for the increase of the royal power at home. All his vast abilities were devoted to enlarging the power of the French crown, while he made its actual wearer one of his most obedient servants, not out of love, but out of fear and helplessness. He allowed the king a personal friend, generally an insignificant youth; but, as soon as the king and his companion showed any signs of a wish to shake off the yoke, the favourite was sure to fall, and the loss was borne with strange indifference. But Lewis was quite untainted with the usual royal vices; he was religious and conscientious, and failed only from want of capacity and sluggishness of feeling which made him hard and dull.

28. The Siege of Rochelle, 1626.-In 1625 the king's sister Henrietta Maria was married to Charles the First of England. George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who came over to bring the bride to England, gave great offence at court by his presumptuous behaviour towards the queen. He then set on foot secret negotiations with the Duke of Rohan, the leading Huguenot noble, and his party were encouraged by the promise of the help of an English force. Troops could easily be landed on the western coast as long as Rochelle was in possession of the Calvinists. Buckingham actually brought a fleet, which took the little island of Rhé as a stronghold whence to throw succours into Rochelle. On this the king and cardinal set forth to besiege the place, while Buckingham went back to England for reinforcements. The fortifications were admirable, and the besieged resisted nobly, encouraged by the Duke of Rohan and his mother, who shared the dangers and privations of the people with the greatest constancy. The cardinal on his side was equally determined; he blockaded the city on the land side, and caused a mole to be built across the harbour to cut it off from aid by sea, a work which lasted far on into the next year. Buckingham was embarking to bring relief, when he was murdered, and the hundred vessels sent under the Earl of Lindsey only arrived after the mole was finished. They could attempt nothing, and could only try to obtain favourable terms for the Rochellois. The lives of the besieged were granted, but the old freedom of the city was taken away, and Catholic worship was restored in the principal churches, though Calvinism was still tolerated. But Richelieu could congratulate himself on having taken away a source of disunion, weakness, and disaffection in the kingdom, whose removal was absolutely necessary

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for his plans. This was in truth the end of the sixty years of desolating religious wars. Huguenots were still numerous, especially in the South; but with the taking of Rochelle their political importance ended. The Church of France was also infinitely improved. Men of great piety and talent were working hard to purify her clergy, and doing wonderful deeds of charity. Thus many of the conscientious and high-minded among the Huguenot nobility were converted, while many others became Catholics from less worthy motives.

CHAPTER VIII

POWER OF THE CROWN.

1. The Mantuan War, 1628.-Just as the wars with England had resulted in the increase of the strength of the crown of France, so the Huguenot wars had broken the strength of the nobles and of many of the cities. The king could not but reap the benefit when all his interests were in the hands of such a man as Richelieu, who deemed it his highest duty to gather all power in the hands of the sovereign. He himself was ruler in the king's name, hated by every one, but felt to be indispensable. He did not fear to revive the old national policy of resistance to the House of Austria. On the death of the Duke of Mantua, the heir to his duchy was Charles of Gonzaga, the head of a branch of that family which held the duchy of Nevers and had become wholly French. But both the King of Spain and the Emperor were alike bent on preventing any French prince from again getting a footing in Italy; the Spanish garrison of Milan therefore seized Mantua, and Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, was encouraged to set up a claim to Montferrat, so that Casal alone was left to the Duke of Nevers. No sooner had Rochelle surrendered than Lewis XIII. and Richelieu hurried to relieve Casal. And as a Spanish and a German army advanced at the same time, unfortunate Savoy was so wasted between them that the duke is said to have died of grief in 1630. Moreover the plague broke out, and so reduced all the armies that all parties were glad to

accept the mediation of the Pope, Urban VIII., and to leave Charles of Nevers to enjoy his duchy of Mantua.

2. Rebellion of Gaston of Orleans, 1632.-Richelieu's power over the king was hateful to all. The queen mother Mary de' Medici, the king's brother Gaston, Duke of Orleans, called Monsieur, and Henry, Duke of Montmorency, all were bent on overthrowing it. But the cardinal's strength lay in the king's helplessness, and, when Mary bade her son choose between his mother and his servant, she found herself forced to go into banishment, and died in great poverty. Her son Gaston had lost his wife, the heiress of Montpensier, at the birth of a daughter, and, being offended at a refusal to let him marry one of the Gonzaga family, he bound himself and Montmorency, with other foes of the cardinal, to rise and free the king. Help was looked for from both branches of the House of Austria. Gaston then fled to Lorraine, and there married Margaret, daughter of Duke Charles III. He then entered Burgundy with a hired force, and put forth a manifesto calling on the people to rise against the tyranny of the cardinal. Not a single person joined him till he reached Languedoc, where Montmorency thought his honour pledged to rise in his cause. There was no time for aid to come from Spain; a French army watched the borders of Lorraine, and Gaston and Montmorency fought a hopeless battle at Castelnaudry with the royal forces. Montmorency was taken, severely but not mortally wounded, so that he was made a signal instance of the cardinal's severity. He was beheaded on the 30th of October, 1632, and was much mourned, for this rebellion had been his only crime, and he was the last of a brave family. Gaston, who was still heir to the crown, was spared, but was allowed to live in retirement with crippled means. He withdrew for a while to the Netherlands. He was too weak and cowardly ever again to do much mischief, and in 1639 the birth of a dauphin, and two years later of another prince, relieved France from the fear of falling into his hands.

3. Share of France in the Thirty Years War, 1638.All this time Germany was rent by the Thirty Years War. Richelieu followed the old policy of siding with the focs of the House of Austria, but as yet without taking up arms. But when the campaigns of Gustavus Adolphus, followed up by the successes of Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar and the defection of Wallenstein, had weakened the Emperor

Ferdinand II., the cardinal prevented the war from dying out by promising aid to the Protestants. Presently he found a pretext for declaring war. In 1635 the Spaniards entered Trier, and made the Archbishop, who was an ally of France, prisoner. The Prince of Condé marched into the Low Countries, but was driven back by the imperial forces, which ravaged Picardy and threatened Paris. This roused the spirit of the French, and the invaders were forced to retreat before the winter. Still the war was at first a great strain on France. Three armies had to be kept on foot at the same time, in the Low Countries, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, all without any marked success. Gradually however the Duke of Lorraine was so reduced that in 1642 he came to make his peace at Paris; the king's sister Christine, who was regent of Savoy for her son Charles Emmanuel II., likewise made peace. Germany was exhausted by one of the most savage wars that ever was waged, and again peace was talked of, but Richelieu had not gained all he wished, and persevered. A revolt in Catalonia enabled him to attack Spain itself, and he ordered Perpignan to be besieged in the same year. The king set off to be present, and Richelieu followed slowly, almost in a dying state, though as fiercely watchful as ever.

4. The Conspiracy of Cinq Mars, 1642.—The present favourite of the king was the Marquis of Cinq Mars, a youth who seemed merely vain and frivolous, but whose mind was full of the example of Luynes. Knowing how weary the king was of Richelieu, he meant to make a bold stroke to break his fetters. He had drawn into the scheme his friend De Thou, a man hitherto of high character. Again the king was concerned in a plot against his own prime minister, and favoured plans which were supported not only by the disgraced Dukes of Orleans and Bouillon, but by the Spaniards themselves. It is not known how Richelieu discovered the plot; but he acted at once. Cinq Mars was arrested, so were Bouillon and De Thou, and Gaston was threatened till, as usual, he betrayed everything. Cinq Mars and De Thou were tried by the Parliament of Lyons and beheaded together, exciting much pity, while Richelieu was proportionably hated.

5. Death of Richelieu, 1642.-So ill was the cardinal that he could only travel in a huge litter, borne by eighteen of his guards, bareheaded. Breaches had to be made in the walls to admit it into the towns as he returned from

Lyons to Paris. For six weeks longer he ruled with the same might and skill as ever, guiding the course of the armies, and fixing the government not only as it was to be after his own death, but after that of the king, whose health, never strong, was fast failing. The Duke of Orleans was not only declared incapable of being regent, but was deprived of his province of Auvergne and of his troops, so as never to be able to attempt further mischief. As his own successor Richelieu seems to have recommended Julius Mazzarini, a sharp-witted Italian priest, whom he had trained to understand his policy, namely the exaltation of the crown of France, at all costs. That policy Richelieu had carried out with unflinching sternness, and with ability which has seldom been rivalled. He had trodden down all human rights, whether of single persons, of bodies of men, or nations; but he viewed all this as the simple duty of the prime-minister of France. When the last sacraments were brought to him, he said, "Behold my Judge, before whom I shall soon appear; I pray Him to condemn me if I ever meant aught save the welfare of religion and the state." In this confidence he died on the 4th of December, 1642. He had greatly promoted trade, husbandry, and learning, and he is looked on as a kind of second founder of the great theological college of the Sorbonne. His use of Church patronage was often conscientious, and he encouraged the attempts that were being made to raise the tone of the clergy. The French Academy, which has had so great an influence on taste and literature, was founded by him. But all the benefits of his administration were outweighed by the evils of the overgrown power which he had gained for the crown, and the destruction of almost every check on the royal will. The nobility, deprived of all employments that could train them in wholesome public spirit, had no career open to them but that of soldiers or courtiers, and received pensions from the treasury, which was filled solely from the earnings of the burghers and peasants.

6. Accession of Lewis XIV., 1643.—Mazarin carried on the government after Richelieu's death, while Lewis XIII. was wasting away, until he died on the 14th of May, 1643. He was perhaps the weakest and most helpless man who ever had a brilliant and successful reign. He was succeeded by his eldest son, a child of five years old, who was afterwards famous as Lewis the Fourteenth. His mother, Anne of Austria, the last of the queens regent of