The Project Gutenberg EBook of Memoirs Of Jean Francois Paul De Gondi, Cardinal De Retz, Volume IV., by Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

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Title: Memoirs Of Jean Francois Paul De Gondi, Cardinal De Retz, Volume IV. Being Historic Court Memoirs of the Great Events during the Minority of Louis XIV. and the Administration of Cardinal Mazarin

Author: Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

Release Date: September 29, 2006 [EBook #3845]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARDINAL DE RETZ ***

Produced by David Widger

MEMOIRS OF JEAN FRANCOIS PAUL de GONDI,
CARDINAL DE RETZ

Written by Himself

Being Historic Court Memoirs of the Great Events during the Minority of Louis XIV. and the Administration of Cardinal Mazarin.

Contents:
   BOOK IV.
   BOOK V.

BOOK IV.

In December, 1651, the Parliament agreed to the following resolution: To send a deputation to the King to inform him of the rumours of Mazarin's return, and to beseech him to confirm the royal promise which he had made to his people upon that head; to forbid all governors to give the Cardinal passage; to desire the King to acquaint the Pope and other Princes with the reasons that had obliged him to remove the Cardinal; and to send to all the Parliaments of the kingdom to make the like decree.

Somebody making a motion that a price might be set upon the Cardinal's head, I and the rest of the spiritual councillors retired, because clergymen are forbidden by the canon law to give their vote in cases of life and death.

They agreed also to send deputies to the King to entreat him to write to the Elector of Cologne to send the Cardinal out of his country, and to forbid the magistrates of all cities to entertain any troops sent to favour his return or any of his kindred or domestics. A certain councillor who said, very judiciously, that the soldiers assembling for Mazarin upon the frontiers would laugh at all the decrees of Parliament unless they were proclaimed to them by good musketeers and pikemen, was run down as if he had talked nonsense, and all the clamour was that it belonged only to the King to disband soldiers.

The Duc d'Orleans acquainted the House, on the 29th, that Cardinal Mazarin had arrived at Sedan; that Marechals de Hoquincourt and de la Ferte were gone to join him with their army to bring him to Court; and that it was high time to oppose his designs. Upon this it was immediately resolved that deputies should be despatched forthwith to the King; that the Cardinal and all his adherents should be declared guilty of high treason; that the common people should be commanded to treat them as such wherever they met them; that his library and all his household goods should be sold, and that 150,000 livres premium should be given to any man who should deliver up the said Cardinal, either dead or alive. Upon this expression all the ecclesiastics retired, for the reason above mentioned.

A new decree was passed on the 2d of January, 1652, wherein it was decided that all the Parliaments of France should be invited to issue their decrees against Mazarin, conformable to the last; that two more councillors should be added to the four sent to guard the rivers and to arm the common people; and that the troops of the Duc d'Orleans should oppose the march of Mazarin.

On the 24th the deputies who had been to Poitiers to remonstrate with the King against the return of the Cardinal, made their report in Parliament, to the effect that his Majesty, after having consulted with the Queen and her Council, returned for answer, that without doubt, when the Parliament issued their late decrees, they did not know that Cardinal Mazarin had made no levy of soldiers but by his Majesty's express orders; that it was he who commanded him to enter France with his troops, and that therefore the King did not resent what the company had done; but that, on the other hand, he did not doubt that when they had heard the circumstances he had just mentioned, and knew, moreover, that Cardinal Mazarin only desired an opportunity to justify himself, they would not fail to give all his subjects an exemplary proof of the obedience they owed to him. The Parliament was highly provoked, and next day resolved to admit no more dukes, peers, nor marshals of France till the Cardinal had left the kingdom.

Mazarin, arriving at Court again, persuaded the King to go to Saumur, though others advised him to march to Guienne against the Prince de Conde, with whom the Duc d'Orleans was now resolved to join forces. The King went from Saumur to Tours, where the Archbishop of Rouen carried complaints to the King, in the name of the bishops there, against the decrees of Parliament relating to the Cardinal.

The Duc d'Orleans complained in Parliament against the inconsistency of their proceedings, and said the King had sent him carte blanche in order to oblige him to consent to the restoration of the Cardinal, but that nothing would ever cause him to do it, nor to act apart from the Parliament. Yet their unaccountable proceedings perplexed him beyond expression, so that he commanded, or rather permitted, M. de Beaufort to put his troops in action. And because I told him that, considering the declarations he had so often repeated against Mazarin, I thought his conduct in setting his troops in motion against him did not add so much to the measure of the disgust he had already given to the Court that he need to apprehend much from it, he gave me for answer these memorable words which I have reflected upon a thousand times: "If you," said he, "had been born a Son of France, an Infante of Spain, a King of Hungary, or a Prince of Pales, you would not talk as you do. You must know that, with us Princes, words go for nothing, but that we never forget actions. By to-morrow noon the Queen would not remember my declarations against the Cardinal if I would admit him tomorrow morning; but if my troops were to fire a musket she would not forgive me though we were to live two thousand years hence."

In February, 1652, I was made a cardinal, and was to receive the hat, as all French cardinals do, from the King. My enemies, who thought to ruin my credit with the Duc d'Orleans, gave out that I had been obliged to the Court for my dignity, attacked me in form as a secret favourer of Mazarin, and, while their emissaries gained over such of the dregs of the people as they could corrupt by money, they were supported by all the intrigues of the Cabinet. But the Duke, who knew better, only laughed at them; so that they confirmed me in his good opinion, instead of supplanting me, because in cases of slander every reflection that does not hurt the person attacked does him service. I said to the Duke that I wondered he was not wearied out with the silly stories that were told him every day against me, since they all harped upon one string; but he said, "Do you take no account of the pleasure one takes every morning in hearing how wicked men are under the cloak of religious zeal, and every night how silly they are under the mask of politicians?"

The servants of the Prince de Conde gave out such stories against me among the populace as were likely to have done me much more