I. The Earliest Influences of the Theatre—II. Mademoiselle and the School of Corneille—III. Marriage Projects—IV. The Cinq-Mars Affair—Close of the Reign.

I

La Grande Mademoiselle and her companions cherished the still existent passion for the theatre, which is a characteristic of the French people. The great received comedians, or actors, in their palaces; the palace had audience-rooms prepared to permit of the presentation of theatrical plays; in the summer, when the social world went into the country, the comedians accompanied or followed them to their chÂteaux. Society required the diversion of the play when it journeyed either for pleasure or for duty, and play-acting, whatever its quality and whatever the subject of its action, elicited the indulgent satisfaction and the applause that it elicits to-day, be its subject and its quality good or bad. At the end of the sixteenth century, play-actors superseded the magicians who until that time had afforded public amusement; the people hailed the change with enthusiasm; and the innovation prevailed. The courtiers loved the spectacle, and from the beginning of the reign of Louis XIII. the Court and the comedy were inseparable. Louis XIII. had witnessed the play in early infancy. In 1614, when the King and the Court went upon a journey they lingered upon the road between Paris and Nantes six weeks, halting to witness the plays then being given in the cities along their route, and receiving their favourite actors in their own lodgings. The King was less than thirteen years old, yet it is stated in the journal kept by HÉrouard, the King's physician, that the child was regaled with theatrical plays throughout his journey. At Tours he was taken to the Abbey of Saint Julian to witness the French comedy given by de Courtenvaut, who lodged at the abbey. At Paris the little King went to the palace with the Queen to see a play given by the pupils of the Jesuit Brothers. At Loudun the King ordered a play, and it was given in his own house; at La FlÈche he attended three theatrical entertainments in one day. To quote from the doctor's (HÉrouard's) journal:

The King attended mass and from mass he went to the Jesuits' college, where he saw the collegians play and recite a pastoral. After dinner he returned to the college of the Jesuits, where in the great hall, the tragedy of Godefroy de Bouillon was represented; then in the grand alley of the park, at four o'clock, the comedy of ClorÍnde was played before the Queen.

When Gaston d'OrlÉans took his young wife to Chantilly immediately after his marriage, he sent for a troupe of comedians, who went to the chÂteau with their band and with violins,—"thus," reports a contemporary, "rendering the little journey very diverting." On the occasion already mentioned, when the same Prince conducted his daughter to Tours so that he might present Louison Roger to her, he did not permit the little Princess to languish for the theatre. "Monsieur sent for the comedians," wrote Mademoiselle, "and we had the comedy nearly every day."[60] When Monsieur returned to his chÂteau in Blois his troupe followed him. When Mademoiselle returned to the Tuileries (November, 1637) she found a private theatre in every house to which she was invited.

Actors worked without respite; they had no vacations; they played in the French, in the Spanish, and in the Italian languages; and English comedy also, played by English actors, was seen in Paris. Richelieu's theatre in the HÔtel de Richelieu[61] "was provided with two audience halls,—one large, the other small. Both were luxuriously mounted. The decorations and the costumes of the actors displayed such magnificence that the audience murmured with delight."

The Gazette de France, which bestowed nothing but an occasional casual notice upon the royal theatre of the King's palace, dilated admiringly upon the ThÉÂtre de Richelieu and the marvels with which the Cardinal regaled his guests. The Gazette reported the occasion of the presentation of "the excellent comedy written by Sieur Baro," and the ballet which followed it.

The ballet was interlaced by a double collation. One part of the collation was composed of the rarest and most delicious of fruits; the other part was composed of confitures in little baskets, which eighteen dancing pages presented to the guests. The baskets were all trimmed with English ribands and with golden and silvern tissue. The pages presented the baskets to the lords and then the lords distributed them among the ladies.

Mademoiselle was one of the company, and she received her basket with profound satisfaction. Three days after the first comedy of Baro was played the Court again visited the Cardinal's theatre to witness a second play by the same author. Baro was a well-known literary hack. He had been d'UrfÉ's secretary and had continued AstrÉe when d'UrfÉ laid down his pen. The success of the second representation was phenomenal.

The ornamentation of the theatre [commented the Gazette], the pretty, ingenious tricks invented by the author, the excellences of the verse ... the ravishing concert of the lutes, the harpsichords, and the other instruments, the elocution, the gestures, and the costumes of the actors compromised the honour of all the plays that have been seen either in past centuries or in our own century.

We consider Baro's plays insipid, but they were very successful in their day.

February 19th was a gala day at the ThÉÂtre de Richelieu. A fÊte was given in honour of the Duke of Parma. First of all they gave a very fine comedy, with complete change of play, with interludes; lutes, spinnets, viols, and violins were played.

The Gazette de France tells us that there was a ballet, and then a supper, at which the guests saw "the fine buffet, all of white silver," which the Cardinal gave to the King some years later. Though the theatre was the chief amusement in 1636, the theatrical representations and ballets, "interlaced by collations" and by interludes, were considered a good deal of dancing and a good deal of play-acting for a priest, even when disseminated over a period of three weeks.

The conclusion of the report in the Gazette proved that Richelieu was conscious of his acts, and that he did not disdain to justify himself. "Without flattering his Eminence," said the Gazette, "it may be said that all which takes place by his orders is always in conformity with reason and with right, and that the duties which he renders to the State never conflict with those that all Christians owe—and which he, in particular, owes—to the Church." Mademoiselle attended all the fÊtes, and she was less than ten years old. She, herself, gave a ball and a comedy in honour of the Queen in the palace of the Tuileries.

In that day children in their nurses' arms were taken to see the play. A contemporary engraving depicts the royal family at the theatre in Richelieu's palace. The "hall" is in the form of an immense salon much longer than it is broad; at one end is the stage, raised by five steps; along the walls are two ranks of galleries for the invited guests. The women sit in the lower gallery, the men sit above them; seats have been brought into the centre of the hall, and on them sit Louis XIII. and his family. In the picture Monsieur is sitting on the King's left hand. On Anne of Austria's right hand, in a little arm-chair made for a child, sits the Dauphin, who must have been three, or possibly four, years old at that time. On the right hand of the Queen, beyond the Dauphin, stands a woman holding a great doll-like infant, the brother of the Dauphin.

The playgoing infantine assiduity, the custom of carrying children in swaddling bands to the theatre to witness comedies of every species, good or bad, assured the theatre of a position in public education; the children of the aristocracy drank in the drama with eye and ear—if I dare express myself thus—and at an age when reason was not present to correct the effect of impressions. The repertory of the theatre was one of the most dramatically romantic and sentimental ever known to France and the one of all others best fitted to turn a generation from sound reality to false and fantastic visions.

The general movement of that day may be classed as an aberration due to the fact that the drama was a new pleasure; the inconveniences attendant upon its influences had not been recognised, but it is probable that some of the condemnations uttered by the moralists and by the preachers of the seventeenth century in the name of religion and of decency were called forth by the presence of children at the play; the men who were most bitter in denunciations which amaze us by the excess of their hostility spoke from experience and had reason for their bitterness. The Prince de Conti, the brother of the great CondÉ, might have furnished unique commentaries on the criticisms of the day, had he cared to recall a treatise which he wrote (The Plays of the Theatre, and Spectacles) when he was emerging from a youth far from edifying.

The treatise was written for the benefit of light-minded people, who saw no harm in playgoing. In the beginning of his work the Prince said: "I hope to prove that comedy in its present condition is not the innocent amusement that it is considered; I hope to prove that a true Christian must regard it as an evil." As his treatise progressed it became explicit; his arraignment was animated by AstrÉe; he declared that a play free from the sentimentality and the passions of love and from the thoughts and the actions of lovers was not acceptable to the public. Love forms the foundation of the play, and therefore it must be discussed freely from its first principles. Now a play, however fine its dramatic composition may be, can have no other effect than to disgust refined minds and to ruin the reputations of its actors, unless the love on which it is based is represented delicately, and in a tenderly impassioned manner. And as few actors are capable of producing a perfect representation of the most subtle and many-sided of passions, the general effect of our comedy is deteriorating. As its basis and its structure depend upon one single subject, it can have but one subject of interest. Our comedies are considered commendable according to their manners of discussing love; the divers beauties of our dramas consist in their various exposures of the intimate effects of love. Love is the theme, and the mind must either accept it and work upon it or rest unemployed; there is no choice; no other theme is given. When love is not the chief agent, it serves as an irritant to draw out some other passion and to make sensuous display not only possible but cogent, if not imperatively necessary; be the play what it may, love is represented as the "passion ruling the heart." Conti opposed to the popular "corruption of the drama" the grave lessons offered by the great tragedies. Segrais treated the subject in the same way; he said: "During more than forty years nearly all of the subjects of our plays have been drawn from AstrÉe, and, generally speaking, the dramatists have been satisfied with their work if they have changed to verse the phrases which d'UrfÉ put in the mouths of his characters in plain prose."

Segrais exaggerated. AstrÉe did not furnish "nearly all" of the subjects of the plays; but the extraordinary importance of stage love and of stage lovers was drawn from AstrÉe, and, despite the temporary reaction due to Corneille, AstrÉe persuaded the great body of French society that there was nothing pathetic in the world but love, and neither our dramatists nor our moralists have been able to break away from an error which singularly circumscribes their art. Love is now the subject of the romance and of the play, as it was in the early days of La Grande Mademoiselle.

Invitations to the Louvre or to the homes of the great were not too easy to procure, and there were many people who never entered the private theatres; but there were two "paying theatres," or theatres to which the public were admitted on paying a fixed price; one of the two houses was the HÔtel de Bourgogne, which stood in the rue Mauconseil, between the rue Montmartre and the rue Saint Denis; the other was the ThÉÂtre du Marais, in the Veille rue du Temple. The Marais was then an out-of-the-way quarter, very dangerous after nightfall. I have not spoken of this place until now, because it was almost impossible for any one in the polite society of which I have written to visit it. No woman dared to enter the Marais unless she lived there. The woman of quality could not even think of entering it except on gala days, when the Court of France went in a body to visit the play-actors in their own quarter. At ordinary times the HÔtel de Bourgogne "was neither a good place nor a safe place." In form and arrangement the audience hall was like the hall of the ThÉÂtre de Richelieu; two galleries, one above the other, ran the whole length of the walls, and in certain places the walls were connected with the gallery to form stalls or boxes. The parterre was a vast space in which people watched the play standing. In that part of the theatre there were no seats. An hour, or perhaps two hours, before the play began the great unclean space was filled with the most boisterous and ungovernable representatives of the dregs of Paris and with all the active members of the lesser classes[62]: students, pages, lackeys, artisans, drunkards, the scum of the canaille, and professional thieves; and there, on the floor of the parterre, they gambled, lunched, drank, and fought each other with stones, with swords, or with any weapon which came to hand; and as they gratified their appetites or abused their neighbours, all strove in the way best known to them to protect their purses and to keep the thieves from carrying off their cloaks. The air resounded with shouts, shrieks, songs, and obscene apostrophes. Contemporary writers regarded everything as fit for the record, and therefore in all our researches we come upon heartrending evidences of inenarrable depravity. The charivari of the assistants of the pit continued throughout the performance, ending only when the vociferous throngs were turned into the streets so that the theatre might be locked for the night. At their quietest the spectators of the parterre were noisy and obstreperous. To quote one of their chroniclers[63]:

"In their most perfect repose they continued to talk, to whistle, and to scream without ceasing; they did not care at all to hear what the comedians were saying." We differ from the chroniclers as to this last opinion; it is probable that they cared only too much; it was to please the rabble that abominably gross farces were played in the paying theatres. Tragedy was relished only by the higher classes.

An eye-witness, the AbbÉ d'Aubignac,[64] wrote: "We see that tragedies are liked better than comedies at the Court of France; while among the lesser people comedies, and even farces and unclean buffooneries are considered more amusing than tragedies." The same d'Aubignac wrote in or about the year 1666: "Fifty years ago an honest woman dared not go to the theatre."[65] Between the universally ardent desire to enjoy the fashionable form of pleasure and the efforts to make the stage less licentious the purification of the drama was accomplished.

The increasing delicacy of the public taste demanded a reform, and in deference to it the moral atmosphere of both of the popular theatres was renewed at the same time; a new and decent repertory was adopted, and the foul programme of the past was cast away. Popular feeling acclaimed the change and hastened the accomplishment of the reformation.

At the time when the Cid[66] was played the lower classes had ceased to rule the paying theatres; the masses went out of Paris for their pleasure; to the fairs of Saint Laurent and Saint Germain, and to the entertainments on the Pont-Neuf or the Place Dauphine; they crowded around the trestled planks, they hung about the stands of the charlatans, the buffoons, and the trick players. The paying theatres were filled by the upper middle classes. Women who had not dared to go to the play in 1620 attended the theatre of the HÔtel de Bourgogne as freely as they would have attended or as they did attend the Luxembourg.[67] The fine world of the quality had found its way to the theatre of the Marais; the Cid was in course of representation when the stage of the Marais and the courtiers thronged to the obscure quarter to witness its marvels. The Cid was played in the private theatres as well as in the HÔtel de Bourgogne. M. Lanson tells us that the comedians were summoned to the Louvre three times and twice to the HÔtel de Richelieu, but the great were too impatient to wait for the play to come to them, they ran to meet it; every one longed to see it not at a future time but on the instant, and therefore they flocked to the Veille rue du Temple.

In 1637 (18th January) Mondory, the actor, who played the part of Rodrigue, wrote to Balzac:

Last night they who are usually seen in the Gold Room and on seats bearing the fleur-de-lys, were visible upon our benches not singly but in groups. At our doors the crowd was so great, and our place was so small, that the nooks which ordinarily serve as recesses for the pages, were reserved for the Knights of the Saint Esprit; and the whole scene was bedight with Chevaliers of the Order.

All women could attend the play at will; and they all ardently wished to attend it, not once but always. They who saw it at Court, or at the houses of the great, were none the less anxious to frequent the paying theatres, where, though the scene had been purged of many of its abuses, the spectacle differed essentially from that presented to the great. Many distinct peculiarities of the old plays had been retained; added to that was the novelty of the place, and the lack of courtly ceremony, and the diversion afforded two different spectacles: the play and the audience. Like the children of the great, the wives and the daughters of the inferior classes abused their privilege and visited the theatre incessantly and the rich and the poor suffered from the influences of the superficial amusement. The play tended to deceive the mind, and to give a false impression of the aims and the needs of life. The majority of women were ignorant; they had never learned anything. If they could read they read works of fiction, and their literature was calculated to foster illusions. Exaltedly idealistic as AstrÉe had been, the writings of La CalprenÈde, de Gomberville, and others of their school were still more sentimentally romantic; compared with his successors, HonorÉ d'UrfÉ was a realist. The influence of the theatre was shown in the intellectual development of woman, the imagination of all classes was encouraged, the more useful mental agents were neglected, and the minds of the people were visibly weak and ill-balanced; the general impulse was to seek adventures on any road and at any price. The thirst for unknown sensations was a fully developed desire in their day, so we cannot with justice class it as a "curiosity" emanating from the inventive imaginations of the decadents.

The writer, Pierre Costar, wilfully lingered three weeks in a tertian fever so that he might enjoy the sickly dreams which accompanied the recurrent paroxysms of the disease. In our day Pierre Costar would be an opium-eater, or a morphinomaniac.

II

La Grande Mademoiselle owed much of her turn of mind to the dramatic plays that she had watched from infancy. I doubt if she was given any lessons in history, or that she had any lessons of the kind before she reached her twenty-fifth year, when she acquired a taste for reading. All that she knew of history had been gleaned by her from the tragedies that she had seen at the theatre, and as she was refractory to the sentiment of AstrÉe, it cannot be inferred that she had learned much from d'UrfÉ; so it may be said that Corneille was her teacher in all branches of learning, that no one of that time was in deeper debt to the influence that he exerted over minds, and that no one so plainly manifested his influence. From the education afforded by Corneille came good and evil mingled. As we follow the course of Mademoiselle's life we are forced to admit that however high and noble were the ideas sown broadcast by Corneille, they were not always devoid of inconveniences when they fell among people whose experimental knowledge and practicality were inferior to their susceptibility to impressions.

In the years which followed the advent of the Cid Corneille was the literary head of France; he had discovered the French scene through the influence of d'UrfÉ, but his power was his own, and it was an inherent power; he was the creator of a tendency.

The unclean farce, which delighted the lockpickers and the gamblers of the Paris of those days, has no place here, because it has no place in literature. When "good company" invaded the paying theatres the farce followed the canaille and took its place upon the trestled stages of the Pont-Neuf. The farce played a part of its own, in a world unknown to Mademoiselle; but the pastoral demands our attention, not only because it was in high favour in Mademoiselle's society, but because Corneille exerted his influence against it.

In the pastoral, love took possession of the stage, as it had been announced to do, in the play which opened the way for its successors, Tasso's Aminta.[68] In the prologue the son of Venus appeared disguised as a shepherd, and declaimed, for the benefit of the other shepherds, a discourse which, little by little, became the programme of all imaginative literature:

To-day these forests shall he heard speaking of love in a new way.... I will inspire gross hearts with noble sentiments; I will subdue their language and make soft their voices; for, wherever I may be, I still am Love; in shepherds as in heroes. I establish, if so it please me, equality in all conditions, no matter how unequal; and my supreme glory, and the miracle of all my power, is to change the rustic musettes into sounding lyres.

Modern poets and novelists do not insist that all men are equal in passion as they are equal in suffering and in death; but the people of the nineteenth century fully believed in such equality. George Sand expresses her real feelings in La Petite Fadette; and Pouvillon meant all that he said in Les Antibel. The contemporaries of Louis XIII. looked askance upon such theories; in their opinion the love, like the suffering, of the inferior was below the conception of the quality, a thing as hard for the noble mind to grasp as the invisible movement of life in an atom; to be ignorant of the needs, the hopes, the anguish of inferiors was one of the first proofs of exalted nobility. But the nobles knew that the shepherds of the dramatic stage were gentlemen travestied, and, therefore, they bestowed the interest formerly accorded to the heroes of the heroic drama upon the woes of the mimic Celadons of the comedy. Love would have become the dramatic pivot had it not been for Corneille's plays; d'UrfÉ's characters were "sighing like a furnace" when Corneille took command and gave the posts of honour to "the manly passions"; but not even Corneille could reach such a point at a bound; he attained it by strenuous effort. He began his literary career by writing comedies in verse. Before he produced the Cid, between the years 1629 and 1636, he wrote six plays; an inferior serio-comedy, Clitandre; or, Innocence Delivered, and a tragedy, MÉdÉe. To quote M. LemaÎtre:

We now enter a world which is superficial, because its people have but one object in living: their only occupation, their only pleasure, their only interest is love; all else, all the interests of social life are eliminated.... To love.... To be loved, ... this is the only earthly object, according to the teachings of the drama, and truly, in the long run it becomes tiresome! Such a world must be impossible, because it is artificial; in it hearts are the subjects of all the quarrels; men fight for them, lose them, find them; they are stolen, they are restored to their owners, they are tossed like shuttlecocks through five acts of a play. As they "chassay" to and fro before the reader he loses all sense of their identity, and takes one for the other; in the end the mind is wearied. Excessive handling exhausts the vitality of the subject, and leaves an impression as of something vapid and unsavoury. But Corneille was CornÉlien even when he wrote rhymed comedy—he could not have been anything else—and he never would have fallen into rhyme had he not wished to make concessions to the prevailing fashion.[69]

Even when engaged in the most absorbing of intrigues his lovers pretend that they are their own masters, and that they feel only such sentiments as they have elected to feel. At that early day—when MÉdÉe and Clitandre were written—the culte of the will had germinated; and time proved that it was predestined to become the chief director of Corneille's work. In La Place Royale Alidor says of Clitandre[70]:

In Corneille's plays young girls are raised to believe that they can love, or cease to love, at will; and their pride is interested. Ambition demands that they remain in command of their affections. When old Pleirante perceives that his daughter CÉlidÉe is fond of Lysandre he lets her know that he has divined her secret and that he approves of her choice, but CÉlidÉe answers proudly:

Another ingenuous daughter answers, in an offended tone, when her mother intimates that she seems to be in love with Alcidon, that she

"Knows that appearances are against her! But," she adds, "my heart has gone only as far as I willed that it should go. It is always free; and it holds in reserve a sincere regard for everything that my mother prescribes for me.... My wish is yours, do with me what you will."—La Veuve.

The public approved this language. It commended people who married their daughters without consulting their hearts. And who shall say that this way was not the one best fitted for their times? Faith added to necessity engenders miracles, and miracles are what morality demands.

In the great world, the world of the great and the noble, love was mentioned only as Corneille regarded it in his plays. Every one was in love,—or feigned to be in love; on all hands were heard twitterings as of birds in the springtime; but the pretty music ceased when marriage was suggested, for no one had thought of founding a domestic hearth on a sentiment as personal and as ephemeral as love. It was understood that the collective body came first, that the youth—man or maid—belonged to the family, not to self. Contrary to our way of looking at things, it was considered meet and right for the individual to subject himself to a species of public discipline in everything relating to the essential actions of private life; the demand for the public discipline of individuals was based upon the interests of the community. This law—or social tyranny, if you will—covered marriage, and upon occasion Parliament did police duty and enforced it. Parliament forbade the aged Mme. de Pibrac to marry a seventh time—although her six marriages had all been accomplished under normal conditions—because it was supposed that a seventh marriage might entail ridicule. The reason given by Parliament when it forbade Mme. de Limoges to permit her daughter to marry a very honourable man of whom she was fond, and who was supposed to be fond of her, was this: that her guardian and tutor "did not approve of the marriage." The history of this subject of marriage shows us that our great grandmothers did not bear malice against destiny; they were truly CornÉliennes in their conviction that a decorous control of the will constrained the sentiments of an high-born soul, and they married their daughters without scruple, and without anxiety, as freely and as carelessly as they had married themselves. Religion was always close at hand, waiting to staunch the wounds which social exigencies and family selfishness made in the hearts of the unfortunate lovers.

The understanding between Corneille and his readers was perfect; all that he did pleased the playgoers, and when, as he was searching for what we should call "the realistic," he came upon the idea that he might tempt the public taste by presenting a play with a Spanish setting, his critics were well pleased. He wrote the Cid and it was an unqualified success; but its exotic sentiments and the generous breadth of its morals excited vigorous protestations; the piece was met by resistance like that which greeted the appearance of Ibsen's Doll's House.

It is known [said Jules LemaÎtre] that despite the fact that the popular enthusiasm was prodigious the critics were implacable. Perhaps the criticisms were not all inspired by base envy of the author. I believe in the good faith of the Academy, and to my mind, it seems possible that the criticisms of the Academy were not considered either partial or unjust by every one in France; it may be that there were many thinkers who shared the opinions of Cardinal de Richelieu and the majority of the Academy.

These lines are truth itself; the Cid was an immoral play because it was the apotheosis of passionate love, whose rights it proclaimed at the expense of the most imperious duties. There was enough in the Cid to shock any social body holding firmly fixed opinions adverse to the public exhibition of intimate personal feelings; there were such bodies—the Academy was one of them—they made their own conditions, and the license of the prevailing morals was insignificant to them. The national idea of the superior rights of the family was well-grounded, and when the Academy reproached ChimÈne because she was "too sensible of the feelings of the lover—too conscious of her love ... too unnatural a daughter"—it did no more than echo a large number of voices.

Until he wrote the Cid Corneille was more exigeant than the Academy. The only thing required of lovers by the Academy was that they, the lovers, should govern their feelings and love, or not love, according to the commands of their families or their notaries. The Academy asked nothing of them but to control their actions regardless of their hearts; surely that was indulgence; beyond that there remained but one thing more,—to suppress the mind.

We do not consider it essential [said Sentiments Sur le Cid] to condemn ChimÈne because she loved her father's murderer; her engagement to Rodrigue had preceded the murder, and it is not within the power of a person to cease loving at will. We blame her because, while she was pursuing Rodrigue, ostensibly to his disadvantage, she was making vows and besieging Heaven in his favour; this was a too evident betrayal of her natural obligations in favour of her passion; it was too openly searching for a cloak to cover her wishes, and making less of the daughter than of the daughter's power to love her lover; in other words, it was cheapening the natural character of the daughter to the advantage of the lover.

The example was especially pernicious, because the genius of the author had rendered it seductive, and because the part which ChimÈne played assured her of the sympathy of the audience. Corneille was very sensitive to the criticisms of the Academy, and after the Cid appeared something more serious than synthetic form was placed under the knives of the literary doctors; either because the denunciations of his friends bore fruit, or because, in the depths of his heart, he harboured the feelings which the unbridled ardour of the Cid had aroused in the Academy and in the other honest people "who upbraided him, he retreated from the field of sentimental romanticism, and turned his talents in another direction.... Nature's triumph over a social convention was never given another occasion to display its graces or to celebrate its truths under his auspices and the love passion was not heard of again until it came forth in Horace (Camille), to be very severely dealt with."

We are led to believe that had Corneille met the subject of the Cid fifteen years later, he would never have granted ChimÈne and Rodrigue a marriage license.[71] Nor is this all. Having reformed, he was as fanatical as the rest of the reformers; having become Catholic, he was more Catholic than the Pope. He disclaimed love, and would have none of it; he affirmed that it was unworthy of a place in tragedy. In his own words, written some time later:

The dignity of tragedy demands for its subject some great interest of the State, ... or some passion more manly than love; as, for instance, ambition or vengeance. If fear is permitted to enter such a work it should be a fear less puerile than that inspired by the loss of a mistress. It is proper to mingle a little love with the more important elements, because love is always very pleasing, and it may serve as a foundation for the other interests and passions that I have named. But if love is permitted to enter tragedy it must be content to take the second rank in the poem, and to leave the first places to the capital passions.

Having chosen his bone in this high-handed fashion, Corneille gnawed at it continually; he could never get enough of it. Love had triumphed in the Cid, but that day was past; in Horace it struggled for existence; in Polyeucte it was vanquished, though not before it had opposed sturdy resistance. It was weak enough in Cinna. After the arrival of PompÉe it gave up the struggle, though it was heard piteously murmuring at intervals. When PompÉe appeared the ladies disappeared from the drama as if by magic; hardly a woman worthy of the name could be found in literature: a few beings there were draped with the time-worn title, but they were as virile as wild Indians.

A little hardness sets so well upon great souls!

Nothing could be seen but ambition, blood, thirst for power, and Fury, cup-bearer to the God of Vengeance. There was no more love-passion, the manly passions ramped upon the stage like lions, and, with few exceptions, all, male and female, were monsters of the Will.

Long years passed before anything but the Will was heard of. After a long reign the "monsters" disappeared. But they have reappeared in the literature of our century. The worship of the Will, which originated with Corneille, was recently revived by Nietzsche, whose famous "Sur-homme" bears a very strong family resemblance to the CornÉlien heroes. "Life," said Nietzsche, "is that which ought always to surpass and to exceed itself." Corneille's personages kept all the springs of their will well in hand. They intended to succeed, to surpass, and to get ahead of themselves if the thing was to be done; and when they were convinced that to surpass themselves was impossible their future looked very dark, and they sold their lives at cut prices,—or threw them in for nothing—letting them go to any one who would carry them away. In the fifth act of the play Horace became very anxious to die because, as he expressed it, he feared that, after what he had done, he should be unable to "surpass himself."

The analogy between the "Sur-homme" and the CornÉlien heroes does not end here; logic would not permit that; nothing weakens and enslaves the firm and exalted will as effectually as the sentiment of pity, and both Corneille and Nietzsche enfranchised their ideal humanity. Corneille makes some one assure Horace that there is no great merit in exposing himself to death, but that concession to weakness is of an early period; the advanced man—the man out of the common order—is easily recognised by the fact that he does not hesitate to bring the greatest sufferings upon the beings who are dearest to him.

The lines which follow were written by Nietzsche, and they seem a paraphrase of the discourse of Horace:

To know how to suffer is nothing; feeble women, even slaves, may be past masters in this art. But to stand firm against the assaults of the pain of doubt, to withstand the weakness of remorse when we inflict torment,—this is to be a hero; this is the height of courage; in this lies the first condition of all grandeur.

Corneille's contempt for pity was shared by his contemporaries, and so were his views of marriage as expressed in his first comedies. The seigniors whom he met at the HÔtel de Rambouillet would have blushed to feel compassion. They left the womanish weakness of pity to the inferior beings of the lower orders. The great had always been convinced that elevation in rank raised man above the consciousness of the sufferings of beings of an inferior order; and in the day of Corneille they were fully persuaded that noblemen ought to find higher reasons for justice and for generosity than the involuntary emotions which we of this later day have learned to recognise as symptoms of "nervous disturbance."

I am very little sensible of pity [wrote La Rochefoucauld], and I would prefer not to feel it at all. Nevertheless there is nothing that I would not do for the afflicted, and I believe that I ought to do what I can for them—even to expressing compassion for their woes, for the wretches are so stupid that it does them the greatest good in the world to receive sympathy; but I believe that we ought to confine ourselves to expressing pity; we ought to take great care not to feel it; pity is a passion which is good for nothing in a well-made soul; when entertained it weakens the heart, and therefore we ought to relegate it to beings who need passions to incite them to do things because they are incapable of acting by reason.

The manly characters in Corneille's heroic comedies never lower themselves to the plane of the common people, nor to a plane where they can think as the people think. Corneille was "of the Court" by all his feelings and by all his prejudices, and he shared Mademoiselle's belief that there is a natural difference between the man of quality and the man below the quality, because generous virtues are mingled with the blood which runs in noble veins, while the blood of the man of lower birth is mingled with lower passions. Being a true courtier, Corneille believed that above the two varieties of the human kind—the quality and the lesser people—Providence set the order of Princes who are of an essence apart, elect, and quasi-divine.

In Don Sancho d'Aragon Carlos did his best to prove that he was the son of a fisherman. His natural splendour gave the lie to his pretence. "Impossible that he could have sprung from blood formed by Heaven of nothing but clay."

Don Lope affirms that it cannot be true.

He discovers that Carlos is the son of a King of Aragon. His extraordinary merit is explained and consistency is satisfied. On the whole Corneille did nothing but develop the maxims and idealise the models offered to his observation on all sides; as much may be said of the plots of his great plays. His subjects were suggested by the events of the day. Had there been no Mme. de Chevreuse and no conspiracies against Richelieu there could have been no Cinna. And it is possible that there might not have been such a work as Polyeucte had there been no Jansenism.[72]

Corneille did not understand actuality as we understand it. His tragedy is never a report of real occurrences, that is evident. But he was besieged, encompassed, possessed, by the life around him, and it left impressions in his mind which worked out and mingled with every subject upon which he entered. He was guided by his impressions,—though he did not know it,—and by their influence he was enabled to find a powerful tragedy in a few indifferent lines dropped by a mediocre historian, or by an inferior narrator of insignificant events. His surroundings furnished him with precise representations, made real to his mind by the vague abstractions of history. In the forms and conditions of the present he saw and felt all the past.[73]

His constant contact with the world of his times favoured the action of his mind upon the minds of his auditors. He exhibited to them their passions, their thoughts, their feelings, their different ways of looking upon social duty, upon politics, and upon the part played, or to be played, by the aristocracy in the general movement. The people of Paris loved the play because it exhibited openly, in different, but always favourable lights, everything in which they had any interest. In it they saw their own life, their aims, their needs, their longing to be great and admirable in all things.[74] They saw depicted all that they had dreamed of being, all that they had wished to be; and something more vital than love of literature animated their transports and lighted the fond glances fixed on the magic mirror reflecting the ideals they so ardently caressed. The people listened to Corneille's plays and trembled as they now tremble at the sound of La Marseillaise. It has been said that they did not understand Racine; if they did not, their lack of comprehension was natural. Racine was of another generation, and he was not in sympathy with his forerunner. Mme. de SÉvignÉ was accused of false judgment in her criticism of Bejazet,[75] but she also was of another school. She had little sympathy for Racine's heroes. She understood Corneille's heroes, and could not listen to his verses without the tremor of the heart which we all feel when something recalls the generous fancies of our youth. The general impression was that Corneille was inspired by the image of Mlle. de Montpensier when he wrote Pulcherie (1672), an heroic comedy in which an empress stifles the cries of her heart that she may listen to the voice of glory.

The throne lifts the soul above all tenderness.

It is not impossible that Corneille had some such thought in his mind. Certainly Mademoiselle was a model close at hand. One day when her bold poltroon of a father told her, in the course of a sharp reproof, that she was compromising her house for the pleasure of "playing the heroine," she answered haughtily and truthfully:

"I do not know what it is to be anything but a heroine! I am of birth so high that no matter what I might do, I never could be anything but great and noble. And they may call it what they like, I call it following my inclination and taking my own road. I was born to take no other!"

Given such inclinations, and living in the Louvre, where Corneille's plays were constantly enacted by Queen Anne's order, Mademoiselle was accustomed to regard certain actions as the reverse of common and ignoble, and to consider certain other actions "illustrious."

The justice of super-exalted sentiments was proclaimed by nobility, and they who were disposed to closely imitate the examples set by the literary leader of the day ran the risk of losing all sense of proportions and of substance. Mademoiselle did lose that sense, nor was she the only one to do so among all the children of quality who were permitted to abuse their right to see the play. Through the imprudent fashion of taking young children to the theatre, the honest Corneille, who taught the heroism of duty, the poetry of sacrifice, the value of strong will and self-control, was not absolutely innocent of the errors in judgment and in moral sense by which the wars of the Fronde were made possible. When he attempted to lift the soul of France above its being, he vitiated a principle in the unformed national brain.

III

Mademoiselle had grown tall. She had lost her awkward ways; she was considered pretty—although the Bourbon type might, at any moment, become too pronounced. She had remained simple and insignificantly innocent and childish, in a world where even the children discussed politics and expressed opinions on the latest uprising. Side by side with all her infantine pleasures were two serious cares which had accompanied her from her cradle, one: her marriage; the other, the honour of her house. The two cares were one, as the two objects were one, because in that day a princess knew her exalted duty and accepted her different forms of servitude without a frown, and certainly the most painful of all those forms was the marriage in which the wife was less than nothing; a being helpless in her inferiority, so situated that she was unable to claim any share of the general domestic happiness. The noble princesses had consented to drink their cup to the dregs because it was part of their caste to do so, and many were they who went to the altar as Racine's "IphigÉnie" went to the sacrifice. The idea that woman is a creature possessing a claim upon herself, with the right to love, to be happy, and to seat herself upon the steps of the throne, or even upon the throne, is a purely modern conception. The day when that mediocre thought first germinated in the brain of the noblewoman marked a date in the history of royalty, and it may be that no surer sign was given to warn the nations of contemporary Europe of the decay of the monarchical idea.

La Grande Mademoiselle had faith in the old traditions. She had always been used to the idea that life would be full enough when she had accomplished her high destiny and perpetuated the noble name borne by her ancestors and she was fully satisfied with the idea that her husband should see in her nothing but the "granddaughter of France," and accept her and her princely estates as he would accept any of the other gifts directly bestowed on noblemen by Divine Providence. Her husband had been ordained her husband from all time; and she was prepared to yield her all to him without a murmur. What though he should be ugly, gouty, doddering—or a babe in arms, "brutal," or an "honest man"? Such details were for the lower orders, they were puerile; unworthy of the attention of a great Princess. He would be the husband of Mlle. de Montpensier, niece of Louis XIII., and that would be enough. But in spite of herself she felt a lurking curiosity as to who he should be. What was to be his name.... His Majesty, was he to be a king, "His Highness," or simply "Monseigneur?" there lay the root of the whole matter.

Of what rank were the wives whose right it was to remain seated in the King's presence, ... and on what did they sit, arm-chairs or armless seats?

That was the question, the only consideration of any importance.

We should prefer to think that Mademoiselle mourned because she was reduced by her condition to forget that however princely a marriage may be it must entail a husband, but we are the slaves of truth, we must take our history as we find it, and be the fact pleasing or painful,—here it is: Mademoiselle knew that she should marry the first princely aspirant to her hand, and she was well content to let it be so.

The first to arouse her imagination was one of her mother's ancient lovers, Comte de Soissons, a brilliant soldier, but a man of very ordinary intellect. "M. le Comte" had not only aspired to the favour of Anne-Marie's mother, but he had also addressed her cousin Marie, Duchesse de Montpensier, and so lively had been the wooing that there had been some talk of an abduction. Then Gaston had entered the field and carried off the Duchess, and, gnawed by spite and jealous fury, Soissons had quarrelled with him.

Less than a year later the unexpected death of Madame brought about a reconciliation between the rivals. Monsieur, wifeless, charged with an infant daughter, who was the sole heiress to almost incalculable wealth, clasped hands with Soissons, under circumstances favourable to the brightest dreams. Madame's timely death had restored intact a flattering prospect. M. le Comte again and for the third time announced pretensions to the hand of a Montpensier, and Gaston smiled approval. He considered it all very natural; given a like occasion, he would have followed a like course.

So, as far back as her youthful memory could travel, Mlle. Anne-Marie-Louise d'OrlÉans found along her route traces of the assiduous attentions of the even-then ripe cousin, who had regaled her with sugared almonds through the medium of a gentleman named Campion, accredited and charged with the mission of rendering his master pleasing to Mademoiselle, the infant Princess of the Tuileries. M. le Comte sent Campion to Court with sugared almonds, because he, the Comte de Soissons, rarely set foot in Paris at any time, and at the time which we are now considering a private matter of business (an assassination which he and Gaston had planned together), had definitely retired him from Court.

All this happened about the year 1636. Gaston was living in an obscure way, not to say in hiding; for it would have been difficult to hide so notable a personage,—nor would there have been any logic in hiding him, after all that had passed,—but he was living a sheltered, and, so to speak, a harmless life. He was supposed to be in Blois, but he was constantly seen gliding about the Louvre, tolerated by the King, who practised his dancing steps with him, and treated by Richelieu with all the contempt due to his character. The Cardinal made free with Gaston's rights; he changed and dismissed his servants without consulting their master; and more than one of the fine friends of Monsieur learned the way to the Bastille.

At times Richelieu gave Gaston presents, hoping to tempt the light-minded Prince to reflect upon the advantages attending friendly relations with the Court. Richelieu had tried in vain to force Gaston to consent to the dissolution of his marriage with Marguerite de Lorraine. He had never permitted Gaston to present his wife at Court, but Gaston had always hoped to obtain the permission and the anxious lady had remained just outside of France awaiting the signal to enter. She was generally supposed to be within call of her husband.

The time has come when justice of a new kind must be done to Monsieur, and probably it is the only time when a creditable fact will be recorded in his history. He stood firm in his determination to maintain his marriage. Try as the Cardinal might, and by all the means familiar to him from habitual use, he could not force Monsieur to relax his fidelity to his consort. D'OrlÉans was virtuous on this one point, but his manner of virtue was the manner of Gaston; there are different ways of sustaining the marriage vows, and Monsieur's way was not praiseworthy. His experience had passed as a veil blown away by the wind. His passion for intrigue still held sway, he always had at least one plot in process of infusion, and his results were fatal to his assistants. In the heat of his desire to rid himself of the Cardinal, he simulated change of heart so well that the Cardinal was deceived. Suspicious at first of the sincerity of Gaston's professions, after long and close observation he became convinced that the Prince was, in truth, repentant. It was at that epoch, when free exercise of an undisciplined will was made possible by Richelieu's conviction of his own security, that Monsieur laid his plan of assassination with de Soissons; at that time there was but opinion in France—de Richelieu was a tyrant, there could be no hope of pleasure while he lived. Let him die, let France hear that he was dead, and all the world could be happy and free to act, not according to the dogmas of an egotist by the grace of God, but by the rule of the greatest good to the greatest number.

The conspirators had found a time and a place favourable to their enterprise. It was during the siege of Corbie. The King was there attended by his Minister. Monsieur and the Count were there; so were the men whom they had engaged to kill the Cardinal. Culpable as the two scoundrels had always been, when the whole country was in arms it was impossible to find a reasonable excuse for refusing them commands, so they were at the front with all the representative men of the country, and they had good reason for supposing that one murder—a movement calculated to relieve the nation—might pass unnoticed in the general noise and motion of the siege. The time was ripe; Monsieur and Soissons had put their heads together and decided that the moment had come to strike the blow and rid the country of the Cardinal.

Their plans were well laid. A council of war had been called. De Richelieu was to pass a certain staircase on his way to it; de Soissons was to accompany Richelieu and distract his attention; Gaston was to be waiting at the foot of the stairs to give the signal to the assassins. But Monsieur had not changed since the days of Chalais, and he could not control his nerves. He was a slave to ungovernable panics. According to his plans the part which he had to play was easy. He had nothing to do but to give the signal; all the accomplices were ready; the assassins were awaiting the word; he himself was at his post; but when the Cardinal passed, haughty and calm, to take his place in his carriage, terror seized Monsieur and he turned and sprang up the stairway. As he fled one of his accomplices, thinking to hold him back, seized him by his cloak, and Gaston, rushing forward, dragged him after him.

The affrighted Prince and his astonished follower reached the first landing with the speed of lightning; and then, carried away by emotion, Monsieur, still dragging his companion, fled into an inner room, where he stopped, dazed; he did not know where he was, nor what he was doing, and when he tried to speak he babbled incoherent words which died in his throat. De Soissons was waiting in the courtyard; he had spoken so calmly that Richelieu had passed on unconscious of the unusual excitement among the courtiers.

Though the plot had failed, there had been no exposure; but the fact that the accomplices held the secret and that they had much to gain from the Cardinal by a denunciation of their principals made it unsafe for the conspirators to remain in Paris; before the Cardinal's policemen were warned they fled, Monsieur to Blois and de Soissons to Sedan. Not long after their flight the story was in the mouths of the gossips, and Mademoiselle knew that she could not hope for the Cardinal's assistance in the accomplishment of her marriage; so the child of the Tuileries advanced to maidenhood while her ambitious cousin (Soissons) turned grey at Sedan. When Anne-Marie-Louise reached her fourteenth year the Comte thought that the time had come to bring matters to a crisis. He was not a coward, and as there was no reason for hypocrisy or secrecy, he boldly joined the enemies of his country and invaded France with the armies of de Bouillon and de Guise. Arrived in France, he charged one of his former mistresses, Mme. de Montbazon, to finish the work begun by Campion. Mme. de Montbazon lent her best energies to the work, and right heartily.

I took great interest in M. le Comte de Soissons, [wrote Mademoiselle]; his health was failing. The King went to Champagne to make war upon him; and while he was on the journey, Mme. de Montbazon—who loved the Count dearly and who was dearly loved by him—used to come to see me every day, and she spoke of him with much affection; she told me that she should feel extreme joy if I would marry him, that they would never be lonely or bored at the HÔtel de Soissons were I there; that they would not think of anything but to amuse me, that they would give balls in my honour, that we should take fine walks, and that the Count would have unparalleled tenderness and respect for me. She told me everything that would be done to render my condition happy, and of all that could be done to make things pleasant for a personage of my age. I listened to her with pleasure and I felt no aversion for the person of M. le Comte.... Aside from the difference between my age and his my marriage with him would have been feasible. He was a very honest man, endowed with grand qualities; and although he was the youngest of his house he had been accorded[76] with the Queen of England.

Having been unable to acquire the mother, de Soissons turned his attention to the daughter. Mademoiselle recorded:

M. le Comte sent M. le Comte de Fiesque to Monsieur to remind him of the promise that he had made concerning me, and to remind him that affairs were then in such a condition that they might be terminated. M. le Comte de Fiesque very humbly begged Monsieur to find it good that de Soissons should abduct me, because in that way only could the marriage be accomplished. Monsieur would not consent to that expedient at all, and so the answer that M. le Comte de Fiesque carried back touched M. le Comte very deeply.

Not long after this episode the Comte de Soissons was killed at MarfÉe (6th July, 1641), and Mademoiselle's eyes were opened to the fact that she and M. le Comte "had not been created for each other." She wrote of his death as follows:

"I could not keep from weeping when he died, and when I went to see Madame his mother at Bagnolet, M. and Mlle. de Longueville and the whole household did nothing but manifest their grief by their continual cries."

Mademoiselle had desired with earnest sincerity to become the Comtesse de Soissons; it is difficult to imagine why,—unless, perhaps, because at her age girls build air-castles with all sorts of materials.

M. le Comte had been wept over and buried and sentiment had nothing more to do with Mademoiselle's dreams of establishment. Her fancy hovered over Europe and swooped down upon the princes who were bachelors or widowers, and upon the married nobles who were in a fair way to become widowers; more than once she was seen closely following the current reports when some princess was taken by sickness; and she abandoned or developed her projects, according to the turn taken by the diseases of the unfortunate ladies. The greater number of the hypothetical postulants upon whom she successively fixed her mind were strangers whom she had never seen, and among them were several who had never thought of her, and who never did think of her at any time; but she pursued her way with unflagging zeal, permitting indiscreet advances when she did not encourage them; she considered herself more or less the Queen or the Empress of France, of Spain, or of Hungary, as the prospect of the speedy bereavement of the incumbents of the different thrones brightened. La Grande Mademoiselle had not entered the world as the daughter of a degenerate with impunity; there were subjects upon which she was incapable of reasoning; in the ardour of her faith in the mystical virtues of the Blood she surpassed Corneille. She believed that the designs of princes ranked with the designs of God, and that they should be regarded as the devout regard the mysteries of religion. To quote her own words: "The intuitions of the great are like the mysteries of the Faith; it is not for men to fathom them! they ought to revere them; they ought to know that the thoughts of the great are given to their possessors for the well-being and for the salvation of the country."

Mademoiselle surpassed the Corneille of Tragedy in her disdainful rejection of love; Corneille was content to station love in the rear rank, and he placed it far below the manly passions in his classification of "the humanities." It will be remembered that by his listings the "manly passions" were Ambition, Vengeance, Pride of Blood, and "Glory." Mademoiselle believed that love could not exist between married people of rank; she considered it one of the passions of the inferior classes.

When we examine the subject we see that it was not remarkable that Mademoiselle recognised illegitimate love, although her own virtue was unquestionable. She liked lovers, and accepted the idea of love in the abstract; she repudiated the idea of love legalised because she was logical; she thought that married love proclaimed false ideas and gave a bad example. If married people loved each other and were happy together because of their common love, young noble girls would long to marry for love and to be happy in marriage because of love, and the time would come when there would be no true quality, because the nobles would have followed their desires or their weaker sentiments and formed haphazard unions brought about by natural selection. Man or maid would "silence the voice of glory in order to listen to the voice of love," should the dignity of hierarchical customs be brought down to the level of the lower passions. So Mademoiselle reasoned, and from her mental point of view her reasoning was sound. She was strong-minded; she realised the danger of permitting the heart to interfere in the marriage of the Elect.

The year 1641 was not ended when Mademoiselle appeared in spiritual mourning for a suitor who seems to us to have been nothing but a vision, the first vision of a series. Anne of Austria had never forgotten the Cardinal's cruel rebuke when he found Mademoiselle playing at man and wife with a child in long clothes. She had tried to console the little girl, and her manner had always been motherly and gentle. "It is true," she had said, "the Cardinal told the truth; my son is too small; you shall marry my brother!" When she had spoken thus she had referred to the Cardinal Infant,[77] who was in Flanders acting as Captain-General of the country and commanding the armies of the King of Spain.

The Prince was Archbishop of Toledo. He had not received Holy Orders. In that day it was not considered necessary to take orders before entering the Episcopate. "They taxed revenues, they delegated vicars-general for judicial action, and when the power of the Church was needed they delegated bishops. There were many prelates who were not priests." Henri de Lorraine II., Duc de Guise (born in 1614), was only fifteen years old when he received the Archbishopric of Rheims; he never received Holy Orders. In priestly vestments he presented every appearance of the most pronounced type of the ecclesiastical hybrid; he was an excellent Catholic, and a gallant and dashing pontiff-cavalier. His life as layman was far from religious. When he was twenty-seven years old he met a handsome widow, Mme. de Bossut. He married her on the spot without drum or cannon; and then, because some formality had been omitted, the marriage was confirmed by the Archbishop of Malines. The Church saw no obstacle to the marriage. Nicolas-FranÇois de Lorraine, Bishop of Toul, and Cardinal, was another example; "without being engaged in orders" he became "Duc de Lorraine" (1634) by the abdication of his brother Charles. He had political reasons for marrying his cousin "Claude" without delay, but he was stopped by an obstacle which did not emanate from his bishopric. Claude was his own cousin, and the prohibitions of the Church made it necessary for him to get a dispensation from Rome.

FranÇois visited his cousin and made his proposals. As a layman he needed a publication of his bans, and as a Catholic, in order to marry his cousin, he needed a dispensation from the Pope. Therefore he re-assumed the character of Bishop and issued a dispensation eliminating his bans, then, in the name of the Pope, he issued a dispensation making it spiritually lawful for him to marry his cousin to himself; that accomplished, he cast off the character of Bishop and was married by a regularly ordained priest like an ordinary mortal. In those days there was no abyss between the Church and the world. At most there was only a narrow ditch which the great lords crossed and recrossed at will, as caprice or interest moved them. In their portraits this species of oscillation, which was one of their distinguishing movements, is distinctly recorded and made evident even to the people of this century.

In the gallery of the Louvre we see a picture due to the brush of the Le Nain brothers, entitled, Procession in a Church. That part of the procession which is directly in front of the spectator is composed of members of the clergy, vested with all their churchly ornaments. The superb costumes are superbly worn by men of proud and knightly bearing. The portraits betray the true characters of their originals. These men are courtiers, utterly devoid of the collected and meditative tranquillity found in the legions of the Church. In the Le Nain brothers' picture the most notable figures are two warlike priests, who stand, like Norse kings, at the head of the procession, transfixing us with their look of bold assurance. No priests in ordinary, these, but natural soldiers, ready to die for a word or an idea! Their curled moustachios are light as foam; their beards are trimmed to a point, and under the embroidered dalmatica the gallant mien of the worldling frets as visibly as a lion in its cage. It is impossible to doubt it: these are soldiers; cavaliers who have but assumed the habit; who will take back the doublet and the sword, and with them the customs and the thoughts of men of war. Whatever their rank in the Church, hazard and birth alone have placed them there; and thus are they working out the sentence imposed by the ambition of their families; giving the lie to a calling for which they have neither taste nor capacity. The will of a strong man can defeat even pre-natal influences, and, knowing it, they make no hypocritical attempt to hide their character. They were not meant for priests, and every look and every action shows it.

The Cardinal-Infant, Archbishop of Toledo, was only a deacon, so there was nothing extraordinary in the thought that he might marry. I cannot say that he ever thought of marrying Mademoiselle; I have never found any proof that he entertained such a thought; the only thing absolutely certain in the whole affair is that Mademoiselle never doubted that he intended, or had intended, to marry her. Here is her own account of it, somewhat abridged and notably incoherent:

The Cardinal-Infant died of a tertian fever (9th November 1641), which had not hindered his remaining in the army all through the campaign.... His malady had not appeared very dangerous; nevertheless he died a few days after he came back from Brussels; which made them say that the Spaniards had poisoned him because they were afraid that by forming an alliance with France he would render himself master of Flanders,[78] and, in fact, that was his design. The Queen told me that after the King died she found in his strong-box memoranda showing that my marriage with that Prince had been decided upon. She told me nothing but that ... when this loss came upon them the King said to the Queen ... and he said it very rudely—"Your brother is dead." That news, so coarsely announced, added to her grief ... and for my own part, when I reflected upon my interests I was very deeply grieved; because that would have been the most agreeable establishment in the world for me, because of the beauty of the country, lying as it does so near this country, and because of the way in which they live there. As for the qualities of his person, though I esteemed him much, that was the least that I thought of.

The disappearance of the Cardinal-Infant was followed by events so tragic and so closely connected with Mademoiselle's life that her mind was distracted from her hunt for a husband. Despite her extreme youth, the affair Cinq-Mars constrained her to judge her father, and to the child to whom nothing was as dear as honour the revelation of his treachery was crushing.

IV

The death of Cinq-Mars was the dÉnouement of a great and tragic passion. Henry d'Effiat, Marquis de Cinq-Mars, was described as a handsome youth with soft, caressing eyes, marvellously graceful in all his movements.[79]

His mother was ambitious; she knew that men had risen to power by the friendship of kings. Richelieu's schemes required a thousand complicated accessories. So it was decided by the Cardinal and by Cinq-Mars's mother to present the child to the King and to place him in the royal presence to minister to the King's pleasure for an hour, as a beautiful flower is given to be cherished for a time, then cast away. The King was capricious and childish and, as Richelieu said, "he must always have his toy"; but elderly children, like very young children, soon tire of their toys and when they tire of them they destroy them; Louis XIII. had broken everything that he had played with, and his admiration inspired terror. Cinq-Mars was determined that he would not be a victim. Though very young, he knew the ways of the world and he had formed plans for his future. He was fond of the world and fond of pleasure. He was a natural lover, always sighing at the feet of women. He was brave and he had counted upon a military career. The thought of imprisonment in the ChÂteau of Saint Germain with a grumbling invalid whose ennui no one could vanquish was appalling; but after two years of resistance he yielded and entered the royal apartment as officer nearest to the King. It has been said that he lacked energy, but as he resisted two whole years before he gave up the struggle, and as the will which he opposed was the will of Richelieu, it is difficult to believe that he was not energetic.

History tells us that he was very nervous and that, although his will was feeble, he was subject to fits of anger. In 1638 he was in the King's household as Master of the Robes. He was eighteen years old. It was his business to select and order the King's garments, and the King was wont to reject whatever the boy selected because it was "too elegant." When Cinq-Mars was first seen in the King's apartment he was silent and very sad; the King's displeasure cowed him; the beautiful and gentle face and the appealing glance of the soft eyes irritated the sickly fancies of the monarch and he never noticed or addressed Cinq-Mars when he could avoid it. Cinq-Mars hated Saint Germain, and, truth to tell, even to an older and graver person, the lugubrious chÂteau would have seemed a prison. Sick at heart, weak in mind, tortured by fleshly ills, Louis XIII., sinking deeper into insignificance as the resplendent star of his Prime Minister rose, was but sorry company for any one.

Richelieu was the real ruler of France. Ranke, who used his relations with ambassadors as a means for increasing his store of personal and political data, said:

Dating our observations from the year 1629, we see a crowd of soldiers and other attentive people thronging Richelieu's house and even standing in the doors of his apartments. When he passes in his litter he is saluted respectfully; one kneels, another presents a petition, a third tries to kiss his vestments; all are happy who succeed in obtaining a glance from him. It is as if all the business of the country were already in his hands; he has assumed the highest responsibilities ever borne by a subject....

As time went on his success augmented his power. He lived in absolute seclusion at Rueil. He was difficult of approach, and if an ambassador succeeded in gaining admission to his presence it was because he had been able to prove that he had something to communicate to Richelieu which it was of essential interest to the State, or to the Cardinal personally, to know. All the national business was in his hands. He was the centre of all State interests, the King frequently attended his councils. If Richelieu visited the King he was surrounded by a guard; he hired his guard himself, selecting his men with great care and paying them out of his own pocket, so that he might feel that he was safe from his enemies even in the King's presence.

The officers of his personal service were numerous, young and very exalted nobles. His stables were in keeping with his importance; and his house was more magnificent and his table better served than the King's. When in Paris he lived in the Palais Cardinal (now the Palais Royal) surrounded by princely objects, all treasures in themselves; his train was the train of an emperor. The Louvre, the King's residence, was a simple palace, but the Cardinal's palace, called in Court language the "HÔtel de Richelieu," was the symbol of the luxury and the art of France, toward which the eyes of the people of France and of all other lands were turned. In the HÔtel de Richelieu there were cabinets where the high officials sat in secret discussion, boudoirs for the fair ladies, ball-rooms, treasure galleries where works of art were lavishly displayed, a chapel, and two theatres. The basis of the Cardinal's library was the public library of Rochelle, which had been seized after the siege. The chapel was one of the chief sights of Paris. Everything used in the ceremonial of worship was of solid gold, ornamented with great diamonds. Among the precious objects in use were two church chandeliers,[80] all of massive gold, enamelled and enriched with two thousand five hundred and sixteen diamonds. The vases used in the service of the Mass were of fine, richly enamelled gold, and in them were set two hundred and sixty-two diamonds. The cross, which was between twenty and twenty-one inches high, bore a figure of Christ of massive gold and the crown of thorns and the loin-cloth were studded with diamonds.

The Book of Prayer used by the Cardinal was bound in fine morocco leather; each side of the cover was enwreathed with sprigs of gold. On one side of the cover was a golden medallion, on which the Cardinal was depicted, like an emperor, holding the globe of the world in his hand; from the four corners of the cover angels were descending to crown his head with flowers. Beneath the device ran the Latin inscription, "Cadat." The ceiling of the grand gallery of the palace (destroyed under Louis XIV.) bore one of Philip de Champagne's masterpieces—a picture representing the glorious exploits of the Cardinal. One of the picture galleries called the "Gallery of Illustrious Men" contained twenty-five full-length portraits of the great men of France, chosen according to the Cardinal's estimate of greatness. At the foot of each portrait was a little "key," or historical representation of the principal acts of the original of the portrait, arranged as Fra Angelico and Giotto arranged the portraits of Saint Dominick and Saint FranÇois d'Assisi. Richelieu, who was not afflicted with false modesty, had placed his own portrait among the portraits in his gallery of the great men of France. Although he had amassed so many monuments of pride, he had passed a large portion of his life in relative poverty. He had travelled from the humble Episcopate to the steps of the throne of France on an income of 25,000 livres. When he died his income was nearly three millions of livres per annum,—the civil list of a powerful monarch. He was not an expert hoarder of riches, like Mazarin; he scattered money with full hands, while his master, the King, netted game-bags in a corner, cooked, or did other useful work, or gave himself up to his frugal pleasures.

According to Mme. de Motteville:

The King found himself reduced to the most miserable of earthly lives, without a suite, without a Court, without power, and consequently without pleasure and without honour. Thus a part of his life passed at Saint Germain, where he lived like a private individual; and while his enemies captured cities and won battles, he amused himself by catching birds. That Prince was unhappy in all manners, for he had not even the comfort of domestic life; he did not love the Queen at all.... He was jealous of the grandeur of his Minister ... whom he began to hate as soon as he perceived the extreme authority which the Cardinal wielded in the kingdom ... and as he was no happier without him than he was with him, he could not be happy at all.

Cinq-Mars entered the King's service under the auspices of the Cardinal. When the King saw the new face in his apartment he retired into his darkest humour.

Cinq-Mars was very patient; he was attentive and modest, but the sound of his voice and the sight of his face irritated the sickly monarch. Days passed before the King addressed his new Master of the Robes. One day he caught the long appealing look of the gentle eyes; he answered it with a stare,—frowned, and looked again. That night he could not sleep; he longed for the morning. When Cinq-Mars entered the bed-chamber the King drew him to his side "and suddenly he loved him violently and fatally, as in former times he loved young Baradas."

The courtiers were accustomed to the King's fancies, but his passion for Cinq-Mars astonished them; it surpassed all that had preceded it.

It was an appalling and jealous love; exacting, suspicious, bitter, stormy, and fruitful in tears and quarrels. Louis XIII. overwhelmed his favourite with tokens of his tenderness; had it been possible he would have chained the boy to his side. When Cinq-Mars was away from him he was miserable.

Cinq-Mars was obliged to assist him in his new trade (he was learning to be a carpenter), to stand at the bench holding tools and taking measurements; and to listen to long harangues on dogs and on bird-training. The King and his new favourite were seen together constantly, driving the foxes to their holes and running in the snowy fields catching blackbirds in the King's sweep-net; they hunted with a dozen sportsmen who were said to be "low people and very bad company."

When they returned to the palace the King supped; when he had finished his supper he went to bed, and then Cinq-Mars, "fatigued to exasperation by the puerile duties of the day, cared for nothing but to escape from his gloomy prison, and to forget the long, yellow face and the interminable torrent of hunting stories." Stealing from the chÂteau, he mounted his horse and hurried to Paris. He passed the night as he pleased and returned to the chÂteau early in the morning, worn out, haggard, and with nerves unstrung. Although he left the chÂteau after the King retired to his bed, and returned from Paris early in the morning, before the King awoke, Louis XIII. knew where he had been and what he had been doing. Louis employed spies who watched and listened. He was particularly jealous of Cinq-Mars's young friends; he "made scenes" and reproached Cinq-Mars and the tormented boy answered him hotly; then with cries, weeping bitterly, they quarrelled, and the King went to Richelieu to complain of "M. le Grand." Richelieu was State Confidant, and to him the King entrusted the reconciliations. In 1639 (27th November) Louis wrote to the Cardinal:

You will see by the certificate that I send you, in what condition is the reconciliation that you effected yesterday. When you put your hand to an affair it cannot but go well. I give you good-day.

The certificate read as follows:

We, the undersigned, certify to all to whom these presents may come, that we are very glad and well-satisfied with one another, and that we have never been in such perfect unison as at present. In faith of which we have signed the present certificate.

(signed) Louis; and by my order:
(signed) Effiat de Cinq-Mars.

The laboured reconciliations were not durable; the months which followed the signing of the certificate were one long tempest. The objects of the King's bitterest jealousy were young men who formed a society called Les messieurs du Marais because they met every evening at Mme. de Rohan's in the Palais Royal (the King then lived at the Louvre). Louis could not be silent; he exposed his spite on all occasions. January 5, 1640, he wrote to the Cardinal:

I am sorry to have to tell you again of the ill-humour of M. le Grand. On his return from Rueil he gave me the packet which you sent to me. I opened it and read it. Then I said to him:

"Monsieur, the Cardinal informs me that you have manifested great desire to please me in all things; nevertheless you evince no wish to please me in regard to that which I begged the Cardinal to speak of: namely, your laziness." He answered that you did speak to him of it, but that he could not change his character, and that in that respect he should not do any better than he had been in the habit of doing. That discourse angered me. I said to him that a man of his condition ought to take some steps toward rendering himself worthy to command armies (since he had told me that it was his intention to lead armies). I told him that laziness was contrary to military action. He answered me brusquely that he had never had such an intention and that he had never pretended to have it. I answered, "Que si! You have!" I did not wish to go any deeper into the discourse (you know well what I mean). I then took up the discourse on laziness. I told him that vice renders a man incapable of doing anything good, and that he is good for nothing but the society of the people of the Marais where he was nourished,—people who have given themselves up to pleasure! I told him that if he wishes to continue the life that he is now living among his old friends, he may return to the place whence he came. He answered arrogantly that he should be quite ready to do so!

I answered him: "If I were not wiser than you I know what I should answer to that!" ... After that I said to him that he ought not to speak to me in such fashion. He answered after the manner of his usual discourse that at present his only duty appeared to be to do good to me and to be agreeable to me and that as to such business he could get along very well without it! He said that he would as willingly be Cinq-Mars as to be M. le Grand; and that as to changing his ways and his manner of life, he could not do it! ... And so it went! he pecking at me and I pecking at him until we reached the courtyard; when I said to him that as he was in such a humour he would do me pleasure if he would refrain from showing himself before me any more. He bore witness that he would do that same right willingly! I have not seen him since then.

Precisely as I have told you all that passed, in the presence of Gordes.

Louis.

Post-Scriptum:

I have shown Gordes this memorandum before sending it, and he has told me that there is nothing in it but the truth, exactly as he heard it and saw it pass.

Cinq-Mars sulked and the King sulked, and as the quarrel promised to endure indefinitely, Richelieu bestirred himself, left his quiet home in Rueil and travelled to the house of the King to make peace between the ill-assorted pair.

A GAME OF CHANCE IN THE 17TH CENTURY

FROM AN ENGRAVING BY SÉBASTIEN LECLERC