La Grande Mademoiselle

So, with the canaille hailing her, she reached the Luxembourg, turned and recrossed the river, firm in her power as the Princess of the people. She had seen the barricades, and the sight was to influence her life.

She returned to the Tuileries in a glow not of triumph, – she had never doubted the people, – but she had passed the barriers raised by the people against her enemies, and the people had confirmed her right to rule, while the Regent trembled!

The Granddaughter of France was the real head of the people, and as the faëries had been present at her baptism, obstacles and monsters vanished at her approach.

With tender pride the people watched her progress; their favour was never based upon reason; they did not ask why they loved the haughty Princess who called them "Knaves" and considered them fit for the scaffold or the fagots. She was their goddess, and whenever she appeared they fell at her feet and worshipped her.

The Court did not approve of Mademoiselle's democratic popularity. When she arrived at the Tuileries she was imprisoned in her room; but as the whole Court was imprisoned, and as no one dared to cross his threshold, she was not inclined to murmur. Upon the whole the situation pleased her. She watched the pale, frightened faces of the courtiers with secret joy. Until then the Court had taken the people's threats for jests, but the barricades had opened their eyes to the danger of their position; the mob was at the palace gates, and no one knew how soon it would be in the palace! Mademoiselle was in high spirits. Standing at her open window, she watched the people; they were massed upon the quays eating and drinking by the light of little bonfires; many of them stretched out upon the ground where they could watch her and slept there until morning.

The night was calm, but Mademoiselle said of the day which followed it:

Early in the morning I was awakened by the Long Roll; the troops were starting to take back the Tour-de-Nesle, which some of the wretches had captured. I sprang from my bed and looked out of my window; it was not long before they came back; some of them were wounded, and I was seized with great fear and pity.

The canaille crowded the rue des Tuileries; the men carried swords, and they did it so awkwardly that Mademoiselle laughed at them.

The courtiers were prisoners; all the streets were barricaded with wine-butts filled with earth and with manure. Given time, skilled workmen could not have raised a more effective obstacle; it was good work, well done, and as a symbol of the strength and the intention of the people it was redoubtable.

The barricades of the Fronde, floating the old banners of the League, had evoked the past and touched the revolutionary current in the abandoned souls of the Parisians. Retz claimed that his hand fired the powder, and to do him justice, though his Memoirs make a great deal of the part that he played in the Fronde, they tell less than the truth. He might have said without boasting that he held Paris in the hollow of his hand. He had worked hard to acquire the power by which he bent the people to his will. Vincent de Paul had been his tutor, and Retz had been an unworthy pupil; he had remembered but one of Père Vincent's many lessons of brotherly love. His mind had seized the warning: "Know that the people is a Being, to be considered; not an inanimate object to be ignored," and from that simple precept he had deduced utilitarian conclusions fitted for his personal service, and drawn from them a plan for his own conduct. The principle of man's humanity had given him his idea. He had based his system on the susceptibility of men to the influence of intelligent suggestion, and by the judicious warmth of his sympathy he had surrounded himself with just such elements as his plan required.

This young Abbé Retz was the coadjutor of his uncle, the Archbishop of Paris. He was of an excellent family. He was astute, and, having decided to turn the people to account, he applied his mind to the task of learning the opinions of the lockpickers and ruffians of the city. His office gave him the right to go everywhere and to be seen in all company. He frequented the cellars and the garrets, he fraternised with the cut-throats, he distributed alms, and as equivalent for what he gave received instruction in the magic vocabulary of the men who shut the streets of a city as easily as a warder shuts a door; he studied the ways of the canaille seven years, living hand-in-glove and cheek-by-jole with the men of the dens; he studied his world as he studied the policy of the ministry and the face of the Queen; and when he felt that the footing of the Court was insecure he broke away from Royalty and put into action the science of the cut-throats. To act the part of Marius or Coriolanus before the people was to satisfy an ambition which had haunted him since he had first read Plutarch. Retz was the type of the hero of romance at a time when Corneille met his models in the public streets.

He cared more to excite the admiration of the masses than to acquire position or money; he was influenced more by passionate love of brilliant and extraordinary exploits than by ambition, because he knew that his exploits made the people admire him. In his opinion an out-and-out adventure was worth more than all else, and no condition seemed to him as desirable as the life of a conspirator. He was called le petit Catilina, and the title pleased him better than any other. His "popolo," collectively and individually, gloried in him, understood him, trusted him, and sympathised with him in all his longings. He was at home and at ease and as safe as in the archiepiscopal palace in the most dangerous of their dens.

He was the subject of all species of critical judgments; La Rochefoucauld and Saint Simon spoke admiringly of his "prodigious genius." Anne of Austria called him a "factionist." Mazarin, who as he loved neither virtue nor vice, could not judge justly of one of Plutarch's heroes, did not like Retz; but he feared him. Mademoiselle said in her memoirs: "The Cardinal tells me that he believes that Retz has a black soul." People who knew no better laughed at the Archbishop's nephew, and Retz involuntarily fostered their delusion. His swarthy face, crooked legs, and near-sighted awkwardness were well fitted to call forth the gayety of light-minded courtiers. To add to his questionable appearance, he robed himself in the costumes of a cavalier; his doublets and other garments were of gaudy stuffs, belaced and bedecked with baubles which were in all respects, and without any qualifying reservation, beneath the notice of a serious or an appreciative gentleman. His personal carriage (a prancing and tiptoeing swagger) impressed strangers with the idea that he was an unfortunate ballet-master whose troubles had dethroned his reason. But there are men upon the earth who are so constituted that they can support all the ridicule that can be heaped upon them; Retz was one of them; the fact that he was pleasing to women proves it.

While this enterprising episcopal agitator was engaged in earnest contemplation of the first effects of the mischief that he had made in his own quarter (the quarter of Notre Dame) the Parisians were preparing for battle; the fathers were polishing their muskets, the children were sharpening their pocket-knives. But Paris was calm, the rioters had gone back to the faubourgs. The streets were clear between the Tuileries and the Palais Royal, and Mademoiselle paid a visit to the Queen. She was in the Queen's salon when the Parliamentary deputation arrived, acting under stern orders from "the nation's depths," to demand the release of Broussel. Anne of Austria was angry; she refused the demand and the deputies went back to the bourgeoisie. They were not gone long; Mademoiselle was still with the Queen when they returned with the people's ultimatum: The people will have Monsieur Broussel! Anne of Austria was not dull and every possible contingency had been covered by her astute mentor. She ordered Broussel's release and the deputies departed, calm but triumphant.

Mathieu Molé negotiated the release, and while he talked to the Queen a member of Parliament, accompanying him, explained the political situation to Mademoiselle. The deputy's discourse was a clear statement of ugly facts and their consequences; it gave Mademoiselle an insight into the reasons and the secret views of the magistrates. The canaille spoke so loud that all the world could hear; the people's messengers held their heads as high as the nobles. As Mademoiselle watched "the long robes" file out of the royal presence she realised that all the riots and all the menaces had been but the beginning; she knew that the time was coming when, married or not married, every woman in France would be given her chance to do her duty.

When Broussel returned to the people the barricades disappeared; but the canaille was still nervous; a practical joker cried out that the Queen was preparing another Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, and the old muskets followed by the pocket-knives rushed into the streets. Another joker said that the Queen of Sweden with her army was at the gates of Saint Denis, and a prolonged roar was heard and the mob filled the streets and began to pillage. So, amidst alarms and alternations of hope and fear, the days passed for a time. The people of Paris rioted, then returned to their wretched homes. Whatever the day had been, the night brought vigilance. All slept dressed, ready for action. Mademoiselle, who was everywhere at once, was not afraid. When the canaille growled the loudest she went her way. She was happy; she revelled in sound and in movement and in the fears of the Court. At a ball in the rue Saint Antoine she heard shots fired all night and "danced to the music of the guns."

The Queen was anxious to be far from Paris; Mazarin too craved rest; but the royal habit of carrying about all the furniture of the household made secret escape difficult. The people were watching the Palais Royal; they were determined that the Queen should not leave them. Nevertheless the Court decided to make the attempt.

Apparently there had been no change at the royal palace; the roast-hasteners and the soup-skimmers were in their places, and all the mouth-servants were watching with ears pricked to hear the first whisper of an order, ready to hand water or to run at the beck and call of the myrmidons of the myrmidons. In the streets around the palace lounged the people, silent and sullen, giving vent to angry criticisms or watching for "tall Mademoiselle." Mademoiselle appeared frequently at her windows, and the people greeted her with friendly cries. Paris was calm; the silent river, bearing its gilded galleys, its charlatans, jugglers, serenaders, and shouting and singing river-men, ran by under its bridges as it had always run; the Parisians laughed at their own suspicions; one group left its post, then another, and thus, gradually relaxing their vigilance, the King's warders returned to their homes. The 12th September, before daylight, a few wains loaded with furniture crept away from the Palais Royal and took the road to Rueil. At daybreak the more suspicious of the Parisians approached the palace and watched and listened. Evidently the royal life was still progressing in regular order. The following morning before Paris was awake the young King was drawn from his bed, dressed, carried out into the courtyard, hidden in a coach, and set upon the road taken by the furniture. Mazarin accompanied him. Anne of Austria, "as the most valiant" (to quote the words of Mme. de Motteville) remained in the palace to cover the retreat of her Minister. In the course of the morning she was seen in various parts of Paris; that evening she vanished as the King and the Cardinal had done before her.

The royal flight deflected Paris. The members of Parliament reproached themselves for their excess of severity. They made overtures to the Queen.

It was believed that Anne of Austria, assured of the safety of her little brood, would reopen some of her old foreign correspondence and attempt to avenge her wrongs. Broussel had been released against her will – the city had raised the barricades – the Minister was an Italian and the Queen was anything but French! Paris prepared for the worst. Whence would the trouble come, from Spain or from England?

Parliament continued to send deputies to Saint Germain, but the Queen was obdurate. All business was suspended; people slept in their clothes; the bourgeois hid their money. The courtiers, who had remained in their palaces, hurried away followed by their furniture; and the evil faces which appear in Paris on the eve of a revolution were seen all over the city. The wains carrying the courtiers' furniture were pillaged, and the pillagers sacked the bakeries. Parliament had seized the reins of State, but the Parliamentary sessions resembled the stormy meetings of the existing Chamber. Personal interests and the interests of the coteries had entered politics. After a deplorable day in Parliament Olivier d'Ormesson noted sadly in his journal: "The public welfare is now used only as a pretext for avenging private wrongs."

Mademoiselle's feelings in regard to the events of the day were varied; they could not be wholly pleasant, for there was nothing in the revolt of the people to tempt the imagination of a personage fully convinced that the King was the deputy of God. The first Fronde was an outburst of despair provoked by an excess of public anguish. Yet Mademoiselle considered it the adventure of a party of agitators. The preceding century France had been an exceedingly rich country. Under Richelieu Monsieur had depicted it in a state of famine, and in the early days of the Regency, and later, when foreign nations were lauding Mazarin's diplomacy, the people of Paris were perishing from every form of squalid misery. The State paid out its moneys without counting them, lent at usurious interest, and gave the notes of its creditors to its note-holders, the bankers; the note-holders fell upon the debtors like brigands; the taxes were collected by armed men. Wherever the tax-gatherer had passed the land was bare, cattle, tools, carts, household furniture, and all the personal property of the victims of the State had been seized; the farmers had nothing to eat, nothing to sleep on, no shelter; they were homeless and hopeless; they had but one alternative: to go out upon the highways, and, in their turn, force a living from the passers-by at the point of the knife. Through the brigandage of the note-holders every year added a strip of abandoned ground to the waste lands of France.

The nation had turned honest men into thieves and pariahs.

Barillon raised his voice and the grave opened to receive him. Broussel was saved, but his salvation precipitated the catastrophe. The Queen had fled, abducting the King. The national Treasury was empty; affairs were desperate, and Parliament, its honour menaced, decided upon a measure which, had it been successfully effected, would have changed the course of French history.

England had inaugurated a successful political method by giving the nation a Constitution, and by introducing in France the orderly system with which the House of Commons had endowed England. With that end in view the magistrates and all the officials, who had paid for their offices, tried to seize the legislative and financial power of the State. They thought that by that means they could bring the royal authority to terms, and make the national Government an honest executive and guardian of the people's rights, – in the words of the reformers, "make it what it should be, to reign as it ought to reign."129

The nation, individually, approved the Parliamentary initiative. Each citizen, courtier, or man of the lower order urged on the scheme. Some applauded because they wished for the good of France. Others looked forward to "fishing in troubled waters." All knew that a great deal of business could be done under cover of the excitement attendant upon national disturbances. They who had no need of money and no thought of financial speculation hoped that their personal schemes might be advanced by a national crisis. Mademoiselle was of the latter class. She had decided to unite her acres and her millions with the fortunes of the King of France. Louis XIV. was ten years old. Anne-Marie-Louise was one and twenty, and she looked her age; her beauty was of the robust type which, mildly speaking, is not of a character to make a woman look younger than her years. Her manners were easy and assured. To the child who had so recently been dandled upon her knee the tall cousin was neither more nor less than the dreaded though respectable daughter of his uncle; the young King shrank from her. Mademoiselle suspected that he feared rather than loved her, and although her flatterers had told her that age was not an obstacle among people of her rank,130 she was troubled by a presentiment that she should not be able to capture that particular husband unless she could carry him off by force; the thought unhinged all her political convictions; but the enterprises of Parliament gave promise of utility. Her memoirs show that she studied the situation from every point of view, and that a conflict raged within her breast. At times she believed that a public disturbance would be favourable to her interests; at other times she was worried by the thought of the inconveniences attendant upon war. One day she approved the designs of Parliament; the next day she indignantly denounced the subjects who had attempted to circumscribe the authority of the King. She adapted to the royal situation all the maxims derived from the "Divine Right," yet she rejoiced at all the errors of the Court.

She had errors in plenty to sustain her courage; the situation was so false that anything but error would have been impossible. Married or not married, Anne of Austria allowed herself a dangerous latitude; Mazarin did not protect her, she protected and defended him; to her mind all that he did was charming; she glanced knowingly at her courtiers if he opened his mouth or if he moved his hand. Her eyes beamed upon him with familiar meaning, and while he talked her arch smiles asked the Court if her Chief of Council was not a prince among men and the flower of ministers. She would have been happy in a hovel had she been able to fix him stably among his precious ancient draperies and the thousands of rare objects with which he had surrounded his handsome form. Mazarin had feathered his nest à l'Italien, and the style was by far too superfine for the times and for the taste of France. The gossips of the royal domestic offices had circulated the intimate details of the royal life. The public knew all about the favourite; they knew what he wore, what he ate, and what he did; and they thought of him as always at play with small, strangely rare animals, as graceful, as handsome, and as highly perfumed as their master. In imagination they saw Mazarin steeped in sloth, battening on the public funds, and nourishing his soft beauty by the aid of secrets of the toilet of his own invention. Anne of Austria did not care what the people thought. She delighted in Mazarin. She was happy because she had been able to lay the nation at his feet. The people said that she had laid them under his feet, and they declared with curses that it should not be.

Mazarin had rendered France incalculable services, but no one thanked him or did him justice. No one understood the work that he had accomplished. Paris knew nothing of foreign affairs. The people's minds were engrossed by the local misery, and so little interest was taken in politics that when the Peace of Westphalia was signed no one in France noticed it although the world classed it among great historical events.131

Paris knew more of the King's scullions than of Mazarin's diplomacy. The King's cousin: Mademoiselle la Princesse Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, – fit bride for any king! must remain upon the stocks to pleasure "the Queen's thief."

The King, also, was the victim of the foreigner.

There was little in the royal larder, and that little was not equally distributed; the cohorts of the kitchen had made more than one strong personal drive in the King's interest. The wilful head with its floating veil of curls, the pouting mouth and tear-dimmed eyes were the oriflamme of the cooks' pantries. "Monsieur le Cardinal had forty little fishes132 on his platter! I only had two on mine!" wailed the young monarch, and the cooks' corps rose in a body to defend the "Divine Right."

"Ma foi!" growled the bourgeois, "but he has toupet, that one! he makes himself master of the King's mother, takes the food out of the King's mouth, and sets up his pomade-pots in the King's house!" The people knew that, if they knew nothing of Westphalia; the handsome fop had eclipsed the diplomatist.

The people called Mazarin "the pomade inventor" and "moustache of the paste-pots" (not to cite their grosser expressions). When the mob cried: Vive le Roi! Retz heard echo answer: Mais point de Mazarin! The Queen was like all women deep in love; she wondered why people blamed her.

Her anger embittered the situation, but after making many futile attempts Parliament persuaded her to resume her duties and (the last day of October) the King, the Queen, the Court, and the retinue, followed by loaded vans, passed through the suburbs homeward bound. Before they reached the city they saw that public feeling had changed. The people had lost their respect for the Court. No one cared either for the Queen or for her Minister. The canaille hummed significant songs and cast bold glances at the mature lovers; the courtiers' eyes furtively lingered upon the walls where coarsely worded posters accused the Queen of her delinquencies. Anne of Austria was brave. She entered Paris with cheeks aflame but with head high. She would change all that! Parliament had urged her to return…

Time passed and the general attitude retained its flippancy. At Court all were counting the cost and planning how they could best turn the coming misfortunes of the Crown to their own profit; écus, dignities, offices, benefits of all kinds, would be within the gift of the new administration. The great were prepared for the emergency. Retz had driven his curés over to the opposition. La Rochefoucauld had urged Mme. de Longueville after the clerical sheep and Conti after her. Anne of Austria's patience was at an end; she had no one to advise her; after she had assured herself that the Condés would sustain her, she set out to the Luxembourg. Monsieur was in the agonies of one of the diplomatic attacks to which he was subject; no one knew whether his pains were real or feigned. He was in bed. He had not changed since the days of Richelieu; he was the same light-hearted, nervous, and bold poltroon, but his intellect was keen, he charmed strangers, he was pleasing even to those who knew him best. Though the Queen was used to his arts, she was dazed by the flood of words with which he welcomed her. From tender anxiety for her well-being he passed to the real anxiety of well-defined personal terror. Then, without stopping to take breath, he gave vent to such sentimental emotions that when Anne of Austria told her errand he had neither the face nor the force to refuse her prayer. She begged him to conduct the King out of Paris secretly, and – "By the faith of Monsieur!" he swore that he would do it.

This second flight was fixed for the night between the 5th-6th January. It was agreed that they should retire to Saint Germain, although there was no furniture in the château. Nothing could be sent out this time – the palace was full of spies – the people were on the watch! Let the furniture follow! Fatality must see to that! Mazarin bought two small camp-beds and sent them to Saint Germain; he left to Providence the task of providing for the rest.

The night of the 5th January Anne of Austria went to bed at her habitual hour for retiring. When she was assured that all the people of the palace were asleep she arose and confided her secret to her femme-de-chambre who awakened the servants, whom she could not do without. At three o'clock they took the King and little Monsieur from their beds and dressed them in their warmest garments. The Queen then led the children down an abandoned flight of steps which opened on the garden. It was moonlight and the cold was stinging. The royal family, followed by one femme-de-chambre and a few officers, passed out of the garden by the small door opening into the rue Richelieu. In the street they found two coaches waiting for them. They reached the Cours la Reine, which had been chosen for the general meeting-place, without difficulty; no one had arrived, and they waited. Mazarin had passed the evening at a soirée; at the appointed hour he entered his carriage and drove straight to the Cours la Reine. Monsieur and Condé had been with Mazarin all the evening, but instead of going directly to the Cours they hurried to their homes to prepare their unconscious families. Mme. de Longueville refused to leave her bed; she declared that she would never abandon Paris. Monsieur awakened his wife; she believed that she was dying, and her cries aroused the children; Monsieur had three infant daughters,133 the eldest was two years and six months old; the youngest had attained the age of two months and fifteen days. The young Lorraines were vociferous, and mother and babes wept together; Gaston sang and whistled, laughed and grimaced. Finally when all the buckles had been adjusted, when the last limp arm had been introduced into its warm sleeve, the four helpless beings, struggling against the efforts of their natural leader, moved painfully through the dark passages of the Luxembourg into the little streets, and across the river. As the murmuring band passed the Tuileries a light struck in Mademoiselle's apartment illumined all the windows. Mademoiselle was rising at her own time! No need of haste for her, no need of secrecy! Her will was the people's law. At sight of the lighted windows the tears of the feeble wife flowed afresh.