Early governors of the Bastile—Frequent changes—Day of Barricades—Conspiracy of Biron—Assassination of Henry IV—Ravaillac—Barbarous sentence—Marie de Medicis left Regent—Story of the Concinis—Rise of Richelieu—Gifts and character—His large employment of the State prisons—Duelling prohibited—The Day of Dupes—Triumph over his enemies—Fall of Marie de Medicis—MarÉchal Bassompierre—His prolonged imprisonment.

We may pause a moment at this stage to give some attention to a few of the more prominent governors of the Bastile, appointed by each side in turn during the long conflicts of the opposing parties. Antoine d’Ivyer was the first after the English, as captain under the supreme command of Duke Charles of Bourbon. One Cissey, after fifteen years’ tenure in the Bastile, was succeeded by La Rochette, he by De Melun, he by De Chauvigny, and the last by Phillip Luillier, who enjoyed the confidence of Louis XI and was personally in charge of the bishops and dukes who have been mentioned. He was the last of the royal functionaries, the court officials other than military men who acted as gaolers. Only in the troublous times of the League and later of the Fronde, when the possession of the Bastile meant so much to the existing rÉgime, was the fortress entrusted to the strong hands of soldiers and men of action equal to any emergency. After Luillier the charge was considered equal to a provincial government and those entrusted with it were some of the most considerable persons in the State, constables or ministers who ruled by lieutenant or deputy and kept only the title and dignity of the office. It was long deemed hereditary in certain great families and descended from father to son, as with the Montmorencys. The head of that house, William, in 1504, was succeeded by his son, Anne, a Pluralist, at the same time governor of Paris and captain of the castle of Vincennes. Francis, a marshal of France, son of the last-named, was a third Montmorency governor. Much later the post was held by successive members of the family of Admiral Coligny, and some of the governors were very eminent persons, such as ChÂteauneuf, the Duc de Luynes, MarÉchal Bassompierre and Sully, the celebrated minister of Henry IV, whose memoirs have been widely read and were the inspiration of the English novelist, Stanley Weyman.

The Bastile often changed hands. When Henry of Guise made himself master of Paris after the “Battle,” or “Day of the Barricades,” Laurent Testu was governor or king’s lieutenant of the Bastile; but after the second day’s fighting, when summoned to surrender, he obeyed and opened the gates. The Duc de Guise then gave the governorship to one Bussy-Leclerc, a devoted adherent, but of indifferent character, who had been a procureur of the Parliament and a fencing master. He had a large following of bullies and cut-throats. The prisoners in the Bastile were quite at his mercy and he ruled with a rough, reckless hand, inflicting all manner of cruelties in order to extort money,—squeezing the rich and torturing the poor. After the assassination of Henry of Guise at Blois, he planned reprisals against Henry III and sought to intimidate the Parliament, which would have made submission to the King, by making its members prisoners in the Bastile. Leclerc’s excesses roused Paris against him, and the Duc de Mayenne, now the head of the League, threatened the Bastile. Leclerc, in abject terror, at once surrendered on condition that he might retire from the capital to Brussels with the plunder he had acquired. Dubourg l’Espinasse, a brave, honorable soldier, was appointed to the Bastile by the Duc de Mayenne, in succession to Leclerc and defended it stoutly against Henry of Navarre, now King Henry IV, after the assassination of his predecessor. Dubourg declared that he knew no king of France but the Duc de Mayenne, and on being told that Henry was master of Paris, said, “Good, but I am master of the Bastile!” He at length agreed to yield up the fortress to the Duke, who had entrusted him with the command, and finally marched out with all the honors of war, gaining great credit from the King for his staunch and loyal conduct to his superiors. The text of the capitulation has been preserved and its quaint phraseology may be transcribed. The commandant promised to hand over to the king, “on Sunday at three in the afternoon the said Bastile, its artillery and munitions of war. In return for which the King will permit the garrison to march out with arms, horses, furniture and all belongings. The troops will issue by one gate with drums beating, matches lighted and balls” (for loading).

It is recorded of Henry IV by the historian Maquet, that he was the king who least abused the Bastile. It is due this sovereign to say that the prisoners confined in it during his reign were duly tried and condemned by Parliament and that from his accession the fortress lost its exceptional character and became an ordinary prison. Sully was appointed governor and received a letter of appointment in which the King announced that he relied more than ever upon his loyalty and had decided to make him captain of the Bastile: “so that if I should have any birds to put in the cage and hold tight I can rely upon your foresight, diligence and loyalty.” Few prisoners were committed to the Bastile in this reign, but all imprisoned were notably traitors. Such was Charles, MarÉchal de Biron, the restless and unstable subject who conspired more than once against the King, by whom at one time he had been exceedingly favored. Henry IV was greatly attached to Biron. “I never loved anyone as I loved Biron,” he said. “I could have confided my son and my kingdom to him.” For a time Biron served him well, yet he, too, entered into a dangerous conspiracy with the King of Spain, the Duke of Savoy and the King’s disloyal subjects in France.

Henry IV forgave him and paid his debts, which were large, for he was a great gambler and had lost large sums at the tables. Biron was sent to London as ambassador to the English Queen Elizabeth but resumed his evil courses on his return to France and was summoned before the King to answer for them. Henry promised to pardon and forgive him if he would confess his crimes, but Biron was obstinately silent and was committed to the Bastile. He was tried openly before the Parliament and unanimously convicted by one hundred and twenty-seven judges. The sentence was death and he was to be publicly executed on the Place de la GrÈve, but Henry, dreading the sympathy of the mob and not indisposed to spare his friend the contumely of a public hanging, allowed the execution to take place within the Bastile. Biron, although he had acknowledged his guilt, died protesting against the sentence. He comported himself with little dignity upon the scaffold, resisting the headman and trying to strangle him. Three times he knelt down at the block and three times sprang to his feet; and the fourth time was decapitated with much dexterity by the executioner.

The Comte d’Auvergne, the natural son of Charles IX and Marie Touchet, was an ally of Biron’s and put on his trial at the same time. Their common offense had been to invite invasion by the Spaniards and stir up a revolution throughout France. D’Auvergne was sentenced to death and with him the Comte d’Entragues, who had married Marie Touchet, but neither suffered. D’Auvergne remained in the Bastile for twelve years. He was released in the following reign and made a good appearance at court as the Duc d’AngoulÊme. Henry IV had been moved to soften the rigors of his imprisonment and wrote to the governor (Sully) saying that as he had heard his nephew d’Auvergne needed change of air, he was to be placed in “the pavilion at the end of the garden of the arsenal which looks upon the water, but to be guarded in any way that seemed necessary for the security of his person.”

Reference must be made to one inmate of the Bastile at this period, the Vicomte de Tavannes, who was opposed to Henry IV as a partisan of the League. He was long held a prisoner but was exchanged for the female relations of the Duc de Longueville; and Tavannes has written in his “memoirs:” “A poor gentleman was thus exchanged against four princesses, one a Bourbon, one of the House of Cleves, and two of that of Orleans.” At the fall of the League, Tavannes acknowledged Henry IV on condition that he should be confirmed in his dignity as a marshal of France. This promise was not kept and he withdrew from his allegiance, saying he was the King’s subject and not his slave. For this he was again committed to the Bastile from which he escaped, according to his own account, with great ease,—“A page brought me some thread and a file; I twisted the cord, filed through a bar and got away.” He was not pursued but was suffered to remain in peace in his own castle of Soilly, near Autun. The King could never tolerate Tavannes. He had been largely concerned in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, of which he is believed to have been the principal instigator and which he is supposed to have suggested to Catherine de Medicis.

Henry’s reign was abruptly terminated by his assassination in 1610. He was murdered by FranÇois Ravaillac, a native of AngoulÊme who was no doubt a victim of religious dementia. Having been much perturbed with visions inciting him to exhort the king to take action against the followers of the pretended reformed religion and convert them to the Roman Catholic Church, Ravaillac determined to do so. On reaching Paris he went to the Jesuits’ house near the Porte St.-Antoine and sought advice from one of the priests, Father Daubigny, who told him to put these disturbed thoughts out of his head, to say his prayers and tell his beads. He still maintained his intention of speaking to the King and addressed to him on one occasion as he drove by in his coach, but “the King put him back with a little stick and would not hear him.” Then Ravaillac changed his mind and set out for home; but on reaching Estampes, was again impelled to return to Paris—this time with homicidal intent. The would-be regicide watched for the King constantly, but thought it better to wait until after the new queen (Marie de Medicis) was crowned. He hung about the Louvre, burning to do the deed, and at last found his opportunity on the 14th of May, 1610, near the churchyard of St. Innocent. The King left the Louvre that morning in his coach unattended. One of his gentlemen had protested. “Take me, Sire, I implore you,” he said, “to guard your Majesty.” “No,” replied the King, “I will have neither you nor the guard. I want no one.” The coach was driven to the Hotel de Longueville and then to the Croix du Tiroir and so to the churchyard of St. Bartholomew. It had turned from the rue St. Honore into the rue FeronniÈre, a very narrow way made more so by the small shops built against the wall of the churchyard. The passage was further blocked by the approach of two carts, one laden with wine and the other with hay, and the coach was brought to a stop at the corner of the street.

Ravaillac had followed the coach from the Louvre, had seen it stop and noted that there was now no one near it and no one to interfere with him as he came close to the side of the carriage where the King was seated. Ravaillac had his cloak wrapped round his left arm to conceal a knife and creeping in between the shops and the coach as if he desired to pass by, paused there, and resting one foot upon a spoke of the wheel, the other upon a stone, leaned forward and stabbed the King. The knife entered a little above the heart between the third and fourth ribs. The King, who was reading a letter, fell over towards the Duc d’Épernon on his other side, murmuring, “I am wounded.” At this moment Ravaillac, fearing that the point of his weapon had been turned aside, quickly struck a second blow at the fainting monarch, who had raised his arm slightly, thus giving the knife better chance to reach his heart. This second stroke was instantly fatal. The blood gushed from his mouth and he expired breathing a deep sigh. His Majesty’s attendants, now running up, would have killed Ravaillac on the spot, but the Duc d’Épernon called out to them to secure his person, whereupon one seized the dagger, another his throat, and he was promptly handed over to the guards. The news spread that the King was dead and caused a panic. People rushed from the shops into the streets and a tumult arose which was stayed only by the prompt assurance of d’Épernon that the King had merely fainted and was being carried to the Louvre for medical attention.

The murder created intense excitement in the city, for the King was beloved and trusted by the people as the one hope of peace after such constant strife. Sully, his faithful minister, was broken-hearted but acted with great promptitude and firmness. He brought troops forthwith into Paris and strengthened the garrison with the Swiss guards. Despair and consternation prevailed in the Louvre, where were the widowed Queen, Marie de Medicis, and the infant heir, now Louis XIII. Bassompierre, in his memoirs, tells us how he found the dead King laid out in his cabinet, surrounded by afflicted followers and weeping surgeons. Summoned to the Queen’s presence, he found her in dishabille, overcome with grief, and he with others knelt to kiss her hand and assure her of his devotion. The Duc de Villeroi reasoned with her, imploring her to postpone her lamentations until she had made provision for her own and her son’s safety. While the Duc de Guise was directed to bring together all the principal people to recognise and proclaim the new sovereign, the marshal proceeded to gather up all the troops and march through the city to check any signs of tumult and sedition. Meanwhile, Sully had occupied the Bastile with a force of archers and had enjoined all good subjects to swear allegiance to the throne and proclaim their readiness to give their lives to avenge Henry’s murder.

With the nation in such a temper it was little likely that any mercy would be shown to Ravaillac. His trial was hurried forward in all haste and he was arraigned before the High Court of the Tournelle. Long and minute interrogatories were administered to him on the rack to extort confession of an act fully proved by eye-witnesses and of which he was duly convicted. The court declared that he was “attainted of high treason divine and human in the highest degree, for the most wicked, the most abominable parricide committed on the person of the late Henry IV, of good and laudable memory,” and he was condemned in reparation to make the amende honorable before the principal gate of the city of Paris, “whither he shall be carried,” so runs the decree, “and drawn on a tumbril in his shirt, bearing a lighted torch of two pounds weight, and there he shall make confession of his crime, of which he repents and begs pardon of God, the king and the laws. From thence he shall be carried to the GrÈve and, on a scaffold to be there erected, the flesh shall be torn from him with red-hot pincers ... and after this his limbs shall be dragged by four horses, his body burnt to ashes and dispersed in the air. His goods and chattels are also declared to be forfeited and confiscated to the king. And it is further ordained that the house in which he was born shall be pulled down to the ground (the owner thereof being previously indemnified) and that no other building shall ever hereafter be erected on the foundation thereof; that within fifteen days after the publication of this present sentence his father and mother shall, by sound of trumpet and public proclamation in the city of AngoulÊme, be banished out of the kingdom and forbidden ever to return under the penalty of being hanged and strangled, without any further process at law. The Court has also forbidden, and doth forbid his brothers, sisters, uncles and others, from henceforth to bear the said name of Ravaillac.”

The curious fact is recorded in history that Henry IV had a strong presentiment of impending fate. “I cannot tell you why, Bassompierre, but I feel satisfied I shall never go into Germany” (on a projected campaign). He repeated several times, “I believe I shall die soon.” He shared his forebodings with Sully. “I shall die in this city. This ceremony of the Queen’s coronation (now at hand) disturbs me. I shall die in this city; I shall never quit Paris again, they mean to kill me. Accursed coronation! I shall fall during the show.” And he did die the day after it. Yet sometimes he laughed at these fears, remarking, only two days before his murder, to some of his attendants whom he overheard discussing the subject, “It is quite foolish to anticipate evil; for thirty years every astrologer and charlatan in the kingdom has predicted my death on a particular day, and here I am still alive.” But on this very morning of the 14th of May, the young Duc de VendÔme brought him a fresh horoscope. The constellation under which Henry was born threatened him with great danger on this day and he was urged to pass it in sheltered retirement. The King called the astrologer a crafty old fox and the duke a young fool, and said, “My fate is in the hands of God.” At the moment Ravaillac was in the vicinity of the palace, but his gestures were so wild that the guards drove him away to wait and carry out his fell deed elsewhere.

Ravaillac was no doubt the tool of others. The King’s life had been threatened by courtiers near his person. Not the least active of his enemies was Madame de Verneuil, born D’Entragues, who had been at one time his mistress, but who had joined his enemies, notably the Duc d’Épernon, in cordial detestation of his policy. Henry was at this time planning a great coalition against the overweening power of Spain and favored the concession of religious toleration throughout Europe. Madame de Verneuil had welcomed Ravaillac to Paris and commended him to the hospitality of one of her creatures, and it was proved that the murderer had been once in the service of the Duc d’Épernon.

When Henry IV fell under the assassin’s knife, it was found by his will that, in the event of a minority, the regency should devolve upon Marie de Medicis, his second wife. This happened because Louis XIII, the new King, was no more than nine years of age, and once again France came under female rule. The Italian Queen Mother soon fell under the domination of two other Italians, the Concinis, husband and wife. The first, a mercenary and overbearing creature, best known as the Marquis d’Ancre, stirred up the bitterest animosity and brought the Queen into fierce conflict with the princes of the blood who rose in open rebellion. They were presently supported by the young King and a murderous plot was carried out for the marquis’ assassination. It was effected in broad daylight at the entrance of the Louvre by the Baron de Vitry, a captain of the Gardes du Corps. “I have the King’s order to arrest you,” said De Vitry. “À me?” asked the astonished d’Ancre in imperfect French. “À vous,” replied the other, taking out a pistol and shooting him down, the rest dispatching him with their swords. Louis XIII, still barely sixteen, is said to have witnessed the murder from a window of the Louvre, from which he cried, “Great thanks to all; now at last I am king.”

The Prince de CondÉ, as leader of the insurgent princes, had been arrested and imprisoned in the palace but removed to the Bastile. The mob, greatly incensed, attacked the Louvre, but, unable to find him, failed to compass CondÉ’s release who was now transferred in the dead of night, “without torches,” to Vincennes. Concini’s house was next sacked, his body dragged from the grave, carried through the streets and subjected to every indignity, his nose and ears being cut off and the corpse burned. Hatred of the Queen’s foreign favorites was not yet appeased. Leonora Galigai, the Marquis d’Ancre’s widow, was brought to trial, her conviction being necessary before her property and estates could be confiscated and divided. She was duly arraigned but it was impossible to prove her complicity in her husband’s misdeeds or to procure conviction of any crime involving capital punishment. The venue was therefore changed and she was accused of sorcery and witchcraft. It was said that she had attracted astrologers and magicians into France who brought with them spells and incantations, amulets, talismans, and all the apparatus of wax figures, to produce death by wasting disease. She was asked in court to confess by what magical arts she had gained her malign influence over the Queen and she replied contemptuously, “By the power that strong minds exercise over weak ones.” The case was certain to go against her, but she still hoped to escape with a sentence of banishment and it was a terrible shock when she was condemned to death for the crime of lÈse majestÉ, human and divine. Yet she faced her fate with marvellous fortitude. Great crowds turned out to jeer at her as she was carried in a cart to the Place de GrÈve, but she maintained her composure until she saw the flames destined to consume her decapitated body, then quickly recovering herself, she met death without bravado and without fear. Her son was imprisoned for some time in the castle of Nantes and the Concini property was chiefly divided between the King and the Pope, Clement VII. Leonora Galigai had originally been the Queen’s waiting woman for several years. Of humble birth, the daughter of a carpenter, she had gained the complete confidence of her mistress by her soft voice and insinuating ways, and on coming to France, Marie de Medicis had insisted upon Leonora’s appointment as lady in waiting, although Henry absolutely refused to appoint her until the Queen gained her point by her importunities.

By this time a new power was rising above the horizon, that of the Bishop of LuÇon, afterwards, and better known as, Cardinal Richelieu. The cadet of a noble but not affluent family, he was intended for the career of arms but turned cleric in order to hold the bishopric of LuÇon, the presentation of which was hereditary in his house. By his talents he soon made his mark as a churchman. He was assiduous in his religious profession and an eloquent preacher, but his powerful mind and ambitious spirit presently turned him towards a political career. He arrived at Paris in 1614 as the representative of the clergy of Poitou in the States General and his insinuating manners and personal charm soon won him wide favor at Court. He was presented to the Queen Mother, Marie de Medicis, by Barbin, the controller-general of finances, and by the Concinis, the above mentioned ill-fated Marquis d’Ancre and his wife, Leonora Galigai. He first became the Queen’s chaplain and next the secretary of State for war, barely escaping the evil consequences of his intimacy with the Concinis. It is rumored in history that he knew of the intended assassination of d’Ancre the night before it occurred but neglected to give warning on the plea that he did not believe the story and thought the news would wait. When the King and his mother quarrelled and Marie de Medicis withdrew to Blois, Richelieu accompanied her and served her without at first compromising himself with Louis. He was at length ordered to leave her and retired to his bishopric. He was further exiled to the papal province of Avignon, but was suddenly recalled and forgiven. He still devoted himself to the Queen and was her chosen friend and adviser, services which she requited by securing him the cardinal’s hat.

Richelieu soon showed his quality and rose step by step to the highest honors, becoming in due course, First Minister of State. His success was due throughout to his prudent, far-seeing conduct and his incomparable adroitness in managing affairs. “He was so keen and watchful,” said a contemporary, “that he was never taken unawares. He slept little, worked hard, thought of everything and knew everything either by intuition or through his painstaking indefatigable spirit.” He was long viewed with suspicion and dislike by the young King, but presently won his esteem by his brilliant talents. He dazzled and compelled the admiration of all, even those opposed to him. His extraordinary genius was immediately made manifest; it was enough for him to show himself. His penetrating eye, the magnetism of his presence, his dexterity in untying knots and in solving promptly the most difficult problems, enabled him to dominate all tempers and overcome all resistance. His was a singularly persuasive tongue; he had the faculty of easily and effectually proving that he was always in the right. In a word, he exercised a great personal ascendency and was as universally feared as he was implicitly obeyed by all upon whom he imposed his authority. When he was nominated First Minister, the Venetian minister in Paris wrote to his government, “Here, humanly speaking, is a new power of a solid and permanent kind; one that is little likely to be shaken or quickly crumbled away.”

Richelieu’s steady and consistent aim was to consolidate an absolute monarchy. Determined to conquer and crush the Huguenots he made his first attack upon La Rochelle, the great Protestant stronghold, but was compelled to make terms with the Rochelais temporarily while he devoted himself to the abasement of the great nobles forever in opposition to and intriguing against the reigning sovereign. Headed by the princes of the blood, they continually resisted Marie de Medicis and engaged in secret conspiracy, making treasonable overtures to Spain or openly raising the standard of revolt at home. With indomitable courage and an extraordinary combination of daring and diplomacy, Richelieu conquered them completely. The secret of his success has been preserved in his own words, “I undertake nothing that I have not thoroughly thought out in advance; when I have once made up my mind I stick to it with unchangeable firmness, sweeping away all obstacles before me and treading them down under foot till they lie paralysed under my red robe.”

Richelieu, in thus strenuously fighting for his policy, which he conceived was in the best interests of France, made unsparing use of the weapons placed at his disposal for coercing his enemies. Foremost amongst these were the prisons of state, the Bastile, Vincennes and the rest, which he filled with prisoners, breaking them with repression, retribution, or more or less permanent removal from the busy scene. Year after year the long procession passed in through the gloomy portals, in numbers far exceeding the movement outward, for few went out except to make the short journey to the scaffold. The Cardinal’s victims were many. Amongst the earliest offenders upon whom his hand fell heavily in the very first year of his ministry, were those implicated in the Ornano-Chalais conspiracy. The object of this was to remove the King’s younger brother, Gaston, Duc d’Orleans, generally known as “Monsieur,” out of the hands of the Court and set him up as a pretender to the throne in opposition to Louis XIII. Richelieu, in his memoirs, speaks of this as “the most fearful conspiracy mentioned in history, both as regards the number concerned and the horror of the design, which was to raise their master (Monsieur) above his condition and abase the sacred person of the King.” The Cardinal himself was to have been a victim and was to be murdered at his castle of Fleury, six miles from Fontainebleau. When the plot was betrayed, the King sent a body of troops to Fleury and the Queen a number of her attendants. The conspirators were forestalled and the ringleaders arrested. The Marshal d’Ornano was taken at Fontainebleau and with him his brother and some of his closest confidants. The Marquis de Chalais, who was of the famous house of Talleyrand, was caught in the act at Fleury, to which he had proceeded for the commission of the deed. He confessed his crime. There were those who pretended at the time that the plot was fictitious, invented by Richelieu in order to get rid of some of his most active enemies. In any case, the Marshal d’Ornano died in the Bastile within three months of his arrest and it was generally suspected that he had been poisoned, although Richelieu would not allow it was other than a natural death. Chalais had been sent to Nantes, where he was put on trial, convicted, sentenced to death and eventually executed. The execution was carried out with great barbarity, for the headsman was clumsy and made thirty-two strokes with his sword before he could effect decapitation.

The two VendÔmes, Caesar, the eldest, and his brother, the Grand Prior, were concerned in the Ornano-Chalais conspiracy. Caesar was the eldest son of Henri IV by Gabrielle d’EstrÉes, but was legitimised and created a duke by his father, with precedence immediately after the princes of the blood. Although Louis’ half-brother, he was one of his earliest opponents. After the detection of the plot he was cast into the prison of Vincennes, where he remained for four years (1626-30), but was released on surrendering the government of Brittany and accepting exile. He was absent for eleven years, but on again returning to France was accused of an attempt to poison Cardinal Richelieu and again banished until that minister’s death. He could not bring himself to submit to existing authority, and once more in France became one of the leaders of the party of the “Importants” and was involved in the disgrace of the Duc de Beaufort, his son. Having made his peace with Cardinal Mazarin in 1650, he was advanced to several offices, among others to those of Governor of Burgundy and Superintendent of Navigation. He helped to pacify Guienne and took Bordeaux. The Grand Prior, his brother, became a Knight of Malta and saw service early at the siege of Candia, where he showed great courage. He made the campaign of Holland under Louis XIV, after having been involved with Chalais, and throughout showed himself a good soldier.

Richelieu’s penalties were sometimes inflicted on other grounds than self-defense and personal animosity. The disturbers of public peace he treated as enemies of the State. Thus he laid a heavy hand on all who were concerned in affairs of honor whether death ensued or not. His own elder brother had been killed in a duel, and he abhorred a practice which had so long decimated the country. It was calculated that in one year alone four thousand combatants had perished. King Henry IV had issued the most severe edicts against it and had created a tribunal of marshals empowered to examine into and arrange all differences between gentlemen. One of these edicts of 1602, prohibiting duels, laid down as a penalty for the offense, the confiscation of property and the imprisonment of the survivors. A notorious duellist, De Bouteville, felt the weight of the Cardinal’s hand. He must have been a quarrelsome person for he fought on twenty-one occasions. After the last quarrel he retired into Flanders and was challenged by a Monsieur de Beuvron. They returned to Paris where they fought in the Place Royale, and Bussy d’Amboise, one of Beuvron’s seconds, was killed by one of De Bouteville’s. The survivors fled but were pursued and captured, with the result that De Bouteville was put upon his trial before the regular courts. He was convicted and condemned to death. All the efforts on the part of influential friends, royal personages included, to obtain pardon having proved unavailing, he suffered in the Place de GrÈve. The pugnacity of this De Bouteville was attributed by many to homicidal mania, and one nobleman declared that he would decline a challenge from him unless it was accompanied by a medical certificate of sanity. He had killed a number of his opponents and his reputation was such that when he established a fencing school at his residence in Paris all the young noblemen flocked there to benefit by his lessons.

Richelieu used the Bastile for all manner of offenders. One was the man Farican, of whom he speaks in his “Memoirs” as “a visionary consumed with vague dreams of a coming republic. All his ends were bad, all his means wicked and detestable.... His favorite occupation was the inditing of libellous pamphlets against the government, rendering the King odious, exciting sedition and aiming at subverting the tranquillity of the State. Outwardly a priest, he held all good Catholics in detestation and acted as a secret spy of the Huguenots.” An Englishman found himself in the Bastile for being at cross purposes with the Cardinal. This was a so-called Chevalier Montagu, son of the English Lord Montagu and better known as “Wat” Montagu, who was much employed as a secret political agent between England and France. Great people importuned the Cardinal to release Montagu. “The Duke of Lorraine,” says Richelieu, “has never ceased to beg this favor. He began with vain threats and then, with words more suitable to his position, sent the Prince of Phalsbourg to Paris for the third time to me to grant this request.” The Duke having been gratified with this favor came in person to Paris to thank the King. An entry in an English sheet dated April 20th, 1628, runs, “The Earl of Carlisle will not leave suddenly because Walter Montagu is set free from France and has arrived at our court. The King says he has done him exceeding good service.” It was Montagu who brought good news from Rochelle to the Duke of Buckingham on the very day he was assassinated. Later in October, Montagu had a conference with Richelieu as to the exchange of prisoners at Rochelle.

Richelieu’s upward progress had not been unimpeded. The Queen Mother became his bitter enemy. Marie de Medicis was disappointed in him. He had not proved the humble, docile creature she looked for in one whom she had raised so high and her jealousy intensified as his power grew. She was a woman of weak character and strong passions, easily led astray by designing favorites, as was seen in the case of the Concinis, and there is little doubt that the MarÉchal d’Ancre was her lover. After his murder she was estranged from Louis XIII, but was reconciled and joined with Richelieu’s enemies in ceaselessly importuning the King to break with his too powerful minister. She was backed by Anne of Austria, the wife of Louis XIII; by “Monsieur,” the Duc d’Orleans and a swarm of leading courtiers in her efforts to sacrifice Richelieu. The conflict ended in the so-called “Day of Dupes,” when the minister turned the tables triumphantly upon his enemies. Louis had retired to his hunting lodge near Versailles to escape from his perplexities and Richelieu followed him there, obtained an audience and put his own case before the King, whom he dazzled by unveiling his great schemes, and easily regained the mastery. His enemies were beaten and like craven hounds came to lick his feet; and like hounds, at once felt the whip.

One of the first to suffer was the Queen Mother. She had no friends. Every one hated her; her son, her creatures and supporters,—and the King again sent her into exile, this time to CompiÈgne, where she was detained for a time. She presently escaped and left France to wander through Europe, first to Brussels, then to London and last of all to Cologne, where she died in a garret in great penury. Marie de Medicis’ had been an unhappy life. Misfortune met her on the moment she came to France, for the King, her bridegroom, who had divorced his first wife, Marguerite de Valois, in the hopes of an heir by another wife, was much disappointed when he saw Marie de Medicis. She was by no means so good looking as he had been led to believe. She was tall, with a large coarse figure, and had great round staring eyes. There was nothing softly feminine and caressing in her ways, she had no gaiety of manner and was not at all the woman to attract or amuse the King’s roving fancy,—the vert galant, the gay deceiver of a thousand errant loves. Yet he was willing to be good friends and was strongly drawn to her after the birth of the Dauphin, but was soon repelled again by her violent temper and generally detestable character. The establishment of the Jesuits in France was Marie’s doing. She was suspected of duplicity in Henry’s assassination, but the foul charge rests on no good grounds. After becoming Regent, she alienated the nobility by her favoritism and exasperated the people by her exorbitant tax levies to provide money for her wasteful extravagance and the prodigal gifts she bestowed. The one merit she possessed in common with her house was her patronage of arts and letters. She inspired the series of famous allegorical pictures, twenty-one in number, painted by Rubens, embodying the life of Marie de Medicis.

There was no love lost between the Cardinal and the MarÉchal Bassompierre, who paid the penalty for being on the wrong side in the famous “Day of Dupes” and found himself committed for a long imprisonment in the Bastile. The Marshal had offended Richelieu by penetrating his designs against the nobility. When asked what he thought of the prospect of taking La Rochelle, he had answered, “It would be a mad act for us, for we shall enable the Cardinal, when he has overcome the Calvinists, to turn all his strength against our order.” It was early in 1631 that danger to his person began to threaten him. He was warned by the Duc d’Épernon that the Queen Mother, of whose party Bassompierre was, had been arrested and that others, including himself, were likely to get into trouble. The Marshal asked the Duc d’Épernon for his advice, who strongly urged him to get away, offering him at the same time a loan of fifty thousand crowns as a provision until better days came. The Marshal refused this kind offer but resolved to present himself before the King and stand his ground. He would not compromise himself by a flight which would draw suspicion down on him and call his loyalty in question. He had served France faithfully for thirty years and was little inclined now that he was fifty to seek his fortune elsewhere. “I had given my King the best years of my life and was willing to sacrifice my liberty to him, feeling sure that it would be restored on better appreciation of my loyal services.”

Bassompierre prepared for the worst like a man of the world. “I rose early next day and proceeded to burn more than six thousand love-letters received from ladies to whom I had paid my addresses. I was afraid that if arrested my papers would be seized and examined and some of these letters might compromise my old friends.” He entered his carriage and drove to Senlis where the King was in residence. Here he met the Duc de Gramont and others who told him he would certainly be arrested. Bassompierre again protested that he had nothing on his conscience. The King received him civilly enough and talked to him at length about the disagreement of the Queen Mother with Cardinal Richelieu, and then Bassompierre asked point blank whether the King owed him any grudge. “How can you think such a thing,” replied the treacherous monarch. “You know I am your friend,” and left him. That evening the Marshal supped with the Duc de Longueville and the King came in afterwards. “Then I saw plainly enough,” says Bassompierre, “that the King had something against me, for he kept his head down, and touching the strings of his guitar, never looked at me nor spoke a single word. Next morning I rose at six o’clock and as I was standing before the fire in my dressing-room, M. de Launay, Lieutenant of the Body-Guard, entered my room and said, ‘Sir, it is with tears in my eyes and with a bleeding heart that I, who, for twenty years have served under you, am obliged to tell you that the King has ordered me to arrest you.’

“I experienced very little emotion and replied: ‘Sir, you will have no trouble, as I came here on purpose, having been warned. I have all my life submitted to the wishes of the King, who can dispose of me or my liberty as he thinks fit.’... Shortly afterwards one of the King’s carriages arrived in front of my lodging with an escort of mounted musketeers and thirty light horsemen. I entered the carriage alone with De Launay. Then we drove off, keeping two hundred paces in front of the escort, as far as the Porte St.-Martin, where we turned off to the left, and I was taken to the Bastile. I dined with the Governor, M. du Tremblay, whom I afterwards accompanied to the chamber which had been occupied by the Prince de CondÉ, and in this I was shut up with one servant.

“On the 26th, M. du Tremblay came to see me on the part of the King, saying that his Majesty had not caused me to be arrested for any fault that I had committed, holding me to be a good servant, but for fear I should be led into mischief, and he assured me that I should not remain long in prison, which was a great consolation. He also told me that the King had ordered him to allow me every liberty but that of leaving the Bastile. He added another chamber to my lodging for the accommodation of my domestics. I retained only two valets and a cook, and passed two months without leaving my room, and I should not have gone out at all had I not been ill.... The King, it seems, had gone on a voyage as far as Dijon, and on his return to Paris I implored my liberty, but all in vain. I fell ill in the Bastile of a very dangerous swelling, due to the want of fresh air and exercise and I began therefore to walk regularly on the terrace of the Bastion.”

Bassompierre was destined to see a good deal of that terrace, for the years slowly dragged themselves along with hope constantly deferred and no fulfilment of the promises of freedom so glibly extended to him. He was arrested in 1631 and in the following year heard he would in all probability be released at once; but, as he says, he was told this merely to redouble his sufferings. Next year he had great hope of regaining his liberty and Marshal Schomberg sent him word that on the return of the King to Paris he should leave the Bastile. This year they deprived him of a portion of his salary and he was greatly disheartened, feeling “that he was to be eternally detained and from that time forth he lost all hope except in God.” Two years later (1635) the Governor, Monsieur du Tremblay, congratulated him on his approaching release and the rumor was so strong that a number of friends came every day to the Bastile to see if he was still there. These encouraging stories were repeated from month to month without any good result, and at length PÈre Joseph, “his gray eminence,” Richelieu’s most confidential friend and brother of Monsieur du Tremblay, being at the Bastile, promised the Marshal to speak to the Cardinal on his behalf. “I put no faith in him,” writes Bassompierre, and indeed nothing more was heard for a couple of years, but we find in the Marshal’s journal an entry to the effect that the King had told the Cardinal it weighed on his conscience for having kept him in prison so long, seeing that there was nothing against him. “To which,” says Bassompierre, “the Cardinal replied that he had so many things on his mind he could not remember the reason for the imprisonment or why he (Richelieu) had advised it, but he would consult his papers and show them to the King.” The poor Marshal’s dejection increased, having been detained so long in the Bastile, “where he had nothing to do but pray God to speedily put an end to his long misery by liberty or death.”

The imprisonment outlasted the journal which ends in 1640, and it was not until the death of the Cardinal in 1642 that he at length obtained his release, just eleven years after his first committal to prison. He at once presented himself at Court and was graciously received by the King who asked him his age. “Fifty,” replied Bassompierre, “for I cannot count the years passed in the Bastile as they were not spent in your Majesty’s service.” He did not enjoy his freedom long, for he soon afterwards died from an apoplectic seizure.