Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin/Chapter IV

by Victor Cousin

CHAPTER IV.

August, 1643.

Conspiracy of Madame de Chevreuse and Beaufort against Mazarin.—La Rochefoucauld and Retz deny this Conspiracy.—Plan and Details of the whole Affair, as gathered from the Carnets and Letters of the Cardinal and the Memoirs of Henri de Campion.

We need not be very much surprised at such an enterprise on the part of these two women and of a grandson of Henri IV. At this great epoch of our history, between the League and the Fronde, strength and energy were the distinctive traits of the French aristocracy. Court life and an effeminate opulence had not yet enervated them. Every thing there was extreme, vice as well as virtue. They attacked their enemies and defended themselves with the same weapons. The Marshal d'Ancre had been murdered, and the assassination of Richelieu had been more than once attempted, while he never hesitated to erect scaffolds in his turn. Was the trial of the Marshal de Marillac at Ruel under the cardinal's own eyes, his condemnation without conclusive proof, and his cruel execution on the Place de Grêve, any thing else than a judicial assassination? Corneille faithfully portrays the society of the times. His Emilie also enters into an assassination, yet she is represented as none the less perfect a heroine for it. Madame de Chevreuse had long been accustomed to conspiracies; she was fearless and unscrupulous, and she had not leagued herself with Beaupuis, Saint-Ybar, Varicarville, and Campion merely to pass her time in idle conversation. She had not remained a stranger to the designs which they had formerly plotted against Riclielieu; in 1643, she fomented, as we have seen, their enthusiasm and devotion; and it is not without reason, we think, that Mazarin attributes to her the first idea of the project which was to have been accomplished by Beaufort.

As a matter of course, the Importants, and their successors, the Frondeurs, disavow this project, and give it out as an invention of the cardinal. This point is of the most vital importance, and merits a careful investigation. As it was this conspiracy, whether real or feigned, that decided the struggle between Madame de Chevreuse and Mazarin, history, under penalty of stopping at the surface of events and consenting to ignore their true causes, is bound to inquire whether Mazarin really owed the success of his whole career and the brilliant future which opened thenceforth before him to an ingenious and boldly maintained falsehood; or whether it was due to Madame de Chevreuse and the Importants, who, after having vainly essayed all other means against him, in an attempt to destroy him by the hand of the assassin, destroyed themselves and became unwittingly the instruments of his triumph. For ourselves, we are convinced, and we believe ourselves able to prove, that the conspiracy attributed to the Importants, far from being a chimera, was the almost inevitable denouement of the critical position which we have described.

La Rochefoucauld, without having shared in the insane hopes of his friends or lent his aid to their rash enterprise, makes it a point of honor to defend them^[1] after their overthrow, and to cover their retreat. He affects to doubt whether the conspiracy that caused so much noise was real or imaginary. In his eyes, the Duke de Beaufort, by an injudicious stroke of policy, attempted to make the cardinal take the alarm, believing that it would only be necessary to terrify him to induce him to quit France; and that it was with this view that he formed these assemblies and endeavored to give them an air of conspiracy. La Rochefoucauld especially constitutes himself the champion of Madame de Chevreuse, and professes himself fully persuaded that she was ignorant of the designs of the Duke de Beaufort. After the historian of the Importants, the memoirist of the Frondeurs holds nearly the same language. Like La Rochefoucauld, Retz has but one aim in his memoirs—that of giving himself a statesmanlike air, and of making a conspicuous figure in every thing, both good and evil. He is often more veracious, because he exercises less circumspection for others, and is more disposed to sacrifice everybody, himself excepted. We cannot comprehend his reserve or his incredulity in this instance. He knew very well that the most of those accused of having taken part in this plot had already been implicated in more than one similar affair. He has himself informed us that he had conspired with the Count de Soissons, that he had blamed him for not having struck Richelieu at Amiens, and that with La Rochepot, he, the Abbé de Retz, had formed the design of assassinating him at the Tuileries during the ceremony of the baptism of Mademoiselle. The coadjutorship of the archbishopric of Paris, which the regent had just granted him in consideration of the virtues and the services of his father, had pacified him, it is true, but his ancient accomplices, who had not been so well treated as he, had remained faithful to their cause, their designs, and their habits. Is Retz sincere when he refuses to believe that they attempted against Mazarin what he had seen them undertake and what he himself had undertaken against Richelieu? In his blind hatred, he throws all the blame on Mazarin, and pretends that he was or that he feigned to be afraid. According to him, it was the invention of Abbé de La Rivière, who, to deliver himself from the rivalry of the Count de Montrésor with the Duke d'Orleans, wished to persuade Mazarin that there was a conspiracy plotted against him in which Montrésor was concerned. It was also seconded by M. le Prince, who wished to destroy Beaufort in the fear that his son, the Duke d'Enghien, would engage in a duel with him, as he wished to do to avenge his sister, during the brief stay which he made in Paris after the capture of Thionville. Finally, Retz says: "The reason why I have never believed in this plot is that neither proof nor deposition indicative of it has ever been seen, although the greater part of the domestics of the household of the Vendômes have long been in prison. Vaumorin and Ganseville, to whom I have spoken of it a hundred times in the Fronde, have sworn to me that nothing could be more false: one of these was a captain of the guards, and the other, the equerry of M. de Beaufort.^[2]

We shall presently see these last reasons—the only ones which merit any attention—dissipate of themselves; but let us commence by opposing to the two suspicious opinions of Retz and La Rochefoucauld some most disinterested witnesses, above all, the silence of Montrésor,^[3] who, while protesting that neither he nor his friend, the Count de Bethune, had been implicated in the conspiracy imputed to the Duke de Beaufort, says not a single word against the reality of this conspiracy, which he would not have failed to ridicule had he believed it imaginary. Madame de Motteville, who is not in the habit of denouncing the unfortunate, after having related the different rumors of the court with impartiality, recounts some facts which seem authentic and decisive.^[4] One of the best informed and most veracious of the contemporary historians does not express here the least doubt: "The Importants," says Monglat, "seeing that they could not expel the cardinal, resolved to rid themselves of him by the sword, and held several councils for this purpose at the hôtel de Vendôme."^[5] This opinion is confirmed by the new and numerous accounts furnished us by the Carnets of Mazarin and his confidential letters.

Let us disprove the supposition of Retz, that Mazarin may have been somewhat afraid, or that he feigned to be terrified by the shadow of a conspiracy. As to the courage of Mazarin, we appeal to La Rochefoucauld himself: "Unlike the Cardinal de Richelieu, who had a fearless mind and a timid heart, the Cardinal Mazarin," says he, "has more fearlessness of heart than of mind."^[6] Mazarin had commenced as a soldier; he had given more than one proof of intrepidity, particularly at Casal, where he threw himself between two armies on the point of coming to blows. He doubtless studied to conjure down perils, but when he could not prevent them, he knew how to face them with firmness. Mazarin was not, therefore, a man to take alarm at false appearances; and, on the other hand, he had no need to feign imaginary fears, for the danger was certain; and, once more, in the constantly increasing progress of his credit with the queen, what resource remained to the Importants, except the enterprise which they had formerly attempted against Richelieu, and which they could easily renew against his successor? Mazarin had not as yet any guards, and he knew Madame de Chevreuse well enough to take in earnest the proposition which she had made in the cabals of the hôtel de Vendôme. Weigh well this consideration: in his Carnets, Mazarin is not on a stage; he is not writing for the public; he reveals his real feelings; and he is seen there, not intimidated, but aroused to a sense of his danger. He feels himself surrounded by assassins, and he is convinced that they are directed by Madame de Chevreuse. He follows all their movements, he gathers all their conversation, he collects the slightest proofs of their conspiracy, and he counts and names the chiefs and the soldiers.

"Madame de Chevreuse has brought in the brothers Campion."

"A host of men are brought in daily."

"Some enterprise is certainly on foot. They talk of surprising me in the Faubourg Saint Germain. They pretend to sell their horses in public and buy them in again in private.

"Plessis Besançon (a distinguished officer, commissary of stores and counsellor of state, and attached to Mazarin) says that more than forty armed men have been seen about the hôtel de Vendôme."

"M. de Bellegarde assures me that if I had not been in the carriage of his royal highness on my return from Maisons, Beaufort would have had me assassinated. The domestics of the Count d'Orval have seen twelve or fifteen men, armed with pistols, placed on three or four consecutive evenings between the hôtel de Créqui and their own in such a manner as easily to surprise and surround me."

"They have proposed to the Duke de Guise and his sons to assassinate me, but they would not listen to the proposal"

"L'Argentin met Beaufort and Beaupuis (the Count de Beaupuis, only son of the Count de Maillé) as they were returning from the Louvre, which the first had quitted when the queen retired to her oratory. 'My masters, there must certainly be some quarrel brewing,' said L'Argentin to them, 'for I just now met fifteen or twenty gentlemen on horseback, well mounted and armed with pistols.' 'Well, what have I to do with it?' answered Beaufort, shrugging his shoulders.—I have been warned that they mean to surprise me as I am going in my carriage to the palace of the Duke d'Orleans in the Faubourg Saint Germain, (the Duke d'Orleans had resided at the Luxembourg since the death of his mother, Marie de Medicis.)—On Wednesday, the Duke de Vendôme exclaimed twice while talking with the Marshal d'Estrées, 'I wish that my son Beaufort were dead.^[7]'"

These quotation, which we might easily multiply, prove incontestably that the conspiracy was a real one in the eyes of Mazarin. It was for this that he used every effort to throw light upon this dark intrigue. After some time, he submitted the affair to the ordinary course of justice in the court of all others the most independent and at the same time the least disposed in his favor, the Parliament of Paris. It was investigated in conformity with every formality of law, and in the most careful manner. Indications abounded, whatever Retz may say, and it was not the fault of Mazarin if conclusive proofs were wanting. But, promptly warned by the trusty friends which they possessed in the court, as well as about the queen and Mazarin himself, the Importants had no difficulty in favoring the escape of those conspirators most compromised in the affair.

"I am not very well satisfied with the Chevalier du Guet," says Mazarin,^[8] "Brillet, Fouqueret, Lié, and twenty-four others have fled. It is supposed that they have embarked for England in a vessel which has been awaiting them for three weeks."^[9] Far from letting them escape at their ease, Mazarin long pursued them with an obstinate eagerness, even into Holland. The 16th of April, 1644, he writes to Beringhen, who was then on a mission to the Prince of Orange, "Advices have been given me that Brillet and Fouqueret, who are the two persons deepest in the confidence of M. de Beaufort, and to whom he has most freely opened his heart concerning the conspiracy against my person, have gone to serve with the troops in Holland, having changed their names, and let their beards grow, so that they may not be known. Brillet is called La Ferrière. I entreat you to use all possible diligence to prove whether this is true, and when you return, to give an order to some person to watch over their actions, because we intend to devise some means of taking them."^[10]

The Count de Beaupuis, son of the Count de Maillé, he whom Mazarin designates in his Carnets and letters as the intimate confidant of Beaufort, and, after him, the principal person accused, found means of concealing himself during the first search; he succeeded in escaping from France, and sought an asylum at Rome under the avowed protection of Spain. Mazarin left no efforts untried to induce the court of Rome to send Beaupuis back to France, so that he might be legally adjudged. Not only did he make the demand officially through M. de Grémonville, then accredited to the holy see, but he wrote privately to all his sure friends, to the Cardinal Grimaldi, to his brother-in-law, Vincent Martinozzi, to Paul Macarani, and to Zongo Ondedei,^[11] urging them to do all in their power to obtain the extradition of Beaupuis; and suggesting to them the strongest reasons which he charges them to plead to the holy father; namely, that Beaupuis was the principal confidant of Beaufort, that he was the link between Beaufort and the rest of the accused; that, this link being suppressed, justice could no longer take its course; that a crime was in question which ought particularly to affect the sacred college and the holy fathers—an assassination attempted on the person of a cardinal; that it was the queen herself who reclaimed Beaupuis; that it was a demand for one of her servants, Beaupuis being ensign in a company of horse-guards, a confidential post which demanded especial fidelity; and that Beaupuis would not be delivered to his enemies as was pretended, but to the parliament, whose impartiality was well known. The Pope could not at first forbear, for form's sake at least, from placing Beaupuis in the Chateau Saint-Ange. But he was soon liberated, and a private lodging given him where he could receive almost every one he chose. Mazarin loudly complained of such an indulgence. "All is arranged," says he, "so that if necessary he may be able to escape, or if not for this, to furnish the Duke de Vendôme with every facility for causing him to be poisoned, so that with Beaupuis may be destroyed the principal proof of the treason of his son. If all this happened in Barbary, how indignant we should be! Yet this passes at Rome, in the capital of Christendom, under the eyes and by the order of a pope!" Mazarin had sent a devoted agent named Gueffier to Rome, to receive Beaupuis from the hands of the holy father, with orders to take every imaginable means for preventing the escape of his prisoner on the way from Rome to Civita Vecchia, to put him on board a French vessel, and to bring him to France. He even went so far as to menace the protectors of Beaupuis with the vengeance of the young king, "who, though but seven years of age, has nevertheless very long arms." Mazarin did not cease his pursuit until the close of the year 1645, when he was clearly convinced that the new pope. Innocent X., who had succeeded to Urban VIII., as well as Pamphile, the cardinal-nephew, and Pancirolle, the secretary of state, belonged wholly to the Spanish party, and that France could expect neither favor nor justice from the pontifical court.

In default of Beaupuis, Mazarin would have been very glad to lay hands on one of the brothers Campion, who were intimately connected with Beaufort and with Madame de Chevreuse, and who stood too high in the confidence of both not to possess all their secrets. But he complains, as we have seen, of being very badly seconded. And then he had to deal with skilful conspirators, practiced in the art of sheltering themselves and hiding their tracks; with the active and indefatigable Duchess de Chevreuse, and with the Duke de Vendôme, who, to save his son, studied to favor the escape of all those whose depositions might have served to convict him, or guarded them in some sort himself, by concealing and even imprisoning them at Anet.^[12] Mazarin was only able to seize obscure men, who were ignorant of the details of the plot and incapable of throwing any light on it. Notwithstanding, among these there were two noblemen, who, without having known this enterprise thoroughly, had at least been present at several assemblies which had been held under the plausible pretext of taking up the cause of the Duchess de Montbazon. Mazarin names them; they were MM. d'Avancourt and de Brassy, noblemen of Picardy, of tried courage, and intimate friends of Lié, captain of the guards of Beaufort, and one of the conspirators. Ganseville and Vaumorin, upon whose testimony Retz insists in order to prove that there never was any conspiracy, were of no importance. Vaumorin may have become captain of the guards of the Duke de Beaufort in 1649, but he was not so in 1643, it was Lié; and Ganseville was one of those subordinates who had never been admitted to his confidence. They knew nothing; they may, therefore, have very truly said to Retz during the Fronde, what he makes them say. But D'Avancourt and De Brassy did know something, and it was for this reason that the Duke de Vendôme entreated them to come to Anet. Arrested and thrown into the Bastille, and intimidated or gained over, whatever Retz may say of it, they made grave depositions and furnished conclusive evidence; but these stopped at Henri de Campion and Lié, the only conspirators whom they had known. Mazarin neglected nothing to draw out and make use of the only important capture which he had made. "Hasten the examination of the two prisoners," says he. "Summon the proprietor of the Maison du Sauvage, situated next the hôtel de Vendôme, where D'Avancourt and De Brassy lodged, as well as the innkeeper near the river, at whose house there were eleven persons on Monday evening. Question the lackeys of the aforesaid D'Avancourt and Brassy, etc." "The brother of Brassy says that the Duke de Vendôme is displeased with them because they suffered themselves to be taken without resistance."^[13] The Importants were much disquieted for fear of some revelations which the two prisoners might make. Mazarin spread the report that Avancourt and Brassy had said nothing of importance, and that the affair would end in nothing, in order to lull the vigilance and the fears of the fugitives, and embolden them to leave their retreat, and come to be captured at Paris. "Tremblay"^[14] (the governor of the Bastille) "has told me that Limoges (Lafayette, the Bishop de Limoges, one of the chiefs of the Importants in the Church) bears me much malice, and that he has begged to know what the two prisoners have said, ending by saying that the Cardinal Mazarin would be finely hoaxed, and that he had only caused them be arrested and thrown into the Bastille in order to seem to justify the injury done to the Duke de Beaufort. I have ordered Tremblay to tell Limoges that the two prisoners made no confession, but defended themselves very plausibly, in order to confirm him in the opinion which he holds, so that, on giving this information to the Duke de Vendôme, as he will not fail to do, those who have fled will be reassured and return, and thus enable me to lay hands on some one of them."

But why exhaust ourselves in demonstrating that Mazarin enacted no farce in the suit instituted against the conspirators, that he pursued them in good faith and with vigor, and that he was fully convinced that a project of assassination had been formed against him, when the truth of the existence of such a project is elsewhere evinced, and when, in default of a sentence of parliament which must, necessarily, have come to a stand from want of sufficient proofs, neither Beaupuis, nor any of the Campions, nor Lié, nor Brillet having been taken, we have what is still better, namely, the full and entire avowal of one of the principal conspirators, with the plan and details of the whole affair, disclosed in memoirs too recently known, but whose authenticity cannot be contested.^[15] We speak of the valuable memoirs of Henri de Campion, brother of the friend of Madame de Chevreuse, whom the latter had induced to enter with him into the service of the Duke de Vendôme, and more particularly, of the Duke de Beaufort. Henri had accompanied the duke in his flight to England after the conspiracy of Cinq-Mars, and had returned with him; he possessed his entire confidence, and he recounts nothing in which he himself has not taken a considerable part. Henri was of a very different character from his brother Alexandre. He was well-informed, honorable, and courageous, no braggart, averse to all intrigues, and born to make his way in the career of arms by the most direct paths. He wrote his memoirs in the solitude in which, after the loss of his wife and daughter, he awaited death in the midst of exercises of the most fervent piety. It is not in this mood that one is apt to invent fables, and there is no medium—his assertions are such that they must be implicitly believed, or, if their truth is doubted, he must be considered as the basest of villains. No interest could have guided his pen; for he composed, or at all events completed his memoirs shortly after the death of Mazarin, without thinking therefore of making court to him by tardy revelations, and scarcely two years before his own death, which took place in 1663. Truly, he may be said to have written in the fear of God and under the sole inspiration of his own conscience.

Now open his memoirs and you will see there all the details which fill the Garnets of Mazarin confirmed point by point. Nothing is wanting; every thing is in accordance with them; they correspond marvellously. It seems in truth as if Mazarin, in writing his notes, must have had before his eyes the memoirs of Henri de Campion, or as if Henri de Campion had copied verbatim from the Carnets of Mazarin—so well does he both complete and recapitulate them.

His brother Alexandre, in his letters, written during the month of August,^[16] lets fall more than one mysterious sentence. He writes thus to the Duchess de Montbazon, "You must not despair, madame; there are half a dozen honest men who have not yet yielded. Your illustrious friend will not forsake you. If it be necessary to renounce your friendship to be considered sane, there are some who will choose rather to pass for madmen all their lives." Like Montrésor, he does not once say that no plot had been formed against Mazarin, which is a sort of tacit avowal of it; and when the storm bursts, he resolves to conceal himself, counsels Beaupuis to do the same, and concludes with these significant words, "We cannot engage in the affairs of the court and be masters of their results, and as we profit by the good, we must also resolve to endure the evil." Henri de Campion lifts this already transparent veil.

He explicitly declares that there was a project for ridding themselves of Mazarin, and that this project was originated, not by Beaufort, but by Madame de Chevreuse, in concert with Madame de Montbazon. "I believe," says he, "that the duke's design was not prompted by his own private feelings, but by the persuasions of the Duchesses de Chevreuse and De Montbazon, who had entire power over him, and who bore an irreconcilable hatred towards the cardinal. The reason why I say this is that all the while that he was pursuing it, I detected in him a secret repugnance to it, which, if I mistake not, was overruled by the promise that he had probably made these ladies." There had therefore really been a plot, and its true author, as Mazarin asserts and as Campion repeats, was none other than Madame de Chevreuse, for Madame de Montbazon was but a tool for her.

Beaufort, being gained over, persuaded his intimate friend. Count de Beaupuis, son of the Count de Maillé, and ensign in the horse-guards of the queen. Madame de Chevreuse added to them Alexandre de Campion, the eldest brother of Henri, with whom we are already acquainted. "She had much love for him," says Henri de Campion, in a manner which, added to the ambiguous words of Alexandre which we have quoted before,^[17] strengthens the suspicion whether he was not at that time really one of the numerous successors of Chalais. He was then thirty-three years of age, and his brother admits that he had contracted the tastes and habits of the faction from the Count de Soissons. Beaupuis and Alexandre de Campion approved the plot which was communicated to them, "the first," says Henri de Campion, "believing it to be a means of attaining higher offices, and my brother seeing therein the advantage of Madame de Chevreuse, and consequently, his own."

Such were the two first accomplices of Beaufort. Soon after, he disclosed his plans to Henri de Campion, one of his principal gentlemen, to Lié, captain of his guards, and to Brillet, his equerry. There the secret rested. Many other gentlemen and servants of the house of Vendôme were to have participated in the action, but they were not made confidants; whence we understand the ignorance of Vaumorin and Ganseville, and the assertion which they may have made to Retz during the Fronde. The affair was well planned and worthy of Madame de Chevreuse. There were but five or six conspirators admitted to full confidence, all well capable of keeping the secret, and they kept it faithfully. Under them were the men of deeds, who were ready for action but knew not what they were to do; and beyond these were the men of the morrow, upon whom they counted to applaud the blow, when it had been struck, without deeming it proper to take them into the conspiracy. At all events, Henri de Campion does not even name Montrésor, Béthune, Fontraille, Varicarville, and Saint-Ybar, which explains why Mazarin, although having had an eye on them all, did not cause their arrest. Neither does Henri de Campion speak of Chandenier, La Châtre, Tréville, the Duke de Guise, the Duke de Retz, the Duke de Bouillon, and La Rochefoucauld, whose sentiments were not doubtful, but who were not ripe for imbruing their hands in an assassination; this also explains the silence of Mazarin in respect to them in all that concerned the conspiracy of Beaufort, although he did not deceive himself in the slightest degree as to their disposition and the part which they would have taken if the conspiracy had succeeded, or even if a serious struggle had been commenced.

The plot rested for some time with Madame de Chevreuse, Madame de Montbazon, Beaufort, Beaupuis, and Alexandre de Campion. The final resolution was not taken until the end of July or in the beginning of August; that is, precisely at the height of the quarrel between Madame de Montbazon and Madame de Longueville, which urged on the crisis and opened the door to all the following events. It was then that Beaufort spoke of it to Henri de Campion in the presence of Beaupuis. The crime of Mazarin was that of continuing the policy of Richelieu. "The Duke de Beaufort said to me that he presumed I had remarked that Cardinal Mazarin was re-establishing the tyranny of the Cardinal de Richelieu, both in the court and throughout the whole kingdom, with even more authority and violence than had been seen under the government of the latter; that, having entirely gained the mind of the queen and won all the ministers to his disposal, it was impossible to check his evil designs without taking his life; and that, regard for the public good having made him resolve to take this course, he therefore acquainted me with it, praying me to assist him by my counsels and my personal aid in its execution. Beaupuis then took up the discourse, warmly representing the evils which the too great authority of the Cardinal de Richelieu had brought upon France, and concluding by saying that similar ills must be prevented before his successor should have had time to render them incurable." In conclusion, these are the views and the words of the Importants and the Frondeurs, of La Rochefoucauld and of Retz. Henri de Campion asserts that at first he opposed the project of the duke with so much earnestness that he wavered more than once, but that the two duchesses soon incensed him again, while Beaupuis and Alexandre de Campion urged him on instead of restraining him. Some time after, Beaufort having declared that he was fully resolved in the matter, Henri de Campion yielded on two conditions. "One was," says he, "that I should not be required to lay hands on the cardinal, as I would kill myself rather than do an act of this sort; and the other, that if the execution should be attempted in Beaufort's absence, I should not be there, while if he himself were present, I should not scruple to remain near his person, to defend him in any accidents that might happen; my employ near him and my affection for him alike obliging me to this. He granted me these two things, professing to esteem me the more for them, and adding that he should certainly be at the execution in order to authorize it by his presence."

The plan was to attack the cardinal in the street while he was making calls in his carriage, at which time he usually had with him but a few ecclesiastics, together with five or six lackeys. They were to appear suddenly with an armed force, surround the carriage and strike Mazarin. For this, it was necessary that a certain number of adherents of the house of Vendôme should be found every day in the cabarets around the residence of the cardinal, which was then in the hôtel de Clèves, near the Louvre. Henri de Campion names Ganseville positively as among the followers who had not been admitted into the secret. To these he adds "MM. d'Avancourt and de Brassy, the Picardians, both determined men and intimate friends of Lié." They gave as a pretext that the Condés intending to offer an affront to Madame de Montbazon, the Duke de Beaufort wished to have a troop of armed and mounted gentlemen at his command to defend her. The characters were distributed in advance. Some were to stop the coachman of the cardinal; others were to open the doors and strike the fatal blow; while the duke was to be there on horseback with Beaupuis, Henri de Campion and others, to oppose and disperse all who attempted to resist them. Alexandre de Campion was to remain near the Duchess de Chevreuse and subject to her orders, while she was to be more than usually assiduous about the queen, to pave the way for her friends, and in case of success, to win her over to the side of the victors. Several favorable occasions for executing this plan presented themselves. At one time, Henri de Campion being with his retinue in the little Rue du Champ-Fleury, one end of which issues into the Rue Saint-Honoré, and the other, near the Louvre, he saw the cardinal leave the hôtel de Clèves in a carriage with the Abbé de Bentivoglio, nephew of the celebrated cardinal of that name, together with some monks and a few valets. Campion asked one of them where the cardinal was going; he answered, to the hôtel of the Marquis d'Estrées. "I saw," says Campion, "that if I chose to give this intelligence, his death was certain. But I believed that in so doing I should be so culpable both before God and man that the occasion did not tempt me."

The next day it was known that the cardinal was to go to partake of a collation with Madame du Vigean, at her charming villa of La Barre, at the entrance of the valley of Montmorency, at which the queen, who had already departed, together with Madame de Longueville, would be present.^[18] The cardinal proceeded thither, having no one in the carriage with him but the Count d'Harcourt. Beaufort commanded Campion to summon his troop and pursue him, but Campion represented to him that if they attacked the cardinal in the company of the Count d'Harcourt, they must decide to kill both, d'Harcourt being too generous to see Mazarin struck down before his eyes without defending him, and that the murder of d'Harcourt would excite all the house of Lorraine against them.

A few days after, they received information that the cardinal and the Duke d'Orleans were going to dine at Maisons with the Marshal d'Estrées. "I persuaded the duke to consent," says Campion, "that if the minister should be in the carriage of his royal highness, the design should not be executed; but he said that, if he were alone, he must die. In the morning, he caused horses to be prepared, and remained in the Capucins with Beaupuis, near the hôtel de Vendôme, posting a footman in the street to inform him when the cardinal should pass, and enjoining on me to stay with the conspirators assembled daily by my orders at the Angel, (the name of a cabaret,) in the Rue Saint-Honoré, near the hôtel de Vendôme, and, if the cardinal should go without the Duke d'Orleans, to mount together with all these gentlemen, and attack him when passing the Capucins. "I was in the utmost anxiety," adds Campion, "until, on seeing the carriage of the Duke d'Orleans pass, I perceived the cardinal in the back with him."

Finally, the irritation of Beaufort having been carried to its height by the banishment of Madame de Montbazon, which without question took place on the 22d of August;^[19] and spurred on moreover by Madame de Chevreuse, by passion, and by a false sense of honor, the duke himself became impatient for action. Seeing that in the daytime he constantly encountered difficulties the cause of which he was very far from divining, he resolved to strike the blow during the night, and arranged an ambuscade which Campion has described to us. The cardinal went every evening to the palace of the queen, and returned quite late. They resolved to attack him on his return between the Louvre and the hôtel de Clèves. Horses were to be in readiness at some neighboring inn, and the duke himself was to stay there with Beaupuis and Campion while the minister was with the queen. As soon as he departed, the three were to advance and summon the others, who, meanwhile, were to remain mounted on the quay, by the side of the river, near the Louvre. All this could easily be done under cover of the night, without awakening any suspicion.

Reflect that he who furnishes these precise details was one of the principal conspirators, that he writes at a sufficient distance from the event, in safety, and, let us say once more, disinterestedly, fearing nothing more from Mazarin who has just died, and expecting nothing from him; reflect that in speaking as he does, he accuses his own brother; that, though he doubtless attributes to himself laudable intentions and even some good deeds, he nevertheless confesses that he had entered into the plot, and that, if the execution had taken place, he would have shared in it, by fighting at the side of Beaufort. The suit instituted before parliament having been broken off for want of proofs. Campion did not suppose that Mazarin had ever known "the circumstances of the plot, nor who they were that knew it to the bottom and were concerned in it." He says also that, "now that the cardinal is dead, there is no longer any fear of injuring any one by telling things as they are." He does not, therefore, defend himself; he believes himself sheltered from all pursuit, and he only writes to relieve his conscience. Now what he says is precisely the same that Mazarin, on his side, had drawn from his various informants.

We have seen what importance Mazarin attached to the arrest of D'Avancourt and De Brassy, and what art he used in spreading the report that they had disclosed nothing in their examination, in order to remove all anxiety from those whom they might have compromised, and thus to draw them to Paris, where they would not fail to be taken. Henri de Campion assures us that he was especially in question, and really seems to be translating into French one of the Italian passages of the Carnets. "Avancourt and Brassy were taken to the Bastille," says he, "where they deposed that I had summoned them several times in behalf of the Duke de Beaufort for the interests of Madame de Montbazon as I had told them. This furnished no pretext for examining the duke, as they confessed that he had not spoken to them; he did not fail, therefore, to deny having given the orders which I had carried to them in his behalf; it was evident from this, that his trial could not be proceeded with until I had been taken, and matter found from my own depositions whereon to question him and to embarrass us both, and thus to discover some trace of the affair. The proofs of this conspiracy were of essential importance to the cardinal, who, wishing only to establish himself in the government, and affecting to do so by gentleness, was very sorry to be obliged, in the beginning, to do violence to one of the greatest men of the kingdom for his private interest, without showing a reason which compelled him to treat the duke with such rigor. In despair at being unable to convince the others of that of which he himself was fully certain, he wished much to have me in his hands. He judged, however, that it was necessary to give me time to reassure myself in order to seize me with greater facility."

We can add to all this that Henri de Campion, after being pursued and closely pressed in his retreat at Anet, the house of the Duke de Vendôme, having fled from France to Rome to find his friend, the Count de Beaupuis, recounts the persevering efforts which Mazarin made to obtain the extradition of the latter, the resistance of Pope Innocent X., and the regard which he had for Beaupuis when he was forced to place him in the Château Saint-Ange; facts which, being found both in the Carnets and letters of Mazarin and in the memoirs of Henri de Campion, place the sincerity of the movements of the cardinal and the exactness of his information beyond a doubt.

Is not this sufficient to reduce to nothing the interested doubts of La Rochefoucauld and the impassioned denials of the chief of the Fronde, the very spiritual but very unveracious Cardinal de Retz, the most bitter and the most obstinate of all the enemies of Mazarin? As to ourselves, it seems to us either that there is no longer any reliance to be placed upon history, or that we must henceforth regard it as a point fully demonstrated that there was a plot for the assassination of Mazarin which was foiled, that this plot was originated by Madame de Chevreuse and in some sort forced upon Beaufort by her and Madame de Montbazon, that Beaufort's principal accomplices were the Count de Beaupuis and Alexandre de Campion, that Henri de Campion afterwards entered into the affair at the urgent solicitation of the duke, as well as two other officers of a subordinate rank, that during the month of August there were several attempts at its execution, the final one of which was made after the exile of Madame de Montbazon on the last of August or rather the first of September, and that this last attempt only failed through circumstances wholly independent of the will of the conspirators.

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1. Memoires, ibid., p. 388.
2. Memoires, vol. i., p. 65. See also the edition of M. Aimé Champollion, p. 41.
3. Memoires, coll. Petitot, vol. lix.
4. Memoires, vol. i., p. 184.
5. Memoires, coll. Petitot, vol. lxix., p. 419.
6. Memoires, ibid., p. 374.
7. III. Carnet, pp. 28, 34, 70, 82, 84, 85, and 91. IV. Carnet, p. 5.
8. III. Carnet, p. 88.
9. IV. Carnet, p. 8.
10. Lettres de Mazarin; lettres françaises, vol, i., fol. 274, recto.
11. Lettres italiennes de Mazarin, vol. i., letter to Ondedei, of March 25, 1645, fol. 226, verso; ibid., letter of May 8, to Vincenzo Martinozzi, fol. 240, verso; ibid., letter of May 26, to Paolo Macarani, fol. 246; ibid., letter of June 2, to Cardinal Grimaldi, fol. 248; ibid., letter to Ondedei, of the same date; ibid., letter to the Cardinal Grimaldi, of July 15, and to Ondedei of September 5; to the Cardinal Grimaldi, June 2, 1645, fol. 248; to Ondedei, June 2, 1645; to the Cardinal Grimaldi, July 15, 1645; to Ondedei, September 5, 1645.
12. IV. Carnet, p. 8.
13. At Paris, no one doubted but the affair of these two gentlemen was seriously prosecuted. A very curious private correspondence, preserved in the archives of foreign affairs, France, vol. cv., contains a letter from a person called Gaudin to Servien, the skilful diplomatist, under date of October 31, 1643, in which the following passage is found, which repeats almost verbatim the words of the Carnets: "Search has been made in the inns of the Faubourg Saint Germain, where the two gentlemen now imprisoned in the Bastille lodged. On seeing that nothing could be discovered from their examination nor that of their lackeys, the hosts and hostesses of the said inns, namely, of the Sauvage and of some other, were also imprisoned, in the hope to intimidate them and draw from them some confession of the deed of which they are accused; this availed nothing, and they have been released."
14. IV. Carnet, p. 9.
15. Memoires de Henri de Campion, etc., 1807, a Paris, chez Treuttel et Wertz, in 8vo. Petitot has only given an extract from them in the sequel of the Memoires de la Châtre, vol. li. of his collection.
16. Recueil before cited.
17. See Chapter II.
18. See La Jeunesse de Madame de Longueville, chap, ii., p. 178, and chap, iii., p. 233. This, probably, is the same party of pleasure which Scarron describes, vol. vii., p. 178, Voyage de la Reine à La Barre.
19. See in La Jeunesse de Madame de Longueville, chap, iii., p. 226, the lettre de cachet addressed to Madame de Montbazon.