42. Louis XIII.
CHAPTER XLII. Louis XIII. (1610-1643)
When Henry IV. died, the queen, Marie of Medicis, made no pretence of being sorry for her husband's loss; the only thing of which she thought was how to make herself regent during her son's childhood. The eldest son of Henry IV., who now became Louis XIII., was a child of nine years old. It was natural that Mary should be regent, because Henry had already settled that she should govern for him while he was away on the war which he was just about to begin (at the end of) his life; but he had meant her to have a council of some of the wisest men of the country to help and advise her, and now she hoped to have all the power for herself, unchecked by any one. Most of the great lords at the court were her friends, as they had most of them been the enemies of Henry, and by their help she was able that very day to persuade the Parliament of Paris to say that she alone should be regent of the kingdom. The Parliament of Paris (was not in the least like our Parliament in England; it) was a body of men whose business was to judge and do justice, and who therefore were not the proper people to settle such a question as the regency. However, the queen, with the great lords to help her, was too strong to be disobeyed, and the Parliament did as she wished, and the people obeyed the Parliament as if it had done nothing but what was right and usual. Two hours, after Henry had been murdered, Mary was Regent of France.
The Duke of Sully was ill in his own house when messengers came to tell him that the king was dangerously wounded. He set off at once in great grief and distress to go to the king's palace, the Louvre. He was met on the way by different friends, who all begged him to turn back and go home, telling him the king was dead, and that if he went on, he himself would soon be dead as well. Sully consented at last to turn back. The next day, however, he went to the court, saw the queen and the little Dauphin, and promised to serve them faithfully as he had served Henry. This promise, however, he was not able to keep; he found it impossible to work with Mary's friends, who were dishonest and foolish, took what they could find for themselves, and let everything else fall into confusion. He left public life altogether, and went to live at one of his castles, where he spent the thirty years of his life that were still to come.
Mary had one almost certain way of persuading the lords of France to be her friends, and that was making them handsome presents. She gave to each of them what he most wished for; to one a fortune, to another a rich wife, to a third a province to rule over, to a fourth a place in the Government, to a fifth a title. The great riches that Sully had laid up for Henry IV. to use in his wars against Spain began to dwindle away as the queen took from them whatever she wanted to satisfy her great lords.
The army that Henry had prepared for war in Germany was broken up; a small part of it was sent to attack the town which he had wished to take, and succeeded in driving away the Roman Catholics, who were masters there, but after this they did no more; a kind of peace was made; the French soldiers came back to France, and nothing more was done about the matter for some years. So the four years of the queen's regency passed by, and when Louis was thirteen, she had him declared to be of age, and his own reign began. Mary had really as much power after this as before, for while her son was still so young, he did everything that she wished.
The States-General were called together soon after Louis began to reign, and after this they did not meet again for more than a hundred and seventy years. At this meeting the deputies did nothing of great importance; they disputed with each other for some time, chiefly about the different means by which money might be procured for the Government, for the people of France were in a state of great distress, which was partly brought on by the high taxes they were called upon to pay, because the king had no other means of finding money for himself. The deputies, described the state of the peasants in the country. " Your poor people are but skin and bone, worn out, down beat, more dead than alive; we beseech you to do something to settle the disorders of the taxes." However, nothing was settled to relieve them; the deputies drew up their list of complaints(, of which I have told you before,) and as soon as it was done, the king closed the States-General by shutting up the hall in which they usually met, and saying there was to be no more discussion there.
The king promised, as the kings always did, to consider the complaints; but, as so often happened, nothing ever came of his considering. It seems curious that the people of France can have been satisfied for so many hundred years to have no better arrangement for expressing their wishes about the government of the country than the States-General, from which they hardly ever gained the things they wanted. The wishes of the people were a matter which the Government of France scarcely considered at all. The kings were bent upon gaining more and more power for themselves, which they did with great success under the reigns of Louis XIII. and his son.
Mary of Medicis, the queen-mother, was, as I have said, much inclined to be the friend of Spain, and now that Henry was no longer there to object to it, she determined to keep an agreement which she had already made with the Spanish courts that two of her children should marry two of the children of the Spanish king. Her eldest daughter, Elizabeth, still quite a child, was sent into Spain; and a little Spanish princess, Anne of Austria, was brought into France, and married soon after to Louis XIII. The king's wife, when she became a woman, was an important person in the Government of the country, and brought France into many troubles. Louis cared very little about his wife; but he was the sort of person who likes always to have some favourite with him, and who, when once he has a favourite, is apt to listen to him in everything, and give up his own way to do only what his favourite advises. Troubles soon rose between him and his mother, who was not able to keep the power for herself as she had hoped to do. She joined in plots against her son and his friends, and at last he sent her away from Paris altogether, and exiled her to a distant part of France. It was of great importance for the country that Louis should choose his favourite well; in this he did not succeed at first; one or two of his favourites were men who could do no good to him or to the country. But at last he had the good fortune to find, and the good sense to value, a man who is now considered as one of the greatest statesmen there has ever been in France or any other country; who brought France to great power and glory, carried out much of what Henry IV. had wished to do for the good of the country, and by his wisdom and strength prevented Louis from receiving any harm from the great war which disturbed all Europe in this reign. His name was Richelieu; he was bishop of a small town at the time of the meeting of the States-General; and he was chosen then to take up to the king the list of complaints from the clergy; afterwards he became a great friend of the queen-mother's, the Pope made him a cardinal, and he became a member of the king's council, and at last chief minister. In Germany the questions between the Protestants and Roman Catholics had never yet been settled; the Emperor was Roman Catholic, and many of the princes of different parts of the country Protestant. A good many of them joined themselves into a band against the Emperor. The struggle which then began lasted for thirty years, and is known as the Thirty Years' War. For some time the Germans fought only among themselves, and no other nation took part in the war, except the Spaniards, who were always friends of the Emperor, though the Emperor of Germany was no longer King of Spain as well, as he had been in the time of Charles V. Many of the chief men in France were secretly friends of the Spanish King, and they were inclined to persuade Louis to let France join the Roman Catholic side, and help in making the Emperor more powerful than ever in Germany. Cardinal Richelieu thought differently. He said that Louis, though he kept down the Protestants at home, ought to help them abroad, so as to make the Emperor and Spanish king less powerful instead of more, and to have the Protestant princes of Germany for his friends. Richelieu arranged a league or agreement of friendship between several of the nations in the north of Europe, who were all enemies of the Spanish. The English, the French, the Dutch, the princes of North Germany, the Danes, the Swedes, all belonged to it, and the King of Denmark was chosen to be their leader. In Italy too, at the other end of Europe, Richelieu was able to help the enemies of Spain, and though there was not open war at first between the two countries, this was the beginning of a struggle which lasted all through Richelieu's life. There were many difficulties in Richelieu's way besides the difficulties of the war which he hoped to persuade Louis to carry on against the Spaniards. One was that he never felt sure that the king would go on trusting him and being his friend. He had many enemies at court, and some of them were the most important people next to the king, in the whole country. The mother of Louis was one , his wife another, his brother a third. They were all friends of the Spaniards, and all hated Richelieu; they made plots to murder him, and were always trying to turn the weak king against him.
Another difficulty was that the French were not at peace among themselves. The Huguenots, among whom were the best and bravest men of the country, were not satisfied; and at the beginning of Louis's reign there had been many small wars against them, which had always ended in the same way, by a peace being made in which different favours for which they wished were promised and never given to them. One of the most important Hugnenot, towns was called La Rochelle. This is a town on the west coast of France, about two-thirds of the way down, with a fine harbour protected by some small islands a little way from the shore. It had always been a kind of headquarters of the Huguenots, and they had been much vexed at a royal fort having been built on purpose to keep the town quiet, and to make it easy for the king to send troops (in) and prevent any rising up against him by the townspeople. This fort was called Fort Louis, and was full of royal troops. The people of La Rochelle believed Richelieu to be the enemy of the Huguenots, and so he had shown himself to be in France, though out of France he was persuading the king to take their side against their enemy, the King of Spain. They rose up against him, and called upon the English to help them.
At this time the English, who had been friends of the French, were suddenly persuaded by the Spaniards to turn against them. The English proposed to join with the people of La Rochelle, and help them to free the town from Richelieu and the French Government. They secretly hoped that they should be able to take it for themselves, but they soon found that the town had no idea of (giving itself up) to them. The Huguenots, though they were angry with the French Government, had not forgotten that they were Frenchmen, and would have no foreigners in their town. An Englishman, the Duke of Buckingham, brought a fleet down the coast of France, and came near to Rochelle, but was never able to give any help to the townspeople.
Richelieu gathered together a large army, and came to besiege the town. For a year he and his army lay outside the walls, the soldiers continually at work to prevent any food from passing in. They made forts outside the part of the town that was turned towards the land, and with great labour and difficulty they made a mole or heap of earth like a wall, running almost across the mouth of the harbour, so that no ships could pass into La Rochelle.
Thus the people of Rochelle were entirely shut out from all help. The English tried to make their way through the mole with food, and invented a contrivance for blowing up some part of the wall; but it was of no use, their contrivance failed, and the English sailed away and left the town to itself.
Richelieu had the king with him outside the walls, but after some months' Louis grew tired and went away to another part of the country, Richelieu knew that he was always in danger while the king was away from him, for Louis always listened to those of his friends who were near at hand, and he was among people who were enemies to the great minister; but the siege of Rochelle was too important to be left, and Richelieu stayed there with his army. The six thousand men in the town resisted with wonderful courage. Their governor was a man named Guiton, who, when he was chosen to be their leader, laid his dagger on the table and said that it should run into the heart of the first man who spoke of giving up the town. He encouraged the people to hope even when the English sailed away and left them.
They began to suffer terribly from hunger; they ate grass and shell-fish which they found on the beach at low water; they turned all the old and weak people out of the town, and refused to open their gates to them again, though they were attacked by the enemy. At last the English fleet appeared once more, and tried again to break the mole, but the French ships beat them back. They made up their minds that, they could do nothing, and began to make a treaty with the French. When the people of Rochelle heard this they gave themselves up in despair and submitted to Richelieu. When he came into the town the soldiers were horrified to see the streets filled with corpses, that those who still lived had not the strength to bury. One morning, while the siege still lasted, the sentinels had been found at their post dead from hunger.
Rochelle, when it had (given itself up), was not unkindly treated by Richelieu and Louis, though from this time the townsmen lost such powers as they had had before of governing themselves; they were made completely subject to the king, and Rochelle has never been a town of any importance since. Many of the Huguenot sailors who had lived there in great numbers left France altogether and settled in Holland.
After the siege of Rochelle was thus ended, Richelieu made the king begin to take part openly in the Thirty Years' War. I have not space here to give an account of the events of that war, not even of the events in it which had to do with France. I will say only that Louis went first into Italy, where he distinguished himself by his courage in crossing the Alps in the middle of winter, and succeeded in driving away the Spaniards from the particular town they were then trying to take. He then came back into France, and Richelieu spent some years secretly preparing troops and money for the war. The French declared open war seven years after the siege of Rochelle, and they carried it on all the rest of Richelieu's life, which lasted for seven years more. During this time one event happened in France which was a great joy to all the people of France. The queen, after having been married to Louis since they were both children, at last had a child born, a son, Who afterwards became the famous Louis XIV. Before the birth of this child it had always been feared that whenever Louis died his brother, a very bad young man, would become king in his place; but now the country was saved from him and from all question as to who should succeed. The war was, on the whole, good for France; the power of the Emperor of Germany was much weakened, so that France had less to fear from him; the French won for themselves many places in Spain and Italy, and Richelieu had persuaded the king to distrust those members of his family and court who were always secretly speaking and acting in favour of Spain.
Many plots were made against the life of Richelieu, but they were all discovered, and the enemies who had made them punished. Richelieu's last journey was with the king and the royal army, who were marching towards Spain to attack their great enemy in his own country. He was ill, but travelled in great splendour, and had so many servants and attendants with him that he was obliged to keep some way behind Louis, as there would not have been room in many of the small towns through which they passed to receive the followers of both at once. A young favourite of Louis, named Cinq Mars, (made) a plan at this time to murder Bichelieu, and tried to persuade the king to join in it. Louis, who had grown tired of his great minister, was at one time inclined to agree, and Richelieu, hearing of what was going on, kept away from Louis's camp for some time. At last Louis found out that Cinq Mars had also been making a treaty with Spain against him and his friends. Richelieu's enemies were also the enemies of their country. They were tried, found guilty of treason, and put to death. The king wrote to Richelieu, who was in a town some little way off: "I love you more than ever, whatever false stories people may tell." The war against Spain went on well, though both the king and Richelieu went back to Paris soon after the discovery of this plot. Richelieu was carried most of the way in a litter. He grew worse and worse, and did not live many months longer. On the last day of his life he asked his doctors how much longer he had to live. Most of them, wishing to please him, told him that perhaps, he might still recover, that God would not let a man die who was so necessary to France; but one of them had the courage to tell the truth and answered, "In twenty-four hours you will be cured or dead." "That is what I call speaking," said Richelieu; "I understand you." He died calmly and quietly, after having received a last visit from the king, to whom he gave advice about the government of the country.
Louis himself died a few months later. During the whole of this reign Richelieu had been the really important person in the kingdom. Louis himself was a weak and rather foolish man, and what he did was always decided for him by the advice of his friends and ministers. He had enough good sense to know that Richelieu was the mail to whom the affairs of France might most safely be trusted. Richelieu had done other things for France besides governing the country well and defending it against its enemies; he had encouraged poets to make poems and authors to write books; he had set up what is called the French Academy, a body of men supposed to be made up of the best writers in France, who settle what is good and what is bad in French writings, and give prizes for what they consider the best. I do not know that the Academy is really of much use, but it was supposed that it would improve the writings of Frenchmen, and the French were pleased at its being founded. It exists to this day.
Richelieu did more than almost any other Frenchman to weaken the great lords, who had before his time had a good deal of power in the country, and to make the king so strong that he would be able to do what he pleased without caring for his subjects' wishes. The French, having no parliament to find fault with what their kings did in a peaceable way, had no means of getting what they wished except rising up against them in a rebellion; but Richelieu was too strong for any one to dare to do this in his time, and so Louis XIII. became more and more powerful the longer he lived, and his power passed on to his son and increased with him still more. This was not a good thing for the French people, and came to a bad end at last. Richelieu was not loved by the people of the country; though they did not understand that he was doing harm by adding to the king's strength, they disliked him for laying on heavy taxes, and being cruel and unfeeling to them in many ways. There was a feeling of joy through the whole country when he died.
