by Will Durant
At this point one of the most famous of France’s many famous women rode upon the scene, like another Joan rescuing Orléans. Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans had become a rebel in her childhood, when Richelieu exiled her father. Gaston, as brother of Louis XIII, was officially “Monsieur”; his wife, Marie de Bourbon, Duchesse de Montpensier, was the current “Madame”; their daughter was thereby “Mademoiselle”; and because she was strong and tall, she came to be called La Grande Mademoiselle de Montpensier. As the Montpensier fortune was immense, she grew up with the double pride of money and ancestry. “I am of a birth,” she said, “that does nothing that is not great and noble.” 10 She aspired to marry Louis XIV, though he was her cousin; when she received no encouragement she nursed revolt. Hearing the appeal of her city, and seeing her father loath to commit himself, she won his consent to go in his place. She had long resented the limitations put upon her sex by custom; especially she recognized no reason why women should not be warriors. Now she arrayed herself in armor and helmet, gathered about her some highborn Amazons and a small force of soldiery, and led them gaily to Orléans. The magistrates refused to admit her, fearing the wrath of the King. She ordered some of her men to break a hole in the walls; through this she and two countesses entered, while the guardians napped or winked. Once within, her flaming oratory captured the citizens; Molé was sent away without his prize, and Orléans vowed fidelity to its new Maid.
The second Fronde reached its climax at the gates of Paris. Condé marched up from the south, defeated a royal army, and came within an ace of capturing King, Queen, and Cardinal, which would have been checkmate indeed. As his army neared Paris the populace, again Frondeurs, carried a shrine of the city’s patron St. Geneviève through the streets in processional prayer for the victory of Condé and the overthrow of Mazarin. La Grande Mademoiselle, hurrying up from Orléans to the Luxembourg Palace, where her father was still playing with pros and cons, begged him to support Condé; he refused. Turenne and the King’s army now approached, and met Condé’s forces outside the walls, near the Porte St.-Antoine (now the Place de la Bastille). Turenne was winning when Mademoiselle rushed into the Bastille and prodded its governor to turn its cannon upon the royal troops. Then, in the name of her absent father, she commanded the people within the walls to open the gates just long enough to let Condé’s army in and shut out the King’s (July 2, 1652). Mademoiselle was the heroine of the day.
Condé was master of Paris, but level heads were turning against him. He could not pay his troops; they began to desert, and the populace ran riot. On July 4 a mob attacked the City Hall, demanding that all supporters of Mazarin be given up to them; to indicate their temper they set fire to the building, and killed thirty citizens. Economic operations were disrupted; the food supply fell into chaos; every second family in Paris feared starvation. The propertied classes began to wonder whether royal autocracy, or even government by Mazarin, was not better than mob rule. Mazarin helped by going into voluntary exile, leaving the Frondeurs without a unifying cause. De Retz, having obtained his coveted red hat, thought it time to consolidate his gains, and now used his influence to encourage loyalty to the King.
On October 21 the royal family re-entered Paris peacefully. The sight of the young monarch, fourteen, handsome, and brave, charmed the Parisians; the streets resounded with “Vive le roi!” Almost overnight public agitation subsided, and order was restored, not by force but by the aura of royalty, the prestige of legitimacy, the half-unconscious belief of the people in the divine right of kings. By February 6, 1653, Louis felt strong enough to recall Mazarin again, and to re-establish him in all his former powers. The second Fronde was over.
Condé fled to Bordeaux, Parlement submitted gravely, the rebel nobles retired to their châteaux. Mme. de Longueville, no longer lovely, sought solace among the nuns of Port-Royal. La Grande Mademoiselle was banished to one of her estates, where she ate her heart out recalling the remark ascribed to Mazarin, that her cannonade from the Bastille had killed her husband—i.e., ended her chance of marrying the King. At the age of forty she fell in love with Antoine de Caumont, Comte de Lauzun, who was much younger and shorter; the King refused permission for the marriage; when they proposed to marry nevertheless, Louis imprisoned him for ten years (1670–80). Mademoiselle remained bravely loyal to him through all that time; when he was released she married him, and she lived in turmoil with him till her death (1693). De Retz was arrested, escaped, was pardoned, served the King as a diplomat in Rome, retired to a corner in Lorraine, and composed his memoirs, remarkable for their objective analysis of character, including his own:
I did not act the devotee, because I could not be sure how long I should be able to play the counterfeit. . . . Finding I could not live without some amorous intrigue, I managed an amour with Mme. de Pommereux, a young coquette, who had so many sparks, not only in her house but at her devotions, that the apparent business of others was a cover for mine. . . . I came to a resolve to go on in my sins . . . but I was fully determined to discharge all the duties of my [religious] profession faithfully, and exert my utmost to save other souls, though I took no care of my own. 11
As for Mazarin, he had landed safely on his feet, and was again master of the realm, under a King still willing to learn. To the scandal of France, the minister arranged a treaty with Protestant England and regicide Cromwell (1657), who sent six thousand troops to help fight Condé and the Spanish; together the French and the English won the “Battle of the Dunes” (June 13, 1658). Ten days later the Spanish surrendered Dunkirk; Louis entered it in state, and then, pursuant to the treaty, gave it to England. Exhausted in money and men, Spain signed with France the Peace of the Pyrenees (November 7, 1659), ending twenty-three years of one war and establishing the basis of another. Spain ceded Roussillon, Artois, Gravelines, and Thionville to France, and abandoned all claim to Alsace. Philip IV gave his daughter María Teresa in marriage to Louis XIV, on terms that later involved all Western Europe in the War of the Spanish Succession: he promised to send her a dowry of 500,000 crowns within eighteen months, but exacted from her and Louis a renunciation of her rights to succeed to the Spanish throne. The Spanish King made the pardon of Condé a condition of the Peace. Louis did not merely forgive the impetuous Prince, he restored him to all his titles and estates, and welcomed him to his court.
The Peace of the Pyrenees marked the fulfillment of Richelieu’s program—the reduction of the Hapsburg power, and the replacement of Spain by France as the dominant nation in Europe. Mazarin was given the credit for carrying this policy through triumphantly; though few men liked him, they recognized him as one of the ablest ministers in French history. But France, which so soon forgave Condé’s treason, never forgave Mazarin’s greed. Amid the destitution of the people he amassed a fortune reckoned by Voltaire at 200,000,000 francs. 12 He deflected military appropriations into his personal coffers, sold crown offices for his own benefit, lent money to the King at a high rate of interest, and gave one of his nieces a necklace which is still among the most costly pieces of jewelry in the world. 13
Dying, he advised Louis to be his own chief minister, and never to leave major matters of policy to any of his aides. 14 After his death (March 9, 1661), the hiding place of his hoard was revealed to the King by Colbert. Louis confiscated it to the general satisfaction, and became the richest monarch of his time. The wits of Paris acclaimed as a public benefactor Mazarin’s physician Guénot: “Make way for his honor! It is the good doctor who killed the Cardinal.” 15
II. THE KING
The most famous of French kings was only one-quarter French. He was half Spanish by his mother, Anne of Austria; he was one-quarter Italian by his grandmother Marie de Médicis. He took readily to Italian art and love, afterward to Spanish piety and pride; in his later years he resembled his maternal grandfather, Philip III of Spain, far more than his paternal grandfather, Henry IV of France.
At birth (September 5, 1638) he was called Dieudonné, God-given; perhaps the F
rench could not believe that Louis XIII had really achieved parentage without divine assistance. The estrangement between father and mother, the father’s early death, and the prolonged disorders of the Fronde hurt the boy’s development. Amid the struggles of Anne and Mazarin to maintain themselves in power Louis was often neglected; at times, in those unroyal days, he knew poverty in shabby dress and stinted food. No one seemed to bother about his education; and when tutors took him in hand their most earnest endeavor was to convince him that all France was his patrimony, which he would rule by divine right, with no responsibility except to God. His mother found time to train him in Catholic doctrine and devotion, which would return to him in force when passion was spent and glory had worn thin. Saint-Simon assures us that Louis “was scarcely taught to read or write, and remained so ignorant that the most familiar historical and other facts were utterly unknown to him” 16—but this is probably one of the Duke’s furious exaggerations. Certainly Louis showed little taste for books, though his patronage of authors, and his friendship with Molière, Boileau, and Racine suggest a sincere appreciation of literature. Later he regretted that he had come so tardily to the study of history. “The knowledge of the great events produced in the world through many centuries, and digested by solid and active minds,” he wrote, “will serve to fortify the reason in all important deliberations.” 17 His mother labored to form in him not merely good manners but a sense of honor and chivalry, and much of this remained in him, sullied with a reckless will to power. He was a serious and submissive youth, apparently too good for government, but Mazarin declared that Louis “has in him the stuff to make four kings and an honorable man.” 18
On September 7, 1651, John Evelyn, from the Paris apartment of Thomas Hobbes, watched the procession that escorted the boy monarch, now thirteen, to the ceremony that was to mark the end of his minority. “A young Apollo,” the Englishman described him. “He went almost the whole way with his hat in hand, saluting the ladies and acclamators who filled the windows with their beauty, and the air with Vive le Roi!” 19 Louis might then have taken over full authority from Mazarin, but he respected his minister’s suave resourcefulness, and allowed him to hold the reins for nine years more. Nevertheless, when the Cardinal died he confessed, “I do not know what I should have done if he had lived much longer.” 20 After Mazarin’s death the heads of the departments came to Louis and asked to whom henceforth they should address themselves for instructions. He answered, with decisive simplicity, “To me.” 21 From that day (March 9, 1661) till September 1, 1715, he governed France. The people wept with joy that now, for the first time in half a century, they had a functioning king.
They gloried in his good looks. Seeing him in 1660, Jean de La Fontaine, a man not easily deceived, exclaimed: “Do you think that the world has many kings of figure so beautiful, of appearance so fine? I do not think so, and when I see him I imagine I see Grandeur herself in person.” 22 He was only five feet five inches tall, but authority made him seem taller. Well built, robust, a good horseman and good dancer, a skillful jouster and fascinating raconteur, he had just the combination to turn a woman’s head and unlock her heart. Saint-Simon, who disliked him, wrote: “Had he been just a private individual, he would have created the same havoc with his love affairs.” 23 And this Duke (who could never forgive Louis for not letting dukes rule), acknowledged the royal courtesy that now became a school to the court, through the court to France, and through France to Europe:
Never did man give with better grace than Louis XIV, or augment so much in this way the value of his benefits. . . . Never did disobliging words escape him; and if he had to blame, to reprimand, or to correct, which was rare, it was nearly always with goodness, never, except on one occasion. . ., with anger or severity. Never was a man so naturally polite. . . . Towards women his politeness was without parallel. Never did he pass the humblest petticoat without raising his hat, even to chambermaids whom he knew to be such. . . . If he accosted ladies he did not cover himself until he had quitted them. 24
His mind was not as good as his manners. He almost matched Napoleon in his penetrating judgment of men, but he fell far short of Caesar’s philosophical intellect, or Augustus’ humane and farseeing statesmanship. “He had nothing more than good sense,” said Sainte-Beuve, “but he had a great deal of it,” 25 and perhaps that is better than intellect. Hear again Saint-Simon: “He was by disposition prudent, moderate, discreet, the master of his movements and his tongue.” 26 “He had a soul greater than his mind,” said Montesquieu, 27 and a power of attention and will that in his heyday made up for the limitation of his ideas. We know his defects chiefly from the second period (1683–1715) of his reign, when bigotry had narrowed him, and success and flattery had spoiled him. Then we shall find him as vain as an actor and as proud as a monument—though some of this pride may have been put on by the artists who portrayed him, and some may have been due to his conception of his office. If he “acted the part” of Le Grand Monarque, he may have thought this necessary to the technique of rule and the support of order; there had to be a center of authority, and this authority had to be propped up with pomp and ceremony. “It seems to me,” he told his son, “that we should be at once humble for ourselves and proud for the place we hold.” 28 But he rarely achieved humility—perhaps once, when he took no offense at Boileau’s correcting him on a point of literary taste. In his memoirs he contemplated his own virtues with great equanimity. The chief of these, he judged, was his love of glory; he “preferred to all things,” he said, “and to life itself, a lofty reputation.” 29 This love of glory became his nemesis because of its excess. “The ardor that we feel for la gloire,” he wrote, “is not one of those feeble passions that cool with possession. Her favors, which can never be obtained except with effort, never cause disgust, and he who can refrain from longing for fresh ones is unworthy of all those he has received.” 30
Until his love of glory ruined his character and his country, he had his share of estimable qualities. His court was impressed by his justice, lenience, generosity, and self-control. “In this respect,” said Mme. de Motteville, who saw him almost daily in this period, “all preceding reigns . . . must yield precedence to the happy beginning of this one.” 31 Those near him noted the fidelity with which, despite a multitude of affairs, he visited his mother’s apartments several times each day; later they saw his tenderness for his children, his solicitude for their health and rearing—no matter who their mother had been. He had more sympathy for individuals than for nations; he could make war upon the inoffensive Dutch, and order the devastation of the Palatinate, but he grieved at the death of the Dutch Admiral de Ruyter, who had inflicted defeats upon the French navy; and his pity for the dethroned queen and son of James II cost him the worst of his wars.
He seems seriously to have believed that he was ordained by God to govern France, and with absolute power. He could of course quote Scripture to his purpose, and Bossuet was happy to show him that both the Old and the New Testament upheld the divine right of kings. The memoirs* which he prepared for the guidance of his son informed him that “God appoints kings the sole guardians of the public weal,” and that they “are God’s vicars here below.” For the proper exercise of their divine functions they need unlimited authority; hence they should have “full and free liberty to dispose of all property, whether in the hands of the clergy or the laity.” 32 He did not say, “L’état, c’est moi,” but he believed it in all simplicity. The people do not appear to have resented these assumptions, which Henry IV had made popular in reaction against social chaos; they even looked up to this royal youth with religious devotion, and took a collective pride in his magnificence and power; the only alternative they knew was feudal fragmentation and arrogance. After the tyranny of Richelieu, the disorder of the Fronde, and the peculations of Mazarin, the middle and lower classes welcomed the centralized power and leadership of a “legitimate” ruler who seemed to promise order, security, and peace.
He gave e
xpression to his absolutism when, in 1665, the Parlement of Paris wished to discuss some of his decrees. He drove from Vincennes in hunting dress, entered the hall in top boots, whip in hand, and said, “The misfortunes that your assemblies have brought about are well known. I order you to break up this assembly which has met to discuss my decrees. Monsieur le Premier Président, I forbid you to allow these meetings, and any single one of you to demand them.” 33 The function of the Parlement as a superior court was taken over by a royal Conseil Privé always subject to the King.
The place of the nobles in the government was radically changed. They furnished the dress and glamour of the court and the army, but they seldom held administrative posts. The leading nobles were invited to leave their estates through most of the year and live at the court—most of them in their Paris hôtels, or mansions, the greater of them in the royal palaces as royal guests; hence the acres of apartments at Versailles. If they refused the invitation they could expect no favors from the King. The nobles were exempt from taxation, but they were required, in time of crisis, to rush back to their rural châteaux, organize and equip their retainers, and lead them to join the army. The tedium of court life made them relish war. They were expensive idlers, but their bravery in battle became a compulsion of their caste. Custom and etiquette forbade them to engage in commerce or finance—though they took tolls on trade passing through their lands, and borrowed freely from the bankers. Their estates were worked by sharecroppers (métayers), who paid them a part of the produce and rendered them various feudal services and dues. The seigneur was expected to maintain local order, justice, and charity; in some localities he did this reasonably well, and was respected by the peasants; in others he gave a poor return for his privileges, and his long absences at court undermined the humanizing intimacy of master and man. Louis forbade the private wars of feudal factions, and put an end, for a time, to dueling, which had revived during the Fronde—and had become doubly serious, since seconds as well as principals fought and killed, and cheated Mars of prey. Gramont reckoned nine hundred deaths from dueling in nine years (1643–52). 34 Perhaps one cause of the frequent wars was the desire to provide an outlet, at the expense of foreigners, for domestic pugnacity and pride.