
the Court had given her twenty-four hours’ law. Laigue
went and fetched Gondi. “I went with Laigue to the
Hotel de Chevreuse,” writes Gondi, ‘and there I found
the fair lady at her toilette, and in tears; my heart grew
tender, and I begged Mme. de Chevreuse not to obey until
I had had the honour of seeing her again.” After various
unsuccessful attempts, he went to the First President, and
he says: “When I began to point out how necessary it was
for the King’s service that people’s minds should not be
embittered by any infraction of declarations of so solemn
a nature, he stopped me short, saying, ‘Enough, my good
sir. You do not wish her to go; she shall not go!’ And
he added in my ear, ‘ Her eyes are far too fine!’” This
story does not appear to coincide with Molé’s previous
attitude, as depicted in his own letters. It is true, never-
theless, that on the very evening before his interview with
Gondi, the First President had written to the Court,
deprecating any hasty action as regarded Mme. de Chev-
reuse. Radiant, the Coadjutor took his way back to the
Hotel de Chevreuse; he was most warmly welcomed.
Mlle. de Chevreuse—Charlotte—made herself extremely
charming to him. Gondi was only six-and-thirty, and,
in spite of his cloth, made no pretence of being severely
virtuous. The young girl’s fascinating grace produced
its effect upon him: he began by coming back often, he
ended by coming every night; the incident, in fact, was
to be the starting-point of a love affair with the beautiful

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Mlle. de Chevreuse which was not destined to be altogether
unsuccessful.

If the First President really did intervene, and request
Mazarin to delay taking any severe measure as to Mme. de
Chevreuse, he may well have relied for support on the
argument supplied by the favour with which public opinion
had received the Duchess. The public, in fact, had learnt
with satisfaction that the Duchess had sought to bring aid
to the Parisians. A few days before her return, a
“ Mazarinade” had appeared which extolled her heroic
virtues: The French Amazon, or the Help of the
Parisians, or the Approach of the Troops of Madame la
Duchesse de Chevreuse, reprinted under the title of The
Illustrious Conqueror, or the Generous Constancy of
Madame de Chevreuse. In this work, the author vaunts
the qualities of Marie de Rohan in poetic terms. She is
called “the incomparable Amazon,” “a flower, the hope
of our peace, which came to our help against the oppression
of monsters”; ‘‘a sun that seemed to rise to drive away
the fogs which our misfortunes piled above our heads”
“a delightful sunrise, appearing at the dawn of our highest.
hopes, all red with the fire of a righteous anger.” The.
Queen was advised that it would be very imprudent to
raise fresh difficulties. “It was not possible for the
Regent,” writes Jean Vallier, “whatever orders she might
issue, to force Mme. de Chevreuse to leave Paris, nor even
to go and await her Majesty’s pleasure in her house at
Dampierre, which is only six short leagues distant, so
greatly was her authority diminished since she had taken
the King away.’

The twenty-four hours Mme. de Chevreuse had been
given were prolonged. But after a few days Anne of
Austria, unable to endure the thought that the Duchess
was defying her, caused her to be requested to go to
Dampierre for a few hours, at all events, so as to save
her own dignity. Molé undertook to suggest this. The

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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

Duchess consented ; but she insisted on having assurances
as to the duration of her exile. Negotiations ensued:
Mazarin gave his word; Molé pledged his own that it
should be kept. Towards the middle of July, Mme. de
Chevreuse complied. :

But she had hardly settled at Dampierre before she
began to ask leave to come back. The Court made no
difficulties. ‘‘Mme. de Chevreuse,”’ writes Le Tellier to
Molé on July 19, “having sent to entreat the Queen to
permit her to go wheresoever her business may call her,
with every kind of freedom, and even to come and make
her obeisance to Her Majesty, and having caused her to
be assured that she will behave herself so that Her Majesty
shall receive complete satisfaction, both these things have
been granted unto her, and you are released from the word
that you gave to the said lady.”

Now that Mme. de Chevreuse had been received back
into favour, propriety demanded that she should go and
make her obeisance to the sovereign. She fell ill, and this
delayed the ceremony until August 8. On that day the
Duchess and her daughter Charlotte appeared at Com-
piégne, where Anne of Austria was then residing. The
Duchess was pale and worn after her recent illness. It was
the hour at which the Council sat, and the Regent’s ante-
chamber was crowded with courtiers. In spite of the
promises given her, the Duchess had not come without a
certain feeling of alarm. Le Tellier and Molé had been
obliged to calm her by the assurance, on the Queen’s word
of honour, that there was no reason for her to have any
fear. When she reached the Queen’s presence, so Mme.
de Motteville tells us, Anne of Austria, who had been in
the habit of embracing her friend, failed to honour her
with this mark of her favour. The Duchess bent low
before the sovereign, beseeching her “to pardon all her
past behaviour, and promising her the greatest fidelity in
future.” The Regent received these asseverations kindly,

T 273
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

and addressed no reproaches to the suppliant; but the
friendliness of former days had utterly disappeared. Mme.
de Chevreuse paid her duty to the young King, Louis XIV,
then just eleven years old, spoke a few words to Mazarin,
and retired. She had hardly passed out of the room before
Anne of Austria remarked, quite audibly, on the change
in her former friend’s appearance: ‘‘There was hardly a
trace of her past beauty.” But everybody had admired
Mlle. de Chevreuse, “whose beauty was celebrated,” adds
Mme. de Motteville slyly, “although it was not perfect;
so true is it that what is novel is almost always pleasing,
and even what is not pleasing is admired in spite of
that!”

Still, Mme de Chevreuse had recovered her place at
Court. A few days later the Gazette reported: “On St.
Augustine’s day, August 28, the Queen, accompanied by
Mademoiselle, and attended by the Duchesse de Chevreuse
and other great ladies of the Court, went barefoot to the
Church of St. Augustine, where Her Majesty heard evening
prayers.” On September 5 there was a great ball at the
Hétel de Ville in honour of the King’s eleventh birthday :
the young monarch “led out Mademoiselle to dance,” and
Mile. de Chevreuse danced with the Prince de Condé. The
past seemed forgotten, and all the old hatreds wiped out;
but this was a mere pretence.

Mazarin was too well acquainted with the character of
the Duchess to believe her capable of casting off her life-
long habit of intrigue. That being so, and considering
the perpetually recurring political difficulties stirred by
the half-subdued Frondeurs, he felt it better to have her
with him than against him. On the very morrow of the
Peace of Rueil, he had sent Charles de Mouchy, Marquis
d’Hocquincourt, Governor of Peronne, to propose an
understanding between himself and the Duchess. Mme.
de Chevreuse, delighted, had raised no objection. When

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she came back to Paris, d’Hocquincourt had waited upon
her again. There had been fresh parleying, not very
definite, and it was the existence of these negotiations,
more than the intervention of Molé and Gondi, which had
ensured the comparative gentleness with which Mme. de
Chevreuse had been treated by the Court. Through the
Duchess, Mazarin hoped to reach the leaders of what was
known as the Old Fronde, the great men of the opposition
—Beaufort, Gondi and the rest. This we know by a letter
from De Laulne, secretary to the Duc de Chevreuse. At
the time of the Duchess’s journey to Compiégne, so Goulas
tells us, this agreement had taken definite shape. Mazarin’s
notebooks prove that all through September and October
he had frequent interviews with Mme. de Chevreuse. She
was interesting herself in the Cardinal’s plans, and becom-
ing his ally : she agreed to be responsible for the behaviour
of her party. She was on excellent terms with the Duc
d@’Orléans, who was lukewarm in his attachment to the
Regent, and boasted her ability to win him over com-
pletely. Through Mme. de Montbazon, she would also
secure the adhesion of Beaufort, who had been released.
Thanks to Laigue and Gondi, she would be able to keep
the Frondeurs in hand. A strange accomplice, truly, for
the Cardinal! A strange house in which to seek support
for his policy !

Ever since her return to Paris, in fact, Mme. de Chev-
reuse had been living with Laigue, just as she had lived
with him in Flanders; she had lodged him in her own
house, under the nose of her husband, who had made no
objection whatever. Everybody was perfectly well aware
of the relations between this gentleman and the Duchess.
He was invited everywhere. The Duc d’Orléans was more
than civil tohim. At Court he was surrounded by friends;
he was present at the Queen’s “petit coucher,” and cracked
jokes with Her Majesty! Above all things, he strove to
push his own private advantage: he had begun life without

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a penny, and was now busied, thanks to expedients of his
own, in piling up a very fair fortune, which was to allow
of his giving his niece, Marguerite de Laigue, a dowry of
350,000 livres, in the year 1650. He himself had never
married, and the Duchess, in spite of her eight-and-forty
years, and the disappearance of charms which no longer
sufficed to explain the passions she might stir, permitted
this gallant of five-and-thirty openly to play a part which
did not seem to raise the faintest blush upon her cheek.

But Gondi’s behaviour was more suspicious still.

A curious figure! Born of a family of Italian bankers
who had rendered precious financial services to the French
Kings during the sixteenth century—lending them many
sums of money—and who had been rewarded with a shower
of honours, Gondi had been destined for the Church from
his earliest youth, and in 1644, at the age of thirty, had
been chosen by his own uncle, the Archbishop of Paris,
as his Coadjutor. No man could have been less fitted
to be a Churchman. Of elegant appearance, carefully
dressed as any cavalier, crowned with waving feathers,
always on the look-out for a love-affair, in which he had
considerable success, he was quite without virtue, and
paraded a long array of vices. Richelieu, who knew him
well and liked him ill, declared he had a “hang-dog look”:
he thought him a restless and rebellious man, whose “bad
qualities surpassed those of which the house of Retz was
generally accused.” In the eyes of Mazarin, who had so
much cause to complain of him, and may not be quite
impartial in his judgment, Retz was “a monster,” a man
without religion, addicted to “godlessness, debauchery
and wickedness”; ‘the most haughty, ambitious and evil-
intentioned of men, and the enemy of all peace and order,
utterly faithless.” The worst of it was that Gondi knew
his own worthlessness, and boasted of it. “My poor
friend,” said he to somebody who had been remonstrating
with him, “you waste your time when you preach to me!

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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

I know very well I am a rogue, but in spite of you and
everybody else I mean to go on being one, because that
is what I like best!” He had set his heart on playing
a great part in the disturbances of the Fronde. Mazarin
declares that he said to him one day: “If M. de Beaufort
is Fairfax, I am Cromwell!” That was a great delusion !
Meanwhile, he was giving himself out to be a strong repub-
lican: he would have had the same thing done in France
as had been done in England. He lacked the strength of
character which had given Cromwell his power, and tried
to make up for his want of talent by his intrigues.

And this it was that attracted him to Mme. de Chev-
reuse! Through her, he thought, he would get into touch
with the Old Fronde, with such men as Montbazon and
Beaufort, and with the Spaniards, that supreme resource
in case of danger! And the Duchess, on her side, believ-
ing in his popularity, fancied that through him she would
be able to influence the Paris mob, and so made overtures
to him. Her chief means of attracting him, and keeping
him about her, was her own daughter !

Mile. de Chevreuse—Charlotte-Marie de Lorraine—had
then reached her twenty-fourth year. Of middle height
and distinguished appearance, with a pretty mouth and “a
fine contour of face,’ she was considered a handsome
woman. It has been said, indeed, that she was too thin,
and that her complexion was not clear enough; but it was
a woman, Mme. de Motteville, who brought this accusation
against her. In any case, so Gondi declares, she had “the
most beautiful eyes in the world, and a way of using them
that was admirable, and peculiar to herself.” Elsewhere
Retz, who certainly penned his Memoirs after his passion
had died down, speaks rather severely of her. “All she
possessed,” he says, ‘““was beauty, of which one quickly
tires when it has no other accompaniment. Her wit was
always confined to the person she loved; but then she
never loved the same person long; therefore nobody

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

thought her witty for long. . . . She had more beauty than
charm, and was by nature silly to the point of being
ridiculous!” The truth is that Mlle. de Chevreuse was
exceedingly capricious: she was a spoilt child; when she
lost her temper she ‘would throw “her petticoats, her
hoods, her gloves into the fire,” and even Venetian laces,
which her “girls—her waiting-women—only saved with
the greatest difficulty in the world.” Retz adds: “If she
could have thrown her gallants on the fire too, when she
was tired of them, she would have done it with the best
will in the world!”

Her mother had not as yet been able to find a husband
for her. There had been some question of marrying her
to M. de Beaufort, who had believed her to be very rich.
It would have been a splendid alliance; but Beaufort
had not persisted in the matter. Then the Duchesse
d’Aiguillon, niece of Cardinal Richelieu, thought of her
for her nephew, the Duc de Richelieu, but the Duke was
in love with Mile. de Pons, and ended by marrying that
lady. There was soon to be some idea of the Prince de
Conti. While awaiting her entrance into the bonds of
matrimony, Mile. de Chevreuse found entertainment in
the homage of the gentlemen who surrounded her: the
Coadjutor became her prime favourite.

Before long, Gondi’s constant attendance at the Hotel
de Chevreuse was common property. ‘The Coadjutor,”
writes Lenet, “was in close intimacy with the Duchesse de
Chevreuse, and it was said in the world that he was
endeavouring to enter into stil! more cordial relations with
Mademoiselle, her daughter.” “The Coadjutor,” says la
Rochefoucauld, “had a great friendship with Mme. de
Chevreuse, and the beauty of her daughter was said to
have still greater power over him.” “Mlle. de Chevreuse,”
writes the Great Mademoiselle in still more straightforward
fashion, “was the Coadjutor’s mistress.” Retz, in his
Memoirs, details his own successes in the most vain-

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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

glorious manner. He declares that Mazarin, in his desire
to separate him from Mlle. de Chevreuse, did all he could
to get him ousted by rivals in the fair Charlotte’s affections
—M. de Candale and M. d’Aumale—and that their atten-
tions gave rise to scenes of jealousy and heated explana-
tions, as a consequence of which both gentlemen were
dismissed.

What is more certain is that the picture presented by
a household in which mother and daughter lived under
such conditions, under the complaisant eyes of the deaf
old Duke, was anything but edifying. Besides seeing
Charlotte at the Hétel de Chevreuse, the Coadjutor met
her in the house of her cousin, Louise de Lorraine, the
wife of the Marquis de Rhodes. On April 16, 1651,
Mazarin wrote as follows: ‘‘Mme. de Chevreuse, to whom
I had said that I did not see how the Queen was to make
sure of the Coadjutor’s mind, and that I was greatly afraid
he would soon fail her, confided to me that she would keep
him in hand through her daughter, who behaved to the
Coadjutor in such a fashion that she made him in love
with her, and this she has confirmed to me several times
since. And the said lady did in fact rule him in this
way, having laid the bridle on her daughter’s neck, so that
she appointed meetings in the house of Mme. de Rhodes
with the Coadjutor, who constantly saw her at the Hétel de
Chevreuse at unseasonable hours, so that the scandal-
mongers said her marriage with the Prince de Conti
could not but be a very good one, seeing the priest had
been there already!” Retz tells us in his Memoirs that
he used to go to the Hétel de Chevreuse every evening,
and went home again between midnight and one o’clock
in the morning. “Nothing could have been more
completely the opposite of everything that happened at
the Hétel de Chevreuse,” he modestly remarks, “than
the confirmations (I was holding every morning in the
churches), the lectures I was giving (to pious seminarists)

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

at St. Magloire, and other occupations of that kind. I
possessed the art of reconciling them all, and in the eyes
of the world this art justifies all that it reconciles.”

And all this immoderate existence was attended by the
procession of distresses, disputes and low quarrels which
are its usual concomitants. Mme. de Montbazon, whose
moral conduct was no better than her stepdaughter’s, and
who, according to Mazarin, allowed her own daughter to
follow Charlotte’s example, was to be seen, in her jealousy
of that young lady’s success, handing about a letter from
Mlle. de Chevreuse to Noirmoutier, in which she com-
plained of his faithlessness, as if he, too, had been her
lover, and reproached him with having cast her off for the
sake of Mme. de Rhodes, ‘‘and a great deal more abuse of
that kind.” This affair made a great stir. Mme. de
Chevreuse called her stepmother to account, but she replied,
with a laugh, that one ought to scorn all scandal, and that
they themselves were both of them accused of having a
lover of seventy-five! On another occasion, when Mlle.
de Chevreuse had angrily complained to Gondi of the dis-
agreeable stepfatherly fashion in which Laigue seemed
disposed to treat her, lecturing her perpetually about her
behaviour, and boring her with his remonstrances, Retz
held a council with Charlotte and Mme. de Rhodes, and
all three came to the conclusion that to rid themselves of
the tiresome mentor, they must supply Mme. de Chevreuse
with a new lover! As a matter of fact, M. de Haqueville,
on whom their choice had fallen, took himself out of the
way.

Easy-going though contemporary opinion was as to the
necessity for observing certain principles of morality in
daily life, such scenes as these could not fail to cause
painfui astonishment in many quarters. Mazarin was fully
aware of the depths to which the frequenters of the Hotel
de Chevreuse had fallen. He would speak of it in
the bluntest manner. ‘In the presence of a numerous

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company,” he ventured to write in one letter, “Mme. de
Chevreuse and Mme. de Montbazon separately asserted that
it was quite permissible . . . for one’s own pleasure, for
the persons one loved, to satisfy feelings of ambition or of
vengeance. This is the doctrine these ladies practise and
preach. And when age prevents the said ladies from
turning their own beauty to profit, they have recourse to
their daughters’... .”

And thus it came about that these three—Mme. de
Chevreuse, Laigue and Gondi—held together by so strange
a bond, laboured in unison to support the policy of
Mazarin !

Now there was one party which could not regard this
understanding between the Cardinal and the Chevreuse-
Gondi faction with any feeling but one of the deepest
displeasure—the Condés. The Prince de Condé, who had
been faithful to the Regent through all the late troubles,
after having gained victories over the Spaniards which had
greatly strengthened the Government’s position, felt the
favour bestowed by the Queen and Mazarin on persons
who had once caused him to be thrown into prison to be
an insult to himself. He lost his temper. Looking about
for a pretext, he protested that he and his family had not
been given what they had been promised—the County of
Montbéliard for himself, and Pont-de-l’Arche for his
sister, the Duchesse de Longueville. A whole troop of
young noblemen gathered about him, spurring him on:
a new Fronde began to rise up—the Fronde of the princes
and the dandies. On September 14, 1649, after a some-
what lively altercation between Mazarin and Condé, there
had been a scene, and some fear of a rupture; with
much difficulty, a reconciliation had been arranged.
Condé, haughty and impatient by nature, now became
absolutely aggressive in his dealings with the Cardinal:
challenged him, declared he would call on Parliament to

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

put an edict of the year 1617, which forbade any foreigner
to serve a French sovereign as Minister, into force; talked
of demanding that the Regent’s powers should be made
over to himself. His outrageous pretensions, his arrogance
and threats, made him a standing danger to Mazarin.
The enmity with which the Dowager Princesse de Condé
and her daughter, the Duchesse de Longueville, had
inspired Mme. de Chevreuse seven years previously, now
flamed up in her heart against her former foes. Her plan
was swiftly made: she would induce the members of the
Old Fronde, so the Duchesse de Nemours explains to us,
to join forces with those of the Parliamentary Fronde, and
all of them together would call on Anne of Austria to
arrest Condé. She laid her proposal before the Queen.
Prudently, as Monglat tells us, laying stress on the
difficulties against which the Regent was struggling, she
dwelt on the harm the Prince was doing, and proffered
the friendship and devotion of her own friends. “The
Queen,” so Mme. de Motteville acknowledges, “was so
sick of the Prince de Condé’s pride that she was more and
more inclined towards the Frondeurs, who were being led
to serve her by the Duchesse de Chevreuse.” And in his
notebooks the Cardinal wrote, on October 16, 1649: “Mme.
de Chevreuse, twice over, has talked to me, forgetting
nothing, to make known to me, in the first place, that it”
(the arrest of Condé) ‘was a certain blow, and further, to
persuade me it was an infallible means of re-establishing
the King’s authority in Paris and in all the provinces.
Peace, so the Duchess explained, would most certainly
follow: (she said) that I should be able to avenge myself
on M. le Prince, who had offended me in sheer wantonness,
and who, if a prompt remedy was not used to put some
obstacle in the way of his elevation, would soon be master
over everything ; that Monsieur le Prince was not what he
is thought to be; that he is strong among the weak, but
very weak among the strong; that the nobility and the
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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

Princes are all furious against him. Finally, the said lady
would answer to me for the whole party—M. de Beaufort,
De Belliévre, the Coadjutor, Noirmoutier—and that en-
tirely.” All the Duchess asked in return was to be well
treated by the Queen. Mazarin confined his answer to a
few vague sentences.

But the idea was making headway. Anne of Austria
was realizing that she would have to arrest Condé. Mme.
de Chevreuse was full of exultation. At last her influence
in State affairs was assuming the importance which had
been her dream! ‘“She saw herself,’ writes Mme. de
Motteville, “in a position to call back to life those old
longings to rule the Queen which she had conceived in
the early days of the Regency.” For the Government, the
question was one of keeping the mob on its side, and
preventing disturbances in the streets. Could Gondi
reassure the Regent on this point? Anne of Austria
resolved to see the Coadjutor herself, at the Palais-Royal.
Mazarin made the first advances, in a conversation with
Mme. de Chevreuse, on January 1, 1650; the Queen con-
firmed his action; she had even drawn up a note, in which
she said: “I cannot believe, in spite of the past and the
present, that Monsieur le Coadjuteur is not on my side; I
beg I may see him without the knowledge of any persons
save Mme. and Mile. de Chevreuse: that name will
guarantee his safety.” Gondi agreed, and the interview
took place at midnight in the Queen’s oratory, whither the
Coadjutor had been conducted by one of her Majesty’s
cloakbearers. Anne of Austria poured out her complaints
against Condé; Mazarin added his own entreaties; the
Coadjutor professed his devotion to the sovereign.

But this time there must be rewards! Mme. de Chev-
reuse asked for a cardinal’s hat for Gondi; a captaincy in
the Guard of the King’s brother, the Duc d’Anjou, for
Laigue; a duchy, and the governorship of Charleville, for
Noirmoutier; and certain indemnities for Vendéme and

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their friends. There was probably some mention, also, of
the return of Chateauneuf to the Ministry; the Queen's
answer was not unfavourable. Further conferences ensued,
and at these Mme. de Chevreuse, bringing Laigue and
Noirmoutier in her train, was present. Her proposals were
accepted, and the Government spoke, in return, of the
simultaneous arrest of Condé, Conti and Longueville. The
agreement was concluded. For another five or six days
Mazarin hesitated, and finally, on January 18, 1650, when
the three Princes came to the Council, Condé was placed
under arrest by Guitaut, a captain in the Guard, Conti by
Comminges, a lieutenant, and Longueville by Cressi, an
ensign in the same regiment; the three prisoners were
conducted to Vincennes under an escort composed of
gendarmes and chevau-légers. There was no resistance
at all.

That was a day of triumph at the Hétel de Chevreuse!
While the arrests were being made, writes Guy Joly, “the
Coadjutor was at the Hétel de Chevreuse with the Duc
de Beaufort, who had dined there; the door of the house
was kept closed, and the servants forbidden to allow any
visitor to enter.” Beaufort’s equerry, Brillet, brought
the news; and letters announcing it were forthwith written
and dispatched in all directions.

Thus the alliance with Mazarin had resulted in success,
and a perpetual interchange of attentions, civilities, offers
of service, between the Cardinal and the Duchess, ensued.
Mme. de Chevreuse expressed her opinion on business
matters: it was listened to; she made suggestions, and her
advice was received with respect. On certain occasions
the Secretaries of State even went to her house to hear
what she had to say. ‘Yesterday afternoon,” wrote Le
Tellier to Mazarin on June 14, “Mme. de Chevreuse sent
to ask me to go to her; I went, and she told me the Deputy
for Provence had paid her a visit, that things were going
very ill in that province, and that it was much to be feared

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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

it would take up arms again. I pointed out to Mme. de
Chevreuse that this was not a thing that need necessarily
lead to bad consequences. When I was leaving her, she
requested me to send your Eminence the memorandum here
enclosed, in order that it might please you to use your influ-
ence with the Queen to induce her to order the confiscation
of the persons therein mentioned.” In all his letters Mazarin
reiterated his expressions of respect, fidelity and devotion.

And Mme. de Chevreuse made the most of her favour.
She begged incessantly: for herself she asked the ransom
money paid for the liberation of the Prince de Ligne, who
had been made prisoner in a battle, 150,000 florins—300,000
francs. Mazarin laid her request before Anne of Austria,
who granted her 80,000 francs. For Laigue she demanded,
besides certain honours from the Duc d’Orléans, a pension
of 10,000 livres, and a sum paid down of 5000 more. Above
all, she insisted that Chateauneuf should be recalled to
power. After more or less evasion, Mazarin and the Queen
gave in; the Seals were taken from Séguier, and handed
over to the Duchess’s friend. Chateauneuf was then
seventy; but, says Retz, “his strong and vigorous health,
his royal way of spending money, his absolute unconcern
as to everything which did not rise above the average, his
rough and savage temper, which was taken for frankness,
made up for his age, and caused him to be regarded as a
man not yet past his work.” Never had the authority of
Mme. de Chevreuse seemed more efficient, nor her under-
standing with Mazarin more close!

Were they sincere, either of them? Did not the Car-
dinal, at the bottom of his heart, dread his new ally’s
duplicity? And knowing what Gondi’s ambition was, did
he not expect him to play the traitor? As early as on
June 26, Le Tellier was writing to the Cardinal: “This
evening I have seen a man of quality who certainly must
know what is happening, and who told me he had learnt

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for certain that M. le Coadjuteur and Mme. de Chevreuse
were resolved to use strong measures to drive your
Eminence out of your office; that Mme. de Chevreuse has
proposed this to Monsieur, and strongly pressed him to
exert himself for this purpose; but that his Royal Highness
has not undertaken to do so; that M. de Chateauneuf is
aware of this cabal, but nevertheless acts as if he did not
approve of it.” Mazarin was so convinced, and rightly,
that he was to be betrayed, that from this time forward he
was to do all that lay in his power to separate the Coadjutor
from Mme. de Chevreuse. Gondi, at all events, had one
motive for turning against the Minister—he knew he was
resolved to oppose his advancement to the rank of Cardinal
with all his might.

At a very early stage in the proceedings, the Coadjutor
had had his doubts on this subject. He had mentioned
them to Mme. de Chevreuse, who had conveyed his fears
to Le Tellier. “As to that point in your memorandum
connected with the Coadjutor’s desire of being made a
Cardinal,” writes Colbert, Mazarin’s secretary and steward,
to Le Tellier, “his Eminence was much astonished, and
afterwards desired me to tell you that no reason on earth
would induce him to grant the Coadjutor his request.”
Colbert went on to say that steps must at once be taken
to separate the Duchess from the Coadjutor : that Le Tellier
had better see her, ‘‘and sound her mind as far as he
could, find out whether there was any sincerity in her
perpetual protestations of friendship, and in connection
with these, should unbosom himself, and speak to her
confidentially; his Eminence could not grant what he
(the Coadjutor) asked: apart from that, he had authority
(from the Queen) to offer him anything he might desire.
It would be more correct and more advantageous for Mme.
de Chevreuse to work with the Queen, and to throw herself
entirely into the plans of the Cardinal, or turn the
Coadjutor’s mind away from this design.” Mme. de

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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

Chevreuse returned an ambiguous reply to these overtures.
Colbert persisted. It was necessary, he declared, that the
Duchess should be forced into choosing between the
Minister and the Coadjutor. “If the said lady,” he
explained, ‘would not accept the proposal, his Eminence
(the Cardinal) would conclude she was working to obtain
his place for the Coadjutor.” The proceeding was rather
a hasty one. Mazarin was mistaken in thinking his hold
on Mme. de Chevreuse to be so great. Some time after-
wards, in September, 1650, M. de Boisléve informed the
Minister that the Duchess was certainly trying to compass
his overthrow, and this time her object was to get Chateau-
neuf appointed to the head of the Ministry. She had
mentioned her idea to Retz, who, in some astonishment,
it must be said, had protested against it, asserting that “he
did not intend to play second fiddle.” At that very
moment, she was multiplying her expressions of fidelity
and attachment to the Cardinal’s person; there could be
no doubt about her bad faith !

Then the Minister responded by dealings as double
as her own; he sent word through Colbert that on the one
hand discredit must be cast on the Coadjutor and his
friends, and on the other the efforts to detach Mme. de
Chevreuse from the Coadjutor’s cause, by parting her
from him, must be persisted in. “You might,” writes
Colbert, “agree with her about everything, assuring her
she will be left perfectly quiet, that the Queen will show
her extraordinary favour, and bestow more solid advan-
tages on her, if the plan is carried out; you might even
speak of some marriage for her daughter, the success of
which should be ensured by favours the Queen might
grant.” In reply, Mme. de Chevreuse poured out more and
more expressions of gratitude. To prove how completely
she shared the Cardinal’s views, she went so far as to abuse
Retz, and bring accusations against him. But all the same,
she pertinaciously demanded the Cardinal’s hat for him.

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

She defended his cause, pointing out to Le Tellier that he
had suffered from the injustice done him, which he had
bitterly resented. And, she went on, Gondi was powerful;
the princes and their party were making advances to him,
which he might very likely end by accepting. When the
Court came back, in November, from a long journey
through France, and Mme. de Chevreuse began to plead
the Coadjutor’s cause again with Anne of Austria,
declaring Gondi’s conduct to have been “a tissue of
important services,” and repeating her assertion that he
had been unjustly served, that he was treated with scorn,
the Regent had lost her patience and her temper too, and
Mazarin had avoided giving any direct answer at all.
Gondi told Le Tellier that “he was being reduced, against
his own will, to such a condition that he would have to be
one of two things, either the head of a party, or a cardinal.”
This was a threat !

Thus Mazarin’s plans were now a failure. He had not
obtained that support from the Duchess on which he had
reckoned: and he had not separated her from the Coad-
jutor. Morosini, the Ambassador, wrote his home
government that the Minister had no confidence in the
Duchess. Already, in the month of April, Anne of
Austria had “betrayed much bitterness of feeling against
Mme. de Chevreuse, whom she accused of playing every-
body false in too open a fashion,” wrote Colbert to Le
Tellier. Mazarin, completely undeceived, now regarded
all the persons who frequented her company with suspi-
cion: he found fault with Lionne, the Queen’s secretary,
because he saw her too often. He was alarmed by the
regard shown her by the Duc d’Orléans. Then the Duchess
made a thrust at the Cardinal in the Queen’s own presence.
Talking to Her Majesty one day, so Montglat relates, she
ventured to tell her what the outside world was saying
about Mazarin: she herself, she acknowledged, was
astonished at the way he was hated: everything he did

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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

was criticized: as the Cardinal’s friend, she was deeply
grieved by this attitude of public opinion : so great was the
aversion of the nation to Mazarin, that whatever hap-
pened, he would never be liked, and no doubt, she added,
the Queen, finding her difficulties growing constantly
greater, would be obliged, one of these days, to dismiss
him. There could be no doubt as to the meaning of this
insinuation. Anne of Austria was exceedingly dis-
pleased by it. She reported the whole story to Mazarin,
who, Monglat goes on to say, was “so surprised that he
threw his skull-cap on the floor in a rage, being clearly
convinced that the Duchess was deceiving him!” All
things were ripe for an open rupture.

It was of a rupture that Mme. de Chevreuse was think-
ing. Her assertions as to the increasing power of the
party led by the princes imprisoned at Vincennes were no
idle boast. It was quite true that Condé’s trusted agents
had sounded the Coadjutor. As a matter of precaution,
Mazarin had removed the prisoners from Vincennes to
Marcoussis, towards the end of August, and in November,
from Marcoussis to the Havre. These removals had not
been carried out without lively opposition, and difficulties
with the making of which the Coadjutor had been con-
nected. Thanks to the Cardinal’s unpopularity, the
princes’ party was gaining strength; and it was to its
interest to acquire as many adherents as possible. It
was at this moment that the project for reconciling Mme.
de Chevreuse and Condé, and attaching that lady to
the princes’ cause by proposing a marriage between her
daughter and the Prince de Conti—the whole arrangement
to end in a united campaign against the Cardinal—was
conceived by two feminine brains.

The two ladies thus inspired were the Princess Pala-
tine—Anne, daughter of Charles I, de Gonzague, Duc
de Nevers, who had married the Prince Palatine, and
resided in Paris—and Mme. de Rhodes, niece of Mme. de

U 289
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Chevreuse. Guy Joly tells us that when the idea had
been talked over between them, they betook themselves to
the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, to discuss it there. Mlle.
de Chevreuse, charmed by the idea of marrying Conti,
gladly fell in with the plan. Laigue and Noirmoutier were
against it: they were afraid of Condé’s imperious temper,
and dreaded his vengeance. Mme. de Chevreuse was
rather uncertain at first; she was torn between her longing
for so brilliant a marriage and her old spite against the
princes. The negotiations were pushed forward: Gondi’s
adhesion was secured. Mlle. de Chevreuse, Mme. de
Rhodes, and the Coadjutor joined together in working on
the Duchess: ‘Mlle. de Chevreuse cried shame on her
mother for the hesitation she showed about procuring her
establishment,” says Retz. They ended by carrying their
point. It was settled that a treaty was to be signed; Conti
was to marry Mlle. de Chevreuse: and as a consequence
of the marriage there would be a fusion of the two
parties. Not that this Conti, who was suggested as a
husband for Mile. de Chevreuse, was a very attractive
individual. ‘He was of poor composition,” writes Mme. de
Motteville, “but owing to the great plans that were built
on this marriage, the best aspect that could be given to it
was shown, and it became a thing of great importance to
Mme. de Chevreuse.” The Duchess followed her friends’
lead. Mazarin knew nothing of the plot. Events were to
hurry all these complications to a dramatic conclusion.
Mme. de Chevreuse, discussing the clauses of the treaty
to be drawn up, in the presence of the persons deputed by
the princes, had boldly set forth her conditions: Mazarin
must be driven out, she said, and Chateauneuf must
replace him as chief Minister: the Prince de Conti, who
was to marry her daughter, must be made Governor of
Provence: Condé must be Governor of Guyenne: and
Gondi must have the Cardinal’s hat. All these matters
she settled as by her sovereign authority. To what might
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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

she not aspire? This business meant the welding to-
gether of all the Frondes: the Duc d’Orléans was in the
plot: the Court would soon find itself at the conspirators’
mercy, and Mazarin would be forced to capitulate !

When the Cardinal found out what was going on, as
he did at last, he was quite confounded. This time the
matter was serious indeed! He tried to come to terms
with the Duc d’Orléans, in the first place, but the Prince,
led by Mme. de Chevreuse and the Coadjutor, exacted as
a first condition that the Queen should consent to the
Chevreuse-Conti marriage and release the three princes.
At the same time, so extraordinary were the falseness and
love of intrigue of the whole band of conspirators, the
Princess Palatine sent an underhand proposal to Mazarin
to enable him to enter into direct negotiations with the
princes! The Cardinal’s notebooks show that crippled
as he found himself to be by all these various complica-
tions, he paused, not knowing which way to turn, waiting
on events, looking this way and that: his irresolution
worked his ruin.

His enemies, noting it, completed their own pact. The
draft treaty was drawn up and signed on January 30, 1651,
in the house of the Princess Palatine. The conditions
put forward by Mme. de Chevreuse were accepted: the
princes were to be set at liberty, the Cardinal was to be
dismissed: the Duc d’Orléans was to have a preponder-
ating voice in the Government as to the choice of the
members of the Council. Special agreements guaranteed
the various interests of the signatories: the Duc
d’Enghien, Condé’s son, was to marry one of Gaston’s
daughters: Conti was to marry Mile. de Chevreuse: the
Duchesse de Montbazon and her family were to have sums
of money: Chateauneuf was to be appointed Minister in
chief: Paul de Gondi was to be made a Cardinal. The
Princess Palatine made the following stipulation in the
name of the absent princes: “We, Princess Palatine, do

2gI
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

promise in the name of and in virtue of the power we have
received from Messieurs the Princes and the Duchesse de
Longueville, and pledge the faith and honour of M. le
Prince de Conti, that as soon as he is set at liberty he will
accept the conditions that shall appear reasonable as
between himself and Mlle. de Chevreuse, and will marry
her in the face of our Holy Mother the Church.”

And thereupon the conspirators began to take decisive
action. The Coadjutor caused Gaston to demand the
immediate release of the princes from Parliament. This
was a bold step. There was a lively quarrel between the
Duke and the Cardinal at the Palais Royal, the outcome
of which was Gaston’s refusal to reappear at Court. On
February 4, at Monsieur’s request again, Parliament
demanded the dismissal of Mazarin, and then the Paris
burghers, under the command of Gaston, who was
Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, took up arms, barri-
caded the streets, occupied the city gates: the situation was
growing critical.

Mazarin, defenceless, and threatened with imprisonment,
was constrained to give way and take to flight: in the
course of the night of February 6, 1651, after a long
conversation with Anne of Austria, during which all the
arrangements for her future conduct were made, he de-
parted in haste. On the 8th, the Parliament passed an
edict according to the terms of which the Cardinal was
expelled the kingdom, and the enlargement of the princes
demanded from the Queen. Anne of Austria was out-
flanked. She would have fled too, taking the King with
her: but Chateauneuf gave Mme. de Chevreuse timely
warning, and she sent word to the Duc d’Orléans and the
Coadjutor; instantly, the Palais Royal was surrounded by
armed burghers; the Queen was a prisoner, the Govern-
ment was vanquished; on the roth, the Court made its
submission, and the Queen signed an order for the
princes’ release.

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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

Then Mazarin, who had been waiting on events at
Lillebonne, in Normandy, seized the advantage offered
him by circumstance, flew to the Havre, walked, booted
and spurred, and in his travelling dress, into the citadel,
himself informed the princes they were free, and, asking
nothing but their friendship in return, opened their prison
doors. Deceived, the princes promised what he asked.
Mazarin made them a long speech: he warned Condé to
be on his guard against his enemies, enlightened him as
to the duplicity of this person and that: Condé assured
him of his faithful devotion. When all was done, the
Cardinal rode to Dieppe, thence to Doullens, Peronne and
Bar-le-Duc, crossed the frontier, and took refuge at
Cologne. He knew very well what he was doing when
he set the princes free! He had cast them into the midst
of the Frondeurs, and soon all the allies would be fighting
amongst themselves !

It was Mme. de Chevreuse, according to Mme. de
Motteville, who advised Mazarin and the Regent to decide
on the Cardinal’s departure, for a season at all events:
“So,” she said, “as to let the storm blow over.” The
Duchess promised the Queen she would do her best to
bring about a reconciliation between the Cardinal and
the Duc d’Orléans, and after that it would be easy to
persuade the Prince to consent to his return. “Perhaps,”
adds Mme. de Motteville, “she did this simply for the
amusement of the intrigue and the novelty of it!” On
the other hand, the Duchesse de Nemours thought that
“Mme. de Chevreuse had always asserted in the council
of the Fronde that the only thing to be done was to remove
the Cardinal from the Queen’s neighbourhood, and that,
knowing her as she did, she was perfectly certain that
once he was removed from Her Majesty’s sight, she
would forget all about him.” Retz, to conclude, was
convinced it was Mme. de Chevreuse who, with Ch&teau-
neuf’s help, had brought about the Cardinal’s flight: “A

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great political move,” he considered it, ‘prepared by Mme.
de Chevreuse and the Keeper of the Seals, so as to cause
the Cardinal to work his own ruin!” If Mazarin and
Anne of Austria had preserved any illusions as to the
fiedelity of the Duchess, they must have been thoroughly
informed, by this time, as to what they were to expect.

From the Castle of Briihl, near Cologne, where Mazarin
had taken refuge, he poured out his rage against Mme. de
Chevreuse. “She has broken everything to pieces,” he
wrote in April, 1651, “and set everything to work, to entice
this man and that away from the King’s service, to surprise
fortresses, raise the Huguenots in revolt, establish them
(with the help of Spain), at La Rochelle; she has always
been a pensioner of the Spaniards, who paid her for the
services she rendered them! She has done all she could
for the interests of Spain and of the Duc de Lorraine, at
the expense of France, to ruin the Queen, and overthrow
the State!”

But though Mme. de Chevreuse had succeeded, though
her intrigues had brought about the Cardinal’s departure,
and the triumph of the Fronde, though she had secured a
brilliant marriage for her daughter in the course of the
enterprise, the end of the business was not to fulfil the
brilliant promise of its opening stages !

The Prince de Condé—‘“the great Condé”—whose
prison doors had just been opened, was then a man of
thirty. He was a haughty being, whose scruples were few
and far between. As soon as he reached Paris, he went
to pay his respects to Mme. de Chevreuse; he was aware
of the stipulations made by the Princess Palatine in his
name, and that he was bound to accept the marriage of his
brother, the Prince de Conti. The interview was of a
cordial nature. The Duchesse de Nemours relates that the
Prince thanked Mme. de Chevreuse for what she had done,
assuring her that he owed her his freedom; according to

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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

the undertaking made in his name, he requested the hand
of her daughter for Conti, Conti himself being present.
Mme. de Chevreuse replied that she felt the proposal to be
a great honour for her family, but that engagements made
in prison might be taken to have been made under com-
pulsion, and she requested the Prince to take back his
word, and that any future action he decided on might be
perfectly sincere. Condé replied by adhering to his
request. Mme. de Chevreuse then granted it, and Conti
at once began to pay his court to the young lady.

Preparations for the marriage were forthwith begun.
The Hdtel de Chevreuse was hung with tapestries which
had belonged to Mazarin: “I am informed from Paris,”
writes the Cardinal on April 1, “that the Hétel de Chev-
reuse is being sumptuously adorned for the wedding
solemnities, and that three tapestries which are my
property have been hung up there—to wit, the ‘ Scipio,’
the ‘ Paris,’ and one set of forest scenes, touched up with
gold threads, which formed part of those pledged to
Herwart.” To calm his mind, Colbert informed the fallen
Minister that the Duchess and Laigue had bought the
tapestries for 300,000 livres more than they were worth.
Just at this juncture, Mme. de Longueville, Condé’s
haughty and high-spirited sister, reached Paris from
Stenay, where she had been detained by business.

Mme. de Chevreuse at once paid her a visit. In the
course of the conversation that ensued, the Duchess made
no reference whatever to the Conti marriage. This silence
boded ill. And, as a matter of fact, Mme. de Longueville
had come back to Paris resolved this marriage should be
broken off at all hazards. She still nursed her old hatred
of Mme. de Chevreuse. She could not forget that it was in
the Duchess’s house, where all her family had been so
detested, that the arrest of the princes her kinsmen had
been resolved and plotted, a few short years previously.
She could not swallow the idea that ChAteauneuf, the

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

murderer of her uncle, the Duc Henry de Montmorency,
was to receive the reward of his crime in the shape of
honours and greatness. And further, Mile. de Chevreuse,
when she became Princesse de Conti, would take prece-
dence of herself at Court! Even in the houses of the
Condé family, Mme. de Longueville would have to give
way to this Princess, younger, more admired, than herself !
And would not Charlotte end by supplanting her in the
good graces of the Prince, over whom she still wielded
so much influence?

-She decided to act at once. Her first step was to
express doubts, in public, as to the morals of Mlle. de
Chevreuse: she said openly that Conti’s betrothed was
“the Coadjutor’s mistress,” that she had had lovers. This
was an objection for which everybody was prepared. “I
cannot understand,” wrote Mazarin to Lionne, on March
21, 1651, “how Mme. de Longueville and La Rochefou-
cauld, who have the most complete ascendency over the
mind of the Prince de Condé, can put their hands to it (this
marriage). As it is a well-known thing in Paris, it is
impossible that the people whose interest it is to disgust
the Prince de Conti can fail to know that the Coadjutor
sees Mile. de Chevreuse in private every night, and that he
has a better understanding with her than can be desired by
the man who is going to marry her.”

Anne of Austria, on her part, had manifested the most
lively dislike of the plan. Mazarin’s letters encouraged
her feeling in the matter. The opinion of the Government
was unanimously hostile. Condé was warned of the feeling
of the Court, and the dangers to which such a woman as
Mme. de Chevreuse would certainly expose his house,
were pointed out to him: ‘‘a woman of that character and
mind,” whose ‘‘dangerous cleverness, and whole conduct”
were so well known! The Ministers pressed him hard:
Lionne and Servien were the go-betweens: the Regent
herself made advances, offered governorships to Condé.

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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

Urged on by Mme. de Longueville, the Prince lent his ear
to these suggestions. Quite early in April he had made up
his mind to break off the marriage: and this meant a
quarrel between the two Frondes, and the reconciliation of
the Princes with Anne of Austria, who was making ready
for that event.

Advised by Mazarin, so Briihl writes, the Government
tried to take advantage of the situation. A sudden blow
would reveal the extent of its real power. This blow was
to be the dismissal of Chateauneuf, and on April 3, Brienne
called on the friend of Mme. de Chevreuse to deliver up
the Seals. The Duchess and her daughter were informed
of this proceeding, and were further warned that there was
a talk of exile for them both. The two ladies, so Guy Joly
tells us, “spent a whole night without taking off their
clothes, and with all their jewels in a casket, which Mlle.
de Chevreuse kept under her asm. The Coadjutor and
some of the other Frondeurs also spent the night at the
H6tel de Chevreuse, taking measures to obtain vengeance,
when chance should serve them; but the order for their
arrest did not arrive, and each person departed to his own
home, in rather less alarm.”

Next day, they all met again at the Duc d’Orléans’
palace of the Luxembourg. Their excitement was extreme.
The most extravagant expedients were suggested; there
was talk of stirring up the populace, marching on the
Palais-Royal, killing the new Keeper of the Seals, throw-
ing all the Ministers out of the windows, and carrying off
the King. All these exaggerated threats were really
symptoms of weakness. The Prince de Condé would have
none of them. Since the beginning of April, he had
discontinued his visits to the Rue St. Thomas du Louvge.
Some amount of blood relationship between Conti and
Mlle. de Chevreuse had been discovered, necessitating a
dispensation from Rome; this dispensation was still
awaited, and the ceremony had been put off. Mme. de

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Chevreuse grew anxious. Conti, to whom Condé had
repeated everything that was being said about Mlle. de
Chevreuse’s light behaviour, was now beginning to slacken
in his attendance at the Hétel de Chevreuse. Condé had
quite made up his mind to take back his promise; the only
difficulty lay in finding a pretext; this was suggested by
Anne of Austria: the King, as head of the family, would
forbid Conti to make this marriage: the proposal was
accepted.

On the morning of April 15, Anne of Austria, in the
name of the King, informed Condé of her desire that he
should renounce all idea of carrying through the project
of marriage he had entertained. ‘This marriage,” she
said, “was not at all seasonable.” The princes bowed to
her will.

It was necessary that their decision should be notified to
Mme. de Chevreuse, and the President de Viole was
commissioned to perform this duty. Retz has left a
description of the scene, at which he was present. Viole
made his appearance at the Hétel de Chevreuse, looking
very uncomfortable. He vaguely explained the object of
his visit, protesting that “the affair was deferred, not
broken off,” that the princes were very much annoyed, and
hoped. that in time they might obtain the consent which
the Queen at present refused to grant. Mme. de Chev-
reuse, who had expected his communication, replied to it
calmly and courteously : her daughter, ‘who was dressing
herself beside the fire, burst out laughing.”

Five days later, on April 20, Mme. de Chevreuse, beside
herself with rage, wrote to Noirmoutier, who was then at
Charleville, of which place he was Governor, that he was
to let Mazarin know immediately that after the humiliation
she had just been forced to undergo, she was entirely at
the Cardinal’s service. On the receipt of this letter,
Mazarin wrote to Lionne as follows: “I have discovered
that everything Mme. de Chevreuse and all the others can

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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

possibly do to avenge themselves on M. le Prince will
certainly be done.” The Cardinal’s advice to the Queen
was that she should play off one party against the other,
prevent any reconciliation between them, and wait.

Then the Frondeurs, instigated by Mme. de Chevreuse
and the Coadjutor, opened their campaign. They cried
down Condé, representing him to be a man without faith,
or conscience, or honour: the populace followed them.
Every kind of calumny was put about concerning the
princes. According to Guy Joly, Mme. de Chevreuse even
went the length of asking Mazarin to have the Prince
rearrested. The Court answered by demanding the
Cardinal’s recall to Paris as a preliminary condition;
negotiations began; the Government’s game was to make
use of the parties to them. In May and June, Mme. de
Chevreuse and the Coadjutor had several interviews with
Anne of Austria: the Duchess betrayed the most relent-
less thirst for vengeance, she clamoured for Condé’s arrest
even in the open street, and at the risk of sacrificing his
life. The Queen made as though she would consent. But
Condé, warned of his danger by her intermediaries, left
Paris on July 6, and fled hastily to Saint-Maur: the coast
was clear.

Then the Queen came to an arrangement with the
Frondeurs: Gondi was to have his oft-promised cardinal’s
hat: Mlle. de Chevreuse was to marry a nephew of
Mazarin’s, who was to have the Duchy of Réthelois, and
governorships as well: the Frondeurs were to accept the
Cardinal’s return.

And, thereupon, on September 7, 1651, the majority of
Louis XIV was proclaimed. This event, a mere formality,
as it seemed to be, was in reality a most important fact,
which singularly increased the power of Mazarin, and was
to hasten his return. Condé, now in open revolt, was
organizing his resistance in the provinces, raising troops,
and beginning to make war. Mazarin, summoned by the

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

King, drew near the frontier. While the fighting with
Condé was going forward in Saintonge, the Cardinal was
slowly moving forward on the other side of the country.
After various ups and downs of fortune, and some violent
opposition on the Parliament’s part, he reached Sedan on
December 24, and rejoined the Court at Poitiers on
January 29, 1652; Mme. de Chevreuse took his side: “I
saw Mme. de Chevreuse yesterday,” wrote Pennacors to
the Cardinal on January 21, “she told me you must
absolutely rely on her, and on her friends, and that her
daughter is of the same mind.” Mazarin sent a reply
expressing similar sentiments. These two personages,
once more united, gave each other assurances of their
reciprocal fidelity. During the war with Condé, in 1652,
the Duchess rendered useful service to the Minister : in the
month of June, she interposed herself between the French
Court and the Duc de Lorraine, who had marched to the
help of the princes with a force of five or six thousand men;
she won him over to the Queen’s side, and induced him to
march his troops back again.

To reward her for her trouble, she put forward claims for
her friends, and was given due satisfaction. Gondi had at
last received his cardinal’s hat, in February, 1652; the
biretta was bestowed on him on the 11th of the following
September, by the King himself, at Compiégne: Mlle. de
Chevreuse was shortly to be married to Mazarin’s nephew,
Mancini. The Duchess was in favour, once more she
seemed all-powerful; was there anything in the world
for which she dared not hope? This was the last bright
flash of her political existence. The majority of Louis
XIV had changed the face of all things. This closing
scene of the career of Mme. de Chevreuse was a blaze of
splendour and good fortune.

She had reached her fifty-second year; she had grown
heavy, her face was worn, the gaiety of old days had
departed. The young King was growing up, and already

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THE INTRIGUES OF THE FRONDE

a few of his sayings, curt, imperious, portended a future
lord whose patience was likely to be short-lived. There
was no place for such persons as Mme. de Chevreuse under
the coming régime. And certain cruel humiliations and
sorrows, too, were warning the Duchess that her time was
over.

In the course of the events that marked the year 1652,
Condé’s campaign against the King’s troops, the fights
at Bléneau and at the Porte Saint-Antoine, Mazarin’s
second departure, and the return of Louis XIV to Paris,
Mme. de Chevreuse, save in the matter of the Duc de
Lorraine, had been kept at a distance. She was on such
bad terms with the Prince de Condé that there was no
reason to fear her coming to any understanding with him;
and the Court, having no reason to dread her, simply
neglected her. Towards the close of April, negotiations
took place between Mazarin and Condé: Mme. de Chev-
reuse and her associates were not taken into account at all.
‘““We are done for!” cried the Cardinal de Retz, on the
27th, to a friend he happened to meet, “the settlement has
been made, and without us, for neither Mme. de Chevreuse,
nor M. de Chateauneuf, nor I myself, have had anything
to with it!” When the Duchesse de Chevreuse, adds
Conrart, asked the King to grant her a passport to go to
Saint-Germain, where the Court was settled, it was refused,
“which confirmed the opinion that an agreement had
been arrived at secretly.” No agreement had been reached,
nor was the moment of such a conclusion very near, but all
these circumstances proved that the position occupied by
Mme. de Chevreuse was much less influential than she had
imagined ; this fact affected her extremely.

And thereupon, early in the morning of November 7,
after a very few hours of illness, Mlle. de Chevreuse, her
daughter Charlotte, passed suddenly away in her mother’s
arms! It wasafrightful blow! “This death,” wrote Guy
Joly, ‘came as a surprise to everybody: it was remarked

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

that the face and body of the dead woman turned quite
black, and a report consequently got about that this was
the result of poison she had taken herself, or which her
mother had administered to her, for secret reasons.”
Such an insinuation is quite inadmissible. Mme. de
Chevreuse was in the deepest grief. Her daughter had
been her friend, her counsellor. Satirical, eager-hearted,
impulsive and high-spirited, Charlotte de Chevreuse, ‘so
like the Duchess in many particulars, had shared all her
mother’s passions. That mother had seen herself live again
in her child, and her sorrow now completely overwhelmed
her. This grief, added to all the rest, disheartened her
utterly : she made up her mind to quit the world and spend
the rest of her life far from the Court.

The idea had already occurred to her in April of that
same year. “Perceiving herself to be somewhat left aside
in Paris,” wrote Retz, ‘‘she had come to the decision to
leave it, and betake herself to Dampierre.” But it had
proved no easy matter for her to give up all active employ-
ment so quickly, and by the month of October, she was
back, and trying to gather up the threads again. Laigue
had gone about paying visits. But the result had. not
been what the Duchess had expected. ‘She had not,”
adds Retz, “met with either the consideration or the con-
fidence she had expected, at Court.” Her daughter’s death
settled the question. Worn out and saddened, Mme. de
Chevreuse turned her back on Paris, and departed to
Dampierre.

302
CHAPTER X
RETIREMENT AND DEATH

Dampierre—Financial difficulties—Lawsuits with the whole family—
Dissensions in the household—Foreclosures, penury, a separate
maintenance—The son and daughters of Mme. de Chevreuse—Her
final retirement to Gagny—Her death, 1679.

On her retirement to Dampierre, in the green and smiling
valley of Chevreuse, the Duchess made a vow never to
touch politics again. When her friend the Cardinal de
Retz, whose intrigues Mazarin had not pardoned, and
never was to pardon, was arrested, on December 1g, 1652,
the Duchess did not lift a finger. “Mme. de Chevreuse,”
writes Guy Joly, on February 3, 1653, “takes no further
interest in the business of the Cardinal de Retz.”
Mazarin had returned in triumph to Paris, and Mme.
de Chevreuse, like everybody else, had accepted the
situation. Whether by policy or by temperament, the
Cardinal, more willing to forget treachery than to take
the trouble of punishing it, heaped civilities on every body.
“T have seen the persons your Eminence commanded me
to see,” writes Colbert; “Mme. de Chevreuse expressed
her gratitude to your Eminence for the honour of your
recollection of her.” And the Duchess writes to assure
Mazarin of her friendly feeling for him. “It is an extreme
Satisfaction to me,” she says, “to see that you are per-
suaded of the pleasure I take in rendering you all the
services I can, and I protest I will continue to prove to
you, whenever your interests are concerned, that they are
as dear to me as they ought to be. I wish you all kinds
of prosperity, and am, more than any one else in the world,

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

your very humble and obedient servant.” Greater defer-
ence could not be expressed! NHenceforward the Cardinal
might depend upon her. He asked her to induce Noir-
moutier, who still continued refractory, to yield, and recon-
cile him to the Government; she consented. Mazarin was
always paying her compliments. “I have received,
Madame,” he writes on October 16, 1653, “two of your
letters, the most obliging in the’ world; and M. de Laigue
has said so many things to me in your name, to acquaint
me with the good graces with which you have the kindness
to honour me, that I confess, Madame, I know not how
to express my sense of them as I ought! Therefore I have
begged Monsieur l’Abbé Fouquet, who will have the
honour of carrying this letter to you, to do it for me, and
that in the most expressive terms he can discover.” The
two found it pleasanter to exchange compliments than to
make war upon each other.

And, indeed, if Mme. de Chevreuse had attempted to
mix herself up with State affairs, the Government, directed
by Mazarin, and no longer dependent on a weak woman
like Anne of Austria, but on that strong-willed young
Prince, Louis XIV, who had now reached his majority,
would soon have put a stop to it. Of this the Duchess
was well aware. The utmost she ventured was to intervene
in favour of the Duc de Lorraine, her own kinsman, who,
having lost his State in the course of the wars between
France and the Empire, came to the French Court in
1660, and spent a year pleading for the return of his
territory.

She intervened again to plead for the Jansenists. M. du
Hamel, parish priest of Saint-Merri, and a friend of the
nuns of the Port-Royal, who had been exiled for having
defended Retz, begged Mme. de Chevreuse to get him the
Cardinal’s leave to go and take some waters: Mme. de
Chevreuse forwarded his request, and backed it up, and
on August 14, 1655, Mazarin replied as follows: “As to

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RETIREMENT AND DEATH

the permission for which the Sieur du Hamel asks, I am
in some difficulty, for the King and Queen are very ill-
pleased with his behaviour, and he has, indeed, behaved
very badly since his departure from Paris, and this has
been the cause of his being sent into Brittany; neverthe-
less, if you will not relieve me of the necessity of praying
their Majesties to give him leave to go to the waters, I
will do it, to obey you; but I shall await your further orders
on the subject.” And when Mme. de Chevreuse pressed
her request: ‘“‘I send you the permission you have asked
for the Sieur du Hamel, having besought the King to
grant it, out of blind deference to the commands you have
been pleased to lay on me.”

In 1656 Arnauld d’Andilly appealed to the Duchess, and
also to her sister-in-law, the Princesse de Guéméné, to use
their good offices to prevent his being driven out of Port-
Royal-des-Champs, from which place the Government
desired to remove all the solitaries—his friends, who had
shared his seclusion, had already departed. Mme. de
Chevreuse replied that she had seen Anne of Austria and
Mazarin, and that the Government insisted on M.
d’Andilly’s departure, for a time at all events: Andilly
was obliged to retire to Pomponne; the Duchess had
achieved a partial success only.

Twice again, at most, did Mme. de Chevreuse, in spite
of her good resolutions, attempt to mix herself up, though
indirectly, with more important matters, such as the choice
or dismissal of a Minister. In 1652, when the disgrace of
Le Tellier was noised abroad, Laigue took it into his head
to get his place for one of his own friends, Jérome de
Nouveau, Seigneur de Fromont, who had made himself
useful both to the Duchess and to Mazarin. M. de
Fromont was ready to pay for his office in hard cash,
and 100,000 livres of the sum were to pass into Laigue’s
pocket—hence his zeal! Mme. de Chevreuse asked Retz,
who was not yet in prison, to help her in the matter. “TI

gs 305
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

began to smile,” writes the Coadjutor, ‘‘and said I thought
they must take me for a madman! that it was well known
I was better aware than anybody that we were not in a
position to appoint Secretaries of State; and further, that
if we had been, it was not for M. de Nouveau that we
should have laboured!” Le Tellier defended his own
position, and the whole business came to nothing.

The second instance was connected with the disgrace of
Fouquet. Nine years later, towards the end of June 1661,
Anne of Austria, in performance of an old promise to visit
Mme. de Chevreuse at Dampierre, spent two or three days
there with the Duchess. With her she brought her
daughter-in-law, Madame (Henrietta of England), then
just seventeen. Louis XIV, a man of three-and-twenty,
was too much inclined to hang about the young wife, and
it was to deliver her from his somewhat alarming attentions
that the Queen, to whom they were anything but pleasing,
had betaken herself to Dampierre. Laigue suggested that
the Duchess should make an attack on Fouquet, the Super-
intendent of the King’s Finances. How his interests were
affected by this intrigue we know not. In the course of
the long conversations between the two Princesses, the
subject came up. Anne of Austria was attached to
Fouquet. The efforts made to oust him distressed her;
but for a considerable time the King, her son, roused to
fury by the Superintendent’s exactions, had betrayed his
intention to rid himself of him, and strike him a deadly
blow.

Mme. de Chevreuse pleaded the public weal, and the
issue of events may have led her to believe her intervention
had been crowned with success; but it is not credible, as
Mme. de Motteville says, that this visit to Dampierre,
during which ‘“‘an important affair was discussed, had any
particular effect on the decision of the fate of a Minister
whose credit then appeared to stand so high.” The
business had been settled beforehand, and elsewhere.

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RETIREMENT AND DEATH

Louis XIV would never have allowed Mme. de Chevreuse
to interfere in such a matter—nor in any other.

In fact, the young monarch, as he grew older, was
making his Court aware, in more and more overwhelming
fashion, of his own strong-willed and autocratic nature. His
haughty mien, imposing and severe, his proud and majestic
manner, his habit of using few words, but those few
chillingly concise, struck fear into his courtiers’ hearts:
they dreaded him. Less and less possible had it become
for Mme. de Chevreuse to hope for any return to her
former dreams of influence and power.

And she made up her mind to it. Nothing but per-
sistent spells of bad weather, or the numerous lawsuits in
which she was engaged, could drive her back to Paris:
she lived at Dampierre, and entertained there. ‘‘Mon-
sieur,” she writes to the Duc d’Epernon in October 1657,
“after having thanked you a thousand times for your
recollection of me, I must tell you in these lines the dis-
pleasure I feel at not being able to have the honour of
seeing you at Dampierre this year: the bad weather drives
me thence to Paris, where I pray you. will send me word
when I may hope (to see you).”

Once she showed herself willing to live without making
plots, the King, who, like his father, was obliged to con-
sider her position as a Princess, to some extent, of a foreign
house, was very ready to treat her without any symptom
of unfriendiiness. Mme. de Chevreuse was free to come
to Court whenever she chose; she had not the honour of
any close intimacy with the sovereign, but she had the
right to hold her own rank as a Duchess. On rare occa-
sions she made her appearance in the King’s circle. When
the Court proceeded to view the fortifications of the
northern towns—one of those magnificent journeys
during which Louis XIV exhibited the pomp he so
dearly loved—Mme. de Chevreuse accompanied Mlle. de
Montpensier.

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

In Paris she went and came as she chose. The Great
Mademoiselle records her having been seen out walking,
leaning on the arm of Laigue or Noirmoutier. Thus she
tells us, once: “I went to see Monceau, because I was
told that house was for sale. On my return I heard that
Mme. de Chevreuse and Noirmoutier had been there.”
Was Mme. de Chevreuse thinking of buying the place?
It would seem likely. And yet her fortune would hardly
have permitted of her doing it. Her whole life, in fact,
was occupied with the numberless difficulties arising out
of the confusion in her business affairs, and the conse-
quences of the successive bereavements that had befallen
her.

On October 16, 1654, her old father, the Duc de Mont-
bazon, had died. His share in her life had not been a large
one! In his retirement at Couziéres, in Touraine, he had
reached his eighty-sixth year—a peaceful old age—without
much care for his own kin, as regardless of his family as
of his patrimony. Four years previously, Anne of Austria
had made him sell his office as Governor of Paris, the
duties of which his advanced age rendered him incapable
of performing. M. de Montbazon obeyed without a word.
Nor did he say a word, either, concerning the endless
lawsuits his children brought against him, on account of
the disorder into which he had allowed his family affairs
to fall.

His son, the Prince de Guéméné, had obtained two
Parliamentary decrees against him, one in 1634, and the
other in 1638, which ordered M. de Montbazon to give
him an account of his wardship, return him a sum of
90,000 livres due on a certain property called Briolay, and
pay up the arrears of the annual income of 3000 livres
which the Duke had undertaken to give his son when
he married. M. de Montbazon sent no reply. Guéméné
appealed to the King in Council, and three decrees, issued
in 1639, 1640 and 1654, ordered the whole dispute between

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RETIREMENT AND DEATH

father and son to be submitted to Parliament. Thereupon
the son had taken possession of the Castle of Rochefort-
en-Yveline, which was his father’s property.

Then Mme. de Chevreuse, following her brother’s
example, had called on the old Duke to pay her the dowry
promised in her marriage contract, and which she had
never received—z200,000 livres—besides the 10,000 livres a
year which were to have been taken out of the fortunes
left by her mother, a Lenoncourt, and her grandmother,
a Laval. If her father, she said, would pay over these
200,000 livres at once, as an advance on what she was to
inherit at his death, she would not ask him for the accounts
of his wardship. M. de Montbazon had agreed. As to
the inheritance from the mother and grandmother, which,
it had been proved, did not bring in much more than 8000
livres in the year, it had been decided under arbitration,
in December, 1647, that M. de Montbazon must make up
the sum of 10,000 livres in question. But he had never
paid his daughter either the 10,000 livres a year or the
200,000 livres down. Once more Mme. de Chevreuse
appealed to the Courts of Law. By a decision of the
Court of Requests delivered in 1651, the father was ordered
to pay the yearly income he owed, and further, to pay the
200,000 livres, principal and interest, which, with divers
other sums due, amounted in all to 600,000 Livres. Mont-
bazon appealed against this sentence, and an arrangement
was made according to which the father gave his daughter
a temporary indemnity, by making over to her certain
properties in Anjou and Touraine, and in the neighbour-
hood of Montbazon, and also Couziéres, and the Hétel de
Montbazon in Paris. When Mme. de Chevreuse tried to
take possession of these properties, she found they were
already in the hands of various creditors. More and more
lawsuits ensued, to the joy and delight of the lawyers:
one to establish the priority of Marie de Rohan’s claim,
another for the withdrawal of the seizure, another to have

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THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

the properties sold, decrees of all kinds, etc. M. de Mont-
bazon was dead before the inextricable tangle of disputes
was cleared up.

By his second marriage with the beautiful Mme. de Mont-
bazon, the Duke had had three children, who were joint
heirs with Mme. de Chevreuse and the Prince de Guéméné.
When the inventory of his property was taken, after his
death, it was discovered that the Duchy of Montbazon was
in the hands of his creditors, that Rochefort was held by
Guéméné, the Hétel de Montbazon in Paris by more
creditors; Couziéres and the lands in Anjou were in the
hands of the Duchesse de Chevreuse, and the value of all
together scarcely reached 200,000 livres. There was no
ready money at all: 45,000 crowns which had remained
over from the sum paid to M. de Montbazon to indemnify
him for the loss of his post as Governor of Paris, the
jewels, the silver plate, had all disappeared. The family
accused Mme. de Montbazon of having stolen them. It
had been necessary to sell the furniture to pay the funeral
expenses, and those of putting on the seals and having
the inventory made.

Each of the heirs—the Prince de Guéméné, the Duchesse
de Chevreuse, Mme. de Montbazon and her three children,
and some four or five score of creditors—-put in a statement
of claim: these came to a total of 1,600,000 livres, 200,000
of which were owing to the creditors: the debts exceeded
the assets.

An attack on Mme. de Montbazon followed: she it was
who had squandered her husband’s substance! She must
be made to “give a true account of all debts incurred since
her marriage, and honestly set forth a list of all the title-
deeds, documents, precious furniture, jewels, silver plate,
and the 45,000 crowns she had made away with!” The
Prince de Guéméné demanded the accounts of his ward-
ship from the year 1602; Mme. de Chevreuse was willing
to adhere to the arrangement concluded with her father,

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RETIREMENT AND DEATH

on condition she was paid the indemnities promised her.
The difficulties were not to end here.

M. de Montbazon had left a will by which he desired his
son, the Prince de Guéméné, to pay the children of his
second marriage a sum of 200,000 livres, to be charged
on the value of the offices the King had bestowed on M. de
Montbazon, and which he had resigned into Guéméné’s
hands—the government of Nantes, worth 200,000 livres;
that of the fle de France, which brought in 85,000 crowns;
the office of Master of the King’s Hunt, 100,000 crowns
about 800,000 livres in all. Mme. de Chevreuse, perceiving
her father’s assets would never furnish the 200,000 livres
and the yearly income to which she was entitled, forthwith
cast her eyes on these 800,000 livres, and prayed Parliament
to order that her claim, too, should be charged upon that
sum. She began a lawsuit with her brother, and Guéméné
appealed to the King. The King, by a decree of his
Council, made answer that he did not intend that offices
of honour bestowed by him, in pure kindness, should be
reckoned as forming part of any private fortune, “lest,”
he said, “the division of such benefits should diminish the
gratitude felt for them.” Mme. de Chevreuse had lost her
cause. But Guéméné, furious at the trick his sister had
played him, was to take yet another vengeance upon her.

When the Duchess had claimed the yearly income drawn
from the fortunes of her mother and grandmother, and
promised her by her marriage contract, together with the
dowry also specified in that document, an arrangement had
been come to, on February 20, 1654, whereby everything
was to be settled by the payment by M. de Montbazon
of a sum fixed at 440,000 livres, and his daughter had at
once taken a mortgage for that amount on her father’s
property. When the settlement of the paternal succession
began, she asserted her right to a prior claim over all the
other creditors, and demanded full payment out of the
assets, before anybody else could touch them.

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Then Guéméné asserted that he, too, must be allowed
to take “his legitimate fortune” out of the assets before
anybody else, and even declared that, as the eldest son,
he could insist on having it “out of what had been given
to the said Lady Duchess of Chevreuse.” They went to
law again. Mme. de Chevreuse replied that as the Prince,
her brother, had received offices worth 800,000 livres from
their father, he ought to take his “legitimate fortune” out
of that sum. “If the value of the said offices and govern-
ments did not suffice,” she added, “the surplus ought to
be taken out of the donations made to the children of the
second marriage of the said Duc de Montbazon.” But
then the children of the second marriage arose in their
wrath. By a writ served on March 23, 1655, they called
on Guéméné to pay them the 200,000 livres left them by
M. de Montbazon’s will, and to be taken out of the 800,000
livres furnished by the offices made over by their late
father to the Prince. We have already related that
Guéméné had appealed to the King, who would not allow
the value of offices conferred by his favour to be reckoned
in any succession. Mme. de Chevreuse was to go on
bringing lawsuit after lawsuit in every court, and the
litigation was to grow more and more complicated.

Meanwhile, Mme. de Montbazon had died. She passed
away rather suddenly in April, 1657, killed by an attack
of suppressed measles, after barely two days’ illness, and
in her forty-eighth year. To the very end of her life she
was immensely admired. My readers may be acquainted
with the story, which has, indeed, been contradicted,
according to which M. de Rancé, her last lover, came
into the death-chamber, and found the head of the corpse
severed from the trunk, because the coffin had been made
too small to allow of the body being laid in it intact.
So horrified was de Rancé by this unexpected sight that
he became a monk, and the ultimate founder of La Trappe.
Mme. de Montbazon left a daughter of seventeen, Anne

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de Rohan, a charming young creature, dearly loved by
Mme. de Chevreuse, who took her to live with her: she
had practically brought her up. The young girl set her
affections on a cloistered life, and became a novice.

The death of Mme. de Montbazon created fresh diffi-
culties. But the affairs of Mme. de Chevreuse were much
more seriously affected by the death of her husband, the
old Duc de Chevreuse, who had been suddenly carried off
three months previously, in January 1657, by an attack of
apoplexy.

Up to that time M. de Chevreuse, in spite of his eighty
years, had enjoyed fairly good health. He had completely
recovered from a first attack, which had left him, so he
said, “as well and hearty as if he had been five-and-
twenty.” His appetite was good, he loved dainty food,
and, so Tallemant assures us, he still had a weakness for
the fair sex. He was considered rather frivolous. Though
he had grown more and more deaf, and was afflicted, in
general society, with certain weaknesses which made the
young folks laugh, he still led a merry life, and, as Monglat
tells us, “thought of nothing but his pleasures.” There
was a story that even when he had reached his seventieth
year he would have “pretty dears” brought to the castle
of Dampierre, and that after supper he was in the habit
of paying nightly visits to “some creature or other” in
the neighbourhood of Saint Thomas du Louvre. He was
buried in the Carmelite Church. He had not been a very
conspicuous figure when he was alive, and he left no
particular void after his death.

If he had not been as horrified as he ought by his wife’s
ill-conduct, she had certainly suffered a world of vexation
on account of his unbusinesslike habits. M. de Chevreuse
did not know what order meant. He expected his house to
be invariably well kept, his table well served, his stables
full of fine horses, and it never occurred to him to consider
whether he was in a position to pay for it all or not.

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Then, every now and then, he would be seized with some
ruinously expensive fancy, such as to have fifteen coaches
built at once, so as to choose the one that ran the most
smoothly !

As aconsequence of all this dissipation, he was over head
and ears in debt quite early in his life. His whole exist-
ence was one long fight with his creditors. His lawsuits
were countless. His ereditors seized his goods a full score
of times. He was in perpetual need of money, and would
borrow, and sell anything, at any price, to get the where-
withal to carry on. “You must know,” wrote du Dorat.
to Boispillé on July 9, 1638, “that Monseigneur the Duke
is well in health, better provided with ready money at this
present moment than when you went away, for he has
sold two horses to Mme. de Choisy. It is no news to you,
it is true, to hear he has been selling, but the miracle is
to hear that Mme. de Choisy has given 600 livres for two
sorry beasts, and an unheard-of thing that any woman of
the Place Royale should have given money to M. de
Chevreuse! This leads me to judge that when you come
back you will find him very much changed.”

Landed properties, pensions, fiefs, the bailiffs laid hands
on them all! Then M. de Chevreuse appealed to Riche-
lieu, entreating him to move Parliament, through the
Chancellor, to grant him release from these seizures.
“Monsieur,” he wrote to the Minister, “hearing that the
Chancellor is at Rueil, I have seized this moment to come
and pray your Eminence to remember my very humble
supplication. I am constrained to be importunate, for I
am sorely pressed! I beseech you to take pity on me!”
But Richelieu replied that M. de Chevreuse must pay what
he owed! In 1640, when the Duke offered to go to England
and fetch his wife home, he asked the Government to
release the mortgages on his pensions as a reward, and
even assured the Secretaries of State that the Cardinal had
promised him this satisfaction in Boispillé’s presence. “I

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never said one word about the release of his pensions,
éither to M. de Chevreuse or to his people,” wrote the
angry Cardinal, sharply, to Chavigny; “‘on the contrary,
I have always said that the King intended him to draw
them, but not until the reparation (payment of his debts)
had been made. If he wishes to be dishonest, like his
wife; he can, but my opinion is that. nothing should be
given him till his journey is over. I recommend you to
speak sharply to Boispillé; after that they can do as they
like—that is to say, they can go or stay, just as they
choose!”

The Duke was reduced to living on borrowed money.
In a humble petition to Richelieu, sent in 1640, he sadly
explained that for the last six years more than 80,000 livres
of his yearly income had been sequestrated. As a result,
he avowed himself “extremely inconvenienced and needy.”
“All his fortune having been actually seized, he had been
forced to live on credit and borrowed money almost the
whole of that time.” And he begged he might have an
advance of ten or twelve thousand crowns on the revenues
of his offices. He was miserably poor!

So miserably poor, indeed, that Mme. de Chevreuse
resolved, in her exasperation, to ask for a separate main-
tenance! M. de Chevreuse, who declared his wife was as
great a spendthrift as himself, was furious. The suit for
this separation was begun in the course of the year 1637.
Mme. de Chevreuse was then living in exile at Couziéres :
she had confided the care of her business affairs to Catinat,
the Lieutenant-General of Tours; and her correspondence
with Paris, for this particular matter, was carried by a
man of the name of Mazelle. ‘ Mazelle,”’ confessed La
Porte, in the course of one of his cross-examinations, “only
went to Paris in secret because M.:de Chevreuse had
threatened to thrash him for mixing himself up in the
lawsuit Mme. de Chevreuse had brought against him.”
La Porte further said that Mazelle had been commissioned

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by the Duchess to obtain the Queen’s support, so that the
judges might be induced to pronounce in her favour; and,
as a matter of fact, Anne of Austria did request du Dorat
to take the necessary steps in her name.

There was much angry discussion. Mme. de Chevreuse
claimed that her husband was bound to pay every penny of
their common debts. These were many and various. The
Duke and the Duchess both owed money in all directions:
money for advances made by, and wages that had never
been paid to, their former stewards, Clercelier and Fosse,
who had been fain to accept a yearly income instead of the
sums they should have received; another annual sum due
to Prou, one of their purveyors—the interest of money he
had advanced them; 30,000 livres to a certain M. Morant;
14,508 to a M. de Montmort; 40,000 livres to MM. le
Liévre and Lhuilier; 500 livres a year to M. Ménardeau,
and ever so many others! Besides all this, Mme. de
Chevreuse claimed a fairly long list of sums, which reached
a total close on 500,000 livres, and two annual payments,
one of 10,000 livres for herself, and the other of 6000 livres
for the support of her daughter. And she expected to
retain possession of the Hétel de Chevreuse. M. de Chev-
reuse sent in statement after statement, fought every
claim, poured forth explanations.

Towards the end of 1637, sentence was pronounced.
Parliament assigned the Duchess a yearly pension of 8000
livres “for her food,” 5000 livres for the support of her
daughter, and possession of the Hétel de Chevreuse, on
condition she paid her husband a reasonable sum to
reimburse him for his expenditure on the enlargement and
embellishment of the house. As to the debts, the court
held the Duchess to be as responsible as the Duke for the
confusion in the family finances, and declared the husband
and wife to be bound, “jointly and severally,” to pay all
they owed. It was a heavy charge, and was to cause
endless difficulties! As regarded the capital sum, Par-

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RETIREMENT AND DEATH

liament gave the Duchess what she had asked—500,000
livres.

Quite unmoved, M. de Chevreuse quietly went on living
in the Hétel de Chevreuse—his wife was in England—
without paying any rent. The separation had done him
one good turn—the expense of upkeep was no longer cast
on him. He did not pay the Duchess the 500,000 liwres
he owed her, nor the yearly income of 8000 livres, nor the
5000 livres for his daughter’s expenses. And he was
perfectly delighted, because whenever creditors came and
worried him for money, he referred them to his wife.

So the howling mob of creditors fell upon Mme. de
Chevreuse. She could not pay them any more than her
husband; she tried to quiet the most impatient by giving
them instalments—11,540 livres to M. de Boissise, and a
sum to M. Ménardeau which released her from the payment
of his 500 livres a year. But these were mere palliatives.
They all banded themselves together, and the bailiffs laid
hands on the Duchess’s belongings,

Thus they lived on for years, in the most utter con-
fusion: how, one hardly knows; Mme. de Chevreuse was
generally an exile, outside the borders of France, living
on borrowed money and subventions sent her by the
Spaniards; M. de Chevreuse lived at home, on the small
remnants of his income: the Duchy of Chevreuse, which,
as he himself had pointed out, brought him in but little—
so much of it returned nothing at all, the revenues had
been so diminished by the wars, the repairs to buildings,
the wages of officials, the upkeep of Dampierre, all made
such heavy inroads on what it did return; a pension of
40,000 livres a year, charged on the five big farms; some
scraps of charges bestowed by the King on the Abbeys of
Corbie, Saint-Rémy de Reims and Saint-Denis—precarious
all of them, irregularly and incompletely paid, and
frequently seized by his creditors into the bargain.

When Mme. de Chevreuse returned to Paris—it was in

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1652—the husband and wife decided to look into their
affairs. They did not know how to find means of support;
it was impossible to go on in this fashion. The tradesmen
constantly refused supplies, and violent scenes took place,
in the course of which M. de Chevreuse used to lose all
self-control, and even go so far as to threaten his wife.
A letter to Mazarin, dated February 7, 1652, contains the
following passage : ‘Never has the Duchesse de Chevreuse
been so much troubled by her husband’s outbursts: he
falls into perfect furies. He has horrible requests all ready
to put forward against her, and claims the power to have
her arrested if he chooses, on the authority of the [mar-
riage] sacrament!” After lengthy debate, an agreement
was reached in the month of March. Mme. de Chevreuse,
“to arrange matters by the ways of gentleness and decorum,
and so enjoy peace in the house,” so ran the deed, agreed
to reduce her claim of 500,000 livres to one of 400,000: she
even consented to the payment of this sum after the Duke’s
death—she or her heirs would wait till that occurred. In
return, M. de Chevreuse was to give his wife an income
of 20,000 livres a year, charged on the 40,000 livres brought
in by the five big farms; and he undertook to be responsible
for all debts, including those “jointly incurred since their
separation.”

M. de Chevreuse did not adhere to this arrangement any
more than he had adhered to its predecessors. He paid
nothing whatever, save a few notes of hand which never
brought in any money at all. Two years later the Duchess,
once more in the bailiffs’ hands, appealed to Parlia-
ment.. Between the advances she had made to creditors,
and her own income, which was still owing, as well as her
daughter’s yearly income, over 71,540 livres were due to
her from her husband. In her formal prayer she feigned,
to save the Duke’s feelings, to ascribe this state of things
to ill-will on the part of some subordinate. “Seeing,” she
said, “that the Duke’s affairs remained in a state of con-

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fusion which made it impossible to clear up the debts, or
the spending of the income, thanks to the dangerous con-
duct of the person who had the management of them, and
who, taking advantage of the weakness of the said Sieur
de, Chevreuse, had always put off the payment of all these:
debts, she had found it impossible any longer to endure
the embarrassments in which she was left by the said Sieur
de Chevreuse, without appealing to the law to force him to
carry out the said transaction honestly.” And she went
on to announce her intention of seizing the duchy of
Chevreuse !

Then M. de Chevreuse made a sharp thrust in return.
When the agreement had been made in 1652, he asserted,
the rents for that year, on which his wife’s income of
20,000 livres was to be charged, had already been divided
amongst his creditors. For the year 1653 he had given
her bills on the rents for 1654. At that moment (July,
1654) the Duchess had received the two first quarterly
payments, she was to receive the third on July 15, and the
fourth when it fell due, in October. The income for 1654
would be supplied by means of bills drawn on the rents
to be paid in 1655. Let Mme. de Chevreuse observe,
moaned the Duke, that “the said gentleman was giving
her and the creditors the bulk of his income, all that
remained being the income on benefices which had brought
in nothing for the last eight years and more.” As for the
revenues of the duchy of Chevreuse, these were well known
—they were almost nil. All these reasons, concluded M. de
Chevreuse, made it impossible for him to pay the income
due for the year 1654 in any other way.

Then he gave a list of the creditors who were pursuing
him, related what he had done to quiet them, set forth
what he proposed to do, so as to give them satisfaction.
“And here,” wrote the person who had drawn up the
document, “is the true statement of the pretensions of my
said Lady, and the reasons of Monseigneur, according to

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which there is no appearance leading to the carrying of
the matter to such an extremity as to desire to strip Mon-
seigneur of his duchy, and by an absolute execution, to
take judicial proceedings as to the small fortune he can
now enjoy to pay his expenses, seeing the pensions on the
benefices are growing continually less, and as to the rents
of his five big farms, the said Lady takes one half, and
the rest goes to his creditors.”

Mme. de Chevreuse, thus pinched between her own diffi-
culties and her husband’s, and sorely puzzled to know what
she should do, addressed herself to Séguier, the Chancellor.
In September, 1654, she sent him a detailed memorandum,
setting forth her state of penury, her extreme poverty,
and telling him that instead of the income her husband
was bound to pay her, he had sent her bills only payable
at dates a long way ahead. Live she must, somehow! She
had been forced to borrow from her tradesmen, and give
them bills charged on those five big farms! She spoke of
the creditors who were always upon her heels, tormenting
her, threatening her with executions. Could any woman
be in a more miserable position? And she besought the
Chancellor to come to her rescue, ‘“‘because of the necessity
to which she was reduced, seeing she had nothing in the
world but the 400,000 livres M. de Chevreuse owed her that
could bring her in any income at all.”

Then an idea flashed across the man of business who
was in the habit of advising the Duchess. Why should
not M. de Chevreuse sell his duchy to his wife? This
transaction would solve all the difficulties: the Duke would
be relieved of the engagements he had made as to the
Duchess; he might, if he chose, continue to enjoy the use
of Dampierre, just as he enjoyed the use of the house in
the Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre. The causes of dis-
agreement would thus be eliminated. But how, indeed,
was Mme. de Chevreuse, who had not a crown to her name,
to pay for the duchy? That difficulty might be solved,

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perhaps, by borrowing the money. Mme. de Chevreuse
agreed to the plan, and after a long period of reflection
M. de Chevreuse consented as well: so the duchy was
sold to Marie de Rohan.

The deed was signed in the presence of the notaries,
Ogier and Gallois, on October 15, 1655, at the house in
the Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre, in which the couple still
lived. The advisers of Mme. de Chevreuse had skilfully
secured their client’s interests; the Duke’s had defended
his with much talent.

By the deed, M. de Chevreuse made over the separate
ownership of the whole duchy to his wife, with the excep-
tion of 550 acres of woodland, sold to M. de Montmort,
the castellany of Chateauneuf, its fiefs and dependencies,
together with the farm of Oinvilliers and 34 acres of wood,
which had been sold to a M. de Montrouillon. The Duke
reserved his title of Duke and Peer for life, and likewise
his right to exercise justice over the whole of the duchy
from which he took his name. After his death, Mme. de
Chevreuse was to have power to ask the King to grant her
letters-patent either continuing the dukedom, or creating
another dukedom and peerage, in favour of her son, the
Duc de Luynes, or her grandson, the Marquis d’ Albert.

M. de Chevreuse transferred Dampierre to his wife,
together with all the furniture in it, but not the silver plate.
He was to have the enjoyment, for all the rest of his life,
of the castle, “buildings, poultry-yard, edifices, gardens,
canals, fountains, ponds and parks of the said place.” He
was to keep it up at his own SeHEHeG and the walls round
it as well.

The price Mme. de Chevreuse was to pay comprised
certain conditions of a complicated nature. In the first
place she was to give her husband 1,030,000 livres; then
she was to undertake to defray various expenses: to repay
to a certain Mile. Boisset the price of the offices of clerk and
tabellion at Chevreuse; to pay all the wages of the forest-

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wardens, lieutenant, woodmen, bailiff and fiscal attorney
of the duchy; to see that 200 livres a year were sent to
the Augustines in Paris, or to the Dames des Hautes-
Bruyéres de Port-Royal; 495 livres to the parish priest ,
and church at Dampierre; to send the prior of Chevreuse
three hogsheads of wine and three setiers of wheat yearly;
the wood off seven acres of forest to MM. de Montmort and
de Méridon, and so forth. M. de Chevreuse was released
from all and every obligation to his wife, whether incurred
by marriage contract or by any subsequent arrangement.

Then out of the million of livres due to the Duke, the
notaries took the following sums: the 400,000 livres M.
de Chevreuse owed his wife, according to the agreement
made in March 1652; and 20,000 livres representing the
interest on that sum for the year 1654; various sums paid
out by the Duchess to her husband’s creditors : 8720 livres
to MM. Gratien and Ménardeau; 1500 to a Mme. le
Coigneux; sixty to Rémond, a notary; 514 for duties on
spices and interest thereupon. The original sum was
reduced, one way or another, to 600,000 livres. Of these
600,000 livres Mme. de Chevreuse was to pay her husband
280,000 within eight days; but so as to have a quiet mind
as to the creditors, she made a proviso that this money
should “be instantly employed, as Monseigneur the Duke
promised and bound himself to do, in the presence of the
said lady, or of the person named by her, for the payment
and acquitting of the debts he was obliged to pay, as my
said lord shall be advised: my said lady being jointly
and severally responsible for them with the said lord.”
A sum of 320,000 livres would be left over; and until that
was completely paid off—for which the parties would have
to wait till better times—Mme. de Chevreuse was to pay
the Duke interest on it at the rate of five per cent. Taking
it all together, M. de Chevreuse was not to receive a single
crown of the purchase money,

But the arrangement, on the whole, was not a bad one for

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either party. M. de Chevreuse kept his title, he kept the
use of Dampierre, he was rid of the disputes with his wife,
to whom he no longer owed a sou; he could enjoy his
income from the five big farms in peace, and need not give
the Duchess anything out of it. Mme. de Chevreuse, on
her side, had acquired a huge property at a fairly moderate
price. Both parties were pleased.

The 280,000 livres the Duchess had undertaken to pay
down, had to be raised. But with the duchy to raise them
on, it was not likely that lenders would be difficult to find.
The Duchess’s advisers and her son, the Duc de Luynes,
looked about them. In consideration of certain yearly
payments and mortgages, seven persons agreed to advance
the money, M. de Luynes undertaking to share his
mother’s responsibility, and guaranteeing the payment of
interest at the rate of five per cent. In the list of these
lenders we find the Port-Royal, and certain adherents
of that religious house. ‘The ladies, abbess, and nuns
of Port-Royal” lent 40,000 livres: Simond Arnauld de
Pomponne, second son of Arnauld d’Andilly, lent 40,000
too: Jean Hamelin, Comptroller-General of Bridges and
Highways within the generalship of Paris, who hid
Arnauld and Nicole in his house, advanced 60,000 livres:
then a M. Léger Meunier, a former Master of Accounts,
lent 28,000 livres: Mme. Antoinette de Beaucler, widow of
M. Francois de Rochechouart, 18,000: and the House of
the Institution of the Oratory of Jesus Christ our Saviour,
founded in the Faubourg Saint-Michel by M. Pinet, 22,000
livres. All these sums only made up a total of 248,000
livres. The difference, 32,000 livres, was kept back by
Mme. de Chevreuse for interest due to her and the pay-
ment of various accounts. On November 22, 1655, the
Duke’s secretray, Jean Moron, duly provided with his
master’s power of attorney, received the 248,000 livres in
his name; he signed the receipt at the Hétel de Chev-
reuse in the presence of the two notaries, Ogier and

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Gallois, and added the promise, already embodied in the
deed of purchase, that the money should be forthwith used
for the payment of the Duke’s debts. Four months later,
Mme. de Chevreuse, in accordance with the rights of those
times, took the oath of allegiance to the King in the
presence of the Chancellor, Séguier: “pour raison du
Duché de Chevreuse, ses appartenances et dépendances,
circonstantes et annexées, tenues et mouvant de nous,” so
ran the letters-patent from Louis XIV, “a cause de la
grosse tour de notre chateau du Louvre.” The financial
difficulties with the Duke were over. Husband and wife
were now free to enjoy their hard-won quietness of
mind in peace: but this enjoyment was to be of short
duration: the very next year, M. de Chevreuse breathed
his last !

Widowed, Mme. de Chevreuse found herself in a most
difficult position. Her household expenses were too heavy
for her, her habits far too lavish and sumptuous. She
was forced to cut down her expenditure, Desiring above
all things to keep Dampierre, she made up her mind to sell
the Hotel de Chevreuse in Paris. It was a painful thing
to do. The house was sold, in 1657, to the Duc de Candale,
for his father, the Duc d’Epernon; the price given was
400,000 livres. M. de Luynes had bought it for 175,000
livres: he had thrown another house, for which he paid
24,000 livres, into the larger one, and carried the gardens
right down to the ramparts, thanks to Louis XIII, who
bestowed a piece of land on him for that purpose. Mme.
de Chevreuse had already sold the house once, to her
second husband, the Duc de Chevreuse, in 1622, for
180,000 livres: and this second time, with all the improve-
ments the Duke had added to the mansion, she was
obtaining a price that amounted to more than double that
sum. From that time forward, as though fated never to
find another place in all the city where she might lay

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her head, she was destined to wander hither and thither all
over Paris. We find her in the Rue de 1’Université, in
the parish of Saint-Sulpice, in 1658: in the Rue Git-le-
Coeur, in the parish of Saint-André-des-Arts, in 1660: in
the Rue Saint-Dominique, in the parish of Saint-Sulpice,
again, in 1663. Age, worries, money difficulties, were to
weigh heavier on her, year by year.

She still retained indeed, the yearly income of 40,000
livres which her husband had received from the five big
farms! But this income did not suffice for her wants.
By letters-patent, dated March 19, 1658, the King had
consented to allow her the enjoyment of the County of
Charolais and the Barony of the Mont Saint-Vincent, with
their mills and ponds and other appurtenances, which
belonged to the King of Spain, to indemnify her for the
loss, by Spanish confiscation, of certain properties she had
bought in Flanders, at Karpen and Lommerein: even this
did not clear her difficulties away.

Then she tried speculation; she dreamt of buying an
island in the Antilles, Martinique! In a memorandum
addressed to the King, she set forth that a French Com-
pany having been formed, in 1626, to colonize the Antilles,
St. Kitts, Martinique, Guadaloupe, King Louis XIII
had granted it the government and ownership of these
islands. But this company had failed, had sold Guada-
loupe to a M. Houel, who had been governor of the island,
Martinique to a M. Duparquet, and St. Kitts to the
Knights of the Order of Malta. Being desirous, now, of
buying Martinique from M. Duparquet’s heirs, Mme. de
Chevreuse prayed His Majesty to grant her the same
privileges as those he had allowed the Knights in St.
Kitts, that is to say, sovereign rights, except as to the
duty of doing homage, and of presenting a crown of gold
to each sovereign, on his accession. Louis XIV refused
the petition, and nothing more came of the business.

Mme. de Chevreuse still owned the duchy of Chevreuse !

325
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

But it was a heavy burden on her! She had to reconcile
the necessity of keeping up the dignity of her rank with
that of meeting the outlay inseparable from the manage.
ment of so important a property. Once more the Duchess
found herself up to her ears in debt, with creditors
harrying her on every side. Then it occurred to her that
she might sell Chevreuse and Dampierre, and “free
herself,” as she said, “from the cares the possession of
such great domains brought on her, and also provide for
the payment of what she owed, so as to live, in future, in
greater peace and quietness.” But how could she part
with this dwelling, to which she was so much attached, in
which she had lived for forty years, which teemed with so
many memories?

She conceived the idea of simply making over Dampierre
and Chevreuse to her son, the Duc de Luynes. In return,
M. de Luynes was to pay his mother’s debts, and give
her an annual income of 20,000 livres—the Duchess,
like the late Duke, retaining her right to the use of the
castle as long as she lived. The Duc de Luynes consented.
The deed, which was signed on March 1, 1663, in the pres-
ence of MM. le Carron and Gallois, notaries, stated that
the gift was made as an instalment on ultimate inheritance,
to date from the following Saint John the Baptist’s Day:
Mme. de Chevreuse reserved herself the use of “lodging for
herself and her people,” at Dampierre, ‘‘whenever she
chose to go thither, and the use of her furniture there.”

Four months later, on September 9, 1663, M. de Luynes
handed over the title and property of Chevreuse, by deed
of gift, to his own son, Charles-Honoré d’Albert, reserv-
ing to himself, even as his mother and his step-father had
done, the enjoyment for life of “the castle, poultry-yards
and other lodgings, together with the gardens, flower-
lawns, canals, ponds, and all other things enclosed within
the park of Dampierre.” So fondly did every member of
this family cling to the beloved spot! He undertook to

326
RETIREMENT AND DEATH

keep it all up, plantations, fountains, canals, boundary
walls. And to balance this, the grandson, the Marquis
d’Albert, was to pay his grandmother’s debts—the Duc
de Luynes had paid 49,000 livres for her already—and
give Mme. de Chevreuse her annual income of 20,000
livres.

As the Duc de Chevreuse had died without leaving a
son, his peerage, according to the letters-patent of 1612,
had died with him, and the duchy alone, unless the King
were to will it otherwise, could pass to another person.
Louis XIV ratified the donation of the duchy, and
maintained the ducal title of its new owner; but he did not
recreate the peerage.

And thus it came about that in her old age the children
Mme. de Chevreuse had borne to Luynes, the only male
children she ever had, ensured the peace and quiet-
ness of her declining years. She was proud of these
children—of her grandson, at least, in whom the brilliant
and warlike qualities of his ancestors of the preceding
century lived again!

Her son gave her less satisfaction. She considered
M. de Luynes, a fervent supporter of the Jansenists, whose
wife, a Séguier, was as ardent as he in her friendship for
the nuns of Port-Royal, to be over-devout, and “furiously
degenerate.” He had built a little country-house at
Vaumurier, close to the Monastery of Port-Royal-des-
Champs, to be near the nuns, and thither he would retire
with his wife, and live in isolation and in silence, rising
in the middle of the night, saying the prescribed prayers,
giving all he had to the poor. “The Jansenists did every-
thing in his house,” says Tallemant. He was called the
nuns’ “Constable.” Mme. de Luynes, always a delicate
woman, died, on September 13, 1651, at the age of twenty-
seven, leaving four children. M. de Luynes returned to
the social world. Six years later, he fell in love with his
own half-aunt, Anne de Rohan, daughter of Mme. de

327
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Montbazon, who lived with Mme. de Chevreuse. His
mother was sorely perturbed, for Anne de Rohan desired
to enter the religious life, and had already become a
novice. ‘Mme. de Chevreuse,” writes Saint-Simon, “who
dreaded the idea of her son’s returning to his retreat at
Vaumurier, had been so afraid his despair at not being
able to possess the object of his passion might drive him
back into seclusion, that she urged her half-sister to put
off her white veil, and by dint of money, with which, at
Rome, all things can be done, obtained a dispensation for
the marriage, which she arranged in 1661, and which was a
very happy one.” The couple were to have seven children.
When Anne died, in 1684, at the age of forty-four, M. de
Luynes married for the third time: his wife was Marguerite
d’Aligre. As Sainte-Beuve says, he was a vir uxorius, he
loved the married state. Bussy-Rabutin tells us that after
he had married Anne de Rohan, ‘““Mme. de Chevreuse,
whose person, after having been the temple of all
delights, had now become their tomb, not being in a
position to do anything for herself, put forward Mme. de
Luynes, who is one of the most beautiful women in
France,” in the hope of her supplantimg Mlle. de la
Valliére in the affections of Louis XIV! The source of
this piece of information leads us to suspect its reliability.
If correct, it would prove how little Mme. de Chevreuse
can have esteemed her own son !

Her grandson was far dearer to her. Though he had
been brought up in the Port-Royal atmosphere, and more
particularly by Lancelot—the “Logique” of Port-Royal
had been specially written for his benefit—the Marquis
d’Albert was much less ruled by the Jansenists than his
father. He was a man of action, devoted to the career of
arms, and had done brilliant service in the Flemish cam-
paigns, during which he had been wounded: in him his
grandmother recognized her own natural activity, her
longing to attract attention, to display her power, to attain

328
RETIREMENT AND DEATH

her ends. He was to gratify her most ardent desires by
making a splendid and wealthy marriage, with the
daughter of Colbert.

There was talk of this alliance as early as in the year
1666. “There is a report of another marriage at Court,”
wrote Guy Patin, on December 29, “that of the daughter
of M. Colbert, who is now tad rdvta Ce@saris, with M. le
Duc de Chevreuse, who is the son of the Duc de Luynes,
and grandson of the Constable. M. Colbert, who is the
son of a shopkeeper, has become a great lord, and, though
unseen, rules the whole of Europe; at any rate he is, as it
were, the master of France!” In a letter to the Duc
de Chaulnes, grand-uncle of Charles-Honoré d’Albert,
Colbert, as though to excuse the fact that he, the cloth-
worker’s heir, should be marrying his daughter to a Duke,
grandson of a Constable of France, declares that “the
King, who was much more the father of his children than
he (Colbert) was himself,” had deigned to think of this
union. Mme. de Chevreuse, he went on to say, had also
been one of the first persons to whom it had occurred, and
he concluded as follows: “I assure you that by this means
I attach myself to the interests of your house, for which
you will always find my feelings most sincere, and most
passionate.” And this, with a rich dowry, was precisely
what Mme. de Chevreuse and her grandson most desired.

In spite of Colbert’s assertion, Louis XIV, so Lefévre
d’Ormesson tells us, would seem to have been more or
less opposed to the marriage. Colbert, while he fixed his
choice on the Duc de Chevreuse as a husband for Marie,
his eldest daughter, was thinking of marrying the second,
Henriette-Louise, to Paul de Beauvilliers, son of the Duc
de Saint-Aignan. This was to set up two very exalted
claims at once! However, the King did not persist in
his opposition: he even made the first advance to Luynes
himself, “which,” as d’Ormesson himself acknowledges,
“proved how high M. Colbert’s credit stood.”

329
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

The wedding ceremony took place on February 1, 1667.
The Archbishop of Paris conferred his benediction on the
newly married pair in the private chapel in Colbert’s house.
At the subsequent banquet there were three tables, each
accommodating forty-five guests. ‘It was an entertaining
parallel,” wrote d’Ormesson again, “all M. de Luynes
family on one side, and that of M. Colbert on the other.
M. le Brun told me how magnificent the wedding had
been; the Chancellor had been present, and went to the
supper.” Public rumour was already busy with the rich
benefits the De Luynes family was likely to reap from this
alliance: M. de Luynes to be appointed Governor of
Paris, or Guyenne, the Duc de Chevreuse to replace
the Duc de Mazarin as Grand Master of the Artillery,
the Duc de Chaulnes to be Governor of Brittany!
And if the whole family was provided for now and
in future, it would all be thanks to the cleverness with
which Mme. de Chevreuse had ensured her grandson’s
prosperity !

She had not troubled herself nearly so much about her
daughters. There had been four of them: the eldest by
M. de Luynes, the three others, Anne-Marie, Henriette,
and Charlotte, by M. de Chevreuse. The only method that
had occurred to her, to rid herself of the encumbrance her
children were in her troubled and wandering existence, was
to make them over to the care of her sister-in-law, the
Abbess of Jouarre. The best chance for her girls, she thought,
seeing how sorely embarrassed the family finances had
become, lay in their being brought up in a convent, where
they might discover a vocation, and become nuns.
Unluckily, Mme. de Jouarre died, in 1638, when the
youngest child was seven, and the eldest twenty. Some
other home for them had to be found, and Mme. de Chev-
reuse, desiring to place them in the Abbey of Saint-
Antoine, near Paris, wrote to Richelieu to request the
King’s permission to make this arrangement. Richelieu,

330

*
RETIREMENT AND DEATH

not wishing to have the children of the Duchess so near
the Court, refused : the Superior, he said, would not be the
mistress of her own house long : the children—the Cardinal
concluded them to be as turbulent as their mother—
“would very likely upset the minds of numbers of the
inhabitants of Saint-Antoine, and they would attract such
a flow of visitors that it would be one perpetual procession.”
Then Mme. de Chevreuse threw her children on their
father’s hands. M. de Chevreuse did not know what to do
with them. As a temporary measure, he settled them,
with the nuns from Jouarre who had conducted them to
him, at Issy. But here the Archbishop of Paris made
difficulties: “Monsieur,” wrote the Duke to Chavigny, on
August 17, 1640, “I am in such a quandary about my
children, that I have been forced, thanks to the violence
of Monseigneur de Paris, to remove Mlle de Luynes and
my daughters from Issy, and I have sent them to
Dampierre until it shall please his Eminence to com-
mand what is to be done with them: if it were his
pleasure that they should remain on at Issy, and there
await his will, it would be a great favour to me. Pray do
me the honour of speaking to him and obtaining a letter
from him to Monseigneur de Paris, and to the nuns from
Jouarre who are with them.” But it was impossible for
M. de Chevreuse to keep his daughters at Dampierre
for ever. He cursed their mother and the worry she
caused him. Two, at least, of the girls seemed disposed
to enter conventual life, and the Duke, hearing the
Superior of the Abbey of Remiremont was far advanced
in years, was inspired with the idea of sending one of them
to take the veil in that house, if Richelieu would give him
a promise that she should be appointed Abbess on the
death of the present holder of that dignity. The Cardinal
consented. “Ah!” wrote the Duke, “you are lightening
the burden of a father whose daughters are a sore hindrance
to him! Your Eminence knows wherefore, and all the

33!
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

ingratitude of their mother, the losses and the troubles she
has brought upon me!”

The Remiremont plan was destined to fail. The
eldest daughter, Anne-Marie, did take the veil and
ultimately became Abbess of Pont-aux-Dames, where she
died young, in her twenty-eighth year, in 1652: another
daughter, Henriette, also became a nun, and Abbess of
Jouarre, like her own great aunt; she lived into old age,
till 1693, and had several disputes with Bossuet: the
youngest, Charlotte, whose tastes were far removed from
the monastic, returned to her mother, never left her side
again, and played the part in her life which we have
already described. As for Mlle. de Luynes, she died of the
small-pox at the age of twenty-eight, in September, 1646.

Thus, Mme. de Chevreuse, rid of debts, worries, hus-
band, and children, was free to live at ease. Laigue
was still with her. “This petty nobleman from Limoges,
with his 5000 livres a year,” as Mazarin scornfully
described him, was her slave, ruled by an influence
against which he never essayed to struggle, and so
accustomed to her that he never left her side. Yet Mme.
de Chevreuse had but little beauty left! She had grown
heavy and thick, her face was puffy and wrinkled, her
hair was turning grey, her charm was gone! In his
Carte Géographique de la Cour, published in 1668, Bussy-
Rabutin draws a picture of her, not over kind, but which
would seem to have been fairly truthful: ‘“Chevreuse,”
(the Duchess was then a woman of sixty-eight) “is a large
fortress, quite ruined now, the quarters in which are all
unroofed : notwithstanding this, it is fairly strong outside,
but it is very ill-guarded within: in old days it was
exceedingly famous and full of traffic; it did business in
several kingdoms, and the citadel is now quite in ruins,
thanks to the many sieges laid to take it. It is reported to
have frequently surrendered at discretion. The natives are
very changeable and disagreeable in temper. There have

332
RETIREMENT AND DEATH

been several governors. At present it is badly provided
in that respect, for the man in charge is quite good for
nothing!” Laigue, thus accused of being “good for
nothing,” was fifty-four.

So completely was his life bound up with that of Mme.
de Chevreuse, that they were universally believed to be
united in one of those private marriages, secret, but not
clandestine, which, we are assured, were not uncommon at
that period. Saint-Simon has repeated this report. It
must surely have been a true one, or the relations between
the two persons concerned must at all events have become
perfectly irreproachable, for what other explanation can
be found of the fact that the gentlemen of Port-Royal, so
severe in their views, accepted Laigue and the Duchess as
their close friends? Laigue was constantly with the
Jansenists, and actively employed about their business.
In a conversation with Saint-Evremond, which that writer
has set down, Stuart d’Aubigny, one of the intimate
associates of the Port-Royal recluses, declared Laigue to
be at the head of the “political leaders”? who were labour-
ing for the cause. He was one of M. d’Andilly’s intimate
friends, and when that gentleman was accused to the King
of having fomented disturbances, it was to Laigue and the
Duchess that he turned to defend him at Court, and they
did actually make an appeal to the King. Laigue’s pious
affection for Port-Royal is proved by his will, drawn up
at Dampierre, on July 30, 1658, and still preserved in the
office of a notary in the town of Chevreuse, in which he
desires he may be buried in the church of the nuns at
Port-Royal, bequeaths an income of 3600 livres a year to
the Convent, and legacies to the Duchesse de Chevreuse, to
M. d’Andilly, and his son. It is difficult to believe that so
devout a nobleman can have been living in open sin, or
that a will of so edifying a nature can have been dated
from a house in which his presence amounted to a public
scandal !

333
THE DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE

Mme. de Chevreuse and Laigue were never to be
parted in this life. He died before her, on May 19, 1674.
He was sixty. He was not buried at Port-Royal (circum-
stances had rendered that impossible), but in the Church of
the Jacobins in Paris. A monument was placed there to his
memory, it was destroyed during the Revolution.

The death of her old friend afflicted the Duchess deeply.
She had reached her seventy-fourth year, life held no
further interest for her. She was the survivor of an age
that had departed, utterly unlike that in which she was
now living. Forsaken, forgotten, without hope or expecta- .
tion to brighten the future, her only resource was to with-
draw herself into a seclusion deeper still, and there devote
her remaining days to preparation for the hour of death.
She had grown very devout, and found in her religion the
consolation for which the weary soul, nearing the close of
life’s journey, generally hungers. Her choice fell on a
deserted Benedictine Priory at Gagny, three leagues and a
half from Paris, and not far from Chelles, where some of
her Port-Royal friends—the Akakia family—had ‘been
Priors since the beginning of the century—the house was
called the Priory of Saint-Fiacre, or the Maison Rouge.
A quiet village, numbering some two or three hundred
inhabitants, clustered round the old church. Thither the
Duchess: came to end her stormy life. She went nowhere,
spent her days in prayer, and waited for the end. That
end came to her, in her silence and her solitude, after five
long years. She passed away on August 12, 1679.

“She was buried, as she had requested, in the simplest
fashion. There was no pomp, no funeral oration. Her
corpse was laid near the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin,
in the southern aisle of the church at Gagny. She had
commanded that her epitaph should be modest and brief,
there was to be no “princess” nor “‘trés haute et puissante
dame,” nor were her husband’s titles to be mentioned in it.
“Here lies,” it ran, “Marie de Rohan, Duchesse de Chev-

334
RETIREMENT AND DEATH

reuse, daughter of Hercule de Rohan, Duc de Montbazon.
Humility having long since killed in her heart all the
glory of the century, she forbade the slightest mark of the
greatness she desired to bury for ever beneath the sim-
plicity of this tomb to be recalled on the occasion of her
death.”

Beneath that tomb her body rested till towards the
middle of the nineteenth century. Since that time, the
church has been pulled down, and the Priory as well, and
the ashes of Mme. de Chevreuse have been scattered to
the winds: the epitaph alone, last remnant of her life-story,
has been recovered, and is now piously preserved at the
Castle of Dampierre !
INDEX

AARSENS, M., 96

Abbeville, 71

Accounts, Court of, 263

Agen, 184

Aiguillon, Duchesse d’, 278

Akakia family, the, 334

Aligre, Marguerite d’, 328

Amiens, 30, 46-7; the episode
at, 64, 67-75

Andilly, Arnauld d’, 305, 323, 333

Anet, 247, 249

Angouléme, castle of, 153, 227,
239, 254

Angouléme, Duc d’, the park at
Grosbois, 43

Angouléme, Duchesse d’, 25

Anjou, Ducd’. See Orléans, Gaston
d

Anne of Austria, portrait of, 12-
13; favours bestowed on Marie
de Rohan, 13-16; evil influence
of Mme. de Luynes, 15-19 ; cold-
ness of the king, 20-1 ; renewed
friendship with Mme. de Luynes,
23, 533 disappointed of an heir,
24-5 ; letters from the king, 25,
40; the marriage of Henrietta-
Maria, 51-2, 53; the affair of
the Earl of Holland, 55-6;
and the Duke of Buckingham,
56-8, 61-6, 74-5; the Amiens
episode, 67-8, 69-72 ; servants
of, dismissed by the king, 73;
attitude towards Richelieu, 87,
88 ; and the Omano plot, 91-
93, 94, 96, I0I, 113; and
Chalais, 104, 105; and Gaston
d@ Orléans, 114-15, 1353; on the
condemnation of Mme. de Chev-
reuse, 116 ; correspondence with
Mme. de Chevreuse at Lorraine,

Zz 337

I2I-2, 125, 127, 128, 131-4;
and Montague, 123; interven-
tion on behalf of Mme. de
Chevreuse, 134; hostility towards
Marie de Médicis, 137; recon-
ciliation with Richelieu, 138,
145; intimacy with Mme. de
Chevreuse, 140, 144-5, 147, 154—-
53 growing hostility towards the
Cardinal, 151 ; the parting with
Mme. de Chevreuse, 154-5;
intrigues with Mme. de Chev-
reuse at Couziéres, 158-66 ; the
affair of the Val de Grace, 163,
165, 169-71 ; confessions to
Richelieu, 171-2; forbidden to
see Mme. de Chevreuse, 174;
warning to Mme. de Chevreuse,
177; and the flight of Mme. de
Chevreuse, 189 ; renewed friend-
ship, 194-6; the draft letter,
196-7 ; and Mme. de Chevreuse,
215; her reply to Mme. de
Chevreuse, 220; assumption of
the Regency, 226-31 ; relations
with Mazarin, 229-30, 246; ex-
ile of Mme. de Chevreuse, 247-
9 ; changed feelings towards her,
231-7 ; reception of the Duch-
esse, 237; refuses to sanction
the return of Chateauneuf, 238 ;
policy towards Mme. de Chev-
reuse, 239, 261-2, 269-72 ; and’
Mme. de Montbazon, 243-4 ;
letter to, from Tours, 250-1 ;;
commands regarding the Duch-
esse’s friends, 252; and the:
Spanish peace, 259; flight from:
Paris, 260, 263 ; loss of power,
272; reception of Mme. de
Chevreuse at Compiégne, 273-4;
INDEX

and the Prince de Condé, 281-4;
favours for Mme. de Chevreuse,
285-9 ; and the Chevreuse-Conti
marriage, 291, 296-8; release
of the Princes, 292 ; and flight of
Mazarin, 293 ; Mazarin’s advice
from Brihl, 298 ; and the Fron-
deurs, 299-300 ; visit to Dam-
pierre, 306; and the Duc de
Montbazon, 308; and Mme. de
Chevreuse’s debts, 316

Anne, waiting-woman, 179, 180

Annemets, Bois d’, Memoirs guo/ed,
67, 96, 99, 102, 105, 107, III-
12, 115

Antilles, the, 325

Ardouin, coachman, 181

Arnolphini, Don Joseph Illesca,
266

Arnoux, Pére, 20

Artenay, 165

Aubigny, Stuart d’, 333

Auger, Secretary of the English
Embassy, 160, 166, 171, 217

Augustines, the, Paris, 322

Aumale, M. d’, 279

Auvergne, 89, 122

Avancourt, 245

Ax, waters of, 183

Bagnéres, 183, 185-7

Barbastro, 187

Baréges, 185

Bar-le-Duc, 124, 293

Barradas, 225

Barre, La, 246

Barrois, the, 126

Bassompierre, Journal cited, 21,
22, 32, 1043 intervention on
behalf of Mme. de Chevreuse,
43-6 ; in Guyenne, 45

Bastelica, Sampietro, 90

Bastille, the, 96, 109 mote, 127,
128, 166-9, 173, 192, 225, 257

Bautru, M. de, Ozonandre, 2; sent
to England, 85; counsels Mme.
de Chevreuse, 110, 116

Bayonne, 178

Beauce, Pont de, 40

-Beaucler, Mme. Antoinette de, 323

Beaufort, Francois, Duc de, plot
against Mazarin, 233-4, 236-7,
244-7; and Mme. de Chev.
reuse, 237, 283 ; and the Mont-
bazon incident, 242-4; arrest,
2475; escape, 249-51; and the
Old Fronde, 275, 277; and
Mme. de Chevreuse, 278; and
the arrest of Condé, 284

Beaufort-Vendéme party named
“The Importants,” 240

Beaujolais, 89

Beaupuis, M. de, 244

Beauregard, 110, 115

Beauvilliers, Paul de, 329

Becquencourt, chateau of, 40

Bellegarde, Duc de, and Anne
18; and Claude de Lorraine,
31; and Chalais, 102

Belle-fle, 241

Bellerose, actor, 266

Belliévre, M. de, French Ambassa-
dor in London, 198, 200, 202,
204, 214, 222, 283

Belliévre, Mme. de, 200

Bentivoglio, Papal nuncio, 19-20

Beringhen, M. de, 249

Bernadets, 185

Bertechéres, M., 94

Berulle, reports to Richelieu, 135

Besancon, town of, 169

“‘Bethizy (Prince de),” name given
to Duc de Montbazon, 2

Biron, Maréchal de, 30

Blagny, Captain, 126

Blainville, M. de, French Am-
bassador in London, 35, 78;
warning given to Louis, guofed,
95-6

Blaye, 190

Bléneau, 301

Blois, 106, 108

Boisléve, M. de, 287

Boispillé, M. de, mission to Tours,
189-90; letter from Mme. de
Chevreuse, 193 ; mission to Lon-
don, 198-201, 204-12; letter
to Richelieu, 210-11, 215 ; and
Mme. de Chevreuse, 235; and
the Duc de Chevreuse, 314-15

338
INDEX

Boisset, Mlle., 321

Boissise, M. de, 317

Bonneuil, M. de, 26

Bordeaux, 125, 190

Bossuet, 332

Bouillon, Duc de, 249, 258

Bouillon, Duchesse de, 137

Boulogne, 71, 75-6

Boulogne, M. de, 128

Bourbonnais, the, 122

Bourbonne, M. de, 126-8

Bourg, Antoine du, I

Bourgogne, Hétel de, 266

Bouthillier, Richelieu’s reply to,
121; and M. de Bréval, 129-
30; and ChAateauneuf’s corre-
spondence, 153

Boutteville, 176

Bréquigny, M. de, 268

Bretagne, Marie d’Auverjour de.
See Montbazon, Duchesse de.

Bréval, M. de, envoy of Lorraine,
129-30

Brézé, Duc de, 238

Brienne, M. de, on Buckingham,
quoted, ©5 ; mission to England,
76; and Buckingham, 83-4 ; on
Mme. de Chevreuse, guozed, 120,

123; and Chateauneuf, 238,
297
Brillet, equerry, 245, 249, 284

Briolay, 308

Brion, M. de, Mme. de Chevreuse
and, 145-8, 151

Bruges, 221

Briihl czted, 297

Bruhl, castle of, 294

Brun, M. le, 330

Brussels, intrigues in, 161, 220-2,
235, 257, 259, 264-70

Buckingham, Duke of, and Mme.
de Chevreuse, 7, 79; and Anne
of Austria, 19, 56-66, 74-5 ; the
secret journey to Spain, 57;
letter to Mme. de Chevreuse,
57-8; reason for his going to
France, 58-9; account of, 60;
entry into Paris, 61 ; the Amiens
episode, 67-72 ; and Henrietta-
Maria, 77; departure of the

Z2

French Ambassadors, 83-4;
offer to return to France, 85 ;
and the Ornano plot, 95; in-
trigues against Louis XIII, 123-
5; departure for Ré, 126; the
charge against, 129-30; death,
132

Buffon, 153

Bullion, 98, 127; letter to Riche-
lieu, 164-5

* Burgundy, 127

Bussy-Rabutin guoted, 328, 332-3

“Cabal, The Ladies,” 44

Cahuzac, 182, 183, 184, 186, 188

Calais, 218, 219

Callot, Jacques, 120

Cambrai, 235, 270

Campion, Alexandre de, letters of,
guoted, 95, 222; advice to Mme.
de Chevreuse, 234-5; plans of
Mme. de Chevreuse for, 241 ;
the plot against Mazarin, 244-
5; hnews-bearer to Dampierre,
248-9, 251-2

Campion, Henri de, the plot
against Mazarin, 244-6; flight
to Holland, 249

Candale, Duc de, 279, 324

Cangé, M., spy for Mazarin, 251-2

Canterbury, 77

Cardinal-Infante, the, in Flanders,
Anne of Austria’s correspondence
with, 161, 162-3, 171

Carlisle, Earl of, Ambassador to
France, 50-4; and the Bucking-

ham affair, 57-9; and the
Ornano plot, 95-6

Carlton, 85

Carmelite Church, the, 313

Carré, spy, 244

Carron, M. le, 326

Castille, Jeannin de, treasurer,
102, I4I

Catholics, treatment under Charles
I, 78, 84-5

Catinat, M. Georges, and Mme. de
Chevreuse, 177-9, 189, 192, 315

Chalais, Mme. de, letter to the
king, 112

339
INDEX

Chalais, Marquis de, and Gaston
d’Orléans, 30, 88-9, 107, 108,
115; his confessions to Richlieu,
88, 97-9, 103, 104; letters to
Richelieu, 90 ; account of, 101—
2; and Mme. de Chevreuse,
Io0I-5 ; information against the
Duc de Vendéme, 104-5; at
Blois, 108; arrest at Nantes,
I0Q-II; accusations against
Mme. de Chevreuse, I10-11 ;
death, 112-13, 176; letter to
Louis XIII, 113

“Chambre de St. Louis,” 263

Champagne, Army of, 126, 127

Chancellor, the, search of the Val
de Grace, 169-70 ; examination
of Anne of Austria, 170-1;
examination of La Porte, 173 ;
hears of the flight of Mme. de
Chevreuse, 191. See also Sé-
guier.

Chantilly, 166, 170

Charenton, 266, 269

Charité-sur-Loire, La, Convent of,
170

Charles I of England, court of, 7 ;
and the Duc de Chevreuse, 33-4,
49, 78-80, 219-20; marriage
with Henrietta-Maria, 45, 48-53;
and Buckingham, 56, 58, 60:
the secret journey to Spain, 57;
misunderstandings with Hen-
rietta-Maria, 74-85; persecution
of the Catholics, 78 ; and Mme.
de Chevreuse, 78-80, 84, 132-5,
174, 187, 195, 197, 209, 217,
219, 249; letters to the Duc de
Chevreuse, and to Louis XIII,
82 ; and the “solemn promise,”
84-5; and the Ornano plot,
96 ; the marriage contract, 123,
128, 134-5; and Montague,
126, 128, 158; and the plot in
Lorraine, 127 ; French policy of,
135; and Marie de Médicis,
203; and the revolution in
England, 255-6, 262

Charles IV of Lorraine. See
Lorraine, Charles IV, Duc de.

Charles IX, and the Duchy of
Chevreuse, 40

Charleville, 283, 298

Charny, Charlotte
Comtesse de, 102

Charny, Comte de, 102

Charolais, County of, 325

Charpentier, M., mission to Verdun,
I2z

Charpentier, secretary, 143

Chartres, 108

ChAateaubriant-Beaufort,
257

Chateauneuf, castellany of, 321

Chateauneuf, Marquis de, and
Mme. de Chevreuse, 55, 134,
142-52; account of, 140-2;
disgrace, 153-4; provisions of
Louis XIII against his recall,
226-8; return demanded by
Mme. de Chevreuse, 238 ; letter
to Chavigny, 239; recall of,
284, 285-7, 290-2; and the
flight of Mazarin, 293-4; Mme.
de Longueville and, 295-6;
dismissal, 297, 301

Chatre, La, céted, 237

Chaulnes, Duc de, governor of
Amiens, 46-7, 67, 235, 330;
Colbert’s letter to, 329

Chaulnes, Duchesse de, 235

Chavigny, Comte de, governor of
Vincennes, 247

Chavigny, M. de, and Louis XIII,
93; letter from Duc d’Orléans,
158 ; Richelieu’s letters to, 160,
231-2, 315; and M. de Mar-
sillac, 192; and Mme. de
Chevreuse, 198, 210, 226; letter
from du Dorat, 207 ; Richelieu’s
conversation with, 212; M. de
Chevreuse and, 219, 221, 331;
letter from Chateauneuf, 239

Chelles, 334

Chéne Vert, the, 180

Chennetier, M., 160

Cherbury, Lord Herbert of, 13

Cherré de, secretary, 140

Chevau-légers, the, 126

Chevreuse, Albert, Marquis de

de Castille,

M. de,

340
INDEX

(Charles-Honoré d’Albert), 321 ;
Dampierre made over to, 326-7 ;
personality, 328-9; marriage,
329-30

Chevreuse, Anne-Marie de (a/.
Abbess of Pont-aux-Dames), 81,
330, 332

Chevreuse, Charlotte, and her
mother, 81, 250-1, 254, 316,
317, 330; and Anne of Austria,
269 ; returns to Paris with her
mother, 270; and Paul de
Gondi, 271-2, 277-81; at
Compiégne, 273-4; a portrait,
277-8 ; and the Prince de Conti,
289-92, 294-8; and the Presi-
dent de Viole, 298; and Man-
cini, 299, 300 ; death, 301-2
Chevreuse, Duc de, marriage with
the Duchesse de Luynes, 22, 31-
5; and Anne of Austria, 26;
account of, 29-30; and Henri
IV, 30-1 ; interest in Dampierre,
43; effect of his marriage on
his position, 44; favour of the
king, 45-7; represents Charles
I at his marriage, 48-9, 50-3;
the Hétel de Chevreuse, 54 ;
and the Earl of Holland, 55;
and the Buckingham affair, 57-
8, 75 ; mission to England, 76-
83; children of, 81-2, 331;
return to France, 84; blamed
for the non-performance of the
“solemn promise,” 84-5; his
wife’s exile, 116-17, 122, 129-
32; and M. de Montmorency,
139; and Richelieu, 147, 148;
sent to Couziéres with Mme. de
Chevreuse, 154; despatch from
M. de Catinat, 189; Mme.’s
appeal from London, 198-9;
Richelieu’s appeal to, 204, 216;
sent to London, 209, 215-17;
letter to his wife, 217-19, 221 ;
letter to Charles I, 219; Great
Chamberlain to Louis XIV,
228 ; and Mme. de Montbazon,
242; entreats Mazarin on behalf
of his wife, 260; letters from

341

Mme. de Chevreuse, 260-1 ;
and the Fronde, 268 ; appeal to
the Regent, 269; and Gondi,
279; death, 313; affairs of,
313-24

Chevreuse, Duchesse de (Marie de

Rohan, Duchesse de Luynes, a/¢.
Duchesse de Chevreuse), child-
hood, 4-5; ‘Discourse on
Love,” 7; marriage settlement
with M. de Luynes, 9-11 ; evil
influences on Anne of Austria,
13-16; children of, 14-15, 81-
2; anger of Louis XIII against,
19-27 ; marriage with the Duc
de Chevreuse, 31-5; letter to
Louis XIII, 35-6; the marriage
contract, 37-44; return to
court, 46-7; and the English
marriage, 50-3 ; friendship with
Anne of Austria renewed, 53 ;
and the Earl of Holland, 55, 68 ;
and the Buckingham affair, 56—
75; in England, 76-82; return
to France, 84; attitude towards
Richelieu, 86; and the Ornano
plot, 88-100 ; and the Prince de
Condé, 93; consternation at
arrest of Ornano, IOI ; appeal
to Chalais, 101-5 ; andthe arrest
of the Vendéme brothers, 106;
and Gaston d’Orléans, 107; the
accusation of Chalais, 110-11 ;
the warrant for, III-13; im-
plores Gaston to break with
Mlle. de Montpensier, 114-15 ;
Richeliew’s charge against, T15-
16; flight to Lorraine, 116-17;
and Charles IV of Lorraine, 118-
27, 135; and Montague, 123-5,
127; Montague’s charge against,
129; Bouthillier and, 129-30;
correspondence with the Queen,
131-2 ; and death of Bucking-
ham, 132; appeal to Charles I,
132-5; return to Dampierre,
133; and Chateauneuf, 134,
142-52 ; hostility towards Marie
de Médicis, 137 ; understanding
with the Cardinal, 138-40 ;
INDEX

intimacy with Anne of Austria,
140, 144-5, 147, 154-5 3 grow-
ing hostility towards the Cardi-
nal, 151; exiled to Touraine,
153-53 at Couziéres, 156; at
Tours, 157-60; intrigues with
Anne of Austria at Couziéres,
158-66; Anne’s letter to, 171I-
2;attempt to prevent her leav-
ing the kingdom, 174-5 ; flight
into Spain, 177-92 ; in Madrid,
193-4; her negotiations with
Richelieu, 197-212 ; in London,
198-219; flight to Flanders,
219-23, 254-8; return to France,
230-7; the plot against Mazarin,
237-47 ; in exile, 248-61 ; par-
don after the Fronde, 270 ; re-
ception at Compiégne, 273-4;
the understanding with Mazarin,
274-87 ; intrigues of the Fronde,
262-302; retirement to Dam-
pierre, 303-8; financial diffi-
culties, 308-27; her sons and
daughters, 327-33; Bussy-Rabu-
tin’s picture, 332-3 ; retirement
to Gagny, and death, 334-35

Chevreuse, Duchy of, 38-43, 317,
319-21, 326

Chevreuse, Henrietta de, a/t.
Abbess of Jouarre, 81, 330

Chevreuse, Hotel de, 12, 54-5,
166-7, 271, 278-81, 284, 295,
297, 316, 317, 320, 323-4

Chevreuse, village of, 40, 333

Choiseul, 40, 43

Choisy, Mme. de, 314

Cing-Mars, 76 ; plot of, 232

Cinq-Mars, Abbé de, 175, 176

Clercelier, 316

Cleves, Catherine de, 37

Cléves, Hétel de, 245

Coatquin, Marquis de, and Mme.
de Chevreuse, 254-5, 257, 267

Coiffy, fortress of, 127, 12

Coigneux, M. le, 204, 214, 217

Coigneux, Mme. le, 322

Colbert, M., Mazarin’s secretary,
286-8, 295, 303; daughters of,
329-30

Colbert, Mile. Henriette Louise,

329

Colbert, Mlle. Marie, 329-30

Coligny, Admiral de, I

Coligny, Comte Maurice de, 242-3

Cologne, 293

Combraille, Duchy of, 89

Comminges, Lieut., 284

Compiégne, 66, 137, 273, 274, 275

Concini, 9, 12

Condé, 235

Condé, Duc de, 243

Condé family, 90; hatred of the
Duchesse, 241-3

Condé, Prince de, and the Ornano
plot, 93; at the Council, 247;
and the Spanish plot, 259;
victory at Lens, 263, 265;
attack on Charenton, 266 ; and
Mlle. de Chevreuse, 274 ; attack
on Mazarin, 281-2; arrest of,
282-4; in Vincennes, 289;
release, 292-3; visit to Mme.
de Chevreuse, 294-5 ; and the
Conti marriage, 296-8; cam-
paign of the Frondeurs against,
299-300 ; and Mazarin, 301

Condé, Princess de, cousin of the
Duc de Chevreuse, 24, 37; at
marriage of Henrietta-Maria,
52; hostility towards Mme. de
Chevreuse, 240,242; and Mme.
de Montbazon, 244-4

Condé, Princess de (the Dowager),
37, 282

Condour, 182

Conflans, 189

Conrart, guoted, 301

Contarini, Venetian envoy, 20

Conti, Prince de, 16; and the
Fronde, 268, 269 ; and Mlle. de
Chevreuse, 278, 289-92, 294-8 ;
arrest, 284; release, 292-3

Conti, Princesse de, 16, 22, 24, 52;
and the affair of the Duc de
Bellegarde, 18; and Mme. de
Chevreuse, 31, 33, 37, 43; and
Bassompierre, 44; and _ the
Buckingham affair, 62-63, 72,
75 ; and the Ornano plot, 92

342
INDEX

Corbeil, 266

Corbie, abbey of, 317

Corneille, 184

Corsini, Papal Nuncio, 17

Cottigny, fief of, 40

Coudren, Pére de, 88

Couhé, town of, 180

Council of the Regency, 227-8

Couziéres, chateau of, 3, 5, 154,
156, 164, 177, 179, 189, 192,
207, 215, 248, 249, 250, 308,
310, 315

Craft, Mme. de Chevreuse and,
159-60, 162, 176, 219, 251

Cressi, ensign, 284

Cromwell, 255, 277

Dames-des-Hauts-Bruyéres de
Port Royal. See Port Royal,
nuns of.

Dammartin, 267

Dampierre, chateau of, 37, 38-43,
I16, 117, IIg, 130, 131, 133,
134, 136, 139, 189, 204, 206,
208, 210, 237, 248, 249, 270,
272-3, 302, 303, 306, 397, 313,
317, 320-7, 331, 335

Damvilliers, manor of, 39

Dartmouth, 254

Datel, 73

Dauphiné, 124, 265

Declaration drawn up by Louis
XIII, 227-8

Denmark House, 79

Dieppe, 96-7, 209, 293

Digby, Lord, 194, 198

Dolce, 190

Dombes, duchy of, 89

Dorat, Abbé du, and the Duc de
Lorraine, 15 4; agentof Richelieu,
164; and Mme. de Chevreuse,
175-8, 198-202, 204-14; de-
spatch from M. de Catinat, 189 ;
letter from Mme. de Chevreuse,
208-9 ; letter to Richelieu, 213-
14; and the affair of M. de
Chevreuse, 314, 316

Doullens, 293

Douzains, 184

Dover, 255

“ Duke,” limitation of the title by
Parliament, 39

Dulorier, 182

Dumoulins, 81

Dunault, secretary, 94, 98

Dunkirk, 219, 220, 221, 255, 256

Duparquet, M., 325

Dutch, the, and Louis XIII, 127

Effiat, Commissioner d’, interviews
Chalais, 109

Effiat, Comte d’, 76, 83

Elbeuf, Duc d’, 241

Elbeuf, Duchesse d’, 37, 52, 98

Empire, the plots against French,
124, 127, 153, 161

Enghien, Duc d’ 184-5, 251, 291

England, relations with Gaston
d’Orléans, 95; treaty of peace
(1629), 133 ; French policy, 249,

, 251

Epernon, Duc d’, 97, 107-8, 238,
259, 307, 324

Eschaux, estate of, 178, 182, 189,
Igo

Eschaux, Monseigneur Bertrand
d’, at marriage of Marie de
Rohan, 11-12, 157; Mme. de
Chevreuse’s farewell to, 178-9,
182, 188-90, 192

Eschaux, Vicomte d’, 178

Essarts, Mme. des, intervention of,
130-1

Estissac, M. d’, 188

Estrade, Sieur de I’, 248

Estrées, d’, céfed, 236-7

Estrées, Gabrielle d’, 94

Etampes, Achille d’, and Chalais,
104-5, 109

Etampes, Duchess d’, 39

Etampes, Duc d’, 39

Excise, Board of, 263

“Exempts,” meaning of the term,
109 mole

Fargis, Charles d’Angennes du,
161

Fargis, Mme. du, intrigues in
Brussels, 161-3, 174

Fervaques, Maréchale de, 31

343
INDEX

Feudal property, revenue from, 39

Flanders, influence of the Duchess
in, 160; Mme.’s flight to, 219-
23, 254-61

Flavigny, M. de, 121, 126

Fléche, La, 254

Fleury, chateau of, 100, 115

Folaine, M. de la, 25

Fontainebleau, 3, 67, 73, 100, 165

Fontarabia, 194, 204

Fontenay, Marquis de, 106

Fontenay-Mareuil, Memoirs guo/ed,
7; 35, 60, 92, IOI, 105, 107

Fossé, Sieur du, 98

Fosse, steward, 316

Fouquet, Abbé, 127, 304, 306-7

Fourgerolles, Mme. de, 243

Franciscan monastery, Nantes, I1I

Francois I, 28, 38, 39

Francois II, 28

Fromont, Seigneur de, 305

Fronde, ‘intrigues of the, 240-68,
274, 277; the Old Fronde, 275,
277, 282, 290-1, 297; the New
Fronde, 281, 290-1, 297 ; cam-
paign of the Frondeurs against
Condé, 299-300

Fruges, Mme. de, 233

Fuensaldagna, Conde di, 267

Fulton, assassination of Bucking-
ham, 132

Gagny, Benedictine Priory, 334

Gallon, 42

Galareta, secretary, 264

Galigai, Eleonora, 12

Galland, Mlle., 251

Gallois, le, notary, 321, 324, 326

Ganseville, 245

Garaison, Notre-Dame de,
188

Gardes Frangaises, the, 265

Garter, Order of the, bestowed on
M. de Chevreuse, 83

Gaudin, letters to Servien guoted,
248, 256

Gaultier, Leonard, picture of the
Duc de Chevreuse, 29-30

Gazetle, the, reports of Mme. de
Chevreuse, 236, 274

183,

Gerbier, 129

Giron, Spanish Ambassador, I9-
20

ce Paul de. See Retz, Cardinal

e.

Gondrin, 184

Gonsalvo, Don Domingo di, 194

Gonzague, Charles de, 37

Gordes, M. de, 153

Goring, Lord, English Ambassador
in France, 195, 249

Goulard, M., arrest of La Porte,
166-7

Goulas, Nicolas, Memoirs quoted,
118, 129, 225, 228, 238, 242,
270, 275

Grancey, Comte de, 268

Gras, Le, 171

Gratien, M., 322

Gravelines, siege of, 265

Greenwich, 195, 198

Grosbois, park of, 43

Guadaloupe, 325

Guéméné, Prince de, 4, 5, 117,
156; lawsuits, 308-9, 310-11

Guéméné, Princesse de, 305

Guise, Cardinal de, 28

Guise, Duc de, 15, 26, 37, 39, 241

Guise, Duchesse de, 37, 52

Guise, Duke Frangois de, 28

Guise, Henri de, ‘‘le Balafre,”
murdered at Blois, 16, 28-9, 39

Guise, Hotel de, 244

Guise, in the Aisne, 267

Guise Princes, the, 119; position
at the French Court, 32-3 ; in-
fluence of, 44; the plot against
Mazarin, 244; intervention on
behalf of Montrésor, 257

Guitant, M. de, 166, 247, 284

Guitry, M., 94

Guyenne, 124, 222, 290; Hugue-
nots of, 43-5

Haqueville, M. de, 280

Hallier, M. du, 100, 130

Hallot, M., 214

Hamel, M. du, request of, 304-5
Hamelin, Jean, 323

Hampton Court, 77, 81

344
INDEX

Harcourt, Comte d’, 37, 246

Haro, Don Luis de, 238

Hautefort, Mlle. de, 173, 177, 189

Havre, the, 96-7, 289, 293

Henri II, 2, 29, 39, 119

Henri III, 2, 264

Henri IV, 3, 16, 18, 29, 30, 34, 39,
49, 94, 97, 130

Henrietta of England, 306

Henrietta-Maria, and Marie de
Rohan, 7; marriage, 44, 48-53;
and Buckingham, 59 ; departure
from France, 65-6, 68-71 ; mis-
understandings with Charles I,
74-85; reception in England,
76-7; the marriage contract,
123, 134-5 ; letters to Chateau-
neuf, 153 ; and Mme. de Chev-
reuse, 197, 203, 209; in Paris,
253, 259

Hericourt, 245

Herwart, 295

Hilaire, servant, 178, 179, 180, |

181, 182, 184, 188

Hocquincourt, Marquis de, 235,
274

Holland, Earl of, Ambassador from
Charles I, 50-3; account of,
54; and Mme. de Chevreuse,
55, 68, 76, 79-80, 148 ; and the
Buckingham affair, 57, 59, 68,
71, 75; letter to Richelieu, 84 ;
despatched to Paris, 85

Houel, M., 325

Hugo, Vze de Charles IV, 124-5

Huguenots, the, campaign against,
43-5 ; Richelieu and, 74 ; Buck-
ingham and, 75; and the Ornano
plot, 93; and Gaston d’ Orléans,
96 ; and Mme. de Rohan, 115;
Mme. de Chevreuse and the,
122-3, 127, 259, 294; fall of
La Rochelle, 132

Humbert, Henri, 120

fle de France, government of,
311

“‘Importants,” the, 240, 244

Ingrandes, 108

Issy, 331

Jacobins, Church of the, Paris, 334

James I, relations with France,
49, 50, 54; and Buckingham,
56, 60 i

Jansenists, the, 304, 327, 328, 333

Jars, Chevalier de, 143, 153

Jars, M. de, 73

Jeannin of thetreasury. See Castille.

Jeannin, President, 26, 27, 34, 112

Jean-Paul, M. See Malbati.

Joly, Guy, quoted, 243, 284, 290,
297, 299, 301, 302

Jouarre, Abbess of, 160, 330, 331

Jouarre, Abbey of, 81, 130, 131,
332

Joyeuse, M. de, 15, 89

Julien, Abbé de St., 251

Julien, M., 160

Karpen, 325
King’s Hunt, mastership of the,
311

La Feére, siege of, 30

La Rochelle, Protestants of, 96,
259 ; and Gaston, 107 ; siege of,
I22, 124, 132, 133, 294

Laffemas, Richelieu’s agent, 173

Laigue, M. de, and Mme. de Chev-
reuse, 264-7, 275-6, 302,
305-6, 308, 332-3; despatches
from Brussels, 267-8; return
of, 270-1; account of, 275-6;
Mlle. de Chevreuse and, 280,
281 ; reward for, 283, 285; and
the Conti marriage, 290; and
the Mazarin tapestries, 295 ; and
the Jansenists, 333-4

Laigue, Marguerite de, 276

Lamont, guard, 112

Lamothe-Houdancourt, M. de,
Bishop of Mende, letters to
Richelieu, 75-6, 78-81, 96

Lancelot, 328

Lange, 212

Languedoc, 125

Lannoy, Mme. de, 48, 72

Laulne, De, secretary, 275

Laval, 254

Le Cabinet satyrique, 17

345
INDEX

Le Cid, 158, 184

League, the, 29, 264

Lenet guoted, 231, 259, 278

Lenoncourt, Madeleine de.
Montbazon, Duchesse de.

Lenoncourt, Marquis of, 127

Lens, battle of, 263-5

Leopold, Archduke, 258; attack
on Condé, 264 ; appeal of Mme.
de Chevreuse, 266-8

Lescot, work on the Louvre, 55

Lésigny-en-Brie, 12, 38, 268

Lhulier, M. le, 316

Liancourt, M., le, 35, 191

Lie, De, 245

Liége, 255-58

Liévre, M. le, 316

Ligne, Prince de, 285

Lillebonne, 293

Lionne, secretary, 288 ; Mazarin’s
correspondence with, 266, 298-9

“ Logique of Port-Royal,” 328

Lommerein, 325

London, Mme. de Chevreuse in,
198-219

Longuetille, 22

Longueville, Duc de, governor of
Normandy, 94, 96, 259, 284,
292-3

Longueville, Duchesse de, and
Mme. de Chevreuse, 37, 240,
282; and M. de Coligny, 242-
43; claims for, 281; and the
Conti marriage, 292, 295-7

Lorraine, Cardinal de, 28, 39, 40,
41

Lorraine, Charles de.
Duc de.

Lorraine, Claude de, Prince de
Joinville. See Chevreuse, Duc de.

Lorraine, princes of, position at
the French court, 32

Lorraine, Charles IV, Duke of,
and Mme. de Chevreuse, 117-23,
134-5, 140, 174-6, 200-2,
205-12, 300, 304; claims ad-
vanced by, 122-4, 130; and
Buckingham plot, 124-9; de-
mands release of Montague, 127-
8; treaty with France, 139;

See

See Guise,

plots against France, 152-4,
161 ; Anne’s dealings with, 171-
2; Mme. de Chevreuse’s corte-
spondence with, 210, 258

Louis XIII, birth, 3; and Marie
de Rohan, 6, 9-12; favours
bestowed on M. de Luynes, 13-
153 relations with the Queen,
15-19; and Mme. de Luynes,
19-21; angeragainstthe Duchess,
22-7, 31-2, 35-6; and her
second marriage, 38-9; the
English marriage, 44-53; recep-
tion of Mme. de Chevreuse, 45-
7; and the Duchess de Mont-
morency, 47 ; and the Bucking-
ham affair, 61, 65, 75, 78, 80;
the Amiens episode, 67-74;
attitude towards Mme. de Che-
vreuse, 78, 116; and Charles I,
78; and the Order of the Garter,
83 ; the articles of the marriage
contract, 84-5; appreciation of
Richelieu, 87-8, and the Mont-
pensier marriage, 90, 114; and
the Ornano plot, 91-9 ; Gaston’s
request for admission to the
Council, 100 ; arrest of Ornano,
Ioo-I; the Chalais affair, ror,
105, I1I-13; arrest of the Ven-
déme brothers, 106; at Blois,
108; exile of Mme. de Che-
vreuse, I16-17, 121, 122, 154-
5; and Charles IV of Lorraine,
I2I-3; starts for the Isle de Ré,

, 126; and Montague, 127-30;
pardons Mme. de Chevreuse,
130-7; impressions of the
pardon at Court, 132-5; entry
into La Rochelle, 132; and
Richelieu, 136-7; disgrace of
Chateauneuf, 152~4; at Cou-
ziéres in 1619, 156; hostility of
Mme. de Chevreuse, 158-60;
the affair of the Val-de-Grace,
163-72; forbids Anne to see
Mme. de Chevreuse, 174; grant
of money to Mme. de Chevreuse,
175-6 ; hears of Mme. de Chev-
reuse’s flight, 189, I9QI, 194;

346
INDEX

attitude towards Mme. de Chev-
reuse in England, 196-7, 199,
200; the “ abolition” granted to
Mme. de Chevreuse, 201-2, 212-
13; Mme. de Chevreuse allowed
to return to Dampierre, 208 ;
passports for Mme. de Chevreuse,
217; refuses to reply to Mme.
de Chevreuse, 220; revolt of
Soissons, 222; influence of
Richelieu, 224-5; animosity
against Mme. de Chevreuse,
224-230; the declaration, 227-
28; death, 228, 231; and the
Duc de Luynes, 324; and the
colonization of the Antilles, 325

Louis XIV, 2; provisions of the
regency, 227-8; Mazarin his
godfather, 229; driven out of
Paris, 263, 264 ; Mme. de Chev-
reuse pays her duty to, 274;
attempted flight, 292; forbids
the Conti marriage, 298; ma-
jority, 299-301, 304; and Mme.
de Chevreuse, 301, 307, 324-5,
327; and Fouquet, 306-7; and
the Colbert marriage, 329

Louviére, Gaston de la, mission to
Sedan, 107

Louviére, M. de la, the warrant
for, III-12

Louvre, the, II, 22, 57, 61, 166,
225, 237,246, 247, 261; the Salle
Lacaze, 24 ; chamber of the Duc
de Chevreuse, 34 ; Lescot’s work
in, 55; Jardin de l’Infante, 63 ;
the Queen’s apartments, 63 ;
Galerie d’Apollon, 63-4; Chapel
of the, 102-3

Lussan, M. de, of Amboise, 252

Luxembourg, palace of the, 297

Luynes, Antoinette de. See Vernet,
Mme. du.

Luynes, Duc de, marriage to Marie
de Rohan, 9-11, 157, 324; and
Anne of Austria, 13; birth of
his son, 15; favours from the
king, 19; death, 21-2; and
the Duc de Cheuvreuse, 31;
moneys belonging to, 46-7

Luynes, Duc de, son of Mme. de
Chevreuse, claim for his mother’s
return, 268-9; income of, 321;
affairs of, 323, 326 ; account of,
327-8; marriage of his son,
330

Luynes, Hétel de, 15

Luynes, Mlle. de, 331, 332

Luynes, Mme. de, 327

Madeleine, the, Paris, 40

Mademoiselle, the Great, 274, 278,
30

Madrid, 193-4

Maignelay, Marquise de, 131

Maillé, Comte de, 244

Maincourt, manor of, 39

Maine, Duc du, 10, 34

Maine, Mlle. du, 34

Maison Rouge, 334

Maisons, 246

Malbati (M. Jean-Paul), and Mme.
de Chevreuse, 182-6, 190, 192-3

Malherbe, 18

Malta, Knights of, 325

Mancini, nephew of Mazarin, 299,
300

Mandat, 251

Mansard, architect, 41, 169

Marc aux Bois, 40

Marchais, chateau of, 30

Marcheville, 133

Marcoussis, 289

Marfée, battle of, 222

Marie de Médicis, the regency,
3, 9, 33, 49, 135-6; and the
Duchesse de Luynes, 15 ; recon-
ciled to the king, 23; and Claude
de Lorraine, 34; the marriage
of Henrietta-Maria, 51, 52, 53,
59; and Buckingham, 61, 65—
6, 67, 70-3, 753 correspond-
ence with Mme. de Chevreuse,
80; and the Montpensier mar-
riage, 89 ; and the Ornano plot,
93, 94; and M. de Bréval, I29;
letter from Richelieu, 130-1;
Mme. de Chevreuse and, 131,
135; hostility to the Cardinal,
136-7, 141; flight to Flanders,

347
INDEX

137, 162-3; at Couziéres in
1619, 156 ; visit to England, 203

Marie, Princess, 135, 136

Marillac, Marshal Louis de, Letters
to Richelieu, guoted, 16, 31, 36,
38, 44; command in Champagne,
126, I41

Marillac, M. de, Keeper of the
Seals, disgrace, 141

Marsillac, M. de (La _ Roche-
foucauld), friendship. for Mme.
de Chevreuse, 160, 232-3, 235-
6, 249-50; warning to Mme.
de Chevreuse, 176-7; loan of
the coach and saddle horses,
180-4, 188, I90-2; and the
Havre, 238

——- guoted,on Mme de Chevreuse,
9, 85, 90, 240; on the Bucking-
ham affair, 56,57, 62, 69; on
Richelieu, 85; on the Ornano
plot, 99 ; on Chalais, 102-3 ; on
the regency, 226; on return of
Mme. de Chevreuse, 235-0;
on Gondi’s friendship, 278; on
the Conti marriage, 296

Marston Moor, 255

Marthon, 182

Martinique, 325

Mary Stuart, 28

eer Hotel de la, 157, 160,
17

Maugiron, Mlle. de, 19

Maulévrier, M. de, 243

Mauny, Marquis de, 52, 94

Maurepas, manor of, 39

Mazarin, Cardinal, reports of Mme.
de Chevreuse, 9, 222, 226, 241;
and Rosetti, 215; advice to
Anne, 228; Louis XIII’s con-
fidence in, 229; policy, 230-33 ;
the plot against, 233-8, 244-
7; policy towards the Duchesse,
234-6, 239, 250, 257-8, 261-
2; and the demands of the
Duchesse, 237-9; attack by
the ‘‘ Importants,” 244; reply to
the Marquis de Coatquin, 255 ;
England’s offer to hand over the
Duchesse, 256-7; flight from

Paris, 263, 266; the Reuil con-
ferences, 268; and the return
of Mme. de Chevreuse, 269-70,
272-5; the understanding with
Mme. de Chevreuse, 272-87;
and Gondi, 276, 279, 280, 281,
288 ; and Mme. de Montbazon,
280 ; and the Hétel de Chevreuse,
280-1; .the arrest of Condé,
281-4; unpopularity, 288-9;
Mme. de Chevreuse designs his
fall, 290-2; flight, 292-4;
letters from Cologne, 294; his
tapestries hung in the Hétel de
Chevreuse, 295; letterto Lionne,
296; advice to Anne, 297-8;
recall, 299-300, 303; negotia-
tions with Condé, 301; letter
from the Duchesse in her retire-
ment, 303-4; replies to the
Duchesse’s requests, 304-5; on
Laigue, guoted, 332

Mazarin, Duc de, 330

Mazarinades, 8, 263, 272

Mazelle, 315

Mazuel, 190

Meilleraye, M. de la, 94, 192

Menardeau, M., 316, 317, 322

Mende, Bishop of. See Lamothe-
Houdancourt, M. de.

Mercceur, Duchesse de, 37

Mercure, reports of Buckingham’s
visit, 61, 64

Mercy, Abbé Ernest de, 258, 260,
263, 264

Méré, Poltrot de, 28

Méridon, M. de, 322

Métézeau, Clément, 12, 55

Metz, 107, I21, 126, 191

Meudon, 40, 266

Meunier, M. Léger, 323

Mirabel, Marquis de, Anne of
Austria’s letters to, 135, 160-2,
166, 168, 171-3

Moissac, 20-1

Molé, First President, and Mme.
de Chevreuse, 270~3, 275

Molé, Mathieu, Memoirs, 268

Moliére, M. de, 251

Monceau, 308

348
INDEX

Monceaux, 131

Monglat, Memoirs guofed, 8, 171,
269, 282, 288, 289, 313

Monluc, Jeanne de, ror

Monluc, Marshal de, 112

Mons, 235

Monsigot, M., 204, 214, 217

Mont Saint-Vincent, Barony of,
325

Montague, Lord, on Marie de
Rohan, guoted, 7; and Mme.
de Chevreuse, 123-5, 127, 160;
return to London, 126; arrest,
126-8; letter to Louis XIII,
128-9 ; charge against Mme. de
Chevreuse, 129; release, 130;
letters to Chateauneuf, 153; at
Tours, 158; reception of the
Duchesse in England, 195;
advice to the Duchesse, 198-
200 ; departs for Flanders, 219;
and Mazarin, 234; at Roye, 235

Montaigne, 7

Montastruc, 185

Montauban, 20, 125

Montbazon, chateau de, 3

Montbazon, Duc de, account of,
I-4; marriage of his daughter,
I0o-I1; and the queen, 17;
mission to Louis, 26; and the
marriage of Mme. de Chevreuse,
37; house of, 252; and the
Fronde, 277; death, 308; law-
suits following, 308-12 ; will of,
311

Montbazon, Duchesse de, account
of, 2-4, 242; the incident at her
house, 242-3; the collation at
the Tuileries, 243-4; exiled,
244; and Beaufort, 275; and
Mme. de Chevreuse, 280;
rewards for, 291; accusation
against, 310-11; death, 312-13

Montbazon, Duchy of, 310

Montbazon, Hétel de, 1-2, 309-

10

Montbéliard, County of, 281
Montdidier, 66

Montguyon, Comte de, 10
Montmorency, Constable de, 4, 14

Montmorency, Duc de, and the
Queen, 18-9; takes up his
mother’s quarrel, 47; and the
Ornano plot, 93; and M. de
Chevreuse, 139; death, 141,
143, 176, 240, 296

Montmorency, Duchesse de, and
Marie de Rohan, 14, 27, 47,

4

Montmort, M. de, 316, 321-2

Montpensier, Duchy of, 89

Montpensier, Mlle. de, 52, 89-91,
94, 106, 108, 114, 135, 307

Montrésor, Comte de, Memoirs,
251-3, 254, 265 ; arrest, 257

Montreuil, M. de, reports, 214,
217, 222

Montreux, 71

Montrouillon, M. de, 321

Morant, M., 316

Moret, Comtesse de, 30

Moron, Jean, 323

Morosini, M., 288

Mortale, 165

Motteville. Mme. de, Memoirs
guoted, 8-9, 14, 16-19, 23, 26,
56-8, 64-5, 69, 75, 88, 103,
138, 141, 142, 194, 228, 231,
242, 269, 273, 274, 277, 282,
283, 290, 293, 306

Moulins, 137

Mousseaux, 40

Miinster, Congress of, 215, 259

Mussidan, 182

Namur, 260-1

Nancy, Mme. de Chevreuse at,
I20-I, 123, 124, 160

Nani, Venetian Ambassador, 252,
260

Nantes, castle of, 108, 109, I15;
Franciscan monastery, I11;
execution of Chalais at, 112-13 ;
government of, 311

Naseby, 255

Négrepelisse, attack on, 45

Nemours, Duc de, 37

Nemours, Duchesse de, cz¢ed, 282,
293, 294

Nemours, Hétel de, 252

349
INDEX

Nevers, Duc de, and the Ornano
plot, 93, 94, 135, 289

Newbury, 255

Newport, Lord, 219

Nicole, daughter of Henri II, 119-

20

Nogent, M. de, 116

Noirmoutier, Duc de, 265, 267,
270, 280, 283, 290, 298, 304,
308

Normandy, 124, 127

Notre-Dame de Garaison, 183, 188

Notre-Dame de Paris, 51-3

Maye, Des, Secretary of State,
16

Obazine, Abbé d’, 97

Ogier, notary, 321, 323

Oinvilliers, farm of, 321

Olivares, Duque, correspondence
with Anne of Austria, 162;
and Mme. de Chevreuse, 203,
221-2

Orange, Prince of, 248, 249, 257

Orléans, Duc de, 157-8; and
Mazarin, 246, 247; and Mme.
de Chevreuse, 275, 285, 288,
291, 293; prevents the queen’s
flight, 292; and the Frondeurs,

297

Orléans, Gaston d’, Duc d’Anjou,
on the Duc de Chevreuse, 30;
and the English marriage, 52,
66, 71; relations with Anne of
Austria, 85; personality, 88-9 ;
marriage with Mlle. de Mont-
pensier, 89-90; influence of
d’Ornano, 91, 92; refuses to
marry, 92—3 ; requests admission
to the Council, 92, 99-100 ;
accusations against Louis XIII,
95-6, 224; confession to the
king, 12 July 1626, 96; and
the Ornano plot, 94-6, 98-100,
113; the arrest of Ornano, IOI;
and the Chalais affair, 101, 103,
105, 106, 107; and the arrest
of the Vendéme brothers, 106 ;
proposed flight, 107-8, 125;
Louis insists on the marriage,

114’; and the king’s pardon,
133; and the Princess Marie,
135, 136; flight to Lorraine,
136, 140, 152-4; and the Duc
de Montmorency, 143; revolt,
151; and Mme. de Montbazon,
242; Mme. de Chevreuse’s pro-
posals to, 283, 286; demands
release of the princes, 292

Orleans, meeting at, 165

Ormesson, Lefévre d’, 329, 330

Ornano, Alfonso d’, 91

Ornano, Marshal d’, plot of, 90-
IOI; at Vincennes, 109 ; death,
113-114

Ozonandre, 2

Palais Royal, the, 261, 283, 292,
297

Palatine, Princess, and the Conti
marriage, 289-92; and Condé,
294

Paris, return of Mme. de Chevreuse
to, 236, 270, 272, 277; flight of
the court from, 263, 264 ; barri-
caded, 262, 292

Paris, Archbishop of, 263, 276,
330, 331; search of the Val de
Grace, 169-70

Paris, Parliament of, attitude to-
wards Mazarin, 251; plays the
part of States-General, 262-4

Parliamentarians, the, and Mme.
de Chevreuse, 255-7

Parliamentary Fronde, the, 282

Passe-volants, des, 84, and note

Patin, Guy, czted, 261, 329

Paulet, Angélique, 31, 64

Peace, Treaty of, between England
and France, 133

Pembrock, 75

Pembroke, Earl of, Mme. de
Chevreuse’s Jetter to, 256

Pennacors, letter to the Cardinal,
300

Péronne, 235, 293

Phalsbourg, Princesse de, 258

Philip IV, of Spain, and Mme. de
Chevreuse, 194, 221

Piccolomini, General, 258

350
INDEX

Piedmont, 123

Pinet, M., 323

Piquecos, chateau of, 20, 21

Plainville, 158

Poitiers, 180, 300

Poitou, 127, 204

Pompignan, 30

Pomponne, Simond Arnauld de,
305, 323

Pons, Mile. de, 278

Pont-aux-Dames, 81

Pontavert, 267

Pont-de-PArche, 281

Porte, La, Memoirs, guoted, 54, 60,
68, 69, 73, 123, 128, 154, 160-1,
171; dismissal, 73; sent to
Lorraine by Anne, 135; at
Tours, 160; defence of Anne,
164; and the intrigues, 165,
166 ; arrest, 166-7; denials of
Mére St. Etienne, 170; exami-
nation, 167-9, I7I, 172, 173,
315-16 ; exile, 173

Porte Saint-Antoine, 301

Port-Royal-des-Champs, nuns of,
304, 305, 322, 323, 327, 328,
333, 334

Portsmouth, 132, 194

Poterie, M. le Roy de la, 167

Potet, servant, 182, 183, 184, 185,
187, 188, 191

Praslin, 45

Préaux, M. de, 57

Prince, The, journey of Henrietta-
Maria in, 75-0

Prou, surveyor, 316

Provence, affairs in, 124, 284-5,
290

Puisieux, M. de, 46

Putange, M. de, equerry to the
queen, 26, 68, 70, 73

Puylaurens, and Gaston, 96; the
warrant for, ITI-12

Rambouillet, Hétel de, 64

Rancé, M. de, 312; Richelieu’s
correspondence with, 135, 136

Ravaillac, 3

Ré, fle de, 75, 126, 129

Réaux, Tallemant des, quoted, 5,

13; 16, 21, 39, 43, 54, 69, 157,
196, 313, 327

Remiremont, Abbey of, 331-2

Rémond, notary, 322

Renard, 243

Renault, man-servant, 178, 179,
180, 182, 184, 188, 216

Rennes, Parliament of, 252

Réthelois, Duchy of, 299

Retz, Cardinal de (Paul de Gondi),
Memoirs guoted, 8-9, 63-4, 69,
230, 242, 244, 246-7, 263, 276,
278-80, 293-4 ; appeal to Spain,
265; the despatches from
Laigue, 267-8; and Mme. de
Chevreuse, 271, 275, 283, 302;
and Mlle. de Chevreuse, 271-2,
277-81, 296; account, 276-8 ;
claims of, 283, 288; interview
with Anne, 283-4; and the
arrest of Condé, 284 ; Mazarin’s
distrust of, 285-7; and the
Conti marriage, 290, 291, 292;
the campaign against Condé,
299; created Cardinal, 300-1 ;
arrest, 303, 305-6

Rhodes, Marquis de, 279

Rhodes, Marquise de, 6, 279-80,
289-9

Richelieu, Cardinal de, and Mme.
de Luynes, 6-8, 15-16, 31, 36,
38; and Buckingham, 58-61, 64,
74, 75, 80 ; correspondence with
the Bishop of Mende, 78, 81 ;
language applied to Mme. de
Chevreuse, 81 ; and the articles
of. the marriage contract, 84-5 ;
personality, 86-7; letters from
Chalais, 90; and the Ornano
plot, 92-9 ; the council at Fon-
tainebleau, I00; and Chalais,
103-11; charges against Mme.
de Chevreuse, 115, 120, 125,
134-6 ; reply to Bouthillier, 121 ;
precautions in Lorraine, 121,
126, 127; and M. de Bréval,
130 ; letter to Marie de Médicis,
130-1; attitude of Mme. de
Chevreuse towards, 131, 133;
siege of La Rochelle, 132; on

35!
INDEX

the’ Italian Fronter, 135;
hostility of Marie de Médicis,
136-7, 141; reconciliation with
the queen and Mme. de Chev-
reuse, 138-40; and the corre-
spondence between Chateauneuf
and Mme. de Chevreuse, 143-57 ;
Mme. de Chevreuse exiled to
Lorraine, 154-5; uneasiness
about the Duchess at Tours,
158 ; letters to Chavigny, 160 ;
hostility of Mme. de Chevreuse,
160 ; and the affairs of the Val
de Grace, 164-71 ; hostility of
Anne, 164; examination of La
Porte, 167-9 ; Anne’s confession
to, 171-2; prevents Mme. de
Chevreuse leaving the kingdom,
174-5; her confession, 176;
annoyance at Mme. de Chev-
reuse’s flight, 189, 191; letter
from Mme. de Chevreuse in
Spain, 193; Mme. de Chev-
reuse’s negotiations with, 197-
212 ; and M. de Chevreuse, 204,
216, 219; Mme. de Chevreuse’s
letters from London, 207-9;
money sent to Mme. de Chev-
reuse, 209 ; Mme. de Chevreuse’s
appeal to, unanswered, 220-1 ;
death, 223; influence over Louis
XIII, 224-5 ; policy, 230, 238-9,
244-45, 262 ; and the monetary
affairs of the Duc de Chevreuse,
314-15; and the children of
Mme. de Chevreuse, 330-2

Richelieu, Duc de, 278

Richmond Palace, 77, 78, 83

Riquetti, of the King’s Bodyguard,
message to Mme. de Chevreuse,

253-4

Riviére, M. de la, and La Porte,
173

Rochechouart, M. Francois de,

323
Rochefort-en-Yveline, castle of,
244, 309, 3100
Rochefoucauld, Cardinal de la,
marriage of Henrietta- Maria,

53

Rochefoucauld, La. See Mar-
sillac, M. de.

Rochefoucauld, M. de la, 160;
houses of, 180-2, 252; reports
to Richelieu, 191

Rochefoucauld, Mme. de la, 181,
IQI

Rochevalon, 165

Roger, Louise, 3

Rohan, Anne de, 312-3, 327-8

Rohan, Henri de, 259

Rohan, M. de., 117, 124, 125

Rohan, Mme. de, and the Hugue-
nots, 93, 115

Rohan, Tancred de, 259

Rohan-Guéméné, Marie de, 4

Rossetti, the Nuncio, and Mme.
de Chevreuse, 23-4, 214-15;
the Ornano plot, 96

Rouen, 209

Roundheads, the, 255

Roussel, arrest, 263

Royan, 45

Roye, 235, 236

Rucellai, letters to Duc de Chev-
reuse, 31; letter to Claude de
Lorraine, 33

Rueil, 191, 208; conferences
at, 267, 268; Peace of, 270,

274
Ruffec, 180, 181, 190

Sablé, Marquise de, and the Duc
de Montmorency, 18

Saclay, fief of, 40

Saint-Aignan, Duc de, 329

Saint-Antoine, abbey of, 330-1

Saint-Cloud, 266, 269

Saint-Denis, abbey of, 266, 317

Sainte-Beuve, guoted, 328

Sainte;Chapelle, Paris, 175

Saint-Emilion, 45

Saintes, 181, 190, I9I

Saint-Etienne, Mére (Louise de
Milly), 164, 169-70

Saint-Evremond, czted, 259, 333

Saint-Fargeau, duchy of, 89

Saint-Fiacre, priory of, 334

Saint Germain-en-Laye, 153, 215,
224, 225, 233

352
INDEX

Saint-Ibal, M. de, and Mme. de
Chevreuse, 258-9, 263, 264

Saint Kitts, 325

Saint Luc, 30

Saint Magloire, 280

Saint-Maixert, 190

Saint-Malo, 254, 256, 257

Saint-Maur, 299

Saint-Merri, 304

Saintonge, 129, 300

Saint Rémy de Reims, abbey of,
317

Saint-Simon, quoted, 8, 328, 333

Saint-Vincent de Connezac, 182

Sant Estaban, 193

Saragossa, Viceroy of, 187, 193

Sarmiento, Don Antonio, and
Mme. de Chevreuse, 222, 241

Saumur, 173

Sauval, czted, I

Savoy, Duke of, plots against
France, 96, 98, 123, 125, 128,
161

Savoy, Prince Thomas of, 214

Schomberg, 30, 81, 100

Scots, the, and Charles, 255

Sedan, 107, 300

Séguier, M., 168, 285, 320, 324

Séguiran, Pére, 23, 73

Senlis, 43

Servien, 248, 256, 296

Sierck, 210

Sipierre, Comtesse de, 76

Soissons, Comte de, and Mlle. de
Montpentsier, 90 ; and the Or-
nano plot, 93, 94; and Mme.
de Chevreuse, 107, 125; revolt,
222

Soissons, Comtesse de, 52, 125

Sommerive, 30

Soubise, and Mme. de Chevreuse,
214, 222

Souvigny, cited, 4

Souvré, Commandeur de, 7

Spa, conference at, 264

Spain, Mme. de Chevreuse and,
96, 202-3, 222, 239, 248, 252,
257, 258, 259, 263-4, 294;
policy towards France, 123,
161-3, 172, 223, 249, 266-8;

Anne and, 151-2, 226; Maza
rin’s policy towards, 260

Stains, 66

Stenay, 295

Superintendent of the Queen’s
Heneneles office suppressed,

4
Switzerland, 125

Tabouret, privilege of the 11, 200

Talleyrand, Daniel de, ror

Tan, mills of, 40

Tarbes, 185, 186

Tellier, Le, Secretary of State, 270,
273, 284-8, 305

Termes, 30

Terne, La, 182, 192

Thémines, Mme. de, 81

Thibaudiére, M. de la, 160, 166,
168-9, 171

Thou, M. de, 141

Thuillin, bodyservant, 181-2, 183,
184

Tillac, M. du, 251

Tilliéres, Comte Léveneur de, 58-
9, 62, 65, 74, 76, 77

Tilliéres, Comtesse de, 76

Titus, anonymous informant, 214

Tonniens, 182

Toul, garrison, 121

Toulouse, 143

Touraine, Mme. de Chevreuse ex-
iled to, 154-5 ; plotting in, 252-4

Tours, Archbishop of. See Es-
chaux, Monseigneur Bertrand d’.

Tours, Mme. de Chevreuse in, 108,
157-60, 163-78, 189-92, 249,
251, 253

Trappe, La, 312

Trémoille, la, family of, 265

Tresmes, M, de, 109

Tuilerie, La, lands of, 40

Tuileries, the, 55, 243

‘‘ Two Angels (The),” 246

Uzés, Duc de, 52
Vadencourt, 267

Val de Grdce, Convent of, Paris,
affair of the, 163, 169-71, 259

353
INDEX

Valette, M. de la, 107-8, 204, 214,
217, 219, 222

Valette, Mme. de La (Mlle. de
Verneuil), 16, 24; the king’s
ras to, 25-6; the Ornano plot,

Vallier, Jean, guoted, 272

Valliére, Mile. de la, 328

Vaumorin, M. de, 251

Vaumurier, 327, 328

Veleda, Marquis de, Spanish Am-
bassador in London, 203, 214,
219, 257

Vendéme, Alexandre de, 94, 98-9

Vendéme, Alexandre and Cesar
de, plot against Richelieu, 100,
104; arrest, 106; Mme. de
Chevreuse’s negotiations with,
I15, 249; indemnity for, 283

Vendéme, Cesar Duc de, 233, 237,
247, 251; and the Ornano plot,
94-5, 97, 99

Vendéme, Duchesse de, 37

Vendéme, Mlle. de, and Duc de
Chevreuse, I0, 34

Venetian Ambassador,
22-3

Venice, 125, 127

Verdun, 121, 127

Verger, Chateau du, in Poitou, 117

Vernet, Barthélemy du, 16

quoted,

Vernet, Mme. du, 15, 16, 23

Verneuil, M. de, mission to Louis,
26

Verneuil, Marquise de, 30, 31

Verneuil, Mlle. de. See Valette,
Mme. de La.

Versailles, 225

Versine, 236

Verteuil, 180-2, 190-2

Vertus, Charles, Comte de, 4

Vic, treaty signed at, 139

Vieuville, Hétel de la, 12

Vieuville, La, 214, 217, 219

Vigean, Mme. de, 246

Vignier, President, 192, 196

Villars, Mme. de, 31

Ville, M. de la, 140, 210-13, 214,
219

Villelongue, 90

Villepreux, 40

Vincennes fortress, 96, 100, 109,
113, 136, 247, 257, 259, 284,
289

Viole, Président de, 298

Wight, Isle of, Mme. de Chevreuse
in, 256-7

Women, Spanish, Mazarin on,
238-9

Zamet, M., 35

THE END

 

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay.