Louis XIV

by Olivier Bernier

  Within a week of the Court’s arrival in Saint Germain, most of the princes moved back to Paris and directed the city’s resistance. “The royal army took its quarters around Paris so as to starve it into submission. M. le Prince de Conti,* M. de Longueville,† M. d’Elbeuf,‡ M. de Bouillon§ and many other persons remained in the capital because they were sure that during the King’s minority one could not undertake something of so great consequence without the help of the princes of the blood. Immediately the Court sent to M. de Turenne to find out how he stood. He made it clear. He even wrote to M. le cardinal Mazarin that his friendship would cease if things went on the same way, and that when he [Turenne] crossed the Rhine** with his army to return to France, it would be only to reestablish peace, and not at all to help with a policy which he did not think ought to be so lightly pursued.”32 Turenne was the duc de Bouillon’s youngest brother, and while it was not unusual for one brother to hate the other - Condé and Conti were perfect examples - Turenne was almost unique in his devotion to a rich, complacent, and much less talented elder brother; besides which, he detested Condé and was not about to enter any enterprise in which the prince had the leading role.

  That, however, created a dangerous situation: The Parisians were raising an army with the help of Spain, whose position as the enemy of France in no wise deterred them. If Turenne were now to join the Fronde - the name given the rebellion - Condé’s army would be caught between his forces and those of the Parisians with obviously disastrous consequences. At this point, the desperate Mazarin borrowed 800,000 livres from Condé and sent them to Turenne’s army so that it would remain in Germany. And when, in the early summer, the Parisians began to think that perhaps they had gone too far, the regent found herself as powerless as ever. Negotiations started with the Parlement, and the result, as before, reflected Condé’s preferences. The Declaration of 1648 remained in effect but no one had any illusions: Henceforth, it would be Monsieur le Prince who would rule the country.

  On August 18, therefore, Louis XIV and Anne of Austria reentered Paris. “They were received with all the applause, all the cries of gladness usual to these occasions … Never had there been such a crowd to follow the King’s carriage and, because of this public rejoicing, the past began to look like a dream.”33 Not, perhaps, for everyone: All around the city a wide band of devastation testified to the usual accompaniment of civil wars.

  The humiliations which seemed to have become a permanent fact of life to both queen and cardinal continued as well. In spite of frantic efforts on Mazarin’s part to conciliate Monsieur le Prince, the latter, drunk with pride and power, proceeded publicly and repeatedly to insult “the Sicilian blackguard,” as he called him to his face. There were the many times when Condé pulled the cardinal’s beard, the endless derogatory remarks, and finally a slap: this behavior all happened in front of the queen and, not infrequently, the king himself. Then, the prince’s many demands had to be satisfied, even when he went against the normally unbreakable etiquette, to advance the status of his followers.

  Things went even further when Monsieur le Prince decided that the queen should have a lover, the marquis de Jarzé, chosen by himself. Anne of Austria, very properly, reprimanded the marquis before the entire Court when he pressed his suit. Because Monsieur le Prince had behaved just as arrogantly to everyone else, his downfall began to appear a distinct possibility.

  First, of course, some of Condé’s friends had to be won over; the most active plotter among the former Frondeurs was an ecclesiastic, Paul de Gondi, the nephew and coadjuteur (successor) of the archbishop of Paris. Gondi, just then, could be bought: He, too, had been offended by Monsieur le Prince’s arrogance, besides which, he longed to be made a cardinal. So in the course of several secret meetings, Anne of Austria, who pretended to be half in love with the coadjuteur, promised him the promotion he wanted so badly, as well as influence in the government. Gondi, in return, offered his friends’ acquiescence to the queen’s revenge. All was now ready.

  Until the very last moment, Mazarin and the queen behaved as if nothing had changed; then, on January 18, 1650, to the general stupor, Condé, Conti, and the duc de Longueville were arrested and jailed in the Vincennes fortress. Almost immediately, however, it became clear that the regent had not gone far enough, Condé’s wife and mother set off in one direction to rekindle the civil war, his sister, the duchesse de Longueville, in another. As for Turenne, who had been the prince’s enemy, he tells us himself what happened. “The very moment the prince was arrested, M. le Cardinal sent M. de Ruvigny to M. de Turenne with the assurance that he was perfectly safe and the promise of favorable treatment …

  “M. de Turenne, although he believed this … and in spite of the fact that he had not been on good terms with Monsieur le Prince for some time, decided not to abandon the prince in his misfortune and left with four noblemen the very night of the arrest … He decided to act so as to force the Court to release Monsieur le Prince. “Accordingly, he sent messengers to all the troops which had been under Monsieur le Prince and to all the Governors who were friendly to Monsieur le Prince or displeased with the Court.”34

  Coming from the general-in-chief of one of the king’s armies, this sort of insubordination is nothing short of stunning, so low had fidelity to the Crown fallen that the most vaporous notion of honor had now become more important than the plainest of duties. Of course, Louis XIV’s age was always a handy pretext, but even then, it was clear that the government no longer governed anything: Rebellion, far from being considered a crime, had become something like a question of good manners. The following letter, written by the young and fashionable comte de Bussy-Rabutin to his cousin, the marquise de Sévigné, is typical of that attitude; it is only one of hundreds: “I have finally declared for Monsieur le Prince, my fair cousin; it wasn’t without much repugnance, for I will be serving a prince who doesn’t like me against my King. It is true that I pity his [Condé’s] condition. I will therefore serve him while he is in prison as if he liked me, and if he ever comes out, I will resign my position and will immediately leave him once again to do my duty.”35

  That really says it all: Duty to king and country had become something taken up or put off as easily as a pair of gloves. The ensuing anarchy is not hard to imagine, and as if all that were not bad enough, Turenne - the honest, devoted Turenne, the winner of many battles against the Spanish and Austrians - now turned to the very enemy he had been fighting so as to ensure the liberation of a prince he did not even like. Worse, he offered to give up what France had won with such effort: “The treaty was concluded in which M. de Fuensaldagne [an envoy of Philip IV] promised, in the name of the Most Catholic King, and Mme de Longueville and M. de Turenne promised in their own name not to make peace [with the Court] until Monsieur le Prince was out of prison and a just, generous, and reasonable peace was offered to Spain.

  “Things being thus concluded, we prepared to open the campaign.”36

  Because in our own time, childhood is often prolonged into the twenties, we forget how very fast people once grew up. In 1650, Louis XIV was only twelve, but he was also king, in an age when Condé, for instance, had won his first great victory at the age of twenty-two. And he knew very well that his God-given authority was mocked, that the realm was ravaged by opposing armies, and that he himself had been reduced to an almost unbearable position. Had he had any doubts, the state of his wardrobe would have enlightened him. “Every year, the King was customarily given twelve pairs of sheets and two dressing gowns, one for the summer, one for the winter,” La Porte noted. “[I]n spite of this, I watched him using six pairs of sheets for three whole years and one dressing gown of green velvet lined with rabbit fur in winter and summer alike for that same period so that, the last year, it barely reached half way down his legs; and as for the sheets, they were so worn out that I found him several times with his legs poking through them; and everything else was the same.”37 The king could hardly have had a more graphic reminder of his exact
situation.

  At least he was growing up to be strong, energetic, and healthy. Already by 1648, his doctors started the treatments which were to last his whole life: Once a month, he was given an extremely potent enema - it provoked, according to a note in the register, ten violent evacuations - or an equally strong purge; at least twice a year, he was bled. That for so many years this kind of abuse had no ill effect is an eloquent comment on the strength of Louis’s constitution, as is an incident reported by La Porte in late 1649. “Once … at Fontainebleau … after having undressed before going to bed, [the King] started to jump and tumble on his bed; and finally, he made such a leap that he hit his head on the tester across the bed; that hit made such a noise that I feared the worst. I immediately ran to the King and carried him back onto his bed, but found that he had suffered only a superficial wound.”38

  In fact, the adolescent was skilled at all physical exercises, a bold and competent rider and a graceful dancer well able to play a role in the elaborate ballets put on at court when the times allowed. He was also clearly intelligent, aware of both events and people, and full of a sense of his own mission. Thus the second Fronde, as it developed in 1650, was not merely an adults’ game: He felt directly and painfully involved. That became even clearer in early February.

  Mme de Longueville, Turenne’s cosigner, was one of the leaders of the rebellion: It was not only that she was Condé’s loving - some said too loving - sister, and the wife of the duc de Longueville, the head of the next closest branch of the royal family; she was also proud, ambitious, and eager to play a major political role, so she went off to capture Rouen.

  This action was a major threat. Rouen was the capital of Normandy, one of the largest and richest cities in France and the key to Paris: Since it commanded the lower Seine, along which much of the city’s food was shipped, anyone who held Rouen could starve Paris. Obviously, something had to be done, but the government now commanded few troops, so together, the queen and Mazarin decided to rely on the strength of the average Frenchman’s devotion to his king: An expedition was mounted with the king at its head, and Rouen, which would probably have closed its doors to Mazarin and received Mme de Longueville, gave Louis XIV a warm and enthusiastic reception.

  While this result was just the one for which Anne of Austria had hoped, it could also be seen as a deep humiliation for the young monarch. When major cities were now so close to revolt that only the king’s actual presence could keep them within their duty, then, clearly, the situation was almost desperate. Sure enough, worse was yet to come. In July, the queen decided to try the same method on Bordeaux, and this time, it failed: The king was refused entry into the third largest city in his realm. If now the old monarchical mystique failed, then hope was faint indeed.

  Indeed, it began to look as if the war begun some twenty years earlier, pursued at such cost in men and money, and at last practically won, would also be lost. Although the maréchal du Plessis-Praslin won a battle at Rethel, in northern France, the Spanish armies were once again marching forward, compounding the devastation wrought by the contending French forces. And Mazarin, who was held responsible for this array of disasters, had undoubtedly become the most hated man in the country. Anne of Austria trusted him just as much as ever, but how long she would be able to protect him no one could tell. Most of the attacks on the government were naturally directed at the cardinal: The king was too young to be blamed, the queen still too respected, so Mazarin was traduced in every possible way.

  When, at the end of the summer, the Court returned to Paris, the situation deteriorated still further. What had saved the Crown so far had been the conflicts pitting the princes against one another; now Gondi turned against the queen as soon as he found out she had not nominated him to the cardinalate, and set about reconciling the former adversaries with each other and the Parlement. By December, it was clear that Anne of Austria and her government had lost all support. When, on January 20, 1651, the Parlement’s chief magistrate, Premier Président Molé, came to the Palais Royal, he read the infuriated queen a violent remonstrance demanding the liberation of the imprisoned princes; it was no surprise, but the king, who was, naturally, present, exclaimed, when Molé had left: “Mother, if I had not feared upsetting you, I would, on three occasions, have told the Président to be silent and leave.”39

  At this point, and very understandably, Mazarin lost his temper: During a meeting of the Council, he compared the rebellious nobles and the Parlement to the Englishmen who had just executed their king. That gave Monsieur the pretext he wanted for breaking with the prime minister, while the Parlement demanded the freedom of the princes and the dismissal of the cardinal. It was at this desperate juncture that both Anne of Austria and Mazarin decided that it was time to bring the twelve-year-old king into their confidence. In the deepest secrecy, Louis XIV was told their plan; then Mazarin, disguised as a musketeer and carrying the Crown’s remaining diamonds with him, fled to Saint-Germaine-en-Laye, fully expecting the king and queen to follow him. Unfortunately, as soon as his flight became known, Monsieur, prompted by Gondi, realized he had everything to lose by the king’s flight: While he remained in Paris, Monsieur was in charge; once gone, Monsieur was only one more rebel against whom the queen, with Mazarin’s advice, could proceed. Still, as was his wont, he dithered, and when Gondi asked him to sign an order that all the gates of Paris be closed, he hesitated so long that it was his wife who signed.

  As for Louis XIV and Anne of Austria, they were now trapped. “On the night of the ninth to the tenth of February, the Queen had intended to flee … The duc d’Orléans said very audibly that one of the King’s principal officers had warned him about this; and by making his apprehension public, he soon made it spread to all the others …

  “… This news soon alarmed the Parisians … and the duc d’Orléans decided to use the people’s fears … for he had good reason to prevent the King’s absence from Paris …

  “The streets immediately filled with armed men … The Queen was told that the duc d’Orléans apparently wanted to take the King away from her … She was in bed, it was already past midnight …

  “… The tumult grew constantly in the streets and the darkness made it all more fearful still.” At that moment, M. de Sourches came on a mission from Monsieur to make sure the queen had not left the Palais Royal. She told him that the king was asleep and that she herself was in her night clothes, but did not add that she had only just undressed when she realized the people were likely to break into the palace or that the king, though he was, indeed, under the covers, was fully dressed and only shamming sleep.

  “De Sourches went in to the King’s room and, following the Queen’s order, he lifted the curtain behind which the young monarch was lying, and watched him sleep for a long time … Upon leaving the Palais Royal, he did his best to pacify the Parisians.” That, however, was a hopeless enterprise. The angry mobs now made their way to the palace gates and demanded that they be open. Anne of Austria, alone and unadvised, ordered that the people be let in. “Thus some of them came into the Palais Royal, shouting that the King must be shown to them, that they wanted to see him. The Queen, upon hearing this, immediately had all the doors opened and the people taken to the King’s bedroom. The rebels were delighted with this. They all crowded near the King’s bed; its curtains were all open and then, remembering their love for him, they blessed him again and again. They spent a long time watching him sleep and never grew tired of admiring him … Their anger was dissipated … They left as if they had been the most obedient of subjects.”40 It had been a very close call; only Anne of Austria’s coolness had saved the situation, for there cannot be much doubt that, if she had ordered the gates defended instead of opened, all the inhabitants of the palace would have perished that night.

  Alive though they might be, however, the king and queen were unquestionably prisoners. In a last attempt at saving the situation, Mazarin went personally to Le Havre, where Condé had been transferred, and freed th
e prince himself, but it was all useless: He was left with no choice but flight and retreated to the Electorate of Cologne, across the Rhine, where he settled at the castle of Bruhl and soon refused Philip IV, who offered him anything he wanted if only he would come to govern Spain. Considering the way he had been treated in France, it was no mean proof of his devotion to the country and the queen, and, of course, he corresponded secretly with Anne of Austria, advising her from afar but well.

  From then on, the scene in Paris resembled one of those endless, complicated, and artificial novels which were at that time much in vogue. Monsieur, after much hesitation, decided not to seize the regency, thus apparently consolidating the queen’s position, but his daughter, Mademoiselle, took over as one of the leaders of the Fronde.

  The result was a kaleidoscopic shifting of alliances and alignments within the aristocratic element of the Fronde, with Condé, after much wavering, refusing to usurp the crown on the grounds that such actions did not fit someone of his birth. And the Parlement, realizing that its interests and those of the great nobles were altogether different, pursued its own line even though, and sometimes because, it conflicted with that of the other Frondeurs.