Meantime, the enemies of France had not been idle. Seeing Richelieu engaged in what he imagined would prove a long war in Languedoc, the Emperor, in concert with Spain, resolved to take steps to recover his shaken influence in Italy. Towards the end of May, 1629, German troops entered the Grisons and seized the passages of the Rhine and the town of Coire; while Ferdinand called upon Louis XIII to evacuate the “Imperial fiefs of Italy.” The Swiss, a prey to religious dissensions, made no effort to expel the foreigner from the Grisons; but the Imperialists did not advance until the autumn, the interval being spent in negotiations. However, at the end of September they descended into Lombardy and invaded Mantua, under the orders of the Italian general Colalto; while Spinola, who had been sent with a Spanish force from the Netherlands to secure the triumph of the Catholic powers in Italy and had replaced the feeble Don Gonzalez de Cordoba as Governor of the Milanese, occupied Montferrato and threatened Casale.

It was clear that France must intervene at once, if the fruits of the expedition to Susa were not to be lost, and it was decided to send a powerful army into Italy. Louis XIII would have gone in person, but his health was unequal to the trials of another winter campaign, besides which there was trouble with Monsieur, who, in the previous September, as the result of differences with the King over the latter’s refusal to permit his marriage with Marie de Gonzaga, daughter of the Duke of Mantua, had retired into Lorraine and had not yet been persuaded to return; while there was also a possibility that the Imperialists might invade Champagne or the Three Bishoprics.

The King accordingly decided to entrust the command to Richelieu, with CrÉquy and Bassompierre as his lieutenant-generals.

Before his departure Richelieu gave “a superb fÊte to the King and the Queens, with comedies, ballets, and excellent music.” Then, on December 29, he set out for Lyons, with the proud title of “Lieutenant-General, representing the person of the King in his army within and without the realm.”

Bassompierre began the year 1630 by purchasing from the widow of PrÉsident Jeannin her chÂteau at Chaillot, upon the enlargement and decoration of which he, during the next few months, expended very large sums, and converted it into one of the most sumptuous country-residences in the neighbourhood of Paris. Unhappily for him, it was to prove a case of sowing for others to reap. On January 16, “after having placed his affairs in some degree of order,” he set out for Switzerland, and on the 21st arrived at Lyons, where he was to receive his final instructions from the Cardinal. At Lyons he remained for some days and would appear to have passed the time very pleasantly, as “M. de Montmorency and I gave a ball on alternate evenings to the ladies of Lyons.” On January 28 he notes that “the sieur Julio Massareny [Giulio Mazzarini] came to Lyons on behalf of the Nuncio Pensirole [Pancirolo], whom the Pope had sent to treat for peace.” It was on the occasion of these negotiations that the name of Mazarin makes its first appearance in French history; and, though they were without result, for Richelieu was not to be diverted from his aim, the high opinion which the Cardinal then conceived of the abilities of the young Italian diplomat was the beginning of the latter’s fortune.

On January 30 Bassompierre left Lyons and resumed his journey to Switzerland. On February 8 he arrived at Fribourg, where he was received with great honour, cannon firing salutes and 2,000 armed burghers lining the streets. After entertaining the municipal authorities to a sumptuous banquet, he proceeded to Berne, to be received with similar distinction. On the following day he attended a meeting of the Council and harangued them. “Afterwards they came to dine with him and remained all day at table.”

On the 12th he arrived at Soleure, into which he made a “superb entry.” From Soleure he sent letters to all the Cantons convening a Diet for March 4, and during the interval he and Brulart de LÉon, the permanent French Ambassador in Switzerland, had several conferences with regard to the Grisons and endeavoured to persuade the Canton of Zurich to send them reinforcements. The Zurich people, however, did not wish to commit themselves to open war with the Empire, though they promised to assist the Grisons secretly with munitions.

The deputies began to arrive on March 2, and the representatives of each canton came in turn to pay their respects to Bassompierre; while on the 4th, when the session opened, the whole Diet, preceded by its mace-bearers, came in solemn procession to salute him.

That day Bassompierre learned that “the Chancellor of Alsace, Ambassador of the whole House of Austria, had arrived at Soleure, without sending to him to announce his coming or visiting him, contrary to the recognised custom of ambassadors.” The marshal, highly indignant at this breach of diplomatic amenities, at once resolved to induce the Diet to refuse the Chancellor—who had, of course, come to Soleure in the hope of putting a spoke in Bassompierre’s wheel—a hearing.

The marshal recounts at considerable length the various expedients to which he had recourse, and the springs he set in motion, for the purpose of avenging his outraged dignity. It will, however, suffice to say that he succeeded, and that, after long deliberations, the Diet refused to grant an audience to the Chancellor, “who returned very dissatisfied, declaring that the Swiss would be objects of indignation to the whole House of Austria.”

By dint of persuasive speeches and lavish hospitality, Bassompierre experienced no difficulty in inducing the Diet to accord him permission to raise whatever troops he might require for the service of France, and on the 11th he was able to write to the Cardinal that his mission had been entirely successful. Then he took to his bed and sent for a surgeon to bleed him, as “he found himself somewhat unwell, on account of the debauches in which he had indulged during the Diet.”

During the next fortnight Bassompierre was occupied in arranging for the levy which the Diet had authorised, so that the troops might be ready to take the field so soon as they were required. On March 27 a courier arrived from the Cardinal with the news that the armistice between France and Savoy was at an end, and that Richelieu had entered Piedmont and was going to lay siege to Pinerolo. The Cardinal ordered Bassompierre to mobilise 6,000 Swiss immediately, and informed him that he had written requesting the King to send him other troops and a patent as general for the conquest of Savoy.

Richelieu had moved his army through Savoy, crossed the Alps and advanced to the frontier of Montferrato, when he learned, through intercepted letters, that Charles Emmanuel was playing him false. He at once turned about, called upon the Duke to fulfil his engagements, and, the answer he received being unsatisfactory, marched against him. The weather was frightful, and the soldiers, chilled to the bone by the icy blast as they stumbled through the snow, “consigned to all the devils the cardinal-generalissimo,” who rode at their head mounted on a splendid charger, wearing a cuirass of blue steel, a hat with a nodding plume on his head, a sword by his side, and pistols at his saddle-bow. But they pushed on and presently reached Rivoli, which the Duke of Savoy had hastily evacuated, where they found warmth and shelter and an abundance of good wine, in which, forgetting their recent hardships, they drank to the health of the “great cardinal.”

Charles Emmanuel had fallen back to Turin, and flattered himself that, with the aid of Spinola and Colalto, he would be able to give battle to the French on advantageous terms beneath the walls of his capital. But Richelieu, instead of advancing on Turin, turned back towards the Alps and on March 20 invested Pinerolo, which Henri III had so imprudently restored to Savoy at the beginning of his reign. The town surrendered on the 23rd, and the citadel a week later, and France thus secured an invaluable base for future operations. The first attack on the citadel cost the life of Bassompierre’s old companion-in-arms Cominges-Guitaut, a very brave man and most capable officer, who was sincerely regretted by the marshal.

Bassompierre remained at Soleure until April 20, when he left for Geneva, where the troops which he had raised were to assemble. On May 4 he received a despatch from Louis XIII, informing him that he intended to make the conquest of Savoy in person and directing him to join him at Lyons to receive his orders. He was to send the Swiss to Grenoble, whither the King intended to proceed so soon as possible.

Louis XIII had left Fontainebleau towards the end of February, and had remained for some weeks at Troyes, as it was thought not improbable that the Imperialists, who were in strong force in Alsace and on the borders of Lorraine, might attempt an invasion of Champagne. Here, on April 18, he was joined by his brother, whom he had not seen since Gaston had taken himself off to Lorraine in the previous autumn.[131] The King received him very cordially, and, on the advice of Richelieu, appointed him “Lieutenant-General representing the King’s person in the Army of Champagne, as well as in Paris and in the northern provinces.” It was hoped in this way to satisfy the amour-propre of this troublesome prince, who was perpetually complaining that he was excluded from that share in public affairs to which his rank entitled him, and to make it to his interest to conduct himself well in future. The real commander of the army of Champagne was, however, the MarÉchal de Marillac.

The King, accompanied by the two Queens and the whole Court, then proceeded through Burgundy to Lyons, where on May 6 Bassompierre joined him, and was not a little astonished to find his Majesty amongst the ladies, “gallant and amorous, which was contrary to his custom.” The explanation is that Louis had recently fallen in love with Mlle. de Hautefort, one of the Queen’s maids-of-honour. This affection was of a very innocent kind, but it was skilfully exploited by the enemies of Richelieu, and, in time to come, was to occasion the Cardinal considerable embarrassment.

On the 8th the King left for Grenoble to confer with the Cardinal, who, having confided the command of his army to La Force and Schomberg, had come thither for that purpose. Although after the loss of Pinerolo Charles Emmanuel had hastened to make overtures for peace, Richelieu had little belief in his sincerity, and Louis XIII agreed with him on the necessity of retaining so all-important an acquisition as Pinerolo. The Queen-Mother and her creatures were, however, worrying the King incessantly to spare the Duke of Savoy, and Louis, who desired peace about him, and had vainly endeavoured to make his mother listen to reason, sent the Cardinal to Lyons to represent to Marie more fully the condition of affairs. This he did so ably that the Queen-Mother, though sorely against her will, was obliged to admit the necessity of continuing the war.

On the 14th the King, accompanied by Bassompierre, CrÉquy, and ChÂtillon, left Grenoble with the army which had assembled there and, passing through the Bresse, entered Savoy. The three marshals were to command the army in turn, and the first period of command fell to Bassompierre, who made good use of his opportunities. He took the town and citadel of ChambÉry; compelled Rumilly to surrender; and, pushing on with the advance-guard over the difficult roads, turned the flank of the Prince of Carignano, who commanded the main Piedmontese army, and compelled him to beat a precipitate retreat from his strong position at Conflans; and then, crossing the Col de la Louaz, the Col de Nave, the Grand-Coeur and the Petit-Coeur, had occupied Moutiers and the Pas du Ciel, when he received a despatch from the King instructing him to resign his command to the MarÉchal de ChÂtillon, whose turn it was to lead the army.

However, of course, he had no alternative but to hand over the command to his colleague. But when, on June 4, the King and the Cardinal arrived at Moustier, he “complained of the outrage that had been done him.” However, he got no satisfaction from them, as they decided that the arrangement that had been made at the outset of the campaign must be adhered to.

By the third week in June all Savoy had been conquered, with the exception of the citadel of MontmÉlian, which was being closely blockaded, and Louis XIII and Richelieu returned to Grenoble, whither Bassompierre followed them. On July 10 a division of the army of Piedmont under Montmorency and d’Effiat defeated the forces of Charles Emmanuel at Avigliana and occupied Saluzzo, which the Duke of Savoy had annexed during the troubles of the League and retained at the cost of much sacrifice of territory in 1601.

These rapid successes redoubled the ill humour of Marie de’ Medici, whose rancour against Richelieu was industriously stimulated by the Keeper of the Seals, Michel de Marillac, who, on the death of the Cardinal de BÉrulle in October, 1629, had succeeded him as the leader of the High Catholic and Spanish party and the chief confidant of the Queen-Mother. The King, anxious to prevent any new trouble in the Royal Family, begged his mother to come to Grenoble, to give the Cardinal and himself the benefit of her counsels. But Marie excused herself, and she and Michel de Marillac did everything possible to dissuade the King from returning to the army, on the ground that his health would be endangered by contagious maladies which had broken out there. The Spaniards and Imperialists, encouraged by the knowledge of the intrigues which were proceeding at the Court of France, pressed the sieges of Mantua and Casale, and, though the latter place, ably defended by Toiras, held out bravely, on July 18 the Imperialists succeeded in taking Mantua by assault.

Richelieu, although very uneasy at the thought of leaving the King exposed to the hostile influences of the Queen-Mother and her friends, remained in Savoy for nearly a month after Louis XIII had returned to Lyons, although the King’s confessor, PÈre Suffren, wrote urging him to rejoin the Court, “in order to disperse all the clouds which had gathered.” At length, towards the end of August, the plague, which was devastating Savoy, attacked his own quarters, and obliged him to return.

On September 22, Louis XIII, who had been in very poor health for some weeks, was attacked by fever, accompanied by dysentery. By the 27th he was so ill that his physicians felt obliged to warn him that it was time to think of his conscience, and he demanded the Viaticum, bade farewell to his mother, his wife, and his Minister, and prepared for death. On the morning of the 30th no one believed that he could live through the day.

The two Queens and all the Court were loud in their expressions of grief; but this did not prevent them from making their arrangements for the morrow of the catastrophe which appeared so imminent, and, though we may discredit the story that Anne of Austria instructed her dame d’atours, the Comtesse du Fargis, to write to Monsieur reminding him of the project, more than once mooted, of a marriage between them in the event of the King’s death, there can be no doubt that the Queen-Mother was preparing to revenge herself upon “her ungrateful servant,” so soon as his protector should have drawn his last breath.

As for Richelieu, his state of mind may be imagined. He saw his power crumbling away, his liberty, and perhaps even his life, threatened, and, what he valued more than life, his work, on the point of being undone, and France stepping back into the chaos at home and impotence abroad from which he had extricated her. “I know not,” he wrote to Schomberg, “whether I am dead or alive.”

But, before the day was over, the sick monarch, to the astonishment of all, and the mortification, it is to be feared, of not a few, took a turn for the better, and on the morrow was out of danger. “By the grace of God,” wrote the Cardinal to d’Effiat, “the King is out of danger, but, to tell you the truth, I know not whether I am. I pray God that He sends me death in His mercy sooner than the occasion of relapsing into the state in which we have been.”

On learning that the King was ill and that his illness was “not without danger,” Bassompierre returned in all haste to Lyons, where he arrived on October 1, the day after the crisis. After paying his respects to the King, he went to salute the two Queens, the Princesses of the Blood, and the Cardinal, and then proceeded to the house of a M. d’Alaincourt, an old friend of his, with whom he always stayed when at Lyons.

Richelieu had received Bassompierre very cordially and had “spoken to him in great confidence.” But next day his manner changed and became cold and distant. The marshal sought out ChÂteauneuf, who, until he was so unfortunate as to succumb to the beaux yeux of Madame de Chevreuse, was one of the most faithful of the cardinal’s henchmen, and inquired what he could possibly have done to offend his Eminence. Upon which ChÂteauneuf told him that the Cardinal had been informed that Bassompierre had “brought certain messages on behalf of Monsieur to the Queen-Mother, with a power to arrest him [Richelieu] if harm came to the King.”

Bassompierre answered that “he dared swear that Monsieur never had such an idea, because when he [Bassompierre] left Paris, he was doubtful whether the King was in danger.”

ChÂteauneuf then said that there were certain circumstances which, in his Eminence’s opinion, appeared to confirm the rumour which had reached him, namely, that the MarÉchal de CrÉquy was staying at the same house as Bassompierre; that the Duc de Guise had travelled part of the way from Paris with the marshal and was now occupying the adjoining house, and that Bassompierre visited the Queen-Mother every day, and the Princesse de Conti, M. de Guise’s sister and one of her Majesty’s most devoted adherents, every evening.

It is difficult to decide how far Bassompierre was sincere in these protestations. That he had been actually charged by Monsieur with such a commission as the Cardinal suspected may be doubted, but it is practically certain that, if not an active member of the anti-Richelieu cabal, he was in full sympathy with its main object. Nor is this a matter for surprise. As a great noble, he resented Richelieu’s determination to curtail the power and privileges of the nobility and bring them into subjection. As a marshal of France, he disliked the interference of an ecclesiastic in military matters, and he had not forgiven the Cardinal for having supported the pretensions of AngoulÊme during the siege of La Rochelle, thereby obliging him to accept a separate command and depriving him of the honour of driving the English from RÉ. As a courtier and a favourite of the King, he found it difficult to reconcile himself to the sight of a Minister exercising such unbounded authority that no one could any longer hope for advancement except through his good offices.

And there was yet another reason why Bassompierre should have desired to see the success of the cabal. The Guises, and in particular the duke and his sister, the Princesse de Conti, were among its most energetic supporters. The former was now bitterly hostile to Richelieu, who had lately deprived him of the post of Admiral of the Levant, while his sister, as we have said, was a devoted adherent of the Queen-Mother. Bassompierre had been on terms of close friendship with the Guises ever since his arrival at the French Court, and his connexion with them was now even closer than was generally suspected. For many years he had been the lover—or, at least, the most favoured lover—of the Princesse de Conti, who, following the example of Marie d’Entragues, had presented him with a pledge of her affection in the shape of a natural son, of whom we shall have occasion to speak hereafter; and at a date which is unknown, but was probably some time between 1624 and 1630, this intimacy had been regularised by a secret marriage.

It was only natural that Bassompierre should have sided with the party to which his wife and brother-in-law belonged, and we can hardly blame Richelieu, who no doubt knew all about the secret marriage—for there were few secrets which his army of spies did not contrive to ferret out—if he credited the marshal with hostile intentions towards him and placed his name on the list of those distinguished persons upon whom, in the event of his defeating the machinations of his enemies, he intended to take summary vengeance.

It was, however, very far from certain that he would succeed in defeating them. During the King’s convalescence the two Queens were unremitting in their attentions, and Marie de’ Medici took advantage of his weakness to launch all kinds of accusations against the Cardinal, whom she charged with deliberately fomenting dissensions in the Royal family and prejudicing the King’s mind against his mother, wife, and brother, in order that he might dominate it entirely, and of prolonging the war for the purpose of rendering himself necessary, and of sacrificing his Majesty’s health to his ambition. The danger through which Louis had just passed, and the solicitude which Anne of Austria showed for him, had brought about a sort of reconciliation between the royal pair, and the young Queen profited by this to second the admonitions and entreaties of her mother-in-law. The latter gave her unfortunate son no rest, and, at length, to free himself from her obsessions, the King promised her that the Cardinal should be dismissed so soon as peace in Italy had been re-established, or, according to another version, that he would come to a decision on the matter after his return to Paris.