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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76902 ***
+
+Transcriber’s Note: This book uses the spelling “Bastile” throughout
+(rather than “Bastille” as is more common in modern times).
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF THE BASTILE.
+
+
+
+
+                                    THE
+                          HISTORY OF THE BASTILE,
+                                AND OF ITS
+                            PRINCIPAL CAPTIVES.
+
+                                    BY
+                             R. A. DAVENPORT.
+          AUTHOR OF THE “NEW BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY,” ETC. ETC.
+
+              Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more
+              To France than all her losses and defeats,
+              Old or of later date, by sea or land,
+              Her house of bondage, worse than that of old
+              Which God avenged on Pharaoh—the Bastile.—COWPER.
+
+                                  LONDON:
+                     PUBLISHED BY THOMAS TEGG AND SON,
+                              73, CHEAPSIDE.
+                                   1838.
+
+                                  LONDON:
+                BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+
+The execution of a plan so frequently falls immeasurably short of the
+author’s original conception, that some wit, of whom I have forgotten the
+name, has likened them to the cry of an oriental fruit-hawker: “In the
+name of the Prophet—figs!” I can bear witness how much what is purposed
+goes beyond what is accomplished. I began loftily, and perhaps the reader
+will say, that I have ended with—figs. At the outset I designed to link,
+in some measure, the history of the Bastile with that of France, and to
+trace the rise and progress of those parties, factions, and sects, which
+furnished inmates to the prisons of state. But I soon discovered that the
+contracted limits of a single volume would not admit of my plan being
+carried into execution. By much enlarging the page, and by making, at
+no small cost, a very considerable addition to the number of pages, the
+publisher has liberally endeavoured to give me the means of rendering
+the work less imperfect than it would otherwise have been; but I have,
+nevertheless, been exceedingly cramped by the want of adequate space.
+
+But, though I have not done all that I wished to do, I am by no means
+disposed to disparage my labours. I have consulted every document that
+was accessible, and have conscientiously tried to be strictly just, and
+to combine information with amusement. I indulge a hope that the volume
+will tend not only to keep up an abhorrence of arbitrary power, but
+also to inspire affection for governments which hold it to be a duty to
+promote the happiness of the people. Whatever may be its defects, it
+is the only work in the English language that has even the slightest
+pretension to be denominated a History of the Bastile.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                      PAGE
+
+                                CHAPTER I.
+
+    Original meaning of the word Bastile—Various
+    Bastiles—Description of “The Bastile”—Officers of the
+    fortress—Interior of it—The Garden—The Court where
+    the prisoners took exercise—The Towers, Dungeons,
+    Apartments, Furniture, Food, of the prisoners—The
+    Library—The Chapel—Lettres de Cachet described—Advocate
+    of them—Change in the treatment of prisoners—Narrative
+    of a prisoner—Strict search of prisoners—Harshness to
+    them—Artifices employed against them—Silence enjoined
+    to the Guards, &c., of the prison—Mode of receiving
+    visitors—Suppression of letters—Secrecy and mystery—Medical
+    attendance—Wills—Insanity—Clandestine burial of the dead.            1
+
+                               CHAPTER II.
+
+    Reign of John II.—Stephen Marcel, Provost of the
+    Merchants—Reign of Charles V.—Hugh Aubriot—Reign of
+    Charles VI.—Noviant—La Rivière—Peter des Essarts—John de
+    Montaigu—Contests of the factions at Paris—The Count of
+    Armagnac—The Burgundians obtain possession of Paris—Massacre
+    of the Armagnacs—Assassination of the Duke of Burgundy—Reign
+    of Charles VII.—Paris in the hands of the English—Villiers
+    de l’Isle Adam—The English expelled from Paris—Reign of
+    Louis XI.—Anthony de Chabannes—The Count de Melun—Cardinal
+    de Balue—William d’Haraucour—Charles d’Armagnac—Louis de
+    Luxembourg—The Duke of Nemours and his children.                    33
+
+                               CHAPTER III.
+
+    Reign of Francis I.—Semblançai—The Chancellor Duprat—The
+    Chancellor Poyet—Admiral de Chabot—Fall of Poyet—Reign of Henry
+    II.—Anne du Bourg—Louis du Faur—Reign of Francis II.—Execution
+    of Du Bourg—Francis de Vendôme—Reign of Charles IX.—The Duke of
+    Lunebourg—Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé in danger of
+    the Bastile—Faction of the Politicians—La Mole—Coconas—Marshal
+    de Montmorenci—Marshal de Cossé—Reign of Henry III.—Bussi
+    d’Amboise.                                                          74
+
+                               CHAPTER IV.
+
+    Reign of Henry III. continued—Conspiracy of Salcede—Francis
+    de Rosières—Peter de Belloy—Francis le Breton—Bernard
+    Palissy—Daring plots of the League—Henry III. expelled from
+    Paris—The Bastile surrenders to Guise—Bussi le Clerc appointed
+    governor—Damours—James de la Guesle—Reign of Henry IV.—Members
+    of the parliament arrested—President de Harlay—Potier de
+    Blancmesnil—The family of Seguier—Speeches of Henry IV.—Louis
+    Seguier—James Gillot—Outrage committed by the Council of
+    Sixteen—It is punished by the Duke of Mayenne—Henry IV. enters
+    Paris—Surrender of the Bastile—Du Bourg—Treasure deposited in
+    the Bastile by Henry.                                              102
+
+                                CHAPTER V.
+
+    Reign of Henry IV. continued—Viscount de Tavannes—The marshal
+    duke of Biron—Faults of Biron—Friendship of Henry IV. for
+    Biron—La Fin, and his influence over Biron—The Duke of
+    Savoy—Biron’s first treason pardoned—Embassies of Biron—Speech
+    of Queen Elizabeth to Biron—Discontent among the nobles—Art of
+    La Fin—Imprisonment of Renazé—La Fin betrays Biron—Artifices
+    employed to lull Biron into security—Arrest of Biron, and
+    the Count of Auvergne—Conduct of Biron in the Bastile—His
+    trial—His execution—Respect paid to his remains—Monbarot
+    sent to the Bastile—The Count of Auvergne—He is sent to the
+    Bastile but soon released—He plots again—Cause and intent of
+    the conspiracy—He is again arrested—Sentence of death passed
+    on him, but commuted for imprisonment—He spends twelve years
+    in the Bastile—Mary of Medicis releases him—Conspiracy of
+    Merargues—He is executed—Death of Henry IV.                        133
+
+                               CHAPTER VI.
+
+    Reign of Louis XIII.—The treasure of Henry IV.
+    dissipated—Prevalent belief in magic—Cesar and Ruggieri—Henry,
+    prince of Condé—The Marchioness d’Ancre—Marshal
+    Ornano—Prevalence of duelling—The Count de Bouteville—The Day
+    of the Dupes—Vautier, the physician of Mary of Medicis—The
+    Marshal de Bassompierre—The Chevalier de Jars—Infamy of
+    Laffemas—Three citizens of Paris sent to the Bastile—Despotic
+    language of Louis XIII.—The Count de Cramail—The Marquis of
+    Vitry—Peter de la Porte—Noel Pigard Dubois, an alchemical
+    impostor—The Count de Grancé and the Marquis de Praslin—The
+    prince Palatine—Count Philip d’Aglie—Charles de Beys—Letter
+    from an unknown prisoner to Richelieu.                             172
+
+                               CHAPTER VII.
+
+    Reign of Louis XIV.—Regency of Anne of Austria—Inauspicious
+    circumstances under which she assumed the regency—George
+    de Casselny—The Count de Montresor—The Marquis de
+    Fontrailles—Marshal de Rantzau—The Count de Rieux—Bernard
+    Guyard—Broussel, governor of the Bastile—The Duchess of
+    Montpensier orders the cannon of the Bastile to be fired on
+    the king’s army—Conclusion of the war of the Fronde—Surrender
+    of the Bastile—Despotism of Louis XIV.—Slavishness of the
+    nobles—John Herauld Gourville—The Count de Guiche—Nicholas
+    Fouquet—Paul Pellisson-Fontainier—Charles St. Evremond—Simon
+    Morin—The Marquis de Vardes—Count Bussy Rabutin—Saci le
+    Maistre—The Duke of Lauzun—Marquis of Cavoie—The Chevalier
+    de Rohan—A nameless prisoner—Charles D’Assoucy—Miscellaneous
+    prisoners.                                                         217
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII.
+
+    The Poisoners—The Marchioness of Brinvilliers—Penautier—La
+    Voisin and her accomplices and dupes—The “Chambre Ardente”—The
+    Countess of Soissons—The Duchess of Bouillon—The Duke of
+    Luxembourg—Stephen de Bray—The Abbé Primi—Andrew Morell—Madame
+    Guyon—Courtils de Sandraz—Constantine de Renneville—The
+    Man with the Iron Mask—Jansenists—Tiron, Veillant,
+    and Lebrun Desmarets—The Count de Bucquoy—The Duke de
+    Richelieu—Miscellaneous prisoners.                                 273
+
+                               CHAPTER IX.
+
+    Reign of Louis XV.—Regency of the Duke of Orleans—Oppressive
+    measures against all persons connected with the Finances—Their
+    failure—Prisoners in the Bastile—Freret—Voltaire—The
+    Cellamare conspiracy—The Duchess of Maine—Madame de
+    Staal—Malezieu—Bargeton—Mahudel—The Mississippi scheme—Count
+    de Horn—Death of the Regent—Administration of the Duke of
+    Bourbon—La Blanc—Paris Duverney—The Count de Belleisle—The
+    Chevalier de Belleisle—Madame de Tencin.                           314
+
+                                CHAPTER X.
+
+    Reign of Louis XV. continued—The Bull Unigenitus—A Notary
+    Public—G. N. Nivelle—G. C. Buffard—Death of Deacon Paris—Rise,
+    progress, and acts, of the Convulsionaries—Persecution
+    of them, and artifices employed by them to foil their
+    persecutors—Lenglet Dufresnoy—La Beaumelle—F. de
+    Marsy—Marmontel—The Abbé Morellet—Mirabeau the elder—The
+    Chevalier Resseguier—Groubendal and Dulaurens—Robbé
+    de Beauveset—Mahé de la Bourdonnais—Count Lally—La
+    Chalotais—Marin—Durosoi—Prévost de Beaumont—Barletti St.
+    Paul—Dumouriez.                                                    346
+
+                               CHAPTER XI.
+
+    Captivity and Sufferings of Masers de Latude—Cause of his
+    Imprisonment—He is removed from the Bastile to Vincennes—He
+    escapes—He is retaken, and sent to the Bastile—Kindness of
+    M. Berryer—D’Alegre is confined in the same apartment with
+    him—Latude forms a plan for escaping—Preparations for executing
+    it—The Prisoners descend from the summit of the Bastile, and
+    escape—They are recaptured in Holland, and brought back—Latude
+    is thrown into a horrible dungeon—He tames rats, and makes a
+    musical pipe—Plans suggested by him—His writing materials—He
+    attempts suicide—Pigeons tamed by him—New plans suggested
+    by him—Finds means to fling a packet of papers from the top
+    of the Bastile—He is removed to Vincennes—He escapes—Is
+    recaptured—Opens a communication with his fellow-prisoners—Is
+    transferred to Charenton—His situation there—His momentary
+    liberation—He is re-arrested, and sent to the Bicêtre—Horrors
+    of that prison—Heroic benevolence of Madame Legros—She succeeds
+    in obtaining his release—Subsequent fate of Latude.                382
+
+                               CHAPTER XII.
+
+    Reign of Louis XVI.—Enormous number of Lettres de Cachet
+    issued in two reigns—William Debure the elder—Blaizot
+    imprisoned for obeying the King—Pelisseri—Prisoners from
+    St. Domingo—Linguet—Duvernet—The Count de Paradès—Marquis
+    de Sade—Brissot—The Countess de la Motte—Cardinal de
+    Rohan—Cagliostro—The affair of the Diamond Necklace—Reveillon
+    takes shelter in the Bastile—Attack and capture of the Bastile
+    by the Parisians—Conclusion.                                       436
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: PLAN OF THE BASTILE.
+
+A. Avenue from St. Anthony’s Street—B. Entrance, and first drawbridge—C.
+The Governor’s house—D. First court—E. Avenue leading to the gate of
+the fortress—F. Drawbridge and gates of the fortress—G. Guard-houses—H.
+The great court within the towers—I. Staircase leading to the Council
+Chamber—K. Council Chamber—L. Court du Puits, or Well Court—M. Way to
+the garden—N. Steps leading into the garden—O. Garden—P. The moat of the
+fortress—Q. Passage to the Arsenal garden—R. A wooden road round the
+walls for the night patrole—1. Tower du Puits—2. Tower de la Liberté—3.
+Tower de la Bertaudière—4. Tower de la Bazinière—5. Tower de la Comté—6.
+Tower du Trésor—7. Tower de la Chapelle—8. Tower du Coin.]
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF THE BASTILE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+    Original meaning of the word Bastile—Various
+    Bastiles—Description of “The Bastile”—Officers of the
+    fortress—Interior of it—The Garden—The Court where
+    the prisoners took exercise—The Towers, Dungeons,
+    Apartments, Furniture, Food, of the prisoners—The
+    Library—The Chapel—Lettres de Cachet described—Advocate
+    of them—Change in the treatment of prisoners—Narrative
+    of a prisoner—Strict search of prisoners—Harshness to
+    them—Artifices employed against them—Silence enjoined
+    to the Guards, &c. of the prison—Mode of receiving
+    visitors—Suppression of letters—Secrecy and mystery—Medical
+    attendance—Wills—Insanity—Clandestine burial of the dead.
+
+
+The word Bastile, which has now long been, and will ever remain, a term
+of opprobrious import, to designate the dungeons of arbitrary power,
+has, like many other words, deviated widely in the lapse of years from
+its original meaning. Its derivation is traced, somewhat doubtfully, to
+the Italian _bastia_ or _bastione_. In former times, it was applied to
+any fort, whether permanent or temporary. In our old writers, as well
+as in those of France, we find it repeatedly given to field works. The
+redoubts, for instance, by means of which, in the reign of the sixth
+Henry, the English blockaded Orleans, are so denominated by French
+chroniclers. The same is the case with respect to more durable works;
+there were, at an early period, no less than three bastiles at Paris,
+those of St. Denis, the Temple, and St. Anthony, all of which were
+situated to the north of the Seine. Eventually, the name was confined to
+the last of these buildings. The quadrangular castle of St. Denis was
+demolished in 1671; but the tower of the Temple, in which the unfortunate
+Louis the Sixteenth and his family were confined, outlasted the Bastile
+itself for nearly a quarter of a century, and was used as a state prison
+till 1811, when it ceased to exist.
+
+The bastile of St. Anthony—which structure I shall henceforth mention
+only as The Bastile—is generally supposed to have been founded by Hugh
+Aubriot. This opinion is, however, erroneous. It is beyond a doubt,
+that the original plan and construction of it must be assigned to the
+celebrated Stephen Marcel, provost of the merchants of Paris. When, in
+1356, after the disastrous battle of Poitiers, the English detachments
+were ravaging the vicinity of the French capital, and the citizens were
+filled with terror, Stephen undertook to repair the dilapidated bulwarks
+of the city, and add other defences. Among his additions was a gate,
+fortified with towers on each side, leading from the suburb of St.
+Anthony into the street of the same name. These towers must be considered
+as the first rudiments of the Bastile.
+
+The haste with which, while an enemy was at hand, the walls had been
+constructed, had not allowed of giving to them that height and solidity
+which were requisite for effectually resisting an attack. In 1369,
+Charles the Fifth resolved to remedy this defect. The task of making
+the necessary improvements was committed to Hugh Aubriot, the provost
+of Paris. Among the changes which Aubriot made, was the adding of two
+towers to those which already existed at St. Anthony’s gate. They were
+erected parallel with those built by Marcel; so that the whole formed
+a square fort, with towers at the angles. In the reign of Charles the
+Sixth, after the Maillotin insurrection, in 1382, the Bastile was again
+enlarged, by the addition of two towers at each end of the fortress; thus
+presenting a front of four towers to the city, and as many to the suburb.
+To render more difficult any attempt to surprise the place, the road,
+which, as we have seen, ran through it, was turned to one side. The body
+of the fortress received no further accession; but, before the middle of
+the seventeenth century, a bastion was constructed on the side toward the
+suburb, and a broad dry ditch, about forty yards wide and twelve deep,
+faced with masonry, encircled the whole.
+
+Along the summit of the exterior wall of the ditch, which was at an
+elevation of sixty feet above the bottom of the ditch, was a wooden
+gallery, called the Rounds, reached by two flights of steps. Day and
+night sentinels were constantly moving about in this gallery; every
+quarter of an hour they were visited by some of the officers or
+serjeants; and, more completely to secure their vigilance, each man had
+certain numbered pieces of copper pierced with holes, which, at stated
+times, he was to drop on the point of an instrument, fixed in a padlocked
+box. A bell was also rung upon the Rounds, every quarter of an hour,
+throughout the night.
+
+The officers on the establishment of the Bastile consisted of a governor,
+the king’s lieutenant, a major, who officiated as secretary, and prepared
+the reports and monthly accounts for the minister, two adjutants to
+assist him, a physician, a surgeon and his assistant, a chaplain, two
+priests, and a confessor, a keeper of the records, clerk, superintendant
+of the buildings, engineer, four turnkeys, and a company of invalids.
+No soldier was allowed to sleep out of the place without leave from the
+governor; nor could any officer dine out or be absent all night, without
+permission from the minister. Originally only the governor and the
+king’s lieutenant were appointed by the king, the rest being nominated
+by the governor; and guard was mounted at the castle by a body of
+citizens, which bore the name of the Independent Company of Archers. The
+change was made about the middle of the eighteenth century.
+
+The interior of the gloomy fabric must now be described. Having passed
+down St. Anthony’s-street, and arrived nearly at the city gate, leading
+to the suburb of the same name, he who wished or was compelled to visit
+the Bastile, turned to the right hand, in the direction of the Arsenal,
+where stood a sentinel, to warn off all idle gazers. Before, however,
+the main building could be entered, the visiter had to pursue his
+way along an approach, bent nearly into the form of three sides of a
+square, ⊐, flanked with buildings of various kinds, on the whole of one
+side, and a part of the other. Over the entrance gate was an armoury,
+and on the right of it a guard-room; on the left hand was a range of
+suttling-houses, and on the right were barracks. The road then made an
+abrupt turn, on the right of which were stables, coachhouses, and a door
+into a space which was called the Elm Court. This first division was
+named the Passage Court. At the extremity of it was a drawbridge, with a
+guard-house at its further end. This bridge led to a second court, taking
+its name from the governor’s house, which, with his garden, occupied one
+half of its circuit. Another abrupt turn brought the visiter opposite the
+portal of the fortress, which he at length reached, after having passed
+by the kitchens, and traversed the great drawbridge. Between the street
+and the interior of the fortress there were five massy gates, at all of
+which sentinels were posted.
+
+The principal drawbridge being passed, and the gate opened, the visiter
+stood within the Bastile itself. Leaving on his right a guard-room, he
+found himself in the Great Court of the Castle, a parallelogram of about
+a hundred and two feet long by seventy-two broad, containing six towers,
+three on the side looking towards the suburb, and as many on the city
+side: the former were named de la Comté, du Trésor, and de la Chapelle;
+the latter de la Bazinière, de la Bertaudière, and de la Liberté.
+Between the three left hand towers were rooms for the archives and other
+purposes, and the chapel; between the towers du Trésor and de la Chapelle
+was, in former times, the gate of St. Anthony, and the road into the city.
+
+A pile of buildings, comparatively modern, extending across the shortest
+diameter of the fortress, from the Tour de la Chapelle to the miscalled
+Tour de la Liberté, divided this principal court from another, called
+the Well Court. This pile contained the council chamber, the library,
+the repository for the prisoners’ effects, and apartments for the king’s
+lieutenant, the major, and other officers, and, occasionally, for the
+sick, and captives of distinction.
+
+The length of the Well Court was between seventy and eighty feet, the
+breadth between forty and fifty. At the angle on the right was the tower
+du Coin, on the left the tower du Puit. In this court were some lodgings
+for the drudges of the place; and, as the poultry were fed and the offal
+was thrown out here, it was always dirty and unwholesome.
+
+The garden, formed out of what once was a bastion, on the suburb side of
+the castle, was laid out in walks, and planted with trees. It appears,
+that, till a period not long previous to the downfall of the Bastile,
+such prisoners as were not confined for flagitious crimes, or for the
+express purpose of being rendered supremely wretched, were permitted
+to walk there. To the last governor, M. de Launay, they were indebted
+for being deprived of this privilege. To increase his already enormous
+emoluments, he let it to a gardener, and he had interest enough with
+the minister to obtain his sanction for this encroachment on the scanty
+comforts of the prisoners—an order was issued by which they were excluded
+from it. Nor was this all, or the worst. The platforms, along the summit
+of the towers and connecting curtains, had hitherto afforded a pleasant
+and airy walk; but these, too, were shut up, at his desire, partly to
+save trouble to those who watched the prisoners, and partly to diminish
+the chance of conversation between the former and the latter. Such
+conduct is, however, not strange in the man who could meet the complaints
+of his oppressed inmates with obscenely vulgar language; and could add,
+that “people either ought not to put themselves in the way of being sent
+to the Bastile, or ought to know how to suffer when they got there.”
+Humanity deplores his subsequent fate, and execrates the brutality of his
+murderers; but, as far as regards him personally, M. de Launay appears to
+have been deserving of very little respect.
+
+The only remaining spot in which exercise could be taken was the
+principal court. “The walls which enclose it,” says M. Linguet, “are
+more than a hundred feet high, without windows; so that, in fact, it
+is a large well, where the cold is unbearable in winter, because the
+north-east wind pours into it, and in summer the heat is no less so,
+because, there being no circulation of air, the sun makes an absolute
+oven of it. This is the sole lyceum where such of the prisoners as have
+permission (for all do not have it) can, each in his turn, for a few
+moments in the day, disencumber their lungs from the pestilential air of
+their dwelling.” But even this poor gratification, which seldom extended
+to an hour, was considerably abridged by circumstances. Any increase in
+the number of prisoners diminished the time which was allotted. Whenever,
+as was frequently the case, any stranger entered the court, the prisoner
+was obliged to hurry into a narrow passage, called the Cabinet, and shut
+himself in closely, that he might not be seen. M. Linguet states, that
+three quarters of an hour was often wasted in these compulsory retreats
+to the Cabinet. If they were not promptly made, or the captive displayed
+any curiosity, the least penalty inflicted was confining the delinquent
+within the limits of his cell.
+
+The towers, which were at least a hundred feet high, were seven feet
+thick at the top, and the thickness gradually increased, down to the
+foundation. Lowest of all in them were dungeons, under the level of the
+soil, arched, paved, lined with stone, dripping with perpetual damps,
+the darkness of which was made visible by means of a narrow slit through
+the wall, on the side next the ditch. In this fetid den, swarmed newts,
+toads, rats, and every variety of vermin which haunt confined and gloomy
+spots. Planks, laid across iron bars fixed in the wall, formed the couch
+of the captive, and his only bedding, even in the most inclement season,
+was a little straw. Two doors, each seven inches thick, with enormous
+locks and bars, closed the entrance to each of these horrible abodes,
+over which might fitly have been inscribed the terrific line that shone
+dimly over the gate of hell, “All hope abandon ye who enter here!”
+
+Above the dungeons were four stories, each consisting of a single room,
+with, in some instances, a dark closet scooped out of the wall. All were
+shut in by ponderous double doors; as were also the staircases. In three
+of the stories, the rooms, of an irregular octagonal shape, were about
+twenty feet in diameter, and eighteen in height. In many of the rooms
+the ceilings were double, with a considerable vacuity between them; the
+lower one was of lath and plaster, the upper of solid oak. The highest
+story of all, which was termed la Calotte, was neither so lofty nor so
+large as the others; it was arched to support the roof and platform, and
+its curvature prevented its inhabitant from walking in any part but the
+middle of the room. On the towers and curtains several pieces of cannon
+were mounted.
+
+The light which was thrown into these chambers was broken and imperfect;
+prospect from them there was none. Each room had only one window; and,
+independent of the obstacle opposed to sight by the massiveness of the
+walls, there was another, in the double iron gratings, at the outside and
+middle, formed of bars as thick as a man’s arm, which closed the narrow
+aperture. In the lower stories, that there might be no chance of seeing
+or being seen, the opening was filled half way up with stone and mortar,
+or with planks fastened to the external grating. Three steps led up to
+some of the windows, if windows they may be called; in other cases they
+were level with the floor. A glass casement excluded the wind in the
+better apartments; the dungeons were left exposed to all the rigour of
+the elements.
+
+The rooms were floored with tile or stone, and all of them, except the
+dungeons, had chimneys or stoves; the chimneys were secured, in several
+parts, by iron bars. In winter, six pieces of wood were allowed daily
+for firing. M. Linguet complains, in his Memoirs, that the quantity was
+insufficient, and the quality execrable. It is obvious that, to enhance
+his profits, an avaricious governor would purchase as cheaply, and deal
+out as scantily, as it was possible for him to do.
+
+The rooms were designated from their situation in the towers, numbering
+from the bottom, and the prisoners were designated by the number of their
+room. Thus, for instance, the first chamber above the dungeon in the
+Bazinière tower was called the first Bazinière, and so on to the topmost,
+which was known as the Calotte Bazinière. The prisoner was consequently
+mentioned not by his name but by the number of his room—the first
+Bazinière, the first Bertaudière, the third Comté, &c. &c. In some cases
+it appears that the prisoner received another name instead of his own,
+which was never uttered or written. In this way De la Tude, of whom we
+shall have occasion to speak, was denominated Daury.
+
+In what manner these pleasant abodes were furnished M. Linguet shall
+describe. “Two worm-eaten mattresses, a cane elbow chair, the bottom of
+which was held together by packthread, a tottering table, a water jug,
+two pots of delftware, one of which was to drink out of, and two flag
+stones, to support the fire; such was the inventory, at least such was
+mine. I was indebted only to the commiseration of the turnkey, after
+several months’ confinement, for a pair of tongs and a fire shovel. It
+was not possible for me to procure dog-irons; and, whether it arises from
+policy or inhumanity I know not, what the governor will not supply, he
+will not allow a prisoner to procure at his own expense. It was eight
+months ere I could obtain permission to buy a tea-pot, twelve before I
+could procure a tolerably strong chair, and fifteen ere I was suffered
+to replace by a crockery vessel the filthy and disgusting pewter vessel
+which is the only one that is used in the Bastile.
+
+“The single article which I was at the outset allowed to purchase was a
+new blanket, and the occasion was as follows:
+
+“The month of September, as every body knows, is the time when the moths
+that prey upon woollens are transformed into winged insects. When the
+antre which was assigned to me was opened, there arose from the bed,
+I will not say a number, nor a cloud, but a large and dense column of
+moths, which overspread the chamber in an instant. I started back with
+horror. ‘Pooh! pooh!’ said one of my conductors with a smile, ‘before you
+have lain here two nights, there will not be one of them left.’
+
+“In the evening, the lieutenant of police came, according to custom,
+to welcome me. I manifested so violent a repugnance to such a populous
+flock bed, that they were gracious enough to permit me to put on a new
+covering, and to have the mattress beaten, the whole at my own cost. As
+feather beds are prohibited articles in the Bastile, doubtless because
+such luxuries are not suitable for persons to whom the ministry wishes
+above all things to give lessons of mortification, I was very desirous
+that, every three months at least, my shabby mattress should have the
+same kind of renovation. But, though it would have cost him nothing, the
+proprietory governor opposed it with all his might, ‘because,’ said he,
+‘it wears them out.’”
+
+Each prisoner was supplied with flint, steel, and tinder, a candle a day,
+a broom once a week, and a pair of sheets every fortnight.
+
+Captives of rank were undoubtedly somewhat better accommodated, and,
+where there were no particular reasons for annoying them, they were
+favoured by being allowed to receive articles from their homes; but the
+common run of convenience and comfort appears not to have gone beyond
+what is described by M. Linguet.
+
+The food of the prisoners was paid for by the king at so much per head,
+according to a graduated scale; but the supply and management of it were
+left, seemingly without controul, in the hands of the governor. By this
+arrangement the prisoners were placed at the mercy of their jailor,
+who, if he happened to have a great love of gain, and a scanty portion
+of humanity, might fill his purse by furnishing bad provisions, or not
+sufficient to sustain life. “There are prisoners in the Bastile,” says
+Linguet, “who have not more than four ounces of meat at a meal; this has
+been ascertained more than once by weighing what was given to them; the
+fact is notorious to all the under officers, who are grieved by it.” In
+estimating the amount of the wrong thus inflicted, it must be borne in
+mind, that the man who is in bonds requires more and better nourishment,
+to keep nature from sinking, than is necessary for the man who is a free
+agent. There was, in this instance, no excuse for stint. The sum allowed
+by the king for the maintenance of the captives was exceedingly liberal.
+It was nearly half a crown a day for an individual of the humblest class;
+four shillings for a tradesman; eight shillings for a priest, a person
+in the finance department, or an ordinary judge; twelve shillings for a
+parliament counsellor; twenty shillings for a lieutenant general in the
+army; one pound ten for a marshal of France; and two guineas for a prince
+of the blood. If the sovereign oppressed those who incurred his anger, he
+at least did not mean to starve them.
+
+What was the fare which this high rate of remuneration obtained for
+the prisoners? It is thus described in a work, published in 1774, by
+one who had himself long tried it. I am not aware that the accuracy of
+the statement has ever been impeached; on the contrary, there is the
+testimony of other witnesses to the same effect.
+
+“The kitchen is supplied by the governor’s steward, who has under him a
+cook, a scullion, and a man whose employment is to cut wood for fuel.
+All the victuals are bad, and generally ill-dressed: and this is a mine
+of gold to the governor, whose revenue is daily augmented by the hard
+fare of the prisoners under his keeping. Besides these profits, which
+are inconceivably great, the governor receives a hundred and fifty
+livres a day for fifteen prison rooms, at ten livres each, as a sort
+of gratification in addition to his salary; and he often derives other
+considerable emoluments.
+
+“On flesh days the prisoners have soup with boiled meat, &c. for dinner;
+at night a slice of roast meat, a ragoût and salad. The diet on fast days
+consists, at dinner, of fish, and two other dishes; at night, of eggs,
+with greens. The difference in the quality of the diet is very small
+between the lowest rank of prisoners, and those who are classed at five
+or ten livres; the table of the latter is furnished with perhaps half
+a starved chicken, a pigeon, a wild rabbit, or some small bird, with a
+dessert; the portion of each rarely exceeds the value of twopence.
+
+“The _Sunday’s_ dinner consists of some bad soup, a slice of a cow, which
+they call beef, and four little pâtés; at night a slice of roast veal or
+mutton, or a little plate of haricot, in which bare bones and turnips
+greatly predominate; to these are added a salad, the oil to which is
+always rancid. The suppers are pretty uniformly the same on flesh days.
+_Monday_: instead of four pâtés a haricot. _Tuesday_: at noon, a sausage,
+half a pig’s foot, or a small pork chop. _Wednesday_: a tart, generally
+either half warm or burnt up. _Thursday_: two very thin mutton chops.
+_Friday_: half a small carp, either fried or stewed, a stinking haddock
+or cod, with butter and mustard; to which are added greens or eggs; at
+supper eggs, with spinach mixed up with milk and water.—_Saturday_: the
+same. And this perpetual rotation re-commences on Sunday.
+
+“On the three holidays, St. Louis, St. Martin, and Twelfth day, every
+prisoner has an addition made to his allowance, of half a roasted
+chicken, or a pigeon. On Holy Monday, his dinner is accompanied by a tart
+extraordinary.
+
+“Each prisoner has an allowance of a pound of bread and a bottle of
+wine per day; but the wine is generally flat and good for nothing. The
+dessert consists of an apple, a biscuit, a few almonds and raisins, some
+cherries, gooseberries, or plums; these are commonly served in pewter,
+though sometimes they are favoured with earthen dishes and a silver spoon
+and fork. If any one complains of receiving bad provisions, a partial
+amendment may take place for a few days; but the complainant is sure to
+meet with some unpleasant effects of resentment. There is no cook’s shop
+in the kingdom, where you may not get a better dinner for a shilling than
+what are served in the Bastile. The cookery, in short, is wretchedly bad,
+the soup tasteless, and the meat of the worst quality, and ill dressed.
+All this must operate to injure the health of the prisoners; and, added
+to other grievances, excites frequent imprecations of vengeance from
+Heaven.”
+
+With respect to the badness of the wine, Linguet corroborates the
+statement of this writer. The governor, it appears, in addition to the
+diet-money, had the privilege of taking into his cellars near a hundred
+hogsheads of wine, duty free. “What does he do?” says Linguet. “He sells
+his privilege to a Parisian tavern keeper, of the name of Joli, who gives
+him 250_l._ for it, and he takes in exchange from him the very cheapest
+kind of wine for the use of the prisoners; which wine, as may easily be
+imagined, is nothing but vinegar.” This was a fraud at once upon the
+government and the prisoners.
+
+The sole mental recreation which the prison afforded was derived from a
+small library, consisting of about five hundred volumes. This collection
+is said to have been founded by a foreign prisoner, who died in the
+Bastile, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, and to have been
+enlarged by later sufferers. In some cases, prisoners were allowed to
+read in the library; but, generally, the works were taken to the cells
+of the captives, and the selection of them depended on the taste of the
+turnkeys. Few of the books were unmutilated; for the prisoners now and
+then indulged in writing bitter remarks on the blank spaces. As soon as a
+book was returned, every leaf was carefully examined, and woe be to the
+rash offender who had suffered passion to get the better of prudence! An
+epigram, or a sarcasm, on his persecutors, or on men in office, exposed
+him to the worst that irresponsible power could inflict. As to the
+volume, if the writing was on the margin, the piece was cut off; but when
+it chanced to be inserted between the lines, the page was torn out.
+
+It seems to have been thought by no means necessary that a prisoner, who
+was deprived of all earthly comforts, should receive consolation from
+regular attendance on religious worship. The chapel was a miserable hole,
+of about seven or eight feet square, under the pigeon-house of the king’s
+lieutenant. “In this chapel,” says one who had been a captive, “are five
+small niches or closets, with strong locks, of which three are formed in
+the wall; the others are only wainscot. Every prisoner admitted to hear
+mass is put in by himself,[1] and can neither see objects nor be seen of
+any. The doors of these niches are secured by two bolts on the outside,
+and lined within by iron bars; they are also glazed; but before each is
+hung a curtain, which is drawn back at the Sanctus, and again closed at
+the concluding prayer. Five prisoners only being admitted at each mass,
+it follows that no more than ten can assist at that ceremony in a day.
+If there be a greater number than this in the Castle, they either do not
+go at all, or go alternately; because there are generally found some who
+have a constant permission.”
+
+There was a confessor in the fortress; but it is scarcely possible that a
+prisoner could repose entire confidence in a spiritual director who was
+in the pay of his oppressors. Though it is going much too far to say,
+as M. Linguet does, that such a man is “a cowardly double-dealer who
+prostitutes the dignity of his character,” it must be owned that some
+doubts and suspicions as to him might naturally arise; it matters not
+that they would be unjust, the possibility of their being excited ought
+to have been carefully avoided.
+
+Let us now turn to the concise but terrible instrument, by virtue of
+which an individual was consigned to captivity, perhaps for life. This
+was the _lettre de cachet_, or sealed letter, so called to distinguish
+it from the _patent_ or open letter, which was merely folded. In former
+days, such epistles were called _lettres closes_, or _clauses_. The
+name was not given to all sealed up missives, but only to those which
+contained some command or information from the sovereign. They were
+signed by the king, and countersigned by one of the secretaries of
+state. The same appellation was originally given to all letters of the
+kind described; but, in latter times, it was principally if not wholly
+applied, at least in common parlance, to royal orders of exile and
+imprisonment.
+
+The oldest recorded mandate of this species is that which Thierry the
+Second issued, at the instigation of Brunehaut, against St. Columbanus,
+who had severely censured the vices of the mother and the son. It
+directed that he should be removed from the monastery of Luxeuil,
+and banished to Besançon, where he was to remain during the king’s
+pleasure. The saint yielded only to force, and, as soon as the guards
+were withdrawn, he retired to his convent. Violence, however, at length
+compelled him to quit the dominions of the licentious Thierry.
+
+The _lettre de cachet_ was usually carried into effect by the officers of
+police; sometimes the arrest was made at the dwelling of the individual,
+sometimes on the roads or in the street by night; but, in all cases,
+it appears to have been accomplished with as much secrecy as possible,
+so that it was no uncommon thing for persons to be missing for years,
+without their friends being able to discover what had become of them. Men
+of rank were at times spared the disgrace of being taken into custody;
+they were favoured by being allowed to carry the letter themselves to
+the prison mentioned in it, and surrender to the governor. Here is a
+specimen of these obliging billets, which was addressed to the prince of
+Monaco, a brigadier in the French army.
+
+    “My Cousin,
+
+    “Being by no means satisfied with your conduct, I send you this
+    letter, to apprise you that my intention is, that, as soon as
+    you receive it, you shall proceed to my castle of the Bastile,
+    there to remain till you have my further orders. On which, my
+    cousin, I pray God to have you in his holy keeping. Given at
+    Versailles, this 25th of June, 1748.
+
+                               (_Signed_)        “LOUIS.”
+                               (_Countersigned_) “VOYER D’ARGENSON.”
+
+By such a scrap of paper as this might any man in France be doomed to
+close and hopeless imprisonment. Malice, wounded pride, rivalry, revenge,
+all the base and cruel passions, availed themselves of it to torment
+their enemies. The titled harlot, whose shame had excited laughter or
+reprobation, the minister, whose measures were unpopular, the frivolous
+courtier, whose folly had been satirised, the debauchee, who wished to
+remove an obstacle to his lust, the parent, who preferred ruling his
+offspring rather by fear than love, was eager to obtain one of these
+convenient scorpion scourges, and the wish was too often gratified.
+
+There is scarcely any enormity so monstrous that it cannot find a
+defender. Even _lettres de cachet_ have not been without an apologist;
+and, to make the wonder the greater, an English apologist. Let us listen
+to his plea. “Perhaps (says he) it was the abuse of the _lettres de
+cachet_, rather than their institution, that merited the execration in
+which they were held; for however extraordinary it may seem, they were
+not unfrequently used to serve the purposes of humanity. There are many
+instances of persons, who, on account of private disputes, or affairs
+of state, would have been exposed to public punishment, that were shut
+up by a _lettre de cachet_, until the danger was past, or the matter
+accommodated or forgotten. It may undoubtedly be objected, that keeping a
+person from justice is itself a crime against the public; but in forming
+a judgment upon this subject, we ought to take into consideration the
+prejudices entertained in the country where this authority was employed.
+It should be remembered that, by an old and barbarous practice, the
+disgrace attending a capital punishment, inflicted by the laws, was
+reflected upon all the family of the criminal; and that in many instances
+it required a public act of the supreme power to wipe off the stain, and
+again enable them to serve their country. In as far, therefore, as the
+_lettres de cachet_ counteracted the effects of these prejudices, they
+were useful; _but though they were signed by the king, from the idea that
+it was proper to have them ready for cases of emergency, ministers, and
+governors of provinces, &c., were generally furnished with them in blank,
+to be filled up at their discretions; and the friends and favourites of
+those ministers sometimes obtained them from them, as is proved by the
+case of M. de Fratteaux, and in many other instances_.”[2]
+
+This is, indeed, carrying to a ridiculous extent the determination
+to find “a soul of good in things evil!” Perhaps it would not be
+uncharitable to put a harsher construction on such language. Public
+justice is to be defrauded, thousands are to be plunged into misery,
+personal safety is to be hourly jeoparded, crime committed by the rich
+and powerful is to escape with all but complete impunity, and the motives
+which most influence individuals to bridle their unruly passions are to
+be weakened, merely “to counteract the effects of a prejudice” on a few
+ancient families! Never was an infinitely small benefit bought at a more
+extravagant price.
+
+From certain particulars, which we find in various memoirs, it would seem
+that, generally speaking, more indulgences were granted to the inmates
+of the Bastile in former days, than during the last thirty years of its
+existence. At all times, however, much would undoubtedly depend on the
+personal character of the governor; if he chanced to be liberal-minded
+and humane, he would, as far as he could venture to do so, mitigate the
+sufferings of his captives; if, on the contrary, he were greedy of gain,
+and harsh in his disposition, he would stint and deteriorate their diet,
+wantonly deny them even the most trifling comforts, and, in short, do his
+best to make the management of the prison “render life a burthen,” which,
+with an impudent candour, one of the officers of the castle avowed to be
+its especial purpose.
+
+It must be owned that, in some respects, modern times witnessed an
+improvement in the practice of the Bastile. The cages, which it is
+known once to have contained, were removed. The rack, also, and other
+instruments of torture, ceased to be called into use. At what period
+the change took place is not said. That, in the latter end of Louis the
+Thirteenth’s reign, the instruments still existed in the castle, we
+learn from the Memoirs of the faithful La Porte, who saw them, and was
+threatened with them to extort a confession.
+
+What the Bastile was in its mildest form will appear from the following
+narrative, written by a person who was confined for eight months. “About
+five in the morning of the 2d of April, 1771,” says the narrator, “I was
+awakened by a violent knocking at my chamber door, and was commanded,
+in the name of the king, to open it. I did so, and an exempt of the
+police, three men who appeared to be under his orders, and a commissary,
+entered the room. They desired me to dress myself, and began to search
+the apartment. They ordered me to open my drawers, and having examined my
+papers, they took such as they chose, and put them into a box, which, as
+I understood afterwards, was carried to the police office. The commissary
+asked me my name, my age, the place where I was born, how long I had been
+at Paris, and the manner in which I spent my time. The examination was
+written down by him; a list was made of every thing found in the room,
+which, together with the examination, I was desired to read and sign.
+The exempt then told me to take all my body linen, and such clothes as
+I chose, and to come along with them. At the word _all_ I started; I
+guessed where they were about to take me, and it seemed to announce to me
+a long train of misery.
+
+“Having shut and sealed the drawers, they desired me to follow them; and
+in going out, they locked the chamber door and took the key. On coming
+to the street, I found a coach, into which I was desired to go, and the
+others followed me. After sitting for some time the commissary told me
+they were carrying me to the Bastile, and soon afterwards I saw the
+towers. They did not go the shortest and direct road; which I suppose was
+to conceal our destination from those who might have observed us. The
+coach stopped at the gate in St. Anthony’s street. I saw the coachman
+make signs to the sentinel, and soon after the gate was opened: the
+guard was under arms, and I heard the gate shut again. On coming to the
+first drawbridge, it was let down, the guard there being likewise under
+arms. The coach went on, and entered the castle, where I saw another
+guard under arms. It stopped at a flight of steps at the bottom of the
+court, where being desired to go out, I was conducted to a room which
+I heard named the council chamber. I found three persons sitting at
+a table, who, as I was told, were the king’s lieutenant, the major,
+and his deputy. The major asked me nearly the same questions which the
+commissary had done, and observed the same formalities in directing me to
+read and sign the examination. I was then desired to empty my pockets,
+and lay what I had in them on the table. My handkerchief and snuff-box
+being returned to me, my money, watch, and indeed every thing else, were
+put into a box that was sealed in my presence, and an inventory having
+been made of them, it was likewise read and signed by me. The major then
+called for the turnkey whose turn of duty it was, and having asked what
+room was empty, he said, the Calotte de la Bertaudière. He was ordered
+to convey me to it, and to carry thither my linen and clothes. The
+turnkey having done so, left me and locked the doors. The weather was
+still extremely cold, and I was glad to see him return soon afterwards
+with firewood, a tinder-box, and a candle. He made my fire, but told me,
+on leaving the tinder-box, that I might in future do it myself when so
+inclined.[3]
+
+“From the time the exempt of police came into my room, I had not ceased
+to form conjectures about the cause of my imprisonment. I knew of none,
+unless it were some verses and sketches, relative to the affairs of the
+times. Though they were indiscreet, they were of little importance. The
+only writing that might have seriously given offence to the government, I
+had never shown, but to one person in whom I thought I could confide. I
+found afterwards he had betrayed me.
+
+“When I heard the double doors shut upon me a second time, casting my
+eyes round my habitation, I fancied I now saw the extent of all that was
+left to me in this world for the rest of my days. _Besides the malignity
+of enemies, and the anger of a minister, I felt that I ran the risk of
+being forgotten; the fate of many who have no one of influence to protect
+them, or who have not particularly attracted the notice of the public.
+Naturally fond of society, I confess I looked forward to the abyss of
+lonely wretchedness, that I thought awaited me, with a degree of horror
+that cannot easily be described. I even regretted now what I had formerly
+considered as the greatest blessing, a healthy constitution that had
+never been affected by disease._
+
+“I recollect with humble gratitude the first gleam of comfort that shot
+across this gloom. It was the idea, that neither massive walls, nor
+tremendous bolts, nor all the vigilance of suspicious keepers, could
+conceal me from the sight of God. This thought I fondly cherished, and
+it gave me infinite consolation in the course of my imprisonment, and
+principally contributed to enable me to support it, with a degree of
+fortitude and resignation that I have since wondered at—I no longer felt
+myself alone.
+
+“At eleven, my reflections were interrupted by the turnkey, who entered
+with my dinner. Having spread the table with a clean napkin, he placed
+the dishes on it, cut the meat, and retired, taking away the knife. The
+dishes, plates, fork, spoon, and goblet, were of pewter. The dinner
+consisted of soup and bouilli, a piece of roasted meat, a bottle of good
+table wine, and a pound loaf of the best kind of household bread. In
+the evening, at seven, he brought my supper, which consisted of a roast
+dish and a ragoût. The same ceremony was observed in cutting the meat,
+to render the knife unnecessary to me. He took away the dishes he had
+brought for dinner, and returned at eight the next morning to take away
+the supper things. Fridays and Saturdays being fast or _maîgre_ days, the
+dinner consisted of soup, a dish of fish, and two dishes of vegetables;
+the suppers, of two dishes of garden stuff, and an omelet, or something
+made with eggs and milk. The dinners and suppers of each day in the week
+were different, but every week was the same: so that the ordinary class
+of prisoners saw in the course of the first week their bill of fare for
+fifty years, if they staid so long.
+
+“I had remained in my room about three weeks, when I was one morning
+carried down to the council chamber, where I found the commissary. He
+began by asking most of the questions that had been put to me before.
+He then asked if I had any knowledge of some works he named, meaning
+those that had been written by me;—if I was acquainted with the author
+of them;—whether there were any persons concerned with him;—and if I
+knew whether they had been printed? I told him that, as I did not mean
+to conceal any thing, I should avoid giving him needless trouble; that
+I myself was the author of the works he had mentioned, and guessed I
+was there on that account;—that they never had been printed;—that the
+work, which I conceived was the cause of my confinement, had never been
+shown to any but one person, whom I thought my friend; and having no
+accomplices, the offence, if there was any, rested solely with myself. He
+said my examination was one of the shortest he had ever been employed at,
+for it ended here. I was carried back to my room, and the next day was
+shaved for the first time since my confinement.
+
+“A few days afterwards I wrote to the lieutenant of the police,
+requesting to be indulged with the use of books, pen, ink, and paper,
+which was granted; but I was not allowed to go down to the library to
+choose the books. Several volumes were brought to me by the turnkey, who,
+when I desired it, carried them back and brought others.
+
+“After my last examination I was taken down almost daily, and allowed to
+walk about an hour in the court within view of the sentinel: but my walks
+were frequently interrupted; for if any one appeared, the sentinel called
+out ‘To the Cabinet!’ and I was then obliged to conceal myself hastily in
+a kind of dark closet in the wall near the chapel.
+
+“The sheets of my bed were changed once a fortnight, I was allowed four
+towels a week, and my linen was taken to be washed every Saturday. I had
+a tallow candle daily, and in the cold season a certain number of pieces
+of firewood. I was told that the allowance of fire to the prisoners began
+the 1st of November, and ceased on the 1st of April, and that my having a
+fire in April was a particular indulgence.
+
+“After being detained above eight months, I was informed that an order
+had come to discharge me. I was desired to go down to the council
+chamber: every thing I had brought with me was returned, together with
+the key of my apartment, which I found exactly in the state I left it on
+the morning of the 2nd of April, 1771.
+
+“During my confinement I wrote many letters to several of my friends,
+which were always received with civility, but not one of them had been
+delivered.”
+
+The aspect of captivity in the Bastile, even when stripped of a part of
+its horrors, is surely hideous enough. But there can be no doubt that,
+in a multitude of cases, an enormous degree of severity was exercised.
+Instead of being told, as in this instance, to give up the contents
+of his pockets, the prisoner was rudely searched by four men, who
+amused themselves with making vulgar jokes and remarks while they were
+performing the task; sometimes his own garments were taken from him,
+and he was clothed in rags. His sufferings from imprisonment might also
+be frightfully aggravated, by thrusting him into one of the humid and
+pestilential dungeons, or into a room which was in the vicinity of a
+nuisance. M. Linguet was confined in a chamber which fronted the mouth
+of the common sewer of St. Anthony’s street, so that the air which he
+breathed was never pure; but in hot weather, in the spring and autumnal
+floods, and whenever the sewer was cleaned, the mephitic vapours, which
+penetrated into his cell, and accumulated there for want of an outlet,
+were scarcely to be endured. What were the interior accommodations of
+this cell the reader has already seen.
+
+The prisoner was not left to divine the motive for depriving him of all
+incisive and pointed instruments; he was bluntly informed that it was
+done to prevent him from cutting his own throat or the throats of his
+keepers. The reason assigned for the precaution shows sufficiently, that
+the officers of the Bastile rightly estimated the capability of exciting
+despair, which was possessed by their prison. This preventive system was
+carried to an almost ludicrous extent. Wishing to beguile the tedium
+of captivity, M. Linguet resolved to resume his geometrical studies,
+and he accordingly requested to be supplied with a case of mathematical
+instruments. After much demur, the case was obtained, but it was without
+a pair of compasses. When he remonstrated respecting the omission, he was
+told, that “arms were prohibited in the Bastile.” At length, his jailors
+hit upon the happy idea of having the compasses made of bone. Candour,
+however, requires the acknowledgment that their fears were not wholly
+groundless, instances having occurred in which prisoners were driven to
+desperation. It was with a pair of compasses that the unfortunate Count
+Lally endeavoured to put an end to his existence. His attempt was made in
+the year 1766, and, in the following year, a more fatal event took place.
+A captive, Drohart by name, contrived to secrete a knife, with which he
+first mortally wounded a turnkey, and then destroyed himself.
+
+For some time after his arrival at the Bastile, every thing seems to
+have been studiously contrived to shock a prisoner’s habits, insulate
+him from the human race, and deliver him up to squalid wretchedness and
+distracting thoughts. The manifest purpose of this was, to break his
+courage, and thereby induce him to make such confessions as would answer
+the ends of his persecutors. It was not till after he had undergone a
+second examination that he was allowed to be shaved; and months often
+elapsed before this favour was granted. Neither was he permitted to have
+books, pens, or paper, nor to attend mass, nor to walk in the court. He
+could not even write to the lieutenant of police, through whom alone
+any indulgence was to be obtained. The sight of the turnkey, for a few
+moments, thrice a day, was the sole link which connected him with his
+fellow beings.
+
+Every stratagem which cunning could devise was put in practice to entrap
+a prisoner into an avowal of guilt, the betraying of his suspected
+friends, or, failing these, into such contradictions as might give a
+colour for refusing to believe him innocent. Threats, too, were not
+spared, nor even flatteries and promises. At one moment, papers were
+shown to him, but not put into his hands, which his examiners affirmed
+to contain decisive proof of his criminality; at another, he was told
+that his accomplices had divulged the whole, and that his obstinate
+silence would subject him to be tried by a special commission, while,
+on the contrary, if he would speak out frankly he should be speedily
+liberated. He who was seduced by this artifice was sure to repent of his
+folly. When the irrevocable words had passed his lips, he was informed
+that the power of his deluders did not extend to setting him free, but
+that they would exert all their influence, and hoped to succeed. It is
+scarcely necessary to say, that there was not a syllable of truth in
+their assurances, and that he who had confided in them was treated with
+increased severity. It was not only in official examinations that the
+captive was exposed to be thus circumstanced; the same system was pursued
+throughout. There was no one who approached him to whom he could venture
+to breathe a whisper of complaint. If he was visited by the lieutenant of
+police, the sole aim of the lieutenant was to draw forth something which
+might be turned against him. If he was allowed to be attended by one of
+the invalids, the attendant treasured up for his masters every word that
+was dropped. Sometimes, apparently as a matter of grace and kindness, a
+companion, said to be a fellow sufferer, was given to him; the companion
+was a police spy, who was withdrawn when he had wormed out the secret,
+or had become convinced that it was unattainable. To listen to that
+which seemed the voice of pity was dangerous; for the turnkeys and other
+officers, enjoined though they were to be mute on other occasions, had
+their tongues let loose for fraudulent ends, and were taught to lure the
+prisoners into indiscreet language, by feigned expressions of sympathy.
+
+In general, a silence was maintained by the officers and attendants,
+which might rival that of the monks of La Trappe. “When a corporal or
+any other, (said the instructions) is ordered to attend a prisoner,
+who may have permission to walk in the garden, or on the towers, it is
+expressly forbidden that he speak to him. He is to observe his actions,
+to take care that he make no signs to any one without, and to bring
+him back at the hour fixed, delivering him over to an officer, or one
+of the turnkeys, as may have been ordered.”—“The sentinel in the court
+must constantly keep in view the prisoners who may be permitted to walk
+there: he must be attentive to observe if they drop any paper, letter,
+note, or anything else: he must prevent them from writing on the walls,
+and render an exact account of every thing he may have remarked whilst
+on duty. All persons whatsoever, except the officers of the staff and
+turnkeys, are forbidden ever to speak to any prisoner, or even to answer
+him, under any pretence whatever.” As it was supposed that strangers
+might chance to feel pity for the victims of despotism, and of course be
+disposed to express it, or to serve them, care was taken to guard against
+that evil. It was therefore ordered that, “if workmen should be employed
+in the castle, as many sentinels must be put over them as may be thought
+necessary, who must observe them with the same attention as they do the
+prisoners, in order that they may not approach these, nor do any thing
+that may be contrary to the rules of the place.”
+
+Visits from without seem never to have been permitted except in minor
+cases of offence. No permission was granted till after the final
+examination, and not then till repeated requests had been made, and
+powerful interest employed. Even when the favour was obtained, its value
+was seriously diminished by the restrictions with which it was clogged.
+The prisoner was obliged to receive his relative or friend in the council
+chamber, on one side of which he was placed, and his visitor on the
+other, with two officers between them; nor were the parties suffered to
+converse on any subject which had the most remote reference to the cause
+or circumstances of the prisoner’s confinement. The same system was
+followed when one captive had an interview with another. There was but
+one case, in which incarcerated individuals could have a free interchange
+of thoughts; it was when the fullness of the prison, or the humanity of
+the governor, caused two of them to be located in the same chamber.
+
+Intercourse by letters was equally shackled, though there was an
+insulting affectation of a readiness to facilitate correspondence.
+It has, indeed, been conjectured, that “this apparent indulgence to
+prisoners was one of the many artifices employed to discover their
+secrets, and the persons with whom they were connected;” and this
+supposition may not be far from the truth. There can be no doubt, that
+of the letters written by captives few arrived at their destination. We
+have seen, in the narrative of a prisoner, that the whole of those which
+he wrote were suppressed. M. Linguet tells us, that, knowing the king’s
+brothers, Monsieur and the Count d’Artois, (afterwards Louis XVIII. and
+Charles X.) to be favourable to him, he wrote to them, to solicit their
+intercession. “The letters,” says he, “were sealed. The lieutenant of
+police, some time after, told me he had read but not transmitted them;
+that he had not been allowed. When I observed to him that, since he knew
+the contents, he might make them known to the generous princes from whom
+he had detained them, he replied, that he had no access to such high
+personages. Thus the man, who was prohibited from approaching such high
+personages, had the privilege of breaking open and suppressing their
+letters, of rendering fruitless their good intentions and those of the
+monarch, and, in short, of raising round me ramparts more impenetrable
+than all the magic castles with which imagination has ever peopled our
+romances.”
+
+Profound secrecy and mystery were among the most prominent features in
+the management of the Bastile. He who was fortunate enough to emerge
+from this den of Cacus, was previously compelled to swear that he would
+never reveal whatever he had seen or heard during his abode in it. He
+who was retained, to waste away life within its dreary limits, was
+sedulously shut out from all knowledge of what was passing in the world.
+The malignant enemy, by whom he had been deprived of freedom, might be
+gone to his last account, but to _him_ he still lived and tyrannized,
+for no whisper of his departure was suffered to reach him. When the fact
+of a person being in the Bastile was not so notorious as to preclude
+the possibility of denying it, his being there was unblushingly denied.
+When enquiry was made, the officers, the governor, the minister himself,
+would not scruple to affirm, and that, too, in the most solemn manner,
+that they knew nothing of any such individual. Thus were his friends
+discouraged, and led to slacken in their exertions for his relief, or
+wholly to discontinue them. If, however, they discovered the falsehood,
+and persisted in their efforts, there was still another resource for
+defeating them; slander was resorted to, the worst crimes were attributed
+to him, and he was held up as an abandoned miscreant, whom it was a
+disgrace to patronize, and mercy to confine. At last, weariness, disgust,
+or death, robbed him of all who had loved or pitied him, and, even though
+his original persecutor had ceased to exist, the victim was left to
+perish forgotten in his dungeon.
+
+There was one object, besides the wish to elicit imprudent speeches or
+confessions, which had power to open the lips of the jailors; that object
+was the desire of tormenting, of making the prisoner feel how completely
+he was insulated from mankind, no less by its own baseness than by his
+prison walls. “I was daily told with a laugh,” says M. Linguet, “that I
+ought not to trouble myself any longer about what the world was doing,
+because I was believed to be dead; the joke was carried so far, as to
+relate to me circumstances which insane rage or horrible levity added
+to my pretended exit. I was assured, also, that I had nothing to hope
+from the warmth and fidelity of my friends; not so much because, like
+others, they were deceived with respect to my existence, as because they
+had become treacherous. This double imposture had for its purpose, not
+merely to torture me, but at once to inspire me with a boundless reliance
+on the only traitor whom I had reason to fear, and who was perpetually
+represented as being my only true friend, and to discover, from the
+manner in which I was affected by these tidings, whether I had really any
+secrets which could lay me open to a betrayer.”
+
+Though the captive was not allowed to live with even a shadow of comfort,
+or to hasten his own end, a wide opening was left for death to accomplish
+his deliverance in one of the regular modes. From the evening meal till
+that of the morning, he was hermetically sealed up by massy, iron-lined
+double doors; in all that time no human being approached him. The turnkey
+slept in a distant chamber, where neither voice nor the sound of knocking
+could reach him. Bells seem to have been thought too great a luxury
+for the place. If illness suddenly came, there was no resource for the
+sufferer, but to call to the nearest sentinel, on the other side of the
+broad moat. If his voice were too weak, if his strength failed to carry
+him to the window, or if the wind drowned his cries, he must remain
+unaided. If his disorder were apoplectic, or he broke a blood-vessel, it
+is manifest that his fate was sealed. But, supposing him to be heard,
+prompt assistance was by no means to be expected. The sentinels gave the
+alarm to each other, till it reached the guard-house; the turnkey was
+then to be called, who, on his part, had to rouse the servant of the
+king’s lieutenant, that he might awake his master, and procure from him
+the keys. Two hours were thus spent before the surgeon was drawn from his
+bed, where, in truth, he might as well have continued, since, interdicted
+as he was from prescribing by himself, he could only make a report to the
+governor, and promise that the physician, who resided three miles off,
+and was overloaded with practice, should be sent to on the morrow.
+
+If the disease was not immediately dangerous, some medicine was brought,
+and the sick man must help himself as well as he could, and be thankful
+if his malady were not thought to be simulated. “But when he was reduced
+to extremity, when he was so far gone that he could not rise from the
+worm-eaten couch on which he lay, a nurse was given to him. And who
+was this nurse? a stupid, coarse, brutal invalid soldier, incapable of
+attentions, little assiduities, every thing which is indispensable for a
+sick person. But a still worse thing is, that when this soldier is once
+fastened on you, he can never quit you; he himself becomes a prisoner. It
+is therefore necessary to begin by purchasing his consent, and prevailing
+on him to be shut up with you as long as your captivity lasts; and, if
+you recover, you must make up your mind to bear the bad temper, the
+discontent, the reproaches, the ennui, of this companion, who takes ample
+vengeance upon your health for the seeming services which he has lent to
+your sickness.”
+
+There was yet another stab to be inflicted on those who were sinking into
+the grave, and by this the living could be wounded at the same time. To
+regulate the manner in which, after his death, his property shall be
+distributed, and, by so doing, to save a wife and offspring from the
+perplexity, endless trouble, expense, and perhaps ruin, which may arise
+out of a disputed succession, or the want of needful formalities, is a
+duty which every rational being will be anxious to perform. That the
+person is a captive, only renders more necessary the performance of the
+duty. But not so thought the myrmidons of the Bastile. It is on record
+that a prisoner, who was stretched for two months on a bed of sickness,
+expecting that each hour would be his last, repeatedly and vainly
+implored a French minister of state to grant him the customary legal aid
+for executing his will; his prayer was sternly refused, though there
+was a lawyer who belonged to the prison establishment. That this was a
+solitary instance it would be folly to imagine.
+
+It was not of unfrequent occurrence in the Bastile, for the bodily
+faculties of a prisoner to survive his mental. Shut out from the
+beautiful forms of nature, the treasures of intellect, and the delights
+of social converse, from all that can animate or console; racked by a
+thousand remembrances, conjectures, passions, and fears; brooding in
+deep seclusion and silence over the past and the present, and vainly
+struggling to penetrate the darkness of the future; his mind at length
+gave way, and idiotism or madness ensued. Yet even that must be deemed a
+blessing, if it brought with it oblivion of his fate.
+
+But the long and unbroken series of woes is at last ended; death has rent
+asunder the fetters of the captive, and he is “where the wicked cease
+from troubling, and the weary are at rest.” Is there yet a way left, by
+which his ingenious tormentors can make their vengeance reach beyond
+the grave, by which they can, in some measure, entail upon his kindred
+a share of suffering? There is. How was this important purpose effected
+in the Bastile? As soon as the breath was out of the body, a notice was
+sent to the minister of the home department and the lieutenant-general
+of police. The king’s commissary then visited the prison, to minute
+down the circumstances. This being done, orders were issued to inter
+the body. In the gloom of evening it was conveyed to the burying ground
+of St. Paul’s; two persons belonging to the Bastile attended it to sign
+the parish register; and the name under which the deceased was entered,
+and the description of the rank which he held, were fictitious, that
+all trace of him might be obliterated. Another register, containing
+his real name and station, was, in truth, kept at the Bastile; but it
+was almost inaccessible, a sight of it, for the purpose of making an
+extract, being never allowed, without a strict enquiry into the reason
+why the application was made. His family and friends, meanwhile, remained
+in profound ignorance of his having been released from his troubles.
+No mourning mother, wife, or child, followed his remains to their last
+abode; and even the poor consolation was denied them of knowing the spot
+where he reposed, that they might water it with their tears. Thus, in
+death, as in life, oppression and malice triumphantly asserted their
+absolute dominion over the captives of the Bastile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+    Reign of John II.—Stephen Marcel, Provost of the
+    Merchants—Reign of Charles V.—Hugh Aubriot—Reign of
+    Charles VI.—Noviant—La Rivière—Peter des Essarts—John de
+    Montaigu—Contests of the factions at Paris—The Count of
+    Armagnac—The Burgundians obtain possession of Paris—Massacre
+    of the Armagnacs—Assassination of the duke of Burgundy—Reign
+    of Charles VII.—Paris in the hands of the English—Villiers
+    de l’Isle Adam—The English expelled from Paris—Reign of
+    Louis XI.—Anthony de Chabannes—The Count de Melun—Cardinal
+    de Balue—William d’Haraucour—Charles d’Armagnac—Louis de
+    Luxembourg—The Duke of Nemours and his children.
+
+
+A mind tinctured with superstition, even though it were not of the
+darkest hue, might be tempted to believe that a fatality pursued the
+men by whom the Bastile was raised. It has been seen that the original
+founder was the famous Stephen Marcel, Provost of the Merchants. Marcel,
+though his character has uniformly been blackened by writers devoted
+to absolute monarchy, seems to have been influenced, at least in the
+greatest portion of his career, by truly patriotic motives. It is not
+the object which he laboured to obtain, but some of the means which
+he employed for its attainment, that merits censure. To confine the
+royal authority within reasonable bounds, and to give the national
+representatives their proper weight in the scale of government, were
+the purposes which he sought to accomplish. The dangerous circumstances
+in which the country was placed, and the heavy oppression under which
+the people groaned, pointed out such a reform as being no less wise
+than just. The time for attempting it was favourable; inasmuch as
+the captivity of the king, and the presence of a victorious foreign
+army, would, it was supposed, compel the dauphin, Charles, to look to
+the States-General for the means of saving France from still greater
+calamities. Yet, so strong was princely dislike to receiving aid from the
+legitimate guardians of the public purse, that Charles preferred raising
+supplies by the fraudulent and ruinous expedient of debasing the coin. In
+that scheme he was fortunately defeated by the stubborn opposition of the
+Provost.
+
+The alliance formed by Marcel with Charles, surnamed the Bad, king
+of Navarre, was, perhaps, an impolitic act; not so much because
+the Navarrese monarch deserved the epithet given to him by French
+historians—for we may doubt whether he was, in reality, much more
+blame-worthy than his namesake, the dauphin, on whom the same historians
+have lavished their praise—but because a junction with a man who was
+exceedingly obnoxious to a large party in France was likely to give rise
+to suspicions with respect to his principles and motives. It is probable,
+however, that he was led to it, by a wish to have some stronger prop
+to lean on than the fluctuating favour of the populace. The “varium
+et mutabile semper,” by which Virgil, somewhat harshly, characterizes
+the female sex, may, with less appearance of satire, be applied to the
+multitude. This truth Marcel was doomed to learn by experience.
+
+For nearly two years, the Provost, with more or less steadiness, kept his
+footing on the tottering eminence to which he had risen. During that time
+he was actively engaged in securing the French capital from external and
+internal foes. He fortified and enlarged its circuit, supplied it with
+arms and provisions, established a guard of citizens, which was night
+and day on the watch, and barricaded the entrances of the streets by
+ponderous chains, which were fastened to the houses: these chains were
+the first barricades which were formed in Paris.
+
+The capital was undoubtedly saved from pillage and devastation by the
+provident care of Marcel. In spite, however, of his exertions, his
+popularity waned; the minds of his fellow citizens were poisoned by
+the arts and insinuations of the dauphin’s friends, and irritated by
+his connection with the king of Navarre, whose troops were mercilessly
+ravaging all the circumjacent country. While the Parisians were in this
+ferment, the dauphin promised a general amnesty to them, on condition of
+their giving up to him the Provost, and twelve other persons, whom he
+should select. Fearing, probably, that this temptation would be too great
+for them to resist, the Provost, in an evil hour, resolved to admit into
+the city the troops of the king of Navarre. It is also said, though there
+does not appear to be any proof of the fact, that he intended to make a
+general massacre of the opposite party, and transfer the crown of France
+to Charles the Bad. For this we have only the word of his enemies.
+
+It was on the night of the 31st of July, 1358, that Marcel designed to
+open the gates of Paris to the Navarrese soldiery. He was too late. At
+noon, he went to the gate of the bastile of St. Denis, and ordered the
+guard to deliver up the keys to Joceran de Mascon, the king of Navarre’s
+treasurer. The guard refused to comply, and a loud altercation arose. The
+noise brought to the place John Maillard, the commandant of the quarter.
+Up to this moment, Maillard had been the zealous friend of Marcel, but
+he now resolutely opposed the scheme of the latter. A violent quarrel
+ensued between them, which ended by Maillard springing on horseback,
+unfurling the banner of France, and summoning the citizens to assist him
+in preventing the Provost from betraying the city to the English. The
+summons speedily brought a throng around him. The friends of the dauphin,
+likewise, did not let slip this opportunity of acting in his behalf. A
+considerable body of men was collected by them, at the head of which were
+placed two gentlemen, named Pepin des Essarts and John de Charny.
+
+From the gate of St. Denis, meanwhile, Marcel proceeded on the same
+errand to the other gates. He was not more successful than on his first
+attempt; obedience was every where refused. As a last resource, he bent
+his course to the bastile of St. Anthony. Here, again he was foiled.
+His enemies were beforehand with him. The keys he did by some means
+obtain, but they were useless. Maillard had already reached the scene of
+action, with a numerous train of followers, and he was almost immediately
+joined by the partisans of the dauphin. With the keys of the Bastile in
+his hand, Marcel began to ascend the entrance ladder, striving at the
+same time to keep off his assailants. A terrible cry now burst forth of
+“Kill them! kill them! death to the Provost of the Merchants and his
+accomplices!” Alarmed by the clamour, he attempted to save himself by
+flight, but he was struck on the head with an axe, by de Charny, and he
+fell at the foot of the Bastile, which he had himself built. His body
+was immediately pierced with innumerable wounds by the infuriated crowd.
+Giles Marcel, his nephew, and fifty-three others, the whole of the party
+which had attended him, were either slain on the spot or thrown into
+prison. Three days afterwards, the dauphin re-entered Paris, and began
+to feed his revenge with blood.
+
+By Hugh Aubriot the Bastile was advanced another step towards its
+completion. Born at Dijon, of humble parents, Aubriot gained the favour
+of Charles the fifth, and of his brother, the duke of Anjou, and was
+appointed minister of finance. He was also raised to the dignified,
+though troublesome and dangerous office of Provost of Paris. Charles
+the fifth had a love of building, and he found in the Provost a man who
+had talents and activity to carry his wishes into effect. Paris was
+indebted to Aubriot for numerous works, which conduced to its safety,
+ornament, and salubrity. He strengthened and added to the ramparts,
+constructed sewers, which he was the first to introduce into the
+capital, formed quays, rebuilt the Pont au Change, and built the Pont
+St. Michel. In these labours he employed, at a fixed rate of payment,
+all the mendicants, destitute persons, and disorderly characters of the
+city; thus compelling them to earn that subsistence which they had been
+in the habit of extorting or plundering from the citizens. The police
+of the city was greatly improved by him in other respects. Among the
+ordinances which he issued, for that purpose, was one which revived that
+of Louis the ninth, relative to prostitutes. Paris was now overrun with
+loose women; the ordinance enjoined them, under penalty of fine and
+imprisonment, to reside only in certain places, which were specified, to
+the number of nine.
+
+The strict performance of his duty proved to be the ruin of Aubriot.
+Among the worst nuisances of the capital were the scholars of the
+University of Paris; they were addicted, among other things, to
+drunkenness, libertinism, and robbery, and their insolence was still
+more insufferable than their vices. Perpetual quarrels and contests, in
+which they were almost always the aggressors, took place between these
+votaries of learning and the citizens. The main cause of their excesses
+being thus pushed beyond all bounds was the complete impunity which
+they enjoyed. Fonder of its privileges than of morality and justice,
+the University on all occasions strenuously resisted the efforts of the
+magistrates to bring scholars to punishment. In more than one instance it
+threw its protecting shield over plunderers and assassins, and pursued
+with a deadly hatred those individuals who had dared to enforce the laws
+against criminals. This crying abuse Aubriot determined to suppress. In
+the prison of the Little Châtelet, which was built by him, he ordered
+two strong and not over comfortable cells to be constructed, for the
+reception of delinquent scholars. These he called his _clos Bruneau_ and
+_rue de Fouaire_; the University schools being situated in places which
+were so named. By this stinging joke, and by the vigorous measures of
+Aubriot, the University was inexpiably offended. Regardless of its anger,
+he, however, resolutely persisted in arresting and committing to prison
+every student who ventured to transgress.
+
+While Charles the fifth lived, Aubriot remained safe; but the death of
+his patron, and the weakness and confusion of a minority, laid him open
+to the malice of his enemies. The University had sworn to accomplish
+his ruin, and this oath it held sacred. In his public character he had
+so deported himself as to be intangible; and, therefore, his private
+life was ransacked to find matter for accusation. It was discovered, or
+feigned, that he was too warm a lover of women, and, to give a darker
+colour to this fault, it was added, that he had an especial predilection
+for Jewesses. From this, by a curious process of logic, it was deduced
+as an inference, that he was himself a Jew and a heretic; his accusers
+not perceiving, or not choosing to perceive, that the one of these
+conditions excluded the other. Their reasoning was akin to that which, in
+the fable, the wolf uses to the lamb. Unluckily, too, for the Provost,
+they resembled the wolf in other points; they had his savageness and his
+ability to injure. The University and the clergy joined in a clamour
+against him, and were supported by the duke of Berry, who was hostile to
+the Burgundian party, to which Aubriot belonged.
+
+Charged with impiety and heresy, Aubriot was brought to trial before
+an ecclesiastical tribunal. With such prosecutors and such judges,
+conviction was certain. To such a pitch did the University and the clergy
+carry their animosity against him, that he would have been doomed to the
+flames, had not his friends at court powerfully exerted their influence
+to procure a milder sentence. But, though his life was spared, he was not
+suffered to escape without feeling how venomous are the fangs of fanatics
+and pedants. He was condemned to public exposure and penance, in presence
+of the heads and scholars of the University, to ask pardon upon his
+knees, and, with no other food than bread and water, to spend in strict
+confinement the remnant of his days.
+
+Aubriot was conveyed to the Bastile, to undergo the last part of his
+sentence. In the course of a few months, probably because he was treated
+with too much lenity in a state prison, he was removed to the bishop’s
+prison, called Fort-l’Evêque, where he was thrown into one of those
+dungeons which bore the significant name of oubliettes. There he might
+have languished long, or perished quickly, but never have hoped for
+deliverance, had not, in 1381, the intolerable oppression exercised
+by the government given rise to the insurrection which, from the
+circumstance of the revolters being armed with leaden malls, was called
+the Maillotin. In want of a leader, the insurgents bethought them of Hugh
+Aubriot; and it is not unlikely that, as he had suffered heavy wrongs,
+they supposed he would espouse their cause with heart and soul. They
+accordingly liberated him. Aubriot, however, was either too old, or too
+prudent, to become the head of a revolt; he spoke his deliverers fair,
+but, on the very evening that he was set free, he crossed the Seine, and
+hastened to Burgundy, his native country, where he is believed to have
+died in the following year.
+
+While Charles the sixth was labouring under his first attack of insanity,
+the political feuds and intrigues which distracted his court gave fresh
+inhabitants to the Bastile. When, in 1392, the dukes of Burgundy and
+Berry assumed the government, the overthrow of Clisson, the constable
+of France, and prime minister, necessarily ensued, and in his fall was
+involved the ministry he had formed. Three of the ministers, La Begue de
+Villaine, Noviant, and La Rivière, were arrested; Montaigu, the fourth,
+escaped to Avignon. La Begue, an aged man, who had served in the field
+with honour under several kings, was soon released; Noviant and La
+Rivière were reserved as scape goats, and were shut up in the Bastile.
+Of Noviant nothing important is recorded. La Rivière had enjoyed, in the
+highest degree, the confidence and friendship of Charles the fifth; so
+much, indeed, did the monarch value him, that, by his express commands,
+whenever his favourite died, the royal mausoleum of St. Denis was to be
+the place of interment. At the accession of Charles the sixth, La Rivière
+suffered a temporary eclipse; but he shone forth again when the young
+monarch assumed the reins of government.
+
+Noviant and La Rivière were now in the hands of their enemies, and had
+little to hope; for they were rich enough to excite a hungering after
+their spoils, and had been too long in possession of power not to be
+loathed by their rivals. It is the curse and the shame of politics,
+that they render men insensible to, or, which is still worse, incapable
+of acknowledging, the merit really owned by those who differ from them
+in views and principles. Thorough-going politicians are but too apt to
+affirm what is false, or suppress what is true, provided it will injure
+their opponents. It follows, as a natural consequence of this unworthy
+feeling, that, though the two ministers fully vindicated themselves on
+every article of impeachment, they had but small chance of escaping.
+Their fate was deemed so inevitable that, more than once during the trial
+the brute populace rushed to the place of execution, lured by the report
+that the ministers were about to be brought to the scaffold. Luckily
+for them, they had a protector, stronger than their innocence. This was
+the young and lovely princess Jane, countess of Boulogne, the wife of
+the duke of Berry. Her marriage with the duke had been brought about by
+the influence of La Rivière, and this circumstance, together with the
+minister’s estimable qualities, had secured for him her affection and
+esteem. Her pleadings softened her husband, and thus prevented a deadly
+sentence from being passed on the fallen statesmen. It is not to be
+supposed, however, that they were allowed to go unscathed. To declare
+them guiltless would have been a tacit confession of error, an act which
+is not to be expected from weak and base minds; and, besides, hatred
+could not consent to let loose its objects without previously making
+them feel a touch of its fangs. The ministers, therefore, after having
+been captives for twelve months, and in hourly dread of death, were only
+condemned to confiscation of their property, and exile to a distance
+from the court. With respect to the latter part of the sentence, they
+might well have exclaimed, like Diogenes, “and we condemn you to remain
+at court!” Charles, on his temporary return to sanity, restored their
+estates, but they were not again employed. La Rivière died in 1400, and
+was buried at St. Denis.
+
+There was a moment when the Bastile seemed about to be converted to its
+original purpose, that of a fortress for the defence of Paris. After
+the duke of Burgundy had, in 1405, obtained possession of the king, the
+dauphin, and the capital, preparations to recover Paris were made by the
+beautiful but worthless queen Isabella, and her paramour, the duke of
+Orleans. In consequence of this, the Burgundian prince placed garrisons
+in the Bastile and the Louvre; and a report having been spread, that
+there was a plot to carry off the dauphin, a chain was stretched across
+the river, from the Bastile to the opposite bank, to prevent the passage
+of vessels. It was on this occasion that, to win the good will of the
+Parisians, the duke induced the king to restore to them the barricading
+chains, of which they had been deprived in 1383, and which had ever since
+been kept in the castle of Vincennes. The precautions were prudent, but
+they were made useless, by a treaty between the hostile parties.
+
+It has already been observed, that the office of Provost of Paris was no
+less perilous than honourable. During the disturbed and disastrous reign
+of Charles the sixth, there were as many as twenty-four provosts, and
+there were few of them who did not find their dignity a burthen. Among
+the most unfortunate of them was Peter des Essarts. He was one of the
+French nobles who were sent to aid the Scotch in their contest with the
+English; and, in 1402, he fell into the hands of the latter. After he was
+ransomed he returned to France, and became a zealous partisan of John
+the Fearless, the duke of Burgundy. The duke amply rewarded him for his
+services. He successively obtained for him the posts of Provost of Paris,
+grand butler, grand falconer, first lay president of the chamber of
+accounts, supreme commissioner of woods and waters, and superintendant
+of finance, and also the governments of Cherbourg, Montargis, and Nemours.
+
+As provost of Paris, it fell to his lot to arrest a man whose rise had
+been no less rapid than his own. His task was performed with a thorough
+good will. Montaigu, whom we have seen flying to Avignon after the
+downfall of Clisson, returned to the French capital when the storm was
+blown over. There he became more than ever a favourite of the king, who
+loaded him with honours, promoted his relations, and procured for his
+son the hand of the constable d’Albret’s sister. Among the offices which
+were lavished on Montaigu were those of finance minister and grand master
+of the royal household. His riches were soon increased to an enormous
+degree, and his pride to a still greater. To the duke of Burgundy he
+had rendered himself peculiarly obnoxious, by thwarting his plans, and
+being a determined adherent of the queen and the house of Orleans. The
+Burgundian affected to be reconciled to him, but he did not the less
+resolve upon his destruction. To accomplish the ruin of Montaigu, the
+duke instituted an enquiry into the conduct of those who had managed
+the finances; a species of enquiry which was always applauded by the
+tax-burthened people. At the same time, he likewise procured for the
+Parisians the restoration of various privileges, which had been taken
+from them, as a punishment for the Maillotin insurrection. Having thus
+fortified his popularity, he took advantage of the king being visited by
+one of his fits of madness, to commence operations against Montaigu. The
+favourite had been cautioned against his danger, and advised to fly from
+it, but confiding in the support of the queen and the duke of Berry, he
+was deaf to advice. He was arrested in the street by des Essarts, and
+committed to the Little Châtelet. It strongly marks his insufferable
+pride and insolence, that, when he was seized by the provost, he
+exclaimed “Ribald! how hast thou the audacity to touch me.” This was the
+arrogance of an upstart, for he was of humble birth. He was brought to
+trial, with little attention to the forms or the spirit of justice, and,
+after having been tortured, was condemned to lose his head; his property
+was confiscated, but, instead of being appropriated to replenish the
+treasury, it was divided among his enemies. The sentence was executed in
+the autumn of 1409.
+
+If ambition had not entirely banished prudence, the fate of Montaigu
+might have taught des Essarts to reflect on the frail tenure by which,
+in an age of faction, the most conspicuous partisans hold their fortunes
+and their lives. Nor was he without a still more impressive warning. In
+a moment of displeasure, the duke of Burgundy said to him, “Provost of
+Paris, John de Montaigu was three-and-twenty years in getting his head
+cut off, but verily you will not be three years about it:”—ominous words,
+where the prophet had the power of bringing his prophecy to pass!
+
+In 1410 the contending factions once more resumed their arms. By a rapid
+march, the Burgundian prince made himself master of Paris, which he
+garrisoned with eight thousand men. For the support of the troops, a
+heavy tax was imposed upon the citizens. Des Essarts was charged with the
+levying of this tax, and he is accused of having swelled his own coffers
+with the largest share of the produce. By this onerous measure, the
+popularity of the duke and the provost was materially diminished. In the
+course of a few months, the duke deemed it prudent to conclude another
+simular of a treaty; it was called the treaty of the Bicêtre, from the
+place where it was negotiated, and by one of its articles he consented
+that des Essarts should be removed from the provostship of Paris.
+
+It seems impossible for the signers of such treaties to have put their
+hands to them without being tempted to laugh in each other’s faces; the
+compacts were notoriously intended to be broken on the first favourable
+opportunity. Accordingly, but a few months elapsed, after the conclusion
+of the peace, before the Burgundian and Orleanist parties were again in
+arms, and vituperating each other in the most virulent language. Des
+Essarts was re-established as provost of Paris; and, during the temporary
+ascendancy of the Orleanists, his exertions to supply the city with
+provisions gained for him, from the citizens, the flattering appellation
+of the Father of the People. When, however, the Parisians ceased to be in
+dread of having hungry bellies, they ceased to applaud him; and, in the
+following year, he became an object of their hatred.
+
+A sharp contest of a few months was terminated by another hollow truce,
+under the name of a peace. By this time the Burgundian prince appears to
+have been converted into a deadly enemy of des Essarts. Three causes are
+assigned for this change. The provost is said to have in private charged
+him with appropriating a large sum of the public money to his own use; to
+have entered into correspondence with the Orleanist leaders, and warned
+them that the duke designed to assassinate them; and likewise to have
+formed, with the concurrence of the dauphin, a plan for rescuing that
+prince and the king from the state of tutelage in which they were kept by
+the Burgundian ruler. It is highly probable that, disgusted by the duke
+having abandoned him in the treaty of the Bicêtre, he had really gone
+over to the Orleanist faction. Any one of these causes was sufficient
+to make his former patron resolve upon his ruin. There was also another
+circumstance which wore a threatening aspect for des Essarts. The
+States-General were now sitting at Paris, and in that assembly clamours
+began to be heard against financial depredators, amongst whom the
+multitude, so lately his adulators, did not hesitate to class him. To
+elude the storm, which he saw approaching from more than one quarter,
+he resigned his office of finance minister, in which he had succeeded
+Montaigu; but he did not forget to secure an adequate compensation
+for the sacrifice which he made. He then retired to his government of
+Cherbourg.
+
+The Burgundian was at this period in apparent amity with the dauphin;
+nor had he, as yet, openly manifested his animosity against the provost.
+The dauphin, was, however, at heart hostile to him, and impatient of his
+yoke. It was, no doubt, with a view to having a firm hold of Paris, that
+he resolved to become master of the Bastile; but to the duke the reason
+which he assigned was, the mutinous disposition of the people, which
+it was necessary to have the means of repressing. Imagining that the
+provost was still trusted by the duke, he proposed to confide to him the
+task of seizing upon the Bastile. The clear-sighted Burgundian at once
+saw through the scheme, but he gave a willing consent to its execution;
+for it would enable him to accomplish two objects, the getting of des
+Essarts into his hands, and the gaining a complete triumph over the
+dauphin himself. Des Essarts was consequently summoned from Cherbourg;
+he accepted the commission; and he managed so well, that he secured the
+Bastile, without the least opposition.
+
+The provost was scarcely in possession of the fortress before the scene
+changed. The Burgundian prince had skilfully laid a train, and a violent
+explosion suddenly took place. A rumour was spread throughout Paris, that
+the Orleanists, or Armagnacs, as they now began to be called, intended
+to carry off the dauphin with his own consent, and that the provost
+was at the head of the plot. A furious multitude, the leaders of which
+were two of the duke’s attendants, immediately hurried to invest the
+Bastile on all sides. It swelled every moment, till it consisted of not
+fewer than twenty thousand armed men, all clamorous for the blood of des
+Essarts, and determined to storm the castle, in order to satisfy their
+rage. Another body, led by John de Troie, a surgeon, proceeded, at the
+same time, to the dauphin’s palace, loaded him with insult, and arrested
+several of his officers and friends, some of whom were murdered on their
+way to prison.
+
+The duke of Burgundy now came forward, apparently as a mediator. The
+besiegers he induced to suspend their attack, by promising that their
+object should be attained without force being used. He then tried his
+eloquence on des Essarts. In the first interview he failed, in the second
+he succeeded. By dint of representing to him that it was impossible to
+restrain the people, and that, if they effected their entrance, which
+they certainly would, the provost would be torn in pieces, he shook his
+resolution of defending himself; and, by pledging his honour that no harm
+should befall him, he finally prevailed on him to surrender.
+
+Des Essarts would have done more wisely to brave death from the
+sanguinary crowd, than to rely on the honour of an acknowledged assassin.
+Ostensibly for the purpose of saving him from the violence of his
+enemies, he was led to the prison of the Châtelet, where he seems to have
+thought that all danger was at an end. He was speedily undeceived, by his
+being brought to trial. In addition to various crimes charged against him
+in his official capacity, he was accused of having caused the renewal of
+the war between the princes after the treaty of Chartres, and of having
+plotted to carry off from Paris the king, the queen, and the dauphin. He
+was, of course, found guilty, and was condemned to lose his head, and to
+have his remains suspended from the gibbet of Montfaucon. Four years
+had not elapsed since the convicted Montaigu was conveyed by him to the
+same spot. The sentence passed on des Essarts was executed on the first
+of July 1413. He went to the scaffold with great courage; a circumstance
+which his enemies attributed to his having flattered himself that the
+people would rise and rescue him. If he entertained any such visionary
+hopes, his long experience of the people must have been entirely lost
+upon him.
+
+The changes in the fortune of the two factions which desolated France
+succeeded each other with an almost ludicrous rapidity; the party which
+was triumphant on one day was prostrate on the morrow. We have just seen
+the dauphin humbled by the duke of Burgundy; yet the same year did not
+pass away before the dauphin and the Armagnacs gained the upper hand,
+and the duke found it prudent to retire to his own dominions. That he
+might keep a firm hold of the capital, the dauphin gave the command of
+the Bastile to his uncle, prince Louis of Bavaria, appointed the duke
+of Berry governor of Paris, gave the provostship to Tannegui du Châtel,
+removed to the Bastile the chains used for barricading the streets, and
+issued orders for the citizens to deliver up all kinds of arms.
+
+The duke of Burgundy appealed to the sword, but without success, and the
+treaty of Arras, which was the result of his failure, relieved France
+for awhile from his incursions and his intrigues. It was not till nearly
+two years afterwards, when the battle of Agincourt had given a rude
+shock to the French throne, that he re-appeared upon the scene. Under
+his auspices, the Burgundian faction at Paris formed a conspiracy, for a
+general massacre of the Armagnacs, in which the king himself was not to
+be spared, should he venture to resist. It was detected at the critical
+moment, and the Armagnacs avenged themselves by murders, proscriptions,
+and excessive taxes, which alienated many of their friends, without
+crushing their enemies.
+
+The death of the dauphin Louis, speedily followed by that of his
+brother and successor John, gave the dignity of dauphin to Charles, the
+youngest son of the king. The duke of Burgundy had hoped to exercise an
+influence over John, but he had only hostility to expect from Charles,
+who, as far as a boy of fifteen could be any thing, was a partisan of
+the Armagnacs. By war alone could any thing be gained, and he therefore
+prepared to wage it. The gross impolicy of the opposite party gave him
+manifold advantages. While the count of Armagnac, the constable, who was
+the head of the reigning faction, goaded the people by forced loans,
+enormous imposts, and severities against all whom he suspected, he and
+the dauphin contrived also to exasperate the queen, by seizing her
+treasures, casting, perhaps not undeservedly, a stain upon her character,
+and banishing her to Tours. Driven to desperation by these injuries and
+insults, she abjured her long-cherished hatred of the duke, and wrote
+to him for succour. He gladly listened to the call, released her from
+captivity, and escorted her to Chartres, where, in virtue of an obsolete
+ordinance of the king, she assumed the title of regent, and created a
+parliament, to counterbalance that of the capital. A preponderating
+weight was thus thrown into the scale of the Burgundian prince. Nor did
+he neglect to strengthen himself by conciliating the people; for, while
+the count of Armagnac was daily irritating them by his extortions, the
+duke held out to them a tempting lure, by proclaiming that all the towns
+which opened their gates to him should be freed from taxes. Encouraged
+by these circumstances, his partisans in the capital formed a plan for
+admitting him into the city; but it was discovered and frustrated.
+
+The return of our Henry the fifth to France, in 1417, and the progress
+which he was making in Normandy, recalled to their senses most of the
+leaders of the factions. The necessity of union being felt, negotiations
+were opened. The queen, the dauphin, and the duke of Burgundy were
+willing to come to terms; the principal article agreed on was, that the
+queen and the duke should form a part of the royal council. But the count
+of Armagnac would hear of no treaty that did not really leave in his
+hands the whole power of the state; and he accordingly strained every
+nerve, and was even guilty of the most revolting cruelty, to render
+impossible an accommodation with the Burgundian leaders. He little dreamt
+how soon he was to be precipitated from the pinnacle of greatness, and
+trampled in the mire by the basest of the base.
+
+Harassed and impoverished by tyranny and exaction within the walls, and
+beset by foes beyond them, the Parisians were hungering for peace. They
+were the more inveterate against Armagnac, because they were tantalized
+by the object for which they longed being almost within their reach.
+Peace had, in fact, been concluded at Montereau, and publicly announced
+in Paris, and the count, seconded by de Marle, the chancellor, was the
+sole obstacle to its being enjoyed. He was inflexible in his resistance.
+To bring about a rupture of the treaty, he sent troops to attack two of
+the Burgundian posts; seemingly struck with a judicial blindness, the
+forerunner of his fall, he pushed to an unbearable length his arrogance,
+extortion, and gloomy precautions; and he is said to have even meditated
+a sweeping massacre of such of the citizens as were hostile to him,
+and to have ordered leaden medals to be struck for distribution to his
+partisans, that the murderers might distinguish them in the hour of
+carnage. If the character of the man, and the spirit of those barbarous
+times, were not in accordance with this sanguinary project, we might,
+perhaps, imagine him to be unjustly charged with it; for, in all ages,
+it has been the custom to blacken an overthrown tyrant, by loading him
+with imaginary crimes. That, however, it was possible for persons of
+the highest rank to tolerate, and probably to command, the cold-blooded
+slaughter of their foes, was but too speedily proved.
+
+Terrible as the multitude is when once moved, it is slow to be moved.
+Mutual distrust, and the dread of failure, keep its component parts
+from uniting, till some one, more daring than the rest, or provoked
+into action by flagrant wrongs, assumes the lead, and gives to it the
+principle of cohesion. It was a denial of justice which brought into
+play the man who was wanting, to convert into open revolt the passive
+disaffection of the citizens. The servant of an Armagnac noble having
+grossly maltreated Perinet le Clerc, whose father, an ironmonger, was the
+quartinier, or magistrate of his ward, Perinet applied to the provost
+for redress. His application was contemptuously rejected, and he swore
+to be revenged. In concert with some of his friends, he matured a plan
+for admitting the Burgundian troops, and he opened a correspondence on
+the subject with Villiers de l’Isle Adam, who commanded at Pontoise, for
+the duke. The chance of success seemed so fair, that l’Isle Adam readily
+agreed to risk a portion of his garrison in the attempt. The negotiation
+was conducted with so much secrecy that not a breath of it transpired.
+
+The plan was carried into effect on the night of the 28th of May, 1418.
+Perinet was a man of ready resources, equally discreet and resolute, and
+he omitted nothing that could tend to secure a triumph. By virtue of his
+office, the father of Perinet held the keys of St. Germain’s gate, and
+had the relieving of the guard there. On the appointed night, having
+first contrived to place on guard many of his associates, Perinet stole
+to his father’s bed-side, and, undiscovered, drew the keys from beneath
+his pillow. L’Isle Adam was waiting near the gate with eight hundred men.
+At two in the morning, it was opened by Perinet, who, as soon as the
+troops had entered, locked the gate, and threw the keys over the walls,
+that, retreat being impossible, the soldiers might be compelled to combat
+with desperate valour. The adventurers proceeded in dead silence along
+the streets till they reached the Little Châtelet, where they were joined
+by several hundred armed citizens, who had been assembled to receive
+them. The confederates now loudly raised the rallying cry of “Peace!
+peace! Burgundy for ever!” and it was soon as loudly echoed from every
+side. From all the streets crowds of citizens sallied forth, wearing on
+their dress the St. Andrew’s cross, which was the distinguishing mark of
+the Burgundian party. In a very short time, tens of thousands were in
+arms.
+
+Scattered over a large city, and taken by surprise, the Armagnacs could
+make no resistance. Tannegui du Châtel, the governor of the Bastile,
+had barely time to hurry to the dauphin’s abode, snatch him half awaked
+from the couch, wrap him in the bedclothes, and convey him for safety to
+the Bastile, whence, without delay, he removed him to Melun. While he
+was thus occupied, a party of Burgundians marched to the king’s palace,
+and compelled him to take horse, and put himself at their head. Other
+parties spread themselves over the city, and slaughtered, or dragged to
+prison, all the Armagnacs on whom they could lay their hands. Nobles,
+warriors, ministers of state, bishops, abbots, magistrates, and the
+humble followers who had moved at their beck, were indiscriminately
+thrust into durance. The jails were speedily crowded till they could hold
+no more, and it then became necessary to confine the captives in public
+buildings and private houses. The constable, in the rags of a beggar, at
+first eluded his pursuers, and found shelter in the dwelling of a poor
+mason; but a threatening proclamation, against whoever should harbour an
+Armagnac, terrified his host into betraying him.
+
+The Bastile, and consequently the power of entering Paris, was yet held
+by Tannegui du Châtel. In the hope of recovering the capital, before
+preparations could be made for its defence, he hurried back from Melun,
+along with other officers, among whom was Barbazan, who is honourably
+distinguished in the French annals, as the irreproachable knight, and
+the restorer of the kingdom and crown of France. At the head of a
+large body of gendarmes, he, on the first of June, made a sally from
+the Bastile, and advanced up St. Anthony’s-street, towards the palace,
+with the intention of making himself master of the king’s person. The
+king, however, had been removed, and Tannegui was soon encountered by
+l’Isle Adam, who had gathered together some troops, and was every moment
+reinforced by the citizens. A desperate contest took place, but the
+Armagnac general was finally compelled to retreat, with the loss of four
+hundred men. The corpses of the slain were ignominiously thrown into the
+common sewer by the victors. Leaving a small garrison in the Bastile, he
+retired with the remainder of his force, and distributed it among the
+neighbouring fortresses of Corbeil, Meaux, and Melun. Two days after the
+departure of Tannegui, the governor of the Bastile deemed it prudent to
+capitulate.
+
+Already irritated by Tannegui’s attempt, the partisans of the Burgundians
+were excited almost to madness by a letter from the queen, in which she
+declared that neither she nor the duke would return to Paris, till it
+was purged of the Armagnacs. It has been truly remarked, that “such a
+letter was, in reality, a decree of death.” That was the construction put
+upon it by the Burgundian faction; and, unrestrained by any religious or
+humane feeling, they promptly carried the sentence into effect. On the
+morning of the 12th of June, a report being spread that the enemy were
+attacking two of the gates, the citizens hastily assembled from every
+quarter. “All issued from their houses,” says an old writer, “like swarms
+of bees from various hives. Malls, hatchets, axes, clubs, poles shod with
+iron points, swords, pikes, javelins, and halberts, were called into use
+by the insurgent people.”
+
+The signal of carnage was given by one Lambert, who harangued them,
+and proposed to massacre the captives. His sanguinary suggestion was
+instantly adopted by the brutal crowd, and they hurried to the numerous
+prisons, uttering loud cries of “Kill those dogs! Kill those Armagnac
+traitors!” A scene of horror ensued at which nature shudders. Some of the
+victims were flung from the towers of the buildings upon the pikes of
+the assassins, some were chopped down with hatchets, some were drowned,
+and others were burned alive in their dungeons; their mangled remains
+were exposed to every kind of indignity; and torrents of blood flowed
+through the streets. From the jails the slaughter was extended to the
+suspected inhabitants of houses, and was followed by pillage. The work of
+murder and robbery was untiringly continued throughout the whole of the
+night, and was recommenced in the morning, after the labourers in it had
+refreshed themselves by a short repast.
+
+Nineteen hundred of the Armagnacs are said to have fallen on this
+terrible day. Nor did they alone suffer, for numbers of the Burgundian
+party fell beneath the weapons of their private foes, who availed
+themselves of this opportunity to gratify their revenge. After having
+for three days been dragged through the streets by the mob, the naked
+and disfigured corpse of the constable was conveyed out of Paris in the
+scavengers’ cart, and thrown among the filth and ordure of the city
+laystall. That no proof of their ferocity might be wanting, his murderers
+cut a portion of his skin into the form of a scarf, and hung it round him
+in ridicule of the white scarf which was the badge of his party.
+
+A supplementary massacre, of equal extent, and attended by circumstances
+equally atrocious, occurred shortly after, in which perished the
+prisoners from the Bastile and Vincennes, and those who had been arrested
+since the first slaughter. On this occasion, the captives in the Great
+and Little Châtelet strove to defend themselves, by hurling down stones
+and tiles on their enemies, but their resistance was soon overpowered,
+and not one of them escaped.
+
+These enormities—prefigurations of those which, nearly four centuries
+later, were to be committed in the same city—were succeeded by riotous
+rejoicings for the arrival of the queen and the duke, and by “one of
+the finest religious processions that ever was seen.” But the wrath of
+Heaven did not slumber long. “The joy of Paris,” says an old annalist,
+“was speedily changed into mourning, for three months had not passed away
+after this carnage, when so cruel a pestilence fell upon the city, that
+it destroyed more than eighty thousand persons in three months. History
+records, that this Perinet and his companions, after having squandered
+all that they had gained by plunder, died miserably, not long enjoying
+the fruits of their robberies; and that the greater part of the nobles
+and gentlemen, who had acted with the murderers, were carried off by the
+pestilence, except l’Isle Adam, who was reserved to be chastised by king
+Henry of England, though it was on another account, as we shall relate
+in the proper place. And was it not God who took vengeance for these
+cruelties?”
+
+In a little more than a year from this time, John the Fearless, himself
+an assassin, fell by an assassin’s hand, at the conference of Montereau.
+His life had been productive of great evils to France; his death brought
+on it still greater. The murder of John gave birth to that coalition
+between his successor Philip the Good, Henry the fifth of England, and
+queen Isabella, which, for more than a quarter of a century, deluged the
+kingdom with blood, and nearly wrested the sceptre from the ancient line
+of monarchs. In 1420, Paris was delivered into the hands of the English,
+and for sixteen years they retained possession of it; the Louvre, the
+Bastile, and Vincennes, were their principal posts in the capital and its
+immediate vicinity.
+
+The only prisoner whom, during their domination, the English are recorded
+to have confined in the Bastile, was the very man but for whose activity
+and daring the capital would, perhaps, never have been in their power.
+It was l’Isle Adam. This warrior, who was born about 1384, of an ancient
+and noble family, was taken by the English, at Honfleur, in 1415. After
+he recovered his liberty, he joined the party of John the Fearless, and
+was made governor of Pontoise. We have seen by what means he gained Paris
+for the Burgundian prince. That he was deeply implicated in the massacres
+appears to be a melancholy truth; and all his talents and valour are
+insufficient to cleanse his reputation from that damnable spot. For his
+services he was rewarded, by the duke of Burgundy, with the rank of
+marshal.
+
+It is not clear in what manner l’Isle Adam incurred the displeasure of
+our Henry the fifth, the regent of France. French writers ascribe the
+circumstance to the pride and arrogance of the English sovereign, who
+required the most abject homage from all his French courtiers. L’Isle
+Adam, they tell us, having one day come into the royal presence in a
+plain grey dress, the monarch sternly asked him whether that was a fit
+dress for a marshal. “Dearest lord,” said the offender, “I had it made
+to travel in from Sens to Paris;” and, while he spoke, he looked at
+the king. “What!” exclaimed Henry, “do you dare to look a prince in the
+face?” “Most dread lord,” answered the marshal, “it is the custom in
+France; and if any one avoids looking at the person to whom he talks, he
+is considered as a bad man and a traitor; therefore, in God’s name, do
+not be offended.”—“Such is not our custom,” Henry sourly replied, and
+here the dialogue ended. If this story be true, it speaks ill for the
+policy, and worse for the disposition, of the victor of Agincourt.
+
+A few days after this conversation is supposed to have occurred, L’Isle
+Adam was committed to the Bastile, on the false and absurd charge of
+meaning to betray Paris to the dauphin. About a thousand of the citizens
+took up arms to rescue him, on his way to the fortress, but they were
+put to flight by the small band of English archers, which was escorting
+him to prison. L’Isle Adam, it is affirmed, would have passed from the
+Bastile to the scaffold, had he not been saved by the remonstrances of
+Philip the Good, and the death of Henry.
+
+After the decease of Henry, L’Isle Adam rejoined the Burgundian standard,
+and took so active and effective a part in the war, that, when the
+order of the Golden Fleece was established, he was one of the first on
+whom it was conferred. In 1437, he followed the duke of Burgundy into
+Brabant, and on the 22nd of May, of that year, he was killed in a popular
+insurrection, which took place at Bruges.
+
+It was not till the 22nd of September, 1429, that any attempt was made to
+disturb the English in their occupation of Paris. Flushed with its recent
+successes, and hoping that the citizens would rise upon the garrison,
+the army of Charles assaulted on that day the ramparts of the capital,
+between the gates of St. Honoré and St. Denis. The assault, led by Joan
+of Arc, continued for four hours; but the glorious heroine was severely
+wounded through the thigh, and the assailants were compelled to retire.
+
+For seven years after this attack, the English kept their ground in
+Paris. But the English power in France was now daily crumbling into
+dust. The Burgundian, their ally for several years, was become their
+active enemy; the duke of Bedford, whose valour and skill so long upheld
+a tottering cause, had sunk into the grave; town after town, willingly
+or on compulsion, opened its gates to Charles; succours arrived seldom
+and in scanty numbers; and frequent insurrections, in Normandy and other
+quarters, compelled them to disseminate their troops, so that it became
+impossible for them to take the field with a formidable army. At this
+critical moment, Paris had only a feeble garrison of fifteen hundred men;
+a force wholly inadequate to defend the place, even had the citizens
+been far less disaffected than they really were. They were weary of
+war, and, besides, prudence dissuaded them from persisting to oppose
+a sovereign whose throne was evidently established on a solid basis.
+Such being the state of things, Charles thought the time was come to
+recover his capital. A negotiation was secretly opened with the citizens;
+and, on condition of a general amnesty, they agreed to return to their
+allegiance. On the night of the 13th of April, 1436, the king’s troops
+were admitted into the city. Though he was taken by surprise, Willoughby,
+the governor, a brave and intelligent officer, took such measures as
+would have baffled his assailants, had he received any aid from the
+Parisians. But not a hand was raised in his behalf, and he had no other
+resource than a retreat to the Bastile, which he effected in good order.
+An honourable capitulation, allowing him to retire with bag and baggage,
+to Rouen, was offered to Willoughby, and, as he knew that resistance must
+be unavailing, he wisely accepted an offer which he could not hope would
+be repeated. Thus ended the sway of the English in Paris.
+
+During the remainder of the reign of Charles VII., nothing more occurred
+which belongs to this narrative. Abundant materials, are, however,
+supplied by the iron sway of his son and successor, Louis XI. Historians,
+in speaking of Louis XI., have charactered him, and with justice, as a
+violator of all social duties, as being a “bad son, a bad husband, a bad
+father, a bad brother, a bad kinsman, a bad friend, a bad neighbour,
+a bad master, and a most dangerous enemy.” That, on attaining supreme
+power, such a man should take heavy vengeance for injuries, real or
+supposed, is in the natural order of things. Immediately on his accession
+to the throne, Louis displaced from their offices all persons who had
+rendered themselves obnoxious to him; and, in some instances, his revenge
+was more signally manifested.
+
+Among the most conspicuous of those who felt his anger was Anthony de
+Chabannes, count of Dammartin. Chabannes had played an active part in the
+long war between Charles VII. and the English, and, on various occasions
+had done signal service. Like many other nobles of that period, he was,
+however, possessed of far more courage than honourable principles. To
+swell his coffers with plunder, he did not hesitate to put himself
+at the head of the ferocious banditti known by the descriptive name
+of _écorcheurs_, or flayers, with whom he ravaged the north-eastern
+provinces of France, as far as the Swiss frontier. He quitted them in
+1439, to marry a rich wife, after which he again entered into the king’s
+service.
+
+Chabannes, as is often the case with criminals, could more easily
+commit crimes than bear to be told of them. The monarch having one day
+laughingly greeted him by the title of king of the flayers, he angrily
+replied, “I never flayed any but your enemies; and it appears to me
+that you have derived more benefit from their skins than I have.” Not
+satisfied with this retort, he further gratified his offended feelings by
+prompting the dauphin to become the leader of the malecontents, in the
+ephemeral civil war which is known as the war of the _Praguerie_.
+
+After the Praguerie was over, Chabannes was again received into favour
+by Charles, and he seems ever after to have remained faithful to him. He
+even disclosed a conspiracy which the dauphin had formed, to deprive the
+monarch of his crown and liberty. The dauphin, on being brought face to
+face with him, hardily denied the fact, and gave him the lie. The conduct
+of Chabannes, in this instance, was not undignified. “I know,” said he,
+“the respect which is due to the son of my master; but the truth of my
+deposition I am ready to maintain, by arms, against all those of the
+dauphin’s household who will come forward to contradict it.” No one was
+hardy enough to accept this challenge.
+
+It is less creditable to Chabannes, that he presided over the commission
+which was appointed to try, or rather to find guilty, the persecuted
+Jacques Cœur, and that he contrived to obtain, at a shamefully inadequate
+price, several of Cœur’s estates.
+
+In 1455, Chabannes, by performing his duty to his sovereign, gave fresh
+offence to the dauphin. Irritated at last by the political intrigues of
+his son, and by his having persisted for ten years to absent himself from
+the court, Charles determined to deprive him of the petty sovereignty of
+Dauphiné, and to secure his person. Chabannes was chosen to carry this
+determination into effect: and he acted with such vigour that, after
+having prevailed on the duke of Savoy to refuse the prince an asylum, he
+compelled him to seek shelter in the dominions of the duke of Burgundy.
+
+Chabannes was, consequently, one of the earliest victims on the accession
+of Louis to the throne. Deprived of his office of grand master of France,
+he took flight, but he soon returned, and claimed a fair trial. The king
+refused to admit the claim, and ordered him to quit the kingdom; an order
+which he obeyed. While he was absent, his property was confiscated, and
+he was summoned to appear, and answer the charges against him. Confiding
+in his innocence, he complied with the summons; but he was found guilty
+of high treason, and condemned to death. The sentence was commuted to
+banishment by Louis; who, however, changed his mind as to the punishment,
+and shut him up in the Bastile.
+
+In the Bastile Chabannes remained for four years. On the breaking out
+of the war, the parties in which called their confederacy the League of
+the Public Good, he contrived to escape; and, on his way to join the
+malecontents, he made himself master of the towns of St. Fargeau and St.
+Maurice. He was one of those who benefited by the treaty of Conflans,
+which terminated this war. His sentence was annulled, and his estates
+were restored to him.
+
+It is a singular circumstance that, with respect to Chabannes, Louis
+passed at once from the extreme of hatred and suspicion, to that of
+kindness and confidence. He not only restored his estates, but he added
+to their number. At a later date, when he instituted the order of St.
+Michael, Chabannes was one of the first whom he nominated. Favours
+conferred by a gloomy and unprincipled tyrant cast a doubt on the
+character of the receiver, even when it has been hitherto unstained,
+which was not the case with the new knight. The nomination gave occasion
+to a severe sarcasm from the duke of Britanny. Louis having sent to him
+the collar of the order, the duke declined it, assigning as a reason,
+that “he did not choose to draw in the same collar with Chabannes.”
+
+Chabannes was not ungrateful for the benefits bestowed on him. When,
+strangely deviating from his accustomed wariness, Louis involved himself
+in the dilemma which Sir Walter Scott has so admirably described in
+Quentin Durward, Chabannes did him the most essential and opportune
+service, and received his warmest thanks for it. He was afterwards
+employed in various important expeditions, all of which he brought to a
+successful issue. In his old age, he withdrew from the court, but, in
+1485, Charles VIII. conferred on him the government of the Isle of France
+and Paris. Chabannes did not long enjoy this new honour; he died in 1488.
+
+The war, caused by the League of the Public Good, which restored liberty
+and fortune to Chabannes, deprived his enemy, the count de Melun, not
+only of both, but of life also. When we are told that Melun was so
+addicted to pleasure, luxury and sloth, as to have acquired the name of
+the Sardanapalus of his times, we can form no very flattering estimate
+of his character. Yet he stood high in the good graces of Louis XI.,
+and participated largely in the spoils of Chabannes. In his capacity
+of governor of Paris and the Bastile, he was also entrusted with the
+custody of that nobleman. It was not till after the battle of Montlhéri
+that Louis began to suspect him. The monarch had, indeed, some excuse
+for suspicion. Melun had at least been criminally negligent, in a post
+which demanded the utmost vigilance. He had prevented a sally from the
+city during the battle, which might have turned the scale in the king’s
+favour, and he had been ignorant of, or winked at, a correspondence
+carried on with the chiefs of the League by some of the disaffected
+citizens. These indications of treachery were strengthened by two
+circumstances; some of the cannon of the Bastile had been spiked, and the
+gates of the fortress, on the side next the country, had been left open
+while the besiegers were making an attack. The escape of Chabannes might
+also afford a reason for doubting his keeper’s fidelity. Louis, however,
+was, at this moment, too closely pressed by his numerous enemies to enter
+into an investigation of the subject; and he, therefore, only dismissed
+the governor.
+
+Melun retired to his estates, and imagined that the storm was blown
+over. He was mistaken. As soon as Louis had disembarrassed himself, he
+instituted a rigid enquiry into the conduct of his disgraced favourite.
+One of the most active in pushing it on was a man who was indebted to
+the count for his rise in life; the cardinal Balue, of whom further
+mention is about to be made. The result of the enquiry was, a charge of
+having maintained a secret correspondence with the heads of the League,
+especially with the duke of Britanny. Melun was in consequence arrested,
+and conveyed to Chateau Galliard, in Normandy, by the provost Tristan
+l’Hermite, of infamous memory.
+
+The trial was commenced without delay, and, as he refused to confess to
+any crime, he was put to the torture. With respect to his correspondence
+with the chiefs of the League, he avowed it, but pleaded that it had
+the king’s sanction. It is probable that this was really the case. Many
+motives might have induced the king to allow of his officer corresponding
+with the enemy. But Louis had now resolved upon the destruction of Melun;
+and, as he never scrupled at falsehood when he had any point to gain by
+it, he denied that he had given the permission. By adding that he had
+long had cause to be dissatisfied with the prisoner, he gave a broad
+hint as to what kind of verdict he desired. The judges, as in duty
+bound, pronounced Melun guilty, and he was consigned to the scaffold. His
+execution took place in 1468. Of his confiscated property, a considerable
+portion was bestowed on Chabannes.
+
+It is said, that the executioner having only wounded him at the first
+stroke, Melun raised his head from the block, and declared, that he had
+not deserved death, but that, since the king willed it, he was satisfied.
+If this be true, we must own that tame submission to the injustice of a
+despot was never more strikingly displayed.
+
+Had Melun lived but a little longer, he might have triumphed in the
+downfall and punishment of his ungrateful enemy, the cardinal, which
+took place in 1469. John Balue, the person in question, born in Poitou
+in 1421, was the son of either a miller or a tailor. He had, perhaps, as
+many vices, and as few virtues, as any person upon record. Ingratitude,
+in particular, seems to have been deeply rooted into the nature of this
+unworthy prelate. Towards the bishops of Poictiers and Angers, who had
+early patronized and confided in him, and the count de Melun, by whom
+he was introduced to the monarch, he acted with unparalleled baseness.
+His sovereign fared no better than his other benefactors. Louis XI. had
+rapidly raised him to the highest offices in the state, and had loaded
+him with ecclesiastical preferment, yet the traitor betrayed him.
+
+While his power lasted, there was no department of the government with
+which Balue did not interfere. This trait in the character of the
+cardinal called forth a pleasant sarcasm from Chabannes, who could not
+see with patience his own province invaded. Balue having one day reviewed
+some regiments, Chabannes gravely requested the king’s permission to
+visit the cardinal’s bishopric of Evreux, for the purpose of examining
+clerical candidates, and conferring ordination on them. “What do you
+mean?” said Louis. “Why, surely, sire,” replied Chabannes, “I am as fit
+to ordain priests, as the bishop of Evreux is to review an army.”
+
+It required, however, something more than a joke to shake the confidence
+which the monarch placed in the cardinal. That something more was not
+slow in coming. Since the treaties of Conflans and Peronne, it had been a
+main object of Louis to dissociate his brother, the duke of Berry, from
+his dangerous adviser the duke of Burgundy; and, as one means towards
+effecting this, he strove hard to induce him to accept, as an appanage,
+the duchy of Guienne and the government of Rochelle, instead of the
+provinces of Champagne and Brie, which, by the treaty of Peronne, he had
+been compelled to confirm to his brother. Louis was undoubtedly justified
+in wishing to accomplish this object, as there was little chance that
+peace would be preserved if the duke of Berry became an immediate
+neighbour of the duke of Burgundy. Nor was the equivalent which the king
+offered for Champagne and Brie an inadequate one, but much the contrary.
+On this occasion, the king suffered the penalty to which all deceivers
+are subjected, that of not being trusted. Could the duke of Berry have
+put faith in his brother, he no doubt would have accepted Guienne.
+
+It was with no less surprise than indignation that the king discovered,
+by intercepted letters, that all his efforts, not only in this case but
+in others, had been counteracted by the man on whom he most relied.
+The cardinal, and his friend and agent William d’Haraucourt, bishop
+of Verdun, were in close correspondence with his enemies. It was to
+revenge himself for the king having failed in his promise, to procure
+him a cardinal’s hat, that d’Haraucourt entered into the plot against
+him. It would seem that nothing short of madness could have prompted
+the cardinal to peril his liberty and fortune, perhaps his life, by his
+treasonable proceeding. But here again the king was whipped by his own
+vices. Balue perceived or imagined that his influence was declining, he
+was convinced that it would wholly expire whenever his services were no
+longer necessary to the monarch—Louis being, in his opinion, incapable
+of personal attachment—and he therefore resolved to place him in such
+a situation, by making the king’s foes formidable, that those services
+should be always indispensable. On his being interrogated, he avowed,
+with a shameless candour, that, for this purpose, he had betrayed the
+secrets of the state to the Burgundian duke, encouraged the duke of Berry
+to refuse the proposed exchange, advised the calamitous interview and
+disgraceful treaty of Peronne, and recommended to Charles of Burgundy to
+compel the king to accompany him on the expedition against the revolted
+citizens of Liege.
+
+There was treason enough here to forfeit a hundred heads, had they
+grown on laic shoulders. But, as far as regarded the final penalty of
+the law, their ecclesiastical character proved a shield to the cardinal
+and his associate. The king desired the pope to nominate apostolical
+commissioners to try the criminals; the pope, on the other hand,
+contended that they must be judged by the consistory, and that the
+decision of their fate must be left to him. A long negotiation ensued
+between the spiritual and temporal sovereigns, and, as neither would
+concede, the offenders were never brought to trial at all.
+
+It cannot, however, be said that the cardinal and the bishop escaped
+unscarred. If Louis could not take their lives, he could at least render
+their lives a burthen, and this was a power which he was not backward
+in exercising. In the province of Touraine, between twenty and thirty
+miles to the southward of Tours, stood the castle of Loches, one of the
+sepulchres in which Louis buried his living victims. It was there that,
+at a later period, Ludovico Sforza lingered out the last years of his
+existence. Loches was well provided with oubliettes, dungeons, chains of
+enormous weight, facetiously called the king’s little daughters, iron
+cages, and all other means of torturing the body and mind. Thither Balue
+was sent, and there he passed eleven lonely years, in an iron cage, which
+was only eight feet square. His fate resembled that of Perillus—for to
+the cardinal himself is attributed the invention of these cages. Perhaps
+the only praise which he ever deserved was gained at the castle of
+Loches; the praise of having preserved his courage unshaken throughout
+the whole of his tedious captivity. Balue was released in 1480, went to
+Rome, where he was received with open arms, was sent as legate to France,
+and died, in 1491, bishop of Albano, and legate of the March of Ancona.
+
+His confederate, d’Haraucourt, was still more severely punished. The
+Bastile was his place of confinement, and there a cage, of unusual
+strength, was constructed in one of the towers, expressly for his abode.
+The cage was formed of massy beams, bolted together with iron, occupied
+nineteen carpenters for twenty days in framing it, and was so heavy, that
+the vault, which was to support it, was obliged to be rebuilt in a more
+substantial manner. Within its narrow and gloomy limits, d’Haraucourt was
+immured for no less than fifteen years. It was not till after the death
+of Louis the eleventh, that the prisoner was set at liberty. He died, at
+a very advanced age, in the year 1500.
+
+While d’Haraucourt was wasting away life in his cage, there was another
+prisoner in the Bastile, who was enduring far worse misery, and was far
+more worthy of compassion, because, though he was himself guiltless, he
+suffered the penalty of another’s crimes. When, in 1473, the restless
+and unprincipled John, count of Armagnac, was slain at Lectoure, by the
+royal troops, his brother Charles, who had taken no part in the contest,
+was arrested by order of Louis the eleventh, sent to the Concièrgerie,
+and put to the torture. He was on the point of proving his innocence,
+when he was removed to the Bastile, and secluded from all access of
+friends. L’Huillier, the governor, treated him with a cold-blooded
+barbarity which was worthy of a man who held office under Louis. There
+was nothing that cruelty could suggest that was not practised on the
+unfortunate Charles. The agonies of the captive were protracted for a
+period of fourteen years, during all which time he inhabited a dreary
+and noisome dungeon, in which water almost continually dropped upon him,
+and he could not move without wading though slimy mud. He was liberated,
+and his property was restored, by Charles the eighth. The boon, however,
+came too late to be of any avail. His reason was shaken by what he had
+undergone; he languished for a few years, and died in 1497.
+
+Less compassion is due to the next inhabitant of the Bastile who appears
+upon the scene. Faithful to no party, he fell regretted by none. Louis
+de Luxembourg, count of St. Pol, who was born in 1418, succeeded to the
+possessions of his father, when he was only fifteen. He did not receive
+his moral education in schools where humanity and honour were to be
+learned. His uncle and guardian, count de Ligni, was well qualified
+to brutalise his youthful mind. It was de Ligni that basely sold the
+heroine Joan of Arc to the English, for ten thousand livres. In one of
+his campaigns he took his nephew with him, that the boy might kill some
+of the prisoners, in order to accustom him to scenes of blood. Louis is
+said to have proved an apt scholar, and to have taken delight in the
+performance of his murderous task.
+
+At his outset in life, St. Pol, like most of his family, was a warm
+partisan of the English party. Circumstances, however, having compelled
+him to visit the court of Charles the seventh, he met with so flattering
+a reception that he deserted his party, and devoted himself to that
+monarch. With the dauphin (who was afterwards Louis the eleventh)
+he contracted as close a friendship as can subsist between two such
+characters. St. Pol distinguished himself, in the service of his new
+master, on various occasions, particularly at the sieges of the Norman
+fortresses.
+
+Though St. Pol had given up the English party, he did not break off his
+old connection with the Burgundian prince. He fought for him against the
+insurgent citizens of Ghent, and he even joined in the League of the
+Public Good, as it was ludicrously styled, and led the vanguard of the
+count de Charolais, at the battle of Montlhéri. At the peace of Conflans,
+Louis, in the hope of winning him over from the Burgundian interest,
+promoted him to be constable of France; and soon after, with the same
+view, he gave him the hand of Mary of Savoy, the queen’s sister, and
+granted him a wide extent of territory.
+
+These favours did not produce the desired effect. St. Pol seems to have
+had little gratitude in his nature; and, in this case, he perhaps thought
+that there was none due for what was rather a bribe than a free gift. As
+he imagined that his safety consisted in preventing a good understanding
+between the king and the duke of Burgundy, he was constantly intriguing
+to keep them at variance, and he alternately betrayed them. His intrigues
+being discovered, the two princes, during one of their short periods of
+amity, entered into a compact, by which they declared him their common
+enemy. The duke of Burgundy promised, that if the constable fell into his
+hands, he would surrender him to the king within eight days. For this he
+was to be rewarded by the restoration of St. Quentin, Amiens, and other
+towns on the Somme. This agreement was of course kept a profound secret.
+
+What St. Pol had already done was sufficient to seal his fate; but
+he roused the anger of Louis still farther, by an act of personal
+disrespect, and by leaguing with Edward the fourth of England for the
+invasion of France. It was not, however, till he had got rid of Edward
+by a treaty, and had artfully contrived to irritate the duke of Burgundy
+still more against St. Pol, that Louis seriously prepared for taking
+vengeance on the offender. The negotiation between Edward and Louis had
+already alarmed the constable, and, to conciliate the latter, he had
+offered to attack the English. This offer Louis communicated to Edward,
+who, indignant at the treachery of his recent confederate, sent the
+letters which he had received from him to the French monarch. Louis
+was thus furnished with decisive proofs. To the overtures of St. Pol
+he replied in ambiguous words, the real meaning of which was soon made
+evident: “I am overwhelmed by so many affairs,” said the Machiavelian
+monarch, “that I have great need of a good head like yours to get through
+them.”
+
+The preparations of the king at length made St. Pol fully aware of his
+danger. Hesitating as to the measure which in this emergency he ought
+to adopt, he for a moment half resolved to stand on his defence; but
+reflection on the superior resources of his enemy persuaded him that
+he had no chance of success from arms. Yet, had he boldly appealed to
+the sword, he might, perhaps, have saved his life, or at least have met
+with an honourable death. He preferred throwing himself on the duke of
+Burgundy, whom he tempted by offering him his strong towns, as the price
+of protection. Louis demanded that he should be given up to him; and
+after some qualms of conscience as to sacrificing a suppliant, who was
+also his cousin, Charles of Burgundy complied with the demand. St. Pol
+was conveyed to the Bastile. The French monarch gave him his choice,
+either to make a full confession, or to be tried in the customary manner.
+The latter alternative was chosen by the prisoner, who knew not that his
+letters, to Edward and the duke of Burgundy, were in the king’s hands,
+and therefore believed that there was not legal evidence to warrant
+his conviction. His judges sentenced him to lose his head, and he was
+executed on the 19th of December, 1475.
+
+The last captive in the Bastile, during the reign of Louis the Eleventh,
+or rather the last of whom any record remains—for there were doubtless
+numbers of the nameless throng—was an Armagnac; a name which seems to
+have been fatal to its owners. We have seen one Armagnac torn in pieces
+by the populace, another treacherously slain after the surrender of his
+stronghold, a third losing his reason in a dungeon, and we are now to
+witness the leading of a fourth to the scaffold, under circumstances the
+most horrible.
+
+James of Armagnac, duke of Nemours, was the son of the Count de la
+Marche, who was the governor of the youthful dauphin. When the pupil of
+the count ascended the throne, he gave his cousin Louisa in marriage to
+James of Armagnac, and conferred on him the dukedom of Nemours, with
+all the rights and privileges of the peerage; an honour which had never
+before been enjoyed by any other than princes of the royal family.
+Nemours, nevertheless, joined the League of the Public Good. Louis, as we
+have seen, was obliged to succumb to the League; and, by the consequent
+peace of Conflans, James of Armagnac obtained the government of Paris and
+the Isle of France.
+
+Little more than three years elapsed before Nemours was again engaged
+in intrigues against the monarch. But the time was gone by when revolt
+could lead to promotion. Louis had strengthened his authority, and he
+was not disposed to see it set at nought. He, however, pardoned him; but
+it was on condition that any future offence should render him liable
+to punishment for the past, and that he should then be deprived of his
+privilege of peerage, and be tried as a private individual.
+
+In the course of a few years Nemours once more, and finally, brought down
+the wrath of the monarch on his head. He was accused of treason, and
+Beaujeu was despatched to besiege him in the town of Carlat, to which
+the duke had retired. Carlat was supposed to be impregnable, and it was
+provisioned for two or three years. Nemours, nevertheless, surrendered
+without resistance, on condition that his life should be spared; Beaujeu
+guaranteed this condition, as did likewise Louis le Graville, lord of
+Montaigu, and Bonfile le Juge, who enjoyed the royal confidence. The wife
+of the duke, who was confined in child-bed, died of grief and terror, on
+seeing her husband become a prisoner.
+
+Nemours was conveyed, first, to Pierre-Encise, whence he was removed
+to the Bastile; where he was subjected to the harshest usage. All his
+supplications to the king, during two years’ abode in the Bastile, were
+unavailing; or rather, indeed, seem to have tended to irritate him.
+The duke had, undoubtedly, been a turbulent subject; but nothing can
+palliate the infamy of the king’s conduct, after he had Nemours in his
+power. It is difficult to account for the inveteracy of his hatred. There
+was no conceivable violation of justice of which he was not guilty.
+To have broken the pledge solemnly given by his general was little
+compared with what followed. Such of the judges as seemed inclined to
+show mercy were threatened and displaced; others were tempted by being
+promised to share in the spoils of the prisoner; the place where the
+court held its sittings was more than once arbitrarily changed; and the
+decent formalities of the law, as well as its essential principles, were
+contemptuously discarded. No wonder that Nemours was condemned to death.
+
+But now a scene opens which casts all the rest into shade, and at which
+nature shudders. Nothing was omitted that could render death terrible
+to the duke. The chamber where he confessed to the priest was hung
+with black; the horse which took him to execution was covered with a
+housing of the same hue. He was already agonised by the thought that his
+children, who were little more than infants, were reduced to beggary—but
+this was not enough. A scaffold was expressly constructed for him to
+suffer on, with wide openings between the planks, and underneath, clad
+in white, their heads naked, and their hands bound, were placed his
+children, that they might be drenched with their parent’s blood. It was
+on the 4th of August, 1477, that this horrible tragedy was acted.
+
+Did the brutal vindictiveness of the monarch end here? It did not. The
+guiltless children, of whom the youngest was only five years old, were
+taken back to the Bastile, and plunged into a loathsome dungeon, where
+they had scarcely the power of moving. There they remained, for five
+years, till the accession of Charles the eighth opened their prison door.
+A part of the confiscated property of their father was subsequently
+restored to them by Charles. The health of two of them was so broken that
+they did not long survive. The youngest inherited the title of Nemours,
+rose to be viceroy of Naples, and fell at the battle of Cerignoles, in
+1503.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+    Reign of Francis I.—Semblançai—The Chancellor Duprat—The
+    Chancellor Poyet—Admiral de Chabot—Fall of Poyet—Reign of Henry
+    II.—Anne du Bourg—Louis du Faur—Reign of Francis II.—Execution
+    of du Bourg—Francis de Vendôme—Reign of Charles IX.—The Duke of
+    Lunebourg—Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé in danger of
+    the Bastile—Faction of the Politicians—La Mole—Coconas—Marshal
+    de Montmorenci—Marshal de Cossé—Reign of Henry III.—Bussi
+    d’Amboise.
+
+
+During the reigns of Charles the eighth and Louis the twelfth, a period
+of more than thirty years, no prisoners of note appear to have been
+incarcerated in the Bastile. In the reign of Francis the first, we
+again find it receiving persons of rank within its gloomy walls. The
+first who was consigned to it by Francis was James de Beaune, baron
+of Semblançai. He was the eldest son of John de Beaune, a citizen of
+Tours, who acquired a large fortune by commerce, and who, after having
+withdrawn from mercantile pursuits, held the office of steward to Louis
+the eleventh and to Charles the eighth. Semblançai entered early into
+the royal service, and, in the reign of Charles the eighth, rose to the
+high situation of superintendant of the finances, and retained it under
+Louis the twelfth and Francis the first. It was to his talents he was
+indebted for preferment; and his conduct, in the difficult and dangerous
+post which he occupied, justified his elevation, and gained for him the
+confidence of the three monarchs. Francis was even accustomed to address
+him with the flattering appellation of father. Keeping aloof from all
+court intrigues, he displayed, in his official character, an exemplary
+regularity, economy, and probity; and he crowned the whole by a virtue
+which is still more rare in a finance minister—that of endeavouring
+to alleviate the burthens of the people, and prevent them from being
+despoiled by unprincipled nobles.
+
+The man who acted thus was not likely to be without enemies; all the
+greedy, who were disappointed of thrusting their hands into the public
+purse, and all the wasteful and corrupt, to whom his example was a
+stinging rebuke, would of course abhor him. But Semblançai might have
+set their malice at defiance, had they not found an invincible ally in a
+female, whose venomous hatred was rendered fatal to him by her unbounded
+influence.
+
+This powerful female was Louisa of Savoy, duchess of Angoulême, the
+mother of Francis the First. She was beautiful in person, a doating
+mother, and endowed with many intellectual qualities of a superior
+class; but she was immeasurably ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.
+Such was her avidity for riches, and such her success in gratifying it,
+that, at the time of her death, her coffers contained no less than a
+million and a half of golden crowns—an enormous, not to say disgraceful
+hoard, especially when we consider what was the value of the sum at
+that period. In two instances, her criminal passions were the cause of
+shame and misfortune to France. Of the first of these we are about to
+speak; the second was her persecution of the Constable de Bourbon—a base
+and disastrous measure, which was prompted either by resentment for
+his rejection of her love, or by her eagerness to seize upon his ample
+domains, or, perhaps, by a combination of both these unworthy motives.
+
+The regard which was manifested for Semblançai by Francis was, at one
+period, equally felt by the duchess of Angoulême. There exists, under her
+hand, the strongest testimony to the rectitude of the superintendant, and
+of the generous sacrifices which he made, to provide for the wants of the
+state. It was not till the necessity of vindicating his own character
+compelled him to criminate her, that she became his enemy.
+
+Jealous of the influence possessed by the countess of Chateaubriant, the
+mistress of Francis, whose brother, Lautrec, was then governor of the
+Milanese and commander of the French army in that province, the duchess
+appears to have formed the plan of aiming a deadly blow at the sister
+through the side of the brother. If, by disabling him from defending the
+Milanese, she could bring Lautrec into disgrace, it was not improbable
+that the disgusted and indignant monarch, who set a high value on his
+Italian conquest, would extend his anger to the countess. The means which
+she adopted for bringing her scheme to bear, had also an additional and
+not trivial merit in her eyes; that of contributing to swell the mass of
+treasure which she had already accumulated.
+
+In the first part of her project, she completely succeeded. Deprived of
+the pecuniary resources which he had expected from France, and which were
+the more needful, as the harshness of his government had rendered him
+unpopular in Italy, Lautrec was defeated at the battle of the Bicocco,
+was deserted by his Swiss auxiliaries, and at length was driven from the
+duchy of Milan.
+
+The disgrace thus cast upon the French arms, and that, too, in a
+country which he in person had won, could not fail to exasperate a
+young and warlike sovereign. When Lautrec returned to his native land,
+the king refused to admit him to his presence; but at last, through
+the intercession of his sister, and of the Constable de Bourbon, the
+vanquished general obtained an audience. He was received with a frowning
+countenance; and he boldly complained of his reception. “Is it possible
+for me,” said Francis, sternly, “to look favourably on a man who is
+guilty of having lost my duchy of Milan?”
+
+Nowise daunted by this rebuff, Lautrec firmly replied, “I will dare to
+assert, that your majesty is the sole cause of that loss. For eighteen
+months your gendarmes had not a single farthing of pay. The Swiss, with
+whose disposition as to money you are well acquainted, were also left
+unpaid. It was solely by my management that they were retained for
+several months with my army. There would have been no reason for wonder
+had they quitted it without drawing their swords; their respect for me
+induced them, however, not to desert me till after a sanguinary combat.
+They compelled me to give battle, though I foresaw clearly that there was
+no hope of victory; but, in my circumstances, prudence dictated to risk
+every thing, however little chance there might appear that our efforts
+would be successful. The whole of my crime amounts to this.”
+
+The astonishment of Francis was excited by this speech of Lautrec.
+“What!” exclaimed he, “did you not receive the four hundred thousand
+crowns, which I ordered to be sent to you soon after your arrival at
+Milan?” “No, Sire,” answered Lautrec; “your majesty’s letters came to
+hand, but no money was forwarded to me; nor did it ever pass the Alps.”
+
+Semblançai was immediately summoned into his presence by Francis, to
+account for such an extraordinary violation of his duty. In his defence,
+the superintendant stated, that the duchess, vested with authority as
+regent, had demanded from him the four hundred thousand crowns, and that
+he held her receipt for the sum.
+
+Irritated by this unexpected discovery, Francis hastened to his mother’s
+apartment, and reproached her for conduct which had cost him a part of
+his dominions. The duchess is said to have begun her reply by a denial
+of the fact. She was, however, ultimately compelled to own that she had
+indeed obtained four hundred thousand crowns from Semblançai; but she
+artfully pretended, that she had previously confided the money to his
+care, and that it was the produce of savings from her income. Semblançai,
+on the contrary, strenuously protested that she had never entrusted any
+thing to his keeping, and that, when she drew from him the funds in
+question, he had told her that they were set apart by the king for the
+service of the forces in Italy.
+
+Francis was no doubt convinced of her guilt, but he could not bear
+the idea of openly stigmatizing a mother whom he loved. There was
+consequently nothing to be done but to bury, as far as was possible, the
+whole transaction in oblivion. Abruptly putting an end to the altercation
+between the duchess and the superintendant, he said, “Let us think no
+more on the subject! we did not deserve to conquer; it was in vain that
+fortune declared on our side; we threw insuperable obstacles in the way
+of her favour. Let us cease to be traitors to each other, and let us
+henceforth endeavour to act for the public good, with more wisdom and
+union than we have hitherto displayed.”
+
+That Semblançai continued to hold his place is a sufficient proof that
+his assertion was credited by the king. That the revengeful duchess was
+eager to ruin him, we might easily have believed, even had the result
+not afforded evidence of the fact. For a considerable time, however, she
+silently nursed her wrath. It was not till 1524, when a new expedition
+was in preparation against the Milanese, that she found an opportunity of
+striking her blow. Money was wanted; and Semblançai, who had come forward
+on former occasions, was desired to make an advance from his private
+fortune. But this he declined to do; pleading, as a reason for his
+refusal, that a debt of three hundred thousand crowns was already owing
+to him. He was punished by dismissal from his office—if that can be
+called a punishment for which he appears to have sought—and, after having
+given in his accounts, and shown that they were correct, he retired to
+his estate of Balan, in the neighbourhood of Tours.
+
+On the departure of Francis for Italy, he again appointed his mother to
+act as regent. She had now unlimited power; and, as far as concerned
+Semblançai, she exercised it cruelly and basely. She began by instituting
+against him a suit, to recover a balance which she alleged to be due
+to her, as part of the pretended deposit. To bolster up her cause, she
+is accused of having stooped to the most degrading means. Gentil, the
+confidential clerk of Semblançai, was enamoured of one of her attendants;
+and this female the regent employed to steal, or obtain by blandishments,
+the receipt which had been given to the superintendant.
+
+This suit was probably meant to answer the double purpose of narrowing
+his resources and injuring his character. But this mode of proceeding
+was “too poor, too weak, for her revenge,” and she soon adopted another,
+which struck directly at his life. His secretary, John Prévost, who seems
+himself to have had reason for dreading an inquiry into his official
+conduct, was tampered with, to cause the ruin of his master. Impunity
+for his own misdoings was to be the price of his new crime. A charge of
+peculation was brought against Semblançai, and, towards the close of
+1526, he was committed to the Bastile. To render his fate certain, the
+office of sitting in judgment upon him was entrusted to the Chancellor
+Duprat, who had been his rival, was still his deadliest foe, and was,
+besides, a devoted tool of the queen mother. As his colleagues, or rather
+accomplices, Duprat selected, from the various parliaments, men on whose
+subserviency he could rely. From a tribunal thus infamously constituted,
+not even a semblance of justice could be expected. On the 9th of August,
+1527, Semblançai, who was then in his sixty-second year, was condemned to
+be hanged; and this sentence was, shortly after, executed on him, at the
+gibbet of Montfaucon.
+
+The popular feeling, with respect to Semblançai, may be considered as at
+least a strong presumptive proof of his innocence. It is not often that
+the fall of a finance minister is a subject of sorrow to the multitude.
+In his case we find one of the few exceptions; for the people beheld
+his melancholy fate with grief, surprise, and indignation, and they
+long looked with an evil eye on the malignant princess by whom he was
+judicially murdered.
+
+There is an apparent but not a real discrepancy in the accounts of the
+behaviour of Semblançai, when his doom was sealed. From the language of
+Du Bouchet, who represents him as weeping bitterly, and cherishing hopes
+of pardon till the last moment, a hasty conclusion might be drawn, that
+the courage of the victim deserted him. But wounded honour and a keen
+sense of the ingratitude with which a life of services was repaid, might
+well wring tears from his eyes, though his mind remained unmoved by the
+fear of death. That his firmness was, in fact, not to be shaken, we have
+the unexceptionable testimony of Marot, who probably witnessed the calm
+deportment of Semblançai when going to the scaffold. In his lines, which
+bear the title of “Du Lieutenant Criminel et de Semblançai,” the poet
+thus forcibly expresses himself—
+
+    “When Maillard, hellish judge, led Semblançai
+    On gallows tree to pass from life away,
+    Say which of them most undisturbed was seen?”
+    “I’ll tell you, friend: so blank was Maillard’s mien,
+    He looked as though he saw the direful dart
+    Of death hang o’er him; but so brave a heart
+    Semblançai showed, you would have sworn that he
+    Was leading Maillard to the gallows tree.”
+
+We have seen, that the chancellor, Duprat, was the instrument which
+Louisa of Savoy employed to accomplish the destruction of Semblançai. At
+an earlier period, he had served her as effectually in a similar case.
+Her suit against the constable de Bourbon, to strip him of his vast
+estates, is said to have been suggested by Duprat, and was certainly
+brought to a favourable issue by the exercise of his influence over the
+judges. His hatred of the constable was caused, or sharpened, by Bourbon
+having refused to comply with a request relative to the grant of an
+estate in Auvergne. Detested by all France, for the fiscal oppressions of
+which he was the author, and for his having betrayed the liberties of the
+Gallican church, the chancellor nevertheless retained his power to the
+last, and died loaded with titles and riches.
+
+Another tool of the duchess of Angoulême, who closely imitated the
+conduct of Duprat, was not equally fortunate. William Poyet, a native
+of Angers, born about 1474, had acquired a high reputation at the bar
+before he was chosen the queen-mother’s advocate against the constable
+de Bourbon. The manner in which he performed his new task ensured his
+promotion. He became successively advocate-general, and president à
+mortier, and was employed in various negotiations; and, at length, in
+1538, his ambition was gratified by his appointment to the high office of
+chancellor. If servility to the monarch, and an utter disregard of the
+rights and happiness of the people, are qualifications for that office,
+his fitness cannot be denied. He was undoubtedly worthy of succeeding to
+Duprat.
+
+The profligate readiness with which Poyet encouraged Francis the first
+to load his subjects with heavy taxes, drew upon him a severe reproof
+from Duchatel, the virtuous and benevolent bishop of Orleans. Hearing
+the chancellor tell the king that his majesty was the master of all that
+his subjects possessed, the bishop indignantly exclaimed, “Carry such
+tyrannical maxims to the Caligulas and Neros, and, if you have no respect
+for yourself, at least respect a monarch who is the friend of humanity,
+and who knows that to hold its rights sacred is the first of his duties.”
+This speech did honour to the prelate, but there is no ground for
+believing that it produced any good effect upon either the sovereign or
+the minister.
+
+It was by female influence that Poyet was raised to his lofty station; it
+was by the same influence that he was precipitated from it. Two parties
+existed at court, those of the dauphin and the duke of Alençon, the heads
+of which were the constable de Montmorenci and the admiral de Chabot.
+Besides the hatred which he felt against Chabot as a political rival, the
+haughty Montmorenci found, in the unceremonious tone of equality with
+which he was addressed by the admiral, another reason for hating him.
+To ruin an enemy by underhand measures was the natural proceeding of a
+courtier. He insinuated to the king that Chabot had acquired his riches
+by iniquitous practices; and, by holding out the lure of a cardinal’s
+hat, he induced Poyet to assist in Chabot’s destruction. The chancellor
+exerted himself so strenuously, in raking up matter of accusation against
+the intended victim, that he at length produced five-and-twenty charges,
+each of which, he declared, would subject the delinquent to capital
+punishment. The alleged criminality of Chabot was soon made known to the
+king.
+
+It is probable, nevertheless, that remembering the services of Chabot,
+and the friendship which had existed ever since their youthful days,
+Francis would have overlooked the supposed crimes, had he not been
+provoked by a speech which sounded like defiance. Some trifling dispute
+occurring between them, he threatened to bring him to trial; to which
+Chabot boldly replied, that a trial had no terrors for him, his conduct
+having always been so irreproachable, that neither his life nor his
+honour could be put in danger. Francis was weak enough to take offence at
+this implied challenge; he committed the offender to the castle of Melun,
+and directed the chancellor to prosecute him.
+
+Poyet rushed upon his prey with the ferocity of a hungry tiger. He began
+by selecting the commissioners who were to sit in judgment on Chabot;
+and, to ensure their obedience, he himself, contrary to established
+custom, presided over them. Yet, with such instruments, and in spite of
+all his unprincipled efforts to spur them on, he was not able fully to
+accomplish his purpose. So groundless were the articles of impeachment,
+there being only two of them which at all, and those but slightly,
+affected the prisoner, that, instead of voting for death, the judges were
+disposed either to acquit him, or, at most, to pass a lenient sentence.
+By dint, however, of threats, the chancellor compelled them to go far
+beyond their intention; they consequently condemned Chabot to a fine of
+fifteen thousand livres, confiscation of property, and perpetual exile.
+One of them is said to have added to his signature the Latin word _vi_,
+in almost imperceptible characters; thus signifying that force had been
+used to extort his consent. Not content with the daring contempt of
+justice which he had already displayed, Poyet, in drawing up the judgment
+of the court, did not hesitate to falsify it, by inserting additional
+crimes, and aggravating the penalty.
+
+Though Francis was irritated by the honourable boldness of Chabot, he had
+never intended to carry matters to extremity against him. He could not
+now avoid being astonished that the charges had dwindled into such utter
+insignificance, and that, nevertheless, a sentence of such undue severity
+was pronounced; and he appears to have been also warmly solicited in
+his behalf by a prevailing advocate, the duchess of Etampes, the royal
+mistress, who was a relation of Chabot. Yet though the king designed to
+receive the admiral again into favour, he could not deny himself the
+mean gratification of taunting him. “Well,” said he to him, “will you
+again boast of your innocence?” “Sire,” replied Chabot, “I have but too
+well learned, that before God and his sovereign no man must call himself
+innocent; but I have one consolation, that all the malice of my enemies
+has failed to convict me of having ever been unfaithful to your majesty.”
+Chabot was pardoned, and reinstated in his offices. This tardy justice
+came too late; though his enemies had been unable to drag him to the
+scaffold, they had succeeded in shortening his days. In little more than
+twelve months, his existence was terminated by a disease, seemingly of
+the heart, which was brought on by the grief and anxiety that he had
+suffered.
+
+Chabot, however, lived long enough to witness the downfall of his
+adversaries. To Montmorenci the king intimated, that he had no longer
+occasion for his services; and the dismissed courtier in consequence
+retired to Chantilly, whence he did not emerge during the remainder of
+Francis’s reign. A heavier misfortune awaited Poyet, and it speedily fell
+upon him. Two females, the duchess of Etampes and the queen of Navarre,
+were the foes who overthrew him. The duchess, who was already offended
+by his persecution of her relative, he exasperated beyond measure, by
+refusing to perform an illegal act in favour of one of her friends; the
+queen of Navarre he alienated in a similar manner; and he rendered both
+of them more inveterate, by some bitter remarks on the influence which
+females possessed over the mind of the sovereign. They combined together
+for his ruin, and they effected it. In August, 1542, he was dragged from
+his bed, and carried to the Bastile. Thus, after having been allowed
+to be unjust with impunity, he was punished for recollecting at last
+that he had duties to perform. In this emergency, he had the mingled
+audacity and meanness to write to Chabot, imploring his forgiveness and
+protection. After having been three years in prison, he was declared
+incapable of ever holding office, and was sentenced to five years’
+imprisonment, and to pay a fine of a hundred thousand livres. The king
+himself, with a strange want of decorum, came forward as a witness
+against him on the trial. Poyet died in 1548, an object of general
+contempt.
+
+The captives, to whom our attention is now to be directed, were of a
+very different character from the chancellor Poyet; they were sufferers
+for conscience’ sake; men who, when the question related to religious
+interests, deemed it a duty not to submit in silence to arbitrary
+power. Their names were Anne du Bourg, and Louis du Faur, and they
+were counsellors of the parliament at Paris. The uncle of du Bourg was
+chancellor in the reign of Francis I. Du Faur was of a family which had
+produced many eminent characters, among whom is to be numbered Guy du
+Faur, lord of Pibrac, author of the well-known Quatrains.
+
+Pressed, it is said, by the Guises, and by the duchess of Valentinois,
+his mistress, the latter of whom was looking forward to the benefit she
+might expect from confiscations, Henry the second unwisely resolved to
+carry to the full extent the persecution of the protestants. Hitherto,
+only the humbler classes had been marked out for punishment; but, as
+nothing more than the mere pleasure of tormenting could be derived
+from pursuing them, it was now determined that men of higher rank
+should suffer in their turn. This was at least impartial injustice. It
+was believed that the reformed doctrines had many partisans among the
+magistracy; and the members of the parliament of Paris were therefore
+selected, as the subjects upon whom the new experiment of rigour should
+be first tried. This step was taken at the suggestion of le Maître, the
+chief president, who had the baseness to deliver privately to the king a
+list of his protestant colleagues, and also a tempting statement of the
+property which they possessed.
+
+It was a custom of the heads of the parliament to meet at stated periods,
+for the purpose, among other things, of inquiring into any alleged
+neglect or violation of duty on the part of the members. These meetings,
+which were established by an edict of Charles VIII., were called the
+Mercuriales, from the circumstance of their taking place on a Wednesday.
+To one of these assemblies, while it was in the midst of a debate, on the
+measures which ought to be adopted with respect to heretics, the king
+suddenly came, without any previous notice, accompanied by the Guises,
+and other rigidly catholic nobles, and guarded by a formidable escort.
+
+Previously to his arrival, the balance of opinion had inclined to the
+side of a lenient administration of the law, until the discipline of the
+church had been reformed by a new œcumenical council. Though the monarch
+affected to be calm, it was easy to perceive that he was under the
+influence of passion. He made a vehement harangue, in which he dwelt on
+the disturbances caused by sectaries, and on the necessity of defending
+the church, and then ordered the members to resume the debate, and
+promised them freedom of speech.
+
+The promise was meant only as a snare. The manner in which the king had
+come to the sitting, in open contempt of usage and even of decorum,
+plainly showed that his intention was to intimidate. But, by pretending
+to guarantee the privilege of freely speaking, he hoped to do away the
+impression which his abrupt coming had made, and delude the speakers into
+a disclosure of their real sentiments. There were some, perhaps, who
+confided in his word; there were others who, doubtless, were aware that
+no reliance was to be placed on it, but who, nevertheless, thought they
+were called upon to maintain, at all hazards, what they deemed to be the
+cause of religion and truth. Of the latter class were Anne du Bourg and
+Louis du Faur.
+
+Du Faur admitted that troubles arose in the state from the difference of
+religions, but he contended that it ought to be inquired who was really
+the author of those troubles; and, with a manifest allusion to the king,
+he added, that if this were done, the same reply might perhaps be made as
+was given, on a similar occasion, by the prophet Elijah to Ahab, “I have
+not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house, in that ye have,
+forsaken, the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim.”
+
+The speech of du Bourg, though it seemed to be less directly personal to
+the monarch, was as well calculated as that of du Faur to excite angry
+feelings in Henry and in many of the hearers, on whose vices it made a
+rude attack. There were men, he said, whose blasphemies, adulteries,
+horrible debaucheries, and repeated perjuries, crimes worthy of the worst
+death, were not merely overlooked, but shamefully encouraged, while
+every day new punishments were invented for men who were irreproachable.
+“For of what crime can they be accused?” exclaimed he. “Can they be
+charged with high treason, they who never mention the sovereign but in
+the prayers which they offer up for him? Who can say that they violate
+the laws of the state, endeavour to shake the fidelity of the towns, or
+incite the provinces to revolt? With all the pains that have been taken,
+not even with witnesses picked out for the purpose, has it been possible
+to convict them of having so much as thought of these things. No! All
+their fault and misfortune is that, by means of the light of the Holy
+Scriptures, they have discovered and revealed the shameless turpitude of
+the Papal power, and have demanded a salutary reformation. This is their
+sedition.”
+
+When all the members had delivered their opinions, some of which were
+favourable to mild measures, the king called for the register, in which
+were inscribed the opinions of those who had spoken before his arrival,
+and also on a previous day. He then addressed to the assembly another
+speech of censure and menace, and ended by ordering the arrest of du
+Bourg and du Faur, who were present, and likewise of six absent members.
+The two former were conveyed to the Bastile, where du Bourg, and probably
+du Faur also, was shut up in a cage. Three of the others escaped; the
+rest were sent to other places of confinement.
+
+This arbitrary act was the last which Henry had the power of committing.
+On that day fortnight, at a tournament, he was mortally wounded by a
+splinter from the lance of the count de Montgomery. The scene of the
+tournament was near the Bastile; and it is said that as the wounded
+monarch was carried past the prison, his conscience smote him, and he
+more than once expressed his fears that he had behaved unjustly to men
+who were innocent. The cardinal of Lorraine, who was with him, is also
+said to have assured him, that such an idea could have been inspired only
+by the arch fiend, and admonished him to reject it, and adhere firmly
+to his faith. This story, however, has no other foundation than popular
+report.
+
+The reign of Francis II. opened under no favourable auspices for the
+protestants. The minor king was wholly under the influence of the
+Guises, and of his mother Catherine of Medicis, all of whom had vowed a
+deadly hostility to them. The persecution was accordingly resumed with
+an increase of vigour. The trial of the members of the parliament was
+pushed on; but it was against du Bourg that the hatred of the court was
+peculiarly directed—the sweeping crimination, which was contained in his
+speech before the deceased Henry, had wounded many great personages too
+deeply to be forgiven.
+
+Before the death of Henry, a commission had been appointed, which had
+interrogated du Bourg on the subject of his religious tenets. He having
+candidly avowed them, they were pronounced heretical by the bishop of
+Paris, and he was delivered over to the secular authority. Du Bourg
+appealed to the archbishop of Sens, and to the parliament, but without
+effect. The trial was proceeded with, and, while it was pending, an event
+occurred, which contributed to render his enemies still more inveterate.
+One of his judges was a counsellor named Minard, a man of profligate
+life, who had given violent advice to the late king. Du Bourg, therefore,
+repeatedly challenged him as incompetent to sit upon the trial, and, on
+Minard refusing to withdraw, the prisoner is said to have exclaimed, “God
+will know how to compel thee!” It unfortunately happened that, returning
+one evening to his home from the trial, Minard was assassinated, by
+a pistol being fired at him. Du Bourg was suspected, and not without
+an appearance of reason, of being implicated in the murder, and this
+hastened his fate. There is no ground whatever to believe that he was
+concerned in the foul deed; but it must be owned, that such prophecies
+as he ventured upon are dangerous, because they have a tendency to bring
+about their own fulfilment. It is not improbable, that the act was
+suggested to the mind of some fanatical protestant by the words of the
+prisoner.
+
+It was in vain that the Elector Palatine wrote to the French monarch,
+to entreat him to spare the life of du Bourg, and that numerous eminent
+persons, even catholics, solicited to the same effect. Neither their
+intercession, nor his acknowledged integrity and pure morals, availed to
+save him. He was condemned to be hanged and his body burnt, at the Place
+de Grêve. He died, at the age of thirty-eight, with a calm heroism, and
+Christian spirit of forgiveness, which excited general admiration. His
+death, far from being beneficial to the catholic cause, was exceedingly
+injurious to it. The protestants regarded him as a martyr, gloried in
+him as an honour to their party and faith, and were not slow in taking a
+heavy vengeance for his untimely doom.
+
+The blood of du Bourg seems to have deadened the fire of persecution, as
+far as related to the other parliamentary prisoners. Some were subjected
+to little more than nominal punishments; and even du Faur, the most
+obnoxious of them, was only condemned to pay a fine, ask pardon, and be
+suspended from his judicial functions for five years. But, comparatively
+light as this sentence was, du Faur refused to acquiesce in it; he boldly
+protested against it, and after a hard struggle, he was fortunate enough
+to obtain its revocation, and to be re-established in his magisterial
+capacity. Nor does it appear that this victory was purchased by any
+sacrifice of principle.
+
+Among those who, during the new crusade against protestants, had to
+lament the loss of liberty, was Francis de Vendôme, Vidame of Chartres,
+allied to the princes of the blood and the potent house of Montmorenci.
+Vendôme had served in Italy, as a volunteer, under the duke of Aumale,
+and, subsequently, held a command there, under the duke of Guise; after
+which he was appointed governor of Calais. Closely connected with the
+house of Montmorenci, he was irritated beyond measure by the dismissal
+of the constable, and cherished a deadly animosity against the Guises,
+who were the authors of that measure. It is not wonderful that, under the
+influence of these feelings, he should make common cause with the prince
+of Condé and the king of Navarre, who were preparing for resistance to
+the court. Vendôme took an active part in rousing the protestants to
+arms in various parts of the kingdom. But some of his letters, to the
+prince of Condé, having been found upon la Sague, an emissary of the
+protestant party, he was arrested and sent to the Bastile. There he was
+treated with extreme rigour, and was refused permission to see his wife,
+though she offered to become a prisoner with him. The letters were in
+appearance merely complimentary, but the dread of the torture induced la
+Sague to disclose that important secrets were written, with sympathetic
+ink, on the cover that contained them. The death of Francis II. and
+the pretended reconcilement of the hostile parties on the accession of
+Charles IX., would have saved Vendôme from the scaffold, but he did not
+live to recover his freedom. Worn out by a life of dissipation, he died,
+in his thirty-eighth year, at the Tournelles, to which prison he had been
+removed from the Bastile.
+
+The decease of Vendôme took place in 1560, and, for several years, with
+the exception of a duke of Lunebourg, who was imprisoned for a quarrel
+with the duke of Guise, no prisoner, at least none whose fate history has
+thought worthy of recording, appears to have found an abode within the
+walls of the Bastile. After the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew,
+there was a moment when the fortress seemed about to receive a princely
+captive. The king of Navarre (afterwards Henry IV.) had yielded to the
+threats of the royal murderer, and had changed his religion; but the
+Prince of Condé was made of sterner stuff. He resisted so firmly all
+attempts to induce him to apostatize, that Charles IX. ordered him to
+be brought before him, and, in a furious tone, addressed to him three
+ominous words; “The mass, death, or the Bastile.” Condé held out a little
+longer, but he yielded when he found that du Rosier, a famous protestant
+minister, had been converted to the Catholic faith.
+
+It was not till towards the close of the reign of Charles IX. that the
+Bastile was again tenanted. That monarch was then sinking rapidly into
+the grave, under the pressure of bodily disease, and the perpetual stings
+of his conscience. Haunted by appalling dreams, and by direful spectres
+and dismal sounds, which his fancy incessantly conjured up, he had fallen
+into a state which scarcely the remembrance of his crimes can prevent
+us from pitying. It was at this period that the party was formed which
+adopted the appellations of Politicians and Malecontents. The first of
+these names was chosen to show that the persons assuming it were not
+actuated, like the protestants, by religious motives. The oppressive
+weight of the taxes, the insolent licentiousness of the soldiery, and the
+cruelty and flagrant incapacity of those who managed the public affairs,
+were their grounds of complaint. At the head of this party, which soon
+became considerable, were William de Montmorenci and his nephew, the
+Viscount de Turenne. Though this party consisted of catholics, yet, as
+among the objects which it sought to obtain there were many which the
+protestants no less eagerly desired, it was not long before a coalition
+was formed between them.
+
+To give greater weight and consistence to the party, it was thought
+advisable to provide for it a chief of a more elevated rank than
+Montmorenci and Turenne. The duke of Alençon, one of the king’s brothers,
+who is known in English history as the duke of Anjou, was the chosen
+individual. With many defects, and a scanty share of virtues, he had
+some qualifications for being head of the party. To the protestants
+he was recommended by his being far less hostile than the rest of his
+family, and by his having been an unalterable friend of the murdered
+admiral Coligni. Alençon was irritated by the restraint, little short of
+imprisonment, under which he was kept at court, and by the refusal to
+confer on him the lieutenant generalship of the kingdom, which had been
+held by his brother Henry; and was consequently not averse from joining
+those who could contribute to gratify his ambition. It has, indeed, been
+supposed, and the supposition is by no means improbable, that the party,
+or at least the protestant branch of it, would have been willing to raise
+him to the throne, to the exclusion of Henry, his elder brother.
+
+Two of the principal agents in forwarding the design of the malecontents
+were la Mole, and the count de Coconas, the favourites of the duke of
+Alençon. La Mole was an officer, a native of Provence. Among the ladies
+of the court he was much admired for his liveliness and companionable
+qualities. His time was divided, not quite equally, between sinning
+and hearing mass; the latter of which he attended three or four times
+a day. It was said of him by the king, that whoever wished to keep a
+register of la Mole’s debaucheries, need only reckon up his masses. He
+was notoriously one of the gallants of Margaret of Valois, as Coconas was
+of the duchess of Nevers, the eldest of three sisters, who were called
+the Graces. Coconas was one of the many Italians who were attracted into
+France by the hope of receiving patronage from Catherine of Medicis. One
+anecdote will suffice to demonstrate the fiendishness of his nature.
+During the massacre of St. Bartholomew, he bought from the populace
+thirty hugonot prisoners, that he might gratify himself, by subjecting
+them to torture both of body and mind. After having, by a promise of
+saving their lives, induced them to renounce their faith, he put them
+slowly to death by numerous superficial dagger wounds. Of this act he was
+accustomed to boast. The fate of such a man can excite no pity.
+
+All was arranged for the flight of the duke of Alençon, the king of
+Navarre, and the prince of Condé, from the court, in order to join the
+malecontents, and hoist the standard of opposition. Bands of troops were
+hovering round the palace of St. Germain, to protect their retreat.
+But the plot was disconcerted by the vigilance of Catherine of Medicis,
+the imprudence of some of the plotters, and the hesitation of the
+feeble-minded duke. At two in the morning, Catherine hurried the dying
+Charles from St. Germain to Paris in a litter, and placed guards over the
+duke and the king of Navarre; Condé, more prudent than his associates,
+had embraced the first opportunity to escape. There were some ludicrous
+circumstances connected with the hasty retreat to Paris. “The cardinals
+of Bourbon, Lorraine, and Guise,” says d’Aubigné, “the chancellor
+Birague, and Morvilliers and Bellièvre, were all mounted on Italian
+coursers, grasping with both hands their saddle bows, and as thoroughly
+frightened at their horses as at the enemy.” Contrasting strongly with
+this was the pitiable state of the monarch, with his frame debilitated,
+and all the weight of the St. Bartholomew on his soul, groaning, and
+mournfully exclaiming, “At least they might have waited till I was dead!”
+
+Indignant at what he called a foul conspiracy, the king ordered that a
+rigid enquiry should instantly be commenced. La Mole denied every thing;
+Coconas, on the contrary, disclosed all that he knew, and perhaps more.
+But the fate of the conspirators was sealed by the duke of Alençon, who
+made an ample confession, without even having attempted to stipulate for
+the lives of his confederates. Coconas and la Mole, who had been sent to
+the Bastile, were now brought to trial; and, by dint of legal sophistry,
+the project of bringing about the flight of the princes was construed
+into a design against the person of the king.
+
+Coconas and la Mole were condemned to be put to the torture, and then
+beheaded. “Poor la Mole!” exclaimed the latter, while he was suffering
+the first part of his sentence, “is there no way to obtain a pardon? The
+duke, my master, to whom I owe innumerable obligations, commanded me
+on my life to say nothing of what he was about to do. I answered, yes,
+sir, if you do nothing against the king.” The unfortunate man, like vast
+numbers at that period, had faith in magic arts. A waxen image, of which
+the heart was pierced through with a needle, had been found among his
+effects. On being questioned whether this was not meant to represent the
+king, and to be an instrument of tormenting his majesty, he replied that
+its only purpose was to inspire love in a lady, of whom he was deeply
+enamoured.
+
+On the scaffold, before he laid down his head on the block, he
+significantly said to the by-standers, “You see, sirs, that the little
+ones are caught, and that the great ones, who have been guilty of the
+fault, are allowed to escape.” La Mole displayed his ruling passion
+strong in death. His last words, after having prayed to God and the
+Virgin, were, “commend me to the kind remembrance of the queen of Navarre
+and the ladies.” He was not forgotten by his lady-love; neither was his
+companion. Queen Margaret and the duchess of Nevers are said by some
+to have embalmed the heads of their admirers, that they might always
+preserve them for contemplation; while by others they are asserted to
+have taken them in a carriage to a chapel, at the foot of Montmartre, and
+buried them with their own hands. Two years afterwards, the sentences
+against la Mole and Coconas were annulled by Henry III.
+
+The abortive plot in favour of the duke of Alençon proved a source of
+trouble to two individuals, more eminent in rank, and far more estimable
+in character, than were la Mole and Coconas. The marshals Francis de
+Montmorenci, and Arthur de Cossé, the former of whom was the eldest son
+of the celebrated constable, were suspected, or pretended to be so, by
+the queen mother; Montmorenci was also well known to feel that hatred
+of the Guises which was characteristic of his family. At her suggestion,
+therefore, they were committed to the Bastile, by Charles IX. This was
+nearly the last exercise of his authority. He died about a fortnight
+after, leaving his mother to hold the office of regent, till his
+successor, the third Henry, could return from Poland.
+
+Montmorenci was the husband of Diana, the natural daughter of Henry II.,
+and had been employed on numerous occasions, civil and military, in all
+of which he had honourably acquitted himself. Of his martial exploits the
+most prominent was the brave though unsuccessful defence of Terouane. He
+was liberal, high-minded, learned, firm, and of invariable rectitude.
+Cossé was still more illustrious in arms than his fellow prisoner. He
+had distinguished himself at various sieges, particularly those of Sens
+and Metz, and in the battle of St. Denis, and many other encounters. Nor
+was he a mere enterprising soldier. It is said of him, by contemporary
+historians, and it is no light praise, “that his head was as good as his
+arm.”
+
+The party which had hitherto been known as that of the Politicians now
+took the name of the Third Party. It received a large increase, by the
+junction of catholics, whose indignation was excited by the constraint
+put upon the duke of Alençon and the king of Navarre, at Vincennes, and
+the close imprisonment of two such eminent men as de Montmorenci and
+de Cossé. Condé, too, was busy in Germany, stirring up the protestant
+princes to succour his friends, and keeping up a continual correspondence
+with the French calvinists.
+
+On his taking possession of the throne, Henry set at liberty the king
+of Navarre and the duke of Alençon. The marshals, however, were still
+retained in confinement. Diana, the wife of Montmorenci, had adopted
+a singular mode of moving in her husband’s behalf the feelings of the
+monarch. Dressed in deep mourning, and followed by all her female
+attendants in the same garb, she met Henry as he was passing through the
+street, fell at his feet, and entreated him to take compassion on her
+husband, whose health was declining in a prison, into which he had been
+thrown without being convicted, or so much as accused, of any crime.
+She likewise forcibly urged that, even if his majesty supposed him to
+be guilty, he ought to grant him a fair trial. The king seemed to be
+affected by her appeal, which was backed by some of the nobles who were
+present, and he promised to enquire into the business with as little
+delay as possible.
+
+The promise of the king, however, if sincere at the moment, was soon
+disregarded. Cossé, who, like his fellow captive, was suffering from bad
+health, was, indeed, allowed to take up his abode in his own house, under
+a guard; but the only deliverance which was destined for Montmorenci was
+deliverance from all the troubles of this world. It appears, in fact,
+that his life would not have been safe for a moment, but for the salutary
+fear that his death would drive into open hostility his brother Damville,
+who held the government of Languedoc. A report having been spread that
+Damville was dead, the king resolved to have the marshal strangled in
+prison, and, as a preliminary step, it was industriously given out that
+he was subject to apoplectic attacks. This barbarous and cowardly scheme
+would have been carried into effect, had not an obstacle occurred. Giles
+de Souvré, who had been mistakenly selected to perform the assassin’s
+part, chanced to be a more honest man than his royal master, and he
+purposely interposed so many delays, that time was afforded to ascertain
+the falsehood of the report which had announced the death of Damville.
+
+It was neither to the clemency nor the justice of his sovereign that
+Montmorenci was ultimately indebted for the recovery of his freedom.
+Endangered by the betrayal of a plot into which he had entered against
+his brother, Alençon mustered up courage enough to run away. His flight
+took place on the 16th of September 1575. As soon as he was in safety, at
+Dreux, he issued a manifesto, not unartfully contrived, to gain partisans
+in various quarters. Reform in every department was the tempting burden
+of its song. It worked its intended effect; the protestants were in
+raptures, the Third Party was satisfied with it, and he speedily found
+himself in a situation to set the court at defiance.
+
+William, one of the brothers of Montmorenci, whom we have seen one of the
+original chiefs of the Politicians, was now about to enter the French
+territory at the head of a division of troops, designed to herald the way
+to the army which the prince of Condé had succeeded in obtaining from
+the Elector Palatine. In the first outbreak of her anger, on hearing
+this news, the queen mother sent him word, that, if he dared to advance,
+she would despatch to him the heads of the two marshals. His reply was,
+“Should the queen do as she threatens, there is nothing of hers in France
+on which I will not leave the marks of my revenge.”
+
+Menace having failed, the wily Catherine resorted to an opposite mode
+of proceeding. Aware that the liberation of the two marshals would be
+imperatively demanded by their armed friends, and that the king was too
+weak to refuse it, she determined to try whether she could not secure
+their gratitude, by appearing to have the merit of voluntarily releasing
+them. They were accordingly restored to liberty. By a declaration, under
+the royal seal, Montmorenci was pronounced to be “absolutely innocent of
+the crime which had been laid to his charge,” When a similar exculpatory
+document was offered to Cossé by the king, he chivalrously replied,
+“Excuse me, sire, for declining it; a Cossé ought to think that no one
+can believe him to be guilty.”
+
+Though they could not be ignorant of the motive which had induced
+Catherine to throw open their prison doors, the marshals acted as if a
+favour had really been granted to them. Montmorenci had the largest share
+in bringing about the truce, and the subsequent treaty, between the king
+and the duke of Alençon; and the loyalty of Cossé was considered to be
+so unimpeachable that, in 1578, he received the order of the Holy Ghost.
+Montmorenci died in 1579; Cossé in 1582.
+
+The principal favourite of the duke of Alençon, after the death of la
+Mole and Coconas, was Louis de Clermont, better known by the appellation
+of Bussy d’Amboise. In profligacy he went beyond his predecessors. He
+seems to have been a compound of vices, without a single virtue; unless,
+indeed, we may give the name of virtue to mere brutal courage. Full
+of pride and insolence, eager to involve others in deadly quarrels,
+a libertine, a professed duellist, and a cold-blooded assassin, his
+being tolerated at the French court, and even admired by many persons,
+is an unrefutable evidence of the wretched state of morals among the
+nobility of France. Bravery must have been held in a sort of idolatrous
+estimation, when respect for it could induce such a man as Crillon to be
+the friend of d’Amboise.
+
+The first achievement which Bussy is known to have performed stamps his
+name with infamy. He was engaged in a lawsuit against the marquis of
+Renel, one of his relations, to recover from him the marquisate, which
+Bussy claimed as his right. The marquis had come to Paris, with the king
+of Navarre, and was there when the massacre of St. Bartholomew took
+place. In the midst of the carnage, Bussy sought him out, and stabbed
+him to the heart. The parliament, soon after, passed a decree, admitting
+the murderer’s claim; but it is consolatory to find that the decree was
+subsequently annulled.
+
+Having attached himself to the duke of Alençon, he was entrusted with the
+government of the castle of Angers, and he soon made himself universally
+hated, by his extortion and tyranny. When he visited the court with his
+master, his arrogance and audacity rose to such a height, that the king’s
+favourites, whom he had often insulted, at length formed a scheme to
+assassinate him. The attack was made at night, and with superior numbers;
+but it was foiled by the skill and resolution of Bussy and his followers.
+
+The monarch himself was not safe from the contemptuous sarcasms of Bussy.
+In their dress, Henry and his minions carried to the most extravagant
+length the costly and absurd fashions of that period. Bussy one day
+attended his patron to court. He himself was simply dressed, but he was
+followed by six pages, clad in cloth of gold, and tricked out in the most
+approved style of finery. That the point of this silent satire might not
+be lost, he insultingly proclaimed aloud, that “the time was come when
+ragamuffins would make the most show!” The king was so irritated by this
+language, that, for a while, the duke was obliged to forbid Bussy from
+appearing in his train.
+
+About the same time, Bussy gave fresh cause of offence to the king.
+Ever seeking an opportunity to indulge his passion for duelling, he had
+wantonly quarrelled with a gentleman named St. Phal. Looking at some
+embroidery, St. Phal remarked that the letter X was worked on it; Bussy,
+from sheer contradiction, asserted that the letter was a Y. A duel of six
+against six in consequence took place, and Bussy was slightly wounded.
+As, however, Bussy sent his antagonist a second challenge, and expressed
+a stubborn determination to follow up the quarrel to the last extremity,
+the king interposed to put an end to it. Bussy reluctantly consented to
+meet St. Phal, in the king’s presence, for the purpose of reconcilement,
+and when, with that intent, he went to the Louvre, he was accompanied
+into the palace by a band of two hundred determined partisans. The anger
+of the king was excited by this irruption of bravos, but for the present
+he restrained it.
+
+In one of those fits of suspecting his brother, with which Henry was
+occasionally seized, he went by night to put him under arrest, and, at
+the same time, he sent Bussy to the Bastile. On the following morning, a
+council was held, at which, prompted by the queen mother, the ministers
+declared that the step which the king had taken was impolitic, and
+advised him to be reconciled with the duke. Henry consented. The only
+stipulation which he made was, that Bussy, on being liberated, should be
+reconciled to Caylus, the king’s favourite, with whom he was at enmity.
+Bussy complied, and, in complying, contrived to throw ridicule on the
+weak monarch. “Sire,” said he, “if you wish me to kiss him, I am quite
+ready to do it;” then, suiting the action to the word, he embraced Caylus
+in such a thoroughly farcical style, that the spectators were unable to
+repress their laughter.
+
+It was not long before the libertinism of Bussy supplied Henry with the
+means of destroying him. It is probable that, in his amours, the pleasure
+of betraying the women who confided in him formed one of the greatest
+inducements to pursue them—a base feeling, which is still prevalent. In
+a letter to the duke of Anjou, he boasted that he had been spreading his
+nets for the Great Huntsman’s beast, and that he held her fast in them.
+The Great Huntsman was the count de Montsoreau, who held that office;
+the beast, as she was politely called, was the count’s wife, whom the
+profligate writer had seduced. This letter Anjou put into the king’s
+hands, as a good jest. Henry kept it, and communicated it to the count,
+whom he urged to revenge himself on the offender. Montsoreau was not
+backward to follow the king’s advice. He hurried home, and compelled his
+wife to write to Bussy, to make an assignation with him. Bussy was true
+to the appointment. Instead, however, of meeting the countess, he was
+attacked by Montsoreau and several men, all of whom wore coats of mail.
+In spite of the odds against him, he fought for some time with determined
+spirit; but, finding that he must eventually be overpowered, he tried
+to escape through the window, and was slain by a stab in the back. “The
+whole province,” says de Thou, “was delighted at his fall, and even the
+duke of Anjou was not very sorry to be rid of a man who began to be a
+burthen to him.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+    Reign of Henry III. continued—Conspiracy of Salcede—Francis
+    de Rosières—Peter de Belloy—Francis le Breton—Bernard
+    Palissy—Daring plots of the League—Henry III. expelled from
+    Paris—The Bastile surrenders to Guise—Bussi le Clerc appointed
+    governor—Damours—James de la Guesle—Reign of Henry IV.—Members
+    of the parliament arrested—President de Harlay—Potier de
+    Blancmesnil—The family of Seguier—Speeches of Henry IV.—Louis
+    Seguier—James Gillot—Outrage committed by the Council of
+    Sixteen—It is punished by the duke of Mayenne—Henry IV. enters
+    Paris—Surrender of the Bastile—Du Bourg—Treasure deposited in
+    the Bastile by Henry.
+
+
+It was a conspiracy against the duke of Anjou, and the king of France,
+that brought the next prisoner of importance to the Bastile. This
+conspiracy originated with the Guises, was promoted by that great artisan
+of mischief Philip the Second of Spain, and contained the seminal
+principle of the subsequent war, which is known as the war of the League.
+The agent employed in carrying it on was Nicholas Salcede, a man of
+daring and profligate character, whose father, a Spanish gentleman, the
+governor of Vic, in Lorraine, having offended the Guises, was slain,
+though he was a catholic, in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. By dint,
+however, of heaping favours and attentions on him, the Guises, to whom,
+indeed, he was distantly related, soon induced Salcede to forget the
+murder of his parent. By a crowning act of kindness, they, in some
+measure, acquired a right to his services. Counterfeiting the king’s
+coin, as well as that of foreign states, was a crime which, for a long
+series of years, was of common occurrence in France among persons of
+rank. The punishment of throwing them into boiling oil was insufficient
+to deter them; for it was so often evaded that it ceased to create
+terror. Salcede had carried the practice of coining to such an extent as
+to be able to purchase an estate. Being detected, he was summoned to take
+his trial at Rouen, and, as he prudently refused to appear, sentence of
+death was passed upon him as a contumacious criminal. But the duke of
+Lorraine interceded for him, and his pardon was granted. This, and the
+prospect of honours and rewards, linked him firmly to the Guises.
+
+The duke of Anjou was, at this period, struggling to acquire the
+sovereignty of the Netherlands, and under his banner were arrayed an
+immense number of the French nobles. To the members of the house of
+Lorraine he was inveterately hostile; for he looked upon them as his
+personal enemies, and as having been authors of the many mortifications
+which he had undergone. To prevent him from entering France, for the
+purpose of succouring his brother Henry, was, therefore, an object of
+primary importance; as, if that were not attained, their project of
+dethroning the king, or at least becoming viceroys over him, could
+scarcely hope for success. Morality was, in those days, at so low an
+ebb among the great, that it is probable the Guises would have felt but
+few scruples in accomplishing their purpose by the death of the duke;
+though, avowedly, their sole aim was to shut him out of France, by
+closing against him the northern frontier and the ports of Britanny.
+
+The daring spirit and desperate situation of Salcede—for he was deeply
+involved in debt—pointed him out to the Guises as a fit instrument. The
+duke of Guise tempted him by a solemn assurance, that the king of Spain
+would reward him with rank and occupation proportioned to the magnitude
+of his services; and he backed his arguments and promises by descanting
+on the benefit which the catholic religion would derive from ruining the
+duke of Anjou. His eloquence prevailed, and Salcede unreluctantly devoted
+himself to the furtherance of the treasonable scheme.
+
+It was arranged, that the Guises should secretly furnish funds for
+raising a regiment, to be commanded by Salcede, and that he should then
+proceed to the duke of Anjou, and offer to bring to his banner a chosen
+body of men, who would engage to remain under it for several months. No
+doubt was entertained that, as the duke was scantily provided with money,
+was, in consequence, daily deserted by some of his troops, and had no
+great confidence in the Belgians, he would gladly accept this offer; and
+would either entrust the new corps with the keeping of some important
+fortress, or reserve it as a guard for his own person. In either case,
+the conspirators could turn the circumstance to account. The seizure of
+Dunkirk and Cambray were the main points to which Salcede’s attention
+was to be directed; but he was also to do his best to shake the fidelity
+of Anjou’s officers, and, of course, was to act as spy for the Spanish
+monarch. The prince of Parma, meanwhile, was gradually to approach
+Calais, the governor of which town, it is said, had promised to betray
+his trust. The sudden loss of Calais would, it was imagined, so terrify
+Henry, that he would give the supreme command of his forces to the duke
+of Guise; the French accomplices of the Guises would then rise in arms;
+and the plan of subverting the government would be easily executed.
+
+As had been expected, the proposal of Salcede was listened to with much
+pleasure by the duke of Anjou, who treated him as a valuable friend. The
+duke was as yet ignorant that the conspirator had been reconciled to the
+Guises. Nor was he aware that, in his way to Bruges, Salcede had visited
+the enemy’s camp, had a conference with the prince of Parma, the viceroy,
+and been accompanied to Bruges by two of the prince’s agents. But the
+sharp-sighted prince of Orange was not disposed to grant his confidence
+to the newcomer so readily as the duke; he disliked and suspected him,
+both as being in his origin a Spaniard, and as having been found guilty
+of an infamous offence. The enquiries of the prince of Orange elicited
+sufficient evidence to justify his suspicion that Salcede had sinister
+designs, and he, therefore, advised the duke to arrest him. This advice
+was followed by Anjou, who had already learned, from another quarter,
+that his pretended partisan was connected with the Guises. Salcede was
+accordingly arrested on his coming to the palace. The two agents of the
+prince of Parma were waiting at the palace gate for their confederate’s
+return; one of them escaped, the other, Francis Baza by name, was seized
+and committed to prison. In the course of a few days, Baza put an end to
+his existence.
+
+In the first examination, mysterious hints were all that could be drawn
+from Salcede; in the second, he spontaneously disclosed so complicated
+and gigantic a conspiracy, that his hearers were astounded. That part of
+it which related to Belgium and the duke of Anjou was the smallest part;
+a mere episode in the Guisian Iliad. The conspirators purposed nothing
+less than to imprison the king of France, exterminate the royal family,
+and subject the kingdom to the domination of Spain. Their means Salcede
+stated to be immense. As implicated in the plot, he named a multitude
+of the most powerful nobles, a majority of the governors of provinces
+and towns, and even some of the king’s ministers and favourites. The
+provinces of Picardy, Champagne, Burgundy, Britanny, and the Cotentin,
+were, he said, secured by the plotters; nor would foreign aid be wanting,
+as the papal and Piedmontese troops were to enter France on the side of
+Lyons, while two Spanish armies were to pass the Pyrenees into Bearn
+and Gascony, where the malecontents were in readiness to receive them.
+This deposition, after a lapse of some days, he voluntarily repeated and
+enlarged, and he offered to prove it, by being confronted with three
+persons, whom he had before mentioned, and who, he was convinced, would
+confess that he had spoken but the truth.
+
+This disclosure was of too much importance to Henry of France to admit of
+delay in making it known to him. The duke of Anjou accordingly despatched
+one of his chamberlains to Paris, with the depositions, and a letter, in
+which the Guises were not spared. At first, Henry was startled at the
+seeming danger; but his natural dislike of business, and his love of
+pleasure, soon induced him to take refuge in the idea that the whole was
+an invention of some one who wished to disturb his quiet, or a stratagem
+of his brother, to obtain liberal succours. Not so thought his minister
+Bellièvre, in whom he placed great confidence. While the minister perused
+the paper, the changes in his countenance plainly showed that he thought
+the plot was real, and the peril from it extreme. It was at length
+settled, that Bellièvre, accompanied by Brulart, one of the secretaries
+of state, should proceed to Bruges, interrogate Salcede, and require
+that the criminal should be transferred to Paris. “If,” said the king,
+“my brother consents to the transfer, I shall believe that a conspiracy
+exists.”
+
+When Bellièvre questioned him, Salcede, for the third time, repeated
+his story. He was now conveyed to France, and placed in the castle of
+Vincennes; the duke of Anjou having readily acceded to the wish of his
+brother. When, however, he was brought before the king in council,
+he disavowed all that he had previously said. His confession had, he
+affirmed, been dictated to him by three persons in the duke’s service,
+who compelled him to write it. “Why, then, did you say the same to
+Bellièvre, when those persons were absent?” inquired the king. To this
+the unblushing prisoner answered, that Bellièvre had intimidated him by
+threats, and that he had always been under the influence of terror while
+he was in the ducal palace. Bellièvre was a man remarkable for patience
+and politeness, but he was so provoked by this charge, that he could not
+forbear from exclaiming, “You are an impudent slanderer.” At the close of
+the examination, Salcede was removed to the Bastile. There he was again
+examined, and there he persisted in his disavowal.
+
+It now became a question what should be done with Salcede. The president
+de Thou advised that he should be retained in prison. He urged that, if
+the conspiracy were real, his detention would intimidate his accomplices,
+and afford the means of convicting them in case of need; while, on the
+other hand, if the conspiracy were only a calumny, invented by turbulent
+and ill-disposed persons, the existence of the criminal might serve
+to justify the innocence of those whom he had accused. His son, the
+celebrated historian, tells us, that the president had an additional
+motive in thus advising; he wished not merely to hold the conspirators
+in check, by preserving the evidence of their guilt, but, at the same
+time, to keep before the king’s eyes a memento of the danger to which
+he exposed himself by his unbridled licentiousness, and his oppressive
+misgovernment.
+
+This prudent counsel was, however, strenuously opposed. It was contended
+that, in whatever light the question was viewed, the culprit ought to
+die. Supposing the plot to be a reality, his death would terrify his
+associates; his being suffered to live might drive them to rebellion
+through despair. If, on the contrary, his tale were false, death ought
+to punish the calumny; and the more so because, if impunity were granted
+to him, resentment, at being unjustly suspected, might provoke innocent
+persons to become really criminal.
+
+The motive which prompted many to insist on the latter mode of proceeding
+cannot be mistaken; they were pleading for their own lives, or the
+lives of their friends. The weakness of their reasoning is so evident
+as to need no exposure. It was not by stifling inquiry that the monarch
+could hope to neutralize or convert his enemies. History does, indeed,
+record instances where it was wise as well as generous to throw the
+veil of oblivion over an incipient plot, and save the plotters from the
+necessity of becoming open rebels; but this was not a case of the kind.
+The plotters against Henry were irreclaimable, and, ascribing his conduct
+to fear and not to mildness, would only be encouraged to persist in their
+destructive projects. When justice has pronounced upon the criminal,
+then is the time for a sovereign to show mercy; and, if he have a human
+heart, he will set no other bounds to his clemency than those which are
+imperatively prescribed by the safety of the state. But he who shrinks
+from prosecuting a traitor offers a premium for the growth of treason.
+
+Henry, nevertheless, decided otherwise. He adopted the opinion of those
+who were for sending Salcede to the scaffold. In thus following their
+insidious advice, he was not influenced by principle or mistaken policy;
+he was mainly actuated by a childish impatience, an eagerness to get rid
+of a disagreeable subject, which interrupted his contemptible pleasures.
+Like the stupid bird, which hopes to baffle its pursuers by hiding its
+head, he seems to have thought that if danger were out of sight it could
+not reach him. He had, however, another and an equally mean reason for
+his decision; the wish to mortify de Thou. The president had recently
+offended him by a virtuous and truly loyal act. Dreading the effect which
+would be produced by the king’s incessant edicts to extort money, he
+implored him to pause, lest poverty and despair should drive the people
+to resistance. Instead of profiting by this patriotic warning, Henry
+turned round to his train of flatterers, and sneeringly exclaimed, “The
+poor man is in a state of dotage!” He was righteously punished for his
+scorn of honest and prudent counsel. Ere many years had gone by, he was
+taught to lament with tears the loss of this doting magistrate, and to
+confess that, had de Thou lived, Paris would never have revolted.
+
+Salcede was brought to trial. Everything that could throw light on the
+fact of the conspiracy was studiously suppressed; there was no search for
+evidence relative to it, no examination and confronting of the persons
+who had been charged by the prisoner. The sole object was to obtain a
+sentence of death against the man whose existence might prove fatal to
+the conspirators. That object was accomplished on the 25th of October,
+1582. Salcede was pronounced guilty of high treason, and was condemned
+to be torn into quarters by four horses; his quarters were to be placed
+on gibbets, at the principal gates of Paris, and his head was to be sent
+to Antwerp, to be exposed in a similar manner. Immediately previous to
+his execution, he was likewise to be put to the torture; this was a
+supererogatory act of cruelty, for, even if we admit the possibility of
+justifying the use of torture, its infliction in this instance could
+answer no useful purpose. It was decreed, also, by his judges, that “his
+confessions, the private letters found on him, and _the declarations
+which he had made since the commencement of his trial_, should be burnt
+to ashes; as having been malignantly and calumniously invented, to
+prejudice the honour of various princes, nobles, and other persons.” Here
+is the key to the whole proceeding.
+
+    “Light dies before thy uncreating word!
+    Thy hand, great anarch, lets the curtain fall,
+    And universal darkness buries all.”
+
+The king was sufficiently devoid of feeling to witness, behind a curtain,
+the torturing of the prisoner, and to go to the Town Hall, to see
+executed the ferocious and sickening sentence, which condemned a fellow
+being to be torn to pieces by horses. But, even in that corrupt and
+semi-barbarous age, there were not wanting persons who passed a severe
+censure on Henry, for conduct which was disgraceful to him as a king and
+a man.
+
+When the torture was applied, Salcede again veered about; he re-asserted
+the whole of what he had originally stated, with respect to the
+conspiracy. This blow was, however, adroitly parried by those whom it
+might otherwise have injured. As he was passing up a dark staircase,
+after having been tortured, he was joined by a priest, of the order of
+Jesuits, who exhorted him to retract his confession once more. This
+ghostly adviser no doubt worked powerfully on his hopes and fears, with
+regard to another world, and he succeeded in prevailing on him to make a
+new retractation. As nothing was to be gained by varying in his story, he
+persisted in this retractation, and, at the place of execution, he loudly
+extolled the virtues, and proclaimed the innocence, of his patrons, the
+Guises. He lived a villain, and he died a self-convicted liar.
+
+In the following year, 1583, there occurred another, but comparatively
+a trivial, illustration of the ambitious views of the Guises, and
+the vacillation and timidity of the king. Francis de Rosières, a
+native of Toul, born in 1534, was a man of prepossessing manners, and
+of considerable erudition and eloquence. He rose to be archdeacon of
+Toul, and through the patronage of cardinal de Guise, obtained several
+benefices, and the office of counsellor to the duke of Lorraine. To prove
+his gratitude to his benefactors, and probably at their instigation, he
+composed and published a voluminous work, on “the genealogy of the dukes
+of Lorraine and Bar.” Its evident purpose was to degrade the reigning
+family, and exalt that of the Guises. Not satisfied with tracing back
+in a direct line to Charlemagne the descent of the house of Lorraine,
+he carried it further through the starless night of ages, up to a son
+of Clodion, from whom Merovæus was pretended to have usurped the crown.
+The inference was easy, that the monarchs of the Capetian race were
+intruders, and that the Guises alone had a legitimate right to the
+throne. From thence to the assertion of the right was but a single step,
+on the propriety of which it was for prudence to decide, the question of
+justice being already settled. This doctrine was, in fact, openly taught
+in other works, which the Guises, however, affected to disavow, and to
+regard as fabrications of the protestants, for the purpose of throwing
+suspicion on their loyalty.
+
+In addition to his laboured genealogy of his patrons, Rosières had been
+guilty of various misrepresentations, and of a personal attack upon
+Henry; and he had supported his fabric of falsehood by documents which
+were manifestly spurious, and by altering others, so as to suit them to
+his purpose. The other libels Henry had repelled only by employing Pons
+de Thyard, a man of varied talents, to write an elaborate answer: against
+this he resolved to proceed in a different manner; he treated it as a
+state crime. He who had swallowed the camel of last year’s conspiracy,
+now strained at this gnat of a volume. And here again his infirmity of
+purpose betrayed him to the scorn of his enemies. Commencing vigorously,
+he despatched Brulart to Toul, to interrogate Rosières; after which the
+archdeacon was conveyed to Paris, and housed in the Bastile. Thus far,
+Henry seemed to have meditated a tragedy; but, in its further progress
+the drama dwindled down to a miserable farce. The plan which he adopted
+had the demerit of alike disclosing an inclination to mortify the Guises,
+and a dread of offending them. It was the latter feeling which prompted
+him to prohibit the parliament from intervening in the cause, because
+that body would probably pass a sentence derogatory to the house of
+Lorraine; it was the former feeling which induced him to persevere in
+seeking to gain the shadow of a triumph. He could not see that any thing
+short of complete victory was in reality a defeat.
+
+Pursuing the absurd system which he had framed for himself, Henry now
+convoked, at the Louvre, a numerous council of nobles and eminent men;
+all the heads of the Lorraine family were present. Rosières was brought
+from the Bastile, and, on his knees confessed his fault, owned that
+he deserved rigorous punishment, and sued for pardon. The keeper of
+the seals then gravely lectured him on the enormity of his crime, and
+declared him to be guilty of high treason. It was next the turn of the
+queen-mother to play her part; and, accordingly, as had previously been
+arranged, she stepped forward, and entreated her son to forgive the
+offender, for the sake of the duke of Lorraine. The king graciously
+consented, and delivered Rosières into the hands of the duke. This
+ludicrous scene was terminated by a decree, that the book should be torn
+to pieces before the author’s face, but that no public record should be
+made of these things, “lest reproach should fall on the illustrious house
+of Lorraine.” Anquetil pithily remarks, that the crime ought either to
+have been left unnoticed, or been more severely chastised.
+
+Rosières did not pass the whole of his remaining days in tranquillity.
+He involved himself in a quarrel with his bishop, and was under the
+necessity of repairing to Rome, to plead his own cause. How he sped in
+the holy city is doubtful; one writer affirms that he was censured,
+another maintains that he was absolved. He died in 1607. Besides the
+Genealogy, he wrote various works, which are as dead as their author.
+
+Writers who ventured to thwart the Guises in their treasonable designs
+did not meet with so much lenity from them as was shown to Rosières by
+the feeble-minded Henry. No merit whatever could counterbalance the sin
+of opposing them. This was experienced by Peter de Belloy, an eminent
+jurisconsult, who was born at Montauban, about 1540, and became public
+professor and counsellor at Toulouse. Belloy was a zealous catholic, and
+his three elder brothers had fallen in combating against the protestants.
+But these claims to consideration were not sufficient to prevent him from
+being persecuted by the house of Lorraine.
+
+Asserting the king of Navarre’s right to succeed to the reigning monarch,
+and exposing the machinations and hollow pretexts of the Guises, was
+the crime of which Belloy was guilty. The works which drew on him
+the vengeance of the Guisian faction were the “Catholic Apology;” “A
+Refutation of the Bull of Pope Pius V. against the Navarrese sovereign;”
+and “An Examination of the Discourse published against the Royal House
+of France.” In these works, which were given to the press in 1585 and
+1586, he contended, that the protestantism of Henry of Navarre did not
+deprive him of his title to the crown; that the king could not disinherit
+his legitimate heir; that the Pope had no authority to sit in judgment
+upon the question of the succession; and that the seeming ardour of the
+Guises, in behalf of catholicism, was nothing more than a mask to cover
+their designs upon the throne. His language was strictly decorous, his
+candour and impartiality were evident, but his facts and arguments were
+unforgivable.
+
+Slander was the weapon which his enemies began by using against Belloy.
+To his “Catholic Apology” a reply was published by a Jesuit, who assumed
+the designation of Francisculus Romulus, but who is believed to have been
+the celebrated Bellarmin. To give weight to his reasonings, the Jesuit
+boldly asserted that his opponent, who falsely took the name of catholic,
+was at least a heretic, if not an atheist. This calumny fell harmless
+upon the object at which it was aimed. It was not so with calumny from
+a higher quarter. The Guises were not satisfied with defaming him; they
+determined to make him feel their power more effectually. An unfortunate
+maniac, le Breton by name, of whom I shall have next occasion to speak,
+had written a seditious libel. This libel the Guises ascribed to Belloy.
+Failing to effect their purpose by this accusation, they painted him
+in the darkest colours to the king, as a dangerous mischief-maker and
+heretic, and the weak monarch was at last prevailed upon to commit him to
+the prison of the Concièrgerie.
+
+After Henry had assassinated the duke of Guise, the Council of Sixteen
+removed Belloy to the Bastile, where he remained in close confinement
+for nearly four years. He at length found means to escape, and he sought
+refuge at St. Denis, which was garrisoned by the troops of Henry IV. He
+was introduced to Henry, by Vic, the governor, and the king rewarded
+his talents and fidelity, by appointing him advocate-general to the
+parliament of Toulouse. His subsequent life appears to have been passed
+in quiet. The date of his death is not known, but in 1612 he was still
+living. He wrote various works, besides those which have already been
+mentioned: among them are a “Dissertation on the Origin and Institution
+of various Orders of Chivalry;” and “An Exposition of the Seventy Weeks
+of Daniel.”
+
+Francis le Breton, to whom I have already alluded, affords a striking
+proof that, when Henry the third forbore to punish, it was not clemency,
+but fear, indolence, or caprice, that withheld his hand. Le Breton was a
+barrister of Poitiers, who had acquired considerable reputation by his
+forensic talents. It speaks strongly in favour of his honesty and the
+kindness of his nature, that he espoused so warmly the part of those for
+whom he pleaded, as entirely to identify their interest with his own. A
+mere mercenary counsel, indifferent to the justice or injustice of his
+client’s claim, could have had no such feelings. Unfortunately, le Breton
+was of a family in which symptoms of insanity had often appeared, and the
+dreadful malady was lurking in his brain. The loss of a cause, in which
+he was engaged for a poor individual, at once roused the latent disease
+into action. He burst into vehement invectives against the judges, and
+presented a violent memorial against them to a higher tribunal. The
+superior judges, who saw how he was affected, gave him a gentle rebuke,
+and dismissed the complaint. Irritated by this, he journeyed to Paris,
+to make an appeal to the king. Having fastened his memorial on the
+end of a stick, he went to the Louvre, where the guards, who rightly
+concluded that he was bereft of his senses, endeavoured to drive him
+away. Le Breton, however, was immovable, and he exclaimed so loudly and
+incessantly, “The cause of the poor is abandoned, and God will take
+vengeance for it,” that the noise reached the king’s ear, and he ordered
+him to be admitted. Henry listened to his story, and then commanded him
+to return to his own country, and to keep silence in public. To have
+sent him to the hospital would have been a more praiseworthy act.
+
+Instead of proceeding to Poitiers, the maniac wandered through the
+provinces, calling on the people to recover their liberty, and sending
+inflammatory writings to the towns which were too distant for him to
+visit. At last he reached Bordeaux, and demanded an interview with the
+duke of Mayenne. It was granted; and the unfortunate lunatic employed
+the whole of it in conjuring the duke to defend the cause of the poor.
+Mayenne, who felt that le Breton’s harangues to the multitude, mad as he
+was, might be serviceable to the Guises, gave him money, and probably
+hopes, and then desired him to withdraw.
+
+Encouraged by this gracious reception, le Breton made the best of his
+way to Paris, where he sat down to compose a furious invective against
+the king, whom, with more truth than prudence or decorum, he styled
+a debauched tyrant, and the magistrates, whom he stigmatised as men
+steeped in wickedness, who, to please that tyrant, and gratify men in
+power, betrayed the cause of the poor. Two printers were found who had
+sufficient boldness to risk the printing of this libel. But, just as it
+was about to appear, the whole impression was seized, and the author was
+lodged in the Bastile. The printers were sentenced to be whipped, with
+their necks in a halter, and then to be banished from the kingdom. The
+libel was burnt by the public executioner.
+
+Believing, or affecting to believe, that the prisoner was less a madman
+than an instrument of the malecontents, Henry endeavoured, by secret
+interrogations, to obtain a confession that such was the fact. The
+attempt failed, and the prisoner was then given up to the parliament for
+trial. It was his misfortune that he was not the agent of some formidable
+conspirator; he would in that case have had a fair chance of escaping.
+
+When le Breton was brought before the parliament, his malady manifested
+itself in a more extravagant manner than ever. He treated the court with
+unbounded contempt, spoke to the members with his hat on, and would
+answer no questions. As he thus suffered judgment to go by default,
+sentence of death was passed upon him, as guilty of having excited
+the people to revolt; but his equitable and compassionate judges also
+decreed, that “a deputation should wait upon the king, to represent that
+the culprit laboured under mental alienation, and to entreat that his
+majesty would pardon a crime which was rather the effect of disease than
+of free will.”
+
+But neither the prayer of the parliament, nor the supplications of le
+Breton’s mother, who brought irrefragable evidence of his madness, had
+any effect upon the heartless Henry. Here was a victim whom he could
+safely sacrifice, and he would not forego the pleasure. Yet even here
+his mental cowardice peeped out. Instead of the involuntary offender
+being conveyed to the Grêve, which was the usual place of execution,
+he was hanged in the palace court. It seems to have been supposed, and
+perhaps correctly, that the people could not witness without emotion
+the death of a man, whose malady and whose fate had been brought upon
+him by commiseration for their sorrows, and who perished because he had
+no friend, while notorious criminals were daily allowed to brave the
+laws with impunity. Far from acting as an example to deter others, the
+murder of le Breton—for in his deplorable situation it was a murder—only
+served to exasperate the people in a tenfold degree. It was the singular
+infelicity of Henry never to be right in his treatment of crime; he was
+despised when he did not punish, he was hated when he did.
+
+Political persecution consigned to the Bastile, at this period, and when
+he was on the verge of the grave from extreme old age, a man who was
+a benefactor, and an honour, to his native land. Bernard Palissy was
+born about the year 1500, in the bishopric of Agen. His parents were so
+scantily favoured by fortune that they could do little for his education;
+but he contrived to acquire a knowledge of reading and writing, and
+sufficient skill in drawing and land-measuring to gain a livelihood as a
+draughtsman, a painter of glass and images, and a land surveyor. Geology,
+natural philosophy, and chemistry, next attracted his attention, and with
+respect to the two former he was far in advance of his contemporaries.
+
+It was about the year 1539, when he had settled at Saintes, after his
+journeys through the provinces, that a circumstance occurred which gave
+a colour to all his future life. He chanced to be shown a beautiful
+enamelled porcelain cup, manufactured in Italy. It struck him that, if
+he could discover the secret of fabricating this ware, he might obtain
+riches, and likewise serve his country by introducing into it a new
+art. From that moment he pursued his object with admirable energy and
+perseverance. Innumerable experiments failed, his resources wasted away,
+poverty and almost starvation stared him in the face, yet still, in spite
+of this, and of the exhortations of some, and the sneers of others, he
+steadily persisted. At length, after having suffered a mental martyrdom
+of sixteen years’ duration, he succeeded in his efforts, and independence
+and fame were his reward. For the adornment of their palaces and gardens,
+the king and all the nobles of France were eager to possess the figures
+and vases which were produced by Palissy’s taste and skill.
+
+Bernard Palissy had too enlarged a mind to devote himself wholly to
+the heaping up of riches. The toils of business he diversified and
+lightened by liberal studies. He formed a cabinet of natural history at
+Paris; gave, for several years, a course of lectures on natural history
+and physics; and wrote a variety of works, valuable for their facts and
+reasonings, and the new and just views contained in them, and unaffected
+and pleasing in their style.
+
+Palissy was a protestant, firmly attached to his religion, and from that
+attachment arose the only troubles which molested him in the decline
+of life. When the public exercise of their worship was prohibited, he
+gathered into a private assembly a few individuals of his own class, each
+of whom in his turn expounded the tenets of the Gospel. In 1562, though
+the duke of Montpensier had given him a safeguard, and his manufactory
+had been declared a privileged place, the bigoted judges of Saintes
+destroyed his establishment, and would have destroyed the proprietor
+also, had not the king interposed, and rescued him from their hands.
+The memory of Charles the ninth is branded with eternal infamy, but
+candour requires it to be owned, that he was a man of taste and talent;
+a lover of literature and the arts. It is melancholy to think upon what
+he might have been, and what he was. He invited the persecuted artist to
+Paris, and gave him apartments in the Tuileries. Thus protected, Palissy
+remained unhurt during the horrible slaughter of St. Bartholomew’s day.
+
+The protection which Charles the ninth extended to Palissy, the
+weaker-minded Henry the third wanted courage to continue. When the
+influence of the Guises became predominant in Paris, the venerable
+artist was arrested by the Council of Sixteen, and thrown into the
+Bastile. There Henry visited him. “My good man,” said the king, “if
+you cannot bring yourself to conform on the point of religion, I shall
+be compelled to leave you in the clutches of my enemies.” Palissy was
+then nearly ninety years of age, but his spirit was not bowed by the
+weight of years, or the prospect of death. He firmly replied, “Sire, you
+have several times said that you pity me; but I pity _you_, who have
+uttered the words ‘I am compelled.’ This is not speaking like a king. I
+will teach you the royal language. Neither the Guisarts, nor your whole
+people, can ever compel me to bend my knee before an image, for I know
+how to die.”
+
+The firmness of Palissy was not put to the extreme proof; but, had it
+been so, there is no reason to believe that his conduct would have belied
+his words. He was saved from the fiery ordeal by the duke of Mayenne, who
+humanely threw so many obstacles in the way of his trial, that Palissy
+died a natural death, in the Bastile, about the year 1589, no less
+respected for his virtues than admired for his talents.[4]
+
+Those enemies of Henry, into whose hands he feared that he should be
+“compelled” to deliver up Palissy, continued to plot against the monarch
+with an astonishing degree of audacity, which could be equalled only by
+the tameness with which he endured it. Plans were successively formed
+by them, to obtain possession of Boulogne; to arrest him on his way
+from Vincennes, and, subsequently, at the fair of St. Germain; and to
+make themselves masters of the Bastile, the Arsenal, the Temple, and
+other posts in Paris, massacre the ministers, judges, and courtiers,
+and depose and imprison him. Among the bitterest and most active of his
+enemies was the duchess of Montpensier, sister of the duke of Guise, who
+constantly wore at her girdle a pair of golden scissors, for the purpose,
+as she insolently said, of giving the monkish tonsure to brother Henry
+of Valois, previous to his being sent to a monastery. Henry frustrated
+these schemes, but had not spirit to punish them. The impunity which
+the criminals enjoyed produced its natural effect. The resources and the
+boldness of the conspirators were increased; the memorable day of the
+Barricades ensued; the monarch was expelled from Paris; and he entered it
+no more.
+
+As soon as the king had taken flight from the Louvre, Guise put garrisons
+into the Arsenal, and other military positions of Paris, and likewise
+into Vincennes and the town of Corbeil. The Bastile might still have
+remained in the power of Henry, and afforded him an easy entrance into
+his capital, had he not been guilty of an unaccountable act of folly.
+Colonel Ornano, an officer of established reputation, had offered to
+pledge his head that, if he were entrusted with the command, he would
+hold the place to the last extremity; but Henry preferred leaving it in
+the hands of Lawrence Testu, of whom it was sarcastically said, that
+he was more fit to govern a bottle than a fortress. He justified the
+contempt which was expressed for him, by surrendering the moment that he
+received a summons from Guise. His prompt submission called forth another
+sarcasm, by which he was declared to have given up his post, because he
+had no oranges to flavour his ragoût of partridges.
+
+The government of the Bastile was conferred, by Guise, on Bussi le Clerc,
+the most active member of the Council of Sixteen, a determined hater of
+the king and the protestants, and devoted heart and soul to the Guises.
+Bussi was originally a fencing-master, but changed his calling, and
+became an attorney. He was not long without prisoners. Among the first
+whom he received were Perreuse, late the provost of the merchants, who
+was expelled from his office for being faithful to the king, La Guesle,
+the attorney general, and Damours, a protestant minister.
+
+Damours was fortunate. Some ferocious wild beasts have been known to
+contract an attachment to helpless animals which were thrown into their
+dens. Bussi did so with respect to Damours. Instead of tormenting him,
+and being eager to send him to the flames, a mode of proceeding which
+might have been expected from a zealous and unenlightened catholic,
+he took a singular liking for him. With many oaths, he declared that,
+thorough hugonot as he was, Damours was worth more than all those
+politicians, the presidents and counsellors, “who were nothing but
+hypocrites;” and he bestirred himself so vigorously on behalf of his
+favourite, that he procured his liberation.
+
+James de la Guesle was born in 1557, and succeeded his father in
+the office of attorney general. After the day of the Barricades, he
+endeavoured to escape in disguise from Paris, for the purpose of joining
+the fugitive king; but he was recognised, and committed to prison. He
+did not long remain in the Bastile, and, as soon as he was set free, he
+proceeded to St. Cloud, where Henry was residing. The death of the king,
+which soon after occurred, afforded the enemies of La Guesle a pretext
+to throw out insinuations against him; for it was by him that Clement,
+the assassin monk, was introduced into the presence of the monarch.
+His loyalty was, however, too well known to admit of being stained by
+calumny. After having held office throughout the reign of Henry IV., and
+enjoyed the full confidence of that sovereign, La Guesle died in 1612.
+
+The Bastile was not allowed to remain untenanted by prisoners of
+distinction. Bussi had soon the gratification of wreaking his hatred
+upon “the presidents and counsellors” whom he had described as being
+“nothing but hypocrites.” The parliament, still faithful to the king,
+was a serious obstacle in the way of the Leaguers, and the Council of
+Sixteen determined, therefore, to apply an effectual remedy to this
+evil. This remedy was of the same nature as that which, long afterwards,
+was employed in England, by Oliver Cromwell, and is known by the name of
+Pride’s Purge. Bussi le Clerc was the colonel Pride on this occasion.
+
+On the 16th of January, 1589, while the parliament was about to choose
+deputies, for a mission to the king, at Blois, Bussi, who had surrounded
+the hall with troops, suddenly entered, attended by some of his armed
+followers, and began to read a list of the proscribed members, among
+whom were the two presidents. On hearing this, the whole of the members
+simultaneously declared, that they would share the fate of their chiefs.
+Bussi took them at their word, and they were led away to the Bastile,
+where they were soon joined by some of their colleagues, who, suspecting
+what would happen, had not quitted their homes, but whose caution had
+failed to ensure their safety. All those who were not on Bussi’s list
+were, however, liberated in the course of the same evening, and a part
+of the others were allowed to return to their homes, on their friends
+becoming answerable for them. Having thus got rid of the persons who were
+obnoxious to them, the Leaguers remodelled the parliament, in such a
+manner as to render it subservient to their purposes.
+
+The most distinguished of the parliamentary members who were kept in hold
+were Achille de Harlay, Nicholas Potier de Blancmesnil, Louis Seguier,
+and James Gillot.
+
+The personal and mental courage of Harlay qualified him well for the
+stormy times in which he lived. To the influence of fear he seems to
+have been scarcely accessible. To the merit of unchangeable loyalty he
+added the rarer merit of opposing the rash and oppressive edicts of the
+sovereign. His legal knowledge was profound, and his integrity without
+a stain. He was born in 1536, and he sprung from a family which had
+distinguished itself, for more than two centuries, on the seat of justice
+or in the field of battle. At the age of forty-six, he succeeded his
+father-in-law, Christopher de Thou, as president of the parliament of
+Paris.
+
+When the success of his partisans, on the day of the Barricades, had
+rendered the duke of Guise master of the capital, he went, with a train
+of followers, to the house of Harlay, for the purpose of prevailing on
+him to convoke the parliament, that the recent measures might obtain
+something like a sanction. The president was walking in the garden, and
+he did not deign to notice his visiter till the duke approached him;
+then, raising his voice, he said, “It is a lamentable thing when the
+servant drives out his master. As to all the rest, my soul is God’s,
+my heart is the king’s, and my body is in the hands of the wicked; let
+them do as they please with it.” Guise still pressing him to assemble
+the parliament, he sternly replied, “When the majesty of the monarch
+is violated, the magistrate has no longer any authority.” Hoping to
+intimidate him, some of the duke’s followers threatened him with death,
+but their threats were as unavailing as the request of Guise had been.
+“I have,” replied the undaunted magistrate, “neither head nor life that
+I value more than the love I owe to God, the service which I owe to the
+king, and the good which I owe to my country.”
+
+After an imprisonment of several months, Harlay obtained his liberty, at
+the price of ten thousand crowns. The moment that he was free he departed
+from Paris, to join Henry the fourth at Tours, and the monarch appointed
+him president of the parliament sitting in that city, and composed of
+Parisian members, who had succeeded in escaping from the clutches of the
+Leaguers. In this post, Harlay sustained his high reputation, by the
+vigour and eloquence with which he refuted the manifestos of Spain and
+the League, and the bulls of the Roman Pontiff.
+
+Peace at length came, and Henry rewarded his services by the estate of
+Beaumont, with the title of count. When the first president returned
+to Paris, all the members of the parliament went out to meet and
+congratulate him. As Harlay advanced in years, he did not bate one jot
+of the spirit which he had manifested at an earlier period. He still
+unflinchingly supported the rights of the kingdom, and the liberties of
+the Gallican church, and protested against whatever he deemed pernicious
+to the people or the monarch. The re-establishment of the Jesuits he
+strongly but vainly opposed. From one of his speeches to Henry the
+fourth, in 1604, we may judge with what an honest freedom he uttered his
+sentiments. The parliament having dissented from a measure which the
+Council had resolved upon, its dissent was construed into disobedience.
+“If to serve well be disobedience,” replied the venerable magistrate,
+“the parliament is in the habit of committing that fault; and, when a
+conflict arises between the king’s absolute power and the good of his
+service, it prefers the one to the other, not from disobedience, but from
+a desire to do its duty, and to keep its conscience clear.”
+
+After having held the first presidentship for thirty-four years, Harlay,
+whose sight and hearing were impaired, resigned it early in 1616, and he
+died, on the 23d of October, of the same year, at the age of eighty.
+
+Born at Paris, in 1541, of a family which had given several eminent
+magistrates to the state, Potier de Blancmesnil attained the rank of
+president à mortier in 1578. With talents less splendid than those of
+Harlay, he was not inferior to him in probity and devoted loyalty. From
+the imprisonment which followed his seizure by Bussi le Clerc he was
+released in a few days; but he did not long retain his liberty. When
+Henry, on the 1st of November, 1589, made himself master of the suburbs
+of Paris, and there seemed reason to believe that the new monarch would
+soon enter the city in triumph, the joy of Potier was so undisguised,
+that the Leaguers again sent him to his old quarters in the Bastile. He
+was brought to trial, as an adherent of the Bearnese—for so Henry was
+contemptuously called—and he would no doubt have suffered an ignominious
+death, had not the duke of Mayenne interposed, and released him from
+prison. Throwing himself at the feet of his deliverer, Potier exclaimed,
+“My Lord, I am indebted to you for my life; yet I dare to request from
+you a still greater benefit, that of permitting me to join my legitimate
+sovereign. I shall all my life acknowledge you as my benefactor; but I
+cannot serve you as my master!” Mayenne had greatness of mind enough not
+to be offended by this speech. Affected even to tears by the appeal, he
+raised up and embraced the suppliant, and allowed him to depart. It is
+delightful to find a few bright flowers of virtue among the lurid and
+noxious growth produced by civil war.
+
+Henry the Fourth rewarded Potier by making him president of the
+parliament of Chalons. In that office he continued during the whole of
+Henry’s reign. When the monarch perished by the knife of Ravaillac,
+the news was carried to Chalons, accompanied, as is customary in such
+cases, by a thousand terrific rumours. As soon as he heard the lamentable
+tidings, René Potier, the president’s son, who was bishop of Beauvais,
+hurried to the hall where the parliament was sitting, and entreated him
+to quit the place without delay, in a carriage which he had brought for
+the purpose. But the magistrate had more firmness than the prelate. He
+answered, in a loud voice, that the state and the country called on him
+not to absent himself on such an emergency, but to die, if needful, in
+order to secure the obedience which was due to Henry the fourth’s son;
+and he earnestly exhorted his colleagues not to remove from their seats.
+It was probably for this opportune act of courage and fidelity that Mary
+de Medicis conferred on him the title of her chancellor.
+
+Potier lived to the venerable age of ninety-four, preserving all his
+faculties to the last. His decease took place on the 1st of June 1635.
+
+It has been remarked by French writers, that no family furnished more
+magistrates than that of Seguier. From the first appearance of the name
+in the parliament of Toulouse, when that body was originally formed,
+in the 14th century, down to the period of the French revolution, the
+number amounted to sixty-eight, of whom many possessed high talents, and
+consummate legal knowledge. Peter, the first who bore that prenomen,
+is characterised, by the poet Scevola St. Marthe, as “one of the most
+brilliant lights of the temple of the laws,” and in this praise there
+is no poetical exaggeration. To this magistrate France owes eternal
+gratitude, for his having frustrated the project of introducing the
+Inquisition into that country. He was warned beforehand that he would do
+well to avoid venturing too far in his opposition, but he nobly set the
+danger at defiance, and he triumphed.
+
+The six sons who survived him were all of the legal profession. No
+monarch ever paid a more graceful compliment to a subject than that which
+Henry the fourth paid to the second Peter, a son of the first, who became
+president on the resignation of his father. The courtiers pressing so
+closely round the king that the president could not reach him, Henry
+held out his hand to Seguier, and said, “Gentlemen, allow to come to me
+my inseparable during my bad fortune, which, with you, he aided me to
+surmount. I can answer for it, that, notwithstanding the business with
+which I burthen him, he will always be too much my friend to neglect
+me.” In a similar strain he publicly addressed Anthony, another brother,
+who was setting off on an embassy to Venice. “You made your way into my
+affections,” said he, “in the same manner that I did into my kingdom, in
+spite of the resistance and the slanders of my enemies and enviers.”
+
+Louis, the fourth brother, was a counsellor of the parliament, and also
+dean of the cathedral church of Nôtre Dame, at Paris. He obtained his
+release from the Bastile by paying a large ransom; but he was not allowed
+to remain in peace, he being soon after expelled from the capital by
+the Leaguers. He was subsequently sent to Rome, by Henry the fourth, to
+negotiate with the pope for the monarch’s absolution. On his return,
+he was offered the bishopric of Laon, which would have given him the
+elevated and much coveted rank of duke and peer. Seguier, however, devoid
+of ambition, preferred to remain in the humble station of dean. He died
+in 1610.
+
+Gillot, the last of those whom I have mentioned as having been lodged
+in the Bastile by Bussi le Clerc, was certainly entitled to share the
+fate of his companions, his attachment to the royal cause being a matter
+of notoriety. He was of a noble Burgundian family, possessed a good
+fortune, much erudition, and a valuable library, was connected with most
+of the wits and learned men of that period, and assembled them frequently
+at his social board, where they conversed on topics of philosophy and
+literature. He had also the higher merit of being beneficent, sincere,
+and candid. It was said of him, that he had so benign a disposition that
+his sole delight was in obliging. Gillot was educated for the church,
+and became dean of Langres, and canon of the Holy Chapel at Paris; he
+was likewise one of the ecclesiastical counsellors, or judges, in the
+parliament. His abode in the Bastile does not appear to have been of long
+duration; it is probable that he ransomed himself. For his incarceration
+he took an ample revenge, by bearing a part in writing the admirable
+satire called “la Satire Ménippée, ou le Catholicon d’Espagne,” which
+covered the Leaguers with ineffaceable ridicule, and is said to have been
+more injurious to their cause than the sword of Henry the fourth. The
+harangue of the legate at the opening of the states of the League, and
+the laughable idea of the procession of the Leaguers, are attributed to
+Gillot. This estimable and talented man died in 1619.
+
+The Council of Sixteen, like the Common Council of Paris in 1792 and
+1793, was eager to monopolize all the power of the state. It carried on
+a secret correspondence with the Pope and the Spanish monarch, and was
+obviously preparing to subvert the authority of the duke of Mayenne.
+In furtherance of its plan, it resolved to strike the parliament with
+terror, and of course render that body subservient, by a decisive blow.
+A pretext was furnished by the acquittal of a person named Brigard,
+who had been tried on a charge of corresponding with the royalists.
+A cry was immediately raised, that the parliament had violated its
+duty, by granting impunity to treason, and that some measure must be
+adopted, to prevent the recurrence of such a crime. Several meetings
+were clandestinely held, to decide upon what should be done. The result
+was, that on the 15th of November, 1591, the president Brisson, and the
+counsellors Larcher and Tardif, were seized by order of the Sixteen,
+carried to prison, and hanged there upon a beam, without even the
+semblance of a trial. The bodies, with calumnious papers attached to
+them, were then removed to the Grêve, and publicly exposed on three
+gibbets.
+
+This last outrage caused the downfall of the Sixteen. Mayenne had long
+been dissatisfied with the conduct of these turbulent and sanguinary
+men, and he was heartily glad of this opportunity to punish them, and
+annihilate their political influence. He could do both with safety,
+as a great majority of the citizens were shocked and disgusted by the
+murderous act which had been committed. The duke was then with his army
+at Soissons, where he was expecting to be joined by the prince of Parma.
+Leaving his troops under the command of the young duke of Guise, he
+hastened, with three hundred horse and fifteen hundred foot, to Paris.
+A few days after his arrival, he consigned four of the criminals to
+execution, proscribed two who had escaped, prohibited, under pain of
+death, all secret meetings, and thus put an end for ever to the tyranny
+of the council. The partisans and agents of Spain murmured in private
+at these decisive measures, but they were in too feeble a minority to
+venture upon doing more.
+
+Among those who were executed was not Bussi le Clerc; though, as he
+had been the most conspicuous actor in the murders, he richly deserved
+death. It was to being governor of the Bastile that he was indebted for
+his safety. When Mayenne came to Paris, Bussi prudently kept within the
+walls of the fortress; and, as there were various reasons which made it
+unadvisable to besiege him, he was allowed to negociate. On condition
+that he should not be punished for his share in the murder of Brisson,
+Larcher, and Tardif, and that he should be at liberty to go wheresoever
+he pleased with his property, he agreed to surrender the Bastile. The
+first of these articles was faithfully performed; but with respect to the
+second he was not so lucky, for Mayenne’s soldiers deprived him of the
+booty which he had made during the civil war. He retired to Brussels,
+where, during forty years, he earned a scanty subsistence, as an obscure
+teacher of fencing. The custody of the Bastile was confided, by the duke
+of Mayenne, to du Bourg, a brave and trusty officer.
+
+In 1589, after Henry the fourth’s attempt upon Paris, when he had little
+more than the shadow of an army left, and was obliged to retreat on
+Normandy, the Parisians were so confident that the Bearnese would be
+brought back a prisoner by the duke of Mayenne, that the windows in St.
+Anthony’s-street were hired, to see him pass along in his way to the
+Bastile; in the following year, he held them cooped up within their
+walls, suffering the direst extremity of famine; and now, in 1594, he
+entered the capital in triumph, as an acknowledged sovereign, amidst
+the shouts of the multitude. It must be owned, however, that for the
+submission of Paris, as well as of many other cities, Henry had to thank
+his purse rather than his sword. For giving up Paris, Brissac, the
+governor, received nearly seventeen hundred thousand livres. The whole of
+the strong places which the king bought, cost him no less than thirty-two
+millions of livres, besides governments, offices, and titles. At dinner,
+on the day of his entry, he pointedly alluded to this circumstance, in
+the presence of some of the vendors. Nicolas, a jovial poet and man of
+wit, was standing by Henry’s chair: “Well,” said the king to him, “what
+say you to seeing me here in Paris?” “Sire,” replied Nicolas, “that which
+is Cæsar’s has been rendered unto Cæsar.” “Ventre saint-gris!” exclaimed
+Henry in reply, “I have not been treated at all like Cæsar, for it has
+not been rendered to me but sold to me, and at a pretty high price too.”
+
+There was, nevertheless, one man among the Leaguers who was not venal.
+This was du Bourg, the governor of the Bastile. His vigilance had
+recently frustrated a plot to seize on the fortress, and he now prepared
+to defend his charge to the utmost. For five days he refused to listen to
+any overtures, and he even turned his cannon upon the city. But having
+received information that it was impossible for Mayenne to succour him,
+he consented to capitulate upon honourable terms. His garrison was
+allowed to retire with arms and baggage. Money he refused to accept;
+nor would he acknowledge Henry as his master; he had, he said, given his
+faith to the duke of Mayenne, and he would not violate it. With a strange
+mixture of ferocity, coarseness, and chivalrous feeling, he added, that
+Brissac was a traitor, that he would maintain it in mortal combat with
+him before the king, and that he “would eat his heart in his belly.”
+
+The circumstances of the times, which rendered it necessary to reign with
+some degree of caution, but still more the generous and clement character
+of Henry, for a few years prevented the Bastile from having many captive
+inmates. Menaces of sending individuals to it were occasionally thrown
+out, but they were not executed. In 1596, for instance, when, to supply
+his pressing wants, Henry had unjustly seized on the money destined to
+pay annuitants at the town-hall, we find him giving vent to a momentary
+fit of anger, and threatening whoever should presume to hold what he
+was pleased to call seditious language, with respect to this arbitrary
+measure. The seditious language, which thus excited his wrath, was
+nothing more than a petition, which a citizen named Carel had drawn up on
+behalf of the plundered annuitants.
+
+There was a moment when the Bastile was on the point of receiving an
+illustrious victim; no less a man than Theodore Agrippa d’Aubigné, the
+long tried and faithful friend of Henry, amidst peril and misfortune.
+Irritated by d’Aubigné’s restless zeal in the cause of the hugonots, the
+king gave Sully an order to arrest him, but it was soon withdrawn.
+
+In 1602, Sully was appointed governor of the Bastile. Since 1597 he
+had been at the head of the finance department, and during his able
+administration, a part of the Bastile was occupied in a manner such as
+it had never before been, nor ever was afterwards. It became a place
+of deposit for the yearly surplus of revenue, which was obtained by
+the judicious system of the minister. The amount of the treasure thus
+accumulated has been variously estimated, but it was probably about forty
+millions of livres. It was designed to be appropriated to the realising
+of Henry’s military projects. The Tour du Trésor is supposed to have
+derived its name from its having been the tower in which this hoard was
+secured.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+    Reign of Henry IV. continued—Viscount de Tavannes—The marshal
+    duke of Biron—Faults of Biron—Friendship of Henry IV, for
+    Biron—La Fin, and his influence over Biron—The duke of
+    Savoy—Biron’s first treason pardoned—Embassies of Biron—Speech
+    of Queen Elizabeth to Biron—Discontent among the nobles—Art of
+    la Fin—Imprisonment of Renazé—La Fin betrays Biron—Artifices
+    employed to lull Biron into security—Arrest of Biron, and
+    the count of Auvergne—Conduct of Biron in the Bastile—His
+    trial—His execution—Respect paid to his remains—Monbarot
+    sent to the Bastile—The count of Auvergne—He is sent to the
+    Bastile but soon released—He plots again—Cause and intent of
+    the conspiracy—He is again arrested—Sentence of death passed
+    on him, but commuted for imprisonment—He spends twelve years
+    in the Bastile—Mary of Medicis releases him—Conspiracy of
+    Merargues—He is executed—Death of Henry IV.
+
+
+The first distinguished prisoner of the Bastile, after the firm
+establishment of Henry on the throne, was John de Saulx, viscount
+de Tavannes, second son of that marshal who acquired an undying but
+unenviable fame during the massacre of St. Bartholomew. He was born in
+1555, and may be said to have been nursed in a deadly hatred to the
+protestants. The viscount accompanied Henry the third to Poland, remained
+behind when his master departed, visited the Turkish frontier provinces,
+was engaged in various actions, and at length fell into the hands of the
+Ottomans. He managed, however, to get free, and, in 1575, he revisited
+his native country.
+
+In the wars between the catholics and the protestants, Tavannes was
+an indefatigable scourge of the latter. On one occasion, while he was
+governor of Auxonne, he was in no small danger; he was surprised and
+wounded in a church by the enemy, and was confined in a castle. Yet
+though the wall was a hundred feet high, and he was guarded in sight,
+he contrived to escape. In the war of the League, against both Henries,
+he rendered himself conspicuous by his violence and perseverance. He
+proposed to arm the people with pikes, but this proposal was overruled,
+on the ground that it tended to excite in their minds the idea of a
+republic. In attempting to relieve Noyon, he was again made prisoner; he
+was, however, soon exchanged, the mother, wife, and two sisters, of the
+duke of Longueville being given as an equivalent for him. In 1592, he was
+appointed to the government of Burgundy, and he maintained the contest
+till 1595, when, being abandoned by all his companions in the cause, he
+yielded a sullen submission to Henry.
+
+Having refused to join the king at the siege of Amiens, he was arrested,
+in 1597, and committed to the Bastile. Tavannes had certainly a talent
+for escaping; we have seen that he twice extricated himself from
+confinement, and he now did so for the third time. By what means he
+eluded the vigilance of his jailors does not appear. Henry seems to have
+cherished no very strong resentment against the fugitive; for, instead of
+placing him in surer custody, he allowed him to reside unmolested on his
+estate, where Tavannes died, about the year 1630. The viscount published
+a life of his father, a curious and valuable work; of which, however,
+some passages are animated by a spirit dishonourable to the writer.
+
+That Tavannes, who was long his determined enemy, and never professed
+to have become his friend, should be openly or secretly hostile to him,
+could excite no surprise in Henry; but his feelings must have received a
+deep wound, when he discovered that he might say, with the inspired royal
+psalmist, “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did
+eat of my bread, hath lifted his heel against me.”
+
+Charles de Gontaut, duke of Biron, the son of a man distinguished for
+his honour, loyalty, valour, and martial exploits, was born about 1562,
+and inherited his father’s warlike spirit, but not his praiseworthy
+qualities. In his childhood he was so dull of apprehension that he could
+scarcely be taught to read. In his military studies he must, however,
+have made early and extraordinary progress; for at fourteen he was
+colonel of the Swiss regiments, and when he was only fifteen, the command
+of the army in Guienne was entrusted to him for some weeks by his father,
+who had broken one of his thighs. His religion we may believe to have
+hung loosely enough upon him, as he twice changed it before he reached
+his sixteenth year.
+
+There were two crying sins of the age, duelling and gaming, in which
+Biron made himself conspicuous. He was not yet twenty, when he fought a
+duel with the prince of Carency, who was a rival suitor to the heiress
+of the family of Caumont. Each party had two seconds, all of whom were
+in habits of friendship with each other. It was in a snow-storm, at day
+break, that the combatants met; and, by taking their ground so that the
+snow drove into the faces of their antagonists, Biron and his seconds
+contrived to destroy them. This triple murder was pardoned by Henry the
+third, at the request of the duke of Epernon. As a gamester, Biron played
+so deeply, and with such infatuated perseverance, that he himself said,
+“I know not whether I shall die on the scaffold; but, if I do not, I am
+sure that I shall die in a workhouse.”
+
+The scaffold which, with somewhat of a divining spirit, he seems to
+have thought his not improbable doom, was more than once predicted to
+him. The basis on which one prediction was built may excite a smile.
+“The archbishop of Lyons,” says an old writer, “judged better than any
+one else of the nature of men by their countenances. For having one day
+curiously contemplated the features and characters of the marshal Biron’s
+face, he pronounced that he had an exceedingly bad physiognomy, verily
+that of a man who was fated to perish wretchedly.” On surer grounds,
+on a knowledge of his son’s disposition, his father sometimes said to
+him, “Baron,” (that was his early title) “I advise you to go and plant
+cabbages on your estate, as soon as peace is made; for, otherwise, you
+will certainly lose your head at the Grêve.”
+
+The faults of Biron were, indeed, such as to justify melancholy
+forebodings with respect to his end. He was vain, imperious, passionate,
+restlessly active, so greedy of praise that he deemed himself robbed of
+all that was given to others, so high an estimater of his own services
+that he never thought them enough rewarded, and so reckless of speech
+that, when he was in an angry mood, his invectives and reproaches did not
+spare even the sovereign. These faults were rendered more dangerous to
+him by his habits of profusion, and the consequent occasional emptiness
+of his purse, which laid him open to temptation, especially during his
+fits of dissatisfaction and disgust. On the other hand, it is beyond
+all doubt that Biron, for some years after the outset of his career,
+was devoted to Henry the fourth; he was eminently intrepid, displayed
+unwearied zeal, gave an admirable example of discipline, and was a
+consummate master of his profession. “No one,” said Henry, “has a keener
+eye in reconnoitring an enemy, nor a more ready hand at arraying an army.”
+
+At the battles of Arques, Ivry, and Aumale, at the sieges of Paris and
+Rouen, and on various other occasions, Biron was conspicuous among his
+fellow chiefs. His promotion kept pace with his exploits, and he rose
+rapidly to the highest dignities. In 1592, Henry appointed him admiral
+of France, and, in 1594, a marshal; on receiving the latter rank he
+gave up the office of admiral, which Villars demanded as a part of his
+reward for the surrender of Rouen. It has been imagined, that Biron
+cherished a rankling resentment for the deprivation of the admiralship;
+but this is more than doubtful: he appears, on the contrary, to have
+acceded to it with a good grace. In 1595, he obtained the government
+of Burgundy, and his life was saved by Henry, at the sharp encounter
+of Fontaine-Française. After having manifested his wonted military
+talents at the siege of Amiens, in 1598, Biron attained the zenith of
+his elevation, by being created a duke and peer. When the deputies of
+the parliament waited on the king, in Picardy, to congratulate him on
+the success of his arms, he paid to the new-made peer one of those
+well-turned compliments by which he so often delighted his warriors and
+statesmen. In turning to account that part of “the cheap defence of
+nations” which consists in gracefully bestowing praise, no man was more
+of a proficient than Henry. “Gentlemen,” said he to the deputies, “I
+introduce to you the Marshal de Biron, whom I present with equal success
+to my enemies and my friends.”
+
+Thenceforth, thanks to his own folly, the star of Biron gradually
+declined till it set in blood. He soon became unsafe to be opposed to
+the king’s enemies, and unworthy of being presented to his friends.
+Vanity and prodigality were the faults which began his ruin; the one led
+him to think that his superlative merit was inadequately requited, the
+other caused him to accuse Henry of avarice and ingratitude, because
+the monarch did not feed his extravagance with boundless supplies. Biron
+might, nevertheless, have stopped short of destruction, had there not
+been perpetually a tempter at his ear, whispering sinister councils. His
+evil genius was Beauvais La Nocle, sieur de La Fin, a veteran intriguer,
+who had spent his life in disturbing the public peace, and was still in
+correspondence with Spain, Savoy, the banished partisans of the League,
+and the malecontents in various provinces. He is truly described as
+having been “an enterprising, active, insinuating man, especially skilful
+in getting on the weak side of those whom he wished to seduce. Bold with
+the rash, circumspect with the prudent, he seemed to give himself up
+entirely to his accomplices, that he might provide for his own safety at
+their expense.” Henry, who well knew the character of the man, warned
+Biron against him, but the warning was slighted.[5]
+
+The peace of Vervins, which relieved France from a burthensome war,
+precipitated the fall of Biron. Even before it was concluded, he had
+listened to the blandishments of Spanish emissaries, and had suffered
+them to tempt his ambition with the prospect of independent sovereignty,
+but he had stopped short on the verge of disloyalty. While his mind
+was thus susceptible of treasonable infection, he was unfortunately
+despatched by Henry to Brussels, for the purpose of interchanging, with
+the archduke, the customary oaths as to the faithful performance of the
+treaty. There he was surrounded by every imaginable seduction. He was
+“the observed of all observers;” the most splendid entertainments were
+given, expressly in honour of him; and he heard nothing but exaggerated
+praises of his transcendent valour and skill, insidious expressions of
+regret that he should serve a master so blind to his worth, or so meanly
+jealous of it, and highly-coloured representations of the glorious career
+which he might run, if he would devote his talents to the cause of the
+Spanish sovereign. When it was imagined that his head was sufficiently
+turned, a treaty with Philip was proposed to him. But he was not yet
+prepared to go thus far; he would give no more than a vague promise
+to join the catholics, in case of their rising against Henry, and he
+returned to Paris only half a traitor.
+
+That which had been begun in the Netherlands was completed in France.
+During the troubles of the League, the duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel,
+had seized upon the marquisate of Saluzzo. Hitherto he had held nearly
+undisturbed possession of it, but Henry, now that he was relieved from
+the pressure of foreign and domestic hostility, resolved to recover a
+territory which was of importance from its affording a passage into
+Italy. For the same reason, the duke was anxious to retain it; he could
+not see without apprehension and disgust a powerful neighbour constantly
+posted within a few miles of his capital. In the hope of prevailing
+on Henry to cede the marquisate to him, the duke adopted the plan of
+visiting the French court. Charles Emmanuel had seductive manners, and
+a ready eloquence, and he concealed profound dissimulation under the
+semblance of openness and sincerity. Henry, however, though he treated
+him with an almost ostentatious kindness and pomp, was inflexible on the
+main point, and the duke found himself under the necessity of signing a
+disadvantageous treaty.
+
+But Charles Emmanuel had not relied solely on the policy or the
+generosity of Henry; he knew that the embers of disaffection were still
+alive in some of the French nobles, and he hoped to fan them into a
+flame which should scorch the monarch. To win the discontented to his
+side, he scattered with a lavish hand his largesses, under the disguise
+of presents. Though from some of those whom he tempted he failed to
+procure an explicit avowal of their sentiments, he doubted not that
+they might be reckoned upon in case of an explosion; others spoke out
+more plainly; and Biron threw himself unreservedly into the arms of the
+wily Savoyard. It was partly, perhaps, by ministering to the marshal’s
+wants, but much more by rousing his wrath against the king, that the duke
+succeeded in making him a traitor. He artfully communicated to him some
+depreciating language which Henry was said to have used, and the vain
+and passionate Biron no longer hesitated to cast off his allegiance. The
+reward of his treason was to be the sovereignty of Burgundy, and the hand
+of one of Charles Emmanuel’s daughters. Yet at the moment when he was
+rushing headlong into rebellion, he publicly refused to accept a present
+of two fine horses from the duke of Savoy; assigning as the reason, that
+it would not become him to receive gifts from a prince between whom and
+his own sovereign there were differences existing. Thus hypocrisy was
+added to the list of his vices.
+
+Imagining that the succour which he expected from the Spanish court, and
+the movements of the French malecontents, would render it impossible for
+Henry to attack him, Charles Emmanuel, on his return to Turin, refused to
+carry the treaty into effect. Henry determined, therefore, to resort to
+force. To Biron, of whose fidelity he did not yet doubt, he offered the
+command of the army; and the marshal, in order to avoid suspicion, was
+compelled to accept it. All that, without betraying himself, he could do
+to shun success, he did. But the duke of Savoy, relying on his intrigues,
+had left his fortresses scantily provided with the means of defence,
+and they consequently made only a feeble resistance, in spite of Biron’s
+wishes and faulty measures. It was a fatal circumstance for the Savoyard
+prince, that the power of Spain was palsied by the recent accession of
+the contemptible Philip the third. Had the second Philip been alive, the
+viceroy of Milan, the count de Fuentes, a deadly foe of Henry, would
+probably have led his numerous forces from the Milanese, and made the
+contest something like what the duke had vauntingly threatened to make
+it, “a forty years’ affair.” As it was, Fuentes could only recommend
+to Biron, to seize the king and send him to Spain, “where,” said he,
+contemptuously, “he shall be well treated, and we will divert him with
+dancing, and banquetting among the ladies.” Biron shrank from this step,
+yet, in one of his furious outbreaks of passion, he meditated a fouler
+crime. At the siege of fort St. Catherine, knowing that the king was
+about to visit the trenches, he sent a message to the governor, to point
+his cannon on a certain part of them, and to place in another a company
+of musketeers, who were to fire when a signal was given. But he quickly
+repented of his purpose, and kept the king from approaching the perilous
+spots.
+
+Though the marshal renounced the base idea of becoming the murderer of
+his sovereign, he did not renounce his plots against him. La Fin was
+still employed in negotiating for him with the count de Fuentes, and a
+second treaty was agreed upon at Milan. It was arranged that the duke
+of Savoy should sign a peace, which, however, he was to break as soon
+as the French armies were withdrawn, and the Spanish troops were ready;
+that the Spanish monarch should give to the marshal the title of his
+lieutenant-general, and secure to him Burgundy, and a princess of Spain
+or Savoy; and that, in case of the war being unsuccessful, he should
+be indemnified for his loss by the payment of twelve hundred thousand
+golden crowns, and an annuity of a hundred and twenty thousand.
+
+By this time the suspicions of Henry began to be awakened with regard to
+Biron. There were many circumstances which conspired to rouse them; not
+one of the least of which was the incomprehensible apathy of the duke
+of Savoy; who, as he scarcely made an effort to defend himself, must be
+supposed to look for deliverance by some unknown means. Rumours, too,
+began to be spread of dark and dangerous intrigues; and it is probable,
+that the manner in which the military operations were conducted by the
+marshal, so unlike his wonted vigour, was not unremarked. All this
+appears to have induced Henry to refuse to give the government of the
+citadel of Bourg to Biron, who urgently requested it. There can be no
+doubt that Biron wished to be master of this citadel solely to enable him
+the better to act in concert with Charles Emmanuel; yet he considered as
+an inexpiable insult the king’s refusal to grant it.
+
+No longer doubting that the marshal had become entangled in dangerous
+projects, and anxious to save a man whom he loved, Henry took the step
+of coming to a personal explanation with him. Taking Biron aside, in the
+cloister of the Cordeliers, at Lyons, he questioned him as to the purpose
+and cause of the correspondence which he carried on with the enemies
+of the state, promising, at the same time, a full pardon for all past
+errors. Thus caught by surprise and pressed, the marshal could not wholly
+deny his fault, but he described it so as to make it appear only venial,
+suppressed every thing that it was important for the king to know, and
+affirmed that, though he was tempted by the prospect of marrying a
+princess of Savoy, he should never for a moment have wavered in his duty
+had he not been refused the government of the citadel of Bourg. Without
+seeking to penetrate deeper into the mystery, Henry embraced him, and
+said, “Well, marshal, do you think no more about Bourg, and, for my part,
+I will never remember what has occurred.” The king, however, hinted that
+a relapse would be productive of dangerous effects.
+
+In the following year, 1601, Biron was sent as ambassador to England, to
+announce to Elizabeth the marriage of Henry. He was accompanied by the
+counts of Auvergne and Chateauroux, the marquis de Créqui, and a splendid
+train of a hundred and fifty gentlemen. Elizabeth received him in the
+most flattering manner; but there was one of her conversations with him
+which might well have excited ominous thoughts in his mind. Essex had
+recently suffered. Speaking of that nobleman, she said, “I raised him to
+the most eminent dignities, and he enjoyed all my favour; but the rash
+man had the audacity to imagine that I could not do without him. His too
+prosperous fortune and his ambition rendered him haughty, perfidious,
+and the more criminal from his having seemed to be virtuous. He suffered
+a just punishment; and if the king my brother would take my advice, he
+would act at Paris as I have done here. He ought to sacrifice to his
+safety all the rebels and traitors. God grant that his clemency may not
+prove fatal to him. For my part, I will never show any mercy to those who
+dare to disturb the peace of the realm.” Biron must surely have felt his
+heart sink within him, when he heard this language, which, in all ways,
+was so applicable to himself. It is said, and we may easily believe it,
+that he omitted to mention this speech, when he gave an account of his
+embassy.
+
+The forbearance of Henry, and the lesson of Elizabeth, were alike
+powerless to check the downward career of the infatuated Biron. His
+treasonable practices were still persevered in. After his return from
+England, he was sent as ambassador, to Soleure, to ratify a treaty with
+the Swiss, and, on his way thither, he had a four hours’ conversation
+with Watteville, the duke of Savoy’s agent. Instead of proceeding to
+Paris, to render an account of his mission, he stayed at Dijon, the
+capital of his government, where the violent and insulting language in
+which he spoke of the king, gave abundant proof that little reliance
+could be placed upon his fidelity. In the meanwhile, various parts of
+the kingdom, particularly Poitou, the Limousin, and Périgord, in the
+last of which provinces the marshal had numerous partisans and vassals,
+were thrown into a ferment by insidious reports of Henry’s tyrannical
+intentions. Among the nobles also discontent was at work; the duke of
+Bouillon and the count of Auvergne were the principal malecontents. The
+provinces Henry quieted, by the kindness which he displayed in a journey
+through them; the nobles were not so easily to be reclaimed. It was
+obvious that a speech which the duke of Savoy made, after his leaving
+France, was not a mere idle vaunt. His friends rallying him on his
+failure, and alluding to the season at which he came home, told him that
+he had brought nothing but mud back from France. “If I have put my feet
+into the mud,” replied the duke, “I have put them in so far, and have
+left such deep marks behind, that France will never efface them.”
+
+While, within the kingdom, men’s minds were in this uneasy state, the
+news from without was by no means consolatory. Philip Dufresne Canaye,
+the French ambassador at Venice, was laudably active in procuring
+information of all movements among the Italian powers, by which his
+country might be affected. He learned that, while throughout Italy the
+utmost pains were taken to blacken the character and depreciate the
+resources of Henry, French subjects, disguised, were busy at Turin and
+Milan, and that they had frequent nocturnal interviews with the ministers
+of the two courts. He described minutely the features, demeanour and
+dress of these emissaries, and offered to have one of them seized, and
+carried off to France, if a small remittance were sent to him. Some
+strange lethargy seems to have come over the king and the French ministry
+at this moment; for they not only refused the money which was required,
+but even failed to send that which was indispensable for the payment of
+his spies.
+
+From this ill-timed slumber they would probably have been startled up by
+a fatal explosion, had not the catastrophe been averted by a disclosure
+of nearly all that related to the plot which had so long been carried on.
+The terrible secret was divulged by that very La Fin who had so largely
+contributed to lead Biron astray. La Fin’s first feeling of alienation
+from the great conspirator is supposed to have arisen out of the only act
+for which, during a considerable period, the marshal had been deserving
+of praise. From Biron’s sudden abandonment of the plan to kill the king,
+in the trenches of fort St. Catherine, his confident drew the conclusion
+that his firmness was not to be relied upon, and that consequently, at
+some time or other, he might bring ruin upon those who were connected
+with him. That he might have the means of shielding himself in case of
+such an event, he immediately began to preserve all the papers that
+passed through his hands; and when the marshal desired him to burn any
+of them before his face, he, by a dextrous sleight, contrived to throw
+others into the fire in their stead.
+
+Still La Fin continued to be employed in his perilous office of a
+negociator. It is probable, however, that, now his fears were excited,
+and it was become a main object with him to keep open a door for escape,
+he did not display the same alacrity and zeal as before. Biron did not
+suspect him, but the more cautious and penetrating count de Fuentes did;
+and his suspicions are said to have been strengthened by some words
+which dropped from La Fin. Those suspicions the count took especial care
+to conceal from the person who had inspired them. “Dead men,” says the
+proverb, “tell no tales;” and the case is much the same with men entombed
+alive in a dungeon. Fuentes thought it prudent to provide against the
+danger of a betrayal, by getting rid of La Fin. In order to effect this,
+he found a pretext for requesting him to pass through Piedmont, on his
+way to France. Either La Fin had some misgiving as to the intention of
+the Spanish viceroy, or chance served him well; for, instead of going
+himself to Turin, he took the road through Switzerland, and sent Renazé,
+his confidential secretary, to the duke of Savoy. Renazé was immediately
+arrested, and carried to the castle of Chiari. It was in vain that La
+Fin strove to interest the marshal in behalf of the secretary; Biron
+spoke coldly of the captive, as a man who must be sacrificed for the
+safety of the rest; and he is said even to have advised his confidant
+to take secret measures for effectually silencing all who had been the
+companions of his travels, or could give any clue to his proceedings.
+Already, though he seems not to have had the slightest idea that La Fin
+would be unfaithful to him, he had deemed it politic to transfer his
+dangerous confidence to the baron de Luz, his cousin, and two subordinate
+agents. Of this La Fin obtained information; and it did not tend to quiet
+his fears. It might be thought advisable to make him share the fate of
+Renazé. But, even supposing this not to happen, he saw plainly that the
+violent conduct of Biron towards the king must inevitably soon bring
+matters to extremities, and that, if the conspirators failed, which it
+was highly probable they would, his own life would be periled beyond
+redemption. His nephew, the vidame of Chartres, was also urgent with him
+to secure his head while there was yet an opportunity.
+
+La Fin at length passed the Rubicon. He made known to the king, that he
+had momentous secrets to communicate. In reply, he was told, that he
+should be rewarded for this service; but he stipulated only for pardon,
+and it was readily granted. The whole of the proofs of Biron’s guilt were
+then placed by him in the hands of Henry, who was deeply afflicted by
+these convincing testimonies of the marshal’s treason.
+
+Justice seems to be degraded, and almost to change its nature, when its
+purpose is attained by fraudulent means. The net was spread for Biron,
+but in quieting his fears, and luring him into it, a scene of trickery
+and falsehood was exhibited, which cannot be contemplated without pain.
+Sully had set a better example, by a stratagem which is not amenable
+to censure. To prevent Biron from maintaining a war in Burgundy, the
+minister prudently withdrew from the fortresses of that province the
+greatest part of the cannon and gunpowder, on the plea that the former
+were damaged and ought to be recast, and the latter was weakened by
+age, and must be re-manufactured, and he took care not to replace
+them. The right arm of Biron’s strength was thus cut off. The marshal,
+nevertheless, might still take flight; he had more than once evaded a
+summons to confer with Henry; and it was of primary importance to secure
+his person. As alarm might be excited by La Fin journeying to court,
+he was instructed to write to the marshal, that the king had required
+his presence, that he could not refuse to comply without giving rise
+to surmises; and that nothing should drop from his lips which could
+prejudice his friend. In the allusions which it made, and the caution
+which it recommended, the reply of Biron furnished additional evidence
+of his guilt. The monarch, too, played his part in the deception. To the
+baron de Luz, who had been sent from Burgundy to observe what was going
+on, and was about to return to that province, he spoke of the marshal
+in terms of kindness, and declared that his heart was lightened by a
+conversation which he had held with La Fin, as it proved that many of the
+charges brought against Biron were wholly unfounded. La Fin, at the same
+time, assured the marshal that the king was entirely satisfied, and would
+receive him with open arms. Deluded by these artifices, Biron determined
+to join Henry at Fontainebleau, notwithstanding that the incredulous de
+Luz, and others of his adherents, strenuously endeavoured to dissuade
+him. Various circumstances, ominous of evil, are said to have preceded
+his departure. On his road he received more than one warning from his
+well-wishers, but he spurned them all, and proceeded to Fontainebleau.
+As he was descending from his horse, he was saluted by the traitorous
+La Fin, who whispered, “Courage and wary speech, my master! they know
+nothing.” His belief in these words consummated the ruin of Biron.
+
+In spite of Biron’s faults, the heart of Henry still yearned towards
+him. Though he could not greet the offender with his customary warmth
+and frankness, he received him graciously, and led him through the
+palace, pointing out the improvements which had been made. At length he
+touched upon the delicate subject of the marshal’s deviation from the
+path of duty. He hinted that he had incontrovertible proof, but assured
+him that an honest confession would cancel every thing, and replace him
+on the summit of favour. Misled by his pride, and the fatal mistake
+that his secret was safe, Biron, instead of seizing this opportunity to
+extricate himself from danger, was mad enough to assume the lofty tone of
+conscious and wronged innocence; studiously cold in his general manner,
+he sometimes verged upon insolence, and he loudly declared, that he came
+not to justify his conduct, but to demand vengeance upon those who had
+slandered him, or, if need were, to take it. Twice more, in the course of
+the day—once in person, and once through Biron’s friend, the count of
+Soissons—Henry renewed his efforts, and was haughtily repulsed. On the
+morrow the monarch returned to the charge, and made other two attempts
+to save the marshal from the gulf which was opening to receive him.
+Oblivion for the past, friendship for the future, were earnestly offered
+to his acceptance. But Biron was like the deaf adder; he even broke out
+into a fit of passion on being pressed for the last time; and Henry was
+reluctantly compelled to resign him to his fate.
+
+It is probable that the king would have borne with Biron for a while
+longer, had not the terrors, entreaties, and tears of his consort,
+impelled him to decisive measures. Mary of Medicis believed, that it
+was a part of the policy of Spain to cut off the royal family, and she
+shuddered at the idea of what, in the case of a minority, might happen
+to herself and her offspring, from the hostility of a man who was in all
+ways so formidable as Biron. The king himself had already betrayed the
+same apprehension to Sully. After having, in melancholy terms, confessed
+his lingering affection for the marshal, he added, “But all my dread is,
+that were I to pardon him, he would never pardon me, or my children,
+or my kingdom.” The gates of mercy were in consequence shut upon the
+dangerous criminal.
+
+Biron had been in the habit of contemptuously reflecting upon the
+character of Essex, for what he considered as a cowardly surrender,
+and of maintaining that a man of spirit ought rather to suffer himself
+to be cut to pieces, than run the risk of dying by the headsman’s axe.
+The time was now come when it was to be seen whether he could practise
+his own doctrine. It was midnight when he quitted the presence of the
+king. Every thing had been prepared for his arrest, and that of the
+count of Auvergne, who was suspected of sharing in the treason. The
+latter nobleman was taken into custody by Praslin, at the palace gate.
+No sooner had Biron passed out of the ante-chamber than Vitry, the
+captain of the guard, seized the marshal’s arm, informed him that he was
+a prisoner, and demanded his sword. At first he supposed it to be a jest;
+and, when he was undeceived, he desired to see the king, that he might
+deliver the weapon into his hands. He was told that Henry could not be
+seen, and his sword was again required. “What!” exclaimed he furiously,
+“take the sword from me, who have served the king so well! My sword,
+which ended the war, and gave peace to France! Shall the sword which my
+enemies could not wrest from me be taken by my friends!” At length he
+submitted. When he was led along the gallery, through a double line of
+guards, he imagined that he was going to execution, and he wildly cried
+out, “Companions! give me time to pray to God, and put into my hand a
+firebrand, or a candlestick, that I may at least have the comfort to die
+while I am defending myself.” When, however, he found that he was in no
+instant danger, he meanly endeavoured to irritate the soldiers against
+the king, by saying to them, “You see how good catholics are treated!” He
+passed a sleepless and agitated night, pacing about his chamber, striking
+the walls, raving to himself, and occasionally to the sentinels, pouring
+forth invectives and imprecations, and sometimes with singular imprudence
+striving to seduce a valet de chambre of the king, who watched him, to
+write to his secretaries, directing them to keep out of the way, and to
+maintain, in case of their being taken and questioned, that he never had
+carried on any correspondence in cipher.
+
+From Fontainebleau the prisoners were conveyed by water to the Bastile.
+During the passage, Biron was lost in gloomy reverie, and when he
+entered within the walls of the prison his mind was racked with the
+worst forebodings. Nor were the circumstances attendant on his abode
+in the Bastile at all of a nature to raise his spirits. Placed in
+the chamber whence the constable St. Pol had passed to the scaffold,
+watched with lynx-eyed vigilance, and so carefully kept from weapons
+that he was allowed only a blunted knife at his meals, he could not
+help exclaiming, “This is the road to the Grêve.” While he was in this
+disturbed state, superstitious weakness is said to have lent its aid to
+complete his distraction. He was told that the Parisian executioner was
+a native of Burgundy; and it instantly flashed into his recollection,
+that having shown to la Brosse, an astrologer, his own horoscope under
+another person’s name, the wizard predicted the beheading of the person;
+and that Cesar, a pretended magician, of whom more will be seen in the
+next chapter, had said, that “a single blow given behind by a Burgundian
+would prevent him from attaining royalty.” The shock seems for the moment
+to have utterly deprived him of his senses. Refusing to eat, or drink,
+or sleep, he incessantly raved, threatened, and blasphemed. A visit
+from the archbishop of Bourges, who came to offer the consolations of
+religion, and who gave him some hopes of mercy on earth, rendered Biron
+less violent. At the prisoner’s request, Villeroi and Silleri, two of the
+king’s ministers, also visited him; and, either that his brain was still
+wandering, or that he thought to establish a claim to pardon by appearing
+to make important discoveries, or that he was prompted by a malignant
+wish to involve in his own ruin those whom he hated, he is said to have
+charged, and in the strongest terms, a number of innocent persons with
+being engaged in treasonable practices. Whatever was his motive, his
+purpose was frustrated; Henry did not thirst for blood; and it has been
+remarked, that the documents which, on the trial, were brought forward
+against the culprit, were not those that most forcibly criminated him,
+but those which criminated him alone.
+
+While Biron was thus the sport of his unruly passions, his friends were
+actively employed in endeavouring to save him. Henry had returned to the
+capital, amidst the shouts and congratulations of his subjects. Soon
+after his arrival, many of the nobles, some of whom were of Biron’s
+nearest kindred, waited upon the king, to intercede for the criminal.
+The duke of la Force was their spokesman; he spoke on his knees, and,
+though Henry desired him to rise, he retained that posture. He pleaded
+the services of the culprit and his father, the divine command to forgive
+our enemies, the pardon which the king had extended to others, and,
+especially, the deep indelible stain which would be thrown upon the
+family by a public execution; and, as far as was possible, he laboured
+to extenuate the marshal’s guilt, by representing that it arose from the
+warmth of his temper, and had never been carried beyond mere intention.
+There was one point in the duke’s speech which it was, perhaps, impolitic
+in him to urge; that in which he stated himself to speak in the name of
+a hundred thousand men, who had served under Biron. This was begging
+too much in the style of the Spanish beggar in Gil Blas, and was not
+calculated to propitiate a man like Henry.
+
+The monarch answered temperately, and even kindly, but with due firmness.
+Reminding them that he did not resemble some of his predecessors, who
+would not suffer parents to sue for their children on such an occasion,
+he declared that the mercy for which they asked would, in fact, be the
+worst of cruelty. He alluded to the love which he had always borne to
+Biron, and told them, that had the offence been only against himself he
+would willingly have forgiven it, and did forgive it as far as related to
+his person, but that the safety of his children and of the whole kingdom
+was implicated, and he must perform his duty to them. With respect to
+the disgrace which it was feared would attach to the relatives of the
+culprit, he treated the fear as a visionary one; he was, he said, himself
+descended from the constable St. Pol and the Armagnacs, who suffered on a
+scaffold, yet he did not feel dishonoured. In conclusion, he assured them
+that, far from depriving the marshal’s kindred of the titles and offices
+which they possessed, he was much more inclined to add to the number, so
+long as they continued to serve the state with fidelity and zeal.
+
+The king having authorized the parliament to proceed to trial, a
+deputation from that body, with the first president Harlay at its head,
+went to the Bastile, to take the necessary examinations, and confront the
+witnesses. With only one exception, which exception the internal evidence
+supplied by the papers soon obliged him to retract, Biron recognized
+all the letters and memorials which were shown to him; but he strove to
+put an innocent construction upon them, and, as they were written in a
+studiously ambiguous style, he might have thrown doubts upon the subject,
+had they been unsupported by oral testimony. In this stage of the
+business, he was asked what was his opinion of la Fin? Still believing
+that person to be true to him, he replied that he was “an honourable
+gentleman, a good man, and his friend.” The depositions of la Fin were
+then read, and he was brought face to face with the prisoner. The marshal
+now burst out into the most furious abuse of the man whom, but a moment
+before, he had declared to be his honourable and worthy friend. “O good
+God!” exclaims a contemporary chronicler, “what said he, and what did he
+not say! With what more atrocious revilings could he have torn to pieces
+the character of the most execrable being in the world! With what more
+horrible protestations, with what more terrible oaths, could he have
+called upon men, angels, and God himself, to be the witnesses and judges
+of his innocence!” La Fin, however, stood his ground against the storm
+of invective; and supported his evidence by corroborative circumstances,
+and additional documents in the prisoner’s handwriting. It seemed as
+though every thing conspired against Biron at this dreadful moment. “If
+Renazé,” said he, “were here, he would prove La Fin to be a liar.” To
+his utter surprise and consternation, the witness whom he had invoked,
+but whom he imagined to be dead, was suddenly brought forward, and amply
+confirmed the whole of La Fin’s story. On the very day that Biron was
+arrested, Renazé contrived to escape from the castle of Chiari, and he
+now sealed the fate of the marshal. Driven to his last resource, Biron
+pleaded the pardon which was granted to him at Lyons, and protested that,
+since he received it, he had never entertained any criminal designs. In
+this plea he was no less unfortunate than in the others. From his own
+incautious avowal, it was gathered that he did not make a full confession
+to the king; and one of his letters showed that he had continued to plot
+for many months after the monarch had forgiven him.
+
+The preliminary proceedings being completed, three days were occupied
+by the parliament in going over the mass of evidence, and hearing the
+summing up of the attorney general. The courts of justice, in those
+times, always commenced their sittings at an early hour. Between five and
+six o’clock, on the morning of the fourth day, Biron, closely guarded,
+was taken by water to the hall of the parliament, where a hundred and
+twelve of the members were in waiting to receive him; the peers had
+unanimously refused to sit upon his trial. At the sight of this array
+of judges he changed colour, but he soon recovered his self-possession,
+and is said to have assumed a kind of theatrical air which was scarcely
+decorous. A contemporary describes him as rudely bidding the chancellor
+speak louder, and as “putting forward his right foot, holding his mantle
+under his arm, with his hand on his side, and raising his other hand to
+heaven, and smiting his breast with it, whenever he called upon God and
+the celestial beings to be witnesses of his integrity in the service of
+the king and kingdom.”
+
+The whole of the crimes attributed to him had been arranged under five
+heads, concerning which he was interrogated by the chancellor. The
+questioning and defence of Biron lasted between four and five hours, and
+it must be owned that, in this final struggle for life and reputation, he
+made a noble stand. Though, in the course of a long speech, he sometimes
+became entangled in contradictions, its general tenor was well calculated
+to produce a favourable effect; at moments he was even eloquent, and
+worked strongly on the feelings of his auditors. Much he denied, and what
+he could not deny he palliated; with respect to the treasons charged
+against him, he was, he said, the seduced and not the seducer, a man not
+deliberately wicked, but led astray by hateful intriguers, who wrought
+his violent passions into frenzy, by representing that the monarch
+had undervalued and insulted him—a representation which seemed to be
+confirmed by his being refused the government of Bourg; he pleaded that
+his errors had gone no farther than intention, that they had been fully
+and freely pardoned, and had never been repeated; he urged his numerous
+and eminent services as a counterbalance to his faults, and the mercy
+which had uniformly been shown to far worse offenders as a reason why
+it should be extended to him; and he repelled, as an infamous calumny,
+the accusation of having intended to bring about the death of Henry—yet,
+imprudent as such language was, he could not forbear from broadly hinting
+that the monarch was fickle, unjust, and cruel: “I rely more upon you,
+gentlemen,” said he, “than I do upon the king, who, having formerly
+looked on me with the eyes of his affection, no longer sees me but with
+the eye of his hatred, and thinks it a virtue to be cruel to me, and a
+fault to exercise towards me an act of clemency.” At the close of his
+speech, few of his hearers were unmoved, but all were unconvinced.
+
+The most curious part of his defence is yet to be mentioned. If he did
+not spare his sovereign, it is not to be supposed that he would spare La
+Fin. Whenever he mentioned him he could not restrain his fury, but gave
+vent to a flood of abuse. Coining, and an unnatural regard for Renazé,
+were among the numerous crimes which he imputed to him. Strange that he
+did not perceive the folly of thus vituperating a man, whom he had so
+recently recognized as his honourable and worthy friend, and whose sins,
+if they really existed, he must then have known! But this was not all.
+For his vindication he mainly trusted to one plea—that he had not been a
+free agent, that he was under the irresistible influence of La Fin, who
+was a sorcerer, and had dealings with the devil. He averred, seriously,
+that La Fin was in the habit of breathing on him, biting his ear, and
+kissing his left eye, and calling him his master, his lord, his prince,
+and his king; that whenever his eye was kissed he felt a tendency to do
+evil; that the magician also enchanted him by making him drink charmed
+waters; and that he showed him waxen images which moved and spoke, and
+one of which pronounced, in Latin, the words “impious king, thou shalt
+perish!” “If by magic he could give voice to an inanimate body,” said he,
+“is it wonderful that he should have such power over me as to bend my
+will to an entire conformity with his own?”
+
+Deceived by the compassion which some of his judges had manifested,
+Biron cherished the flattering hope of an acquittal. His spirits were
+so elated by this idea, that he amused himself with repeating to his
+guards various portions of his defence, and mimicking the gestures and
+speeches which he supposed the chancellor to have made in the course of
+the subsequent proceedings. His vanity, too, contributed to buoy him
+up. He ran over, in conversation, the list of French commanders, found
+some defect in each of them, and thence concluded that, as his military
+talents were obviously indispensable to the state, his life was secure.
+
+The termination of that life was, nevertheless, rapidly approaching. By
+an unanimous vote, on the day after his appearance at their bar, the
+parliament pronounced Biron guilty of high treason, and condemned him to
+lose his head on the Grêve. The place of execution was changed by the
+king to the interior of the Bastile, at the request, it was said, of
+the criminal’s friends; but partly, perhaps, in the fear that a popular
+commotion might occur, and partly because a report was spread, that some
+of his domestics intended to throw a sword to him on the scaffold, that
+he might at least have the chance of dying an honourable death. It was
+wise not to run the risk of encountering his despair.
+
+The first intimation which Biron received of his impending doom, was
+from seeing that crowds were gathering together in the neighbourhood of
+the Bastile. The change of time and place had not been publicly made
+known. “I am sentenced! I am a dead man!” he instantly exclaimed. He
+then sent a messenger to Sully, to request that he would come to him,
+or would intercede with the king. With these requests Sully declined to
+comply, but he desired the messenger to leave the marshal in doubt as to
+the king’s intention. On the following morning, the last day of July,
+1602, the chancellor, accompanied by some of his officers, proceeded
+to the Bastile, to read the sentence to him, and announce its immediate
+execution. Biron was at the moment deeply engaged in calculating his
+nativity. When he was taken down to the chancellor, he addressed him
+in an unconnected rhapsody of prayers, lamentations, invectives, and
+reproaches, intermingled with protestations of innocence, and vaunts
+of the services which he was yet capable of rendering to the state. He
+besought that he might be suffered to live, even though it were in prison
+and in chains! It was a considerable time before the chancellor could
+obtain a hearing, and he was speedily interrupted by sallies of rage from
+the marshal, who reproached him with hardness of heart, execrated La Fin,
+accused the king of being revengeful, and the parliament of injustice in
+not having allowed sufficient time for his vindication, and, finally,
+asserted that he was put to death because he was a sincere catholic.
+
+This burst of insane passion was succeeded by a lucid interval, during
+which he calmly dictated his will, sent tokens of remembrance to his
+friends, and distributed in alms the money which he had about him.
+The reading of some parts of his sentence again roused his irritable
+feelings. When he heard the charge of having intended to destroy the
+king, he exclaimed, “That is false! blot it out!” and when the Grêve was
+mentioned, he declared that no power on earth should drag him thither,
+and that he would sooner be torn to pieces by wild horses than submit to
+such an indignity. He was quieted by being told of the change which had
+been made; but, when it was hinted to him that his arms must be bound, he
+relapsed into such violence that it was thought advisable to leave his
+hands at liberty. He then made his confession to the priest; and it was
+remarked that he, who had just before boasted of being a good catholic,
+was ignorant of the commonest forms of prayer, prayed more like a
+soldier than a Christian, and seemed to be thinking less of his salvation
+than of the things of this world.
+
+It being now near five o’clock, the hour which was appointed for the
+execution, he was informed that he must descend into the court of
+the prison. As he was quitting the chapel, he caught sight of the
+executioner. “Begone!” vociferated he: “touch me not till it is time; if
+you come near me till then, I swear that I will strangle you!” He twice
+repeated the command and the threat when he was at the scaffold. Looking
+round on the soldiers, he mournfully said, “Would but some one of you
+fire his musket through my body, how thankful I should be! What misery
+it is to die so wretchedly, and by so shameful a blow!” The sentence
+was then read again, and again he lost all patience at being accused of
+planning Henry’s death. It was with much difficulty that the clerk of the
+parliament completed the reading of the sentence, his voice being almost
+drowned by the clamour of the prisoner. Thrice Biron tied a handkerchief
+over his eyes, and as often he tore it off again, and once more he vented
+his rage on the executioner, who had maddened him by wishing to cut
+off his hair behind. “Touch me not,” he cried, “except with the sword.
+If you lay hands on me while I am alive, if I am driven into a fury,
+I will strangle half the folks that are here, and compel the rest to
+kill me.” So terrible were his looks and his tone, that several of the
+persons present were on the point of taking flight. It was believed that
+he meditated seizing the death-sword, but the executioner had prudently
+desired his attendant to conceal it till it was wanted. At last, after
+long delay, the marshal requested Baranton, one of the officers of the
+Bastile, to bandage his eyes and tuck up his hair; and, when this was
+done, he laid his head upon the block. “Be quick! be quick!” were his
+last words, and they were promptly obeyed. They were scarcely out of the
+mouth of the speaker when the sword descended, and by a single blow Biron
+ceased to exist.
+
+The remains of Biron were interred in the church of St. Paul. Not only
+was his funeral followed by multitudes, but multitudes visited the church
+afterwards, for the purpose of sprinkling his grave with holy water.
+“Never was there a tomb,” says de Thou, “on which so much holy water
+was poured; a circumstance rather disagreeable to the court, which was
+vexed to see that a step which all ought to have deemed necessary for the
+safety of the king and state, was so wrongly interpreted as to become a
+subject of public dissatisfaction.”
+
+Almost the last wish of Biron was for vengeance on La Fin; the wish was
+gratified. After a lapse of four years, La Fin ventured to visit Paris.
+In the middle of the day, and in the centre of the capital, he was
+attacked by twelve or fifteen well-mounted men, who unhorsed him, and
+stretched him on the ground, weltering in his blood. Several passengers
+were killed or wounded by the random firing. The perpetrators of this
+deed, though not unknown, were never brought to justice. La Fin himself
+was undeserving of pity; but his murderers, even had he been the only
+victim, ought to have been shortened by the head.
+
+Faithless to a sovereign who had lavished kindness and honours upon him,
+borne with his caprices and errors, and more than once saved his life
+on the field of battle, Biron was rightfully punished; but the severity
+which, on very slight grounds of suspicion, was shown to René de Marc,
+sieur de Monbarot, seems to impeach the justice of Henry. When, however,
+we recollect, that his mind was painfully agitated by the plots which
+were thickening round him, we may, perhaps, be inclined to pity rather
+than blame the monarch, that, in one instance, its natural bias towards
+lenity was turned aside.
+
+In the bay of Douarnenez, off the Breton coast, there is an islet, called
+Tristan, or Frimeau, which commands the entrance to the harbour of
+Douarnenez. The government of it was held by the baron de Fontanelles,
+who, during the war of the League, had rendered himself notorious by his
+activity in plundering. Not being any longer able to gratify his rapacity
+in this manner, he sought for other resources, and hoped he had found
+them in becoming an accomplice of Biron, and in opening a negotiation
+with the Spaniards, to deliver up to them the island and the neighbouring
+town. This would have put Spain into possession of a very annoying post
+in Britanny. Fortunately his treason was discovered, and he was sentenced
+to be broken on the wheel. Three other persons, two of whom were Bretons,
+participated in his guilt, and the latter were executed.
+
+Before the accomplices of Fontanelles were led to the scaffold, they were
+put to the torture, and, while they were writhing under that iniquitous
+infliction, something dropped from them which was construed into an
+implication of Monbarot, who was governor of Rennes. Monbarot had done
+good service against the duke of Mercœur, during the war of the League,
+and, since the peace, he had made strenuous exertions to maintain the
+royal authority in Britanny. All this was, nevertheless, insufficient to
+save him from being suspected of treasonable designs, and immured in the
+Bastile.
+
+Monbarot languished in prison for three years—and to a solitary captive
+years are ages. He would, perhaps, have remained there during a much
+longer period, had not filial love been a persevering suitor for him.
+His only son repeatedly solicited the king to set his parent free; and,
+failing to obtain that boon, he entreated that he might be allowed to
+lighten his sorrows, by sharing his captivity. At length, Monbarot’s
+enemies having failed to procure any proof whatever against him, he
+was liberated by Henry. But, though he was declared to be innocent, he
+was punished as though he were guilty. Instead of being, as far as was
+possible, compensated for three years of suffering, he was deprived of
+the government of Rennes, which was given to Philip de Bethune, Sully’s
+younger brother. It is probable, indeed, that the persecution of Monbarot
+was set on foot for the sole purpose of wresting from him his coveted
+office.
+
+Charles of Valois, count of Auvergne, who was afterwards known as duke
+of Angoulême, was a son of Charles the ninth, by Maria Touchet, and
+was born in 1573. He was admitted a knight of Malta, and became grand
+prior of France; but Catherine of Medicis having bequeathed to him the
+counties of Auvergne and Lauragais, he quitted the order of Malta, and
+married a daughter of the constable Montmorenci. Charles was one of the
+first to join Henry of Navarre, on the accession of that prince, and he
+fought valiantly for him at Arques, Ivry, and Fontaine Française. In
+the course of a few years, however, his loyalty evaporated, and we find
+him an accomplice of Biron. When he was arrested, his pleasantry and
+presence of mind did not forsake him. On Praslin demanding his sword,
+he laughingly said, “Here it is; it has never killed any thing but wild
+boars. If you had given me a hint of this business, I should have been
+in bed and asleep two hours ago.” He preserved the same gay humour while
+he was in prison. In October he was released, after having disclosed the
+whole that he knew of the conspiracy. As, however, the king had procured
+the same information from other quarters, Auvergne would probably have
+been severely punished but for two favourable circumstances—he was the
+half brother of the king’s mistress, the marchioness of Verneuil, and he
+had been particularly recommended to him by Henry the third, when that
+monarch was on his death-bed.
+
+A very short time elapsed before Auvergne was again involved in
+treasonable projects. His confederates were the marchioness of Verneuil,
+her father, Francis de Balsac d’Entragues, and an Englishman named
+Thomas Morgan. The duke of Bouillon, and other nobles, were also ready
+to lend their aid. The marchioness, who, in consequence of the promise
+of marriage which the king had given to her during the insanity of his
+passion, affected to consider herself as his wife, was irritated by the
+birth of a dauphin, which seemed to shut out the possibility of her son
+ever possessing what she called his right. D’Entragues was deeply wounded
+in his feelings, by the stain which Henry’s licentious love for his
+daughter had cast upon him. Some writers,—who appear to suppose that a
+French father could not think himself dishonoured by his child becoming
+a king’s concubine,—throw doubts on the sincerity of d’Entragues’
+indignation; but I can see no real grounds for their so doing. There
+is an air of sincerity, in what he says upon this subject, which is
+greatly in his favour. After touching upon the ingratitude with which
+his faithful services had been repaid, he adds, “Borne down by years and
+maladies, I was condemned to suffer more deadly blows from blind fortune.
+My daughter, the sole consolation of my old age, pleased the king, and
+this last stroke completed my misery. Grief aggravated my maladies, and
+still more intense mental anguish was joined to the pains which my body
+endured. I found myself exposed to all the gibes of the courtiers, and
+that which generally constitutes the happiness of a father, and which
+ought to have formed the glory and felicity of my family, was, on the
+contrary, the cause of my shame, of the dishonour of my house, and of
+the insulting scorn with which I was overwhelmed.” As often as he
+implored for leave to withdraw from court he was refused, and at length
+he was forbidden to see his daughter. Not content with inflicting these
+wrongs upon him, Henry was striving to seduce his second daughter also.
+Assuredly if such injuries are not sufficient to rouse the wrath of a
+father, it is difficult to imagine what would be. That d’Entragues keenly
+felt them is certain; for he more than once endeavoured to intercept
+and kill the king, while he was on his way to the marchioness, and to
+her sister, and Henry is said to have narrowly escaped. The design to
+assassinate is indefensible; but it at least proves that the father was
+in earnest. At a subsequent period, Henry said to d’Entragues, “Is it
+true, as is reported, that you meant to kill me?” “Yes, Sire,” replied
+the undaunted noble, “and the idea will never be out of my mind, while
+your majesty persists to blot my honour in the person of my daughter.”
+
+The particulars of the conspiracy are very imperfectly known. It is said
+the principal stipulations of the treaty with Spain were, that Philip
+should recognise as dauphin the natural son of Henry by the marchioness
+of Verneuil, on her putting him into his hands; that, in the first
+instance, the mother and child should seek refuge at Sedan, under the
+protection of the duke of Bouillon, and that subsequently five Portuguese
+fortresses should be ceded to them as places of security; and that France
+should be invaded on the frontiers of Champagne, Burgundy, and Provence,
+by the marquis of Spinola, the count of Fuentes, and the duke of Savoy.
+
+To the prosecution of Auvergne there were two obstacles, which arose out
+of the conduct of Henry. When the count was released from the Bastile, he
+offered to continue his correspondence with the Spanish court, for the
+purpose of betraying its secrets to the king; and a regular authority
+for so doing was unwisely granted to him. It was base in Auvergne to make
+such a proposal, and scarcely less so in Henry to adopt it. By another
+act, the monarch gave him a fresh pretext for holding intercourse with a
+power which was thoroughly hostile at heart. Henry being attacked by a
+fit of illness, the marchioness, who had insulted Mary of Medicis beyond
+endurance, affected to feel, or perhaps felt, such extreme dread of what
+would befal her and her offspring in case of his death, that the king
+gave her half brother a written permission to negotiate an asylum for
+her in a foreign country. Cambray was the place which she and Auvergne
+selected as the city of refuge; and this selection afforded them, while
+the negotiation was proceeding, an opportunity to carry on intrigues with
+the emissaries of Spain.
+
+Apprehending, probably, that his treasonable duplicity would soon be
+detected, Auvergne, by challenging the count of Soissons, artfully
+contrived to be banished from court. Soissons complained, and Henry, to
+satisfy him, exiled the challenger to the province whence he derived
+his title. This was what Charles of Valois had aimed at; for, in that
+province, his possessions, his popularity, and the rugged nature of
+the country, would contribute to secure him from danger. While he was
+there, a letter written by him, to one of his friends at Paris, was
+intercepted, and, though its language was obscure, it gave the king
+reason to believe that, under pretence of betraying Spain, the count was
+in reality plotting with it. Henry immediately summoned him to return to
+court. Auvergne was however aware of the reason and the danger. “It is
+only for the purpose of bringing my head to the scaffold,” said he, “that
+I am called to Paris.” The mere idea of being re-immured in “that great
+heap of stones,” as he called the Bastile, made him shudder. Neither a
+safe-conduct, nor a formal pardon, which were offered to him, nor the
+assurances of several persons, whom the king sent to him, could remove
+his suspicions. To avoid being taken by surprise, he lived in the woods,
+and the most solitary spots, and kept dogs and sentinels continually on
+the watch. Yet he was at last circumvented. His regiment of cavalry was
+purposely ordered to pass near his abode, and he could not deny himself
+the gratification of inspecting it. In this pleasure he thought he might
+safely indulge, as he was resolved that he would neither dismount nor
+be surrounded, and was on the back of a fleet horse, that could gallop
+ten leagues without stopping. He was, nevertheless, adroitly seized, and
+carried off to the Bastile, where he was placed in the chamber that Biron
+had inhabited. On his way thither he had preserved his serenity, but,
+when he entered the chamber, the remembrance of his friend drew from him
+a few tears. He soon, however, recovered his equanimity, and jocosely
+told the governor, “there was no inn at Paris so bad that he would not
+rather go to bed in it, than in this building.” As soon as Auvergne was
+secured, d’Entragues was arrested and lodged in the Concièrgerie, and the
+marchioness of Verneuil was placed under a guard in her own house.
+
+The parliament was now directed to take cognizance of the plot. Henry,
+however, whose main object in all this was to render his haughty mistress
+more submissive, sent one of his confidential servants to make her an
+offer of pardon on certain conditions. He was repulsed, as he richly
+deserved to be. The marchioness disdainfully replied, that, as she had
+never committed a crime against the king, there was no room for a pardon.
+The trial accordingly proceeded. The conspirators defended themselves
+dextrously. Biron had been ruined partly by admitting, at the outset,
+the fair character and veracity of intended witnesses. The marchioness
+and the count at least avoided that rock, by manifesting an apparently
+bitter hostility to each other. As to d’Entragues, he censured them
+both; but his vindication principally consisted of a severe exposure and
+impeachment of Henry’s conduct, with respect to himself, the marchioness,
+and her sister.
+
+Though in a legal point of view, whatever they might be in a moral, the
+proofs against the prisoners were by no means clear, the judges, on the
+1st of February, 1605, found Auvergne, d’Entragues, and Morgan, guilty
+of high treason, and condemned them to lose their heads. The marchioness
+was sentenced to be confined in a monastery, while further inquiries
+were being made into her past proceedings. She was, however, soon
+after allowed to reside in her own house at Verneuil; and no long time
+elapsed before the king ordered that all inquiry into her acts should
+be discontinued. The punishment of the remaining offenders was next
+commuted. D’Entragues was exiled to his house at Malesherbes, Morgan was
+sent out of the kingdom, and Auvergne was doomed to remain in “that great
+heap of stones,” which he so much abhorred.
+
+Thus ended a farce which was eminently disgraceful to Henry, and for
+which he was justly censured. “It excited indignation,” says de Thou, “to
+see the ministry of the most respectable tribunal in the realm profaned
+by a court intrigue. The king, it was said, had brought the marchioness
+to trial, not for the purpose of punishing her, nor to give an example
+which was equally necessary and full of equity, but that her father and
+brother, who had tried to withdraw her from the court, might be foremost
+in exhorting her to renew her connection with a prince who madly loved
+her.” To crown the whole, the monarch who, to secure more effectually a
+refractory mistress, had thus made a laughing-stock of the laws and the
+magistracy, speedily deserted that mistress, and transferred his fickle
+affections to Jacqueline de Beuil, whom he created countess of Moret.
+
+The death of Henry did not open the prison doors of the count of
+Auvergne. He spent nearly twelve years in the Bastile. Happily for him,
+he had been well educated, and though, while he was immersed in the
+debaucheries of an immoral court, he had lost sight of literature, his
+taste for it was not destroyed. He was therefore enabled to solace by
+study his long captivity; and we may believe that, when he once more
+emerged from his durance, reflection and added years had made him a wiser
+and a better man. He had need of consolation while he was incarcerated;
+for, the year after he was committed to the Bastile, he received another
+heavy blow. Queen Margaret instituted a suit, to recover from him the
+vast property which he derived from her mother, and the tribunal decided
+against him.
+
+At last, in 1616, he was set free by Mary of Medicis, that he might
+assist in forming a counterpoise to the Condéan faction; and in 1619,
+he was created duke of Angoulême. He subsequently served the state with
+honour, on various occasions, both as ambassador and general. His death
+took place in 1650.
+
+Scarcely were the proceedings against Auvergne and his accomplices
+brought to a close before another conspiracy was discovered; it was the
+last which was formed, or rather, perhaps, which was made public, during
+the reign of Henry. The author of this plot was Louis d’Alagon, sieur de
+Merargues, a Provençal noble, nearly allied to some great families. We
+have seen that the Spaniards were desirous to obtain an establishment
+on the Breton coast, which might be a thorn in the side of France. They
+now sought to gain a much more dangerous footing on the shore of the
+Mediterranean. The important city of Marseilles was the object which they
+coveted, and Merargues was the person on whom they reckoned to put it
+into their possession.
+
+Almost the first step which Merargues took, after becoming a traitor,
+showed how unfit he was to act the part which he had chosen; he had all
+the will in the world to be a dangerous conspirator, and wanted only
+the talent. Some years before, he had proposed to the king to keep two
+galleys ready for service, in order to secure the port of Marseilles;
+the plan was adopted, and as a recompense, he received the command of
+the vessels. In maturing this scheme, he derived much assistance from a
+galley-slave, who was a man of ability. To this man, whom he imagined
+to be entirely devoted to him, and capable of daring deeds, Merargues
+communicated his purpose of betraying Marseilles to the Spanish monarch.
+By means of the two galleys, he considered himself to be master of the
+port; and he had no doubt of being elected to the office of Viguier,
+or Royal Provost, for the following year, which would give him full
+authority over the city and the forts.
+
+In order to fathom to the bottom the project of Merargues, the wily
+galley-slave affected to lend a willing ear to the projector. He,
+however, deemed it more prudent to trust to the gratitude of his own
+sovereign for a reward, than to that of Philip of Spain. As soon as he
+had acquired a thorough knowledge of the particulars, he wrote to the
+duke of Guise, offering to give information of the utmost importance, on
+condition of recovering his liberty. His offer was made known to the king
+by the duke, and was accepted. Guise was at the same time directed to
+keep the affair a profound secret, till decisive proof could be obtained
+against the criminal, and to take the necessary precautions for the
+safety of the city.
+
+Merargues himself was not slow in furnishing the evidence which was
+wanted. He had already had various conferences with Zuniga, the Spanish
+ambassador, an able and intriguing diplomatist, but his correspondence
+on the subject was principally carried on through Bruneau, the
+ambassador’s secretary. Unconscious that his scheme was known to the
+French government, he now visited Paris, on a mission to the court, from
+the states of Provence; a mission which he no doubt readily undertook,
+that he might have an opportunity of making arrangements with his foreign
+confederates. By order of the king, he was closely watched, and it was
+soon discovered that he had secret interviews with Zuniga and Bruneau.
+The latter was tracked to the abode of Merargues, and both of them were
+arrested. On the secretary, who tried in vain to draw his sword, was
+found a paper, which bore witness to the criminality of his purpose.
+Merargues, on being seized, exclaimed, “I am a dead man! but if the king
+will spare my life, I will disclose great things to him!” He was conveyed
+to the Bastile, and Bruneau to the Châtelet.
+
+No sooner did Zuniga learn the detention of his secretary than he
+demanded an audience of the king. It must excite a smile, to hear that
+he complained bitterly of heavy wrong, and assumed the lofty tone of
+offended dignity. In the face of the clearest evidence, he denied all
+sinister designs; and talked largely of the privilege of ambassadors
+being violated, and the law of nations set at nought—as if any privileges
+or law could exist authorizing an envoy to conspire in the very court of
+the monarch to whom he is deputed. Nor did he forget to recriminate upon
+the ministers of Henry, as being fomenters of revolution in the Spanish
+dominions, nor to throw out threats of hostility, in case redress were
+denied. Angered by the haughty language of Zuniga, Henry retorted with at
+least equal acrimony, and concluded by a peremptory refusal to release
+Bruneau, till the question of his guilt or innocence had been thoroughly
+investigated. In the course of a few days, however, Bruneau was sent
+back to his master; but not before he had answered interrogatories, and
+been confronted with Merargues.
+
+The fate of Merargues could not be doubtful. He was sentenced to be
+beheaded, and then quartered. As the culprit was related to the families
+of the duke of Montpensier and the cardinal de Joyeuse, the king sent
+to those personages, to offer the commutation of the punishment into
+perpetual imprisonment. They, however, with a praiseworthy spirit,
+replied that, though they were grateful for his kindness, they must
+decline to accept it; of all such villains they would, they said, be glad
+to see France cleared, and, although the criminal was their relative,
+they would do justice on him with their own hands, if there were no
+executioner to perform that duty. Merargues was in consequence executed,
+at the Grêve, and his head was sent to Marseilles, and exposed on the
+summit of one of the city gates.
+
+On the same day that Merargues was led to the scaffold, the life of Henry
+was endangered by the violence of one John de Lisle, a madman. In the
+course of a few months another accident occurred; he narrowly escaped
+drowning, while crossing the ferry of Neuilly in his carriage. At the
+expiration of five years, treason accomplished its purpose, and the
+existence of this justly celebrated monarch was cut short by the knife of
+Ravaillac.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+    Reign of Louis XIII.—The treasure of Henry IV.
+    dissipated—Prevalent belief in magic—Cesar and Ruggieri—Henry,
+    prince of Condé—The Marchioness d’Ancre—Marshal
+    Ornano—Prevalence of duelling—The count de Bouteville—The Day
+    of the Dupes—Vautier, the physician of Mary of Medicis—The
+    marshal de Bassompierre—The chevalier de Jars—Infamy of
+    Laffemas—Three citizens of Paris sent to the Bastile—Despotic
+    language of Louis XIII.—The count de Cramail—The Marquis of
+    Vitry—Peter de la Porte—Noel Pigard Dubois, an alchemical
+    impostor—The count de Grancé and the Marquis de Praslin—The
+    prince Palatine—Count Philip d’Aglie—Charles de Beys—Letter
+    from an unknown prisoner to Richelieu.
+
+
+The treasure deposited in the Bastile, by Henry IV., did not remain long
+undissipated after his death. It began to melt away, like snow in the
+sun, as soon as the regency of Mary of Medicis was commenced. Swarms of
+her favourites and dependants clamoured to obtain the reward of their
+sycophancy. Like the horse-leech’s two daughters, they were perpetually
+crying, “Give! Give!” and, had such personages existed in the days of
+Solomon, he might have added a fifth thing to the four which he describes
+as never saying “It is enough.” Most prominent among the group were
+Concini and his wife; and, as they were exceedingly unpopular, they
+endeavoured to silence the cry against them, by stopping, at the public
+expense, the mouths of their most formidable censors. But it was not
+only her friends, as they called themselves, that Mary of Medicis had
+to satisfy; her enemies, and she had many, were to be bought off, and
+they sold their forbearance dearly. Fraud and shameless rapacity became
+universal. “Governors,” says Anquetil, “called for guards which they
+never enlisted, for augmentations of their garrisons, that they might
+gain something out of the pay, and fortifications, which often were
+useless. They themselves made the bargains, and, at the king’s cost,
+managed matters with the contractors. Reversions were granted down to
+the third generation. Those who by this means were excluded, required
+drafts on the royal treasury. Nothing was more common than the doubling
+and trebling of salaries, from the highest office to the lowest. Some
+obtained dowries for their daughters, others the payment of their debts:
+so that it was a general pillage.” To all this must be added, the loss
+sustained, and the injury done to every branch of industry, by the
+creation or revival of obnoxious tolls, privileges, and monopolies.
+
+Thus the money accumulated by Henry was speedily squandered. After all,
+it was, perhaps, more innocently spent in this manner, than it would
+have been in carrying on the wide-spreading war which he had planned, to
+realise his chimerical projects. Some drops of the golden shower probably
+descended among the multitude; and myriads were not led forth to spill
+their blood in foreign lands. The real mischief in this case was, that,
+when the hoard was gone, the spirit of spending remained; and to satisfy
+that spirit new taxes and exactions were pitilessly imposed on a people
+whose burthens were already oppressive.
+
+Having wholly lost his influence, Sully resigned many of his offices, and
+returned into private life. Among the places which he relinquished were
+the superintendence of the finances, and the government of the Bastile.
+He, however, did not make the sacrifice without taking especial care to
+be well remunerated for it. A million of livres, and a yearly pension of
+forty-eight thousand livres, was his price. It is quite clear that the
+virtuous Sully did not think, like Pope, that “virtue _only_ makes our
+bliss below.”
+
+For the first four or five years of the regency of Mary of Medicis, the
+Bastile seems to have contained no prisoner of note. At the end of that
+time it received an individual who, though he had no rank to boast of,
+professed to be in the service of a potent master. The belief in magic
+was almost general at that period. We have seen that Biron attributed
+his crimes to the influence of magic upon him. All the world was running
+mad after charms, spells, and philtres; the boldest of the throng had
+a violent curiosity to see the devil. Among those who preyed upon the
+credulity of the crowd, history has preserved the names of two—one
+was called Cesar, the other was Ruggieri, a Florentine. It is to the
+extraordinary mode in which they are asserted to have quitted the world,
+that we are indebted for our knowledge of them.
+
+Cesar is gravely stated to have had the power of calling down hail
+and thunder at his pleasure. He had a familiar spirit, and a dog, who
+seems to have been a sort of minor fiend, acting as messenger, to carry
+his letters, and bring back answers. Cesar was a manufacturer of love
+potions, to make young girls enamoured of young men; and, on occasion,
+could help a cowardly enemy to destroy without risk the man whom he
+hated. It was charged against him, that he had formed a charmed image
+for the purpose of making a gentleman waste away. This was a very common
+practice when sorcery and witchcraft were in vogue. But it seems probable
+that the crime which brought him to the Bastile was an indiscretion which
+he committed with respect to one of the gentle sex. He was accustomed to
+attend the witches’ sabbath; and he boasted that, at one of those unholy
+meetings, a great lady of the court had granted him the last favour which
+a female can bestow. Such a vaunt was well calculated to bring him into
+durance. It did that, and more. On the eleventh of March, 1615, all Paris
+was astonished, by learning that, in the dead of the night, the devil had
+come, with a tremendous din, and strangled Cesar in his bed. Four days
+afterwards, his satanic majesty, who appears to have wanted the services
+of two magicians at once, snatched away, in the same manner, the soul of
+the Florentine Ruggieri, who was then residing in the house of a French
+marshal. It is not difficult to account for these supposed supernatural
+events.
+
+A curious description of the tricks which Cesar played upon his dupes
+is given by a contemporary author, who speaks in the character of the
+magician. The representation is probably correct. “You would hardly
+believe,” says he, “how many young courtiers and young Parisians there
+are, who teaze me to show them the devil. Finding this to be the case,
+I hit upon one of the drollest inventions in the world to get money.
+About a quarter of a league from this city, I found a very deep quarry,
+which has long ditches on the right and left hand. When any body wants
+to see the devil, I take him into that; but, before he enters, he must
+pay me forty or fifty pistoles at least; swear never to say a word of the
+matter; and promise not to be afraid, or call on the gods or demigods, or
+pronounce any holy words.
+
+“All this being done, I enter the cavern first; then, before going
+further, I make circles, and involutions, and fulminations, and mutter
+some speech composed of barbarous words, which I have no sooner uttered
+than my curious fool and I hear the rattling of heavy chains, and the
+growling of large mastiffs. Then I ask him if he is afraid; if he says
+yes (and there are many who dare not proceed), I lead him out again, and,
+having thus cured him of his impertinent curiosity, I pocket his money.
+
+“If he is not afraid, I go forward, mumbling out some terrific words.
+When I have reached a particular spot, I redouble my incantations, and
+utter loud cries, as if I had gone frantically mad. Immediately six
+men, whom I keep hidden in the cavern, throw out flashes of flame, to
+the right and left of us, from burning rosin. Seen through these flames
+I point out to my inquisitive companion a monstrous goat, loaded with
+great heavy chains of iron, painted with vermilion, to look as though
+they were red hot. On each side, there are two enormous mastiffs, with
+their heads fastened into long wooden cases, which are wide at one end,
+and very narrow at the other. While the men keep goading them, they howl
+with all their might, and this howling echoes in such a manner, through
+the instruments on their heads, that the cavern is filled with sounds so
+terrific that, though I know the cause of the hurlyburly, even my own
+hair stands on end. The goat, whom I have taught his lesson, plays his
+part so well, rattling his chains, and brandishing his horns, that there
+is nobody but what would believe him to be the devil in earnest. My six
+men, whom I have also thoroughly trained, are likewise loaded with red
+chains, and dressed like furies. There is no light in the cavern but what
+they now and then make with powdered rosin.
+
+“Two of them, after having played the devil to perfection, now come to
+torment my poor curious gull, with long bags of cloth full of sand;
+with these they so belabour him all over his body, that I am at last
+obliged to drag him out of the cavern half dead. Then, when he has come
+to himself a little, I tell him that it is a most perilous thing to wish
+to see the devil, and I beg that he will never indulge it in future; and
+I assure you that no one ever does after having been so double damnably
+beaten.”
+
+The year after the foul fiend had fetched away Cesar and Ruggieri,
+the Bastile was tenanted by an occupant of high rank—Henry, prince of
+Condé, the second who bore that Christian name. Condé was born in 1588,
+and, till the birth of a dauphin, was presumptive heir to the throne of
+France. The prince was well educated, witty and pleasant in conversation,
+spoke several languages, and was better acquainted with literature and
+the sciences than most contemporary men of high birth; but his person was
+not attractive. It was probably the latter circumstance which induced
+Henry the fourth to unite him to Henrietta de Montmorenci, the loveliest
+and richest female of that time. Her inclinations leaned towards the
+handsome, gallant, and accomplished Bassompierre; but Henry, who was
+smitten with an extravagant passion for her, seems to have thought that
+he could more easily seduce her if she were the wife of Condé. He was
+mistaken. The prince, on whose “liking the chase a hundred thousand times
+better than he liked women” Henry had rather erroneously calculated,
+was not disposed to be dishonoured, even by a king who was his uncle.
+Henry, previous to the marriage, had, indeed, pledged his word that,
+on his account, the prince need have no fears; but Henry was not a man
+to be trusted in such cases. The nuptial knot was scarcely tied before
+the conduct of the monarch became such as to awake, and justify, all
+the jealous fears of the husband; who was further aggrieved by being
+compelled to endure the contempt and insolence of Sully. To avoid the
+danger which hung over him, his sole resource was to fly the country with
+his wife; and he accordingly contrived to make his escape, and to obtain
+an asylum in the court of the archduke Albert, at Brussels.
+
+When Henry found that his intended prey was beyond his reach, his
+behaviour resembled rather that of a madman than of a sage monarch,
+at the mature age of fifty-seven. He ran about asking advice of his
+courtiers, the ministers were summoned, councils were held, parties of
+troops were despatched to seize the fugitives, and war was threatened
+against Spain, if she refused to give them up. When Sully was told of
+what had happened, he replied in a surly tone, “I am not astonished at
+it, sire; I foresaw it clearly and warned you of it; and had you taken
+my advice a fortnight ago, when he was going to Moret, you would have
+put him into the Bastile, where you would find him now, and where I
+should have kept a good watch over him for you.” Such was the morality
+of the austere Sully! This “well-seeming Angelo,” who has been praised,
+at least as much as he deserves, could be indignant at the idea of the
+monarch marrying Henrietta d’Entragues, his mistress; but he could see
+no dishonour in that monarch breaking his plighted word, as well as all
+moral obligations, by seducing the wife of his nephew; nor in he himself
+volunteering his assistance to forward an adulterous intercourse, by
+prompting the seizure of the injured husband, and becoming his gaoler!
+
+It was not without reason that the prince dreaded to trust his wife
+within the corrupted atmosphere of the French court. Had she remained
+there, it appears certain that she must have fallen. As it was, her
+fidelity was, for a moment, on the point of being shaken. Henrietta was
+little more than sixteen, and the glory of the sovereign, his boundless
+generosity to her, and his idolatrous fondness, dazzled her imagination
+so far, that, while she was at Brussels, a correspondence was actually
+carried on between them. An attempt was made by Henry’s emissaries to
+carry her off, but it failed. When d’Estrées, marquis of Cœuvres, who
+conducted this attempt, was reproached for his baseness by Condé, his
+defence was, that he had acted upon orders from the king his master, and
+that it was his duty to execute them, whether they were just or unjust.
+Henrietta repaired her momentary error by her subsequent conduct.
+
+Not believing himself to be safe, Condé removed to Milan, where he
+published a manifesto to justify his having quitted France. From
+policy he passed over in silence the main cause of his flight; but he
+indemnified himself by pouring forth all the bitterness of his resentment
+on Sully, whom he painted in the darkest colours. Some overtures were
+made, to lure the prince back to France, but they were ineffectual.
+But, while Henry was preparing to carry war into the territory of his
+neighbours, he fell by the hand of an assassin, and the way was thus
+opened for the return of the prince.
+
+Condé aspired to the regency, but his ambitious hopes were disappointed.
+Chagrined at the failure of some of his subsequent schemes, and the
+refusal of favours which he sought, the prince, with many of the nobles,
+took up arms against the court. For this, he and his adherents were
+declared guilty of treason. A peace was, nevertheless, patched up between
+the parties, and he returned to Paris in a sort of triumph.
+
+Not more than a year elapsed before the obvious intention of Condé, to
+monopolize all the power of the state, compelled Mary of Medicis to
+venture upon decisive measures against him. Sully was active in prompting
+her to this step. The strength of the prince’s party rendered the
+attempt hazardous; but the business was kept so secret, and was so ably
+managed, that he was arrested in the Louvre, and conveyed to the Bastile,
+without opposition. Here, and at Vincennes, he remained for three years,
+during part of which time he was harshly treated. It was not without
+much difficulty, and till he had been long confined, that his wife, who
+had become sincerely attached to him, was allowed to share his prison.
+His liberation was brought about by the fall of Concini, and he was
+reinstated in his honours. Thenceforth, he served Louis the thirteenth
+faithfully in the cabinet and the field. He died in 1646. Voltaire truly
+says, with respect to him, that his being the father of the great Condé,
+was his greatest glory.
+
+The downfall of Concini, marshal d’Ancre, which opened the gates of the
+Bastile to let out Condé, opened them also to admit, for a short time,
+the wife of the murdered marshal. After Concini had been assassinated by
+Vitry and his accomplices, and his body had been dragged from the grave,
+and torn into fragments, by an ignorant and savage populace, Leonora, his
+widow, was hurried to prison. She was a daughter of the female by whom
+Mary of Medicis was nursed, and had been the playmate of the princess.
+When Mary became the consort of Henry IV., she took Leonora in her train
+to Paris. So attached was Mary to her, that Leonora is said, by Mezeray,
+“to have directed at her pleasure the desires, the affections, and the
+hatreds of the queen.” Riches were, of course, heaped upon her. She is
+charged with having fomented the disagreements of Mary and her inconstant
+husband, by making false statements, to excite the jealousy of her
+mistress. If she did so, which may be doubted, she was performing a work
+of supererogation; for Henry rendered falsehood unnecessary, by affording
+abundant and undisguised cause for complaint. The light of the sun was
+not more obvious than his conjugal infidelity. It was also objected,
+that she insolently shut her door against the princesses and nobles, who
+came to pay court to her in the height of her power. If this be true,
+it proves only that she had spirit and good sense enough to despise
+the sycophancy of those by whom she knew herself to be detested. It is
+much in favour of Leonora’s private character, that Mary of Medicis was
+so firmly her friend; for, unlike the titled dames who surrounded her,
+Mary was a modest and virtuous woman. That the marshal and his partner
+fattened on the spoils of the state it would be folly to deny; but, mean
+and criminal as such conduct undoubtedly is, we must bear in mind that
+the crime was common to all the courtiers of that period. Every one
+was eager, as the French phrase expresses it, “to carry off a leg or a
+wing.” It was envy, not abhorrence of robbing the public, that caused the
+destruction of Mary’s favourites.
+
+In France, to live upon the imposts squeezed from the people was not
+deemed an impeachable act, unless, perhaps, by those who had failed to
+get a share of the pillage; and consequently there was no legal ground
+for dragging the widow of Concini to the bar. But hatred is ingenious in
+finding means to effect its purpose. Having first been so effectually
+plundered by the police officers, that she had not even a change of linen
+left, she was sent before a special commission, to be tried for Judaism
+and sorcery. Other charges were brought forward, but it is obvious
+that they were only meant to increase the odium under which she was
+labouring. The trial was, throughout, a mockery of justice. Evidence the
+most trivial in some instances, and absurd in others, was produced to
+substantiate the charge of Judaism and sorcery. Some Hebrew books, which
+were found in her apartment, were gravely supposed to be used by her
+for necromantic purposes. “By what magic did you gain such an influence
+over the mind of the queen-mother?” was one of the questions put by her
+judges. “My only magic,” replied the prisoner, “was the power strong
+minds have over weak ones”—a memorable reply, which goes far to prove
+that she was a woman of superior talent.
+
+Though the judges had, no doubt, been selected for the purpose of
+ensuring her condemnation to death, it turned out that a mistake had
+been made with respect to some of them, and that they were not of the
+opinion of d’Estrées, who thought that the orders of a master ought to
+be executed, whether they were just or unjust. Five of them absented
+themselves, and a few others voted for banishment. The majority, however,
+were faithful to their mission, and she was sentenced to be beheaded,
+and her remains burnt, and scattered to the winds. By the same sentence,
+her husband’s memory was branded with infamy, her son was declared
+ignoble, and incapable of holding office or dignity; their mansion, near
+the Louvre, was ordered to be levelled with the ground, and all their
+property was confiscated.
+
+On hearing this sentence, to which she was compelled to listen
+bareheaded, in the midst of an insulting crowd, nature for a moment
+prevailed in the bosom of Leonora, and she sobbed loudly. The disgrace of
+her son seems to have been more painful to her than even her own fate.
+She soon, however, recovered herself, and became resigned to her doom.
+When she was led to execution, her deportment so won for her the respect
+of the multitude, that not a syllable of reproach was heard. She looked
+firmly, yet without any theatrical affectation of heroism, on the block
+and the flaming pile; submitted to the blow without a murmur; and thus
+triumphantly vindicated her claim to the possession of a strong mind.
+
+Having passed over an interval of seven years, after the judicial murder
+of the marchioness d’Ancre, we find the Bastile receiving John Baptist
+Ornano, the son of a father who enjoyed and deserved the friendship of
+Henry IV. Ornano was born in 1581, and was not more than fourteen when he
+commanded a company of cavalry at the siege of la Fère. He subsequently
+served with distinction in Savoy and other quarters.
+
+In 1619, Louis the thirteenth appointed him governor of Gaston, duke
+of Anjou, the king’s brother, who was presumptive heir to the throne.
+Gaston had, for some time, been under the care of the count de Lude,
+than whom it would have been difficult to find a man more unfit for his
+office, unless he was chosen for the purpose of leading his pupil astray.
+Ornano, by a proper mixture of firmness and kindness, soon succeeded in
+perfectly acquiring the respect and affection of the prince. One part of
+the system, by which he purposed to break the bad habits of his youthful
+charge, is said to have consisted in awakening his ambition. With this
+view he dwelt upon the strong probability of the prince succeeding to the
+crown, and the necessity of making himself acquainted with affairs of
+state; and he taught him to believe, that he could gain such knowledge
+only by being admitted into the king’s council. It may be supposed that,
+in thus acting, Ornano was not without an eye to his own advancement and
+influence. La Vieville, however, who then ruled, did not wish to see
+Gaston in the council, and still less Ornano. He, therefore, persuaded
+Louis to remove the prince’s governor, and send him into Provence. Ornano
+refused to resign, and he was punished by being sent to the Bastile,
+whence he was transferred to the castle of Caen.
+
+Gaston remonstrated strongly against being deprived of his friend and
+preceptor; but his remonstrances would probably have been of little
+avail, had not la Vieville been precipitated from power. Ornano was
+then released by the king, and was placed at the head of the prince’s
+household. In 1626, at the request of Gaston, seconded by the advice
+of Richelieu, he was created marshal of France. This promotion was the
+precursor of his fall. It was a part of the policy of Richelieu to grant,
+in the first instance, more to suitors of rank than they were entitled to
+expect, that, in case of their afterwards opposing him, he might treat
+them without mercy. It appears he soon began to suspect that the new-made
+marshal was not likely to be a submissive dependent, and this was enough
+to induce him to work his ruin. Ornano himself aided his dangerous enemy,
+by pertinaciously requiring admittance into the council, and by using
+offensive language on his demand being refused. Various acts of the
+marshal were now represented in the darkest colours to the suspicious
+king, by Richelieu; and Louis, always open to suggestions of this kind,
+imprisoned the supposed offender in the castle of Vincennes. Ornano died
+there, in September, 1626. He death was attributed to poison, but the
+report was certainly unfounded. Whether, if he had lived, he would have
+saved his head, is doubtful; for when Richelieu had once resolved to have
+a man’s head, it was not easy to disappoint him.
+
+Among the few whom justice, not tyranny or caprice, immured within the
+walls of the Bastile, may be reckoned Francis, count de Bouteville, of
+the ancient and illustrious family of Montmorenci, whose father, Louis
+de Montmorenci, was vice-admiral of France in the reign of Henry the
+fourth. The example which was made of him was necessary, to vindicate
+the insulted laws, and to check a murderous practice which had shed
+some of the best blood in the kingdom. For a long series of years, in
+defiance of the severe edicts issued against it by Henry IV. and Louis
+XIII., duelling had been carried to an extent which it is frightful to
+contemplate. War itself would scarcely have swept off more victims of the
+privileged class, than were sacrificed in private and frivolous quarrels.
+Paris, in particular, swarmed with professed duellists, who gloried in
+their exploits, and counted up their slain with the same exultation that
+a sportsman counts the game he has killed. Some, who prided themselves on
+a peculiar delicacy of honour, were ever on the watch to find a pretext
+for taking offence. Even to look at them, to touch any part of their
+dress in passing by them, or to utter a word which could be misconstrued,
+sufficed to draw from them a challenge to mortal combat.
+
+Bouteville was one of the most conspicuous of these offenders. In
+1624, M. Pontgibaud, in 1626, the count de Thorigny and the Marquis
+Desportes, and in January, 1627, M. Lafrette, fell beneath his weapon.
+In consequence of the last of these encounters, he, and his second,
+the count des Chappelles, were compelled to take refuge at Brussels.
+Thither he was followed by the marquis de Beuvron, a relation of the
+count de Thorigny, who was eager to avenge his death. The archduchess
+Isabella, who then governed the Netherlands, brought about a semblance
+of reconciliation between them, but their rancour remained unabated;
+for even at the moment when, in sign of forgiveness, they embraced each
+other, Beuvron whispered to Bouteville, “I shall never be satisfied till
+I have met you sword in hand.”
+
+The archduchess also solicited Louis the thirteenth to grant the pardon
+of Bouteville, but the monarch refused. On hearing this, the rash and
+insolent culprit exclaimed, “Since a pardon is denied, I will fight in
+Paris, aye, and in the Place Royale too!” He was as good as his word.
+In May he returned to the French capital, and his first step was to
+offer Beuvron the satisfaction which that nobleman had expressed a wish
+to obtain. A combat of three against three was arranged, and the Place
+Royale was chosen as the spot for deciding it. Beuvron was seconded by
+Buquet, his equerry, and by Bussy d’Amboise, the latter of whom had been
+ill of fever for several days, and was weakened by repeated bleedings.
+Bouteville brought with him des Chappelles, his cousin, and constant
+auxiliary on such occasions, and another gentleman. They fought with
+sword and dagger.
+
+Bussy being killed by des Chappelles, the five remaining combatants, who
+began to dread the vengeance of the violated laws, sought for safety in
+flight. Beuvron and Buquet succeeded in escaping to England. Bouteville
+and his cousin fled towards Lorraine. Unfortunately for them, Louis the
+thirteenth was then at the Louvre, and, as soon as he heard of the duel,
+he ordered a vigorous pursuit of the offenders. At Vitry, in Champagne,
+the officers of justice overtook Bouteville and his associate; the latter
+wished to resist, but the former prevailed on him to surrender. On their
+arrival at Paris, they were committed to the Bastile, and no time was
+lost in bringing them to trial.
+
+From all quarters the king was importuned by entreaties to pardon the
+criminals. The countess de Bouteville threw herself at his feet, to beg
+the life of her husband; but he passed on without replying. “I pity her,”
+said he to his courtiers, “but I must and will maintain my authority.”
+The nobility were not more successful in their supplications to the king
+and the parliament. At the trial all that forensic talent could do for
+the prisoners was done by Chastelet, their counsel. The plea which he
+put in for them was written with so much eloquence and boldness, that
+cardinal Richelieu sternly told him it seemed to impeach the justice
+of the king. “Excuse me, sir,” replied Chastelet, “it is only meant to
+justify his mercy, in case he should extend it to one of the bravest men
+in his kingdom.” When the sentence of death was passed, another effort
+was made to move the king. The princess of Condé, accompanied by three
+duchesses, and the wife of Bouteville, requested an audience of his
+Majesty. He at first refused to see them; but he subsequently admitted
+them to a private interview in the queen’s apartments. They pleaded
+in vain. “I regret their fate as much as you do,” said he; “but my
+conscience forbids me to pardon them.”
+
+Bouteville seems, from the beginning, to have made up his mind to die,
+and to have been unfeignedly repentant. While he was in the Bastile, he
+was attended by Cospean, the bishop of Nantes, one of the most highly
+gifted preachers of the age. It was by the exhortations of this pious
+prelate that Bouteville was awakened to a due sense of his crimes. So
+moved was he by the fervid eloquence of his spiritual guide that, while
+his trial was yet pending, he said to him, and doubtless with perfect
+sincerity, “So resigned am I to the will of God, and so ready to do
+every thing to save my soul, if to save it be possible, that, even more
+pressingly than my wife now begs for my pardon, I will beg my judges to
+condemn me to the gibbet, and to be drawn to it on a hurdle, in order to
+render my death more ignominious and meritorious.” It was not without
+difficulty that Cospean could dissuade him from seeking salvation by
+means of this extraordinary self abasement. Contrition alone, and not an
+act which would cast a stigma on his family, the prelate justly observed,
+was required to appease the wrath of an offended Deity.
+
+Bouteville and his cousin met death with much firmness; the former
+refused to allow his eyes to be bandaged. On the scaffold a circumstance
+occurred, which appears to prove that vanity, like hope, sometimes does
+not leave us till we die. The mustachios of Bouteville were large and
+handsome, and he put up his hands, as though to save them, when the
+executioner came to cut off his hair. “What! my son,” exclaimed Cospean,
+who attended him till the last, “are you still thinking on _this_ world!”
+
+The plan which, under seemingly favourable auspices, was formed, by Mary
+of Medicis and her partisans, to subvert the power of Richelieu, and
+which was shattered to pieces on the day emphatically called the Day of
+the Dupes (November 11, 1630), was disastrous to many who were concerned
+in or suspected of favouring it. Of the Marillacs, one, a proved soldier,
+was brought to the scaffold; the other, a magistrate of unimpeachable
+conduct, was hurried from one prison to another, and closely confined,
+and he died a captive. But we must restrict ourselves to those
+individuals who were committed to the Bastile. One of these was Vautier,
+born at Montpelier, in 1592, who was the queen mother’s principal
+physician. If we were to give credit to Guy Patin, we must believe that
+Vautier was a worse pest than a whole host of duellists, and richly
+deserved to be the inmate of a dungeon. “He was,” says Patin, “a rascally
+Jew of the Avignonese territory, very proud and very ignorant, who was
+lucky in having escaped the gallows for coining, and who afterwards found
+means to wriggle himself in at court.” But the evidence of Patin is
+liable to more than suspicion in this instance; for Vautier was a friend
+to antimony and chemical remedies, all of which his censurer held in
+abhorrence: to prescribe them was worse in his eyes than being guilty of
+all the deadly sins. Vautier, however, certainly appears to have been of
+an obstinate disposition, and at times unjust.
+
+Vautier was believed to have so much influence with the queen mother,
+that he was one of the first to be arrested after the Day of the Dupes.
+He was confined for a while at Senlis, whence he was removed to the
+Bastile. In the Parisian fortress he remained for twelve years, during
+which period no communication with him was permitted. It was in vain
+that, after her flight, when she was so dangerously ill at Ghent, Mary
+of Medicis intreated to have the services of her confidential physician.
+Richelieu kept fast hold of his prey. In 1643, the captive was set at
+liberty by Mazarin, who subsequently appointed him head physician to the
+king. Patin flings his venom upon this appointment. It was, he says,
+bought of the minister for twenty thousand crowns, and the purchaser was
+to act as his spy. He adds an insinuation, which does no credit to his
+heart. “See what policy is!” he exclaims; “this man was twelve years
+imprisoned by the father, yet the health of the son is entrusted to him.”
+M. Patin seems to have thought, that a man who has been injured by the
+parent, must needs wish to poison the child. Vautier died in 1652.
+
+The grave physician is succeeded by a very different personage; a
+courtier of high birth, handsome, accomplished, full of gallantry in both
+senses of the word, witty, and with his natural talents improved by early
+study. Francis de Bassompierre, who was all this, was born in Lorraine,
+in 1579, and was descended from the princely house of Cleves. On
+returning from his travels, he visited the court of Henry IV., and soon
+acquired the friendship of that sovereign. Among a crowd of courtiers,
+each vying with the other in splendour and extravagance, he was one of
+the foremost. At the baptism of the king’s children, he wore a dress of
+cloth of gold, covered with pearls, the cost of which was nine hundred
+pounds. Gaming, thanks to the bad example set by Henry, was scandalously
+prevalent; and here, too, Bassompierre was prominent. He tells us, in his
+memoirs, that not a day passed, while he was at Fontainebleau, in which
+twenty thousand pistoles were not won and lost, and that he was a winner
+of half a million of livres within twelve months.
+
+Desirous of adding the reputation of a soldier to his other pretensions,
+he served a campaign in Savoy, in 1602, and in Hungary the following
+year. Having established his military character, he resumed his station
+at the French court. The greatest part of the business of his life
+seems now, and for many years, to have been amorous intrigues—to apply
+the word love to them would be a profanation of it. However eager he
+might be to swell the number of his conquests, there is the best reason
+for believing, that those whom he attacked were willing enough to be
+overcome. It at once proves his attractions, and speaks volumes as to the
+low state of morals among the females at that period, that when, at a
+later date, Bassompierre was about to be imprisoned, he burnt more than
+six thousand letters, which contained the proofs of his amatory success.
+One of the most notorious of his amours was that in which he involved
+himself with Mdlle. Entragues, sister of the king’s mistress, the
+marchioness of Verneuil. By this lady he had a son. She is said to have
+obtained from him a promise of marriage, and for several years she sought
+to enforce the performance of it, and persisted in bearing his name.
+Meeting him one day at the Louvre, she told him publicly that he ought to
+cause the customary honours to be paid to her there, as his wife. “Why,”
+said he, “will you take a _nom de guerre_?” “You are the greatest fool in
+all the court!” exclaimed the enraged lady. “What would you have said to
+me, then, if I had married you?” retorted the provoking Bassompierre.
+
+In 1605, the career of this gay deceiver was near being cut short by a
+serious accident. At a tournament, in front of the Louvre, where the king
+was present, Bassompierre was so severely wounded by the lance of the
+duke of Guise, his antagonist, that his life was long in danger. This
+tournament was the last which was exhibited in France; the dangerous
+amusement was discontinued, in consequence of this misadventure. People
+began to be of the same opinion as the Turkish sultan, that it was too
+much for a jest and too little for earnest.
+
+Bassompierre at last appears to have felt that it was time for him
+“to live cleanly as a nobleman should do,” and he resolved to marry.
+His choice fell on Charlotte de Montmorenci, one of the most rich and
+beautiful women in France, and neither she nor her father, the constable,
+was averse from the union. It has been seen, in the sketch of Condé’s
+career, that Henry IV. became excessively enamoured of her. In some cases
+her marriage would have made no difference; as Henry might have assented
+to it, and bound down the husband not to exercise his conjugal rights,
+as he had done with respect to Gabrielle d’Estrées and Jacqueline du
+Beuil. To such a restriction he probably thought that Bassompierre would
+not submit. Calling him therefore to his bed-side—for Henry was ill of
+the gout—he told him that he meant to unite him to Mdlle. d’Aumale, and
+revive for him the dukedom of Aumale. On Bassompierre asking with a
+smile, whether his majesty meant him to have two wives, the king sighed
+deeply, and said, “Bassompierre, I will speak to you as a friend. I am
+become not only in love with Mdlle. de Montmorenci, but absolutely beside
+myself for her. If you marry her, and she loves you, I shall hate you;
+if she loves me, you will hate me. It is much better that this should
+not occur, to disturb the good understanding between us; for I have the
+most affectionate regard for you.” The result was that the courtier
+resigned his mistress, and was rewarded for the sacrifice with the rank
+of colonel-general of the Swiss regiments. Bassompierre would fain make
+us believe that he was sorely grieved, at being thus deprived of the
+beautiful Montmorenci; but we may be sceptical on this head, since we
+have his confession, that, in order “not to be idle, and to console
+himself for his loss, he immediately made up his quarrel with three
+ladies, whom he had entirely quitted when he thought that he should be
+wedded.”
+
+For more than twenty years, Bassompierre continued to be a flourishing
+courtier. Once only, in that long period, he was in danger; it was from
+the hostility of la Vieville, the minister, who strove to cage him in
+the Bastile. The time of Bassompierre was, however, not yet come, and he
+had the satisfaction to witness the downfall of his enemy. In the course
+of these twenty years, he acquired reputation, both in the field and the
+cabinet; he was active at various sieges and battles, particularly at the
+sieges of Rochelle and Montauban, and he was entrusted with embassies
+to Spain, Switzerland, and England, which he executed in an able manner.
+For a short time he had the custody of the Bastile; and, in 1623, he
+rose to the rank of Marshal. His being employed as a negociator was the
+work of the royal favourite, Luynes, who was jealous of the influence
+which Bassompierre possessed with the monarch. Luynes was candid enough
+to confess this. “I love you, and esteem you,” said he, “but the liking
+which the king has for you gives me umbrage. I am, in truth, situated
+like a husband who fears being deceived, and cannot see with pleasure
+an amiable man frequenting his wife.” To remove from court the man whom
+he dreaded, Luynes offered the choice of a command, a government, or an
+embassy; Bassompierre chose the last.
+
+Richelieu proved a far more formidable adversary than la Vieville. He
+doubted not that Bassompierre had been engaged in the late plot against
+him; he knew that he was a friend of the queen mother; and he suspected
+him of having borne a part in the clandestine marriage of the duke of
+Orleans with the princess Margaret of Lorraine. It is said, also, that
+the cardinal imagined the marshal to have voted for imprisoning him, in
+case of the malecontents being successful. This was more than enough to
+bring down on him the vengeance of the triumphant minister. Bassompierre
+was warned more than once of what would happen, and was advised to
+escape, but he refused to follow this advice. He was taken to the
+Bastile, in February, 1631. His arrest cost the death of the princess of
+Conti, to whom he had long been secretly married; she died of grief in
+little more than two months.
+
+Bassompierre had reason to hope that his imprisonment would be but of
+short duration. The evening before he was seized, he had mentioned to
+the king the reports which were afloat, and Louis had declared them
+to be false, and expressed much affection for him. The day after the
+deed was done, the monarch sent him a message, that he considered him
+to be a faithful servant, that he was not arrested for any fault, but
+in the fear of his being led to commit one, and that he should soon be
+released. Year after year elapsed, however, and the promised liberation
+was still delayed. Hopes were often held out to him, apparently with no
+other intention than that of making him feel the pain of disappointment.
+There seems, indeed, to have been a malignant resolution formed to
+torment him. The grain on his Lorrain estate was seized, the estate
+itself was ravaged, his nephew’s mansion was destroyed, his pay was
+stopped, cabals were excited against him in the Bastile, and he was
+compelled to relinquish his commission of colonel-general for an
+inadequate compensation. Yet, while Richelieu was acting thus, he could
+ask Bassompierre to lend him his country-house! To add to the prisoner’s
+vexations his property was going to ruin, some of his friends proved
+faithless, and death was busy among his dearest relatives.
+
+It was twelve years before the decease of Richelieu gave freedom to
+Bassompierre. His post of colonel-general was restored to him by Mazarin;
+and an intention was manifested of appointing him governor to the minor
+king, but this intention was frustrated by a fit of apoplexy, which put
+an end to his existence in October 1646.
+
+Of the many individuals who were persecuted by the cardinal-king, none
+were more estimable than Francis de Rochechouart, who was usually
+denominated the chevalier de Jars. He was of an ancient and noble family,
+which traced back its origin to the viscounts of Limoges, early in the
+eleventh century. To great personal and mental graces, and prepossessing
+manners, he added a mind of such firmness as is not of common
+occurrence, especially among the courtier tribe. His eminent qualities
+gained him the friendship of Anne of Austria, which alone was sufficient
+to excite the suspicion and hatred of Richelieu—that ultra Turk, who
+could bear “no rival near his throne,” nor even the friend of any one who
+could possibly become a rival. In 1626, de Jars was, therefore, ordered
+to quit the court. He retired to England, where he soon won the favour of
+Charles I., his queen Henrietta Maria, the duke of Buckingham, and other
+distinguished characters. Bassompierre, an acute observer, was at that
+time in England as ambassador from Louis XIII., and from the manner in
+which he mentions him, it is evident that de Jars was in high repute at
+the court of Charles.
+
+In 1631, de Jars was allowed to return, or was recalled, to his native
+country. Whether he was lured over to France, that he might be within the
+grasp of his potent enemy, cannot now be ascertained. It is probable that
+he was, for he did not long remain at liberty. In February, 1632, he was
+involved in the downfall of Chateauneuf, the keeper of the seals, who
+had inexpiably offended the implacable minister. De Jars had sufficient
+demerit to bring down this misfortune on him; he was the friend, and,
+as Bassompierre affirms, the confidant of Chateauneuf, possessed the
+queen’s esteem, and was, perhaps, suspected of being looked upon with a
+favourable eye by the beautiful and fickle duchess of Chevreuse, of whom
+Richelieu was enamoured. As, however, the first two of these offences
+would hardly have justified his imprisonment and trial, and as the third
+had the same defect in a greater degree, and, besides, could not have
+been decorously urged against him by a high dignitary of the church,
+the crime attributed to him was that of assisting Anne of Austria to
+correspond with Spain, and of planning the removal to England of the
+queen mother and the duke of Orleans.
+
+It was the depth of winter when de Jars was thrown into one of the
+dungeons of the Bastile, and there he was kept for eleven months, till
+the clothes rotted off his back. The reader will remember what horrible
+abodes these dungeons were. It being supposed, perhaps, that his spirit
+was by this time enough broken, he was sent for trial to Tours, where
+a tribunal of obedient judges had been formed, for the express purpose
+of sitting in judgment upon him. At the head of this tribunal was one
+Laffemas, or La Fymas; a man who was redeemed from the contempt of
+mankind for his baseness, only by the hatred which was excited by his
+power and will to do mischief. He was the ready tool, or, to use a more
+emphatic and appropriate French phrase, the _âme damnée_ of Richelieu,
+and was capable of diving to the lowest deep of degradation, in the
+service of his master. He bore the well earned and significant nickname
+of “the cardinal’s hangman.”
+
+At the Bastile and at Troyes, de Jars underwent no fewer than eighty
+examinations. In these, Laffemas strained every nerve to seduce, or
+beguile, or terrify, the prisoner into avowals which would manifest or
+imply guilt in himself or in his friends. But de Jars was proof alike
+against feigned sympathy, intreaties, artful snares, and ferocious
+threats. Not a word dropped from his lips by which any one could be
+criminated. Laffemas had no sinecure office in conducting this iniquitous
+affair; he was often lashed by de Jars with unsparing severity, as a
+mendacious and deceitful coward; nor did the cardinal himself escape
+without a full portion of stinging censure.
+
+De Jars did not stop here. He determined to inflict a public disgrace
+upon Laffemas. By dint of importunity, he obtained permission to hear
+mass, on All Saints’ day, in the church of the Jacobins, where he knew
+that Laffemas would be present. Thither he was taken, under a strong
+guard. Watching the moment when, with downcast eyes and a Tartuffe
+countenance, Laffemas was coming from the communion table, he broke from
+his guards, and seized the judge by the throat. “Villain!” exclaimed he,
+“this is the moment to confess the truth. Now; while your God is on your
+lips, acknowledge my innocence, and your injustice in persecuting me. As
+you pretend to be a Christian, act like one: if you do not, I renounce
+you as my judge, and I call upon every one who hears me to bear witness
+that I protest against your being so.”
+
+This singular scene drew the wondering congregation round the parties.
+But the people were by no means inclined to interfere in behalf of the
+intendant, and some time elapsed before the soldiers could extricate
+him from the gripe of the prisoner. Laffemas seems not to have been
+deficient in courage. Undisconcerted by this sudden attack, he said, in a
+conciliating tone, “Do not make yourself uneasy, sir; I assure you that
+the cardinal loves you; you will get off with merely going to travel in
+Italy: but you must first allow us to show you some billets, in your
+own handwriting, which will convince you that you are more blameable
+than you say you are.” “Such an insinuation,” remarks Anquetil, “was
+not calculated to set him at ease. Richelieu, as Madame de Motteville
+tells us, said that ‘with two lines of a man’s writing, however innocent
+that man might be, he might be brought to trial; because, by proper
+management, whatever was wanted could be found in them.’ Accordingly,
+when de Jars heard talk of writing, he gave himself up for lost, but he
+soon armed himself with renovated courage.”
+
+The insinuation that written evidence existed was a falsehood. Fresh arts
+were therefore employed, to obtain a confession. They were as fruitless
+as all the former had been. Sentence of death was then passed; and, this
+having been done, final efforts were made to move him, first by a promise
+of pardon, next by the menace of torture. He treated both with contempt.
+He was at last led to the scaffold; he ascended it with calm courage;
+and, after once more asserting his innocence, he laid his head upon the
+block. While he was waiting for the blow, and all earthly hopes must have
+been dead in his bosom, he was suddenly raised up, and told that his life
+was spared. As he was about to descend from the scaffold, the infamous
+Laffemas approached, and besought him, in return for the king’s mercy, to
+disclose whatever he knew respecting the misdeeds of Chateauneuf. But de
+Jars disdainfully replied, “It is in vain that you seek to take advantage
+of my disturbed state of mind; since the fear of death failed to extort
+from me any thing that could injure my friend, you may be certain that
+all your labour will be thrown away.[6]”
+
+It is said that the whole of this scene—a disgraceful scene to all the
+actors but one—was got up by Laffemas under the direction of Richelieu.
+Packed as the judges were, it was supposed that, if they thought death
+were to ensue, even they would shrink from pronouncing the guilt of a man
+against whom there was not a shadow of proof. The pardon was, therefore,
+shown to them, and they were told that the mockery of an execution was
+only meant to intimidate the prisoner into the desired confession. But
+of what stuff must judges have been made in those days, when they could
+consent thus to violate the dignity of justice, and the feelings of
+humanity, in order to gratify the malice of a minister.
+
+From Troyes, de Jars was sent back to the Bastile. He remained there till
+the spring of 1638, when he was liberated on condition of his immediate
+departure, to travel in Italy. From Guy Patin’s letters, we learn that
+the chevalier was indebted for his release to the intercession of Charles
+I. of England and Henrietta Maria. He did not return to France till after
+the decease of his persecutor.
+
+De Jars was engaged in the early part of the political contest, which led
+to the ridiculous war of the Fronde; but he seems to have been rather a
+peacemaker than a firebrand, for he endeavoured to arrange matters, by
+bringing about a reconciliation between Mazarin, with whom he had become
+acquainted at Rome, and Chateauneuf, the keeper of the seals, of whom he
+was a constant friend. He at length withdrew from the court, passed his
+latter years in happy retirement, and died in 1670.
+
+Nearly at the same time that de Jars was set free, the gates of the
+Bastile were opened to admit three citizens of Paris, who had been guilty
+of a crime which could not be overlooked; they had dared to remonstrate,
+perhaps somewhat too roughly, against being robbed of the means of
+subsistence. “They went,” says Guy Patin, “to M. Cornuel, and in some
+degree threatened him, on a report being spread, that the payment of
+the annuities receivable at the Town Hall was about to be suspended, and
+the money to be applied _in usus bellicos_. The names of these three
+annuitants are Bourges, Chenu, and Celoron, and they are all three _boni
+viri optimeque mihi noti_. God grant, I pray, that no misfortune may
+happen to them.” Whether the kind prayer of Patin was heard, we are not
+told.
+
+That such things should occur in a country governed as France was, is
+quite natural. Richelieu brooked not even the shadow of opposition; and,
+Louis, submissive slave though he was to an imperious minister, had all
+the brutal pride of an Oriental despot. In two instances (out of many
+which might be quoted), the one not long before, and the other shortly
+after, this period, the monarch, to whom parasites prostituted the title
+of “the just,” did not scruple to treat with contumelious insolence the
+parliament of Paris, a body of magistrates, eminent for their learning
+and other qualities. On the first occasion, having taken offence at a
+request which they made, he told them that, “in future, whenever he came
+to them, he should expect to be received outside the door of their hall,
+by four presidents on their knees, as the custom had formerly been.”
+The second time, when, with respect to the duke de Valette’s trial, the
+president Bellièvre, in decorous but dignified language, remonstrated
+with Louis on his gross violation of justice and proper feeling, in
+wishing the judges to sit in his own palace, while he was present to
+overawe them, he furiously replied, that he detested all those who
+opposed his trying a duke and peer wherever he pleased. They were, he
+told them, ignorant beings, unfit for their office, and he did not know
+whether he should not put others in their place. “I will be obeyed,”
+said he; “and I will soon make you see plainly that all privileges are
+founded only on a bad custom, and that I will not hear them talked
+about any more.” But from this—which, however, can scarcely be called a
+digression—let us return to his captives in the Bastile.
+
+During a part of the time that de Jars was in the Bastile, there was
+within its walls a prisoner equally as brave, and of as honourable a
+character, as himself. This was Adrian de Montluc, count de Cramail, born
+in 1568, a grandson of that intrepid but cruel Montluc whose commentaries
+were called by Henry IV. the Soldier’s Bible. In the second of Regnier’s
+satires, which is addressed to Cramail, the poet winds up an animated
+panegyric on him, by declaring that he proves “virtue not to be dead in
+all courtiers.” There was more truth in this than is always to be found
+in the eulogies lavished by a poet. It appears, from various authorities,
+that he shone in conversation, was well informed, and was an honourable,
+benevolent and judicious man. As a military officer, he earned reputation
+in various battles. His conduct at the combat of Veillane, in 1630,
+where Montmorenci utterly defeated a force five times as numerous as his
+own, called forth a complimentary letter from cardinal Richelieu. “Fewer
+lines than you have received blows,” says his eminence, “will suffice
+to testify my joy that the enemy has cut out more work for your tailor
+than your surgeon. I pray to God that, after such rencounters, you may
+always have more to spend for clothes than plaisters; and that, for the
+advantage of the king’s service, and the glory of those who have acquired
+so much on this occasion, others of the same kind may often occur; among
+which there will, I hope, be some that will enable me to convince you
+that I am, &c. &c.”
+
+The manner in which Richelieu proved his friendship for Cramail was by
+sending him to the Bastile. It has been stated that Cramail was put into
+confinement shortly after the Day of the Dupes, and his attachment to
+the prince of Condé was the cause of it. This, however, appears to be a
+mistake. Cramail was undoubtedly serving under Louis XIII. in Lorrain, as
+late as 1635, at the period when the French arms were under a temporary
+eclipse; and we learn from Laporte, and other writers, that, believing
+the king’s person to be in jeopardy, the count advised him to return to
+Paris. For this advice, reasonable as it was, he was incarcerated by
+Richelieu. His imprisonment did not terminate till after the death of
+the cardinal. He did not long survive his persecutor; his health was
+broken by captivity and harsh treatment, and he died in 1646. Cramail
+was the author of three works—“La Comédie des Proverbes;” “Les Jeux de
+l’Inconnu;” and “Les Pensées du Solitaire.”
+
+Among the contemporaries of Bassompierre, de Jars, and Cramail, within
+the walls of the Bastile, there was another of equal rank, but not of
+an equally noble mind. His hands were stained with blood; his earliest
+promotion was bought by perpetrating a cowardly murder. This personage
+was Nicholas de l’Hospital, marquis of Vitry, to whom I have slightly
+alluded in my notice of the marchioness d’Ancre. He was the degenerate
+son of a warrior, who was incapable of a dishonourable action. Vitry, who
+was born in 1611, succeeded his father as captain of the royal guards,
+and ingratiated himself with Luynes, the minion of Louis XIII. In concert
+with Luynes, he formed the plan of assassinating marshal d’Ancre, who was
+obnoxious to the king. Eager to win the marshal’s staff which was held by
+Concini, Vitry let slip no opportunity of irritating the king against the
+intended victim, and of pressing for permission to assassinate him. The
+monarch hesitated for a while, not from virtue but from fear; he ended
+by granting his sanction, and Vitry lost not a moment in acting upon it.
+With his brother du Hallier, and an associate named Perray, he waited for
+Concini at the entrance of the Louvre, and there the three confederates
+despatched him with pistols, which they had kept concealed beneath their
+cloaks. When Louis was informed that the deed was done, he had the
+ineffable baseness to look out at the palace window, and exclaim, “Many
+thanks to you, Vitry! I am now really king!” It must, however, be owned
+that the baseness of the monarch was kept in countenance by that of his
+courtiers and flatterers, who lauded the assassin as profusely as though
+he had been the saviour of the state.
+
+For this disgraceful service, Vitry was rewarded by the great object
+of his ambition, the rank of marshal. On hearing of this, the duke of
+Bouillon indignantly declared that he blushed at being a French marshal,
+now that the marshal’s staff was made the recompense of one who traded in
+murder.
+
+Though, of the two favourites of the queen mother, Vitry had slain the
+husband with his own hand, and thus been the cause of the wife’s public
+execution, and though at that time he had treated her with disgusting
+insolence, yet when, two years afterwards, a feigned reconcilement took
+place between Mary of Medicis and her son, she allowed Vitry to be
+presented to her. On this occasion a scene of dissimulation occurred,
+which has not often been paralleled. Vitry bent to kiss the hem of her
+garment, but she graciously stretched out her hand to raise him, saying,
+at the same time, “I have always praised your affectionate zeal in the
+king’s service.” To which, with equal sincerity, he replied, “it was that
+consideration alone which induced me to do all that the king desired;
+without, however, my having had the slightest idea of offending your
+majesty.” If we cannot praise the parts which these actors played, we
+must at least admit that they played them skilfully.
+
+The military career of Vitry did not begin till the breaking out of
+the war between the protestants and catholics, in 1621. Though he was
+deficient in principle, he was not so in courage; in the course of the
+war he distinguished himself upon many occasions, particularly in the
+isle of Rhé and at the blockade of Rochelle. He obtained the government
+of Provence in 1631, and he held it for six years. At the expiration of
+that period, he was arrested, and sent to the Bastile. His having caned
+an archbishop, and misused his authority in various cases, were among
+the causes of his imprisonment. Richelieu said of him that, “though his
+courage and fidelity rendered him worthy to govern Provence, yet it was
+necessary to deprive him of office, because, being of a haughty and
+insolent disposition, he was not fit to rule a people so jealous as the
+Provençals were of their franchises and privileges.”
+
+Vitry spent six years in the Bastile, from which prison he was not
+released till after the death of cardinal Richelieu. During the latter
+part of his imprisonment he participated in intrigues, which would have
+brought him to the block had they been discovered. In conjunction with
+Bassompierre, Cramail, and others, he entered into the plot of which
+the gallant count de Soissons was the head. The state prisoners in the
+Bastile were, at that period, allowed so much freedom of intercourse,
+both with their friends and among themselves, that they had plenty of
+opportunity to conspire. It was arranged, between Vitry, Bassompierre,
+and their associates, that, as soon as Soissons had gained a victory,
+they should seize the Bastile and the Arsenal, and call the citizens
+of Paris to arms. De Retz is of opinion that the success of their
+scheme would have been certain; but the death of Soissons, who fell
+in the battle of Marfée, at the moment of his victory, prevented the
+conspirators from carrying their design into effect. Fortunately for
+those who were concerned, their secret practices were never disclosed
+while cardinal Richelieu was alive.
+
+Vitry was created a duke in 1644, but he died in a few months after he
+obtained this title. He left a son, possessed of talent far superior to
+his own, and who in character more resembled his grandfather than his
+father.
+
+The count de la Châtre, in his Memoirs, relates a circumstance respecting
+the liberation of Vitry and his fellow prisoners. The anecdote shows,
+among other things, to what an extent Louis XIII. was infected with what
+Byron calls the “good old gentlemanly vice” of avarice. “The cardinal
+(Mazarin) and M. de Chavigny,” says la Châtre, “solicited the king for
+the deliverance of the marshals Vitry and Bassompierre, and the count
+de Cramail. The means which they employed on this occasion deserve to
+be recorded, as being rather pleasant; for, finding that the king was
+not very willing to comply, they attacked him on his weak side, and
+represented to him that these three prisoners cost him an enormous sum
+to keep them in the Bastile, and that, as they were no longer able to
+raise cabals in the kingdom, they might as well be at home, where they
+would cost him nothing. This indirect mode succeeded, this prince being
+possessed by such extraordinary avarice, that whoever asked him for money
+was an insufferable burthen to him; so far did he carry this, that, after
+the return of Treville, Beaupuy, and others, whom the violence of the
+late cardinal (Richelieu) had, when he was dying, forced him to abandon,
+he sought occasion to give a rebuff to each of them, that he might
+prevent them from hoping to be rewarded for what they had suffered for
+him.” Here we see a king beginning his reign by prompting his servants to
+commit murder, and ending it by displaying cold-blooded ingratitude to
+those who had been faithful to him—fit end for such a beginning!
+
+From a noble, who stained his hands with blood, to win the favour of a
+king, we gladly turn to a plebeian, who risked his life, rather than
+violate his fidelity to the neglected and ill-used consort of that
+monarch. Peter de la Porte was this plebeian, who, though his trials were
+not carried to such a dreadful extent as those of the chevalier de Jars,
+has a legitimate claim, as far as regards probity and firmness of mind,
+to be placed in the same class with that distinguished character. La
+Porte was born in 1603, and entered into the service of Anne of Austria
+at the age of eighteen, as one of her cloak-bearers. It being suspected
+that he was trusted by the queen, he was deprived of his office in 1626,
+when a desperate attempt was made by the minister to implicate her in the
+conspiracy of La Chalais. He then entered into her body guards. In 1631,
+he was, however, allowed to resume his former situation.
+
+Ever studying to abase the queen, Richelieu believed that he had at last
+found an opportunity to accomplish his purpose effectually. This was in
+1637[7]. That the queen should privately keep up some correspondence
+with the king of Spain and the cardinal infant, who were her brothers,
+and also with the persons whom she valued in the courts of Madrid and
+Brussels, was natural, more especially in her discomfortable situation,
+slighted as she was by her husband, and thwarted and misrepresented by
+the minister and the minister’s satellites. But Anne of Austria had a
+sincere attachment to France, and there is no reason to believe that her
+letters contained anything which could prejudice her adopted country.
+Yet, it was not advisable that they should come into the hands of a man,
+who boasted that with only two lines of an innocent person’s writing he
+could ruin him—a boast which could be made by no one that was not dead
+to honour and shame. It was necessary, therefore, to provide a safe
+place, where the correspondence might be deposited. The queen’s favourite
+convent of Val de Grace, of which she was the foundress, was the place
+which she chose. There Anne had an elegant apartment, or oratory, in
+which, after her devotions were over, she could sometimes, free from the
+constraint and heartlessness of the court, enjoy a few hours of social
+intercourse with the inmates of the convent. One of the nuns received
+the letters from Spain and the Netherlands, and placed them in a closet,
+whence they were taken by the queen, whose answers were forwarded in the
+same manner.
+
+Richelieu, who had spies in all quarters, discovered the secret of the
+correspondence which was carried on through the Val de Grace. He lost not
+a moment in filling the mind of the weak Louis with phantoms of danger,
+which was to arise from the queen’s unauthorised communications with her
+relatives. The queen was hurried off by her husband to Chantilly, where
+she was confined to her own room, scantily attended, and was obliged to
+submit to being interrogated by the chancellor. Such was the baseness
+of the courtiers that, believing her to be lost, not one of them would
+venture even to look up at her window. Her confidential servants were
+shut up in various prisons. The chancellor himself visited Val de Grace
+to make a rigorous search for papers; but he found nothing. That he
+failed in his search is not marvellous; for he is believed to have
+previously contrived to give the queen notice of the intended visit. All
+the papers had consequently been removed, and placed under the care of
+the marchioness of Sourdis.
+
+Foiled in this attempt to reach the secret, Richelieu tried whether it
+might not be wrung from the servants of the queen. La Porte, as being
+supposed to possess a large share of her confidence, was of course most
+open to suspicion and persecution. There had, besides, been found upon
+him a letter from the queen to the duchess of Chevreuse, who was then in
+exile. In the month of August, 1637, he was committed to the Bastile.
+Here he was repeatedly and severely questioned, but nothing to criminate
+his royal mistress could be drawn from him. It was in vain that the
+cardinal himself employed threats and promises, to obtain the information
+which he so much desired. The obstinate fidelity of La Porte was not to
+be shaken, even when the commissary showed him a paper, which he said
+contained an order for applying to him the torture, and took him to the
+room that he might see the instruments. He was equally proof to the fear
+of death.
+
+In May, 1638, it being then certain that, after being childless for
+two-and-twenty years, Anne of Austria was in a situation to give an
+heir to the throne, the liberation of La Porte was granted to her. He
+was, however, exiled to Saumur, where he resided till the decease of
+Louis XIII. When Anne became regent, she recalled him, and gave him a
+hundred thousand francs, that he might purchase the place of principal
+valet-de-chambre to the king. This office he held for several years.
+But La Porte was too honest to prosper in a corrupt court. Sincerely
+attached to the queen-regent, he thought it his duty to apprise her of
+the degrading reports which were spread, on the subject of her long
+interviews with Mazarin, and by this candour he cooled her friendship
+and gratitude, while, at the same time, he incurred the enmity of the
+cardinal himself, by communicating to her a circumstance, relative to
+the young king, which Mazarin was desirous of keeping concealed. In
+revenge, Mazarin deprived him of his place, and forbad him to appear at
+court. It was not till after the death of the cardinal that La Porte was
+again admitted to the king’s presence, and from him he met with a kind
+reception. He died in 1680.
+
+Alchemy, the rock on which the peace and fortune of numbers have been
+wrecked, was still more fatal to Noel Pigard Dubois, a restless and
+certainly unprincipled adventurer, whom it deprived of liberty and life.
+He was a native of Coulomiers, adopted his father’s profession, that of
+a surgeon, then abandoned it, and voyaged to the Levant, where he spent
+four years. During his stay in the East, he studied the occult sciences.
+Returning to Paris, he passed there four years of an obscure and often
+intemperate existence, associating chiefly with pretenders to alchemical
+knowledge. Caprice, or a sudden fit of devotion, next induced him to
+enter a Capuchin convent, but he appears to have speedily become tired
+of restraint, and accordingly he scaled the walls and escaped. At the
+expiration of three years he re-embraced a monastic life, took the vows,
+and was ordained a priest, in which character he was known by the name of
+Father Simon. The quicksilver of his disposition seemed at length to be
+fixed, for he continued to wear the monkish habit during ten years; but
+he verified the proverb that the cowl does not make the monk, his unquiet
+spirit was again roused into action, and he fled into Germany. There
+he became a convert to the doctrines of Luther, and once more devoted
+himself to seeking for the philosopher’s stone.
+
+Hoping, perhaps, that there would be more believers, or fewer rivals,
+in his own country than in Germany, he retraced his steps to Paris.
+Probably he was himself half dupe, half knave, almost believing that he
+had really found the great secret, but resolved at all events, to turn
+his supposed skill to his own advantage. His first step was to abjure
+protestantism; his next was to marry under a fictitious name. Rumours
+of his wonderful hermetic discoveries were speedily bruited about. They
+procured him the acquaintance of an Abbé Blondeau, an evidently credulous
+man, who introduced him to Father Joseph, the favourite and confident
+of Richelieu, as a person who might be useful to the state. For the
+services which Dubois was to render, it was stipulated that his past
+misdeeds should be buried in oblivion. France was at that time groaning
+under a heavy load of taxation, money was raised by the most abominable
+exactions; and, consequently, it was but just that an individual who
+promised to procure supplies more innocently than by grinding the face
+of the people, should be forgiven for offences which, though deserving
+of punishment, were somewhat less iniquitous than systematic tyranny and
+extortion.
+
+It affords a striking proof to what an extent the delusions of alchemy
+prevailed in that age, that the strong-minded Richelieu instantly grasped
+at the bubble which floated before him. Had only the weak Louis done so,
+there would have been no cause for wonder. But the minister was full
+as eager as his nominal sovereign. It was arranged that Dubois should
+perform the “great work” in the presence of the king, the queen, and a
+throng of illustrious personages. The Louvre was the place at which the
+new and never-failing gold mine was to be opened.
+
+When the important day arrived, Dubois adroitly acted in a manner which
+was calculated to inspire confidence. He requested that some one might
+be charged to keep an eye on his proceedings. One of his body guards,
+named Saint Amour, was chosen by the king for this purpose. Musket balls,
+given by a soldier, together with a grain of the powder of projection,
+were placed in a crucible, the whole was covered with cinders, and the
+furnace fire was soon raised to a proper pitch. The transmutation was now
+declared by Dubois to be accomplished, and he requested that Louis would
+himself blow off the ashes from the precious contents of the crucible.
+Eager to see the first specimen of the boundless riches which were about
+to flow in upon him, the king plied the bellows with such violence, that
+the eyes of the queen and many of the courtiers were nearly blinded with
+the dust. At last a lump of gold emerged to view, and his transports
+were boundless. He hugged Dubois with childish rapture, ennobled him,
+and appointed him president of the treasury, nominated Blondeau a privy
+counsellor, promised a cardinal’s hat to Father Joseph, and gave eight
+thousand livres to Saint Amour. The master of perennial treasures could
+afford to be generous.
+
+The experiment is said to have been repeated, and with the same success
+as in the first instance. Dubois must at least have been a clever knave,
+an adept in legerdemain, to have deluded so many strongly interested
+spectators, and that, too, in spite of the precautions which he had
+himself daringly recommended, for the prevention of fraud.
+
+But there was a rock on which the luckless adventurer was doomed to
+split. Humbler patrons than he had found might for a long while have been
+satisfied with the scanty portion of gold contained in the bottom of a
+crucible; but the desires of his powerful friends were of a more greedy
+and impatient kind, not to be fed with distant hopes, but demanding large
+and immediate fruition. Richelieu loudly called upon the alchemist to
+operate on an extensive scale; and he proved that it was necessary to do
+so, by requiring that Dubois should furnish weekly a sum which should not
+be less than six hundred thousand livres, about 25,000_l._ The startled
+Dubois requested time to make the requisite preparations, and time
+was granted. In truth, as the powder of projection was believed to be
+procurable only by a protracted and laborious process, it was impossible
+not to admit his claim for delay. The marvel is, that he did not avail
+himself of the respite, to get beyond the reach of danger. When the day
+arrived which he had named, he was of course compelled to own that he was
+not yet prepared.
+
+Suspicion being excited, he was imprisoned at Vincennes, whence he was
+transferred to the Bastile. Offended pride and vanity and disappointed
+cupidity are often cruel passions. To punish Dubois for his sins
+against them, the cardinal appointed a commission to try him; but being
+averse from coming forward in the character of a dupe, he ordered him
+to be arraigned on a charge of dealing in magic. As the wretched man
+obstinately persisted in denying his guilt, he was put to the torture.
+To gain a brief reprieve from his sufferings, he offered to realise the
+golden dreams which he had excited. Faith was not quite extinct in his
+patrons, and he was allowed to make another experiment. It is needless to
+say that he failed. Being thus driven from his last hold, he avowed his
+imposture, was sentenced to death, and terminated his existence on the
+scaffold, on the 23d of June 1637.
+
+The battle of Thionville, which was fought in 1639, and terminated in
+the defeat of the French, and the death of Feuquieres, their general,
+gave two prisoners to the Bastile; not foreign enemies, or rebellious
+Frenchmen, but officers who had combated for their country—the count de
+Grancé and the marquis de Praslin. At Thionville, the troops under their
+orders refused to advance, and finally ran away. It appears, from the
+testimony of Bassompierre, that no blame was attributable to the count
+or the marquis; they were nevertheless immured in the Bastile, though
+it does not seem easy to discern how the cowardice of soldiers is to
+be cured by imprisoning their officers. It was, however, in a similar
+kind of spirit, only somewhat more barbarous, that in England, more
+than a century afterwards, admiral Byng was sacrificed (murdered is the
+proper word); not, as Voltaire sarcastically observes, “to encourage the
+others,” but to divert public indignation from its proper objects. The
+system was carried to a horrible length in France, during the reign of
+terror. Less sanguinary, in this instance, than his imitators, Richelieu
+contented himself with inflicting a short deprivation of liberty. The two
+captives were restored to favour, and Grancé rose, in the next reign, to
+the rank of marshal.
+
+The next two cases which are on record, afford a striking proof of
+the contempt in which Richelieu held justice and the law of nations,
+whenever they chanced to stand in the way of his political schemes, and
+the gratification of his vindictive spirit. On the death of the gallant
+warrior, Bernard of Saxe Weimar, which took place in the summer of 1639,
+the possession of his admirably trained army became an object which all
+the belligerent powers were eager to obtain. Among those who sought the
+prize was the Prince Palatine, a son of the unfortunate Frederic, who
+lost the crown of Bohemia and his own hereditary states. The prince was
+passing through France, from England, to enter on the negociation, when
+he was arrested, and sent to the Bastile, under pretence of his being an
+unknown and suspected person. Richelieu, meanwhile, pushed on his treaty
+with the officers of the deceased duke, and succeeded in purchasing their
+services for France. When this was accomplished, it was discovered that
+the arrest of the Prince Palatine was a mistake, and he was consequently
+set free.
+
+The second case occurred in the following year, 1640, and was a still
+more flagrant violation of international laws, and more fraught with
+circumstances of baseness and malignity. Louis XIII. had a sister,
+Christina, beautiful, accomplished, and of winning manners; in a word,
+as worthy of being beloved as he was the contrary. This princess was the
+widow of the duke of Savoy, who left to her the regency of his states,
+during the minority of Emanuel Philibert, his son. On the decease of
+her husband, the ambition of his brothers prompted them to grasp at the
+reins of government, and, to effect their purpose, they called in the
+aid of Spain. The duchess was sorely pressed by her enemies. In this
+strait, nature and policy combined to make her apply to Louis for aid.
+The appeals to him, in her letters, are often affecting. Richelieu was
+willing enough to send succours, but he was determined that they should
+be bought at an extravagant rate. His object, in truth, was to place
+the dominions of the minor, and even the minor himself, at the mercy of
+France. He not only required that certain fortresses should be delivered
+up to him, but also that the young duke should be put into the hands of
+the French king, that is to say, into his own. To bring this about, he
+descended to the most unworthy intrigues and double dealing; alternately
+calumniating the duchess to her brothers-in-law, and them to her, in
+order to render impossible an accommodation between them. Borne down by
+necessity, the duchess at length consented to admit French garrisons
+into some of her fortresses, but she resolutely persisted in refusing to
+surrender her son.
+
+The firmness of the duchess was sustained by count Philip d’Aglie, one
+of her principal ministers, a man of discernment and talent, who never
+slackened in his hostility to the scheme of Richelieu. He feared that
+the visit of the young duke to France would resemble the descent into
+Avernus—“_Sed revocare gradum, hoc opus, hic labor est._” The cardinal
+had hoped that, in an interview which the duchess had with Louis at
+Grenoble, she might be cajoled or terrified into compliance. But on that
+occasion her own firmness was backed by the presence of count d’Aglie,
+and the expectations of the ungodly churchman were in consequence
+frustrated. So irritated was he by his disappointment, that he proposed,
+in council, to arrest the count; but, powerful and feared as he was, he
+could not prevail upon the members to assent to this measure. It was
+therefore postponed to a better opportunity. In the meanwhile, calumny
+was set at work to blacken the character of the devoted individual, that
+when the happy time arrived for pouncing upon him, he might excite no
+sympathy. That the slander would wound the duchess also was a matter
+of little concern to the personage by whom it was propagated. It was
+roundly asserted, apparently without the shadow of a reason for it, that
+an illicit intercourse subsisted between the duchess and the minister,
+the latter of whom the cardinal, with an affectation of virtuous anger,
+was pleased to designate as “the wretch who was ruining the reputation
+of Christina.” It was not till the following year that he could succeed
+in wreaking his malice on the count. As soon as the French troops
+had recovered Turin from the Spaniards, Richelieu ordered d’Aglie to
+be seized; and, in spite of the remonstrances of the duchess against
+this gross violation of her sovereignty, he was hurried to France, and
+confined in the Bastile. The date of the count’s deliverance, I am unable
+to ascertain, but it is probable that his imprisonment was not protracted
+beyond the life of the cardinal.
+
+It appears to have been about this time that there was published a
+bitter satire upon the cardinal, for which an unlucky author, who had
+no concern with it, was conveyed to the Bastile. The satire bore the
+title of “The Milliad,” from its consisting of a thousand lines. One
+edition is intituled, “The Present Government, or the Eulogy of the
+Cardinal.” It was attributed to Charles de Beys, a now-forgotten author,
+who wrote three plays and some verses, and was lauded as a rival of
+Malherbe, by a few of his ill-judging contemporaries. It must have been
+some mischievous joker that ascribed “The Milliad” to him, for Beys was
+not the sort of man to meddle with political satire, especially on such
+a dangerous subject; he was of an indolent, convivial disposition, and
+spent the largest portion of his time in enjoying the pleasures of the
+table. He was, nevertheless, pent up in the Bastile, as the libeller of
+the all-potent cardinal. Fortunately for him, he was able to prove his
+innocence, was set at liberty, and continued to follow his former course
+of life, till his constitution gave way, and he died, in 1659, at the age
+of forty.
+
+In the winter of 1642, Richelieu, who had so largely fed the prisons and
+scaffolds of France, terminated his career of ambition and blood. There
+is extant a letter which, while the cardinal was on his death bed, was
+written to him by one of his victims, named Dussault. The letter bears
+date on the first of December, three days previous to the decease of the
+minister, and it seems never to have reached him. What was the offence of
+Dussault is not known; from a broad hint which is given in his epistle,
+it appears that he suffered for having refused to execute some sanguinary
+order given to him by Richelieu. When he penned the following lines, he
+had been more than eleven years an inmate of the Bastile.
+
+“My Lord,—There is a time when man ceases to be barbarous and unjust;
+it is when his approaching dissolution compels him to descend into the
+gloom of his conscience, and to deplore the cares, griefs, pains, and
+misfortunes, which he has caused to his fellow creatures: allow me to
+say fellow creatures, for you must now see that of which you would never
+before allow yourself to be convinced, or persuade yourself to know, that
+the sovereign and excellent celestial workman has formed us all on the
+same model, and that he designed men to be distinguished from each other
+by their virtues alone. Now, then, my lord, you are aware that for eleven
+years you have subjected me to sufferings, and to enduring a thousand
+deaths in the Bastile, where the most disloyal and wicked subject of
+the king would be still worthy of pity and compassion. How much more
+then ought they to be shown to me, whom you have doomed to rot there,
+for having disobeyed your order, which, had I performed it, would have
+condemned my soul to eternal torment, and made me pass into eternity with
+blood-stained hands. Ah! if you could but hear the sobs, the lamentations
+and groans, which you extort from me, you would quickly set me at
+liberty. In the name of the eternal God, who will judge you as well as
+me, I implore you, my lord, to take pity on my sufferings and bewailings;
+and, if you wish that He should show mercy to you, order my chains to be
+broken before your death hour comes, for when that comes, you will no
+longer be at leisure to do me that justice which I must require only from
+you, and you will persecute me even after you are no more, from which
+God keep us, if you will permit yourself to be moved by the most humble
+prayer of a man who has ever been a loyal subject to the king.”
+
+This application was made in vain. If the cardinal ever saw it, which
+is doubtful, it failed to penetrate his iron heart; he “died, and made
+no sign,” in favour of the wretched supplicant. From Dussault’s evident
+despair of ever being freed except by Richelieu, it may be conjectured
+that, as an agent of the minister, he had given inexpiable offence to
+some one on whom power was now likely to devolve; and this supposition
+is rendered more probable, by his captivity having been subsequently
+protracted to an extraordinary length. It was not till the 20th of June,
+1692, that he was dismissed, after having languished in the Bastile for
+sixty one years! At his advanced age,—for he must at least have been
+between eighty and ninety—he could scarcely have deemed the boon of
+liberty a blessing. In the common course of nature, all his kindred and
+friends must have been gone, and as his habits were wholly unfitted for
+the turmoil of the world, and he was, perhaps, exposed to want, it is
+not unnatural to conclude that he may have been a solitary and starving
+wanderer for the brief remainder of his existence. A situation more
+forlorn than this it would be difficult to imagine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+    Reign of Louis XIV.—Regency of Anne of Austria—Inauspicious
+    circumstances under which she assumed the regency—George
+    de Casselny—The count de Montresor—The marquis de
+    Fontrailles—Marshal de Rantzau—The count de Rieux—Bernard
+    Guyard—Broussel, governor of the Bastile—The duchess of
+    Montpensier orders the cannon of the Bastile to be fired on
+    the king’s army—Conclusion of the war of the Fronde—Surrender
+    of the Bastile—Despotism of Louis XIV.—Slavishness of the
+    nobles—John Herauld Gourville—The count de Guiche—Nicholas
+    Fouquet—Paul Pellisson-Fontainier—Charles St. Evremond—Simon
+    Morin—The Marquis de Vardes—Count Bussy Rabutin—Saci le
+    Maistre—The duke of Lauzun—Marquis of Cavoie—The chevalier
+    de Rohan—A nameless prisoner—Charles D’Assoucy—Miscellaneous
+    prisoners.
+
+
+The regency of Anne of Austria commenced under auspices which were not
+of the most favourable kind. For a long series of years she had been
+persecuted by a tyrant minister, and discredited and humiliated, in every
+possible manner, by an unfeeling husband. It would be a tedious task
+to enumerate all the slights and injuries to which she was exposed; a
+specimen may suffice. To avoid the disgrace of being sent back to Spain,
+she had been compelled to confess before the Council a fault which she
+everywhere else disavowed, and of which it is improbable that she was
+guilty; on her bringing Louis XIV. into the world, she had suffered a
+stinging insult from her consort, who had pertinaciously refused to give
+her the embrace which was customary on such occasions—an insult which
+affected her so deeply that her life was endangered; when he was on the
+brink of the grave, and she earnestly sought to remove his prejudices
+against her, he coldly replied to Chavigni, who was pleading her cause,
+“In my situation I must forgive, but I am not obliged to believe her;”
+and, in settling the regency, he would fain have excluded from it the
+object of his hatred, but, that being impracticable, he took care to
+shackle her authority in such a way as would have left her scarcely more
+than the mere title of regent. Her having been childless for twenty-two
+years, and been treated in child-bed with such marked aversion by him,
+were also circumstances which were well calculated to throw dangerous
+doubts on the legitimacy of the infant sovereign. Yet Anne of Austria
+triumphed over all this, procured the setting aside of her deceased
+husband’s arrangements, obtained unlimited power, and for five years
+governed France without opposition, and with a considerable enhancement
+of its military fame. It was not till the troubles of the Fronde broke
+out that she encountered unpopularity and resistance.
+
+During the peaceable period of the queen mother’s government, the
+Bastile seems to have had but few inmates, at least few whom history has
+deemed worthy of being recorded; and during the war of the Fronde, and
+even before, the castle of Vincennes was the prison which received the
+captives of the highest class, such as the duke of Beaufort, the prince
+of Condé, and cardinal de Retz.
+
+The first prisoner in the Bastile, of whom any notice occurs during
+the regency, was a Spanish agent, named George de Casselny. Philip
+IV. of Spain had recently lost his consort Elizabeth, and it appears
+that Casselny was commissioned to make overtures for the monarch’s
+marriage with that singular female the duchess of Montpensier, a woman
+who had more manly qualities than her vacillating father, the duke of
+Orleans. “There was a certain Spaniard, named George de Casselny (says
+the duchess, in her memoirs), who had been made prisoner in Catalonia,
+and was on his parole, he went to M. de Surgis, at Orleans, to request
+that he would procure for him an interview with Monsieur (the duke of
+Orleans), who put him off till he could see him at Paris. In consequence
+of this delay, the Spaniard’s intention got wind, and he was put into
+the Bastile, and the cardinal (Mazarin), told Monsieur that it was a man
+who wanted to divert him from the service of the king by this proposal
+of marriage; which Monsieur believed and still believes. Many persons,
+however, affirm, that it was not a pretext, and that this gentleman had
+orders to make solid and sincere propositions for the marriage of his
+king with me, which he had thought it proper to communicate to Monsieur,
+before he made them known to the court. Nevertheless, this poor creature
+was kept a prisoner for several years, and when he was set at liberty, he
+was sent out of the kingdom under a guard.”
+
+The next prisoner was one who, for a long period, was closely connected
+with Monsieur, the father of the duchess. Claude de Bourdeille, count de
+Montresor, was born about 1608, and was a grand-nephew of that pleasant
+but unscrupulous writer Brantome, who bequeathed to him his mansion of
+Richemont. Montresor was early admitted into the train of the duke of
+Orleans, and at length became his confidential friend, whom he consulted
+on all occasions. He availed himself of his influence to keep at a
+distance from the duke all the friends of Richelieu, to incite him still
+more against that minister, and to link him in confederacy with the count
+of Soissons. In 1636, he went much further. In conjunction with Saint
+Ibal and others, he formed a plan for assassinating the cardinal, and to
+this plan the duke and the count gave their assent. The murder was to
+be perpetrated as the minister was leaving the council chamber; Saint
+Ibal was behind him, ready to strike the blow, and waited only for an
+affirmative sign from the duke; but at this critical moment, either the
+courage of Orleans gave way, or his conscience smote him, for he turned
+away his head, and hurried from the spot. The cardinal consequently
+escaped.
+
+While Montresor was subsequently busy in Guyenne, labouring to induce the
+duke of Epernon and his son to take up arms for Monsieur, he was suddenly
+abandoned by his employer, who made his own peace with Richelieu.
+Montresor now retired to his estate, where, for more than five years,
+he lived in the utmost privacy. He had, however, secret interviews with
+Monsieur, and, at his solicitation, he engaged in the conspiracy of Cinq
+Mars. Again he was deserted by him, and more disgracefully than in the
+first instance; for the dishonourable prince did not scruple to disavow
+the proceedings of his agent, and to aver that Cinq Mars and Montresor
+were the persons who had misled him. Montresor would have ascended the
+scaffold with Cinq Mars and de Thou, had he not prudently taken refuge in
+England, whence he did not return till the cardinal was no more.
+
+When the government devolved on Anne of Austria, the enemies of Richelieu
+had reason to hope that they would become the dominant party. The
+haughty bearing which this hope led them to assume, obtained for them
+the appellation of “The Cabal of the Importants.” They soon, however,
+contrived to disgust the queen-regent; and before twelve months had
+elapsed, Montresor, Chateauneuf, the duchess of Chevreuse, and several
+others of the faction, were ordered to quit the court. Montresor retired
+for a while to Holland. Late in 1645, he visited Paris, and, soon after,
+two letters to him, from the exiled duchess de Chevreuse, having been
+intercepted, Mazarin sent him to the Bastile. The prisoner was removed
+to Vincennes, where he was rigorously treated for fourteen months. At
+length, moved by the solicitations of Montresor’s relatives, the cardinal
+set him at liberty, and even offered him his friendship. Montresor,
+however, chose rather to league himself with Mazarin’s bitterest foe,
+the celebrated Coadjutor, afterwards the cardinal de Retz, and he took
+an active part in the war of the Fronde. In 1653 he was reconciled to
+the court, and from that time till his decease, which occurred in 1663,
+he led a peaceable life. Though ambition and a propensity to political
+intrigue could lead him to dip his hands in blood, Montresor is said to
+have had many social qualities, to have been generous, sincere, and a
+firm and ardent friend. His “Memoirs” form a valuable contribution to the
+history of his times.
+
+Among the agents of the duke of Orleans was Louis d’Astarac, marquis
+of Fontrailles, a descendant from an ancient Armagnac family. When
+the conspiracy of Cinq Mars was formed, Fontrailles was dispatched to
+Spain, to negociate with the Spanish cabinet a treaty, for assistance
+to the conspirators. By this treaty, Spain engaged to furnish the duke
+of Orleans with 12,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, 400,000 crowns to
+raise levies in France; and a monthly allowance of 12,000 crowns for
+his private expenses. But, before any step could be taken to carry the
+treaty into effect, the conspiracy was rendered abortive. Fontrailles,
+against whom an order of arrest had been issued, was fortunate enough to
+escape to England. The death of the cardinal and of his vassal sovereign,
+which took place soon after, enabled the proscribed fugitive to return
+to France. He became one of the Cabal of the Importants, and shared in
+the downfall of that faction. In the summer of 1647, he was sent to
+the Bastile; for what fault he was imprisoned I know not, or when he
+was released. Guy Patin intimates that the charge was not of a capital
+nature. Fontrailles died in 1677.
+
+The next who passes before us is a brave and injured soldier. Count
+Josias de Rantzau was descended from an ancient family of Holstein,
+thirty-two members of which are said to have greatly distinguished
+themselves. The fidelity of this family to its sovereigns was so
+remarkable, that the expression “As faithful as a Rantzau to his king,”
+passed into a proverb. Josias was born in 1610, and seems first to have
+borne arms in the Swedish service; he commanded a body of Swedes at
+the siege of Andernach, headed the Swedish left wing at the combat of
+Pakenau, and was present at the siege of Brisac. In 1635, he accompanied
+the celebrated Oxenstiern into France, where Louis XIII. appointed him
+a major-general, and colonel of two regiments. The subsequent career of
+Rantzau was often successful, and was never stained with disgrace. He
+effectually covered the retreat of the French after the raising of the
+siege of Dole, victoriously defended St. Jean de Lône against Galas, bore
+a conspicuous part in the subsequent campaigns in Flanders and Germany,
+and was twice maimed at the siege of Arras, and displayed signal valour
+at the siege of Aire. Fortune deserted him at the combat of Honnecourt
+and the battle of Dutlingen, in 1642 and 1643, and in both instances he
+was taken prisoner. She, however, soon became favourable to him. Between
+1645 and 1649, he made himself master of Gravelines, Dixmude, Lens, and
+all the maritime towns of Flanders. To reward his services he received
+the government of Gravelines and Dunkirk, and was raised to the rank of
+marshal. Mazarin, nevertheless, suspected him of being connected with his
+enemies, and in February, 1649, the marshal was conveyed to the Bastile,
+where he remained for eleven months. His innocence being at length
+ascertained, he was set at liberty; but a dropsy, which he had contracted
+in his confinement, proved fatal to him in the course of a few months.
+He died in September 1650. Rantzau was possessed of brilliant valour,
+much talent and military skill, and spoke all the principal languages of
+Europe; his only defect was an inordinate love of wine. Like our Nelson,
+but even in a greater degree, his person had been severely mutilated; he
+had lost an ear, an eye, a leg, and an arm. To this fact the following
+epitaph alludes:
+
+    “But half of great Rantzau this tomb contains,
+    The other half in battle fields remains;
+    His limbs and fame he widely spread around,
+    And still, though mangled, conqueror was he found:
+    His blood a hundred victories did acquire,
+    And nothing but his heart by Mars was left entire!”
+
+A brawl brought to the Bastile, in 1652, the count de Rieux, a son of the
+duke of Elbœuf. A dispute with the prince of Tarentum, as to precedence,
+gave rise to it. The prince of Condé, the great Condé, was the other
+actor. “The prince of Condé,” says the duchess of Montpensier, “took the
+part of the prince of Tarentum, who is nearly related to him, against the
+count de Rieux, and one day he got heated in the dispute; he imagined
+that the count de Rieux had pushed him, which obliged him to return it by
+a box on the ear; the count de Rieux then gave him a blow. The prince,
+who had no sword, made a dart at that of the baron de Migenne, who was
+present. M. de Rohan, who was also there, put himself between them, and
+got out the count de Rieux, whom his royal highness (the duke of Orleans)
+sent to the Bastile, for having dared to fail in respect. Many persons
+say, that the prince struck first; if he did so, he must have taken some
+gesture of the count for an insult, for though he is very passionate,
+he is not so much so as to do an action of this kind. I saw him after
+dinner, and he said, ‘You see a man who has been beaten for the first
+time in his life.’ The count de Rieux remained in the Bastile till the
+arrival of M. de Lorraine, who set him free, and blamed him very much.”
+It must have been a ludicrous sight, to see a prince of the blood, the
+victor of Rocroi, Fribourg, Nordlingen, and Lens, at fisticuffs amidst a
+ring of courtiers, in the palace of the duke of Orleans! “This was not
+the way,” remarks Voltaire, “to regain the hearts of the Parisians.”
+
+The leaders of the Frondeur faction were by no means tolerant of censure,
+even when it came from clerical lips. Bernard Guyard, a dominican, had
+reason to repent his having too honestly indulged in it. Guyard, who
+was born in 1601, at Craon, in Anjou, took the religious habit, and was
+admitted, in 1645, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and became popular for
+his pulpit eloquence, so much so that Anne of Austria appointed him
+her preacher, and the duchess of Orleans chose him as her confessor.
+While the war of the Fronde was being carried on—a war of which it has
+wittily and truly been said, that it ought to be recorded in burlesque
+verse—Guyard ventured to reprobate, in the pulpit, the conduct of those
+ambitious and unprincipled personages by whom its flames had been lighted
+up. The punishment of his offence followed close upon the commission of
+it. As he was leaving the church, he was arrested, and conveyed to the
+Bastile, where he continued for some months. He died in 1674, at which
+period he was theological professor in the convent of St. James. All
+his works have long since ceased to attract notice, with the exception,
+perhaps, of “The Fatality of St. Cloud,” which is a paradoxical attempt
+to prove that not Clement, nor a Dominican, but a leaguer, disguised as a
+monk, was the murderer of Henry III.
+
+During the war of the Fronde, the Bastile, for a short time, and for
+the last, was again a fortress as well as a prison; but in the latter
+character its services were only once required. When, in 1649, the
+queen-regent suddenly quitted Paris with the young king, she imprudently
+neglected to throw into the Bastile a garrison. It was guarded by only
+twenty-two soldiers, who had neither ammunition nor provisions. Du
+Tremblai, the governor, was therefore obliged to yield. The custody of
+the fortress was committed to Peter Broussel, for whose deliverance
+the Parisians had risen in arms on the day of the Barricades, and from
+whom he had received the flattering appellations of the father and
+the protector of the people. As Broussel was an aged man, his son, La
+Louvière, was joined with him in the government. In 1652, Broussel was
+appointed provost of the merchants, and the keeping of the Bastile
+remained with La Louvière alone.
+
+The two pieces of cannon which, in 1649, the Parisians fired at the
+Bastile to hasten its submission, would have been the only artillery
+employed, either against it or by it, had not the daring of a woman
+brought its guns into action. The duchess of Montpensier, who was called
+Mademoiselle, had recently distinguished herself by her spirited conduct
+at Orleans. Being sent by her father to that city, to encourage his
+partisans, she was at first refused admittance, but she forced her way
+in, through a hole in a gate, roused the people in her favour, and
+succeeded in preventing the king’s troops from occupying that important
+post. She was now at Paris, and soon found a fresh opportunity to display
+her courage and presence of mind. On the second of July, 1652, the
+sanguinary battle of the suburb of St. Anthony was raging; the army of
+the prince of Condé, overborne by the far superior numbers which Turenne
+led against him, could barely hold its ground; the prince had in vain
+entreated for its admission at various gates; the enemy, reinforced,
+was preparing for a new attack on its front and flanks; and, pent in
+between the king’s troops and the city walls, its destruction seemed
+to be inevitable. At this perilous moment it was saved by the duchess
+of Montpensier. First from her father, and next from the municipal
+authorities sitting at the Town Hall, she in a manner extorted an order
+for opening the gate of St. Anthony to the nearly overwhelmed battalions
+of Condé. She then ascended to the summit of the Bastile, and directed
+the cannon to be charged, removed from the city side, and pointed to the
+opposite quarter. They were opened upon the royalists, who pressed on the
+retreating Condéans, and their commanding fire compelled the pursuers to
+fall back beyond their range. Mademoiselle was at that time cherishing
+a hope that she should be united to her cousin the king, or at least to
+some crowned head; and it was with allusion to this circumstance that,
+when he heard she had ordered the firing, Mazarin coolly remarked, “Those
+cannon shots have killed her husband.”
+
+Four months did not pass away before, tired of wasting their lives and
+properties in a contest which could benefit only the privileged classes,
+the Parisians invited the king to return to his capital. The monarch
+entered it on the 21st of October, 1652. The faction of the Fronde was
+annihilated, and its leaders were scattered in all directions; their
+vanity, selfishness, and utter want of principle and patriotism,
+deserved such a fate. Had they been animated by noble motives, had they
+possessed even a moderate share of wisdom and virtue, they might have
+laid the groundwork of a stable and beneficent government, and thereby
+saved their country from innumerable immediate and remote evils. But
+
+    “The sensual and the base rebel in vain,
+    Slaves by their own compulsion!”
+
+As soon as the king had entered Paris, the Bastile was summoned, and La
+Louvière was informed that, if he were rash enough to stand a siege, the
+gibbet would be his portion. Too prudent to run so useless and formidable
+a risk, he readily gave up his charge. From the moment when Mademoiselle
+directed its fire upon the king’s troops, a hundred and thirty-seven
+years elapsed before the Bastile again heard the roar of artillery fired
+in anger.
+
+One of the first acts of Louis XIV. was to hold a bed of justice, in
+which he ordered the registration of an edict to abridge the power of
+the parliament. By this edict, the parliament was strictly prohibited
+from deliberating on state and financial affairs, and instituting any
+proceedings whatever against the ministers whom he might be pleased
+to employ. Louis was then only a boy of fourteen, and this act was of
+course the work of Mazarin; but, young as he was, the monarch was already
+thoroughly imbued with the principles on which it was framed. Three
+years afterwards he gave a striking proof of this. The parliament having
+ventured to manifest a faint opposition to some of his many oppressive
+fiscal edicts, he took a step which showed how deeply despotism was
+ingrained into his character. He was engaged in the chase, at Vincennes,
+when information was brought to him that his will was disputed. Hurrying
+back to Paris, he entered the parliament chamber, the sanctuary of
+justice, booted, spurred, whip in hand, and thus addressed the assembly
+of venerable magistrates: “Sirs, everybody knows the calamities which
+the meetings of the parliament have produced. I will henceforth prevent
+those meetings. I order you, therefore, to desist from those which you
+have begun, with respect to the edicts which, in my late bed of justice,
+I directed to be registered. You, Mr. First President, I forbid to allow
+of these assemblies; and I forbid every one of you to demand them.”
+Having thus spoken he departed, leaving his hearers in astonishment. He
+was then a beardless youth, who had not reached his seventeenth year. The
+members of the parliament might well have called to mind the words of
+Scripture—“If these things are done in the green tree, what will be done
+in a dry?” Six years afterwards Mazarin died, and thenceforth Louis had
+no prime minister; he became, in every sense of the word, the head of the
+government, the autocrat of France.
+
+A new era, that of abject submission to the monarch, and almost
+idolatrous worship of his person and greatness, commenced when the war
+of the Fronde was over. The slaves had had their Saturnalia, and they
+sank back—we may almost say rushed back—into a slavery more degrading
+than that from which they had for a moment emerged. There were no longer
+any Epernons, ruling their provinces as they pleased, and bearding the
+sovereign; the feudal pride was extinct. This would have been a happy
+circumstance for France, had the nobles, in losing their pride, preserved
+their dignity. But from one extreme they passed to the other. The power
+which they had lost, which was, in fact, but the power of doing mischief,
+they might have replaced by a power more honourable and durable, that
+which would have arisen from promoting the welfare and happiness of those
+whom they called their vassals. But their extensive domains were looked
+on only as mines, from which the last grain of gold was to be extracted,
+that they might squander it in the capital. It seemed as though it were
+impossible for them to exist out of the king’s presence; and when they
+were excluded from it, they lamented and whined in a manner which excites
+at once wonder and contempt. The consequences of this general prostration
+were slowly, but surely and fatally, unfolded.
+
+Let us revert to the captives of the Bastile. The destiny of John Herauld
+Gourville, who was born in 1625, was a singular one; he not only raised
+himself from a humble state to be the companion and friend of princes,
+but was appointed to be one of the representatives of his sovereign
+while in exile, and while a Parisian court of justice was hanging him in
+effigy as a convicted runaway peculator. After having received a scanty
+education, he was placed in an attorney’s office by his widowed mother.
+Having by his cleverness fortunately attracted the notice of the duke
+de la Rochefaucault, the author of the “Maxims,” that nobleman made
+him his secretary. During the war of the Fronde, Gourville displayed
+such talent and activity, that he acquired the warm friendship of his
+employer and the prince of Condé. His gratitude engaged him in many
+desperate adventures for their service, and the mode in which he raised
+the supplies for them was sometimes not much unlike that of a bandit; the
+moral code of the Frondeurs was not remarkable for its strictness. When
+Rochefaucault became weary of the inglorious contest in which he was an
+actor, Gourville negotiated the duke’s peace with the court; and in doing
+this he manifested so much ability and prudence, that Mazarin despatched
+him to Bordeaux, to treat with the prince of Conti. In this mission he
+was successful; and he was rewarded by being appointed commissary-general
+of the French army in Catalonia. At the close of the campaign of 1655, he
+returned to Paris, and Mazarin, who suspected that he came to intrigue
+for the prince of Conti, shut him up in the Bastile. In his Memoirs,
+Gourville candidly confesses that his six months’ imprisonment was
+insufferably wearisome, and that he could think of little else than how
+he should put an end to it. He was maturing a plan of escape, in concert
+with six other prisoners, when the cardinal relented, took him again into
+favour, and even prevailed on Fouquet to give him the lucrative place of
+receiver-general of the province of Guienne. In this office Gourville
+amassed an immense fortune, which he increased by his extraordinary
+good luck at play. When Fouquet fell, the whole of his subalterns were
+involved in his fall; but, far from deserting him in his calamity,
+Gourville nobly furnished 100,000 livres to assist in gaining over some
+of his enemies, and a still larger sum for the establishment of his
+son, the count de Vaux. He soon, however, became himself an object of
+impeachment, on a charge of peculation, and he deemed it prudent to quit
+France. At that moment there was certainly no chance of his obtaining
+a fair trial. After having visited England and Holland, he settled at
+Brussels. Though he was compelled to live in a foreign country, Gourville
+still preserved a strong affection for his native land, and he proved it,
+by influencing the princes of Brunswick and Hanover in favour of France.
+For this patriotic conduct Louis XIV. nominated him his plenipotentiary
+at the court of Brunswick; while at the same moment his enemies at Paris
+obtained against him a degrading sentence from his judges! That not a
+love of justice, but a desire to extort money from him, gave rise to his
+being prosecuted, is made evident by Colbert having offered a pardon,
+at the price of 800,000 livres, which he afterwards reduced to 600,000.
+Gourville, however, either could not or would not purchase this costly
+commodity. He was subsequently employed as a diplomatist in Spain, and
+again in Germany; and at length in 1681, a free pardon was granted to
+him. From that time he led a tranquil life in the French capital, in
+habits of friendship with, and much beloved by, the most eminent men of
+genius and rank. At one period there was an intention of making him the
+successor of Colbert, as comptroller-general of the finances, an office
+for which he was well qualified; but he had ceased to be ambitious of
+dangerous honours, and was happy to avoid them. The length of time which
+his servants continued in his service, and the cordial manner in which he
+speaks of them, afford strong proofs of his kind-heartedness: never did a
+selfish or harsh master long retain a domestic. Haughtiness to inferiors
+is the miserable make-shift of a man who has no true dignity to support
+his pretensions. Gourville mentions four persons who had been with him
+for fifteen, seventeen, twenty-five, and thirty-two years. He died in
+1703, at the age of seventy-eight. His Memoirs, which he composed in four
+months, to amuse himself while he was confined by a disease in the leg,
+are deservedly praised by Madame de Sévigné and Voltaire.
+
+The next who appears on the scene was a noble, whom Madame de Sévigné
+characterizes as “a hero of romance, who does not resemble the rest of
+mankind.” This is somewhat exaggerated, but not wholly untrue. Armand
+de Grammont, Count de Guiche, who was born in 1638, was a proficient in
+all manly exercises, splendid in dress and equipage, spirited, witty,
+well educated, handsome in person, and cultivated in mind. His valour
+was early proved, at the sieges of Landrecy, Valenciennes, and Dunkirk.
+In a voluptuous court, and with his attractive qualities, it is not
+wonderful that Guiche was engaged in amorous intrigues. His desire of
+conquest aimed so high—Henrietta Stuart, Duchess of Orleans, was its
+great object—that Louis XIV. thrice exiled him; and it was probably on
+this account that he became an inmate of the Bastile, from which prison
+he was released in the autumn of 1660. Having a third time offended, he
+was sent to Poland, where he distinguished himself in the war against
+the Turks. At the end of two years, he was recalled; but it was not long
+before he again fell into disgrace, by participating in the despicable
+conduct of the Marquis de Vardes, which will be described in the sketch
+of that courtier’s career. Guiche was banished to Holland. Too active
+to remain unemployed, he served in the campaign against the Bishop of
+Munster, and on board the Dutch squadron, in the sea-fight with the
+English, off the Texel. He was allowed to return to France in 1669,
+but was not re-admitted at court till two years afterwards. It was he
+who, in 1672, led the way at the celebrated passage of the Rhine, near
+Tollhuis; an exploit which is extravagantly lauded by Boileau. He died
+at Creutznach, in Germany, in 1673; excessive chagrin, occasioned by
+Montecuculi having defeated him, was the cause of his death. Guiche is
+the author of a volume of Memoirs concerning the United Provinces.
+
+The first important act of Louis XIV., after his taking the
+administration of public affairs into his own hands, was the disgracing
+and ruining Fouquet, the superintendant of the finances. Nicholas
+Fouquet, a son of Viscount de Vaux, was born at Paris, in 1615, and
+was educated for the legal profession. At twenty he was master of
+requests, and at thirty-five he filled the very considerable office of
+attorney-general to the parliament of Paris. It would have been happy
+for him had he steadily pursued his career in the magistracy, instead
+of deviating into a path that was beset with dangers. During the
+troubles of the Fronde he was unalterably faithful to the queen-mother,
+and in gratitude for this she raised him, in 1652, to the post of
+superintendant. It was a fatal boon.
+
+By all who were connected with it, the French treasury seems, in those
+days, to have been considered as a mine which they were privileged
+to work for their own benefit. Mazarin had recently been a wholesale
+plunderer of it; and there can be little doubt that Fouquet was a
+peculator to a vast extent. Yet the superintendant had one merit, which
+was wanting in other depredators—though he took, he likewise gave; for
+at one period, when money ran short, he mortgaged his property and his
+wife’s, and borrowed on his own bills, to supply the necessities of the
+state.
+
+The fatal failing of Fouquet was his magnificent extravagance. He had a
+taste for splendour and lavish expenditure, which might have qualified
+him for an oriental sovereign. On his estate at Vaux he built a mansion,
+or rather a palace, which threw into the shade the country residences
+of the French monarch—for Versailles was not then in existence. Whole
+hamlets were levelled to the ground to afford space for its gardens. The
+building was sumptuously decorated, and in every part of it was painted
+his device, a squirrel, with the ambitious motto “_Quo non ascendam?_”
+Whither shall I not rise? It is a curious circumstance, that the squirrel
+was represented as being pursued by a snake, which was the arms of
+Colbert, the bitter enemy of Fouquet. The edifice cost eighteen millions
+of livres; a sum equivalent to three times as much at the present day.
+
+The largesses of the superintendant, which in many cases deserve the name
+of bribes, were immense. Great numbers of the courtiers did not blush
+to become his pensioners. On extraordinary occasions they also received
+presents from him. Each of the nobles, who was invited with Louis XIV. to
+the grand entertainment at Vaux, found in his bed-chamber a purse filled
+with gold; which, says a sarcastic writer, “the nobles did not forget to
+take away.” There was another abundant source of expense, which arose
+out of his licentious passions; he lavished immense sums in purchasing
+the venal charms of the French ladies of distinction, and was eminently
+successful in finding sellers. “There were few at court,” says Madame de
+Motteville, “who did not sacrifice to the golden calf.” Policy, no doubt,
+had a share in prompting his liberality to the courtiers; and, perhaps,
+it sometimes was mingled with lust and vanity in his gifts to frail
+females of rank; but we may attribute to a purer motive the kindness and
+courtesy which he manifested to persons of talent. The result was quite
+natural; the great deserted him in his hour of danger and disgrace, the
+people of talent clung with more tenacity than ever to their fallen
+benefactor and friend.
+
+Mazarin, when on his death-bed, is said to have awakened the fears and
+suspicions of Louis against Fouquet; and, to deepen the impression which
+he had made, he left behind him two deadly foes of the superintendant.
+These foes were Le Tellier and Colbert, of whom the latter was the most
+inveterate and the most dangerous. When Louis formed the resolution of
+being his own prime minister, Fouquet, who evidently wished to succeed to
+the power of Richelieu and Mazarin, essayed to turn the monarch from his
+purpose, by daily heaping on him a mass of dry, intricate, and erroneous
+financial statements. He failed in his attempt. These papers the king
+every evening examined, with the secret assistance of Colbert, whose
+acuteness and practised skill instantly unravelled their artful tangles,
+and exposed their errors.
+
+It was not alone the squandering of the royal treasure that irritated
+Louis; though that would have been a sufficiently exciting cause to a
+man whose own lavish habits required large supplies. He asserted, and
+might perhaps believe, that the offender aspired to sovereignty. In a
+long conversation with the president Lamoignon, he said, “Fouquet wished
+to make himself duke of Britanny, and king of the neighbouring isles;
+he won over every body by his profusion: there was not a single soul in
+whom I could put confidence.” So much was he impressed with this idea,
+that he repeated it over and over to the president. For this absurd fear
+there was no other ground than that the superintendant had purchased and
+fortified Belleisle; a measure which was prompted by patriotic motives,
+it being his design to make that island an emporium of commerce. There is
+said to have been another and a not less powerful cause for the monarch’s
+hatred of Fouquet; the superintendant had been imprudent enough to
+attempt to include La Vallière in the long catalogue of his mistresses,
+and this was an offence not to be pardoned by the proudest and vainest of
+kings.
+
+As soon as the ruin of Fouquet was determined upon, the most profound
+dissimulation was used by the king and Colbert, to prevent him from
+suspecting their purpose. All his measures seemed to give perfect
+satisfaction; unlimited trust was apparently placed in him; and hints
+were thrown out, that the coveted post of prime minister was within
+his reach. The hints had a further purpose than that of blinding him
+to the peril in which he stood; they were meant to rob him of a shield
+against injustice. By virtue of his office, as attorney-general to the
+parliament, he had the privilege of being tried only by the assembled
+chambers; but, as it was intended that his trial should take place before
+a packed tribunal, it was necessary to divest him of the privilege. For
+this reason it was insinuated, that the post of attorney-general stood in
+the way of his being raised to the premiership, and also of his obtaining
+the blue riband. Fouquet fell into the snare, and sold his office for
+1,400,000 livres, which sum, with a blind generosity, he instantly lent
+to the Exchequer. To confirm Fouquet’s delusion, Louis graced with his
+presence a gorgeous festival which was held at Vaux. But the splendour
+of the place, the excessive magnificence of the entertainment, and the
+presumptuousness of the superintendant’s motto, roused his anger to such
+a pitch, that, had not the queen-mother remonstrated, he would have
+committed the unkingly act of arresting Fouquet on the spot.
+
+When the courage inspired by passion had evaporated, Louis delayed yet
+awhile to effect his purpose, till he had guarded in all possible ways
+against the danger which was to be apprehended from the formidable
+conspirator. Had Fouquet been capable of calling up legions from the
+earth by the stamp of his foot, more precautions could not have been
+taken. The blow was struck at last. Louis was at Nantes, to which city
+he had removed under the idea that it would be easier to accomplish the
+arrest there than at Paris. Thither he was followed by Fouquet. Some of
+the superintendant’s friends warned him of the peril which hung over him,
+but he gave no credence to their tidings. On the 5th of September, 1661,
+as he was leaving the council, he was arrested, and was conveyed without
+delay to the castle of Angers. Messengers were immediately despatched
+to Paris, to seize his papers, and to order the arrest of many of his
+partisans.
+
+Fouquet was bandied about from prison to prison, from Angers to Amboise,
+Moret, and Vincennes, till he was finally lodged in the Bastile. He
+bore his misfortune with an unshaken mind. His enemies, meanwhile,
+were proceeding with the most malignant activity, and with a perfect
+contempt of justice and decorum. It was the common talk of Paris, that
+Colbert would be satisfied with nothing less than the execution of the
+superintendant. He was even plainly charged by Fouquet with having
+fraudulently made in his papers a multitude of alterations. Le Tellier,
+though less openly violent than Colbert, was equally hostile. For the
+trial of the prisoner twenty-two commissioners were picked out from
+the French parliaments; nearly all—if not all—of them were notoriously
+inimical to him, or connected with persons who were known to be so, and
+at their head was the chancellor Seguier, one of his most deadly enemies.
+
+One benefit the fallen minister derived from this injustice, and from
+the protracted trial which ensued; public opinion, which at first had
+been adverse to him, gradually grew more and more favourable. Fouquet the
+peculator, brought to judgment before an honest and impartial tribunal,
+would have excited no sympathy; Fouquet, persecuted by his rivals for
+power, and destined to be legally assassinated, could not fail to excite
+a warm interest in the mind of every one who was not destitute of
+honourable feelings.
+
+Those who were in habits of intimacy with Fouquet needed no other
+stimulus than the benefits or the winning courtesies, which they had
+experienced from him. He had on his side all who loved or practised
+literature, all who could be captivated by prepossessing manners and
+boundless generosity. “Never,” says Voltaire, “did a placeman have
+more personal friends, never was a persecuted man better served in his
+misfortunes.” Many men of letters wielded the pen in his behalf, with a
+courage which deserves no small praise, when we consider that the Bastile
+was staring them in the face. Pelisson in his dungeon tasked all his
+powers to defend his ruined master; La Fontaine, in a touching elegy,
+vainly strove to awake the clemency of Louis; Loret eulogized Fouquet in
+his “Mercure Burlesque,” and was punished by the loss of his pension;
+Hesnault, the translator of Lucretius, attacked Colbert in the bitterest
+and boldest of sonnets; and a crowd of other assailants showered epigrams
+and lampoons on the vindictive minister. The authors were, in general,
+lucky enough to find impunity; but numbers of newswriters, printers, and
+hawkers, were seized, all of whom were imprisoned, and some were sent
+from prison to the galleys.
+
+Fouquet began by denying the competency of the tribunal before which
+he was summoned. He was, however, compelled to appear; but, though
+he answered interrogatories, he persisted in protesting against the
+authority of his judges. He defended himself with admirable skill,
+eloquence, and moderation. There were, indeed, moments when he was roused
+to retaliate. A single example of the pungency with which he could
+reply, will show that his persecutors were not wise in provoking him.
+Behind a mirror, at his country house of St. Mandé, was found a sketch
+of a paper, drawn up by him fifteen years before, and evidently long
+forgotten by him. It contained instructions to his friends how they were
+to proceed, in case of an attempt being made to subvert his power. This
+was construed into a proof of conspiracy. Seguier having pertinaciously
+called on him to own that the drawing up of such a paper was a crime
+against the state, Fouquet said, “I confess that it is a foolish and wild
+act, but not a state crime. A crime against the state is when, holding
+a principal office, and being entrusted with the secrets of the prince,
+the individual all at once deserts to the enemy, engages the whole of his
+family in the same interest, causes governors to open the gates of cities
+to the enemy’s army, and to close them against their rightful master, and
+betrays to the hostile party the secrets of the government—this, sir, is
+what is called a crime against the state.” This was a stunning blow to
+the chancellor, for it was the past conduct of that magistrate himself
+that was thus forcibly described by the prisoner.
+
+The trial lasted three years. It was not the fault of some of his
+judges that it was not brought to a speedier issue. They listened with
+reluctance to his eloquent defence, and would fain have cut it short.
+Possort, one of them, who was an uncle of Colbert, once exclaimed, on
+Fouquet closing his speech, “Thank Heaven! he cannot complain that he
+has been prevented from talking his fill!” Others, still more insensible
+to shame, made a motion, that he should be restricted to the mere
+answering of questions; they were, however, overruled. It was not till
+the middle of December, 1664, that Talon, the advocate-general, summed
+up the evidence, and demanded that the culprit should be hanged on a
+gallows, purposely erected in the Palace Court. But the time for this
+excessive severity was gone by. Some of the judges had become accessible
+to feelings of pity; others had been won over by the potent influence
+of gold, of which the superintendant’s friends undoubtedly availed
+themselves to a considerable extent. Among the most conspicuous of those
+who leaned to the side of mercy were MM. d’Ormesson and Roquesante, men
+of unquestionable integrity. Only nine voted for death; a majority of the
+commissioners, thirteen in number, gave their suffrage for confiscation
+of property and perpetual banishment.
+
+The king is said to have been grievously disappointed by this sentence.
+Colbert was furious. In one of her letters, written at the moment, Madame
+de Sévigné, who had a warm esteem for Fouquet, says, “Colbert is so
+exceedingly enraged, that we may expect from him something unjust and
+atrocious enough to drive us all to despair again.” In another letter,
+she hints her fears that poison may be employed; Guy Patin was also of
+the same opinion. Neither poison nor steel was, however, resorted to; it
+was probably thought that to render the life of Fouquet a burthen to him,
+would be a more exquisite gratification than taking of it away. To grant
+mercy has always been regarded as the noblest prerogative of a monarch;
+to refuse it was more to the taste of Louis. He altered the sentence of
+Fouquet from banishment to endless imprisonment in a remote fortress,
+and this was in mockery called a commutation of the penalty. Fouquet was
+immediately sent off to Pignerol, and the members of his family, who were
+doomed to suffer for his errors, were scattered in various directions.
+His judges did not wholly escape without marks of the king’s anger. M. de
+Roquesante, a native of the sunny Provence, who had spoken in favour of
+the prisoner, was banished, in the depth of winter, to the distant and
+imperfectly civilised province of Lower Britanny.
+
+On his way to Pignerol, and during his captivity there, Fouquet was
+treated with great harshness. About six months after his arrival, he was
+placed in imminent danger. The lightning fell on the citadel where he was
+confined, and blew up the powder magazine. Numbers of persons were buried
+under the ruins, but he stood in the recess of a window and remained
+unhurt. There is a singular veil of mystery hanging over his last days.
+He is generally said to have died at Pignerol, in 1680; yet Gourville,
+his friend, positively states him to have been set at liberty before his
+decease, and he adds, that he received a letter from him. Voltaire, too,
+declares that the fact of the liberation was confirmed to him by the
+Countess de Vaux, the daughter-in-law of Fouquet; but here all clue to
+the subject is lost. It has recently been suggested that Fouquet may have
+again been arrested, and that he was the individual who is known by the
+appellation of the Man in the Iron Mask.
+
+While fidelity in friendship, inviolably preserved under the most trying
+circumstances, shall continue to be admired by mankind, the name of Paul
+Pelisson will always be mentioned with respect. He had talents, too,
+which were of no mean order. Pelisson, who from affection to his mother
+assumed also her maiden name of Fontanier, was born in 1624, at Bezières,
+and was brought up in the Protestant faith. He attained an early and
+rapid proficiency in literature and languages; nor were severer studies
+neglected—for at the age of only nineteen he produced an excellent Latin
+paraphrase of the first book of Justinian’s Institutes. He was beginning
+to shine at the bar when he was attacked by small-pox. The disease so
+excessively disfigured his countenance, and impaired his constitution,
+that he was under the necessity of relinquishing his profession, and
+retiring into the country to recruit his health.
+
+As soon as Pelisson was again able to take a part in active life, he
+settled in Paris. It was not long before he acquired a multitude of
+friends; and the French Academy, in return for a history which he wrote
+of its early labours, made him a supernumerary member, and destined
+for him the first vacancy which should occur. Fouquet, who knew his
+abilities, appointed him his chief clerk, and reposed in him an implicit
+confidence, which was well deserved. Had Fouquet followed the advice
+of his assistant, who counselled him never to part with his office of
+attorney-general, he would have done wisely. When this advice came to the
+knowledge of Louis, he said “the clerk is more sharp-sighted than the
+master.”
+
+Pelisson shared the fate of Fouquet; he was sent to the Concièrgerie,
+whence he was removed to the Bastile. All attempts to elicit from him the
+secrets of the superintendant were made in vain. Once only, to answer a
+purpose, he seemed to make a disclosure. Fearing that, from not knowing
+whether the documents were in existence, Fouquet might commit himself
+in his answers to certain questions, Pelisson feigned to divulge some
+unimportant particulars which related to the subject. Fouquet, who was
+astonished at this seeming defection of his friend, was confronted with
+him, and denied the correctness of what had been stated: “Sir,” said
+Pelisson, in an emphatic tone, “You would not deny so boldly if you did
+not know that all the papers concerning that affair are destroyed.”
+Fouquet instantly comprehended the stratagem, and acted accordingly.
+
+In the early part of his confinement, Pelisson found means to compose
+three memorials in defence of Fouquet. For eloquence and argument they
+may be considered as his masterpieces; they were published, and produced
+a strong impression. As a punishment, he was still more closely immured,
+and pen and paper were withheld from him; but he contrived to foil his
+persecutors, by writing, with ink made of burnt crust and wine, on the
+blank leaves and margins of the religious works which he was allowed to
+read. They were equally unsuccessful when, hoping that he might drop some
+unguarded words, they gave him, as an attendant, a spy, who concealed
+cunning under the mask of coarse simplicity. Pelisson saw through the
+deception, and adroitly converted the spy into an instrument of his own.
+
+The imprisonment of Pelisson lasted four years and a half. Among the
+means which he employed to beguile his lonely hours is said to have been
+that of taming a spider; a task which he effected so completely, that at
+a signal, it would fetch its prey from the further end of the room, or
+even take it out of his hand. It is, however, doubtful whether Pelisson
+was the person who performed this. De Renneville, who is good authority
+on this subject, ascribes the taming of the spider to the Count de
+Lauzun, and adds, that the jailer, St. Mars, brutally crushed the insect,
+and exclaimed that criminals like Lauzun did not deserve to enjoy the
+slightest amusement.
+
+The solicitations of Pelisson’s friends at length procured his release;
+in memory of which he ever after yearly liberated some unfortunate
+prisoner. After some lapse of time, he was even received into the good
+graces of Louis, who probably thought that the man who had been faithful
+to a ruined minister would not be wanting in fidelity to his sovereign.
+It was, besides, no small merit in the king’s eyes, that Pelisson had
+become a Catholic. Louis first appointed him his historiographer, with a
+pension; then gave him several valuable benefices; and, lastly, entrusted
+him with the management of the fund which was employed in purchasing
+proselytes. Pelisson died in 1693.
+
+Pelisson was not the only literary character who was drawn into
+the vortex by the sinking of Fouquet. The gay and witty Epicurean
+philosopher, St. Evremond, was punished for the crime of being a friend
+of the fallen superintendant. Charles St. Evremond was born in 1613, at
+St. Denis le Guast, near Coutances. From the study of the law, and the
+prospect of a high station in the magistracy, he was seduced by his love
+of arms, and, at the age of sixteen, he obtained an ensigncy. He still,
+however, retained his taste for philosophy and literature. By his bravery
+he acquired the esteem of his superiors; and that esteem was heightened
+by his varied acquirements and the charm of his conversation. That he
+might always enjoy the pleasure of his society, the Duke of Enghien
+appointed him lieutenant of his guards. In this post St. Evremond fought
+gallantly at Rocroi, Fribourg, and Nordlingen, in the last of which
+battles he was dangerously wounded. His familiar intercourse with the
+prince was not of long duration; Enghien delighted to see others exposed
+to the wit and raillery of his lieutenant, but he could not endure to be
+himself their object; St. Evremond ventured to aim some pleasantries
+at his princely protector, and the great Condé had the littleness to
+take offence, and to insist on the offender resigning his commission
+in the guards. In the war of the Fronde, St. Evremond served the royal
+cause with pen and sword, and he was rewarded with a pension and the
+rank of major-general. Some satirical remarks on Mazarin, which he soon
+after made at a dinner party, were the cause of his being thrown into
+the Bastile. Mazarin, however, was not of an implacable nature, like
+his predecessor Richelieu. At the expiration of three months he set the
+prisoner free, took him into favour, and afterwards, from among a crowd
+of rivals, selected him as his companion, when he went to negociate the
+peace of the Pyrenees. Dissatisfied with the terms of that peace, St.
+Evremond gave vent to his dissatisfaction, in a private letter to the
+Marshal de Créqui. In writing it he unconsciously wrote his own sentence
+of banishment. A copy of it was found among the papers of Fouquet; and
+Colbert, who rejoiced to have an opportunity of injuring a friend of
+Fouquet, malignantly represented it in such a light to Louis XIV. that
+an order was issued to convey the author to the Bastile. St. Evremond
+was riding in the forest of Orleans when he received intelligence from
+his friends of the danger that hung over him. As he did not wish to
+pay a second visit to a state prison, he provided for his safety by an
+immediate and rapid flight. In England he was welcomed with open arms,
+and was idolized by the wits and courtiers. In 1664 he visited Holland,
+where he met with an equally cordial reception, and gained the friendship
+of the Prince of Orange. Charles II. invited him to return to England, in
+1670, and settled on him a pension. Henceforth, till his decease, which
+took place in 1703, he continued to reside in London. His friends in
+France made repeated efforts to obtain his recall; but they could not
+succeed till 1689, when Louis XIV. was pleased to grant their request.
+St. Evremond refused to accept the tardy boon. Living at his ease in a
+free country, and in the highest society, and admired and esteemed by
+the fair, the witty, and the noble, he was too wise to put himself into
+“circumscription and confine,” and purchase the privilege of bending
+before a despotic monarch, at the risk of being condemned to solitary
+meditation in one of the towers of the Bastile. St. Evremond was ninety
+when he died, but he preserved his faculties to the last. He was interred
+in Westminster Abbey. His poetry never rises above mediocrity, and does
+not always reach it; but his prose is often excellent. Justice has
+scarcely been done to him either by La Harpe or Voltaire.
+
+A harder fate than that of voluntary exile was the lot of Simon Morin,
+an insane visionary, a man of humble birth, who was born about 1623,
+at Richemont, in Normandy. His horrible death, which was in fact a
+judicial murder, perpetrated by a fanaticism far worse than his own,
+leaves an indelible stain on the character of the judges by whom it was
+directed. Morin was originally a clerk in the war-office, but lost his
+situation by neglecting his duties; and he subsequently gained a scanty
+subsistence as a copyist, for which he was well qualified by the beauty
+of his handwriting. His reason appears to have been early affected,
+as he must have been under twenty when he was first put into prison
+for his extravagant ideas in religious matters. After his release, he
+seems to have gradually become more and more deranged. Like all madmen
+of his class, however, he gained numerous proselytes, who listened to
+his harangues, and read his printed reveries, with implicit belief.
+His success drew on him the attention of the government, and, in July
+1644, he was sent to the Bastile. At the expiration of twenty months he
+was set at liberty. Imprisonment had only heightened his malady, and
+he consequently laboured with more vigour than ever to disseminate his
+opinions. Those opinions he embodied in a work intituled, “Thoughts of
+Morin, with his Canticles and Spiritual Quatrains,” dedicated to the
+king. He called himself the Son of Man, and maintained that Christ was
+incorporated in him; that in his person was to take place the second
+advent of the Saviour in a state of glory; and that the result would be
+a general reformation of the Church, and the conversion of all people to
+the true faith. There was much more of the same kind; he was in France
+what Brothers, long afterwards, was in England. Of his tenets, several
+bear a resemblance to those which, later in the 17th century, were held
+by the Quietists. The publication of this volume again brought the police
+upon him. For some time he eluded them, but he was at last discovered,
+and re-committed to the Bastile. In 1649, he retracted his errors, and
+was released, and he repeated his retractation four months after his
+being set free. It was not long, however, before he relapsed, and for
+this he was sent to the Concièrgerie, whence he was transferred to the
+Petites Maisons, as an incurable lunatic. The last was the only sensible
+measure which was adopted with respect to him. By another abjuration, he
+once more recovered his liberty; and, as soon as he was let loose, he
+once more asserted his claim to be an incarnation of the Deity. There can
+be little doubt that he had short lucid intervals, and that it was during
+these intervals that he renounced his errors.
+
+Thus, alternately raving and recanting, Morin went on till 1661, when,
+in an evil hour, he contracted an intimacy with a man who was no less a
+visionary than he himself was, and whose nature was deeply tinctured with
+malignity and deceit. This man, John Desmarets de St. Sorlin, a member
+of the French Academy, was the author of several works, now sunk into
+oblivion, among which are a ponderous epic, called Clovis, and several
+theatrical pieces. From his own showing, he appears to have been in youth
+a monster of immorality; and though in advanced life he affected piety,
+his conduct did not prove his heart to be much ameliorated; he became
+fanatical instead of becoming virtuous. A brief specimen, from some of
+his rhapsodies, will show how completely his wits were “turned the seamy
+side without.” He asserted, that God in his infinite goodness had given
+him the key of the treasure of the Apocalypse; that he was Eliachim
+Michael, a Prophet; that he had the Divine command to raise an army of
+144,000 men, bearing the seal of God on their foreheads, which army was
+to be headed by the king, to exterminate the impious and the Jansenists;
+and that Louis XIV. was indicated by the prophets as the person who was
+destined to drive out the Turks, and extend throughout the whole earth
+the kingdom of Christ. Had not Desmarets been a hater of the Jansenists,
+and a flatterer of the monarch, he would undoubtedly have been sent to
+study the Apocalypse in the solitude of a prison.
+
+The trite proverb, that “two of a trade cannot agree,” was verified by
+Desmarets; he resolved to destroy the man who dared to make pretensions
+that eclipsed his own. To effect his purpose, he acted with the cunning
+of a lunatic, and the dark-heartedness of a fiend. By paying assiduous
+court to Morin, by pretending to be one of his most submissive disciples,
+and even by going so far as to write him a letter, unequivocally
+recognising him as the Son of Man, he contrived to insinuate himself into
+the confidence of his unfortunate victim, and to draw from him his most
+secret thoughts. In the course of their conversations, Morin is said to
+have declared, among other things, that unless the king acknowledged
+his mission he would die. Having thus furnished himself with evidence
+against the man whom he had deluded, Desmarets hastened to denounce him
+as a heretic and traitor. Orders were issued for arresting Morin, who
+was found engaged in copying out a “Discourse to the King,” which began
+with “the Son of Man to the King of France.” He was brought to trial, and
+was sentenced to be burned alive. Some of his followers were condemned
+to whipping and the galleys. The iniquitous judgment passed on Morin was
+executed on the 14th of March, 1663. At the stake his reason seems to
+have returned; he repeatedly called on the Saviour and the Virgin, and
+humbly prayed for mercy to the Creator of all things.
+
+Little commiseration is due to him whose imprisonment is next recorded;
+his baseness met with deserved punishment. Francis René Crispin du Bec,
+Marquis of Vardes, was of a good family, and served with reputation in
+Flanders, France, Italy, and Spain. During the war of the Fronde, he was
+constant to the royal party; and it was doubtless his zeal and fidelity
+on this occasion which acquired for him the friendship of Louis XIV. He
+rose to high rank in the army; was made captain-colonel of the Hundred
+Swiss in 1655; and, next year, succeeded the Duke of Orleans in the
+government of Aigues-Mortes, and was invested with the various orders of
+knighthood. He was on the point of being created a duke and peer, when
+the discovery of a dishonourable act of which he had been guilty, stopped
+his promotion, and deprived him of his liberty. Louis had chosen Vardes
+as his friend, and had confided to him his passion for the celebrated
+Mlle. de la Vallière, who was one of the maids of honour to the Duchess
+of Orleans. It appears that the duchess and her friend, the Countess of
+Soissons, and their lovers, the Count de Guiche and Vardes, had hoped,
+by means of La Vallière, to obtain a predominant influence over Louis.
+But the royal mistress loved Louis with a sincere and disinterested
+affection, and was not disposed to become the instrument of court
+intriguers. It was resolved, therefore, to oust her, and substitute in
+her stead Mlle. de la Mothe Houdancourt, who, it was imagined, would
+be more subservient. To effect this object, Vardes wrote a letter,
+purporting to be from the Spanish monarch, to his daughter the French
+queen, informing her of her consort’s connection with la Vallière; it
+was translated into Spanish by Guiche. The letter, however, fell into
+the hands of Louis. While endeavouring to discover the author, the king
+consulted Vardes, and Vardes was so ineffably base as to lead him to
+believe that the offender was the Duchess of Noailles. The duchess, a
+woman of strict virtue, had the superintendence of the queen’s maids of
+honour, and had already dissatisfied Louis by her vigilant care of her
+charge. He therefore readily believed the suggestion of Vardes, and,
+without farther inquiry, deprived the duchess and her husband of all
+the places which they held, and ordered them to retire to their estate.
+For three years the perfidy of Vardes remained a secret, and it would
+perhaps always have remained so, had he not caused a disclosure of it, by
+conduct which was at once a flagrant breach of confidence to his friend,
+the Count de Guiche, and a gross insult to the Duchess of Orleans. He
+obtained possession of the letters written by the count to the duchess,
+and refused to give them up; and he incited the Chevalier de Lorraine to
+make offensive advances to her. This proceeding brought on a quarrel, the
+result of which was that the king became acquainted with the treachery of
+the man whom he had trusted. Vardes was sent to the Bastile in December,
+1664, from whence he was removed to the citadel of Montpellier, where he
+was closely confined for eighteen months. He was at length allowed to
+reside in his government of Aigues-Mortes; but eighteen years passed away
+before he was recalled to the court. He is said to have employed in study
+the period of his exile, and to have made himself generally esteemed in
+Languedoc. When, after his long banishment, he was graciously received
+by the king, Vardes was dressed in the fashion of his early days, and,
+when Louis laughed at the antique cut of his coat, the supple courtier
+replied, “Sire, when one is so wretched as to be banished from you, one
+is not only unfortunate, but ridiculous!” Vardes did not long enjoy his
+re-establishment in the royal favour; he died in 1688.
+
+To Vardes succeeds another noble, Count Roger Bussy de Rabutin, who,
+though he is not accused of such baseness as that of which Vardes was
+guilty, was by no means a model of delicacy and virtue. He seems, indeed,
+to have been of opinion, that honour and honesty were not necessary
+qualities in the persons whom he had about him; for, in his Memoirs,
+he coolly describes one gentleman, who was of his train, as having all
+his life been a cutpurse; and another, on whom he bestows praise for
+some things, as being addicted to every vice, and no less familiar
+with robbery and murder than with eating and drinking. Such being his
+laxity of principles, it is no wonder that he sometimes participated in
+disgusting orgies, and was even suspected of feeling a more than parental
+love for Madame de la Rivière, his daughter. Bussy de Rabutin was born
+in 1618, entered the army when he was only twelve years of age, served
+in all the campaigns between 1634 and 1663, and attained the rank of
+lieutenant-general. His bravery was undoubted, but his vanity, arrogance,
+and satirical spirit, made him numerous enemies among his brother
+officers. On one occasion he lampooned Turenne, and that great general,
+deviating from his usual magnanimity, avenged himself by writing to the
+king, that “M de Bussy was the best officer in the army—for songs.” In
+1641, Bussy was an inmate of the Bastile for five months. The defective
+discipline of his regiment, and its having engaged in smuggling salt,
+was the ostensible cause of his imprisonment; he himself assigned as
+the reason, that his father was hated by Desnoyers the minister. The
+same faults by which his companions in arms had been converted into
+foes, proved his ruin at court. He wrote a libellous work, called “The
+Amorous History of the Gauls,” which was published in 1665, and excited
+a general outcry among the personages whom it describes. Bussy affirms,
+that it was sent to the press without his consent, and even with
+malignant alterations and additions, by an unfaithful mistress, to whom
+he entrusted the manuscript. This production was made the pretext for
+committing him to the Bastile; but it is said that his real offence was
+a song, in which he ridiculed the king’s passion for the Duchess of la
+Vallière. His imprisonment lasted twenty months, and he candidly owns, in
+his Memoirs and Letters, that it was not very patiently endured. By dint
+of importunity, seconded by an illness with which he was attacked, he at
+length recovered his liberty. During his captivity, he was compelled to
+resign, for a much less sum than it cost him, the major-generalship of
+the light cavalry. But though Bussy was released, he was not pardoned;
+he was banished to his estate. Notwithstanding his abject supplications,
+which were incessantly renewed, he remained an exile for sixteen years.
+At last, in 1682, he was graciously permitted to re-appear at court.
+His happiness was, however, still incomplete; for the courtiers soon
+began to cabal against him, and the monarch to treat him coldly; and,
+though he succeeded in procuring a pension for himself, and pensions and
+preferments for his children, he failed to obtain the blue riband and a
+marshal’s staff, which were the great objects of his ambition. He died in
+1693.
+
+A longer term of imprisonment than was undergone by Bussy Rabutin fell to
+the lot of the next prisoner. Among the victims of the persecution which
+was carried on against the Jansenists, was Louis Isaac le Maistre, better
+known by the name of Saci, which is an anagram formed by him from one of
+his christian names. He was born in 1613, and was educated at the college
+of Beauvais, along with his uncle, the celebrated Anthony Arnauld. Though
+he was early destined to the clerical profession, he did not take orders
+till he was in his thirty-fifth year; a praiseworthy humility having
+long induced him to doubt his being competent to fulfill properly the
+duties of a gospel minister. He was soon after appointed director of the
+Port Royal nuns, on which occasion he took up his abode in the convent,
+resigning to it all his property, except a small annuity, and of that he
+distributed the largest portion to the poor. His time was spent in study,
+prayer, and pious exercises. But a blameless life was not sufficient to
+shield him from theological hatred. In 1661, he was compelled to fly
+from the convent, and he remained in concealment till 1666, when he was
+discovered and conveyed to the Bastile. In that prison he was immured for
+three years and a half, and he solaced his lonely hours by undertaking a
+translation of the Bible, a considerable part of which he accomplished
+while he was held in durance. He, however, did not live to complete it.
+In the autumn of 1669 he was set at liberty. The minister, to whom he was
+presented on leaving the Bastile, seems to have been willing to grant him
+some favour, as a compensation for his unmerited sufferings; but all that
+Saci asked was, that the prisoners might be more leniently treated. After
+the destruction of Port Royal, he found an asylum in the house of his
+cousin, the Marquis of Pomponne, and there he ended his days, in 1684.
+Saci was such an enemy to controversy that, though often attacked, he is
+said never to have replied except in one instance. Voltaire speaks of him
+as “one of the good writers of Port Royal.” In the poetical compositions
+of Saci, which were his earliest literary attempts, there are passages
+that rise above mediocrity. Among his principal works, besides his
+version of the Bible, are translations of the Psalms, St. Thomas à
+Kempis, two books of the Eneid, the Fables of Phædrus, and three of the
+Comedies of Terence.
+
+From the pious and humble pastor we must turn to a very different sort
+of personage, to one of the courtier species, a man more remarkable for
+his sudden rise, and for the vicissitudes which he experienced, than for
+genius or virtue. Three of his eminent contemporaries have left on record
+their opinion of Antoninus de Caumont, Count, and afterwards, Duke of
+Lauzun. The witty Bussy Rabutin pithily describes him as being “one of
+the least men, in mind as well as body, that God ever created.” The more
+phlegmatic Duke of Berwick says of him, “he had a sort of talent, which,
+however, consisted only in turning every thing into ridicule, insinuating
+himself into every body’s confidence, worming out their secrets, and
+playing upon their foibles. He was noble in his carriage, generous,
+and lived in a splendid style. He loved high play, and played like a
+gentleman. His figure was very diminutive, and it is incomprehensible how
+he could ever have become a favourite with the ladies.” The satirical St.
+Simon has drawn, in his best manner, a full-length portrait of Lauzun,
+which has scarcely a single redeeming feature. He does, indeed, allow,
+that he was a good friend, “when he chanced to be a friend, which was
+rarely,” and a good relation; that he had noble manners, and was brave
+to excess. This is the sole speck of light in the picture; the rest is
+all shade. In the likeness drawn by St. Simon, we see Lauzun, “full
+of ambition, caprices, and whimsies, jealous of every one, striving
+always to go beyond the mark, never satisfied, illiterate, unadorned and
+unattractive in mind, morose, solitary, and unsociable in disposition,
+mischievous and spiteful by nature, and still more so from ambition and
+jealousy, prompt to become an enemy, even to those who were not his
+rivals, cruel in exposing defects, and in finding and making subjects for
+ridicule, scattering his ill-natured wit about him without sparing any
+one, and, to crown the whole, a courtier equally insolent, scoffing, and
+base even to servility, and replete with arts, intrigues, and meannesses,
+to accomplish his designs.” Such was the man whom the king long delighted
+to honour.
+
+Lauzun, who at his outset bore the title of Marquis de Puyguilhem, was
+the youngest son of a noble Gascon family, and was introduced at court
+by the Marshal de Grammont, his relation. He soon became the favourite
+of Louis, who heaped riches and places upon him: some of the latter
+were expressly created for him. When the Duke of Mazarin resigned the
+mastership of the ordnance, the king promised it to Lauzun, but bound
+him to keep the matter secret for a short time. The folly and vanity of
+the favourite, who could not refrain from boasting of his good fortune,
+were the cause of his disappointment. Louvois thus obtained a knowledge
+of the nomination, and remonstrated against it so strongly, and with such
+sound reasons, that it was revoked by the monarch. On this occasion a
+scene took place such as has seldom occurred between monarch and subject.
+After having vainly tried to persuade the king to carry into effect his
+original intention, Lauzun burst into a furious passion, turned his
+back on him, broke his own sword under his foot, and vowed that he would
+never again serve a prince who had violated his word so shamefully.
+Louis acted in this instance with true dignity. Opening the window, he
+threw out his cane, and, as he was quitting the room, he coolly said, “I
+should be sorry to have struck a man of rank.” The next morning, however,
+Lauzun was conveyed to the Bastile. But Louis was soon induced to forgive
+the offender, and even to offer him, as an indemnity for his loss, the
+post of captain of the royal guards. It strongly marks the insolence of
+Lauzun, that he at first refused the proffered grace, and that entreaties
+were required to induce him to accept it.
+
+Lauzun had scarcely been twelve months out of the Bastile, before
+he had an opportunity of becoming the richest subject in Europe. A
+grand-daughter of Henry IV., the celebrated Duchess of Montpensier,
+usually known by the appellation of Mademoiselle, who had reached her
+forty-second year, fell violently in love with him. In her Memoirs she
+gives a curious and amusing account of her wooing, for the courtship
+was all on the side of the lady. So completely had Lauzun recovered his
+influence, that the king gave his consent to their union. The marriage
+contract secured to him three duchies and twenty millions of livres. A
+second time his fortune was marred by his vanity. His friends urged him
+to hasten the nuptials, but he delayed, that they might be celebrated
+with royal splendour. Of this delay his enemies availed themselves to
+work upon the pride of the monarch, and they succeeded in breaking off
+the match. The duchess was rendered inconsolable by this event; Lauzun
+seems to have borne it with sufficient philosophy. A secret marriage
+between them is believed to have subsequently taken place.
+
+Lauzun was supposed to be now more firmly fixed than ever in the
+king’s good graces. He was placed at the head of the army which, in
+1670, escorted the king and the court to Flanders, and he displayed
+extraordinary magnificence in this command. But, flattering as
+appearances were, he was on the eve of his fall. He had two active and
+powerful enemies; Louvois, whom he constantly thwarted and provoked in
+various ways, and Madame de Montespan, the king’s mistress, whom he
+had more than once grossly insulted. Political rivalry and hatred and
+female revenge were finally triumphant. The minister and the mistress
+so incessantly laboured to blacken Lauzun, whose private marriage with
+Mademoiselle is said to have aided their efforts, that, in November 1671,
+he was sent to the Bastile, whence he was soon after removed to the
+fortress of Pignerol. In that fortress he was closely confined in a cell
+for nearly five years. His situation was at length somewhat ameliorated,
+but his imprisonment was continued for five years more. It is probable
+that he would have spent the rest of his days at Pignerol, had not the
+Duchess of Montpensier purchased his freedom, by sacrificing the duchy
+of Aumale, the earldom of Eu, and the principality of Dombes, to form an
+appanage for the illegitimate son of Louis by Madame de Montespan. It is
+an additional stain on the character of Lauzun, that he proved ungrateful
+to his deliverer.
+
+Though Lauzun was released, he was not suffered to approach the court.
+Tired of his exile from Versailles, he passed over to England. On the
+revolution of 1688 breaking out, James placed the queen and the infant
+prince under his care, to be conveyed to France. This trust opened the
+way to his re-admission into the royal presence, and to his being created
+a duke; but he never regained the confidence of the monarch. He led a
+reinforcement of the French troops to James in Ireland; and displayed, as
+the Duke of Berwick states, none of the qualities of a general. He died
+in 1723, at the age of more than ninety. The closing scene of his life
+was perhaps the only one for which he deserves praise. His disease was
+cancer in the mouth, the protracted and horrible torture of which he bore
+with astonishing temper and fortitude.
+
+The severe example which was made of de Bouteville, in the reign of Louis
+XIII., though it gave a temporary check to the practice of duelling,
+was far from putting an end to it. Nor did better success attend the
+ordinances issued in 1634 by Louis XIII., and in 1643, 1651, and 1670,
+by Louis XIV. The feebleness of the royal authority, during a disturbed
+regency, and the war of the Fronde, with the quarrels arising out of it,
+doubtless tended to neutralize the laws. But, even when Louis XIV. was
+in uncontested possession of despotic power, we find that the murderous
+custom of fighting in parties was still existing. In 1663, a famous duel
+took place between the two La Frettes, Saint Aignan, and Argenlieu,
+on the one side, and Chalais, Noirmoutier, d’Antin, and Flamarens, on
+the other. The axe was at length laid to the root of the evil, by the
+edict of August 1679, which constituted the marshals of France, and the
+governors of provinces, supreme judges in all cases where individuals
+supposed their honour to have been wounded. This edict prohibited,
+under the heaviest penalties, all private combats and rencounters, both
+within and without the kingdom. One clause seems excellently calculated
+to produce its intended effect, no less by the insinuation with which
+it opens, than by the denunciations with which it concludes. “Those,”
+it says, “who, doubting of their own courage, shall have called in the
+aid of seconds, thirds, or a greater number of persons, shall, besides
+the punishment of death and confiscation, be degraded from their
+nobility, and have their coat of arms publicly blackened and broken by
+the hangman; their successors shall be obliged to adopt new arms; and
+the seconds, thirds, and other accomplices, shall be punished in the
+same manner.” This salutary edict appears to have nearly accomplished
+the purpose for which it was framed. The slavish fear of incurring the
+displeasure of the sovereign, a feeling which was so prevalent among the
+courtiers of Louis XIV., perhaps aided materially in producing obedience
+to the law. It would have been well if a worse effect had never resulted
+from that kind of fear.
+
+Among the fashionable gladiators of those days was Philip d’Oger, Marquis
+of Cavoie, a man whom nature had liberally endowed with the means of
+shining in a nobler sphere. Cavoie, born in 1640, and descended from an
+ancient Picard family, was the son of a woman of talent, who gained the
+good graces of Anne of Austria, and availed herself of her influence
+to forward the fortune of her offspring. His personal appearance was
+greatly in his favour; he was one of the handsomest and best made men in
+France, and he dressed with singular elegance. His courage, too, was no
+less conspicuous than his corporeal qualities. In 1666, he served as a
+volunteer on board of the Dutch fleet, under De Ruyter; and in the battle
+with the Duke of Albemarle he distinguished himself by the perilous
+exploit of proceeding in a boat to cut the cable with which some English
+sloops were towing down a fire-ship on the Dutch admiral. He succeeded
+in his daring attempt, and escaped unhurt. By this gallant action he
+acquired the friendship of the celebrated Turenne. Long before this he
+had become known as “the brave Cavoie,” in consequence of his gallant
+bearing in the single combats which were still too common in France.
+
+It was for having acted as second in one of these combats, that he was
+immured in the Bastile. His imprisonment would, perhaps, have been
+protracted, but for a curious circumstance, of which a pleasant account
+is given by the Duke de St. Simon. Mlle. de Coetlogon, one of the
+maids of honour to the consort of Louis XIV., had fallen madly in love
+with Cavoie. St. Simon describes her as being “ugly, prudent, naïve,
+much-liked, and a very good creature.” It is no slight proof of her
+amiability, that, in a frivolous and satirical court, her sorrows were a
+subject of pity instead of laughter. Cavoie was anything but delighted
+with her idolatrous fondness, which she seemed to glory in manifesting;
+and he strove to rid himself of it by being obdurate, and even downright
+harsh. In spite of his repulsive conduct, however, she became every day
+fonder. When he went to the army, her tears and cries were incessant, and
+during the whole of the campaign she obstinately abstained from adorning
+her person in the smallest degree. It was not till he came back that she
+resumed her customary style of dress. His being committed to the Bastile
+renewed her grief. “She spoke to the king in behalf of Cavoie,” says St.
+Simon, “and not being able to obtain his deliverance, she scolded his
+majesty so violently as to abuse him. The king laughed heartily, at which
+she was so much incensed that she threatened him with her nails, and he
+thought it prudent not to run the risk of them. He every day dined and
+supped publicly with the queen; at dinner it was usual for the Duchess
+of Richelieu and the queen’s maids of honour to wait upon them. On these
+occasions, Coetlogon never would hand any thing to the king; either she
+avoided him, or she flatly refused, and told him that he did not deserve
+to be waited upon by her. Next, she was ill of jaundice, and had violent
+hysterics, and fits of despair. This went so far, that the king and
+queen seriously desired the Duchess of Richelieu to accompany her to the
+Bastile, to see Cavoie; and this was twice or thrice repeated. At last
+he was released, and Coetlogon, in raptures, again took to dressing; but
+it was not without much difficulty that she could be reconciled to the
+king.”
+
+It is delightful to know that the devoted love of this warm-hearted
+female was rewarded; and it is honourable to Louis XIV. that, instead
+of meanly resenting her bursts of passion, he kindly and successfully
+exerted himself to render her happy. In conjunction with the queen, he
+more than once pleaded for the enamoured lady, but he found Cavoie averse
+from a marriage. At length, the death of his grand maréchal-de-logis
+enabled the king to attack Cavoie with advantage. This time, however, he
+spoke in the tone of an absolute monarch; for he insisted that Cavoie
+should wed Mlle. de Coetlogon; but, in return, he promised to put him in
+the road to fortune, and, as a dowry to the portionless maid, he gave
+him the splendid office which had just become vacant. Despotism thus
+exercised may be forgiven, if only for its rarity. Cavoie yielded to the
+command of his sovereign, and the desired union took place. The result
+was more satisfactory than might have been expected. Cavoie proved to be
+an indulgent husband, and she, on her part, never ceased to look up to
+him as a sort of superior being. Neither in her maiden nor in her married
+state, was her virtue for a moment doubted.
+
+Cavoie accompanied Louis XIV. in all his campaigns. At the passage of
+the Rhine, his intrepidity called forth praise from the king himself. A
+report having soon after been spread, that Cavoie was among the slain,
+Louis exclaimed, “O, how grieved M. de Turenne will be!” The courtiers
+who surrounded him were joining in a general chorus of eulogium upon the
+supposed dead man, when a horseman was seen plunging into the river on
+the opposite side, and swimming over. It was Cavoie, whom the Prince de
+Condé had sent to the monarch, to announce to him the complete success
+of his army.
+
+For many years Cavoie was held in high esteem at court, and enjoyed the
+confidence of his master. A circumstance at length occurred to disturb
+his peace. He had hoped to be included in the number of those on whom the
+order of the Holy Ghost was conferred in 1688, but he was disappointed.
+This disappointment was the work of Louvois, who hated him, because he
+was the old and firm friend of the Marquis de Seignalai. Wounded by this
+slight, the grand maréchal wrote a letter to Louis, informing him that he
+intended to retire. But the vows of chagrined courtiers are as brittle
+as those of lovers. The king called him into his cabinet, and, with that
+graciousness which he well knew how to assume, he said to him, “We have
+lived too long together to part now; I cannot let you quit me; I will see
+that you shall be satisfied.” Cavoie abandoned his design of withdrawing
+from court; but the promised blue riband was never bestowed on him.
+
+At a later period, about twenty years before his decease, he resumed and
+carried into execution his purpose of seceding from public life. He was
+a patron of literary characters in general, and was in habits of close
+intimacy with Racine, Boileau, and other eminent authors. Cavoie died in
+1716, at the age of 76, leaving behind him the enviable reputation of
+having been a man on whose sincerity and probity an implicit reliance
+might with safety be placed.
+
+From Cavoie we pass to an individual of a less estimable character.
+Louis, Prince of Rohan, commonly known by the title of the Chevalier
+Rohan, a degenerate descendant from illustrious ancestors, was born
+about 1635. Rohan was endowed by nature with a handsome and graceful
+person, and many intellectual qualities; but all these advantages were
+nullified by his follies and vices. The Marquis de la Fare describes
+him as being made up of contradictions; sometimes witty, at others the
+contrary; sometimes dignified and brave, at others mean and dastardly.
+In the annals of gallantry he seems to have been ambitious of holding a
+conspicuous place. The most celebrated of his amorous adventures was his
+carrying off, aided by her brother, the Duke of Nevers, the beautiful
+and frail Hortensia Mancini, who was united to the contemptible Duke
+of Mazarin. That he gamed high, and was careless of his gold, we learn
+from an anecdote which is related of him. He had lost to the king, at
+the gaming-table, a large sum, which was to be paid in louis-d’or. Rohan
+counted out seven or eight hundred, but, not having enough of them, he
+added two hundred Spanish pistoles. Louis objected to the latter, upon
+which the chevalier snatched them up, and threw them out of the window,
+saying at the same time, “Since your majesty will not have them, they
+are good for nothing.” The king complained of this to Cardinal Mazarin,
+who replied, “Sire, the Chevalier de Rohan played like a king, and you
+played like a Chevalier de Rohan.” This action of Rohan has been praised
+as a “piquant lesson” to Louis; it seems, however, to have been rather an
+absurd mode of rebuking the monarch’s unprincely conduct.
+
+Rohan continued in favour at court for several years, and in 1656 was
+appointed grand huntsman of France, an office equivalent to our master
+of the buck-hounds; he was afterwards made colonel of the guards. He
+served in 1654, 1655, 1672, and 1677, and displayed great valour.
+The commencement of his decline seems to have been his being obliged
+to give up the office of grand huntsman, in consequence of his amour
+with the Duchess of Mazarin. His extravagance and profligacy at length
+ruined his fortune and reputation. To repair his shattered finances,
+he engaged in a plot, at once treasonable and absurd, which completed
+the destruction of his character, and brought him to the scaffold. Into
+this scheme he was seduced by Latruaumont, a Norman officer, a man as
+impoverished and licentious as himself. Their accomplices were Preault,
+a young officer, the Marchioness of Villiers-Bourdeville, his mistress,
+and a schoolmaster, named Van den Enden; all of whom are said to have
+disbelieved that the soul is immortal. Their plan was, to put into the
+hands of the Dutch the town of Quillebœuf, in Normandy, and to excite
+the province to revolt, for which service they were to be liberally
+rewarded. The magnitude of their project forms a striking contrast with
+the scantiness of their means. The conspiracy was discovered by the
+government, before the conspirators could begin their operations. Rohan
+was committed to the Bastile, and M. de Brissac was sent into Normandy to
+arrest Latruaumont. The latter defended himself, was mortally wounded,
+and died in a few hours. He had at least some honourable feelings, for,
+in order to save his confederates, he persisted to the last moment that
+he was the sole criminal. The friends of Rohan nightly made the circuit
+of the Bastile, and vociferated, through a speaking-trumpet, “Latruaumont
+is dead, and has confessed nothing.” They were, however, unheard by the
+chevalier. He, meanwhile, was perseveringly pressed to acknowledge his
+guilt, but he refused; and, as his participation in the plot was known
+only to the deceased, and no written proof existed against him, he
+might have saved his life, had he not been circumvented by one of those
+stratagems which were employed against prisoners. De Bezons, one of the
+counsellors of state who interrogated the captive, had the baseness to
+assure him that the king meant to pardon him if he would declare the
+truth, although every thing was already known from the dying avowal
+of Latruaumont. Trusting to the assurances of his treacherous adviser,
+Rohan acknowledged his treason. He soon learned the deceit which had been
+practised on him; and he burst into such violent paroxysms of rage, that
+his keepers were compelled to manacle him that he might not lay violent
+hands on himself. Rohan and his accomplices were soon after sentenced
+to death; they were executed in front of the Bastile, on the 27th of
+November, 1674. In spite of her erroneous principles, the sufferer most
+worthy of pity was, perhaps, Madame de Villiers, who displayed a noble
+fortitude and forgiving spirit. The only evidence against her was some of
+her letters to Preault, which he had unwisely preserved. At first, she
+uttered a few words of mild reproof for his fatal imprudence; but she
+quickly changed her tone, and said with a smile, “We must not think on
+what is passed, but only how to die.”
+
+The same year that consigned Rohan to the scaffold, saw his place in the
+Bastile filled by a youthful victim, who was doomed to waste a large part
+of his life in captivity, for having offended a vindictive and powerful
+religious body. His name is not recorded, but it is evident that he was
+of a good family.
+
+Louis XIV. was requested, by the Jesuits of Clermont College, to be
+present at the representation of a tragedy by their pupils. He complied,
+and was highly gratified by the piece; the more so, perhaps, as it was
+thickly strewn with passages in praise of him. A nobleman in attendance
+having spoken to him in terms of admiration, as to the manner in which
+the drama had been played, the king replied, “Where’s the wonder? is it
+not my college?” These words were not lost upon the principal of the
+college, who was standing by. As soon as the king was gone, the old
+inscription, “_Collegium Claromontanum Societati Jesus_,” which was on
+the front of the building, was taken down, and workmen were all night
+employed to inscribe the words, “_Collegium Ludovici Magni_,” in gold
+letters, on a tablet of black marble.
+
+In the morning the new inscription was seen conspicuously displayed on
+the edifice. A youth of sixteen, a pupil in the college, had the good
+sense and the good taste to be disgusted with this worse than indecorous
+adulation, and he gave vent to his feelings in a Latin distich, which,
+during the night, he fastened on the gate. The meaning of his lines may
+be thus given:
+
+    “Christ’s name expunged, the king’s now fills the stone!
+    O impious race! by this is plainly shown
+    That Louis is the only god you own!”
+
+The pungent lines excited a violent clamour among the Jesuits, and
+no pains were spared to trace the writer. The juvenile offender was
+discovered, and was shut up in the Bastile. After having been confined
+there for a long while, he was transferred to the citadel of St.
+Marguerite, on the coast of Provence. There he continued for several
+years; after which he was taken back to the Bastile. One-and-thirty years
+he passed in this manner, and the remainder of his life would doubtless
+have been consumed in the same way, had he not, in 1705, become sole
+heir to the estates of his family. The confessor of the Bastile, who was
+a jesuit, now remonstrated with his brethren on the impolicy of keeping
+in prison an individual from whom, by procuring his release, they might
+reap such a golden harvest. His advice was taken, and the captive was set
+free at their intercession. There can be no doubt that their tardy and
+interested mercy received a liberal reward.
+
+Among the fellow prisoners of the nameless satirist of the jesuits
+was, for a short time, another writer of verses, but verses of a very
+different kind. The person in question was Charles Dassouci, who
+ludicrously designated himself as “Emperor of the Burlesque, the first
+of that name.” He was born at Paris, about 1604, and was the son of a
+barrister. His bringing up, and his early habits, were not calculated to
+make him an estimable member of society. His parents were separated, and
+the tyranny of a female, who was at once the servant and the concubine
+of his father, drove him from his home. When he was only nine years
+old, he wandered to Calais, where he passed himself off as an adept in
+astrology, the son of Cesar, that dealer in magic whose fate has been
+narrated in the preceding chapter. The boy having, by the power of
+imagination, worked a cure upon a hypochondriacal individual, the wise
+people of Calais considered this fact to be a decisive proof of his
+intercourse with the devil, and were about to throw him into the sea, but
+he was saved by some of his friends, who conveyed him privately out of
+the place. After having led a roving life for some time, he became player
+on the lute and singer to Christina, Duchess of Savoy, the daughter of
+Henry IV. In 1640, he was introduced to Louis XIII., who gave him the
+same situation that he had filled in the household of the duchess, and
+he was continued in it during the minority of Louis XIV. Resolving to
+return to Turin, he quitted Paris in 1655; but, before his departure
+from the kingdom, he visited various parts in the south of France. He
+was accompanied every where by two handsome youths, called his musical
+pages; his connexion with whom afforded to his enemies a reason, or a
+pretext, for fixing a deep stain on his moral character. Failing to
+obtain patronage at Turin, he went to Rome, and there he was put into the
+prison of the Inquisition, for having satirized some powerful prelates.
+On being liberated he went back to Paris, where he was not more fortunate
+than he had been in Italy, for he was committed to the Bastile, in 1675,
+whence he was transferred to the Châtelet. To his licentious conduct and
+writings he is said to have been indebted for his imprisonment, which
+lasted six months. He died about 1679. His principal works are, “Ovid
+in good humour,” which is a travestie upon part of the Metamorphoses;
+Claudian’s Rape of Proserpine burlesqued; and many poems in a similar
+style. Dassouci, who was sometimes called “the ape of Scarron,” received
+a lash from the satirical scourge of Boileau, and he complained heavily
+of the injury. In his Art of Poetry, Boileau thus alludes to the
+popularity which Dassouci had once enjoyed:
+
+    “The scurviest joker charmed some kindred mind,
+    And even Dassouci could readers find.”
+
+It must be owned, however, that in the works of “the emperor of the
+Burlesque,” there are some passages which prove that, though his taste
+and his morals were defective, he was not destitute of talent.
+
+The reader has seen that, with very few exceptions, the prisoners who
+have been mentioned in this chapter belonged to the courtier-class; that
+they were men who seemed to feel a difficulty of breathing whenever they
+did not inhale the vapours of a frivolous and voluptuous court. We ought
+always to abhor injustice, and therefore we must hate the power which was
+unjust to them; but they have no title to that liberal share of our pity
+which is the right of humbler victims, for it was an implied condition of
+their artificial existence that they should bend to a despot’s will; they
+purchased the smiles of their master, the pleasures, such as they were,
+of the Louvre and Versailles, and a portion of the public spoils, by the
+renunciation of their free agency, and by encountering the risk of being
+capriciously transferred from a palace to a dungeon. If, relying on his
+good luck, a man will venture to play with a gambler whom he knows to
+assert the privilege of now and then cogging the dice, his folly perhaps
+deserves more compassion than his misfortune.
+
+Let us now see in what manner other classes were affected by the
+working of an arbitrary government; whether its tyranny was impartially
+distributed among them. A few examples, taken between the years 1660
+and 1670, will enable us to form a tolerably correct judgment upon this
+subject. Before we proceed to give these examples, it may, however, be
+well to apprise the reader, that committals to the Bastile were not
+things of rare occurrence, but the contrary. In 1663, fifty-four persons
+were sent to that dreary pile; in some years the number was fewer; in
+others it rose to nearly a hundred and fifty. The Bastile was so crowded
+in 1665, that a part of the prisoners were obliged to be removed to other
+places of confinement. It must, indeed, have been full to overflowing,
+before this removal could have been thought necessary. Such being the
+case with the Bastile, it is probable that Vincennes, and many other
+state prisons, were in a similar situation.
+
+Though, as far as can be judged from imperfect registers, it appears
+that a large majority of the persons incarcerated in the Bastile were
+the victims of caprice, malice, or religious and political persecution,
+there can be no doubt that many were really criminal. Some instances of
+the latter class occur in the years between 1660 and 1670. The crime of
+coining, which we have seen so common at an earlier period, was still
+prevalent, and was still committed by men who held a respectable rank in
+society. In 1666 twelve coiners were hanged within a fortnight, and they
+accused several others, among whom was a M. Delcampe, who is described
+as “the celebrated master of an academy in the suburb of St. Germain.”
+He was escorted in a carriage to the Bastile, by three companies of the
+guards, and little more than a week elapsed before he was beheaded. The
+crowd to witness his execution was so great, that many persons were
+killed or wounded by being pressed or trampled on.
+
+The Bastile was often employed as an engine of extortion. To contribute
+to the wants of the state, or, rather, to the prodigalities of the
+court, immense sums were levied upon individuals holding offices, and
+upon contractors, and all who had had any concern with the finances.
+It must, of course, have been taken for granted that they had robbed
+the public; and it could hardly have been expected that they would not
+indemnify themselves, by future peculation, for their present loss.
+Messat, a registrar of the council, was Bastiled for remonstrating
+against a demand of six hundred thousand livres from himself and three
+of his colleagues. Catalan, a contractor, shared the same fate, and was
+threatened with death to boot; but after a confinement of several months,
+he ransomed himself for six millions of livres. From another individual
+nine hundred thousand livres, and from three of the treasurers of the
+exchequer several millions, were squeezed by this powerful instrument. M.
+Deschiens, one of M. Colbert’s head clerks, was also frightened into the
+payment of a good round sum, by a visit to the Bastile.
+
+Other equally honourable means of raising money were resorted to; all of
+which helped to fill the prisons as well as the coffers of the monarch.
+Among them were “free gifts,” once known in England under the name of
+“benevolences.” From the city of Sens, for instance, twelve thousand
+livres were demanded as a free gift, besides nearly thrice as much for
+the pay of the gendarmerie. The citizens replied that they had no money,
+but would give a thousand hogsheads of excellent wine. Whether the wine
+was accepted, or whether any of the citizens were imprisoned for the
+misdemeanour of being pennyless, I cannot say.
+
+Immense sums were raised by the sale of offices. For the title of
+counsellor of the court, 75,000 crowns were paid, and 90,000 for a place
+at the board of exchequer. Numerous purchasers were found at far higher
+prices. There is perhaps much truth in Patin’s sarcastic remark on this
+occasion: “They must have robbed at a great rate,” says he, “or they
+would not have so much money to squander.” Monopolies likewise lent
+their aid to replenish the royal store. Niceron, a grocer, who appears
+to have been an agent, or spokesman, of the Parisian companies of
+tradesmen, was lodged in the Bastile for having ventured to remonstrate
+against a projected monopoly of whale oil. Another article of supply
+was the stopping of the annuities payable at the town hall; a measure
+for which we have seen a precedent in the reign of Henry IV. Poignant,
+a respectable citizen of Paris, was sent to the Bastile for having
+spoken on this subject; and a female, named Madame de la Trousse, was,
+for the same cause, prohibited from going to the town hall, or to any
+other meeting, under pain of corporal punishment! On another occasion,
+the President le Lievre was banished from Paris, for having made some
+observations which were unfavourable to the taxes.
+
+The money thus obtained was lavishly spent on the pomps and amusements of
+the court. A part was dissipated at the gaming-table; Louis being then
+a constant and an unlucky gamester. Theatrical entertainments absorbed
+another portion. The getting up of a single grand ballet is said to
+have cost no less than forty thousand pounds. Guy Patin had reason to
+exclaim, “they talk much at the Louvre of balls, ballets, and rejoicings,
+but nothing is said of relieving the people, who are dying of such
+unexampled want, after so great and solemn a general peace has been
+concluded. O pudor! ô mores! ô tempora!”
+
+But though, in his private letters, Patin could venture to censure
+profusion and exaction, he would soon have been fitted with what he
+somewhere calls “a stone doublet,” had he dared to breathe a word
+against them in public. It was dangerous even for a barrister to perform
+faithfully his duty to a client. M. Burai, an eminent advocate, was
+committed to the Bastile, in 1655, for having undertaken the defence of
+Guenegaut, one of the treasurers, who was prosecuted by the government.
+
+The press was completely muzzled. We find De Prez, a printer, sent to
+the Bastile, for having printed a letter by the Bishop of Aleth, which
+displeased the jesuits; a second unlucky typographer, for offending the
+Archbishop of Paris; and a third, named Coquier, for privately printing
+an answer to a work of the Chevalier Talon, who had attacked Coquier’s
+former master, the superintendant Fouquet. It was a perilous task for
+a man to defend himself against the minions of favour. The Journal des
+Sçavans having abused Charles Patin, he was about to reply, when it was
+intimated to him that if he did not desist, the Bastile would receive
+him: the journal happened to be protected by M. Colbert, the minister.
+Such protection gave a decisive advantage over a less fortunate rival.
+The conduct of Renaudot, the printer of the Gazette, affords a strong
+proof of the tyrannical use which was made of it. There appears to have
+been at this period a sort of partnership, the members of which gained a
+livelihood by compiling and vending a manuscript gazette. As the sale of
+this paper diminished that of his own, Renaudot made a bold attempt to
+get rid of his competitors. He is said to have been extremely desirous
+that they should be hanged; but his benevolent wish was not gratified.
+He had, however, the satisfaction of procuring seven of them to be sent
+to the Bastile, one of whom was publicly whipped through the streets.
+Yet these measures, harsh as they were, did not succeed in putting down
+the manuscript gazetteers; for, five years afterwards, six more of them
+were committed to prison. From its long continuance, and the risks which
+the traders were willing to encounter, we may infer that the trade was
+productive.
+
+To have a different opinion from the sovereign, as to the merit of any
+one whom he placed in office, was a heavy offence. M. de Montespan
+expiated, by imprisonment in Fort-l’Evêque, his having doubted the
+wisdom of choosing M. Montausier as governor to the dauphin. Some were
+thrown into the Bastile for impossible crimes; such was the case of St.
+Severin, a priest, who was accused of sorcery. Of others, the fault and
+the meaning of their punishment are now undiscoverable. With respect to
+L’Epine, a priest, for example, we are only told that he was discharged
+from the Bastile, on condition of quitting Paris within twenty-four
+hours, and going to Egypt. The reason of this singular species of
+banishment must remain an enigma.
+
+One of the instances in which despair prompted an inmate of the Bastile
+to commit suicide, occurred in 1669, and is recorded by Patin. “A state
+prisoner,” says he, “has poisoned himself in the Bastile, terrified by
+the punishment which could not fail to be inflicted on him, for having
+spoken very badly _de Domino Priore_.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+    The Poisoners—The Marchioness of Brinvilliers—Penautier—La
+    Voisin and her accomplices and dupes—The “Chambre Ardente”—The
+    Countess of Soissons—The Duchess of Bouillon—The Duke of
+    Luxembourg—Stephen de Bray—The Abbé Primi—Andrew Morell—Madame
+    Guyon—Courtils de Sandraz—Constantine de Renneville—The
+    Man with the Iron Mask—Jansenists—Tiron, Veillant,
+    and Lebrun Desmarets—The Count de Bucquoy—The Duke de
+    Richelieu—Miscellaneous Prisoners.
+
+
+In the year 1676, the Bastile received a criminal, whose guilt was of the
+blackest dye, and who was soon followed by a crowd of imitators, more
+profoundly wicked, if possible, than she herself was. Poisoning was their
+crime, and the practice of it became so common, that Madame de Sévigné
+expresses a fear that, in foreign countries, the words Frenchman and
+poisoner would be considered as synonymous.
+
+Foremost in the dark catalogue stands the Marchioness of Brinvilliers,
+the daughter of Dreux d’Aubrai, the Civil Lieutenant. She was beautiful,
+reserved in her manners, and apparently devout; but her heart was
+corrupted to the core. From her own confession, it appears, that when
+she was only seven years old, she had already lost her maiden innocence,
+and had also set fire to a house. Her later years were worthy of this
+beginning. Between 1666 and 1670, she poisoned her father, two brothers,
+a sister, and many of her acquaintance. She is said to have administered
+poison to her husband, though without effect; and also, with fatal
+success, to the poor, and the sick in the hospitals, to whom she gave
+biscuits, in which deadly drugs were mixed. The latter facts are denied
+by Voltaire; they are, however, positively affirmed by Madame de Sévigné.
+
+The diabolical art which she so widely practised was learned from St.
+Croix, a young officer, who was her paramour. He was a friend of her
+husband, who, in opposition to her real or feigned remonstrances, made
+him an inmate of his house. A criminal intimacy soon took place between
+the wife and the friend. The husband, a man of dissipated habits,
+seems to have been regardless of their intrigue; but her father was so
+disgusted by its shameless publicity that he obtained a lettre-de-cachet,
+and St. Croix was lodged in the Bastile, where he continued for twelve
+months. There St. Croix was placed in the same apartment with Exili,
+an Italian, who was confined on suspicion of being, as he really was,
+a compounder and vender of poisons. Exili taught St. Croix all his
+detestable secrets, and the latter communicated them to the marchioness,
+who was a willing scholar.
+
+St. Croix died suddenly in 1672, and, as he had no relatives, the
+government took possession of his effects. Among them was a small box,
+which was importunately claimed by the marchioness. It was opened, and
+found to contain a note, desiring that it might be delivered, without the
+contents being disturbed, to Madame de Brinvilliers. The box was filled
+with poisons of all kinds, some of the marchioness’s letters to him, and
+a note of hand to him, for 30,000 livres, bearing her signature.
+
+Disappointed in all attempts to gain possession of the box, and finding
+that suspicion began to fall heavily upon her, Brinvilliers took flight.
+After having visited England, she fixed her residence at Liege. Fresh
+presumptions of her guilt having arisen, it was resolved to arrest her.
+Desgrais, the exempt of police, was accordingly despatched to Liege.
+He disguised himself as an Abbé, pretended to be enamoured of her,
+insinuated himself into her good graces, and ultimately succeeded in
+seizing the lady and her papers, and conveying them to Paris.
+
+Brinvilliers now disavowed all knowledge of the box; but it was too
+late. For a little while her spirits deserted her, and she made an
+ineffectual attempt at suicide. She, however, soon rallied them, and
+preserved her courage to the last. Among her papers was found a written
+confession of the numerous crimes which she had committed. To extort an
+oral confession, it was resolved to put her to the ordinary question,
+which consisted in forcing down the throat of the culprit an immense
+quantity of water. When she saw three buckets in the torture room, she
+coolly observed, “This must be for the purpose of drowning me, for they
+can never expect to make a woman of my size drink it all.” She was saved
+from the trial, by making a full avowal of her misdeeds. Her sentence she
+heard with an unaltered countenance. In the last twenty-four hours of
+her existence she is said to have manifested sincere penitence. She was
+beheaded, and her remains were burned, on the 16th of July, 1676. It will
+perhaps scarcely be believed that, on the morrow, the besotted populace
+collected her ashes; assigning as their reason for so doing, that she was
+a saint!
+
+With Brinvilliers was implicated Penautier, who held the lucrative
+offices of treasurer-general of the clergy, and of the states of
+Languedoc. He was known to be her intimate friend, and was believed,
+apparently with reason, to be one of her favoured lovers. It is asserted,
+that in the box which was left by St. Croix, there was a packet of
+poison, addressed to Penautier. That the receiver-general had the
+reputation of making use of such packets is certain, and was a subject
+of public jest. Cardinal de Bonzi, archbishop of Narbonne, who was his
+strenuous protector, used to say laughingly, “None of those who have
+pensions on my benefices are long-lived, for my star is fatal to them
+all.” The caustic Abbé Fouquet one day saw the prelate and Penautier in
+a carriage together, and he told everybody that he had just met Cardinal
+de Bonzi and his star. Penautier was imprisoned, and appears to have been
+in imminent danger; from which he is said to have been extricated only by
+the most powerful influence, and the sacrifice of half his riches.
+
+Instead of operating as a warning, the execution of the marchioness would
+rather seem to have stimulated others to the commission of the horrible
+species of crime for which she suffered. After her death, poisoning is
+said to have become prevalent to an extraordinary degree. Loud complaints
+arose from numbers of families, members of which were supposed to have
+been taken off secretly by their enemies, or by those who were eager to
+inherit their riches. It was with reference to the latter motive that
+the name of “powder of succession” was given to the drug administered.
+We may believe that the complaints were not unfrequently groundless—for
+it has always been the practice of weak minds to ascribe sudden death to
+poison—but still, it is certain that there were very many cases in which
+the suspicion was borne out by facts.
+
+So general did the clamour become, that, in January, 1660, the king
+issued an ordinance, naming commissioners, who were to hold their
+sittings at the Arsenal, for the purpose of trying poisoners and
+magicians! This commission is known by the name of _la Chambre Ardente_.
+It has been supposed, that it derived this appellation from its being
+established to take cognizance of crimes which were punishable by fire.
+This appears to be a mistake; the name having, in old times, been given
+to the hall in which criminals of high birth were tried, and which was
+so called because it was hung with black, and lighted with torches. The
+same title was, however, borne by a sort of committee, which Francis II.
+instituted in each parliament, for the trial of protestants, and which
+mercilessly condemned them to the flames.
+
+The principal distributor of the poisons, a widow, by the name of
+Monvoisin, but who was known under the appellation of La Voisin,
+was already in the Bastile, with about forty persons charged as her
+accomplices. The most prominent of these subordinate culprits were, a
+female, named La Vigoureux, and her brother, and Cœuvrit, a priest,
+who was called Lesage. La Voisin was a midwife; but her profession not
+proving lucrative, she deserted it for the more profitable speculation of
+turning to account the credulity, the folly, and at last the vices, of
+mankind. The most innocent part of her employment consisted in telling
+fortunes on the cards, discovering stolen goods, casting nativities, and
+selling charms and spells, to render women beautiful and beloved, and men
+invulnerable and fortunate! Her pretensions to supernatural skill did not
+stop here; for she boldly undertook to show spirits, and even the devil
+himself, to her dupes. Such is the cullibility of the crowd, whether of
+high or low degree, that the number of her visitors, the majority of whom
+were people of rank, soon enabled her to remove from a mean lodging into
+a splendid mansion, and keep an equipage and a train of attendants. That
+her house was made a convenience for the purposes of seduction, and for
+carrying on illicit connexions, there can be no doubt; many of those who
+frequented it, of both sexes, being notorious profligates. The round of
+La Voisin’s occupations was completed by the sale of poisons to those who
+were desirous of destroying the proof of incontinence, taking vengeance
+on a rival or an enemy, or getting rid of superannuated husbands and
+long-lived relatives.
+
+The newly-established tribunal found the whole of the prisoners guilty.
+All but La Voisin were condemned to punishments short of death; to
+imprisonment, exile, or the galleys. She alone was sentenced to be burned
+alive on the Place de Grêve, and her ashes scattered to the winds. The
+narrative of her last hours proves that, to a considerable portion of
+brutal courage, or rather insensibility, she added the most disgusting
+sensuality, vulgarity, and impiety. When she was informed of her doom,
+she invited her guards to have a midnight revel with her, at which she
+drank largely of wine, and sang twenty bacchanalian songs. The next
+evening, after having undergone the question, she repeated the revel; and
+when she was told that she had better think on God, and sing hymns, she
+sang two hymns in a burlesque style. On the morning of her execution, she
+was enraged at being refused any other food than soup. Before she was
+placed in the sledge, she was advised to confess; but she obstinately
+refused, and thrust away from her the confessor and the cross. At Nôtre
+Dame, it was impossible to make her repeat the amende honorable, and when
+she reached the Grêve she struggled furiously against the officers, and
+it was not without using force that they could take her from the vehicle,
+bind her, and place her on the pile. Consistent to the last, she several
+times kicked off the straw, poured forth a volley of oaths, and did not
+cease her violence till the flames deprived her of the power of motion
+and speech.
+
+Either with the hope of obtaining impunity, by implicating the great and
+powerful in her crimes, or, which her character renders more probable,
+that she might enjoy the malignant delight of involving them in her
+ruin, La Voisin disclosed the names of many of the noblest personages
+of the court, who had consulted her; and she stated circumstances which
+gave rise to terrible suspicions against them. Among those whom she thus
+dragged into public view, were the Countess of Soissons and the Duchess
+of Bouillon, nieces of Cardinal Mazarin, the Princess de Tingri, Madame
+de Polignac, and the Duke of Luxembourg. Against some of the suspected or
+accused individuals, the Chamber issued warrants; others it summoned to
+appear, and answer interrogatories.
+
+The Countess of Soissons, mother of the celebrated Prince Eugene, was a
+woman whose reputation was already sullied by the stains of political
+and amorous intrigue. Among the crimes which were attributed to her,
+was the death of her husband, who died suddenly in 1673. In her early
+years, before he became enamoured of her sister Mary, Louis had paid her
+some attentions. It was probably the remembrance of his transient flame
+that induced him to send to the countess a message, that if she were
+innocent he advised her to enter the Bastile, in which case he would
+befriend her, but that, if she were guilty, she might retire wherever
+she pleased. She replied that she was blameless, but that she could not
+endure imprisonment. The countess immediately set off for Brussels, and
+she never returned to France. It would, however, be doing her injustice
+to conceal, that she offered to come back and justify herself, on
+condition that she should not be confined while the trial was pending.
+The condition was not granted, and she died in exile, in 1708.
+
+The Duchess of Bouillon, her sister, passed through the ordeal more
+triumphantly. There is something amusing in the flippant contempt with
+which she treated her judges. The carriages of nine dukes went in
+procession with her to the Chambre Ardente, into which she was handed
+by her husband and the Duke of Vendôme. Before she would take notice of
+any question that was put to her, she ordered the clerk to minute down,
+“that she came there solely out of respect to the king’s orders, and not
+at all to the Chamber, which she would not recognize, because she would
+not derogate from the privilege of the ducal class.” She then answered,
+but with no small disdain, the various questions, some of which were,
+in truth, ridiculous enough. Her reason for going to La Voisin’s house
+was, she said, that she wished to see the Sibyls, which that female had
+promised to show her. La Reynie, one of the judges, being absurd enough
+to ask if she had seen the devil, she replied that she saw him at that
+moment, that he was very ugly and filthy, and was disguised in the garb
+of a counsellor of state. As she quitted the court, she said aloud, that
+she had never before heard so many foolish speeches so gravely uttered.
+There being nothing more to urge against her than that she had been
+credulous and sillily curious, no further proceedings were taken by the
+court, but, angry at her having made laughing-stocks of his magistrates,
+Louis sent her in exile to Nerac, in the distant province of Guienne.
+
+If in France military talents of the highest order, and important
+services rendered to the state, had possessed any protecting influence,
+Francis Henry de Montmorenci, Duke of Luxembourg, would not have been
+made a prisoner, and nearly a victim, by an implacable and unprincipled
+minister. Luxembourg was the posthumous son of that Bouteville whom,
+in a preceding chapter, we have seen consigned to the scaffold for the
+crime of duelling. He was warmly patronised by the Princess of Condé,
+who placed him as aide-de-camp to her son. The young Condé soon became
+attached to him. At the battle of Lens, Bouteville distinguished himself
+so greatly, that, though he was not more than twenty, Anne of Austria
+made him a major-general.
+
+During the war of the Fronde, Bouteville followed the fortunes of Condé;
+he joined the Spaniards with him, acquired in numerous encounters a
+well-merited reputation, and, finally, returned to his allegiance along
+with his friend. There is an anecdote recorded of him, on the latter
+occasion, which is much to his honour. After Bouteville had ceased to
+bear arms against France, the Spanish monarch sent him 60,000 crowns, as
+a reward for his services. He refused to take the money: “I never,” said
+he, “considered myself in the service of Spain, and will receive favours
+only from my own sovereign.” Soon after this, he married the heiress
+of the house of Luxembourg, by which union he gained a dukedom, and a
+splendid fortune. If we may believe St. Simon, rank and riches were all
+that the husband derived from this match, the lady being “frightfully
+ugly, both in figure and face,” and not at all atoning for her personal
+defects by intellectual qualities. As far as regarded beauty, the pair
+had no right to reproach each other; for Luxembourg himself had repulsive
+features, a prominence on his chest, and another behind.
+
+Between 1667 and 1679, Luxembourg, sometimes commander-in-chief,
+sometimes as second to the great Condé and the Duke of Orleans,
+displayed, in Franche Comté, Holland, and Flanders, a degree of skill
+which gave him a conspicuous place in the first class of generals: in
+fact, Turenne having fallen, and Condé retired, Luxembourg had no equal
+in France. The marshal’s staff was conferred on him in 1675.
+
+But neither the ancient descent, nor the high rank, nor the still higher
+renown, of Luxembourg, were sufficient to shield him from the malice
+of his potent enemy. That enemy was Louvois,—Louvois, the perpetual
+inciter of Louis to war, the director of the horrible crimes committed
+by the French troops in Holland, and the incendiary of the Palatinate.
+He was, at one time, the friend of Luxembourg, but they quarrelled; and
+he thenceforth hated him, with even a more deadly hatred than he had
+cherished against Turenne. The affair of the poisoners seemed to afford
+him an opportunity, which he eagerly seized, of disgracing, and perhaps
+destroying, the duke.
+
+It was by a credulous belief in the power of pretended sorcerers, that
+Luxembourg was brought into peril. Bonnard, clerk to one of his lawyers,
+had lost some papers, which were indispensable to the success of a
+lawsuit instituted by the duke. To recover them, he applied to Lesage,
+one of the confederates of La Voisin. Lesage required 2,000 crowns,
+and the performance of certain mummeries by Bonnard; and his demand
+was granted. The papers were then found to be in the hands of a girl
+named Dupin, who refused to give them up. A power of attorney was now
+obtained from the duke, by Bonnard, authorizing steps to be taken against
+Dupin, to compel her to resign the papers. This he gave to Lesage, who,
+between the body of the document and the signature, inserted two lines,
+containing a transfer of the duke’s soul to his Satanic majesty. Luckily,
+the clumsy forger had written these lines in a hand writing quite
+different from that of the instrument itself. This compact with the devil
+formed the main proof against Luxembourg. He appears, indeed, to have
+afforded a further pretext for suspicion, by his weakness in applying to
+Lesage for the horoscopes of various individuals.
+
+It was on this slender foundation that the plot against him was built.
+When his name began to be called in question, he is said to have been
+insidiously counselled by Louvois, to save himself by flight. The brave
+Cavoie, who was his friend, proved himself to be so, by advising him
+to surrender himself voluntarily to the Bastile; and this advice was
+wisely followed by the duke. On his arrival there, he was placed in a
+comfortable chamber, and, on the second day, he underwent a preliminary
+interrogation. But it was not the intention of the minister who had
+driven him into a prison, that he should enjoy any comfort there; and
+accordingly, on the third day, he was removed to one of the filthiest of
+dungeons, not more than six feet and a half in diameter, and no further
+notice was taken of him for five weeks. He claimed his privilege, as a
+peer, of being tried by the Parliament, but no attention was paid to his
+claim, and he was obliged to be contented with protesting against this
+denial of justice. It was afterwards made a subject of reproach to him,
+by some of the peers, that he had not stood up with sufficient boldness
+for the rights of the peerage.
+
+Luxembourg remained for fourteen months in the noisome den into which
+Louvois had thrown him. The fetid atmosphere which he breathed, the want
+of exercise, and the disturbed state of his mind, brought on a fit of
+illness, and so much injured his constitution that he never thoroughly
+recovered. It must have been no small aggravation of his sufferings, that
+he was occasionally drawn forth, to be confronted with the profligate
+Lesage, and others of the same class, and to hear them impudently charge
+him with the foulest crimes. Lesage maintained, that the duke had entered
+into the compact with Satan for the purpose of procuring the death of
+Dupin; his accomplices added, that by his order they had murdered her,
+cut the body into quarters, and thrown it into the river. Besides this
+improbable story, they told another, equally improbable, that he had
+given poisoned wine to a brother of Dupin, and to a mistress whom that
+brother kept, and had endeavoured to destroy several persons by means of
+sorcery. Their depositions may, indeed, contest the palm of absurdity and
+falsehood with those of Titus Oates and his perjured associates.
+
+This, however, was not all. It would seem, from their evidence, that
+the duke had driven a hard bargain with the prince of darkness, for
+they asserted that the compact was designed not only to bring about the
+murder of Dupin, but also to obtain the government of a province or a
+fortress, and the marriage of his son with the daughter of Louvois. In a
+letter to a friend, Luxembourg has left on record his dignified answer
+to the last of these stupid calumnies. After treating with ridicule the
+idea that he would sell his soul for a government, he says, with respect
+to the remainder, “I replied that when the villain (Lesage) told such an
+untruth, he did not know that I was of a family which did not purchase
+alliances by crimes; that it would have been a great honour to me had
+my son married Mdlle. de Louvois, but that I would not have adopted for
+the purpose any means which would have subjected me to self-reproach;
+and that when Matthew de Montmorenci espoused a queen of France, the
+mother of a minor king, he did not give himself to the devil for this
+marriage, since the thing was done by a resolution of the States General,
+who declared that, to gain for the monarch the services of the lords of
+Montmorenci, it was necessary to form this union. It was even out of
+delicacy that I used the word _services_, for I believe that, in the
+declaration, the word _protection_ is used.”
+
+Such testimony as was produced against Luxembourg was not deemed by his
+judges sufficient to warrant his conviction, even though a minister
+of state was eager for his ruin. He was, in consequence, set free on
+the 14th of May, 1680. Notwithstanding the duke’s acquittal, Louis
+banished him from the court, and he remained in exile till the summer
+of 1681, when he was recalled, and resumed his duties as captain of
+the body-guards. It is somewhat remarkable, that Louis never made the
+slightest allusion to what had passed.
+
+For ten years, Luxembourg remained without a command. In 1690, however,
+Louis himself placed him at the head of the army in Flanders. Luxembourg
+had scarcely taken the field, before he gained the splendid victory of
+Fleurus. The fall of Namur, or of Charleroi, would probably have been
+the result of this success, had he not been thwarted by the malignant
+Louvois, who forbade his besieging either of those fortresses, and
+deprived him of the best part of his army, to reinforce Boufflers. In the
+succeeding campaigns, Luxembourg pursued his triumphant progress, and
+won the battles of Leuze, Steenkirk, and Neerwinden. Such a number of
+standards were taken, and sent to be hung up in the cathedral of Nôtre
+Dame, at Paris, that the Prince of Conti wittily denominated him “the
+tapestry-hanger of Nôtre Dame.” Irritated by his defeats, William III. is
+said to have exclaimed, “Am I never to beat that hunchback?” “Hunchback!”
+said the duke, when he was told of this speech, “what does he know about
+it? He has never seen my back!” The career of Luxembourg was abruptly
+closed, by an illness of only five days, on the 4th of January, 1695.
+
+Several persons of distinction were censured by the “Chambre Ardente,”
+and were, in consequence, forbidden the court, or sent into exile. Among
+the latter was Madame de Polignac. The monarch was so decidedly hostile
+to her, that, five years afterwards, he spoke of her with unmeasured
+severity, and interfered to prevent the marriage of her son with Mdlle.
+de Rambures. It was said, that she had once formed the scheme of giving
+him a philtre, to inspire him with a passion for her.
+
+One of the humbler class of culprits who was imprisoned in the Bastile,
+and who finally suffered the extreme sentence of the law, was Stephen de
+Bray, described as the accomplice of James Dechaux and Jane Chanfrain,
+who were perhaps rivals of La Voisin and her confederates in their
+detestable trade. The crimes alleged against him were blasphemy,
+sacrilege, and poisoning, and he was burned at the Grêve.
+
+From poisoners, and mercenary pretenders to sorcery, we turn to an
+adventurer of a less noxious species. The Abbé Primi was a native of
+Bologna, in which city his father was a cap-maker. He had acuteness, wit,
+and a pleasing person, and with these mental and corporeal qualities
+he hoped to make his way at Paris. On his journey thither he became
+acquainted with a man of talent, named Duval. One of the travellers in
+the coach smelt so offensively that the others were anxious to get rid
+of him; and accordingly Duval and Primi secretly concerted a scheme for
+that purpose. Primi was to pretend to the gift of foretelling, from only
+seeing a person’s handwriting, what had happened, and would happen, to
+him. Primi, being questioned by Duval on this head, gave him elaborate
+answers, which the latter admitted to be correct. Specimens of the
+penmanship of the rest of the travellers, who were in the plot, were then
+handed to Primi, and, of course, they were satisfied with the result. The
+obnoxious passenger at length begged the oracular Italian to do for him
+the same favour that he had done for the rest. When Primi looked at the
+paper, he pretended to be shocked, and hastily gave it back, declining to
+say more than that “he hoped he was mistaken.” The applicant, however,
+solicited so earnestly to know his fate, that Primi told him he was
+destined to be assassinated at Paris, if he went thither. This startling
+intelligence produced the designed effect; the strong-scented querist
+took the first opportunity to discontinue his journey, and return to his
+home.
+
+When they reached Paris, Duval presented Primi to the Abbé de la Baume,
+who was afterwards archbishop of Embrun; and the abbé introduced him to
+the Duke of Vendôme, and his brother, the Grand Prior. The trick played
+off in the stage was talked over, and it was agreed that a repetition
+of it in the French capital would be productive of infinite amusement.
+Primi was therefore kept carefully secluded, for nearly two months, till
+he had learned by heart the genealogy and the secret history of most of
+the persons about the court. When he had obtained a thorough knowledge of
+their connexions, amours, rivalships, enmities, and presumed motives, his
+skill in his novel kind of divination was spread about by his employers,
+and all the rank and fashion of France soon flocked to consult him.
+Among the distinguished females who patronized him, were the Countess
+of Soissons and the Duchess of Orleans; the latter of whom Primi firmly
+convinced of his powers, by mentioning many circumstances relative to
+her correspondence with the Count de Guiche. The duchess prevailed on
+Louis XIV. to let her show his handwriting to the Italian. To her utter
+astonishment, Primi no sooner saw it than he declared it to be written
+by a miserly curmudgeon, who was not possessed of a single good quality.
+When she returned the paper to Louis, and told him what Primi had said,
+the king was no less astonished than she was. The paper was indeed
+written by a man of whom his enemies spoke in the same manner as Primi.
+It was the handwriting of Rose, the king’s cabinet secretary, who wrote
+exactly like Louis, and whom he often employed to answer letters, that
+he might himself avoid trouble. To get at the bottom of this mystery,
+the king ordered Primi to be brought into his cabinet. “Primi,” said the
+monarch, “I have only two words to say—disclose to me your secret, for
+which I will pay you with a pension of two thousand livres—or else make
+up your mind to be hanged.” There was no resisting the bribe and the
+threat, and Primi consequently related his own history, and all that had
+come to his knowledge since he had lived in the capital. On going into
+the queen’s apartment, Louis mentioned, before the courtiers, that he had
+admitted Primi to an interview, and he added, “I must acknowledge that
+he told me things which no being of his kind has ever before revealed to
+any one.” This strong testimony to the merit of Primi contributed not a
+little to enhance his reputation.
+
+The pension granted to him by Louis placed Primi above the necessity of
+resorting to deception for a livelihood; nor, indeed, was the part which
+he had been playing one which could be carried on for any length of
+time. He married the daughter of Frederic Leonard, an eminent Parisian
+printer, and sought to gain reputation by chronicling the actions of the
+French monarch. In an Italian narrative, which he wrote, of the Dutch
+campaign of Louis, he divulged the secret of the private treaty between
+that monarch and our Charles II. For this he was sent to the Bastile;
+but he was soon released, and received an ample present. The publication
+is believed to have, in fact, been authorized by the king, to punish
+the defection of Charles; the imprisonment of the author being merely a
+blind, to prevent his master from being suspected.
+
+Louvois, who will for ever be infamously remembered for his outrages
+upon humanity, was the tyrant who twice consigned to the Bastile the
+celebrated medallist, Andrew Morell. Berne was the native place of
+Morell, who was born in 1646. He was remarkable for his memory and
+acuteness. The study of history led him to that of numismatics, in which
+he made an almost unequalled progress; and he learned drawing, in order
+to render his medallic knowledge more perfect and available. Charles
+Patin, the son of Guy, then an exile from France, who was himself no mean
+numismatist, became acquainted with Morell, and aided him by his counsel
+and purse. It was probably by his advice that, in 1680, Morell visited
+Paris, where he met with a warm reception from the most distinguished men
+of learning and science. Encouraged by them, he undertook the laborious
+task of publishing a description of all the antique medals which were
+contained in the numerous cabinets of Europe. As a prelude, he gave a
+specimen to the world. But his scheme was interrupted, for the moment,
+by a circumstance which would ultimately have benefited it, had he not
+been ungenerously treated. He was appointed coadjutor of Rainssart,
+the keeper of the king’s medals. In assiduously arranging and reducing
+to order the vast collection which was placed under his care, he spent
+several years. When he claimed his promised reward it was withheld, and,
+on his venturing to resent this breach of faith, he was committed to the
+Bastile, in 1688, by Louvois. His friends obtained his release; but, in
+little more than twelve months, he was again immured in that prison,
+probably for the same reason as before. Yet, while he was thus persecuted
+by an arrogant minister, he continued to enjoy the esteem of Louis XIV.;
+a curious fact, which proves how strong was the influence of Louvois
+over his master. While he was in the Bastile, his colleague died, and he
+was offered the vacant place of sole keeper of the king’s cabinet, on
+condition that he would change his religion. Morell, however, rejected
+the offer.
+
+It was not till 1691, nor till the government of Berne had interfered
+in his behalf, that Morell was set free. Disgusted with the treatment
+which he had experienced, he returned to his native country. His
+subsequent existence was embittered by severe bodily suffering. His
+health was so much injured by confinement, and by vexation at his
+favourite project being frustrated, that palsy deprived him of the use
+of one side, and rendered him incapable of handling pen or pencil. He
+was somewhat recovered, and had acquired the patronage of the Count of
+Schwartzenburg-Armstadt, a lover of medals, when he was overturned in a
+carriage, and one of his shoulders dislocated. This accident brought on
+another attack of palsy, to which he fell a victim in 1703. The materials
+for his unfinished work were arranged and published, by Havercamp, in
+1734, with the title of “Thesaurus Morellianus.” Another of his works, a
+“Numismatic History of the Twelve Emperors,” was given to the public, in
+1753, by Havercamp, Schlegel, and Gori, who overlaid it with a ponderous
+mass of confused and discordant commentaries.
+
+The doctrines of Quietism, the origin of which may be traced to oriental
+climes, but of which a Spanish monk, Michael Molinos, was the European
+apostle, and finally the victim, were espoused by one of the most amiable
+of French enthusiasts, and they brought on her, as they had brought on
+him, calumny, persecution, and imprisonment. Madam Guyon, whose maiden
+name was Bouvier de la Motte, was born at Montargis, in 1648. Even in
+very early youth she had a strong tendency to mysticism, and would have
+adopted a monastic life, had her parents not prevented her. At sixteen
+she was married; at eight-and-twenty she became a widow. The visionary
+ideas which she had cherished before marriage now resumed their empire,
+and a powerful stimulus was given to them by her confessor, and by the
+titular bishop of Geneva, and other ecclesiastics, all of whom laboured
+to fill her with the belief that Heaven had destined her to play an
+extraordinary part for the advancement of religion. “Left a widow when
+she was still tolerably young,” says Voltaire, “with riches, beauty, and
+a mind fitted for society, she became infatuated with what is called
+_spiritualism_. A monk of Anneci, near Geneva, named Lacombe, was her
+director. This man, characterized by a not uncommon mixture of passions
+and religion, and who died mad, plunged the mind of his penitent into
+the mystic reveries by which it was already affected. The longing desire
+to be a French St. Theresa did not allow her to perceive how different
+the French character is from the Spanish, and made her go much further
+than St. Theresa. The ambition of having disciples, which is perhaps the
+strongest of all the kinds of ambition, took entire possession of her
+heart.” In ascribing such a motive to Madame Guyon, Voltaire does her
+wrong, there not being a shadow of a reason for supposing that she was
+actuated by any thing but a sincere though erroneous belief, that she was
+fulfilling a solemn duty. He is more correct in the description which
+he gives of her doctrines. “She taught a complete renunciation of self,
+the silence of the soul, the annihilation of all its faculties, internal
+worship, and the pure and disinterested love of God, which is neither
+degraded by fear, nor animated by the hope of reward.” It must be owned
+that, both in language and ideas, she often fell into enormous absurdity,
+in her efforts to explain and enforce these doctrines.
+
+For five years Madame Guyon wandered through Piedmont, Dauphiny, and
+the adjacent provinces, spreading her opinions by the press as well
+as by oral Communication. As was to be expected, she made many ardent
+proselytes, and not a few enemies. In 1686 she returned to Paris, and
+continued her labours, and was left unmolested for two years. At length
+she attracted the notice of the archbishop of Paris, who affected to be
+shocked at the resemblance which her tenets bore to those of Molinos.
+The see of Paris was at that time filled by Harlay de Chamvallon,
+an individual infamously celebrated for his profligate debauchery.
+This prelate, who certainly was not likely to comprehend a pure and
+disinterested love of God, or of man or woman either, procured Lacombe
+to be sent to the Bastile as a seducer, and Madame Guyon to the
+Visitandines convent. At the Visitandines she was generally beloved, and
+made several converts. She was soon after snatched from the clutches of
+Harlay by Madame de Maintenon, who admitted her at St. Cyr, and became
+much attached to her. It was at St. Cyr that she was also introduced to
+Fenelon; a friendship took place between them which nothing could ever
+shake.
+
+But though Fenelon continued true to his friend, Madame de Maintenon
+ultimately deserted her. This desertion was the work of Godet-Desmarais,
+bishop of Chartres, who was the religious director of St. Cyr and of
+Madame de Maintenon. The mind of the king was also poisoned against her;
+and she was exposed to a long series of persecutions, not the least
+painful of which was a slanderous attack on her character, made in the
+form of a letter from Lacombe, exhorting her to repent of their criminal
+intimacy. Lacombe was then insane. So irreproachable, however, was her
+conduct, that her innocence was universally acknowledged.
+
+In 1695 she was sent to Vincennes, whence she was removed to the Bastile;
+but she was released through the intervention of Noailles, who had
+succeeded the shameless Harlay in the archbishopric of Paris. In 1698
+she was again immured in the Bastile, and was not liberated till 1702.
+After her liberation, she was exiled to Blois, where, for fifteen years,
+her patience, piety, and charity, were admired by every one. She died in
+1717, at the age of sixty-nine.
+
+Influenced by prejudice, Voltaire has been unjust to Madame Guyon;
+he denies that she possessed talent, and sneeringly says, that “she
+wrote verses like Cotin, and prose like Punchinello.” This is not the
+first time that truth has been sacrificed, for the sake of giving an
+epigrammatic turn to a sentence. To the opinion of Voltaire may be
+opposed that of the shrewd Duke of St. Simon, which is very different.
+Nor is it probable that Fenelon would have held in high estimation
+a mere senseless enthusiast. That in her writings, which extend to
+nine-and-thirty volumes, much erroneous reasoning, mystic jargon, and
+even nonsense, may be found, admits of no dispute; but they also contain
+many fine sentiments strikingly expressed. That she was endowed with
+a prevailing eloquence appears to be undeniable. There is an anecdote
+recorded of her which proves, likewise, that in the common business of
+life, she was possessed of a large share of penetration and sound sense.
+She was chosen as sole umpire in a cause in which she and twenty-two of
+her relations were interested. After thirty days’ close investigation of
+the documents and claims, she drew up an award, which received the prompt
+and full approbation of all the contending parties. It may be doubted,
+whether there have been many arbitrators who have given such universal
+satisfaction as Madame Guyon.
+
+About the time that Madame Guyon was released from the Bastile, that
+prison became the abode of Gatien de Courtils de Sandraz, a fertile
+writer, but whose productions are, for the most part, of a class which
+merits censure rather than praise. This author, a Parisian, born in
+1644, must be reckoned among those who poison the sources of history.
+“He was,” says Voltaire, “one of the most culpable writers of this
+kind. He inundated Europe with fictions under the name of histories.”
+Many of those fictions profess to be written by persons who, during the
+reigns of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., had borne a part in affairs of
+state and court intrigues. More than forty volumes of memoirs of this
+sort, biographies, romances, and political tracts, were produced by
+his indefatigable pen. He was originally a captain in the regiment of
+Champagne, but went to Holland in 1683, and staid in that country for
+five years. It was while he was there that he gave some of his earliest
+works to the press. In 1689, the partiality which he manifested on the
+side of France occasioned him to be sent out of the Dutch territory,
+and he went to Paris, where he continued till 1694. He then returned to
+Holland, where he continued for eight years. In 1702, he went back to his
+native land, but his reception was calculated to make him regret having
+done so. He was immediately sent to the Bastile, where he languished for
+nine years, during the first three of which he was very harshly treated.
+His offence is not known; but his Annals of Paris and the court, in which
+he attacked the character of some powerful personages, are conjectured to
+have been the cause of his imprisonment. His decease took place in 1712.
+
+Of those who suffered in the Bastile very few indeed revealed to the
+world the secrets of the prison-house. The first who disclosed them was
+René Augustus Constantine de Renneville, a Norman gentleman, who was born
+at Caen, in 1650. De Renneville was the youngest of ten brothers, seven
+of whom fell in the service of their country. After having borne arms in,
+and retired from, the mousquetaires, he was patronised by Chamillart,
+one of the ministers, who employed him in various confidential affairs,
+and rewarded him by a respectable and lucrative office in Normandy. De
+Renneville passed several years in his native province, filling up by
+literary pursuits his intervals of leisure from his official duties.
+The persecution of the protestants, of whom he was one, drove him, in
+1699, into Holland. Being, however, unable to find there a satisfactory
+establishment for his family, he yielded to the solicitations of
+Chamillart, and returned, in 1702, to France. The minister received him
+with open arms, gave him a pension, and promised him the first place
+that might become vacant in his own department. But the scene soon
+changed. Envy was excited by the reception which he had met with, and it
+quickly found or made the means of crushing him. Some years before, in
+a splenetic mood, he had written some _bouts rimés_, which were by no
+means complimentary to France. As, however, this would hardly authorize
+a heavy punishment, he was accused of being a spy, and of keeping up a
+correspondence with foreign powers. In consequence of this he was sent
+to the Bastile, in May 1702. He was placed in a wretched chamber, dirty,
+gloomy, and swarming with fleas, and his bed was overrun with vermin of
+a more disgusting kind. He was nevertheless tolerably well treated by
+his jailers till after the escape of Count de Bucquoy, in which he was
+supposed to have assisted. On this supposition he was thrown into one
+of the worst dungeons of the fortress, where he remained till life was
+nearly extinct. He tells us that his only sustenance was bread and water,
+and that his sleeping place was the bare ground, where, without straw, or
+even a stone to lay his head on, he lay stretched in the mire, and the
+slaver of the toads. His situation when he was taken out was pitiable.
+“My eyes,” says he, “were almost out of my head, my nose was as large
+as a middling-sized cucumber, more than half my teeth, which previously
+were very good, had fallen out by scurvy, my mouth was swelled, and
+entirely covered with an eruption, and my bones came through my skin in
+more than twenty places.” His captivity lasted for some years after his
+removal from the dungeon, and as though he was not again reduced to the
+same degree of misery, he was treated with much harshness. He bore his
+misfortune with courage, and solaced his lonely hours by reading and
+composition. His pen was a small bone, his ink was lampblack mixed with
+wine, and he wrote between the lines, and on the margins, of books which
+he had concealed. Under these disadvantages, he composed several works of
+considerable length. Among these works was a “Treatise on the Duties of
+a faithful Christian.” They were taken away from him by his persecutors,
+and he deeply regretted the loss of them. After having been confined
+for eleven years, he was set at liberty; but was ordered to quit France
+for ever. It would have been strange had he wished to remain there.
+De Renneville sought an asylum in England, where George I. gave him a
+pension; and in 1715 he published his “French Inquisition, or the History
+of the Bastile,” which went through three or four editions, and was
+translated into various languages. It was probably at the instigation of
+those who were branded in this book, that he was attacked in the street
+by three cut-throats, whom, however, he bravely repulsed. De Renneville
+was living in 1724; but the time and place of his decease are not known.
+Among his works is a Collection of Voyages for the establishment, &c., of
+the Dutch East India Company.
+
+The next prisoner comes before us wrapped in such a mysterious cloud,
+that he scarcely seems to wear the aspect of a being of this world. His
+birth, his name, his country, his crime, are all unknown; all that we
+really know of him is, that he was long a captive, and that he died. It
+cannot be necessary to say, that the problematical individual alluded to
+is the personage who is distinguished by the appellation of “The Man with
+the Iron Mask.”
+
+There appears to have been in France, during the first forty years of
+the 18th century, a sort of indistinct tradition respecting a masked
+prisoner, who had been in various state prisons. It was not, however,
+till 1745 that any attempt was made to lift the veil which covered
+the subject. In that year came out “Mémoires secrets pour servir à
+l’histoire de Perse,” in which French characters were described under
+oriental names. In these memoirs, which have been ascribed to several
+writers, among whom is Voltaire, some particulars are given relative to
+the masked man, and he is asserted to have been the Count de Vermandois,
+natural son of Louis XIV., confined by his father for having struck the
+dauphin.
+
+The Memoirs gave rise to a controversy, and to an extravagant romance by
+the Chevalier de Mouhy; but nothing definite was brought forward till
+1751, when Voltaire published, under a feigned name, the first edition
+of his “Age of Louis XIV.” Here he threw a ray of light on a part of the
+question, leaving, however, the rest in as much darkness as ever.
+
+“Some months after the decease of this minister (Mazarin) there
+happened,” says he, “an event which has no parallel, and what is no
+less singular is, that all the historians have been ignorant of it.
+There was sent, with the utmost secrecy, to the castle of the isle of
+St. Margaret, on the coast of Provence, an unknown prisoner, above the
+common stature, young, and of a most handsome and noble figure. During
+the journey, this prisoner wore a mask, the lower half of which had
+steel springs, which allowed him to eat while the mask was on his face.
+Orders were given to kill him if he uncovered himself. He remained in
+the isle till a confidential officer, of the name of St. Marc, governor
+of Pignerol, having been made governor of the Bastile in 1690, went to
+the isle of St. Margaret to fetch him, and conducted him to the Bastile,
+always masked. The Marquis de Louvois went to see him in that isle
+before his removal, and spoke to him standing, and with a deference
+which bordered on respect. This unknown personage was taken to the
+Bastile, where he was lodged as comfortably as it was possible to be in
+that fortress. Nothing that he asked for was refused. His predominant
+taste was for linen of extreme fineness, and for lace. He played on the
+guitar. His table was profusely served, and the governor rarely took a
+seat in his presence. An old physician of the Bastile, who had often
+attended this singular man when he was ill, said that he had never seen
+his face, though he had frequently examined his tongue, and the rest of
+his person. He was admirably made, said this physician; his skin was
+rather brown; he excited an interest by the mere tone of his voice, but
+never complained of his situation, nor gave any hint of who he was. This
+unknown individual died in 1703, and was buried at night in the parish of
+St. Paul’s.
+
+“What renders these circumstances doubly astonishing is, that at the
+time when he was sent to the isle of St. Margaret no eminent personage
+disappeared in Europe. Yet that the prisoner was one is beyond all
+doubt, for the following event took place during an early period of his
+residence in the isle. The governor himself put the dishes on the table,
+and then withdrew, after having locked him in. The prisoner one day
+wrote with his knife on a silver plate, and threw the plate out of the
+window, towards a boat, which was near the shore, almost at the foot of
+the tower. A fisherman, to whom the boat belonged, picked up the plate,
+and took it to the governor. Greatly astonished, the latter asked the
+fisherman, ‘Have you read what is written on this plate, or has anybody
+seen you with it?’—‘I cannot read,’ replied the fisherman, ‘I have only
+just found it, and nobody has seen it,’ This countryman was detained till
+the governor was thoroughly convinced that he could not read, and that no
+one had seen the plate. ‘You may go now,’ said he, ‘and think yourself
+lucky that you know not how to read.’ Of the persons who had a direct
+knowledge of this fact there is one, of undoubted veracity, who is still
+living. M. de Chamillart was the last minister who was intrusted with
+this strange secret. The second Marshal de Feuillade, his son-in-law,
+told me that, when his father-in-law was on his death-bed, he begged him
+on his knees to tell him who was the man who was never known by any other
+name than that of the man with the iron mask. Chamillart replied that it
+was a state secret, and that he had taken an oath never to reveal it.
+There are, besides, others of my contemporaries who can testify to my
+statement, and I know no fact which is more extraordinary or more firmly
+established.”
+
+At a later period, Voltaire, in the “Philosophical Dictionary,” corrected
+some trifling errors which he had made in his account of the masked
+prisoner. He states that the captive was first confined at Pignerol,
+whence he was removed to the isle of St. Margaret, and that, a few days
+before his death, he said that he believed himself to be about sixty.
+Voltaire then controverts various guesses which had been hazarded as
+to the name of the individual, and then adds, that the concealment of
+his face must have been occasioned by “the fear that a too striking
+resemblance might be recognised in his features.” In conclusion, he
+hints, that he is well informed on the subject, but that he will not
+communicate his knowledge. It would seem, however, that, after the lapse
+of a few years, he changed his mind,—for, in another edition of the
+Dictionary, there was inserted an article, ostensibly by the editor, but
+which is generally supposed to be written by Voltaire himself. It is
+there roundly asserted that the masked captive was an elder brother of
+Louis XIV., illegitimate, and brought up in secrecy, whom for obvious
+reasons of state the reigning monarch was obliged to hold in durance. In
+the original account by Voltaire, his pointed mention of the prisoner’s
+fondness for fine linen and lace, which was also characteristic of Anne
+of Austria, appears to indicate that he believed her to be the mother of
+the mysterious individual.
+
+There is in the human mind a restless longing, and perpetual struggle,
+to penetrate into every thing that is shrouded in mystery. Ever since
+the man with the iron mask was first mentioned, he has been a subject of
+inquiry and controversy; dissertations and volumes innumerable have been
+written to dispel the Egyptian darkness which surrounds him. With the
+exception perhaps of Junius, there is probably no personage who has been
+the cause of so many books and theories; and in both cases no approach
+to certainty has been made. It is not improbable that Junius may yet be
+unveiled; but, with respect to the masked captive, so long a time has
+gone by, so much care was taken after his decease to destroy all traces
+of his existence, and it is so likely that the remaining documents, if
+any there were, perished during the French revolution, that there is not
+a chance of the world being enabled to say, “_This_ is certainly the man.”
+
+At least twelve or thirteen candidates have been brought forward for
+the melancholy honour of being the personage in question. Two of them
+are English—the Duke of Monmouth and Henry Cromwell. Of the latter it
+is only necessary to state that he lived a quiet country life after the
+restoration, and died in Huntingdonshire in 1679. The Duke of Monmouth
+is supposed, by M. de St. Foix, to have found some one obliging enough
+to mount the scaffold in his stead, and to have been sent to France, to
+be kept in safe custody. This ineffably absurd theory is demolished by
+the fact, that, when Monmouth was executed, the man with the mask had
+been for twenty years in prison. Equally baseless is the system of the
+Chevalier de Taulès, who made a claim for Ardewicks, the patriarch of the
+Armenians at Constantinople, who was kidnapped, taken to France, and
+lodged in the Bastile by the Jesuits, to whom he had given offence. But
+Ardewicks was not carried off till 1699 or 1700, and he is known to have
+embraced catholicism, recovered his liberty, and died at Paris. A recent
+French writer, of very considerable talent and research, has revived
+the idea that Fouquet was the prisoner, and has supported his argument
+with great skill; but it is impossible to reconcile his supposition with
+the story told by Voltaire. With respect to Fouquet the precautions and
+deference, which Voltaire mentions, would not have been deemed necessary.
+We have seen that the author of the “Secret Memoirs on Persia” asserts
+the Count of Vermandois to have been the unknown captive. Voltaire
+contemptuously denies the truth of this assertion; which is, indeed,
+sufficiently refuted by the well-ascertained fact, that the count died,
+of small-pox, at the army in Flanders, in 1683, and was buried at Arras;
+his death was notorious to numbers of persons. The Duke of Beaufort has
+been invested with the mask on no better authority. There can be no doubt
+that he was slain, in a sally, at the siege of Candia, in 1669. But, say
+those who adopt him as their hero, his body was never found. It certainly
+was not recognised; and for this plain reason, that the Turks stripped
+it, and cut off the head. The next asserted owner of the mask is backed
+by no less than four champions, Dutens, Roux-Fazillac, Delort, and the
+late Lord Dover, and his cause has been ably supported by them all. The
+claimant for whom they contend is Matthioli, secretary of the Duke of
+Mantua, who, for having outwitted Louis in a negotiation respecting the
+cession of Casal, was seized by order of the monarch, and imprisoned at
+Pignerol and other places. There are, however, circumstances which seem
+decisive against his being the man with the iron mask. It will perhaps
+suffice to mention that, instead of meeting with respect and indulgence,
+he was treated with the utmost harshness, and even cruelty. It has been
+argued, as a presumption on his side, that his name bears a resemblance
+to that of Marchiali, under which the unknown captive was buried. The
+resemblance, I think, is not a whit closer than that which Fluellin so
+ingeniously discovers between Macedon and Monmouth, and is a sorry basis
+on which to build an argument. Another supposition gives the mask to Don
+John de Gonzaga, a natural brother of the Duke of Mantua, who is imagined
+to have accompanied Matthioli in disguise to the conference at which he
+was seized. This supposition is rendered untenable, by irrefragable proof
+that Matthioli was alone.
+
+We have now arrived at the only remaining name which has been mentioned
+as that of the mysterious prisoner. Voltaire, as we have seen, affirms
+that he was a son of Anne of Austria. This assertion seems to receive
+support from the language which is said to have been held by Louis XV.
+Laborde, the head valet-de-chambre of that monarch, who enjoyed much of
+his confidence, once endeavoured to obtain from him the long-concealed
+secret. He did not succeed. “I pity him,” replied the king, “but his
+detention was injurious only to himself, and _averted great misfortunes_.
+Thou must not know the secret.” It is manifest that such a speech
+could not be made with reference to any of the persons who have been
+enumerated. It is equally manifest that, as Voltaire has intimated, the
+mask could have been worn for no other purpose than to prevent a striking
+likeness from being recognised.
+
+Various conjectures have been made as to the paternity of the unknown
+child, to which Anne of Austria is thought to have given birth. By some
+the Duke of Buckingham has been assigned as its father, others have
+attributed it to a French nobleman; some have imagined that it was the
+fruit of a legitimate union with Cardinal Mazarin, a kind of union which,
+however, could not take place; and others, with more tenderness for the
+character of the queen, have represented it to be a twin brother of Louis
+XIV. The theory of his royal birth may, perhaps, be as erroneous as all
+the rest; but it appears to me to be the only one by which we can account
+for the close and perpetual imprisonment, the pains taken to confine the
+secret to as few persons as possible, the carefully concealed features,
+and the respect and indulgence which are asserted to have been uniformly
+shown to the unfortunate captive[8].
+
+We must now turn our attention from the victim of state policy to some of
+the victims of religious persecution.
+
+To enumerate all whom Jansenism led to the Bastile would be a tedious
+labour, and no less uninteresting than tedious, as little more than a
+dry list of names would be the result. Among the Jansenists who towards
+the close of Louis XIV.’s reign were sent to the Bastile, we find Tiron,
+a Benedictine, who was prior of Meulan; Germain Veillant, an author;
+and Lebrun-Desmarets, a man of much theological erudition. Tiron was
+committed “for different writings, on matters of religion and state,
+and against the king and the Jesuits.” The coupling together of the
+king and the disciples of Loyola, as though they were coequal powers,
+is a striking proof of the vast influence which the Society of Jesus
+had acquired. Veillant’s offence was his being “a violent Jansenist, in
+connexion with Father Quesnel, and having got his works printed, and
+managed his affairs at Paris.” He was examined eighty-nine times, and was
+probably treated with more than common harshness, for he fell ill on the
+day that he was released, and died in the course of a few days.
+
+Lebrun-Desmarets, a native of Rouen, who entered the Bastile in 1707,
+two years previous to the destruction of Port-Royal monastery, was of
+a family which was strongly attached to that persecuted establishment.
+His father, a bookseller of Rouen, was condemned to the galleys, for
+having printed books in vindication of it. The son was partly educated
+in the convent, and never ceased to regard its inmates with affection
+and reverence. In 1707, when they were involved in a harassing lawsuit
+by their enemies, Lebrun espoused their cause so ardently that he was
+imprisoned. He was held in durance for five years, and was treated
+with great severity. After he recovered his liberty, he took up his
+abode at Orleans, where he died, in 1731, at the age of eighty. On Palm
+Sunday, the day before his death, fearing that a priest would refuse
+to administer the sacrament to him, he dragged his enfeebled frame to
+the church, that he might not quit the world without the consolation of
+having participated in the rites of religion. Lebrun’s principal work is
+a “Liturgical Journey in France,” in which he gives an account of the
+most remarkable customs and ceremonies of the various churches.
+
+We now revert once more to prisoners whose sins were political. Count
+John Albert de Bucquoy, the next individual who comes under our notice,
+was of the family of the celebrated Spanish and Imperial general, who
+bore the same name and title. He was a native of Champagne, in which
+province he was born about 1650. A line in Dryden’s severe description of
+Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, will partly characterize Bucquoy; he
+
+    “Was every thing by starts, and nothing long.”
+
+The circumstances of his having been left an orphan at the age of four
+years, and having received a very imperfect education, may, perhaps,
+account for some of his eccentricities. He embraced the military life;
+but when he had served for five years, an escape from danger, which
+he considered as miraculous, induced him to make a vow to withdraw
+from all worldly pursuits. The rules of the Carthusian monks not being
+strict enough to satisfy him, he entered at La Trappe, where he so
+much injured his health by supererogatory austerities that the Abbé de
+Rancé, the superior of the convent, was obliged to dismiss him. Bucquoy
+then abruptly resumed his warlike attire; but soon after, with equal
+abruptness, again cast it off, to dress himself in rags, and become a
+hermit. Flying from the temptations of Paris, he next settled at Rouen,
+where, under the name of La Mort, he for two years kept a school, to give
+gratuitous instruction to the poor. The Jesuits of that city admired
+his talents and his humble demeanour, and fruitlessly endeavoured to
+enrol him in their fraternity. Having been accidentally recognised by a
+person who had been a brother officer, he could no longer preserve his
+incognito, and he therefore quitted Rouen, and bent his way to Paris.
+There he formed the plan of founding a new monastic order, destined to
+prove to unbelievers the truth of the Christian religion. It appears
+to have been about this time that he assumed the garb and title of an
+abbé. But while he was thus planning the demolition of incredulity, he
+so bewildered himself in his theological speculations and reasonings,
+that he became a sceptic. One thing which contributed much to produce the
+change in him was, that, notwithstanding his self-inflicted severities,
+he had failed to obtain the power of working miracles. This alone would
+suffice to prove that his intellects were disordered. At this period,
+his relatives, who had long believed him dead, were made acquainted with
+his being in existence, and they procured for him a benefice. Bucquoy,
+however, had got rid of his religious schemes, and had relapsed into
+a taste for the profession of a soldier. His wish was now to raise a
+regiment. But while he was indulging this new freak, he attracted the
+attention of the government by his invectives against despotism and
+the abuse of power. He was mistaken for the Abbé de la Bourlie, who
+afterwards became notorious in England under the name of Guiscard, and
+was arrested. When the mistake was discovered, he would have been set
+free, had not his indiscreet language and conduct caused him to be
+detained. He was committed to Fort-l’Evêque, from whence, however, he
+contrived to escape. After having been at large for a considerable time,
+he was caught and shut up in the Bastile, with a strict charge to the
+keepers, that he should be closely watched, as being an enterprising
+and dangerous person. The officers of that prison were seldom slack in
+executing such orders, yet, in spite of all their vigilance, Bucquoy took
+his measures so skilfully, and carried them into effect with so much
+secrecy, that, in May 1709, after having been confined for two years, he
+left his jailors in the lurch, and made good his retreat to Switzerland.
+As soon as he was in safety, he began to negotiate with the French
+ministers for his return to France, and the restoration of his property.
+Failing in this, he journeyed to Holland, and submitted to the allies a
+project for converting France into a republic, and annihilating arbitrary
+power. This scheme, too, fell to the ground. It was, nevertheless,
+beneficial to him, as it gained for him the friendship of General
+Schulemburg, who, in 1714, introduced him, at Hanover, to George I. The
+monarch was pleased with his conversation, admitted him to his table, and
+gave him a pension. Bucquoy lived to nearly the age of ninety. In his
+latter days, he wholly neglected his dress, suffered his beard to grow,
+and might well have been mistaken for a squalid mendicant.
+
+There was perhaps a spice of madness in Bucquoy, which sufficiently
+accounts for his eccentric conduct. For the faults, or rather crimes, of
+the personage who now comes under our notice there was no such excuse.
+Throughout the whole of his existence, which, like that of Bucquoy, was
+protracted far beyond the period usually allotted to man, the Marshal
+Duke of Richelieu displayed as few virtues, and as many vices, as any
+courtier on record. He had superficial talents, some wit, polished
+manners, a handsome person, and much bravery; and this is all that
+can be said for him. On the other hand, he was wholly without honour,
+morals, and religion; a supporter and adulator of despotism, a political
+intriguer, who could stoop to use the basest means for the accomplishment
+of his purposes, a reckless duellist, and a systematic and heartless
+seducer; he was, in fact, an impersonation of the profligacy and
+corruption which distinguished the courts of the regent Duke of Orleans
+and the fifteenth Louis.
+
+Richelieu, who, in his early years, was known as the Duke of Fronsac, was
+born in 1696. He was a seven months’ child, whom after his birth it was
+necessary to keep in a box filled with cotton, and the preservation of
+whose existence was long doubtful. When his health was established, he
+was put under able preceptors; but he derived little benefit from their
+instructions, and he never could spell with tolerable correctness. He
+acquired, however, those showy graces which, undoubtedly, are an ornament
+to virtue, but which, when the possessor has no virtue, can captivate
+only persons of frivolous minds. He was introduced to the court at the
+early age of fourteen, and soon, as St. Simon tells us, became its
+darling. The female portion of it was in raptures with him, and seems to
+have expressed its feelings without any regard to decorum. Fronsac, whose
+passions were uncommonly precocious, met the forward with equal ardour,
+and spared no pains to ensnare the few who were more timid or more
+modest. He went to such a length that censure began to fall heavily on
+the Duchess of Burgundy, and his own father deemed it prudent to request
+a lettre-de-cachet against him, under which he was for fourteen months
+confined in the Bastile. During his seclusion, Fronsac was attended by a
+preceptor; and he consequently came out of prison with some knowledge of
+Latin, and some addition to his scanty stock of useful information; but,
+as far as concerned dignity of mind and purity of heart, no improvement
+whatever had taken place.
+
+The licentious career of Richelieu was suspended for a while, by his
+serving as a volunteer in the army. He was present at the battle of
+Denain, and at the sieges of the fortresses which were recovered by
+Villars in consequence of his victory; and he distinguished himself so
+much, that he was made aide-de-camp to the marshal, and was chosen by
+him to convey to Paris the news of the surrender of Friburg. In 1715,
+he succeeded to the title of Richelieu. On this occasion he performed
+an action which merits praise; the property which was available for the
+debts of his father was far from sufficient to cover them, he generously
+paid to the creditors the full amount of their claims.
+
+Again all the faculties of Richelieu were devoted to licentious
+pleasures, which were now and then interrupted by a duel. In 1716 he
+had a desperate encounter with the Count de Gacé, for which the regent
+committed both parties to the Bastile, where they remained from March
+till August. This imprisonment was, however, less severe than that which
+he had to endure two years afterwards. In the spring of 1719, he was
+sent, for the third time, to the Bastile, but, in this instance, he went
+with the brand of traitor upon him, and was treated accordingly. He was
+concerned in the Cellamare conspiracy, and had promised to deliver up
+Bayonne to the Spaniards, and to join in exciting the south of France
+to revolt. “If the Duke of Richelieu had four heads,” said the regent,
+“I have proof enough against him to deprive him of them all.” On his
+first arrival at the Bastile, the duke was placed in a dungeon; but
+female influence soon obtained his removal to more comfortable quarters,
+and permission for him to walk daily on the ramparts of the fortress.
+His walks gave rise to an occurrence, which speaks volumes as to the
+unblushing depravity of the high-born dames of France. During the hour
+that he was walking, a string of elegant carriages, filled with women who
+notoriously were or had been his mistresses, passed slowly backward and
+forward in front of the spot where he was, and an intercourse of signs
+was kept up between the prisoner and these unscrupulous ladies. It was by
+the intercession of two princesses, who were enamoured of him, that his
+release was obtained, after he had suffered a captivity of five months.
+
+The danger to which Richelieu had been exposed on this occasion, though
+it did not render him less vicious, rendered him, at least in one
+respect, more prudent; he did not again put his head in the way of being
+brought to the block. Thenceforward he limited his political intrigues,
+in France, to acquiring benefits for himself, circumventing his rivals,
+providing mistresses for the king, and making those mistresses the
+instruments of his designs; and by these arts he became a thriving
+courtier. Honours of all kinds, military and civil, were showered
+upon him. At the age of twenty-four, without any literary pretensions
+whatever, he was unanimously chosen a member of the French Academy;
+and, in 1734, he was nominated an honorary member of the Academy of
+Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. In the army he rose to the rank
+of marshal; but his titles as a soldier were not unearned. At Kehl,
+Philipsburg, Dettingen, Friburg, Fontenoy, Laufeldt, Genoa, and Minorca,
+they were fairly won. In his last campaign, however, that of Hanover, in
+1757, he sullied his laurels by the most infamous conduct. His rapacity
+and extortion were a scorpion scourge to the country which France
+had subdued; and, as though he feared that his own endless exactions
+would not suffice to make him hated, he allowed, if not encouraged,
+his troops to be guilty of marauding, and of various other enormities.
+The subsequent defeats of the French army were the righteous result of
+these dishonourable proceedings. As a negotiator, Richelieu manifested
+considerable skill. He was twice employed in that capacity; at Vienna,
+from 1725 to 1729, and at Dresden, in 1746. In both instances he fully
+accomplished the purpose of his mission, and in both he displayed a
+degree of ostentatious magnificence which had seldom been equalled.
+When he entered Vienna, his train consisted of seventy-five carriages;
+and his horses, and those of his officers, were shod with silver, the
+shoes being slightly fastened, that they might fall off and be left for
+the populace. In the state employments which he held, there appears to
+have been but a solitary instance in which he was entitled to praise.
+As lieutenant-general of the king in Languedoc, he once deviated into
+the right path; by a judicious mixture of firmness and mildness, he
+averted the disturbances which were about to arise from the persecution
+of the protestants. But it was not in his nature to be permanently good.
+At a later period, his harshness, in the same country, was rewarded by
+his being appointed governor of Guienne and Gascony; and his pride and
+tyranny very soon rendered him an object of detestation in both of these
+provinces. At court, his influence and his example had a baneful effect.
+He for more than a quarter of a century possessed the friendship of Louis
+XV., and he foully abused it; he pandered to the monarch’s lusts, and
+strained every nerve, with too much success, to prevent the misguided
+sovereign from carrying into effect his occasional resolves, to lead in
+future a life more suitable to his years, and to the lofty station which
+he filled. He was the Mephistopheles of his royal master.
+
+Richelieu was so fortunate as not to be exposed to the revolutionary
+tempest; his disgraceful career was brought to a close in August, 1788,
+when he had attained the age of ninety-two.
+
+Of prisoners less known, or less important, during the period to which
+this chapter refers, it will suffice to give a scanty specimen. Religious
+intolerance contributed largely to people the jails. To enumerate all
+who expiated in dungeons the crime of being protestants, would be an
+endless task; in 1686 a hundred and forty-seven persons, and in 1689
+sixty-one, were sent to the Bastile alone, almost all of whom were
+hugonots. To unite in marriage the members of that proscribed class was
+a heinous offence; a priest, named John de Pardieu, was doomed to the
+Bastile for committing it. Whole families were immured for endeavouring
+to leave the kingdom. Some of the victims were driven to despair by the
+manner in which they were treated. Such was the case with the Sieur
+Braconneau, who, as the register specifies, was “imprisoned on account of
+religion, and died of a wound which he gave to himself with a knife.” The
+protestants were, however, not the sole sufferers; the Jansenists, too,
+came in for an ample share of persecution.
+
+Real or pretended plots and evil speaking against the king were another
+fruitful source of commitments. The following are a few instances: Don
+Thomas Crisafi “suspected of intrigues with the Spanish ambassador
+against the interests of the king.” Joseph Jurin, a footman, for having
+said, “Who can prevent me from killing the king?” The Sieur Beranger de
+Berliere, “for a plot against the king’s person.” The Count de Morlot,
+accused of “detestable purposes against the king’s life.” Desvallons,
+“for speaking insolently of the king.” Laurence Lemierre, shoemaker,
+and his wife, for dangerous discourse about the king; and Francis
+Brindjoug for the same offence. The Sieur Cardel, “for important reasons,
+regarding the safety of the king’s person.” Jonas de Lamas, a baker,
+“for execrations against the king.” This man was twenty years in the
+Bastile, and was then removed to the Bicêtre. The Sieur de la Perche,
+a fencing-master, accused of having said that “the king oppressed his
+subjects, and thought only of amusing himself with his old woman; that he
+would soon be a king of beggars; that his officers were starving; that he
+had ruined the kingdom by driving away the hugonots; and that he cared
+not a pin for his people.” The last article of the Sieur de la Perche’s
+charge against the sovereign was made in language which is too vulgar to
+be translated.
+
+Under the head of miscellaneous offences may be mentioned the following:
+Pierre His, “for having assisted several persons to go clandestinely
+to America.” Those persons were probably hugonots. The Sieur Marini,
+envoy from Genoa. This commitment, for which no reason is assigned,
+took place in 1684, the year in which Louis XIV. made his disgraceful
+attack on Genoa. Besnoit, called Arnonville, “an evil-minded woman, who
+held improper discourse.” Charles Combon, called Count de Longueval, “a
+maker of horoscopes, a fortune-teller, and vender of drugs to procure
+abortion.” The Abbé Dubois, “a wicked and troublesome person.” Papillard,
+“a bad catholic.” Saint Vigor, “affecting to be a hermit, but a man
+of licentious manners.” John Blondeau, a hermit, “a suspected person.”
+Peter John Mere, professing himself a physician, “for selling improper
+drugs.” After having been thirty years in the Bastile, Mere was sent to
+the Bedlam at Charenton. Bailly, a hatter, “for a design to establish a
+hat manufactory in a foreign country.” Louisa Simon, a widow, “pretends
+to tell fortunes, to have secrets for inspiring love, and to be able to
+make marriages.” John Galembert, of the gens-d’armes, “a great traveller,
+suspected of corresponding with the enemies of the state.” He was
+subsequently exiled to Languedoc, his native province, within the limits
+of which he was ordered to remain. The Prince de Riccia, “one of the
+party at Naples that is against the French succession.” Nicholas Buissen,
+“for insolent letters against Samuel Bernard (the court banker), with an
+intention to hurt his credit.” The Sieur de Soulange, formerly a captain
+of infantry in the Orleannois regiment, “a rogue, and spy on both sides.”
+
+It will be seen that, in some of those instances, the individuals
+deserved legal punishment; that, in others, the charges were trivial, or
+vague, or ridiculous; and that in at least one case the French monarch
+displayed gross contempt of the law of nations. His imprisonment of
+Marini, the Genoese envoy, can only be paralleled by the manner in which
+the Turks used to treat Christian ambassadors on the breaking out of
+hostilities. But it was of a piece with the rest of his conduct towards
+the Genoese republic. It was retributive justice that he, the wanton
+disturber and insulter of Europe, should himself live to have his pride
+trodden into the dust, and to dread the approach of a hostile army to the
+walls of his own capital.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+    Reign of Louis XV.—Regency of the Duke of Orleans—Oppressive
+    measures against all persons connected with the Finances—Their
+    failure—Prisoners in the Bastile—Freret—Voltaire—The
+    Cellamare conspiracy—The Duchess of Maine—Madame de
+    Staal—Malezieu—Bargeton—Mahudel—The Mississippi scheme—Count
+    de Horn—Death of the Regent—Administration of the Duke of
+    Bourbon—La Blanc—Paris Duverney—The Count de Belleisle—The
+    Chevalier de Belleisle—Madame de Tencin.
+
+
+When the Duke of Orleans assumed the regency, the finances of the kingdom
+were in a lamentable state. The protracted and expensive wars into which
+Louis XIV. had wantonly plunged, the boundless extravagance in which he
+had indulged, and the peculations, and wasteful expenditure of every
+kind, which had so long prevailed, had not only drained the treasury, but
+had also caused a heavy load of debt, and almost dried up the sources of
+supply. The government was indebted to an enormous amount, the revenue
+of three years had been anticipated, and public credit was destroyed.
+From all quarters a loud cry was raised for fiscal reform. A national
+bankruptcy was proposed in the council, but the proposal was unanimously
+rejected. The means which were adopted in its stead were, however,
+scarcely less unjust; they were the same clumsy and violent means which
+former rulers had almost uniformly employed. Contracts, entered into by
+the ministers of the late king, were capriciously annulled, annuities and
+pensions were cut down to one half, offices, which the holders had bought
+at a great price, were abolished without any compensation being given,
+a new coinage was issued at a higher nominal value, and government
+securities, to the amount of six hundred millions, were at one stroke
+reduced to two hundred and fifty millions, and even of this diminished
+sum the creditors were defrauded of more than a fifth part. But the grand
+panacea, for restoring the consumptive exchequer to its pristine vigour,
+was the establishment of a court, antithetically denominated a chamber of
+justice. This chamber was directed to institute a rigorous inquiry into
+the conduct of all persons who had any connection with the finances, or
+with contracts of any kind, and compel them to disgorge their spoil. A
+sweeping edict brought under the jurisdiction of this inquisitorial body
+several thousands of individuals, from the richest farmer-general, or
+contractor, down to the poorest clerk. “The custom,” says Lemontey, “of
+drawing back by proscriptions the rapines which a vicious administration
+has tolerated, is an Asiatic art which ill beseems regular governments.
+But, condemned to a financial anarchy by its squandering habits,
+France, for a long while, could find no other than this odious remedy.”
+The remedy was indeed an odious one! The retrospective operation of
+this edict extended as far back as seven-and-twenty years; so that it
+clutched in its iron grasp not only living presumed criminals, but
+the children, grandchildren, and relations of those who had ceased to
+exist, and thus at once inflicted torment on a multitude of guiltless
+victims, and shook property to its very basis. The means employed to
+give effect to the edict were of the most base and barbarous kind.
+Death was the penalty denounced against all who were convicted, whoever
+made an incorrect declaration of his fortune was doomed to the galleys,
+and, that there might be no lack of evidence, the pillory was held up
+_in terrorem_ to negligent witnesses. But, bad as all this was, there
+was something still worse. Informers were to be rewarded with a fifth
+part of the confiscations, and to receive a certificate, stating that
+they were under the king’s protection, and exempt from being sued by
+their creditors; to slander them was rendered punishable with death.
+By another enactment, servants were allowed to denounce their masters,
+under fictitious names; a happy invention for destroying all domestic
+confidence! To excite the people, already sufficiently excited, a medal
+was struck, on which the culprits were typified by the robber Cacus,
+horrible songs and prints were circulated, and it was ordered that a
+portion of the confiscated property should be distributed among the
+inhabitants of the place where the condemned individual resided. The
+whole scheme of proceeding was consistently infamous; it never deviated
+into anything like justice.
+
+To prevent the escape of those who were marked out for prosecution, an
+order was suddenly issued, forbidding them to leave their abodes on pain
+of death. Such, however, was the terror inspired by this unexpected
+measure that many took flight, and others put an end to their own
+existence. Of those who remained, multitudes were dragged from their
+homes in the most studiously disgraceful manner, amidst the hootings
+of the populace, who lent their willing aid to the officers of police.
+The Bastile and the other prisons were speedily so crowded, that
+numbers were obliged to be left in their houses under a guard. For six
+months the chamber proceeded in its career, purveying liberally for the
+pillory, the galleys, and the scaffold. It was at last discovered, that
+this was a tedious and unsatisfactory process; that though revenge and
+malice were gratified, there was little profit; and the system was in
+consequence changed. To levy enormous fines and impositions was the new
+course which was adopted. Twenty lists of pecuniary proscription were
+made out, containing the names of 4470 heads of families, from whom the
+sum of two hundred and twenty millions of livres—about nine millions
+sterling—was demanded. The celebrated Bourvalais, who had risen from
+being a footman to be one of the richest financiers in France, was taxed
+at 4,400,000 livres. In many instances envy or personal enmity contrived
+to have insufferable burthens laid upon obnoxious individuals. Then, on
+the part of the sufferers, ensued solicitations and bribes to men and
+women in power, to procure more favourable terms; the golden harvest
+was eagerly reaped by the courtiers, and the court became a theatre
+of underhand manœuvres and gross corruption. The people, meanwhile,
+were rapidly growing disgusted with the chamber of justice. They found
+that they had derived no benefit whatever from its labours, the sums
+extorted by it having chiefly been wasted in gifts and pensions to the
+privileged classes. There was another and yet stronger reason for their
+dissatisfaction. Trade, and the demand for labour, had fallen off to an
+alarming degree, and money was rapidly disappearing; for no one would
+display riches, and indulge in luxuries, when his so doing might render
+him an object of persecution. So loud a cry was therefore raised against
+the chamber that, after having been twelve months in existence, it was
+suppressed. By the subsequent reversal of most of its sentences, and by a
+declaration, that no measure of a similar kind should again be resorted
+to, a severe but just censure was in fact passed upon the defunct
+tribunal, and upon the whole transaction.
+
+From tyranny in the gross we must now turn our attention again to tyranny
+in the detail. Oriental despotism, in its most capricious mood, could
+not have inflicted punishment more ridiculously and unjustly than the
+French government inflicted it upon the celebrated Freret. This eminent
+individual, who was born at Paris in 1688, was remarkable for his
+precocious talents and multifarious learning. Chronology, geography,
+mythology, history, and the laws, customs, and literature of ancient and
+modern nations, were all thoroughly known to him, he was not ignorant
+of the abstruse sciences, and his knowledge, instead of being a chaotic
+mass, was well arranged, systematically linked together, and readily
+available. An authoritative tone, and some ruggedness of manner, were the
+only defects imputed to him; but they were merely superficial, and did
+not prevent him from being kind, charitable, and a sincere and constant
+friend. He died at the age of sixty-one, his constitution, which was
+naturally strong, being worn out by incessant study. The edition of his
+works, in twenty volumes, is incomplete. Several irreligious productions
+have been calumniously attributed to him.
+
+It was a “Memoir on the Origin of the French” which was the cause of his
+being sent to the Bastile in 1705, and the Abbé de Vertot is asserted to
+have been the person to whom he owed his imprisonment. His offence was,
+that the origin which he assigned to his countrymen was an affront to the
+national dignity. It is said that, after having been closely interrogated
+at the Bastile, he begged leave to ask a single question, “Why am I
+here?” To this the reply was, “You have a great deal of curiosity.” When
+he was at length released, one of the magistrates sneeringly said to him,
+“Let France, and the French, and modern subjects, alone; antiquity offers
+such a wide field for your labours.” It is probable that no Turkish
+cadi, in the fifteenth century, ever uttered a speech of such insolent
+stupidity as is ascribed, three centuries later, to this magistrate of a
+polished nation.
+
+Various as were the acquirements of Freret, there was in the Bastile, and
+nearly contemporaneously with him, a prisoner, who far transcended him on
+that score, and who possessed a splendid genius. Poet, in almost every
+style of poetry, dramatist, historian, novellist, essayist, philosopher,
+controversialist, and commentator, the universal Voltaire was pre-eminent
+in several departments of literature, and was below mediocrity in none.
+“He was,” says a French author, “one of our greatest poets; the most
+brilliant, the most elegant, the most fertile, of our prose writers.
+There is not, in the literature of any country, either in verse or in
+prose, an author who has written on so many opposite kinds of subjects,
+and has so constantly displayed a superiority in all of them.” It has
+been said that Voltaire is a superficial writer, but this assertion is
+not borne out by the fact. On the contrary, it is wonderful that so gay
+and witty and fertile a writer, who was so much in the whirl of society
+as he was, should have displayed such profound research, such a vast
+command of materials, as Voltaire has undoubtedly done.
+
+As a man, Voltaire could be a warm friend, and was a champion of
+humanity, and a strenuous opponent of intolerance, superstition, and
+oppression. From our admiration of him a considerable drawback must,
+however, be made, for the readiness with which he lavished incense upon
+such worthless nobles as the Duke of Richelieu; for the aristocratical
+feelings which occasionally peep out even from among his liberal
+opinions; for his duplicity in showering praises and professions of
+kindness upon men whom he was at the same moment devoting to ridicule;
+for his meanness in stooping to falsehood, whenever he feared that
+avowing the truth would expose him to inconvenience; for his inflammable
+passions, which so often blinded his reason; for the sleepless animosity
+with which he strove to hunt down, disgrace, and crush whoever had
+offended him; for his obscenity and nauseating indelicacy; and for the
+fury with which he attacked objects which, in all ages, wise and good men
+have held sacred.
+
+Voltaire, whose family name was Arouet, was born, in 1694, at Chatenay,
+and received a thorough education at the Jesuits’ College, in the French
+capital. One of his tutors predicted that he would be the Coryphæus of
+deism in France; and the society which the youthful poet frequented,
+elegant, but immeasurably licentious and irreligious, was not likely
+to falsify the prediction. His father destined him for a place in the
+magistracy, but the literary propensity of the son was unconquerable. In
+his twenty-second year he was sent to the Bastile, by the regent Duke of
+Orleans, on an unfounded suspicion of his being the author of a libel.
+It was while he was in prison that he formed the plan of the Henriade,
+and completed the tragedy of Œdipus. He was in the Bastile above a year
+before the regent recognised his innocence, and set him free. The regent
+desired to see him, and the Marquis de Nocé was ordered to introduce him.
+While they were waiting in the ante-chamber, a circumstance occurred
+which strongly marks the profaneness and indiscretion of Voltaire. A
+violent storm burst over Paris, upon which the poet looked up at the
+clouds, and exclaimed, “If it were a regent that governed above, things
+could not be managed worse.” When de Nocé presented him to the duke, he
+said, “Here, your highness, is young Arouet, whom you have just taken out
+of the Bastile, and whom you will send back again,” and he then repeated
+what had been said. The duke, however, did not send him back again; he
+laughed heartily, and made the offender a liberal present. “I thank your
+royal highness for taking care of my board,” said Voltaire, “but I must
+request that you will not again provide me with lodging.”
+
+Œdipus was represented in 1718, with complete success. Two other
+tragedies, Artemise and Mariane, by which it was succeeded, were less
+fortunate. The Duke of Orleans was dead, and the reins of government
+were now held by the Duke of Bourbon. Voltaire having ventured to
+resent a dastardly insult offered to him by the worthless Chevalier de
+Rohan-Chabot, the chevalier thought it safer to imprison his adversary
+than to meet him in the field. His friends applied to the Duke of
+Bourbon, and raised his anger by showing him an epigram which the poet
+had composed on him. Their plan was successful; Voltaire was committed
+to the Bastile, and remained there for six months. This act of injustice
+induced him to take up his residence in England. In this country he
+lived for three years, was flatteringly received by many illustrious
+characters, and obtained a splendid subscription for the Henriade. The
+produce of this subscription formed the basis of that large fortune
+which he subsequently obtained by various lucky speculations. In 1728 he
+returned to his native land, and, between that year and 1749, he produced
+his tragedies of Zara, Alzira, Mahomet, and Merope, and many other works,
+was admitted into the French Academy, and was appointed gentleman in
+ordinary of the king’s bed-chamber, and historiographer of France.
+
+In 1750 Voltaire accepted an invitation to Berlin, which was given to him
+by the king of Prussia. For a while the sovereign and the poet were on
+the most amicable terms; but, in 1753, their friendship was broken, and
+Voltaire quitted the Prussian dominions in disgust. Paris, in consequence
+of the intrigues of his enemies, being no longer an eligible abode for
+him, he lived for short periods at Geneva and other places, and at length
+purchased an estate at Ferney, in the Pays de Gex, on which he finally
+settled. There, in possession of an ample fortune, and surrounded by
+friends, he gave free scope to his indefatigable pen. In April, 1778, he
+went once more to Paris, after an absence of nearly thirty years. He was
+received with almost a frenzy of enthusiasm, his bust was crowned on
+the stage, and was placed by the academicians next to that of Corneille.
+These honours, however, he did not long enjoy, for he expired on the 30th
+of May; his death is supposed to have been hastened by an over-dose of
+laudanum, which he took to calm the pain occasioned by strangury, and
+to procure sleep, of which he had long been deprived. In the edition of
+Beaumarchais, the collected works of Voltaire form seventy volumes.
+
+By the detection of the Cellamare conspiracy, in 1718, a large accession
+of prisoners fell to the share of the Bastile. Wounded female pride had
+the chief share in getting up that conspiracy. The Duchess of Maine was
+the prime mover. This princess, whose small frame was animated by a high
+and restless spirit, had seen her family degraded in a manner which it
+was not unnatural that she should violently resent. By an edict, dated
+in 1710, Louis XIV. not only granted to the Duke of Maine, and his other
+legitimated children, the same rank and honours which were enjoyed by
+princes of the blood, but also declared them capable of inheriting
+the crown, on failure of descendants in the legitimate branches. This
+step was highly offensive to the French peers, and was opposed by the
+parliament; but, while the king lived, resistance was unavailing. But
+the scene was about to change. Though Louis had reinforced his decree by
+a declaration in 1714, and by a clause in his testament, his death soon
+afforded another proof of the little respect that is paid to a deceased
+despot. The will, as every one knows, was set aside, without a voice
+being heard in support of it. In 1717, at the instance of the Duke of
+Bourbon, and the peers, the council of regency deprived the legitimated
+princes of all the privileges of princes of the blood, with the exception
+of a seat in the parliament. It was in vain that the Duchess of Maine
+and her partisans moved heaven and earth to avert this blow; all
+their writings, speeches, and manœuvres, were entirely thrown away. It
+must, however, be owned, that the duchess displayed wonderful talent
+and industry on this occasion; while the struggle continued, she was
+constantly to be seen half buried in a pile of dusty volumes, records,
+and other documents, in which she sought arguments and examples to
+support her cause. When the dreaded blow was finally struck, her passion
+rose to the highest pitch. “There is nothing left to me now,” exclaimed
+she to her more patient husband, “but the shame of having married you!”
+In the following year fresh fuel was heaped upon the flame. The Duke of
+Maine was reduced to take rank below all the peers, except those who were
+created posterior to 1694, and was likewise divested of the tutorship
+of the young king, which was assumed by the Duke of Bourbon. This gave
+rise to another outbreak of passion on the part of the duchess, who,
+on receiving notice to give up to the triumphant Bourbon the official
+apartments in the Tuileries, broke the glasses, the china, and everything
+which she had strength enough to destroy. Thus stung to the quick, she
+resorted to conspiracy for vengeance, and she speedily rallied round her
+a band of subaltern intriguers and discontented politicians. To expel
+the Duke of Orleans from the regency, and place the government under
+the tutelage of Philip V. of Spain, was the design of the plotters. The
+Spanish monarch, who detested the Duke of Orleans, and who, in spite of
+his renunciation, had still views on the French crown, was by no means
+averse from forwarding the scheme of the duchess. The correspondence was
+carried on through the Prince de Cellamare, the Spanish ambassador at
+Paris. The Duke of Orleans was, however, not in the dark with respect
+to these proceedings; they were betrayed to him by some of the parties
+concerned; and, as soon as the proof was complete, the whole of the
+offenders were arrested. The Duchess of Maine was sent to the castle
+of Dijon, and allowed only one female servant to attend her, the duke
+was closely confined in the citadel of Dourlens; the Abbé Brigault, the
+Marquis of Pompadour, the Count of Laval, the Chevalier Menil, Malezieu,
+Mademoiselle de Launay, and many more, found lodgings in the Bastile;
+and Vincennes and other prisons received their share of captives. Of de
+Launay and Malezieu some account shall be given; the rest deserve no
+record.
+
+The Baroness de Staal, whose maiden name was de Launay, was born at
+Paris, in 1693. Her father was a painter, who was compelled to retire
+to England before her birth; her mother, who seems not to have been
+overburdened with maternal feelings, found with her infant a retreat in
+a convent at Rouen. Even in infancy, De Launay manifested the dawning
+of a very superior intellect, and her manners were so fascinating that
+she became the darling of the convent. She had an extreme longing for
+knowledge, her questions were incessant, and, as all the nuns were
+eager to gratify and improve her, she soon acquired a larger and more
+valuable stock of ideas than falls to the lot of children in general.
+Among her friends in the convent was Madame de Grieu, who, on being
+nominated prioress of St. Louis at Rouen, took the child with her to
+her new abode. “The convent of St. Louis,” says Madame de Staal, “was
+like a little state in which I reigned sovereignly.” The abbess and her
+sister enjoyed a small pension from their family, which they devoted to
+the payment of masters for their favourite. By the time that she was
+fourteen, De Launay had studied the philosophy of Descartes, and pondered
+over the speculations of Malebranche, and, not long after, she turned her
+attention to the science of geometry.
+
+Her intellectual powers and her winning qualities brought many admirers
+around her; among whom were the Abbé de Vertot, M. Brunel, and M. Rey.
+None of them, however, made any impression on her heart. With respect to
+the passion of M. Rey, she makes one of those quiet yet piquant remarks,
+which are so common in her Memoirs. He was accustomed to escort her back
+to the convent, when she had been visiting some neighbouring friends. “We
+had to pass through a large open space,” says she, “and at the beginning
+of our acquaintance, he used to take his way along the sides. I found
+now, that he crossed over the middle of it; from which I concluded, that
+his love was at least diminished in the proportion of the difference
+between the diagonal and the two sides of a square.” It was not long ere
+she ceased to be able to speak of love in a sportive tone. She became
+deeply enamoured of the Marquis de Silly, the brother of a friend. He
+respected her, and acted the part of a counsellor, and almost a brother,
+but he could not return her affection: and the unfortunate fair one has
+touchingly described the sufferings she endured from her idolatrous and
+hopeless passion. Years elapsed before it was eradicated.
+
+This woe was aggravated by another. The death of the prioress, Madame de
+Grieu, in 1710, obliged her to quit the convent, and threw her without
+resources on the world. She accompanied to Paris the sister of her late
+patroness, and found a temporary refuge in the Presentation convent. To
+the purses of her friends she resolutely determined to make no appeal,
+while her means of repayment were uncertain, but rather to welcome
+servitude than forfeit her self-estimation. Her finances and hopes were
+almost at the lowest ebb, when the report of her astonishing abilities
+reached the gay, frivolous, and volatile duchess of La Ferté. The duchess
+was delighted with the idea of getting possession of, and exhibiting,
+what in fashionable cant phrase is called “a lion.” She could not rest
+till the new wonder was brought to her; an event which was somewhat
+retarded by the necessity under which Mademoiselle de Launay was placed,
+of borrowing decent clothes to appear in. The duchess was one of those
+persons who are apt to take sudden and violent likings, and she instantly
+pronounced her to be an absolute prodigy. She lauded her without measure
+in all quarters, hurried her about from place to place, and showed her
+off, much in the same way that a remarkably clever monkey is managed
+by an itinerant exhibitor of wild beasts. Madame de Staal has given an
+account, which is at once ludicrous and painful, of what she endured
+at this period. Fortunately for her, she became acquainted with men of
+talent, and acquired some valuable friends, among whom were Fontenelle
+and Malazieu.
+
+Disappointed in her hopes of being received into the household of the
+Duchess of La Ferté, or of obtaining an establishment elsewhere through
+her means, De Launay accepted an offer from the Duchess of Maine, to whom
+she had been introduced. This defection, as it was deemed, threw her late
+patroness into a paroxysm of rage. Her new situation was an unenviable
+one. She filled the place of a lady’s maid, who had retired; her
+apartment was a wretched low closet, in which it was impossible to move
+about in an upright posture, and which had neither chimney nor window;
+and her chief occupation was to make up shifts, in which she confesses
+herself to have been so inexpert, that, when the duchess came to put on
+some of her handywork, she found in the arm what ought to have been in
+the elbow. By the duchess, and all the upper classes in the house, she
+was utterly neglected, as a mere drudge; by those of her own class, she
+was envied, hated, and persecuted, for her natural superiority over
+them. Life at last became a burthen, and there was a moment when she
+seriously meditated the commission of suicide.
+
+A happy chance lifted her at once from this slough of despond into her
+proper sphere. There was an exceedingly beautiful female, named Testard,
+who laid claim to supernatural powers; by desire of the Duke of Orleans,
+Fontenelle had visited her, and, prejudiced by her charms, is said to
+have manifested too much faith in her. This folly of a philosopher,
+who was not remarkable for believing too much, excited a loud clamour.
+“You had better write to M. de Fontenelle, to let him hear what every
+body is talking against him about Testard,” said the duchess one day
+to her despised attendant. De Launay did write; and her letter, though
+brief, was such a finished composition, such an admirable mixture of
+delicate reproof and delicate praise, that, in the course of a few days,
+innumerable copies of it were spread throughout Paris. She, meanwhile,
+was unconscious of the effect which she had produced, till she was
+apprised of it by the duchess’s visitors, who overwhelmed her with
+compliments and attentions.
+
+From this time Mademoiselle de Launay was looked upon by the duchess as
+a person whose opinion was of some consequence, and was admitted into
+her parties, and enjoyed her confidence. She now shared with Malezieu
+the task of supplying plans and verses for the spectacles at Sceaux. Her
+literary connections became more widely extended, and she had no lack
+of lovers. Among those who paid the most devoted homage to her, was the
+Abbé de Chaulieu; the passion, as she herself hints, could have been only
+platonic, for he was then verging on eighty, but she owns that she had “a
+despotic authority over everything in his house.” It must, however, be
+mentioned, to her honour, that she displayed a rare disinterestedness,
+and steadily refused presents from him, which would have tempted a
+woman of a common mind, especially under De Launay’s circumstances. The
+princely gift of a thousand pistoles, which the Abbé offered, would have
+saved her from the slavery, endured night after night, of reading a
+duchess to sleep, while her own health was endangered by want of rest.
+
+In the memorial which the Duchess of Maine drew up in behalf of the
+legitimated princes, she was assisted by De Launay. “I turned over,”
+says the latter, “the old chronicles, and the ancient and modern
+jurisconsults, till excessive fatigue disposed the princess to rest.
+Then came my reading, to lull her to sleep; and then I went to seek for
+slumber, which, however, I never found!”
+
+In the proceedings of the duchess, with respect to the Cellamare
+conspiracy, she was deeply implicated; a part at least of the
+correspondence passed through her hands. Her good sense anticipated,
+long before the event, what would be the final result. The storm burst
+at last. She was arrested on the 19th of December, 1718, and, three days
+after, was committed to the Bastile. With a truly philosophical spirit,
+she soon became reconciled to her fate. Luckily, she had an invaluable
+companion in her maid Rondel, faithful, affectionate, and acute, the
+very model of domestics. But it must not be concealed, that she had
+another consolation, to lighten her prison hours. She inspired two
+persons with an ardent attachment. One of these was a fellow prisoner,
+on the Cellamare score, the Chevalier de Menil; the other was the king’s
+lieutenant in the fortress, M. de Maisonrouge. Reason would have chosen
+the latter as the proper object of fondness; but her wayward heart
+decided in favour of the former. No writer has ever imagined a more
+elevated, devoted, self-sacrificing passion than that of Maisonrouge.
+He lived and breathed but for her; ever watchful to forerun all her
+wishes, having no delight but to behold and converse with her, he had
+even the magnanimity to convey her letters to Menil, and to bring about
+interviews, when he found that her heart was irrevocably bestowed on him.
+The catastrophe is painful. The favoured Menil, who had solemnly pledged
+himself to make her his wife, was no sooner set free than he proved
+faithless to his vows. The noble-minded and unfortunate Maisonrouge never
+recovered the shock which he sustained from his loss; he died the victim
+of his unrequited love.
+
+The confinement of Mademoiselle de Launay was continued for two years;
+she was the last to be liberated. Her imprisonment was protracted by
+her repeated resolute refusals to confess anything that could tend to
+derogate from the safety and character of the Duchess of Maine. She
+persisted in this course even after she had the duchess’s permission
+to speak out, and she was released at last after having made only an
+imperfect confession. This heroic conduct gained, as it deserved,
+universal praise. It is mortifying to relate that, after her sufferings,
+she was received by the duchess without that warm greeting which she had
+a right to expect. The duchess even carried her indifference so far as
+to let her remain almost in rags, all her clothes having been worn out
+in the Bastile. Yet she would not hear of her quitting Sceaux, and when
+Dacier, who was rich, would have married De Launay, she frustrated the
+negotiation, in the dread of losing her. At length, when her ill-used and
+exhausted dependent was meditating to retire into a convent, the duchess
+bestirred herself, and brought about an union with the Baron de Staal, a
+half-pay Swiss officer. The baroness was now admitted to all the honours
+enjoyed by the highest ladies in the household, and from this period
+till her decease in 1750, she was comparatively happy.
+
+Nicholas de Malezieu, a native of Paris, was born in 1650. Like Madame
+de Staal, he possessed much talent, and, like her, he displayed it in
+childhood. By the time that he was four years old he had, with scarcely
+any assistance, taught himself to read and write, and at twelve years of
+age had gone through a complete course of philosophy. His merit gained
+for him the friendship of Bossuet, and the Duke of Montausier, and so
+highly did those eminent men rate it, that they recommended him as tutor
+to the Duke of Maine. Fenelon was subsequently added to the list of his
+friends, and, notwithstanding the breach between that amiable prelate and
+Bossuet, he retained the good-will of both. He seems, too, to have lived
+in harmony with all the principal contemporary authors. The marriage of
+the Duke of Maine with the high-spirited and intelligent grand-daughter
+of the great Condé drew still closer the ties which bound Malezieu to
+the family of the duke. His learning embraced a wide circle, he was a
+proficient in mathematics, elegant literature, Greek, and Hebrew, and his
+extemporary translations from the Greek dramatists and poets, and his
+illustrations and comments on them, are said to have been delivered with
+a degree of eloquence which excited universal admiration. The duchess
+listened to his instructions with delight. It is therefore not wonderful,
+that he acquired an almost unbounded influence in the ducal palace.
+“The decisions of M. Malezieu,” says Madame de Staal, “were thought as
+infallible as were those of Pythagoras among his disciples. The warmest
+disputes were at an end the moment any one pronounced the words ‘_He_
+said it.’” There was another reason which had, perhaps no small effect
+in rendering him a favourite with the duchess. He was not one of those
+stately personages who think that it derogates from their dignity to
+attend to graceful trifles. The duchess was fond of giving magnificent
+spectacles and entertainments, and having plays acted, at Sceaux, where
+she held a sort of miniature court. Malezieu had the management of them,
+and when verses, and sometimes pieces, were wanted, his ready pen was
+called in to supply them. From these light occupations he was taken away
+for a time, to become mathematical preceptor to the youthful Duke of
+Burgundy; in this task he was for four years engaged, and he performed
+it in a manner which enhanced his reputation. The lessons which he
+gave to his royal pupil were afterwards published, under the title of
+“Elements of Geometry.” The days of Malezieu were spent in uninterrupted
+tranquillity, till the period when the duchess rashly plunged into
+intrigues with the Spanish court. It was not unnatural that he should
+espouse warmly the cause of his noble patrons, and he was perhaps led to
+the verge of treason before he was aware. His heaviest offence seems to
+have been his writing, at the request of the Duchess of Maine, sketches
+of two letters against the Duke of Orleans which were to be sent to the
+Spanish monarch, for the purpose of being addressed by him to Louis
+XV. and the parliaments. Malezieu long persisted in denying the fact,
+and asserting the innocence of his employer, and for this persistency
+he was kept in the Bastile after the whole of the plotters, with the
+exception of himself and De Launay, had been discharged. It was not till
+he knew that proof was in the hands of the government, and the duchess
+had confessed, that he avowed the authorship of the letters. He was then
+released, but was exiled for six months to Etampes. His decease took
+place in 1727.
+
+There remains yet another person who suffered by the Cellamare
+conspiracy, though he was not one of its agents. He had the fate of the
+unlucky stork in the fable, who got into dangerous company. Bargeton, one
+of the most celebrated advocates of the parliament of Paris, was born,
+about 1675, at Uzès, in Languedoc. If he was not of humble birth, his
+parents at least were poor; for, before he had emerged from obscurity,
+all relationship with him was disclaimed by a Languedocian family
+which claimed to be noble. When, however, his fortune and fame were
+established, one of that family was anxious to prove his consanguinity
+with the formerly despised advocate, and hoped to flatter him, by
+descanting on the antiquity of their common origin. Bargeton cut short
+the harangue of his would-be kinsman. “As you are a gentleman by birth,”
+said he, “it is impossible that we can be relations.”
+
+Bargeton was the law adviser of some of the highest personages of the
+kingdom. The duke and duchess of Maine placed entire confidence in him.
+This circumstance gave rise to suspicion that he was connected with the
+Cellamare plot, and he was consequently committed to the Bastile. In a
+short time his innocence was recognized, and he was set at liberty.
+
+The legal reputation of Bargeton, both as a civilian and common lawyer,
+induced Machault, the comptroller-general of finances, to apply to him,
+in 1749, for assistance. The clergy had hitherto contributed to the
+wants of the state only by voluntary gifts; and, of course, asserted
+the privilege of not being compelled to contribute at all. Machault
+determined to put an end to this pretended privilege, by subjecting
+them, like the rest of the people, to the payment of the twentieth. Had
+he succeeded, his success would have put an end to one of the abuses
+which contributed to produce the Revolution, and, most probably, would
+at length have caused the downfall of another equally crying abuse with
+respect to the nobles. Though Bargeton was thoroughly convinced that the
+clergy had no right to an exemption from imposts, yet, being aware that
+the firmness of Louis XV. was not to be relied on, he advised Machault
+either to prohibit the ecclesiastics from holding meetings, or to
+decline a contest with them. “I have the king’s promise to stand by me,”
+said Machault. “He will break it,” replied the advocate, who, in this
+instance, proved to be a prophet. Bargeton, nevertheless, lent his aid to
+the comptroller-general, and wrote a series of admirable letters, on the
+subject of the clerical immunity. His labour was in vain. Unchangeable
+in nothing but sensuality and despotism, the king yielded; the clergy
+triumphed; and the letters of Bargeton were suppressed by an order of
+council. The author did not live to witness this event; he died early in
+1753, before his work had passed through the press.
+
+The suspicion of carrying on an improper correspondence with Spain,
+though it does not appear that he was connected with the Duchess of
+Maine’s party, gave another prisoner to the Bastile. Nicholas Mahudel,
+who was born at Langres, in 1673, was by profession a physician; but
+his celebrity was acquired by his profound knowledge of history and
+numismatics. So extensive were his talents and information upon those
+subjects, that he was chosen a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, and
+he took a very active part in the proceedings of that learned body. His
+servant having betrayed to the police some letters which his master had
+written to Spain, at the period when all intercourse with that country
+was looked upon with a jealous eye, the consequence was, that Mahudel was
+lodged in the Bastile for several months. It was while he was in prison
+that he wrote his “History of Medallions,” of which only four copies were
+printed. His other productions are chiefly dissertations on medals, and
+on historical questions. He died in 1747.
+
+It has seldom happened that a captive has been reluctant to quit his
+prison. Such an uncommon anomaly did, however, actually occur with
+respect to an individual who was implicated in the Cellamare plot. Five
+years had elapsed since the discomfiture of that plot, and the government
+believed that all who were connected with it had been released, when it
+was by mere chance discovered that one of them, the Marquis de Bon Repos,
+had been left in the Bastile by mistake. Bon Repos, an aged officer, who,
+notwithstanding his title, was miserably poor, was anything but grateful
+for his proffered release. He had become habituated to confinement, and
+was rejoiced to be safe from want, and he manifested a strong dislike to
+“a crust of bread and liberty.” It was not without much murmuring that he
+consented to change his quarters in the Bastile for others in the Hôtel
+des Invalides.
+
+It might have been supposed that the tremendous explosion of the
+Mississippi scheme, which spread ruin over France, would have filled the
+prisons with real or imagined offenders. But this was not the case. Law
+himself, more unfortunate and imprudent perhaps than criminal, received
+a passport from the regent, and reached Brussels in safety. The only
+persons who appear to have at all suffered, were his brother, William
+Law, and two of the directors, who were sent for a short time to the
+Bastile.
+
+The next remarkable inmate of the Bastile, the Count de Horn, a Flemish
+noble, was no less infamous by crime than he was illustrious by birth. He
+was allied to several princely houses, and could even claim relationship
+with the regent Duke of Orleans. So thoroughly had he disgraced himself,
+by his fraudulent and debauched conduct, that at the very time when he
+was meditating the atrocity which drew on him the vengeance of the
+law, his family had despatched a gentleman to pay his debts, to request
+his expulsion from Paris, and to bring him back, by force if necessary,
+to his own country. Their agent arrived too late. Some of the count’s
+freaks, disgraceful as they were, might have been charitably ascribed to
+the licentious manners of the age, and the turbulent passions of a youth
+of twenty-two, had he not been guilty of a crime which proved that his
+heart was still more faulty than his head.
+
+The two indiscretions—if so mild a name may be given to them—for which
+the Count de Horn was sent to the Bastile, were not too harshly punished
+by his imprisonment; as they manifested a degree of brutality which was
+ominous of worse deeds. In company with some of his libertine companions,
+he was passing the cloisters of St. Germain, where a corpse was waiting
+for interment. “What are you doing here? Get up!” he exclaimed to the
+body, which was lying uncovered. He seconded his speech by striking the
+corpse several blows with his sword, and overturning it among the sacred
+vessels, which were placed in readiness for the funeral service.
+
+As no notice was taken of this outrage, he was emboldened to make
+the church of St. Germain once more the scene of his exploits. It is
+necessary to mention that, at the period in question, almost the whole
+population of Paris was labouring under the epidemic madness of the
+famous Mississippi scheme. An ordinance relative to bank notes had just
+been issued by the government, and a hawker was crying it for sale in the
+street. From this man the count purchased a copy of the ordinance, and
+gave him a crown for it, on condition of his placing a large stone at
+the great door of the church. On this stone De Horn mounted, and while
+high mass was being celebrated within the building, he thundered out the
+anthem which is sung when the dead are committed to the ground, and he
+concluded by proclaiming the burial of bank notes. This second insult to
+public decency was too much to be borne; the priest laid his complaint
+before the government, and the offender was conveyed to the Bastile.
+
+In the course of a few days the youthful profligate was set at liberty.
+But his brief imprisonment had worked no beneficial change upon him. It
+seems, indeed, to have had a contrary effect. So slight a chastisement
+perhaps induced him to calculate upon impunity for greater crimes. A
+very short time elapsed before he dipped his hands in blood. In the
+sanguinary deed which brought him to destruction, he had two accomplices,
+Laurent de Mille, a half-pay captain, and Lestang, a youth of twenty, the
+son of a Flemish banker. Every Frenchman, who could any how obtain the
+means of speculating, was then busily engaged in the Rue Quincampoix,
+which was the Parisian stock exchange. De Horn, too, was there; but his
+speculation was of a more diabolical nature than that which engaged the
+multitude. Having picked out a rich stock-jobber, who was known to carry
+about with him a large sum in notes, he lured him by pretending to be in
+possession of shares, which he was willing to sell considerably under the
+market price. These bargains were usually concluded in a tavern; and,
+accordingly, De Horn and his associates proceeded with their unsuspecting
+victim to a house of that kind in the Rue de Venise. There he stabbed the
+unfortunate stock-jobber, and robbed him of his pocket-book. He then,
+with his accomplices, leaped out of the window, and endeavoured to make
+his escape. Lestang got off, but the count and the half-pay captain were
+less fortunate; they were overtaken, and lodged in prison.
+
+Justice, on this occasion, was not delayed. The trial of the delinquents
+followed close upon the commission of the murder; no circumstance of
+mitigation could be pleaded in their behalf, and they were both condemned
+to be broken on the wheel. No sooner did the sentence become known than
+the whole of the aristocratical class in France, Flanders, and Germany,
+was in commotion. To subject a nobleman to such a degrading punishment
+was declared to be an unprecedented and abominable measure. The regent
+was beset on all sides by solicitations for a pardon, or, at least,
+for a change in the mode of executing the criminal. When the first of
+these boons was found to be hopeless, redoubled exertions were made to
+obtain the second. Among the arguments employed to move the regent, that
+of the culprit being related to him was strongly urged. But, though
+Philip of Orleans was stained by many vices, there were moments when his
+better nature prevailed, and he was capable of acting nobly. To the near
+relations of the count, who pressed him incessantly on the subject, he
+replied, “When I have impure blood in my veins, I have it drawn out.”
+Then, quoting the sentiment of Corneille, “’tis crime that brands with
+shame, and not the scaffold,” he added, “I must share in the disgrace of
+which you complain, and this ought to console the rest of his kindred.”
+It is said, however, that he was at length on the point of yielding so
+far as to commute the form of punishment for one less obnoxious; but
+that Mr. Law and the Abbé Dubois insisted on the absolute necessity of
+allowing justice to take its course. Popular indignation would, they
+justly remarked, be roused by any favour being shown to the perpetrator
+of such a heinous offence. The regent acquiesced in their opinion; and,
+that he might not be harassed by further appeals to his clemency, he
+went privately to St. Cloud, where he remained till the murderers were
+executed.
+
+Having lost all hope from the Regent, the Princes of Robecq and
+Isengheim, who were nearly allied to De Horn, tried a new method of
+evading the dreaded stigma. They gained admission to his prison, and
+exhorted him to escape the wheel, by taking poison, which they offered.
+But either religious scruples, or a lingering belief that he might yet be
+pardoned, induced him to decline acceding to their wishes. Finding that
+all their intreaties and remonstrances were unavailing, they quitted him
+in a rage, exclaiming, “Go, wretch! you are fit only to die by the hand
+of the executioner.”
+
+The firmness of the regent was worthy of applause. It was, nevertheless,
+looked upon as an inexpiable insult by the aristocracy in general, and
+especially by the kinsfolk of the malefactor. The regent having directed
+that the confiscated property of the count should be restored to the
+prince, his brother, the haughty noble rejected the proffered boon, and
+gave vent to his high displeasure in the following insolent letter.
+“I do not complain, Sir, of the death of my brother; he had committed
+so horrible a crime, that there was no punishment he did not deserve.
+But I complain, that, in his person, you have violated the rights of
+the kingdom, of the nobility, and of nations. For the offer of his
+confiscated property, which you have been pleased to make, I thank you;
+but I should think myself as infamous as he was, if I were to accept of
+the slightest favour from your Royal Highness. I hope that God and the
+king will, some day, mete out to you the same rigid justice that you have
+dispensed to my unfortunate brother.”
+
+By the death of the Duke of Orleans, in 1723, all the power of the state
+fell into the worthless hands of the Duke of Bourbon. The vices of
+Orleans had been at least palliated by great talents, some virtues, and a
+heart which, though corrupted, was not dead to kind and noble feelings;
+but Bourbon, harsh in disposition, rude in manners, repulsive in personal
+appearance, and governed by an artful and profligate mistress, had no one
+good quality to throw even a faint lustre over his numerous defects. The
+sway of Bourbon lasted little more than two years, and, in that brief
+space of time, he committed so many enormous political errors, springing
+from ignorance, presumption, and intolerance, that the kingdom was thrown
+into discontent and confusion.
+
+The minister of the war department, Claude le Blanc, was one of those
+who suffered by the change which took place on the death of the Duke of
+Orleans. Le Blanc was born in 1669, and had filled several important
+offices before he became one of the ministers. The machinations of his
+enemies, one of the most inveterate of whom was the Marshal de Villeroi,
+procured his temporary banishment from court in 1723, on suspicion of
+his having participated in peculation committed by the treasurer. He was
+confined in the Bastile by the Duke of Bourbon, and the parliament was
+directed to bring him to trial. To secure his conviction, his adversaries
+calumniously asserted, that he had employed an assassin to murder one of
+his principal accusers. The parliament, however, fully acquitted him of
+all the charges which were brought against him. He was, nevertheless,
+exiled by the duke. In 1726, Cardinal de Fleury placed him once more at
+the head of the war department, where he continued till his decease, in
+1728. It is in favour of his character that he died poor, and that he was
+beloved by the people.
+
+Le Blanc was scarcely restored to his office, before his vacant place in
+the Bastile was filled by one who had been among the most active of his
+enemies. Joseph Paris Duverney, a native of Dauphiné, of humble birth,
+was one of four brothers, all of whom were men of talent. A fortunate
+chance gave them the opportunity of exercising their talents in a wider
+field than, considering their primitive station in life, they could have
+hoped to find. They were the sons of a man who kept a small solitary inn
+at the foot of the Alps, and whom they assisted in his business. The
+Duke of Vendôme was then at the head of the French army in Italy, and
+all his plans were rendered abortive by the failure of supplies. This
+want of subsistence was caused by the scandalous conduct of Bouchu, the
+commissary general. Bouchu, who was old, had the folly to make love to
+a young girl, and she had the good sense to prefer his deputy, who had
+youth and personal appearance on his side. To revenge himself for this
+slight, Bouchu retarded the collecting of provisions, in order to throw
+the blame on his deputy, who was charged with the merely mechanical part
+of the operations. Knowing that further delay would be ruin to him, the
+deputy contrived to collect a portion of the supplies that were wanted;
+but he was yet far from being out of his difficulties, for the Alps were
+interposed between him and the French army, and he knew not where to find
+in the neighbourhood a practicable pass. While he was labouring under
+this embarrassment, he luckily fell in with the four brothers, and they
+engaged to extricate him from it. They were thoroughly acquainted with
+every path and goat track in that wild region, and they conducted the
+convoy with so much skill, through apparently impassable ways, that they
+reached the French camp without having suffered the slightest loss.
+
+This service, for which they were liberally rewarded, laid the foundation
+of their fortune. The contractors and commissaries employed them, and
+promoted them rapidly; and, at no distant time, the brothers became
+themselves contractors, and extensive commercial speculators. Riches
+rapidly flowed in upon them, and they were called to take a share
+in managing the finances of the state. They experienced, however, a
+temporary eclipse during the ascendancy of Law, to whom they were
+hostile, and who avenged himself by procuring their exile into Dauphiné.
+The flight of Law put an end to their banishment; they returned to Paris,
+were in higher credit than ever, and contributed much to mitigate the
+evils which had been caused by the Mississippi scheme. They continued to
+have great weight in the government, till they lost it in consequence of
+a political intrigue, in which Joseph Paris imprudently engaged, with the
+Marchioness de Prie, the Duke of Bourbon’s mistress. Their intent was to
+exclude Cardinal de Fleury from public affairs, and to give the duke an
+unbounded ascendancy over the youthful monarch. Fleury discovered the
+plot; the duke was deprived of power; and the brothers were once more
+exiled. Joseph was soon after arrested, at his asylum near Langres, and
+was sent to the Bastile, where he remained for nearly two years. In 1730,
+however, he recovered his influence, and he kept it till his death, in
+1770. France is indebted to Joseph Duverney for the project of the Royal
+Military School, which was carried into execution in 1751.
+
+Two grandsons of the unfortunate Fouquet, the Count de Belleisle, and
+the Chevalier de Belleisle, were involved in the fall of Le Blanc, and
+were for some time inmates of the Bastile. The count was born in 1684;
+the chevalier in 1693. The count had acquired a high military character,
+in the war of the succession, and in the Spanish campaign of 1719, when,
+with his brother, he was immured in a prison. After his release, he
+served with distinction in various quarters, and rose to the rank of
+marshal. Cardinal de Fleury placed entire confidence in his civil as well
+as his military talents. It was not, however, till the breaking out
+of the war of 1741 that his genius shone forth in its full lustre. The
+secret negotiations for raising the Elector of Bavaria to the dignity of
+emperor were carried on by him, and on this occasion he gave convincing
+proof of his diplomatic skill. Placed at the head of the French army,
+which was to maintain Charles VII. on the throne, Belleisle carried
+Prague by assault. But while, as ambassador extraordinary of Louis XV.,
+he was securing the election of Charles at Frankfort, the Austrians
+threatened to deprive him of his recent conquests. He, therefore,
+hastened back to his army, obtained some advantages, and would probably
+have triumphed, had not the sudden defection of Prussia and Saxony left
+him to bear the whole weight of Maria Theresa’s forces.
+
+Prague, garrisoned by 28,000 French, was soon invested by 60,000 enemies.
+Belleisle offered to give up the Bohemian capital, on condition of being
+allowed to retire without molestation; but the besiegers would listen
+to nothing short of a surrender at discretion. After having made a
+protracted defence, he began to be threatened by famine, and, in this
+extremity, he resolved to break through the Austrian quarters. At the
+head of 15,000 men, with twelve days’ provisions, he sallied from Prague,
+on the night of the 16th of December, 1742, and directed his march upon
+Egra, which city was at the distance of thirty-eight leagues. He took
+his measures so well, that, though he was closely pursued by the enemy’s
+light troops, he sustained little injury. The sufferings of the French
+army were, nevertheless, extreme. Compelled to bivouac for ten nights
+among snow and ice, and often without wood for fires, the mortality among
+the troops was appalling. The line of the retreat was marked throughout
+by whole platoons frozen to death; seventeen hundred men perished in the
+course of the ten days. In 1746 and 1747, Belleisle was charged with
+the defence of Dauphiné; these were his last campaigns. In 1748 he was
+created a duke and peer, and in 1757 he became war minister. He held the
+war department for three years, and reformed many abuses. In 1761 he died
+childless, the last of his family, his heir, the Count of Gisors, having
+fallen at the battle of Crevelt.
+
+His brother, the chevalier, had gone before him, the victim of an
+intemperate courage. From 1734 to 1746, the chevalier was often actively
+engaged, both in fighting and negotiating, and displayed equal talents
+in each occupation. It being an object of importance to open a passage
+into the heart of Piedmont, the two brothers agreed that an attack
+should be made on the formidable intrenched post of the Piedmontese, at
+the Col de l’Assiette. The chevalier was animated by the prospect of
+gaining the rank of marshal, in case of success. The position of the
+enemy was all but inaccessible, and was fortified with more than usual
+care, well provided with artillery, and held by a large force. Belleisle
+led his men to the attack, but found it impossible even to approach his
+antagonists, who scattered death among his ranks, with almost perfect
+impunity to themselves. Instead of retiring from a hopeless contest, he
+madly persisted in his efforts, till the slaughter became horrible. He at
+last put himself at the head of a body of officers, and made a desperate
+but fruitless assault, in which he fell, along with most of those who
+surrounded him. Nearly four thousand of the assailants were slain, and
+half as many wounded, while the loss of the Piedmontese fell far short of
+a hundred men.
+
+We have, in the former part of this chapter seen one literary female an
+inmate of the Bastile, we must now contemplate in the same situation
+another, of equal talents, but with a more sullied character. The second
+of these females was Madame de Tencin, sister of the cardinal of that
+name. Though, like most Frenchwomen of that period, it is probable that
+Madame de Staal did not preserve an inviolate chastity, she certainly
+paid more respect to appearances than was paid by Madame de Tencin, and
+was less stimulated by mere animal passion. “I shall paint only my bust,”
+Madame de Staal is said to have replied, when she was asked how, in her
+Memoirs, she would contrive to speak of her love affairs; with respect
+to Madame de Tencin, it may be doubted whether, at least while she was
+moving in the circle of the court, she would have hesitated to delineate
+a whole-length likeness of herself.
+
+Tencin was a name derived from a small estate; the family name was
+Guerin. The lady in question was born in 1681, and her father was
+president of the parliament of Grenoble. She was placed in the convent of
+Montfleury, near Grenoble, where she resided for five years. If credit
+may be given to the statements of St. Simon and others, her conduct while
+she wore the veil was anything but pious and decorous. The consequence
+of one of her amours is said to have rendered it indispensable for her
+to leave the convent, of which she was already tired. Her great object
+was to shine in Paris, and this she accomplished. Through the interest of
+Fontenelle, who took a great interest in her, she obtained a dispensation
+from the Pope, and she then gave full swing to her pleasures. She
+became the mistress of the ultra profligate Dubois; and the scandalous
+chronicles of the time charge her with having joined in the orgies of the
+regent and his companions, and prostituted her talents by the composition
+of obscene works. With Law, the Mississippi projector, she was intimate,
+and she and her brother appear to have profited largely by speculations
+during that period of national madness. It is one pleasing feature in
+her character, that she was more anxious to establish her brother than
+herself.
+
+The celebrated d’Alembert was the fruit of one of her amours; the father
+was the Chevalier Destouches. The infant was, in the first instance,
+deserted by its parents; it was left on the steps of the church of St.
+John de la Ronde, where it was found in such a state of weakness that,
+instead of sending it to the Foundling Hospital, the commissary of police
+humanely gave it to the wife of a poor glazier to be nursed. Such a want
+of maternal feeling, had it not been in some measure atoned for, would
+have justified a sarcasm of the Abbé Trublet, who, on some one praising
+to him the mild disposition of Madame de Tencin, replied, “Oh, yes! if
+she had an interest in poisoning you, she would choose the mildest poison
+for the purpose.” The parents are, however, said to have relented in the
+course of a few days; the father settled on him a pension of 1200 livres.
+
+It was the fatal result of another of her amours that gave her a place
+in the Bastile. In 1726, La Fresnaye, one of the members of the Great
+Council, shot himself through the head at her house. A paper in his
+handwriting was found, in which he declared that, if ever he died a
+violent death, she would be the cause of it. From this paper, which
+certainly bears on the face of it a very different meaning, it was
+hastily and harshly concluded, that she had a hand in his murder. She was
+consequently committed to the Concièrgerie, whence she was removed to the
+Bastile; but she was not long a prisoner.
+
+In her later years, the conduct of Madame de Tencin underwent a complete
+reformation; the catastrophe of La Fresnaye perhaps contributed to the
+change. She kept up a correspondence with Cardinal Lambertini, which
+was not discontinued when he became Pope Benedict XIV., and her house
+was the resort of all the wit and talent of Paris, with Fontenelle
+and Montesquieu at their head. Her assemblage of literary men she
+used jocosely to call her menagerie, and her animals, and it was her
+custom, on New-year’s-day, to present each individual with two ells of
+velvet, for a pair of breeches. It is not easy to suppress a smile at
+the ludicrous idea of such a present. Madame de Tencin died in 1749.
+Her three romances, the Count de Comminge, the Siege of Calais, and the
+Misfortunes of Love, still deservedly maintain a high rank among works of
+that class. It has been said, that she was assisted in writing them by
+two of her nephews; but the truth of this is at least doubtful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+    Reign of Louis XV. continued—The Bull Unigenitus—A Notary
+    Public—G. N. Nivelle—G. C. Buffard—Death of Deacon Paris—Rise,
+    progress, and acts, of the Convulsionaries—Persecution
+    of them, and artifices employed by them to foil their
+    persecutors—Lenglet Dufresnoy—La Beaumelle—F. de
+    Marsy—Marmontel—The Abbé Morellet—Mirabeau the elder—The
+    Chevalier Resseguier—Groubendal and Dulaurens—Robbé
+    de Beauveset—Mahé de la Bourdonnais—Count Lally—La
+    Chalotais—Marin—Durosoi—Prévost de Beaumont—Barletti St.
+    Paul—Dumouriez.
+
+
+Religious intolerance, on the one hand, and disgusting fanaticism, on
+the other, contributed largely to swell the number of captives in the
+Bastile, and in other places of confinement. For many years after Pope
+Clement XI., at the instigation of the bigoted Le Tellier and Louis XIV.,
+had thrown among the clergy of the Gallican church that ecclesiastical
+firebrand the bull Unigenitus, it continued to spread the flames of
+fierce contention, hatred, and persecution. The first individual for whom
+the bull found an abode in a prison was, I believe, a notary public.
+While the regency was held by the Duke of Orleans, the bishops of
+Mirepoix, Senez, Montpellier, and Boulogne, had the boldness to sign an
+act, protesting against the bull, and appealing from the pope to a future
+council; and, accompanied by a notary, they solemnly presented this act
+to the assembled Sorbonne. As to have imprisoned the four bishops would
+scarcely have been politic, they were only ordered to retire to their
+dioceses; the notary, of whom a scape-goat could more conveniently be
+made, was sent to the Bastile.
+
+Backed by power, the supporters of the bull were finally triumphant, and
+they did not fail to make the vanquished party experience the consequence
+of being defeated by men who did not consider forbearance as a virtue.
+It would be useless to dwell upon the many appellants who were chastised
+for having ventured to doubt the pontifical infallibility, and insist on
+referring the question in dispute to a future council; I will, therefore,
+only make mention of two individuals.
+
+Among those who were most active in opposing the bull Unigenitus, and
+who, consequently, were proscribed by its champions, was Gabriel Nicholas
+Nivelle; he was indefatigable in drawing up memorials and tracts, and
+soliciting appeals against it. He more than once contrived to elude his
+pursuers; but, in 1730, he was taken and committed to the Bastile, where
+he remained for four months. His zeal was, however, rather excited than
+cooled by this imprisonment; and, till his decease in 1761, when he was
+in his seventy-fourth year, he continued to be a determined opponent of
+the bull. Nivelle edited several voluminous works relative to the contest
+in which his party was engaged; the principal of which, in four folio
+volumes, bears the title of The Constitution Unigenitus denounced to the
+Universal Church, or a General Collection of the Acts of Appeal.
+
+Equally hostile to the bull, and equally persecuted by its victorious
+friends, was Gabriel Charles Buffard, a native of Bayeux, who was born
+in 1683. He was rector of the university of Caen, and canon of Bayeux;
+but was expelled from his offices, and banished out of the diocese, in
+1722. Buffard settled at Paris, where he was not long allowed to remain
+in quiet. He was conveyed to the Bastile, and, after having been there
+for some time, he was exiled to Auxerre. From Auxerre he was speedily
+dragged to suffer another imprisonment in the Bastile. Fortunately, he
+found a protector in Cardinal des Gesvres, through whose intercession he
+was set at liberty. Buffard thenceforth lived in retirement, and gained
+a subsistence by giving opinions as a chamber counsel, and by assisting
+young scholars in the study of the canon law. He died in 1763.
+
+It was an opinion of Bishop Butler, the celebrated author of The Analogy
+of Religion, that “whole communities and public bodies might be seized
+with fits of insanity, as well as individuals;” and, indeed, that
+“nothing but this principle, that they are liable to insanity, equally
+at least with private persons, can account for the major part of those
+transactions which we read of in history.” Singular as, at first sight,
+this opinion may appear to be, there are many circumstances which ought
+to induce us to pause, before we reject it as erroneous. The strange
+scenes, for instance, which took place among the Jansenists,—scenes
+arising out of the death of the deacon Paris,—may almost authorize a
+belief, that large bodies of individuals can be simultaneously smitten
+with monomania, or at least can communicate it to each other with
+wonderful rapidity.
+
+Francis Paris, a strenuous opponent of the bull Unigenitus, was the son
+of a French counsellor. Pious, humble, and benevolent, Paris relinquished
+to his brother all claim to the paternal succession, renounced the
+world, lived by the labour of his own hands, and spent his leisure
+moments in prayer, and in succouring, consoling, and instructing the
+poor. His modest estimate of his own abilities deterred him from taking
+holy orders. He died on the 1st of May, 1727, and was buried in the
+church-yard of St. Medard. Many of those to whom he had been a comforter
+and guide, looked upon him as a beatified being, and came to pray at
+his tomb. Among the number were many females. Rumours soon began to
+be spread, that miracles were worked by the influence of the sainted
+defunct; sight was said to be restored, and contracted limbs extended to
+their full longitude. Multitudes now flocked to the sacred ground. Then
+ensued, especially among the women, contortions and convulsive movements,
+attended by cries, shrieks, and groans, all of which were regarded as
+manifestations of divine power. All convulsive movements are catching,
+and consequently, the number of persons who displayed them at St. Medard,
+increased daily to an enormous extent. The jargon which was uttered by
+the convulsionaries, during their paroxysms, was next supposed to be the
+language of prophecy; and a whole volume of it was actually published,
+under the title of “A Collection of Interesting Predictions.” Before,
+however, we laugh at our Gallic neighbours for such folly, it may be well
+to remember some things which have happened in England, within the last
+quarter of a century.
+
+After these practices had gone on, with hourly increasing vigour,
+for some years, the government closed the church-yard of St. Medard,
+which was become the theatre of exhibitions calculated to mislead the
+weak-minded, and disgust men of sound intellect. But the sect of the
+convulsionaries—for it had by this time grown into a strong and regularly
+organized sect,—was not discouraged by this measure. Earth from the
+church-yard where the deacon Paris was interred, and water from the
+spring which had supplied him with drink, became the symbols of this
+buried idol, and the means of working miracles. Meetings were held in
+private houses, and there fanaticism, of the darkest, wildest kind,
+gave full scope to all its gloomy inspirations. A regular system of
+torture was practised by the deluded votaries; women being the principal
+sufferers. To be beaten with logs on the tenderest portions of the human
+frame; to bend the body into a semi-circular form, and allow a weight of
+fifty pounds to be dropped from the ceiling on to the abdomen; to lie
+with a plank on the same part, while several men stood on it; to be tied
+up with the head downwards; and to have the breasts and nipples torn
+with pincers; were among the inflictions to which females submitted, and
+apparently with delight. The blows were inflicted by vigorous young men,
+who were called Secouristes. The highly sublimed madness of some pushed
+them to still more dreadful extremities; it prompted them to be tied on
+spits, and exposed to the flames, or to be nailed by the hands and feet
+to a cross. The performance of these unnatural acts was denominated “the
+work.”
+
+The Convulsionaries did not form a homogeneous body; as was to be
+expected, they were split into parties, bearing various appellations,
+and being, in some instances, hostile to each other. There were the
+Vaillantistes, the Augustinians, the Melangistes, the Margoullistes, the
+Figuristes, and many more. The Vaillantistes took their name from Peter
+Vaillant, a priest, who taught that the prophet Elijah was resuscitated,
+and that he would appear on earth, to convert the Jews and the court of
+Rome. His disciple, Housset, maintained that Vaillant himself was the
+prophet. Darnaud, another priest, boldly assumed the character of the
+prophet Enoch. The Augustinians, who carried their fanaticism to such
+a pitch that they were looked upon as heretical by other convulsionary
+sects, were the followers of a friar of the name of Augustin. Among their
+peculiar follies, was that of making nocturnal processions, with torches
+in their hands, and halters round their necks, to Nôtre Dame, and thence
+to the place de Grêve; these processions were a sort of rehearsal of the
+tragic scene in which they expected they should ultimately be called
+upon to perform. The Melangistes were those who distinguished two causes
+producing convulsions; one which gave rise to useless or improper acts,
+another which inspired divine and supernatural acts. The tenets of the
+Margoullistes have not been handed down to us. The Figuristes were so
+called from their representing, in their convulsive paroxysms, various
+phases of the passion of Christ, and the martyrdom of the saints.
+
+The fierce enthusiasm of all these sectarians has never been exceeded.
+Like American Indians, they set at defiance the utmost severity of pain.
+Even slight stimulus would rouse them into violent action. “I have seen
+them,” says Voltaire, “when they were talking of the miracles of St.
+Paris, grow heated by degrees, till their whole frame trembled, their
+faces were disfigured by rage, and they would have killed whoever dared
+to contradict them. Yes, I have seen them writhe their limbs, and foam,
+and cry out ‘There must be blood!’” Not the slightest concession would
+they make to avoid punishment. A pardon was offered to several of them,
+who were sentenced to the pillory; they refused it, for they could not,
+they said, repent of having done right. No lapse of time could eradicate
+this feeling from their minds. In 1775, when M. de Malesherbes visited
+the Concièrgerie, he found there a male and a female convulsionary, who
+had been imprisoned for forty-one years. Age had not chilled in them the
+resentment which was excited by their wrongs. He offered them liberty, if
+they would only ask for it; but they firmly replied, that they had been
+unjustly detained, and that it was the business of justice to atone for
+its errors, and to give the reparation to which they were entitled. They
+were released.
+
+It must not be imagined that the sect of the convulsionaries consisted
+merely of poor and ignorant people. Such was not the case. Strange as the
+fact may appear, the sect included great numbers of pious, learned, and
+intellectual men. Very many rich individuals also belonged to it, and
+contributed to the maintenance of their less fortunate brethren. A Count
+Daverne was sent to the Bastile “for wasting his property in supporting
+the convulsionaries;” and the same crime brought a similar penalty on
+other individuals. That there were, however, numerous impostors, who
+pretended to espouse the doctrines of the sect in order to further their
+own purposes, admits of no doubt. There were men who gave regular lessons
+in the art of bringing on convulsions.
+
+A hot persecution was perseveringly carried on against this sect, and
+with the usual result; the sect throve in spite of it, or rather,
+perhaps, in consequence of it. For five-and-thirty years it mocked
+all attempts to exterminate it, and it did not begin to decline till
+it was left to the withering influence of ridicule and neglect. It
+is believed to have retained a few votaries even to a recent period.
+The Bastile and the other Parisian prisons were yearly crowded with
+convulsionaries. Of those who were confined in the Bastile, one of the
+earliest was Peter Vaillant, from whom the Vaillantistes derived their
+name. He had previously suffered there an imprisonment of three years,
+for his opposition to the bull Unigenitus. In 1734, he was again sent
+thither, and, after having been there for two-and-twenty years, he was
+transferred to Vincennes, where he died. Housset, his disciple; Darnaud,
+who called himself the prophet Enoch; the Abbé Blondel, author of Lives
+of the Saints; the Abbés Deffart, Planchon, and Deribat; Lequeux,
+prior of St. Yves, the learned editor of Bossuet’s works; and Carré de
+Montgeron, a counsellor of the parliament of Paris; were of the number
+of those who were sent to the Bastile. Montgeron was born in the French
+capital, in 1686, and we have his own word for it that, till he was
+suddenly converted in St. Médard’s church-yard, he was a thoroughly
+worthless unbeliever. By a natural transition, he became one of the most
+credulous and enthusiastic of dupes. In 1737, he printed a quarto volume,
+illustrated with twenty plates, “to demonstrate the truth of the miracles
+operated by the intercession of the beatified Paris.” This volume he
+presented to Louis XV. at Versailles, and the next day, by order of the
+monarch, he was conveyed to the Bastile. He was afterwards an inmate of
+various prisons, and died at last in the citadel of Valence. While he was
+in confinement, he added two more volumes to his rhapsody.
+
+In hunting down the humbler class of delinquents, the police found
+abundant employment, and they performed their task in the most oppressive
+manner. Hénault, the lieutenant of police, an irascible and unreasoning
+man, was an ardent partisan of the Jesuits, and, of course, was a
+violent enemy of the proscribed sect. His myrmidons spread terror in all
+directions. They are charged with having, “even in the dead of night,
+penetrated into the dwellings of individuals, scaled the walls, broken
+open the doors, and shown no respect to age or sex, when their object
+was to discover, imprison, consign to the pillory, banish, and ruin,
+those who favoured the convulsionaries.” It was dangerous to be subject
+to epileptic or other fits; persons who were attacked by them in the
+streets having been pitilessly hurried off to jail.
+
+The vigilance of the police was also kept on the stretch, and in a
+majority of cases was eluded, by the prints, posting-bills, pamphlets,
+and periodical writings of the convulsionaries, as well as by their
+secret meetings. Of the prints, one represented the tree of religion, in
+the branches of which were seated Quesnel, Paris, and other apostles of
+Jansenism, while two Jesuits were striving to root it up. For this, a
+rhymer and engraver, Cointre by name, was committed to the Bastile. In
+another, Archbishop Vintimille was seen throwing a stone at the sainted
+deacon Paris, and the lieutenant of police was holding the archiepiscopal
+cross, and stimulating the prelate. This print procured for Mercier, the
+vender of it, a place in the Bastile. In a third of these caricatures was
+depicted the pope larded with a dozen Jesuits.
+
+In placarding the walls, and distributing hand-bills, all sorts of
+stratagems were employed. The following is one of the most ingenious
+modes which was adopted by the bill-stickers. A woman, raggedly dressed,
+with a large pannier strapped on her back, leaned her pannier against
+the wall, as though she wished to rest herself. In the pannier was a
+child, who, as soon as she stopped, opened the cover, and fixed a bill
+on the wall. As soon as his task was performed he closed the aperture,
+and his bearer proceeded with him to another convenient place. The bills
+and short pamphlets, which were made public in this and other ways, were
+innumerable. In the library of the Duke de la Vallière, there was an
+imperfect collection of them, which formed thirteen quarto volumes. Most
+of them seem to have been printed in the environs of the capital; they
+were often brought into the city by females, and in searching for them,
+the police officers were guilty of the grossest indecency.
+
+But the great object which the police sought to obtain, and in which it
+was utterly foiled, was the suppression of a periodical publication which
+bore the title of Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques. This obnoxious work was
+vigorously continued for more than twenty years, without the government
+being able to lay hands on the writers, or to stop the printing and
+distributing of it. Many persons were, indeed, committed to the Bastile
+and other prisons, on suspicion of being its editors or contributors,
+but no positive proof could ever be procured. The police were wholly at
+fault; and the authors of the paper appear to have taken a provoking
+pleasure in showing the lieutenant of police their contempt of his
+efforts. In one instance, while his satellites were fruitlessly searching
+a house which was suspected of being the printing-office, a bundle of the
+papers, wet from the press, was thrown into his carriage almost before
+his face. The paper was sometimes printed in the city, and sometimes in
+the neighbourhood. At one time the press was secreted even under the
+dome of the Luxembourg; at another, it was hidden among piles of timber,
+and the printers were disguised as sawyers; on other occasions, it was
+contained in a boat on the Seine. When the paper was printed in the
+vicinity of Paris, various artifices were resorted to for smuggling it
+into the town, one of which deserves especial notice. Water-dogs were
+trained as carriers; they were closely shorn, the papers were wrapped
+round them, a large rough skin was then sewn carefully over the whole,
+and the sagacious animals then took their way, unsuspected, to their
+several destinations.
+
+But enough has been said on the victims of religious delusion; and we
+must now turn our view to persons of a different class. The fertile
+author of little short of thirty works, and the editor of an equal
+number, nearly all of which are forgotten, Lenglet Dufresnoy, who was
+born at Beauvais in 1764, was perhaps a more frequent visiter to the
+Bastile than any other person. It is said that he was so accustomed to
+lettres de cachet, that as soon as he saw M. Tapin, the officer, enter
+his apartment, he would greet him with, “Ah, M. Tapin, good day to you;”
+and then say to his servant, “Come, be quick; make up my little bundle,
+and put in my linen and my snuff;” which being done, he would add, “Now,
+M. Tapin, I am at your service.” Between 1718 and 1751, he was at least
+five times in the Bastile. He was also acquainted with Vincennes and
+other jails. His first committal to the Parisian state prison was perhaps
+the one which was most dishonourable to him; he was sent there to act
+the part of a spy, and worm out the secrets of the persons who were in
+durance for being concerned in the Cellamare conspiracy. It is asserted,
+that he had already appeared in a similar degrading character at Lille,
+in 1708, where he was paid for intelligence by the allies and the French,
+and betrayed both parties. Lenglet was of a quarrelsome and caustic
+disposition, which involved him in personal disputes, and he appears to
+have paid little respect to truth; but he had at least one estimable
+quality, an unconquerable love of independence,—no offers, however
+flattering or lucrative, could prevail on him to place himself under the
+galling yoke of the rich and the great. His death, which took place in
+1755, was occasioned by his falling into the fire while he was asleep.
+
+The Bastile twice received Laurent Angliviel la Beaumelle, who was born
+in 1727, at Vallerangue, in Lower Languedoc. His first imprisonment, in
+1753, which lasted six months, was caused by his Notes on the Age of
+Louis XIV.; for his second, in the following year, he was indebted to a
+passage in his Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon, which charged the Austrian
+court with keeping poisoners in its pay. His release, at the end of five
+months, was generously obtained by the intercession of that court which
+he had so grossly insulted. La Beaumelle was brought up in the Catholic
+religion, but, during a residence of some years in Geneva, he became
+a protestant. At the age of twenty-one, he was appointed professor of
+French literature at Copenhagen, and his first work, “Mes Pensées,” was
+published in the Danish capital. Lured by the patronage which Frederic of
+Prussia held out to authors, La Beaumelle removed to Berlin. Voltaire,
+who was then at the Prussian court, visited him, and expressed a wish
+to be numbered among his friends; but their amicable intercourse was
+soon changed into deadly hostility. There was a short paragraph in Mes
+Pensées, which wounded the vanity of Voltaire, and La Beaumelle was
+also guilty of having a respect for Maupertuis, whom Voltaire detested,
+and missed no opportunity of ridiculing. The rabid hatred with which
+Voltaire ever after pursued his foe, and the virulent and even low abuse
+which he lavished on him, can excite only disgust. The malign influence
+of Voltaire having rendered Berlin a disagreeable abode, La Beaumelle
+returned to his native country. After having resided in peace at Toulouse
+for several years, he obtained a place in the King’s Library, at Paris,
+which, however, he did not long retain; his death, which happened in
+1779, followed close upon his appointment. La Beaumelle had certainly no
+mean talents; and it is much to be regretted, that they were so often
+thrown away upon literary squabbles. Of his works, the best are Mes
+Pensées; a Defence of the Spirit of Laws; and Letters to M. de Voltaire.
+
+The literary successor of La Beaumelle in the Bastile, was Francis
+de Marsy, a native of Paris, born in 1714. After he had finished his
+studies, he was admitted a member of the society of Jesuits. His first
+productions were two Latin poems, on Tragedy and Painting, from which,
+particularly the latter, he derived considerable reputation, his Latinity
+being good, his versification flowing and spirited, and his imagery
+poetical. Encouraged perhaps by the praise which he received for these
+works, he became an author by profession, and wasted, in the ungrateful
+occupation of writing for booksellers, those talents which, otherwise
+employed, might have given him permanent fame. One of his tasks, an
+analysis of the works of Bayle, which he published in 1755, was condemned
+by the parliament of Paris, and made him, for some months, an inmate
+of the Bastile. He died in 1763. Among his works are the first twelve
+volumes of the History of the Chinese, Japanese, &c.; and an edition of
+Rabelais in eight volumes. The former is a hasty compilation; the latter
+he spoiled, by retouching and modernizing the style—it is probable,
+however, that the clothing of Rabelais in a modern garb was a sagacious
+scheme of the publishers.
+
+To hazard censure upon an individual of the privileged class, or even
+to be suspected of having done so, was an infallible passport to the
+Bastile. That versatile and elegant writer Marmontel was one of those who
+were taught the danger of a courtier’s hostility. This enemy was the Duke
+d’Aumont, whom, in his Memoirs, he truly describes as being “the most
+stupid, the most vain, and the most choleric, of all the gentlemen of the
+King’s chamber.”
+
+John Francis Marmontel, the son of parents in a humble station, was
+born in 1723, at the town of Bort, in the Limousin. He has drawn a
+delightful picture of the comfort and content in which his family lived.
+“The property on which we all subsisted was very small. Order, domestic
+arrangement, labour, a little trade, and frugality, kept us above want.
+Our little garden produced nearly as many vegetables as the consumption
+of the family required; the orchard afforded us fruits; and our quinces,
+our apples, and our pears, preserved with the honey of our bees, were, in
+winter, most exquisite breakfasts for the good old women and children.
+They were clothed by the small flock of sheep that folded at St. Thomas.
+My aunts spun the wool, and the hemp of the field that furnished us with
+linen; and in the evenings, when, by the light of a lamp, which our
+nut-trees supplied with oil, the young people of the neighbourhood came
+to help us to dress our flax, the picture was exquisite. The harvest
+of the little farm secured us subsistence; the wax and honey of the
+bees, to which one of my aunts carefully attended, formed a revenue
+that cost but little; the oil pressed from our green walnuts had a
+taste and smell that we preferred to the flavour and perfume of that
+of the olive. Our buck-wheat cakes, moistened, smoking hot, with the
+good butter of Mont d’Or, were a delicious treat to us. I know not what
+dish would have appeared to us better than our turnips and chesnuts;
+and on a winter evening, while these fine turnips were roasting round
+the fire, and we heard the water boiling in the vase where our chesnuts
+were cooling, so relishing and sweet, how did our hearts palpitate with
+joy! I well remember, too, the perfume that a fine quince used to exhale
+when roasting under the ashes, and the pleasure our grandmother used
+to have in dividing it amongst us. The most moderate of women made us
+all gluttons. Thus, in a family where nothing was lost, trivial objects
+united made plenty, and left but little to expend, in order to satisfy
+all our wants. In the neighbouring forest there was an abundance of dead
+wood of trifling value—there my father was permitted to make his annual
+provision. The excellent butter of the mountain, and the most delicate
+cheese, were common, and cost but little; wine was not dear, and my
+father himself drank of it soberly.”
+
+Marmontel was designed by his father to be brought up to trade, but
+his desire of learning was unconquerable, and was at last allowed to
+be gratified. His early education he received from the Jesuits, at the
+humble college of Mauriac, and he completed it at Clermont and Toulouse.
+At one time he fancied that he had a vocation for the ecclesiastical
+state, and he would have become one of the fraternity of Jesuits, had he
+not been deterred by the pathetic entreaties and remonstrances of his
+mother. It was at Toulouse that he made his first literary essay, in a
+competition for one of the prizes bestowed by the academy for Floral
+Games. A correspondence into which he entered with Voltaire, induced the
+poet to advise him to take up his abode in Paris, and on this advice he
+acted in 1745. For a considerable time after his settling in the capital,
+he had to contend against poverty. The complete success which attended
+his tragedy of Dionysius the Tyrant, lifted him at once into fortune
+and fame. “In one day,” says he, “almost in one instant, I found myself
+rich and celebrated. I made a worthy use of my riches, but it was not so
+with my celebrity. My fame became the origin of my dissipation, and the
+source of my errors. Till then my life had been obscure and retired.”
+It is honourable to him that all his family benefited by his improved
+circumstances; and, in palliation of his errors, we must consider how
+difficult it was for a young and flattered poet to escape the contagious
+effect of a corrupted capital. He finally renounced his licentious
+habits, and became an affectionate and happy husband and father.
+
+Dionysius was followed by Aristomenes, Cleopatra, and other tragedies,
+of which only Aristomenes was eminently successful. His wide-spread
+reputation at length gained for him the patronage of Madame de
+Pompadour, through whom he obtained the place of Secretary of the Royal
+Buildings, and a pension on the French Mercury. It was for the Mercury
+that he began those tales, which have been translated into English under
+the erroneous appellation of Moral Tales. On the death of Boissy in
+1758, Marmontel, by the favour of Pompadour, received the patent of the
+Mercury; and, under his management, the work rose into high repute. He,
+however, enjoyed this lucrative employment for only two years. Cury,
+a wit, who had been deeply injured by the stupid and spiteful Duke
+d’Aumont, composed a satire on his titled enemy. He repeated the verses
+to Marmontel, and the latter, who had an excellent memory, repeated
+them to a company at Madame Geoffrin’s. This circumstance was instantly
+reported to the Duke d’Aumont, who lost not a moment in procuring a
+lettre de cachet, by virtue of which Marmontel was conveyed to the
+Bastile, charged with being the author of the satire. His confinement
+lasted only eleven days; but as he generously refused to betray the
+writer’s name, the patent of the Mercury was taken from him, and nothing
+was left to him except a pension payable out of the profits of the work.
+
+In 1763, Marmontel became a member of the French Academy, and, twenty
+years later, he was appointed its perpetual secretary. After he was
+deprived of the Mercury, he pursued his literary labours, for many years,
+with equal vigour and credit. Among the works which he produced during
+that period are Belisarius, the Incas, a translation of the Pharsalia,
+a new series of tales, various comic operas, miscellaneous pieces, a
+History of the Regency of the Duke of Orleans, Elements of Literature,
+and Memoirs of his own Life. During the fierce struggles between the
+republican parties, after the downfall of the throne, Marmontel lived in
+retirement, and in a state of penury which bordered upon poverty. He was
+elected a member of the council of elders, in 1797, but the revolution
+of the 18th Fructidor deprived him of his seat, and he withdrew to his
+cottage in Normandy, happy in not being exiled to another hemisphere, as
+was the case with many of his colleagues. Marmontel died of apoplexy, on
+the last day of 1799.
+
+Morellet, the friend, and by marriage the relative, of Marmontel, was,
+like that writer, one who suffered from the vengeance of the great. It
+must be owned, however, that there was less injustice in his punishment
+than in that of his friend, as he was really the author of the satire for
+which he was confined, and it was published under circumstances which
+made even Voltaire doubt whether the conduct of the writer was perfectly
+justifiable. Andrew Morellet, to whom some of his acquaintance gave the
+punning appellation of Mord-les, or Bite-’em, was born at Lyons, in 1727.
+He received the early part of his education at the Jesuits’ College
+in that city, and he completed his studies at Paris, in the seminary
+of Trente-Trois, and the Sorbonne. He appears, however, to have paid
+at least as much attention to the works of modern philosophers as to
+those of the theologians. At Paris he became intimate with D’Alembert,
+Diderot, and other contributors to the Encyclopædia. Returning to Paris,
+after a tour which he made with a pupil, he was gladly admitted into the
+most talented society in the capital. Palissot, in his comedy of the
+Philosophers, having ridiculed the philosophical party, Morellet resented
+the insult by a satirical production, called The Vision. In this work
+there were some severe lines on the princess of Robecq, an enemy of the
+encyclopedists, who was then lying on her death-bed. For these lines
+Morellet suffered an imprisonment of several months in the Bastile.
+Morellet was admitted into the French Academy in 1784, and he contributed
+much to the Dictionary of that body. In 1803 he became a member of the
+Institute, and in 1807 attained a seat in the legislature. His life was
+protracted to the age of ninety-two, and, for nearly the whole of that
+time his pen was actively employed on subjects of political economy and
+general literature, and in translations, principally from the English
+language. A selection from his writings was made by himself, in four
+volumes, with the title of Literary and Philosophical Miscellanies of the
+18th Century. He died in 1819.
+
+By Marmontel, who married his friend’s niece, he is thus characterized:
+“The Abbé Morellet, with more order and clearness, in a very rich
+magazine of every kind of knowledge, possessed in conversation a source
+of sound, pure, profound ideas, that, without ever being exhausted, never
+overflowed. He showed himself at our dinners with an openness of soul,
+a just and firm mind, and with as much rectitude in his heart as in his
+understanding. One of his talents, and the most distinguishing, was a
+turn of pleasantry delicately ironical, of which Swift alone had found
+the secret. With this facility of being severe, if he had been inclined,
+no man was ever less so; and, if he ever permitted himself to indulge in
+personal raillery, it was but a rod in his hand to chastise insolence or
+punish malignity.”
+
+A less amiable captive than Marmontel and Morellet next claims our
+attention. Though he was by no means destitute of talent or information,
+Victor Riquetti, Marquis of Mirabeau, owes the redemption of his name
+from oblivion less to his numerous literary productions than to his being
+the father of the celebrated Mirabeau. The marquis, who was descended
+from a Florentine family, was born at Perthes in 1715. He became a
+disciple of Quesnay, and published many works, to disseminate the
+doctrines of the political economists. His compositions are disfigured
+by a detestable style, great affectation, and a want of method. Of his
+labours, which amount to more than twenty volumes, it will suffice to
+mention L’Ami des Hommes and the Théorie de l’Impôt. With reference to
+the former, Voltaire satirically speaks of Mirabeau as “the friend of
+man, who talks, who talks, who talks, who decides, who dictates, who
+is so fond of the feudal government, who commits so many blunders, and
+who gets so often into the wrong box—the pretended friend of the human
+race.” He bestows equal contempt on the second work—“I have read the
+Theory of Taxation,” says he, “and it seems to me no less absurd than
+ridiculously written. I do not like those friends of man, who are for
+ever telling the enemies of the state ‘we are ruined;—come;—you will have
+an easy task.’” The government seems to have been of the same opinion as
+Voltaire, for the Theory of Taxation procured for its author a lodging
+in the Bastile. Mirabeau, however, continued to write and to publish
+till nearly his last moments; he died in 1789. This pretended friend of
+the human race, as Voltaire with justice calls him, deserved abhorrence
+in all the relations of social life. He was an oppressive master, and a
+tyrannical and brutal husband and father. He was perpetually soliciting
+for lettres de cachet to plunge some branch or other of his family into
+a dungeon. Of those letters he is said to have obtained fifty-four, many
+of which were enforced against his highly-gifted though erring son, the
+Count de Mirabeau, whom he hated, and whom, by his persevering cruelty,
+he contributed to drive into desperate courses.
+
+Among those who felt the vengeance of the vindictive Pompadour was the
+Chevalier Resseguier, a native of Toulouse, who was much admired in the
+Parisian circles for his gaiety and wit. An epigram which he aimed at
+the royal mistress, speedily made him an inmate of the Bastile. There,
+like many other unfortunate victims of the marchioness, he might perhaps
+have spent the rest of his days, had not his brother, a member of the
+parliament of Toulouse, hastened up to the capital and succeeded in
+mollifying Pompadour. In their way home from the Bastile, the grave
+magistrate began to give his brother some prudent advice. Little disposed
+to listen to it, the chevalier thrust his head out of the coach window,
+and, in the words of Philoxenus of Syracuse, exclaimed, “take me back
+to the quarries!” The brother still persisting to administer caution
+and reproof, the chevalier lost all patience, censured him bitterly for
+having stooped to ask a favour from the marchioness, and then leaped from
+the carriage. Resseguier of course continued to scatter his sarcasms on
+all sides. For one of them, directed against the notorious President
+Maupeou, who was afterwards chancellor, he ran considerable risk of
+paying a second visit to the Bastile. He was dining, on a fast-day, at
+the house of M. de Sartine, and some of the guests were admiring the
+size of the fish. “Yes,” said Marin, (whose name the reader will meet
+with again) “they are very fine fish; but I dined yesterday with the
+president, and we had still larger.” “Ah!” replied Resseguier, “I do not
+wonder in the least at that; it is the place for everything monstrous.”
+Louis XV. was informed of this pungent attack on the instrument of his
+despotism, and was greatly irritated by it.
+
+The next literary prisoner was the involuntary proxy of an offender,
+who took care to get beyond the reach of the police. In 1761, Grouber
+de Grouberdal, a German by birth, and barrister by profession, author
+of Irus, ou le Savetier du Coin, and a poem with the title of Le Sexe
+Triomphant, was sent to the Bastile, on suspicion of having written a
+satire called the Jesuitics, to which he appears to have only contributed
+some verses. Grouber, however, escaped with no more than a month’s
+imprisonment. A friend of Grouber’s was the real author. Henry Joseph
+Dulaurens was born at Douay, and very early displayed abilities of a
+superior order. He was less amiable than talented; for he is said to
+have been suspicious, sarcastic, hasty, restless, and turbulent: that he
+was licentious, is proved by his works. Dulaurens was destined for the
+church, but abandoned the clerical profession. His satire, the Jesuitics,
+which was modelled on the celebrated Philippics of La Grange Chancel,
+was aimed at the Jesuits, to whom he had long been bitterly hostile.
+Fearing that it would bring him into peril, he set off for Holland, on
+the morning after it was published, without warning his friend Grouber
+that danger was to be apprehended. In Holland he became a writer for
+the booksellers; but, though his pen was extremely fertile, and his
+productions, which were generally marked by originality and spirit,
+obtained an extensive sale, he was scarcely able to avoid sinking into
+poverty: the booksellers throve on those fruits of his talent, by which
+he himself was barely kept alive. By his flight from Paris, Dulaurens
+had eluded a residence in the Bastile, but it ultimately brought on him
+a more protracted confinement than he would have endured had he remained
+in France. In the hope of bettering his condition, he quitted Amsterdam,
+and went to Liege, whence he removed to Frankfort. While he was living
+in the latter city, he was prosecuted by the ecclesiastical chamber
+of Mentz, as an anti-religious writer, and was condemned to perpetual
+imprisonment. He died in 1797, in a convent near Mentz, after having been
+a prisoner during thirty years. Of his works, the most remarkable are, Le
+Compère Mathieu, L’Evangile de la Raison, Irma, and L’Aretin Moderne, in
+prose; and Le Balai, and La Chandelle d’Arras, two mock-heroic poems;—of
+these poems, which are of considerable length, the first was composed in
+twenty-two days, and the second in fifteen.
+
+Of all the writers who, during the reign of Louis XV., found or deserved
+a lodging in the Bastile, Peter Robbé de Beauveset may, perhaps, be
+considered as one of the most degraded, in a moral point of view. He
+was born at Vendôme, in 1714, received a good education, and was not
+destitute of talent. At an early age, he began to write poems of the
+coarsest obscenity, and he continued the practice till almost the close
+of a long life. To repeat them to all companies that would listen,
+seems to have been one of his greatest pleasures. Next to licentious
+composition, he delighted in satire. His verses were insufferably harsh;
+but they now and then displayed happy thoughts and forcible expressions.
+To give an idea of his propensity to wallow in the mire, it will be
+sufficient to say, that he chose for one of his themes the only disease
+which is a disgrace to the sufferer, and that the song was worthy of
+the theme. This drew on him the sarcasm, likely enough to be true, that
+he was “the bard of the unclean malady, and that he was full of his
+subject.” Having tried his satirical skill upon Louis XV., an order was
+issued to seize his papers, and he would certainly have paid a visit to
+the Bastile, had he not skilfully parried the blow. Being timely warned
+of his danger, he destroyed the obnoxious piece, and substituted in its
+place another of an opposite kind. This stratagem was successful. Instead
+of sending him to prison, the king pensioned him, and gave him apartments
+in the palace of St. Germain. Severe censors have hinted, that the
+debauched monarch wished to have a monopoly of the poet’s obscene rhymes.
+Robbé likewise received a pension from the Archbishop of Paris, on
+condition that he should not publish his objectionable pieces. He kept to
+the letter of his agreement; he did not print them; he contented himself
+with reciting them to as many hearers as he could find. The motive of
+the archbishop we can comprehend; but it is not easy to perceive what
+could have induced the duchess of Olone to leave a legacy of 15,000
+francs to so shameless a writer, and to speak in flattering terms of his
+reputation as an author! Before his death, which took place in 1794, he
+is said to have manifested some signs of reformation.
+
+The liability to be thrust into a prison, for the purpose of gratifying a
+courtier, or other powerful enemy, was not the fate of authors alone; the
+men who devoted their talents, and shed their blood, to enlarge or defend
+the dominion of their country, were equally subject to it. Striking proof
+of this fact is afforded by the persecution which fell to the lot of Mahé
+de la Bourdonnais and Count Lally.
+
+Bernard Francis Mahé de la Bourdonnais was born in 1699, at St. Malo,
+entered the service of the East India Company at an early period, and
+displayed such talent, and such consummate knowledge of mercantile
+as well as of naval concerns, that, in 1735, he was appointed
+governor-general of the isles of France and Bourbon. On his arrival
+in the Isle of France, he found everything in a state of penury and
+confusion. In a very short time, however, he showed what can be done
+by a man of abilities and perseverance. A new and vivifying spirit was
+breathed by him into the languishing frame of the colony. Laws and police
+were established; arsenals, docks, forts, magazines, and canals, were
+constructed; and the cultivation of indigo, cotton, manioc, and sugar,
+was introduced. All this was accomplished within the space of five
+years. Twice La Bourdonnais was sent to the coast of Coromandel, with
+succours for his ungenerous rival and enemy Dupleix; the first time in
+1741, the second in 1746. To narrate all the exertions of La Bourdonnais,
+on these occasions, would require a volume. His conduct was such as to
+win the warm praise of the English, who suffered by his success. The
+result of his operations, in 1746, was the surrender of Madras; but the
+terms of the capitulation were dishonourably violated by Dupleix, in
+spite of the remonstrances of the indignant conqueror. Dupleix having
+appointed another governor at the Isle of France, La Bourdonnais returned
+to Europe, and on his way homeward was taken by an English vessel. In
+England he met with that reception which was due to a talented and noble
+foe, and was allowed to proceed on parole to his native country. A far
+different greeting awaited him in France, where his mean and malignant
+enemies had long been labouring effectually for his ruin. He had only
+been three days in Paris before all his papers were seized, and he was
+hurried to the Bastile. There he was kept in solitary confinement for
+twenty-six months, not even his wife and children being allowed access
+to him; nor was he permitted to have the means of writing. One of the
+charges against him, founded on the testimony of a soldier who had been
+hired to perjure himself, was that he had secretly conveyed on board of
+his vessel a large sum of money from Madras. To refute this charge, by
+showing that it was impossible for the witness to have seen any such
+proceeding from the spot where he was posted, La Bourdonnais, destitute
+as he was of materials, drew from memory an exact plan of Madras, and
+contrived to have it conveyed to the commissioners who were appointed
+to investigate his conduct. The plan was drawn on a white handkerchief,
+with a rude sort of pencil formed from a slip of box, and dipped in brown
+and yellow colours, which he obtained from coffee, and the verdigris
+scraped from copper coins. This curious document quickened the movements
+of his judges, and they took steps to bring the question to an issue.
+After having undergone an imprisonment of three years, he was pronounced
+innocent, and was released. The gift of liberty came too late to
+save his life; his health was undermined by grief, anxiety, and the
+unwholesomeness of his dungeon, and his fortune had melted away in the
+hands of his persecutors; he languished in severe pain, and in a state of
+indigence, till 1755, when death put an end to his sufferings.
+
+A doom still more severe than that of La Bourdonnais was assigned to
+the unfortunate Count Lally. Thomas Arthur Lally was born in 1702, and
+was the son of Sir Gerard Lally, one of those high-minded but mistaken
+Irishmen, whose ideas of duty led them to expatriate themselves rather
+than renounce their allegiance to the second James. Young Lally was early
+conversant with war; he was not twelve years old when he first mounted
+guard, in the trenches before Barcelona. In the course of the next thirty
+years, he distinguished himself in numerous battle fields, particularly
+at Dettingen and Fontenoy, and was employed in missions to England and
+Russia, the former of which, not a little perilous, was undertaken in
+1737, for the service of the Stuart family. To the house of Hanover he
+was an inveterate foe, and he was fertile in plans for its overthrow. On
+the breaking out of the war between England and France in 1756, he was
+made a lieutenant-general, and appointed commandant of all the French
+establishments in Hindostan. Unfortunately for him, the government
+unwisely delayed his departure, and withdrew a part of the force which
+had been intended to accompany him. When he reached Pondicherry he found
+everything in confusion, none of the resources which he had expected to
+find, and, worse than all, men in office who knew that he meant to punish
+peculators, and who were therefore incessantly on the alert to thwart all
+his plans. Their machinations were aided by his own defects; for he was
+harsh, violent, and headstrong, in an extraordinary degree. Voltaire
+says of him, that “he had found the secret of making himself hated by
+everybody,” and that “every one, except the executioner, had a right to
+kill him.” There is much exaggeration in this; but it is certain that
+Lally was, and deserved to be, an unpopular man.
+
+In spite of the scantiness of his means, Lally took the field against
+the English, with a firm resolve to drive them out of India. His first
+operations were successful. He made himself master of Goudalour, Fort St.
+David, and Devicotta, but here his good fortune ended; he was foiled in
+an attack on Tanjore, and was subsequently compelled to raise the siege
+of Madras. His failure must not be attributed to want of military skill;
+he was nearly without resources, and there was in his own army a powerful
+faction which was hostile to him. The council of Pondicherry, too, hated
+him with such a deadly hatred that it rejoiced in, and even helped to
+cause, his disappointments. Invested at last in Pondicherry by the
+English, he defended the place with desperate courage, but was compelled
+by famine to surrender.
+
+On his return to France, Lally attacked his enemies with his wonted
+impetuosity. Their influence, however, was superior to his, and he
+was sent to the Bastile. Nineteen months elapsed before he was even
+questioned. The trial was at last commenced, and it occupied more than
+two years. The whole of the proceedings teemed with the most flagrant
+injustice; there was a manifest determination to send the prisoner to the
+scaffold. The language used by some of his judges deserved the severest
+punishment. Sentence of death was pronounced on the 6th May, 1766. On its
+being made known to him, Lally stabbed himself with a pair of compasses,
+but the wound was not mortal. Three days afterwards, he was taken to
+execution, and, that nothing might be wanting to lacerate his feelings,
+he was conveyed in a mud-cart, and his mouth was gagged. This brutality
+had a contrary effect to that which was expected; it excited for him
+the sympathy of the spectators, and covered his enemies with execration
+and disgrace. The son of Count Lally, advantageously known during the
+revolution as Count Lally-Tolendal, obtained, some years afterwards, a
+solemn reversal of the sentence, and the restoration of his parent’s
+honour.
+
+Caradeuc de la Chalotais, a Breton magistrate, estimable for his talents
+and rectitude, is the next who comes forward on the scene. He appears
+to have been indebted for his misfortunes partly to the Jesuits,
+whose order he had assisted to suppress in France, and partly to the
+Duke d’Aiguillon, whom he had offended, by venturing to hint a doubt
+of his courage. He was a native of Rennes, born in 1701, and became
+attorney-general in the parliament of Brittany. His two Comptes Rendus,
+against the Jesuits, which contributed much to their overthrow, and his
+Essay on National Education, which forms a kind of supplement to them,
+are spoken of in the most laudatory terms by Voltaire. La Chalotais
+subsequently acted a conspicuous part, when the parliament of Brittany
+refused to register some of the royal edicts, which violated the Breton
+privileges. The Duke d’Aiguillon was then governor of the province, and
+we may believe that he was not sorry to take vengeance for the sarcasm
+which the attorney-general had aimed at him. The Jesuits, too, are
+said to have spared no pains to accomplish their enemy’s destruction.
+In November, 1765, La Chalotais, his son, and four of the parliament
+counsellors, were arrested, and in the following month, they were placed
+in close confinement in the citadel of St. Malo. The main charges against
+La Chalotais were, that he had written two anonymous letters to one of
+the secretaries of state, which contained insults upon the king and his
+ministers, and that he had entered into a conspiracy against the regal
+authority. With respect to the letters, though some persons accustomed
+to examine handwritings asserted them to be his, the vulgar style and
+incorrect spelling render it in the highest degree improbable that he
+was their author. He himself denied the charge in the most emphatic
+manner. La Chalotais was carefully secluded from all correspondence, and
+deprived of pen and ink; he, nevertheless, contrived to produce three
+eloquent memorials in his defence, and to procure a wide circulation of
+them. They were written on scraps of paper which had contained sugar and
+chocolate, with a pen made from a toothpick, and ink composed of soot,
+sugar, vinegar, and water. A commission was at first formed to try the
+prisoners, but the cause was afterwards removed into the council of
+state, and the captives were transferred to the Bastile. A stop was,
+however, put to the proceedings by the king, and the accused individuals
+were exiled to Saintes. An attempt was made to prevail on La Chalotais
+to resign his office, but he refused to listen to the messenger. On the
+death of Louis XV. his successor allowed La Chalotais to resume his seat
+in parliament, and the magistrate retained it till his decease in 1785.
+
+The celebrated Curran, whose conversational talents no one that witnessed
+them could possibly forget, once said to me, in allusion to the transient
+intoxication produced by champagne, that it made a runaway rap at a man’s
+head. It may, perhaps, from a similar reason, be allowable to say, that a
+runaway rap was made at the liberty of the person who is the subject of
+this sketch. Francis Louis Marin had scarcely time to lament the loss of
+his liberty before it was restored to him. Marin was a Provençal, born at
+Ciotat, in 1721; after having been a chorister, and then an organist, he
+adopted the clerical profession, and went to Paris, where he became tutor
+to the son of a nobleman. His manner and figure, which were good, and
+his talents, which were far from contemptible, gained him many patrons
+in the French capital. He now quitted his ecclesiastical pursuits, was
+admitted a barrister, and published various works, one of which, the
+History of Saladin, is perhaps the best of all his productions, and is
+still in repute; it was dedicated to St. Florentin, one of the ministers,
+and gained for its author the appointment of royal censor, to which was
+subsequently added that of secretary-general to Sartine, who had been
+placed at the head of the inquisitorial office, to which printers and
+publishers were amenable. As secretary-general he seems to have satisfied
+no one; he was desirous of befriending the philosophical party, in which
+he had several friends, but was still more desirous of retaining his
+lucrative post. The consequence was, that he sometimes winked at, and
+even aided, infractions of the law, and then sought to propitiate his
+employers by additional vigilance and severity. Marin was certainly not
+overburthened with delicacy; and, unless he is much belied, he increased
+his income by acting as purveyor to the disgraceful amours of his royal
+master. In 1763, he was confined for twenty-four hours in the Bastile,
+for having, in his censorial character, neglected to expunge some lines
+from one of Dorat’s tragedies. A few years afterwards, he was deprived of
+a pension of 2000 livres, because he had allowed Favart’s comic opera of
+the Gleaner to be acted and published. In 1771, he was made editor of the
+Gazette de France, in which capacity he brought upon himself a perpetual
+shower of epigrams and sarcasms. Many of these annoying shafts were aimed
+at him by the Nouvelles à la Main, and he had the weakness to demand that
+the editor of the paper should be arrested. He had soon the misfortune or
+the folly to provoke a much more formidable enemy, the witty and eloquent
+Beaumarchais, who covered him with ridicule. To complete his vexation,
+no long time elapsed before the Count de Vergennes dismissed him, and
+in the most humiliating manner, from the royal censorship and the
+superintendence of the Gazette. Marin then retired to his native town,
+where he busied himself in literary pursuits. By the revolution he lost a
+considerable part of his income; but to his credit it must be owned, that
+he did not lose his temper or his spirits; he died in 1809. Marin had
+some praiseworthy qualities; he is said to have been ready to do acts of
+kindness, and even to have often run serious risks to serve his friends.
+But here we must stop, for it appears that his principles and his morals
+were lamentably defective; one of his biographers, who writes of him
+in a friendly spirit, owns that in extreme old age he had “a taste for
+pleasure, and even for libertinism.”
+
+Less fortunate than Marin, Farmain De Rozoi, or, as he was generally
+called Durosoi, did not pay a visit of only twenty-four hours to the
+Bastile. Durosoi was a Parisian by birth, and seems to have early
+betaken himself to “the idle trade” of literature. He tried many
+kinds of authorship, and was far below mediocrity in all; novels,
+histories, poems, and plays, especially the latter, he poured forth in
+rapid succession, drawing down abundance of bitter sarcasms from the
+critics, and gaining little emolument to himself. Among the dramatic
+subjects which he chose was Henry IV., and he was so delighted with his
+hero, that he brought him on the stage in three different pieces. The
+appellation of “the Modern Ravaillac,” which he acquired by these pieces,
+shows how woefully the monarch fared under his hands. But Durosoi had
+worse enemies than the critics; on an erroneous suspicion of his being
+the author of two obnoxious works, he was shut up for two months in the
+Bastile. When the revolution broke out he espoused the royal cause, and
+became editor of the Gazette de Paris. He was a zealous and certainly an
+honest advocate of that cause. Though slenderly endowed with talents, he
+was by no means deficient in courage and noble feelings. When Louis XVI.,
+after his flight to the frontier, was under restraint in the Tuileries,
+Durosoi formed the romantic but generous project of obtaining the king’s
+liberty, by inducing the friends of Louis to offer themselves as hostages
+for him; and a great number of individuals actually consented to render
+themselves personally responsible for the sovereign’s conduct. Durosoi
+did not slacken in his hostility to the revolutionists, till their
+final success on the 10th of August compelled him to drop the pen. He
+was one of their earliest victims on the scaffold, he being executed by
+torch-light only nineteen days after the downfall of the monarchy. He
+died with the utmost firmness; in a letter which he left behind him, he
+declared, that “a royalist like him was worthy to die on St. Louis’s day,
+for his religion and his king.” It is said that, with the laudable desire
+of benefiting mankind by his death, he was desirous that his blood should
+be employed in trying the experiment of transfusion.
+
+The French revolution, which ultimately consigned Durosoi to death,
+opened the prison-gates of a man, of whom few particulars are recorded,
+but whose courage and unmerited sufferings deserve our admiration and
+pity. It will scarcely be credited that, from a very early period of the
+reign of Louis XV. there existed an infamous monopoly of grain, which was
+managed for the benefit of the monarch. Corn, bought at a low price in
+plentiful seasons, was hoarded up, and sold at an immense profit in times
+of scarcity. The circumstance was kept as secret as possible for many
+years, but the truth got out, and the name of “the compact of famine”
+was popularly given to the monopoly. A patriotic individual, Prévost
+de Beaumont, the secretary of the clergy, formed the daring project of
+at one sweep gaining possession of all the documents relative to this
+affair, and revealing to France the whole machinery of the scandalous
+system. When, however, he was about to carry his plan into effect, he was
+seized by the police, and conveyed to the Bastile. In that prison, and at
+Vincennes, he spent twenty-two years, his hands and feet heavily ironed,
+a bare board for his bed, and a scanty portion of bread and water for his
+daily subsistence; he would no doubt have perished in his dungeon, had
+not the chains which he had so long worn been broken by the strong hand
+of the French people.
+
+A striking proof how liable to abuse is irresponsible power, placed in
+the hands of ministers of state and of monopolizing corporations, is
+afforded by the persecution of Barletti St. Paul, a man of considerable
+abilities, who was born at Paris, in 1734. So precocious was his talent,
+that, at the age of sixteen, he had made himself master of all that the
+best teachers could communicate to him. After having been for a while
+sub-preceptor of the junior branches of the royal family, he was involved
+in a quarrel, in consequence of which he quitted France. He resided for
+six years at Naples, after which he was intrusted by the Dauphin with a
+diplomatic mission at Rome; and, when he had fulfilled this mission, he
+returned to his native country.
+
+Rapidly as St. Paul had acquired knowledge, he was thoroughly
+dissatisfied with the method of instruction then in use, and particularly
+with the various and discordant systems which were followed by
+preceptors. He, therefore, undertook the Herculean task of forming a
+collection of elementary treatises on the sciences and arts, with new
+modes of studying languages. On this encyclopedic labour he was, at
+intervals, employed during nearly the whole of his life. Eighteen volumes
+of it were completed, and he was on the point of seeing them brought
+before the public, when his prospects were destroyed by the base jealousy
+of one learned body, and the legal despotism of another. As the cost of
+printing the work would be great, a society of his friends was formed,
+for the purpose of accomplishing the publication in concert, and a public
+meeting was announced, to deliberate on the necessary arrangements. But
+the University of Paris had taken the alarm. Like all old and pampered
+institutions, it hated novelty, and trembled lest its monopoly should be
+shaken. To avert the dreaded evil, it had recourse to the parliament;
+and the compliant parliament issued a prohibition against the meeting.
+This step was backed by the appointment of four commissioners to
+examine the work. It did not require the spirit of prophecy to predict
+that commissioners, chosen under such auspices, would be anything but
+impartial. The hackneyed joke, of suing his Satanic majesty in one of
+the infernal courts, is pretty sure to be realised on such occasions.
+The report which they made was so unfavourable, that a complete stop was
+put to the scheme of publishing. St. Paul did not tamely submit to this
+treatment. He procured to be printed, at Brussels, a pamphlet, which was
+entitled The Secret Revealed. Sartine, the minister of police, who had
+been one of his active enemies, was somewhat roughly handled in this
+production. The king of spies, jails, and gibbets, was not a man to be
+attacked with impunity, and he avenged himself in a manner which was
+worthy of him, by suppressing the pamphlet, and sending its author to the
+Bastile.
+
+At the expiration of three months, the intercession of the Cardinal de
+Rohan obtained the liberation of St. Paul. He then went to Spain, where
+he became professor of belles-lettres at Segovia; an appointment which
+he held for three years. Returning again to France, he published a New
+System of Typography, to diminish the labour of compositors. For this
+the government rewarded him by a grant of twenty thousand livres, and
+by printing five hundred copies of his volume at the Louvre press. His
+improvement consisted in casting in one mass the diphthongs, triphthongs,
+and all the most frequently occurring combinations of letters. A similar
+plan, with the name of the Logographic, was tried in London, a few years
+afterwards, but it was soon abandoned.
+
+St. Paul continued to labour indefatigably on his ameliorated system of
+education; he gained in its favour the suffrage of Sicard, who was one of
+three persons whom the National Institute nominated to examine it; but
+he did not live to complete it, and only a small specimen of it was ever
+published. He passed unhurt through the storms of the Revolution, and
+died at Paris, in 1809. One of his best works, “The means of avoiding the
+customary errors in the instruction of Youth,” suggests a mode by which
+two scholars may reciprocally give lessons to each other.
+
+Almost the last prisoner, perhaps the last of any note, who was committed
+to the Bastile in the closing year of Louis the Fifteenth’s reign,
+was a man who subsequently acted a conspicuous part in politics and
+war. Charles Francis Duperier Dumouriez, born at Cambray, in 1739,
+was the son of an army commissary, who translated the Ricciardetto,
+and wrote some dramatic pieces. After having been educated with much
+care, Dumouriez obtained a cornetcy, and, before the close of the seven
+years’ war, he had received two-and-twenty wounds, nineteen of which
+were inflicted on him in a combat which he gallantly maintained against
+twenty hussars, five of whom he disabled. Peace being concluded, he
+travelled in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. In 1768 and 1769, he served
+with distinction in Corsica, and rose to the rank of colonel. The Duke
+de Choiseul employed him, in 1770, on a mission in Poland, to support
+the confederation of Bar against the Russians, but the dismissal of
+the duke, which took place soon after, led to the recall of the envoy.
+Dumouriez was next intrusted, by Louis XV., with a secret mission to
+the court of Gustavus of Sweden, relative to the revolution which that
+sovereign was then planning. This was done by Louis, who was in the habit
+of taking similar steps, without the knowledge of the Duke d’Aiguillon,
+the minister for foreign affairs. Dumouriez was, in consequence, arrested
+at Hamburgh, by order of the duke, and conveyed to the Bastile, Louis
+not having spirit enough to avow his own acts. During his six months’
+imprisonment, Dumouriez wrote various works. The accession of Louis
+XVI. restored the captive to liberty; and he successively obtained
+the government of Cherbourg, and the command of the country between
+Nantes and Bordeaux. That such a man should not take an active part in
+the French revolution was impossible. But Dumouriez was not, as the
+ultra-royalists have unjustly described him to be, an enemy of the
+throne; he was, in truth, a constitutional royalist. In 1792, he was
+promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general, and was appointed minister
+for foreign affairs, from which office he was shortly afterwards removed
+to the war department. That department, however, he held only for four
+days, at the end of which term he resigned. The duration of his official
+existence did not exceed three months. He was now placed at the head
+of the army which was destined to repel the Prussians, who were led by
+the Duke of Brunswick. By a masterly disposition of his troops, in the
+defiles of Champagne, he completely foiled the enemy, and compelled
+them to make a ruinous retreat. He then broke into the Netherlands,
+gained the battle of Jemappe, revolutionized the whole country, and
+carried the French arms into Holland. Quitting his army for a while, he
+visited Paris, for the purpose of endeavouring to save the king, but in
+that he failed, and rendered himself an object of suspicion. The tide
+of military success, too, at length began to turn against him. He lost
+the battle of Neerwinden, and was forced to abandon the Low Countries.
+Commissioners were now sent by the Convention to arrest him; and, after
+having vainly endeavoured to rally his army on his side, he was obliged
+to seek for safety in flight. After having resided in various foreign
+countries, he finally settled in England, where he was often consulted by
+the ministers. Though he was decidedly hostile to the emperor Napoleon,
+he took no share in the restoration of the Bourbons, nor did he approve
+of their conduct. Dumouriez died on the 14th of March, 1823, and was
+interred at Henley, in Oxfordshire. His works are numerous; the most
+interesting of them are, his Memoirs, and the Present State of Portugal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+    Captivity and Sufferings of Masers de Latude—Cause of his
+    Imprisonment—He is removed from the Bastile to Vincennes—He
+    escapes—He is retaken, and sent to the Bastile—Kindness of
+    M. Berryer—D’Alegre is confined in the same apartment with
+    him—Latude forms a plan for escaping—Preparations for executing
+    it—The Prisoners descend from the summit of the Bastile, and
+    escape—They are recaptured in Holland, and brought back—Latude
+    is thrown into a horrible dungeon—He tames rats, and makes a
+    musical pipe—Plans suggested by him—His writing materials—He
+    attempts suicide—Pigeons tamed by him—New plans suggested
+    by him—Finds means to fling a packet of papers from the top
+    of the Bastile—He is removed to Vincennes—He escapes—Is
+    recaptured—Opens a communication with his fellow-prisoners—Is
+    transferred to Charenton—His situation there—His momentary
+    liberation—He is re-arrested, and sent to the Bicêtre—Horrors
+    of that prison—Heroic benevolence of Madame Legros—She succeeds
+    in obtaining his release—Subsequent fate of Latude.
+
+
+In one of the finest passages that ever flowed from his pen, Sterne
+alludes to the comparatively trifling effect produced on the mind, when
+it endeavours to form a collective idea of the misery which is felt by a
+throng of sufferers. “Leaning my head upon my hand,” says he, “I began to
+figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for
+it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination.
+
+“I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no
+inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was,
+that I could not bring it near me, but that the multitude of groups in it
+did but distract me, I took a single captive, and having first shut him
+up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door
+to take his picture.
+
+“I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and
+confinement, and felt what sickness of the heart it was which arises
+from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish; in
+thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood; he had
+seen no sun, no moon, in all that time—nor had the voice of friend or
+kinsman breathed through his lattice.”
+
+It is even as Sterne asserts. The contemplation of the woes which are
+undergone by a large aggregate of persons, seems indeed to act on the
+mind somewhat in the manner of a heavy misfortune; it bewilders and
+benumbs the feelings. When we read of a single individual falling beneath
+the knife of a murderer, we are more violently startled and thrilled, and
+the impression made is more permanent, than when we read of the thousands
+who groan out their lives on the field of battle; though, in the latter
+case, the largest part of the victims, mutilated, torn, trampled on, and
+slowly dying without succour, and distant from all that is dear to them,
+endure agonies far beyond those which are inflicted by the stab of an
+assassin.
+
+Let us, therefore, now follow the example of Sterne. Hitherto the reader
+has seen only a rapid succession of captives passing before him, like the
+shadows of a magic lantern; he has had but glimpses of the wretchedness
+that falls to the lot of a prisoner; for, with respect to nearly the
+whole of the individuals chronicled in this volume, we know, as to
+their situation while in durance, little beyond the circumstance of
+their having been incarcerated; their persecutors ensured their silence
+by retaining them till they sunk into the grave, or by the terror of
+becoming once more inmates of a dungeon. While the Bastile was standing,
+few would venture even to whisper what they had experienced within its
+walls. Fortunately, however, there does exist one faithful record of
+the severest woes, protracted by untirable tormentors, through a series
+of years, extending to half the natural life of man. Let us then avail
+ourselves of it, fix our attention steadily on a single individual, watch
+his anguish, bodily and mental, his privations, his struggles, and his
+despair, and mark how deeply the iron can be made to enter into his soul
+by vindictive and ruthless tyrants.
+
+Henry Masers de Latude, the person alluded to, spent thirty-five years
+in the Bastile and other places of confinement. If we did not know that
+power, when it is held by the base-minded, is exercised by them without
+mercy, to punish whoever offends them, we might suppose that Latude
+brought his long agonies upon himself by the commission of some enormous
+crime. That he committed a fault is undeniable, and it was a fault of
+that sort which most disgusts high-spirited men, because it bears the
+stamp of meanness and fraud. It deserved a sharp reprimand, perhaps
+even a moderate chastisement; but no heart that was not as hard as the
+nether millstone, could have made it a pretext for the infliction of such
+lengthened misery as he was doomed to undergo.
+
+Latude, who was in his twenty-fifth year when his misfortunes began,
+was the son of the Marquis de Latude, a military officer, and was born
+in Languedoc. He was intended for the engineer service, but the peace
+of Aix-la-Chapelle prevented him from being enrolled. The notorious
+Marchioness de Pompadour, who united in herself the double demerit of
+being the royal harlot and procuress, was then in the zenith of her
+power, and was as much detested by the people as she was favoured by the
+sovereign. As Latude was one day sitting in the garden of the Tuileries,
+he heard two men vehemently inveighing against her; and a thought
+struck him, that, by turning this circumstance to account, he might
+obtain her patronage. His plan was a clumsy one, and it was clumsily
+executed. He began by putting into the post-office a packet of harmless
+powder, directed to the marchioness; he then waited on her, related the
+conversation which he had overheard, said that he had seen them put a
+packet into the post-office, and expressed his fears that it contained
+some extremely subtle poison. She offered him a purse of gold, but he
+refused it, and declared that he was only desirous of being rewarded
+by her protection. Suspicious of his purpose, she wished to see his
+handwriting; and therefore, under pretence of intending to communicate
+with him, she asked for his address. He wrote it, and, unfortunately for
+him, he wrote it in the same hand in which he had directed the pretended
+poison. He was then graciously dismissed. The sameness of the writing,
+and the result of the experiments which she ordered to be made on the
+contents of the packet, convinced her that the whole was a fraud. It is
+scarcely possible not to smile at the blundering folly of the youthful
+impostor; had he sent real poison, and disguised his handwriting, he
+would perhaps have succeeded.
+
+But this proved to be no laughing matter to the luckless Latude. The
+marchioness looked upon the trick as an unpardonable insult, and she
+was not slow in revenging it. In the course of a few days, while he was
+indulging in golden dreams, he was painfully awoke from them by the
+appearance of the officers of justice. They carried him to the Bastile,
+and there he was stripped, deprived of his money, jewels, and papers,
+clothed in wretched rags, and shut up in the Tower du Coin. On the
+following day, the 2nd of May, 1749, he was interrogated by M. Berryer,
+the lieutenant of police. Unlike many of his class, Berryer was a man of
+feeling; he promised to intercede for him with the marchioness, and, in
+the meanwhile, he endeavoured to make him as comfortable as a man could
+be who was robbed of his liberty. To make the time pass less heavily, he
+gave him a comrade, a Jew, a man of abilities, Abuzaglo by name, who was
+accused of being a secret British agent. The two captives soon became
+friends; Abuzaglo had hopes of speedy liberation through the influence
+of the Prince of Conti, and he promised to obtain the exercise of that
+influence in behalf of his companion. Latude, on his part, in case of
+his being first released, bound himself to strain every nerve to rescue
+Abuzaglo.
+
+Ever on the listen to catch the conversation of the prisoners, the
+jailors appear to have obtained a knowledge of the hopes and reciprocal
+engagements of the friends. When Latude had been four months at the
+Bastile, three turnkeys entered, and said that an order was come to
+set him free. Abuzaglo embraced him, and conjured him to remember his
+promise. But no sooner had the joyful Latude crossed the threshold of
+his prison, than he was told that he was only going to be removed to
+Vincennes. Abuzaglo was liberated shortly after; but believing that
+Latude was free, and had broken his word to him, he ceased to take an
+interest in his fate.
+
+It is not wonderful that the health of Latude gave way under the pressure
+of grief and disappointment. M. Berryer came to console him, removed
+him to the most comfortable apartment in the castle, and allowed him to
+walk daily for two hours in the garden. But he did not conceal that the
+marchioness was inflexible, and in consequence of this, the captive, who
+felt a prophetic fear that he was destined to perpetual imprisonment,
+resolved to make an attempt to escape. Nearly nine months elapsed before
+he could find an opportunity to carry his plan into effect. The moment
+at length arrived. One of his fellow-prisoners, an ecclesiastic, was
+frequently visited by an abbé; and this circumstance he made the basis of
+his project. To succeed, it was necessary for him to elude the vigilance
+of two turnkeys, who guarded him when he walked, and of four sentinels,
+who watched the outer doors, and this was no easy matter. Of the
+turnkeys, one often waited in the garden, while the other went to fetch
+the prisoner. Latude began by accustoming the second turnkey to see him
+hurry down stairs, and join the first in the garden. When the day came on
+which he was determined to take flight, he, as usual, passed rapidly down
+the stairs without exciting any suspicion, his keeper having no doubt
+that he should find him in the garden. At the bottom was a door, which he
+hastily bolted to prevent the second turnkey from giving the alarm to his
+companion. Successful thus far, he knocked at the gate which led out of
+the castle. It was opened, and, with an appearance of much eagerness, he
+asked for the abbé, and was answered that the sentinel had not seen him.
+“Our priest has been waiting for him in the garden more than two hours,”
+exclaimed Latude; “I have been running after him in all directions to no
+purpose; but, egad, he shall pay me for my running!” He was allowed to
+pass; he repeated the same inquiry to the three other sentinels, received
+similar answers, and at last found himself beyond his prison walls.
+Avoiding as much as possible the high road, he traversed the fields and
+vineyards, and finally reached Paris, where he shut himself up in a
+retired lodging.
+
+In the first moments of recovered liberty, the feelings of Latude were
+those of unmixed pleasure. They were, however, soon alloyed by doubt,
+apprehension, and anxiety. What was he to do? whither was he to fly? To
+remain concealed was impossible, and, even had it been possible, would
+have been only another kind of captivity; to fly from the kingdom was
+nearly, if not quite as difficult; and, besides, he was reluctant to give
+up the gaieties of the capital and his prospects of advancement. In this
+dilemma he romantically determined to throw himself upon the generosity
+of his persecutor. “I drew up,” says he, “a memorial, which I addressed
+to the king. I spoke in it of Madame de Pompadour with respect, and on
+my fault towards her with repentance. I entreated she would be satisfied
+with the punishment I had undergone; or, if fourteen months’ imprisonment
+had not expiated my offence, I ventured to implore the clemency of her I
+had offended, and threw myself on the mercy of my sovereign. I concluded
+my memorial by naming the asylum I had chosen.” To use such language was,
+indeed, sounding “the very base-string of humility.”
+
+This appeal of the sheep to the wolf was answered in a wolf-like manner.
+Latude was arrested without delay, and immured in the Bastile. It was a
+part of the tactics of the prison to inspire hopes, for the purpose of
+adding the pain of disappointment to the other sufferings of a prisoner.
+He was accordingly told that he was taken into custody merely to
+ascertain by what means he had escaped. He gave a candid account of the
+stratagem to which he had resorted; but, instead of being set free, as he
+had foolishly expected, he was thrown into a dungeon, and subjected to
+the harshest treatment.
+
+Again his compassionate friend, the lieutenant of police, came to his
+relief. He could not release him from his dungeon, but did all that lay
+in his power to render it less wearisome. He condoled with him; tried,
+but in vain, to soften his tormentor; and, as a loop-hole in the vault
+admitted light enough to allow of reading, he ordered him to be supplied
+with books, pens, ink, and paper. For six months these resources enabled
+Latude to bear his fate with some degree of fortitude. His patience was
+then exhausted, and he gave way to rage and despair, in the paroxysms of
+which he vented his angry feelings in epigrams and satirical verses. One
+of these compositions, which is certainly not deficient in bitterness,
+he was imprudent enough to write on the margin of a book which had been
+lent to him—
+
+    “With no wit or allurements to tempt man to sin,
+      With no beauty and no virgin treasure in store,
+    In France you the highest of lovers may win—
+      For a proof do you ask? Then behold Pompadour.”
+
+Latude had taken the precaution to write this in a feigned hand; but he
+was not aware, that, whenever a prisoner returned a book, every page of
+it was carefully examined. The jailers discovered the epigram, and took
+the volume to John Lebel, the governor, who dutifully hastened to lay it
+before the mistress of the king. The fury of the marchioness was extreme.
+Sending for M. Berryer, she exclaimed to him, in a voice half smothered
+with passion, “See here! learn to know the man for whom you are so much
+interested, and dare again to solicit my clemency!”
+
+Eighteen dreary months passed away, during which Latude was strictly
+confined to his dungeon, scarcely hearing the sound of a human voice. At
+last M. Berryer took upon himself the responsibility of removing him to
+a better apartment, and even allowing him to have the attendance of a
+servant. A young man, named Cochar, was found willing to undertake the
+monotonous and soul-depressing task of being domestic to a prisoner. He
+was gentle and sympathising, and in so far was qualified for his office;
+but he had miscalculated his own strength, and the weight of the burden
+which he was to bear. He drooped, and in a short time he was stretched on
+the bed of mortal sickness. Fresh air and liberty might have saved him.
+Those, however, he could not obtain; for it was a rule that the fate of
+any one who entered into the service of a prisoner became linked with
+that of his master, and that he must not expect to quit the Bastile till
+his employer was set at large. It was not till Cochar was expiring, that
+the jailers would so much as consent to remove him from the chamber of
+Latude. Within three months from his entrance into the Bastile, he ceased
+to exist.
+
+Latude was inconsolable for the loss of the poor youth, who had always
+endeavoured to comfort him, as long as he had spirits to do so. To
+mitigate his grief, M. Berryer obtained for him the society of a
+fellow-captive, who could scarcely fail to have a perfect communion of
+feeling with him. This new associate, D’Alegre by name, was about his
+own age, full of activity, spirit, and talent, and had committed the
+irremissible crime of offending the Marchioness de Pompadour. Taking it
+for granted that she was reclaimable, though on what ground he did so it
+would be difficult to discover, he had written to her a letter, in which
+he apprised her of the public hatred, and pointed out the means by which
+he thought she might remove it, and become an object of affection. For
+giving this advice, he had already spent three years within the walls
+of the Bastile. Yet his woes were now only beginning. The unfortunate
+D’Alegre had ample cause to lament his having forgotten the scriptural
+injunction, not to cast pearls before swine.
+
+M. Berryer took the same warm interest in D’Alegre as in Latude. He was
+indefatigable in his exertions to obtain their pardon, and for a while
+he flattered himself that he should succeed. At last, wearied by his
+importunity, the marchioness vowed that her vengeance should be eternal,
+and she commanded him never again to mention their names. He was,
+therefore, obliged to communicate to them the melancholy tidings, that
+their chains could be broken only by her disgrace or death.
+
+D’Alegre was almost overwhelmed by the first shock of this intelligence;
+it inspired Latude, on the contrary, with a sort of insane energy, and
+his mind immediately began to revolve projects of escape. The very
+idea of escaping would seem to be indicative of madness; egress through
+the gates, tenfold guarded as they were, was utterly impossible, and to
+ascend to the summit of the lofty tower, which must be done through the
+grated chimney, then to descend from the dizzy height into the ditch,
+and, lastly, to break through or climb the outward wall, appeared to be
+equally impracticable. Yet, with no apparent means of accomplishing his
+purpose, Latude firmly made up his mind to try the latter plan. He had
+two things in his favour, time and perseverance, and their sovereign
+efficacy has often been proved.
+
+When Latude mentioned to him his scheme, D’Alegre considered it as
+little better than the ravings of delirium. Latude, however, continued
+to meditate deeply upon it, though in silence. The first step towards
+the execution of it, without the success of which no other could be
+taken, was to find a hiding-place for the tools and materials which must
+be employed. From his being unable to hear any of the movements of the
+prisoner in the chamber below, Latude concluded that there was a space
+between the floor of his own room and the ceiling of his neighbour’s,
+and he immediately set himself to ascertain whether this was the fact.
+As he was returning with D’Alegre from mass, he contrived that his
+fellow-prisoner should drop his toothpick to the bottom of the stairs,
+and request the turnkey to pick it up. While the turnkey was descending,
+Latude looked into the under chamber, and estimated its height at about
+ten feet and a half. He then counted the number of stairs between the two
+rooms, measured one of them, and found, to his infinite delight, that
+there must be a vacancy of five feet and a half between the bottom of the
+one room and the top of the other.
+
+As soon as they were locked in, Latude embraced D’Alegre, and exclaimed
+that, with patience and courage, they might be saved, now that they had a
+spot where they could conceal their ropes and materials. At the mention
+of ropes, D’Alegre thought that his companion’s wits were wandering, and,
+when he heard him assert, that he had more than a thousand feet of rope
+in his trunk, he felt sure that the assertion was prompted by madness.
+“What!” said Latude, “have I not a vast quantity of linen[9]—thirteen
+dozen and a half of shirts—many napkins, stockings, nightcaps, and other
+articles? Will not these supply us? We will unravel them, and we shall
+have abundance of rope.”
+
+D’Alegre began to have a gleam of hope, but he still started numerous
+difficulties, among which were the want of wood for ladders, and of tools
+to make them, and to wrench the iron gratings from the chimney. Latude
+silenced him by replying, “My friend, it is genius which creates, and we
+have that which despair supplies. It will direct our hands; and once more
+I tell you, we shall be saved.”
+
+Their first essay in tool-making was to grind down to an edge, on the
+tiled floor, two iron hooks, taken from a folding table; with these they
+meant to remove the chimney gratings. The next was to convert a part
+of the steel of their tinder-box into a knife, with which they made
+handles for the hooks. The hooks were immediately applied to raise the
+tiles, in order to find whether there was really a cavity beneath. After
+six hours’ toil, the prisoners found that there was an empty space of
+about four feet, and, having gained this satisfactory knowledge, they
+carefully replaced the floor of their cell. The threads of two shirts
+were then drawn out, one by one, tied together, wound into small balls,
+and, subsequently, formed into two larger balls, each composed of fifty
+threads, sixty feet in length. These were ultimately twisted into a rope,
+from which was made a ladder of twenty feet, intended to support the
+captives, while they extracted the bars by which the chimney was closed.
+
+The removal of the bars was a work of horrible labour. Cramped into the
+most painful postures, it was impossible for them to work more than an
+hour at a stretch, and their hands were always covered with blood. The
+mortar was nearly as hard as iron, they had no means of softening it but
+by blowing water on it from their mouths, and they thought themselves
+lucky when they could clear away as much as an eighth of an inch in the
+course of a night. As fast as the bars were extracted they replaced them,
+that their operations might not be betrayed. Six months’ unremitting toil
+was bestowed upon this single object.
+
+Having opened the passage up the chimney, they proceeded to construct
+their ladders. Their fuel, which was in logs of about eighteen or twenty
+inches long, supplied the rounds for the rope ladder, by which they
+were to descend from the tower; and the whole of that by which they
+were to scale the outward wall. More tools being required to cut the
+wood, Latude converted an iron candlestick into a saw, by notching it
+with the remaining half of the steel which belonged to the tinder-box.
+To this implement he afterwards added others. They then set to work on
+their wooden ladder, which it was necessary to make of the length of
+twenty or five-and-twenty feet. It had only one upright, three inches
+in diameter, through which the rounds passed, each round projecting six
+inches on either side; the pieces of which it consisted were joined by
+mortises and tenons, and each joint was fastened by two pegs, to keep
+them perpendicular. As fast as the pieces were finished, the rounds were
+tied to them with a string, that no mistake might occur when they were
+put together in the dark. They were then carefully hidden under the floor.
+
+As in case of the prison spies chancing to overhear them talking about
+their employment, it was of consequence to prevent their enemies from
+understanding what was said, they invented a vocabulary of names for
+all the tools and the portions of the apparatus. For instance, the saw
+was _the monkey_, the reel _Anubis_, the hooks _Tubal Cain_, the wooden
+ladder _Jacob_, the rounds _sheep_, the ropes _doves_, a ball of thread
+_the little brother_, and the knife _the puppy dog_; the hole in which
+they concealed them was christened _Polyphemus_.
+
+It now remained for them to make their principal rope ladder. This was
+an arduous and almost endless task, as it was more than a hundred and
+eighty feet long, and, consequently, double that length of rope was
+wanted. “We began,” says Latude, “by unravelling all our linen, shirts,
+towels, nightcaps, stockings, drawers, pocket-handkerchiefs,—every thing
+which could supply thread or silk. When we had made a ball, we hid it in
+_Polyphemus_; and when we had a sufficient quantity, we employed a whole
+night in twisting it into a rope, and I defy the most skilful rope maker
+to have done it better.”
+
+There was still a pressing necessity for another enormous quantity of
+rope. Along the upper part of the outside of the Bastile ran a kind
+of cornice, which stood out three or four feet beyond the wall. The
+effect of this would be, to make the ladder hang loosely in the air, and
+vibrate in such a terrific manner, that there would be great danger of
+the captive who led the way being precipitated headlong to the ground.
+To avert this peril, they made a second rope, three hundred and sixty
+feet long, to be tied round the person first descending, and passed
+gradually through a sort of block fixed above, in order to steady him.
+Shorter ropes were also provided, to fasten the ladder to a cannon, and
+for any other occasion that might occur. On measuring the whole of their
+manufacture, they found that it extended to more than fourteen hundred
+feet. Two hundred and eight rounds were required for the ladders, and,
+lest their knocking against the wall should give the alarm, they covered
+them with the linings of their morning gowns, waistcoats, and under
+waistcoats. These last preparations for flight occupied eighteen months.
+
+It had originally been their intention, after having reached the ditch,
+to climb the parapet, and get into the governor’s garden, and from thence
+descend into the moat of the gate of St. Antoine. On consideration,
+however, this plan was abandoned, because in this part they would be
+more exposed than elsewhere to be detected by the sentinels. It was
+therefore deemed advisable, though the labour would be greatly increased,
+to break a way through the wall which divided the ditch of the Bastile
+from that of the St. Antoine gate. Latude was of opinion that the mortar
+of the wall on this side, having been weakened by frequent floods, might
+be removed with comparative ease. Two bars from the chimney were to be
+used as levers to raise the stones, and an auger, to make holes for the
+insertion of the bars, was fabricated out of a screw from one of the
+bedsteads, to which a wooden cross handle was added.
+
+All was now prepared for their flight, and they had only to decide upon
+the day for attempting their hazardous enterprise. The 25th of February,
+1756, was the day which they chose. A portmanteau was filled with a
+change of clothes, the rounds were fastened into the rope ladder, the
+wooden ladder was got ready, the two crowbars were put into cases to
+prevent them from clanging, and a bottle of brandy was prudently added to
+their baggage, to hearten them while they worked in the water—for the
+Seine had overflowed, and at that moment there was from four to five feet
+water in the moat of the Bastile, and ice was floating upon it.
+
+Supper being over, and the turnkey having locked them in for the
+night, the captives, doubtless with throbbing hearts, began their
+operations. Latude was the first to ascend the chimney. “I had the
+rheumatism in my left arm,” says he, “but I thought little of the pain,
+for I soon experienced one more severe.” Before he reached the top,
+his knees and elbows were so excoriated, that the blood ran down from
+them. When he arrived at the summit, he let down a rope, by means of
+which he successively drew up the portmanteau, the ladders, and the
+other articles. The end of the rope ladder he allowed to hang down,
+and the upper part he fastened across the funnel with a large wooden
+peg. D’Alegre was thus enabled to mount with less difficulty than his
+predecessor had experienced.
+
+At last they breathed the free air of heaven on the platform of the
+Bastile. As the du Trésor tower appeared to be the most favourable for
+their descent, they carried their apparatus thither. One end of the
+rope ladder was made fast to a cannon, and it was gently let down. The
+safety rope was next passed through a firmly fixed block, and it was tied
+securely round the body of Latude. The daring adventurer now commenced
+his fearful descent of more than fifty yards; D’Alegre meanwhile slowly
+letting out the rope. It was well that they had taken this precaution;
+for, at every step that he took, Latude swung so violently in the air
+that it is probable he would have lost his hold, had not the safety rope
+given him confidence. In a few moments, which however must have seemed
+hours, he reached the ditch unhurt. The portmanteau and the other effects
+were then lowered to him, and he placed them on a spot to which the
+water had not risen. D’Alegre himself followed; and, as Latude applied
+all his strength to steady the ladder, the descent of his companion was
+effected with less annoyance and hazard than his own had been. That
+regret, at being unable to carry away their ladder and implements, should
+have found a place among the feelings by which they were agitated, may at
+the first glance seem strange, but was certainly not unnatural; articles
+on which they had bestowed such persevering toil, which had proved the
+instruments of their deliverance, and were also the trophies of their
+triumph, they must have regarded with something like affection.
+
+As they heard a sentinel pacing along at the distance of ten yards, they
+were obliged finally to relinquish the scheme of climbing the parapet,
+which they had still cherished a hope of carrying into execution. There
+was, therefore, no resource but to break a hole through the wall.
+Accordingly they crossed the ditch of the Bastile, to the spot where
+the wall separated it from that of the St. Antoine gate. Unluckily, the
+ditch had been deepened here, and the water, on which ice was floating,
+was up to their arm-pits. They, nevertheless, set to work with a vigour
+which can be inspired only by circumstances like those under which they
+were placed. Scarcely had they begun, when, about twelve feet above their
+heads, they saw light cast upon them from the lantern which was carried
+by a patrol major; they were compelled instantly to put their heads under
+water, and this they had to do several times in the course of the night.
+The wall at which they were working had a thickness of a yard and a half;
+so that, although they plied their crowbars without intermission, they
+were nine mortal hours in making a hole of sufficient size for them to
+creep through. Their task was ultimately achieved, they passed through
+the aperture, and were now beyond the walls of their prison. But even at
+this moment of exultation, they had a narrow escape from perishing. In
+their way to the road by which they were to go, there was an aqueduct;
+it was not more than six feet wide, but it had ten feet of water and
+two feet of mud. Into this they stumbled. Fortunately, Latude did not
+lose his upright position; having shaken off his companion, who had
+mechanically grasped him, he scrambled up the bank, and then drew out
+D’Alegre by the hair of his head.
+
+The clock struck five as they entered the high road. After having
+joyously clasped each other in a long and close embrace, they dropped on
+their knees, and poured forth fervent thanks to the Divine Being, who had
+so miraculously aided them in their dangerous undertaking. In consequence
+of the evaporation which was taking place, they now began to feel more
+acutely than when they were in the water the effects of their immersion;
+their whole frame was rapidly becoming rigid. They, therefore, drew a
+change of clothes from the portmanteau; but they were so much benumbed
+and exhausted, that neither of them could dress without being assisted by
+his friend. When they were somewhat recovered, they took a hackney-coach,
+and eventually found shelter in the house of a kind-hearted tailor, a
+native of Languedoc, who was known to Latude.
+
+To gain strength after their toils, as well as to let the hue and cry
+die away, the friends remained nearly a month in concealment. It having
+been settled between them that, in order to avoid being both caught at
+once, they should quit the country separately, D’Alegre, in the disguise
+of a peasant, set out on his journey to Brussels. He reached that city
+in safety, and informed Latude of his success. Furnished with a parish
+register of his host, who was nearly of his own age, and with some old
+papers relative to a lawsuit, and dressed as a servant, Latude departed.
+He went on foot a few leagues from Paris, and then took the diligence for
+Valenciennes. He was several times stopped, searched, and questioned,
+and, on one occasion, was in imminent danger of being detected. By dint,
+however, of sticking to his story, that he was carrying law papers to his
+master’s brother at Amsterdam, he got safely to Valenciennes, at which
+town he removed into the stage for Brussels. He was walking when they
+reached the boundary post which marks the frontier line of France and
+the Netherlands. “My feelings,” says he, “got the better of my prudence;
+I threw myself on the ground, and kissed it with transport. At length,
+thought I, I can breathe without fear! My companions, with astonishment,
+demanded the cause of this extravagance. I pretended that, just at the
+very moment, in a preceding year, I had escaped a great danger, and that
+I always expressed my gratitude to Providence by a similar prostration
+when the day came round.”
+
+Latude had appointed D’Alegre to meet him at the Hôtel de Coffi,
+in Brussels. Thither he went immediately on his arrival; but there
+disappointment and sorrow awaited him. The landlord at first denied any
+knowledge of D’Alegre, and, when further pressed, he hesitated, and
+became extremely embarrassed. This was enough to convince the inquirer
+that his friend had been seized; and the conviction was strengthened, by
+his having heard nothing from him, though D’Alegre knew the moment when
+his companion would reach Brussels. As his friend could be arrested on
+the Austrian territory, it was obvious that Latude could not remain in
+it without danger; and, with a heavy heart, he resolved to fly instantly
+from this inhospitable soil. He secured a place in the canal boat, which
+was that night to proceed to Antwerp. In the course of the voyage, he
+learned the fatal truth from a fellow-passenger. He was told, that
+one of the two prisoners, escaped from the Bastile, had arrived at the
+Hôtel de Coffi, had been apprehended by a police officer, and had been
+ultimately sent under a strong escort to Lille, and there delivered into
+the custody of a French exempt; and, moreover, that all this was kept as
+secret as possible, in order not to alarm the other fugitive, the search
+after whom was carried on with such activity that he must inevitably fall
+into the hands of his pursuers.
+
+Believing that, if he went on immediately to Amsterdam he would find
+there an officer of the police waiting to seize him, he directed his
+steps to Bergen-op-Zoom. But now another trouble fell upon him. He had
+nearly exhausted his scanty stock of money, and had not found at Brussels
+a remittance which he expected from his father; he afterwards learned
+that it had been intercepted by the French exempt, who was employed
+to trace him. While he remained at Bergen-op-Zoom, which was till he
+supposed that his enemies would have lost the hope of his coming to
+Amsterdam, he wrote to his father for a supply. But a considerable time
+must elapse before he could receive it, and, in the meanwhile, he would
+run the risk of starving. When he had paid the rent of his wretched
+garret at Bergen-op-Zoom, and the fare of the boat which was to convey
+him to Amsterdam, a few shillings was all that was left. In this state
+of penury, unwilling to beg, he tried whether life could be supported
+by grass and wild herbs alone. The experiment failed, for his stomach
+rejected the loathsome food. To render his herbs less disgusting, he
+bought four pounds of a black and clay-like rye bread, to eat with them.
+
+Hoping that by this time the bloodhounds of the marchioness had desisted
+from seeking him in the Dutch capital, Latude ventured to embark. To hide
+his poverty, he kept aloof as much as possible from his fellow-voyagers.
+He was, however, not unobserved. There was in the boat one John
+Teerhorst, who kept a sort of humble public-house, in a cellar at
+Amsterdam. Under his unprepossessing exterior, he had a heart as kind as
+ever beat in a human breast. Chancing to catch a sight of Latude’s sorry
+fare, he could not help exclaiming, “Good God! what an extraordinary
+dinner you are making! You seem to have more appetite than money!” Latude
+frankly owned that it was so. The good-natured Dutchman immediately led
+him to his own table. “No compliments, Mr. Frenchman,” said he, “seat
+yourself there, and eat and drink with me.” On further acquaintance with
+him, Latude discovered that his host was not only a truly benevolent man,
+but that he had also the rare talent of conferring favours with such
+delicacy as not to wound the feelings of the person whom he obliged.
+
+When they reached Amsterdam, Teerhorst offered to introduce him to
+a Frenchman named Martin, who, judging from himself, he doubted not
+would be delighted to serve him. Latude, however, found that his
+fellow-countryman was one of the most soulless animals whom he had ever
+seen; a being who cared only for self. He was better fitted to be a
+turnkey of the Bastile than the consoler of one of its victims. The tears
+and low spirits of his guest disclosed to the Dutchman the reception
+which Latude had met with, and the forebodings that oppressed him. Taking
+his hand, he said, “Do not weep—I will never abandon you: I am not rich,
+it is true, but my heart is good; we will do the best we can for you, and
+you will be satisfied.”
+
+Teerhorst’s underground habitation was divided by a partition into two
+rooms; one of which served as kitchen, while the other was at once shop,
+sitting-room, and bed-room. Though the narrow tenement was already
+crowded, Teerhorst contrived to make a sleeping place for Latude in
+a large closet, and he and his wife cheerfully gave him a mattress
+from their own bed. Not content with feeding and lodging the fugitive,
+Teerhorst strove to divert him from melancholy thoughts, by taking
+him wherever there was anything that could amuse him. His charitable
+efforts were but partially successful; for the mind of Latude was
+deeply begloomed by his own precarious situation, and still more by his
+incessantly brooding over and regretting the fate of D’Alegre.
+
+Though Latude had found no sympathy in Martin, he was more fortunate in
+another of his countrymen, Louis Clergue, who was a native of Martagnac,
+where the fugitive was born. Rich and compassionate, Clergue gave him
+a room in his house, made him a constant partaker of his table, and
+furnished him with clothes and linen. The linen was not the least
+acceptable of these gifts; for Latude had been forty days without a
+change of it. Clergue also assembled his friends, to hear the story of
+his guest, and to consult what could be done for him. They were all of
+opinion that Latude had nothing to fear, as neither the States General
+nor the people of Amsterdam would ever consent to deliver up a persecuted
+stranger, who had confidingly thrown himself on their protection. Even
+Latude himself began to believe that at last he was safe.
+
+The unfortunate man was soon woefully undeceived. Not for a moment had
+his pursuers slackened in the chase, not a single precaution had they
+neglected that could lead to success. In aid of the subaltern agents,
+the French ambassador had also exerted himself. By representing the
+fugitive as a desperate malefactor, he had obtained the consent of the
+States to arrest him. Calumny was one of the weapons uniformly employed
+against prisoners, in order to insulate them from their fellow-creatures,
+by extinguishing pity. But, in this instance, there seems reason for
+believing that bribery was an auxiliary to calumny; the expense of
+following up the fugitives was no less than 9000_l._ sterling—a sum for
+which it is impossible to account, without supposing that much of it was
+expended in bribes.
+
+Though Latude had changed his name, and the address to which his friends
+were to direct their communications, the active agents of the marchioness
+had succeeded in intercepting all his letters. One was at last allowed to
+reach him, as the means of effecting his ruin. It does not appear whether
+his residing in the house of M. Clergue was known to them; probably it
+was; but, if it were, they perhaps thought that it would be imprudent
+to seize him there, as his protector might proclaim to the populace the
+innocence of his guest, and thus excite a tumult. A letter from Latude’s
+father, containing a draft on a banker, was therefore forwarded to him.
+Into this snare he fell. As he was proceeding to the banker’s, the Dutch
+police officers pounced upon him, and he was immediately fettered and
+dragged along. The crowd which had by this time gathered, were told that
+he was a dangerous criminal; but, as the numbers nevertheless continued
+to increase, the brutal officers, who were armed with heavy bludgeons,
+dealt their blows liberally on all sides, to clear the way to the Town
+Hall. One of these blows struck the prisoner with such violence, on the
+nape of his neck, that he dropped senseless to the ground.
+
+When consciousness returned, he was lying on a truss of straw, in a
+dungeon; there was not a ray of light visible, not a sound to be heard.
+He seemed to be cut off from the human race, and he resigned himself
+wholly to despair. His tumultuous reflections were interrupted, in the
+morning, by a visit from St. Marc, the French exempt, who had pursued
+him from Paris. This brutal caitiff had the baseness to aggravate his
+sufferings by an awkward attempt at irony. “He told me,” says Latude,
+“that I ought to pronounce the name of the Marchioness de Pompadour with
+the most profound respect; she was anxious only to load me with favours;
+far from complaining, I ought to kiss the generous hand that struck
+me, every blow from which was a compliment and an obligation.” In a
+second visit, some time after, the exempt brought him an ounce of snuff,
+which he strongly recommended, but which Latude did not use, because he
+imagined, and not unreasonably, that it was poisoned.
+
+Latude remained nine days in this dungeon, while his captors were
+waiting for permission to carry him through the territory of the Empress
+Maria Theresa. They were anxious to receive it without delay, for M.
+Clergue and the other friends of the prisoner were loudly asserting his
+innocence, and the citizens began to murmur at the disgrace which was
+cast upon their country by his seizure being permitted. The permission
+soon came, and the myrmidons of the Marchioness hastened to bear off
+their prey.
+
+In this instance, the Dutch and Austrian governments must bear the shame
+of having been ready instruments of the persecutors. It is, however,
+doubtful whether, had those governments acted otherwise, the fugitives
+would have escaped. To effect their purpose, the emissaries of the
+Bastile did not scruple to violate the territory of foreign powers.
+In 1752, a M. Bertin de Fretaux was carried off from England. He was
+secretly seized at Marylebone, put on board ship at Gravesend, and
+conveyed to the Bastile, where he died after having been confined for
+twenty-seven years. Even foreign subjects were not safe. The publisher of
+a Leyden Gazette having printed a satire on Louis XIV., he was kidnapped
+in Holland, and conveyed to the rock of St. Michael, on the Norman coast,
+and shut up in a cage till he died.
+
+At two in the morning, on the 9th of June, 1756, the jailers of Latude
+came to remove him. Round his body they fastened a strong leathern belt,
+on which were two large rings, fastened by padlocks. Through these rings
+his hands were passed; so that his arms were pinioned down to his sides,
+without the power of motion. He was then conveyed to a boat, into the
+foulest corner of which he was thrown. As he could not feed himself, the
+office of feeding him was committed to two men; they were so horribly
+filthy that he refused, for four-and-twenty hours, to take nourishment
+from them. Force was then employed to make him eat. “They brought me,”
+says Latude, “a piece of beef swimming in gravy; they took the meat in
+their hands, and thrust it into my mouth; they then took some bread,
+which they steeped in the grease, and made me swallow it in a similar
+manner. During this disgusting operation, one of these ruffians blew his
+nose with his fingers, and, without wiping them, soaked some bread, and
+approached it to my mouth. I turned my head aside, but it was too late.
+I had seen these preliminaries, and my stomach revolted. The consequence
+was, a long and severe fit of vomiting, which left me almost without
+strength or motion.”
+
+The mode of confinement by the belt was absolute torture to the prisoner.
+At length, thanks to the compassionate interference of a servant on
+board, who declared that, if no one else would, he himself would cut it,
+the belt was removed, and Latude was indulged, by being only handcuffed
+on the right arm, and chained to one of his guards. When they arrived at
+Lille, St. Marc halted for the night, and sent the prisoner to the town
+jail, where he was bolted to the chain of a deserter, scarcely nineteen,
+who had been told that he was to be hanged on the morrow. The despairing
+youth spent the night in trying to convince him that he, too, would
+be hanged, and in proposing that they should elude a public execution
+by strangling themselves with their shirts. For the remainder of the
+journey, Latude, with his legs ironed, travelled in a carriage with St.
+Marc, who took the precaution of carrying pistols, and had likewise an
+armed servant by the side of the vehicle, whose orders were to shoot the
+captive if he made the slightest motion.
+
+By his associates at the Bastile, St. Marc was received like some victor
+returning from the scene of his triumph. They swarmed round him, listened
+with greedy ears to the tale of his exertions and stratagems, and
+lavished praises and attentions upon him. The group must have borne no
+very distant resemblance to fiends exulting over a lost soul.
+
+Stripped, and reclothed in rags which were dropping to pieces, his hands
+and feet heavily ironed, the prisoner was thrown into one of the most
+noisome dungeons of the fortress. A sprinkling of straw formed his bed;
+covering it had none. The only light and air which penetrated into this
+den of torment came through a loop-hole, which narrowing gradually from
+the inside to the outside, had a diameter of not more than five inches
+at the furthest extremity. This loop-hole was secured and darkened by
+a fourfold iron grating, so ingeniously contrived that the bars of one
+net-work covered the interstices of another; but there was neither glass
+nor shutters, to ward off the inclemency of the weather. The interior
+extremity of this aperture reached within about two feet and a half of
+the ground, and served the captive for a chair and a table, and sometimes
+he rested his arms and elbows on it to lighten the weight of his fetters.
+
+Shut out from all communication with his fellow-beings, Latude found some
+amusement in the society of the rats which infested his dungeon. His
+first attempt to make them companionable was tried upon a single rat,
+which, in three days, by gently throwing bits of bread to it, he rendered
+so tame that it would take food from his hands. The animal even changed
+its abode, and established itself in another hole in order to be nearer
+to him. In a few days a female joined the first comer. At the outset she
+was timid; but it was not long before she acquired boldness, and would
+quarrel and fight for the morsels which were given by the prisoner.
+
+“When my dinner was brought in (says Latude) I called my companions: the
+male ran to me directly; the female, according to custom, came slowly
+and timidly, but at length approached close to me, and ventured to take
+what I offered her from my hand. Some time after, a third appeared, who
+was much less ceremonious than my first acquaintances. After his second
+visit, he constituted himself one of the family, and made himself so
+perfectly at home, that he resolved to introduce his comrades. The next
+day, he came, accompanied by two others, who in the course of the week
+brought five more; and, thus, in less than a fortnight, our family circle
+consisted of ten large rats and myself. I gave each of them names, which
+they learned to distinguish. When I called them they came to eat with me,
+from the dish, or off the same plate; but I found this unpleasant, and
+was soon forced to find them a dish for themselves, on account of their
+slovenly habits. They became so tame that they allowed me to scratch
+their necks, and appeared pleased when I did; but they would never permit
+me to touch them on the back. Sometimes I amused myself with making them
+play, and joining in their gambols. Occasionally I threw them a piece of
+meat, scalding hot: the most eager ran to seize it, burned themselves,
+cried out, and left it; while the less greedy, who had waited patiently,
+took it when it was cold, and escaped into a corner, where they divided
+their prize: sometimes I made them jump up, by holding a piece of bread
+or meat suspended in the air.” In the course of a year, his four-footed
+companions increased to twenty-six. Whenever an intruder appeared he met
+with a hostile reception from the old standers, and had to fight his way
+before he could obtain a footing. Latude endeavoured to familiarize a
+spider, but in this he was unsuccessful.
+
+Another source of comfort was unexpectedly opened to the solitary
+captive. Among the straw which was brought for his bed, he found a piece
+of elder, and he conceived the idea of converting it into a sort of
+flageolet. This, however, was a task of no easy accomplishment, for his
+hands were fettered, and he had no tools. But necessity is proverbially
+inventive. He succeeded in getting off the buckle which fastened the
+waistband of his breeches, and bending it into a kind of chisel by means
+of his leg irons; and, with this clumsy instrument, after the labour of
+many months, he contrived to form a rude kind of musical pipe. It was
+probably much inferior to a child’s whistle, but his delight when he had
+completed it was extreme; the feeling was natural, and the sounds must
+have been absolute harmony to his ear.
+
+Though his flageolet and his animal companions made his lonely hours
+somewhat less burthensome, and at moments drew his attention wholly from
+maddening thoughts, the longing for liberty would perpetually recur,
+and he racked his mind for plans to shake off his chains. The thought
+occurred to him, that if he could be fortunate enough to suggest some
+plan which would benefit the state, it might be repaid by the gift of
+freedom. At that time the non-commissioned military officers were armed
+only with halberts, which could be of no use but in close engagement;
+Latude proposed to substitute muskets for the halberts, and thus make
+effective at least 20,000 men. But how was he to communicate his idea
+to the king and the ministers? he had neither pen, ink, nor paper, and
+strict orders had been given that he should be debarred from the use of
+them. This obstacle, however, he got over. For paper, he moulded thin
+tablets of bread, six inches square; for pens he used the triangular
+bones out of a carp’s belly; for ink his blood was substituted—to obtain
+it he tied round a finger some threads from his shirt, and punctured the
+end. As only a few drops could be procured in this way, and as they dried
+up rapidly, he was compelled to repeat the operation so often, that his
+fingers were covered with wounds, and enormously swelled. The necessity
+of frequent punctures he ultimately obviated, by diluting the blood with
+water.
+
+When the memorial was finished, there was yet another difficulty to be
+surmounted; it must be copied. In this emergency, Latude clamorously
+demanded to see the Major of the Bastile. To that officer he declared
+that, being convinced he had not long to live, he wished to prepare
+for his end, by receiving religious assistance. The confessor of the
+prison was in consequence sent to him, was astonished and delighted by
+the memorial, became interested in his favour, and obtained an order
+that he should be supplied with materials for writing. The memorial was
+accordingly transcribed, and presented to the king.
+
+The suggestion was adopted by the government; the unfortunate prisoner
+was, however, left to languish unnoticed in his dungeon. Again he tasked
+his faculties for a project which might benefit at once his country and
+himself. At this period no provision was made in France for the widows
+of those who fell in battle. The king of Prussia had recently set the
+example of granting pensions; and Latude deemed it worthy of being
+imitated. But, knowing that an empty treasury would be pleaded in bar,
+he proposed a trifling addition to the postage of letters, which he
+calculated would raise an ample fund. His memorial and the data on which
+it was founded, were forwarded to the monarch and the ministers. The tax
+was soon after imposed, and nominally for the purpose pointed out by
+Latude; but the widows, nevertheless, continued to be destitute, and the
+projector unpitied.
+
+Foiled in all his efforts, the firmness of Latude gave way. He had
+been pent for three years and five months in a loathsome dungeon,
+suffering more than pen can describe. Exposed in his horrible fireless
+and windowless abode to all the blasts of heaven, three winters, one of
+which was peculiarly severe, had sorely tortured his frame. The cold, the
+keen winds, and a continual defluxion from his nostrils, had split his
+upper lip, and destroyed his front teeth; his eyes were endangered from
+the same causes, and from frequent weeping; his head was often suddenly
+affected by a sort of apoplectic stroke; and his limbs were racked by
+cramp and rheumatism. Hope was extinct; intense agony of mind and body
+rendered existence insufferable; and the unhappy victim resolved to throw
+off a burthen which he could no longer bear. No instrument of destruction
+being within reach, he tried to effect his purpose by starving himself;
+and for a hundred and thirty-three hours he obstinately persisted in
+refusing all food. At last, his jailers wrenched open his mouth, and
+frustrated his design. Still bent on dying, he contrived to obtain and
+secrete a fragment of broken glass, with which he opened four of the
+large veins. During the night he bled till life was all but extinct.
+Once more, however, he was snatched from the grave, and he now sullenly
+resigned himself to await his appointed time.
+
+After he had been confined a considerable time longer, a fortunate
+overflowing of the Seine occasioned his removal. The turnkey complained
+heavily that he was obliged to walk through the water to the prisoner,
+and Latude was in consequence removed to an apartment in the tower
+of La Comté. It had no chimney, and was one of the worst rooms in the
+tower, but it was a paradise when compared with the pestiferous hole from
+which he had emerged. Yet, so strong is the yearning for society, that,
+gladdened as he was by his removal, he could not help bitterly regretting
+the loss of his sociable rats. As a substitute for them, he tried to
+catch some of the pigeons which perched on the window; and, by means of a
+noose, formed from threads drawn out of his linen, he finally succeeded
+in snaring a male and a female. “I tried,” says he, “every means to
+console them for the loss of liberty. I assisted them to make their nest
+and to feed their young; my cares and attention equalled their own.
+They seemed sensible of this, and repaid me by every possible mark of
+affection. As soon as we had established this reciprocal understanding,
+I occupied myself entirely with them. How I watched their actions, and
+enjoyed their expressions of tenderness! I lost myself entirely while
+with them, and in my dreams continued the enjoyment.”
+
+This pleasure was too great to be lasting. He had been placed in his
+present apartment because it was under the care of a brutal turnkey named
+Daragon, who had been punished for Latude’s former escape, and cherished
+a rankling feeling of revenge. It was Daragon who purchased the grain
+for the pigeons, and for this service the prisoner, besides the large
+profit which the turnkey made, gave him one out of the seven bottles of
+wine which was his weekly allowance. Daragon now insisted on having four
+bottles, without which he would purchase no more grain. It was to no
+purpose that Latude pleaded that the wine was indispensably necessary to
+restore his health; the turnkey was deaf to reason. Latude was provoked
+into asperity; Daragon rushed out in a rage; and in a short time he
+returned, pretending that he had an order from the governor to kill
+the pigeons. “My despair at this,” says Latude, “exceeded all bounds,
+and absolutely unsettled my reason; I could willingly have sacrificed
+my life to satisfy my just vengeance on this monster. I saw him make a
+motion towards the innocent victims of my misfortunes; I sprang forward
+to prevent him. I seized them, and, in my agony, I crushed them myself.
+This was perhaps the most miserable moment of my whole existence. I never
+recall the memory of it without the bitterest pangs. I remained several
+days without taking any nourishment; grief and indignation divided my
+soul; my sighs were imprecations, and I held all mankind in mortal
+horror.”
+
+Fortunately, a humane and generous man, the Count de Jumilhac, was,
+soon after, appointed governor of the Bastile. He compassionated the
+sufferings of Latude, and exerted himself to relieve them. He obtained
+for him an interview with M. de Sartine, the minister of police, who gave
+him leave to walk for two hours daily on the platform of the Bastile,
+and promised to befriend him. That promise he soon broke. Hope revived
+in the breast of Latude, and he again set to work to form plans for the
+good of the country. Schemes for issuing a new species of currency, and
+for establishing public granaries in all the principal towns, were among
+the first fruits of his meditations. With respect to the latter project,
+he says, “nothing could be more simple than the mode I suggested of
+constructing and provisioning these magazines. It consisted in a slight
+duty upon marriage, which all rich people, or those who wished to appear
+so, would have paid with eagerness, as I had the address to found it upon
+their vanity.” This project pleased M. de Sartine so much, that he wished
+to have the merit of it to himself, and, by means of a third person, he
+sounded Latude, to know whether he would relinquish his claim to it, on
+having a small pension secured to him. Latude gave a brief but peremptory
+refusal, and M. de Sartine was thenceforth his enemy. All letters and
+messages to him remained unnoticed.
+
+While he was one day walking on the platform, he learned the death of
+his father. The sentinel who guarded him had served under his father,
+but did not know that the prisoner was the son of his old officer.
+Latude was overwhelmed by this fatal intelligence, and he fainted on the
+spot. His mother still lived; but she, too, was sinking into the grave
+from grief. It was in vain that, in the most pathetic language, she
+repeatedly implored the harlot marchioness to have mercy on the captive.
+Her prayers might have moved a heart of flint, but they had no effect
+on Madame de Pompadour. But the horrors of imprisonment were not enough
+to be inflicted on him; he was made the victim of calumny, and a stain
+was fixed upon his character. To get rid of importunity in his behalf,
+the men in office replied to his advocates, “Beware how you solicit the
+pardon of that miscreant. You would shudder if you knew the crimes he has
+committed.”
+
+Thus goaded almost to madness, it is not to be wondered at that he was
+eager to take vengeance on his persecutors. Since the heart of Madame de
+Pompadour was inaccessible to pity, he determined that it should at least
+feel the stings of mortification and rage. His plan was, to draw up a
+memorial, exposing her character, and to address it to La Beaumelle, who
+had himself tasted the rigours of the Bastile. “I had only,” says he, “to
+place in trusty hands the true history of her birth and infamous life,
+with all the particulars of which I was well acquainted; in depriving
+me of existence, she would dread my dying words, and even from the tomb
+I should still be an object of terror to her. There was nothing then
+to restrain the blow with which I had the power of crushing her. The
+faithful friends who were to become the depositaries of my vengeance,
+in apprising her of the danger, would merely give her a single moment to
+escape it by doing me justice.”
+
+It was while he was walking on the platform of the Bastile that he formed
+this chimerical project, for chimerical it was, there being scarcely a
+probability that any one would have courage enough to second his attack
+on the potent and vindictive marchioness. Having calculated the distance
+between the top of the tower and the street of St. Anthony, on which he
+looked down, he perceived that it was possible to fling a packet into
+the street. Nothing of this kind could, however, be done while he was
+closely watched by Falconet the aid-major, and a serjeant, both of whom
+always attended him in his walk. Falconet was insufferably garrulous,
+particularly on his own exploits, and Latude hoped to disgust him by
+perpetual sarcasm and contradiction. He succeeded in silencing him, but
+Falconet still clung to him like his shadow. To tire him out, Latude
+adopted the plan of almost running during the whole of the time that
+he was on the platform. The aid-major remonstrated, but the prisoner
+answered, that rapid motion was indispensably necessary to him, in order
+to excite perspiration. At last, Falconet suffered him to move about as
+he pleased, and fell into gossiping with the serjeant, in which they both
+engaged so deeply that Latude was left unnoticed.
+
+The next step of Latude was to gaze into the windows of the opposite
+houses, and scrutinise the faces of the persons whom he saw, till
+he could see some one whose countenance seemed indicative of humane
+feelings. It was on the female sex, as having more sensibility than the
+male, that he mainly relied for pity and succour; and his attention was
+finally fixed on two young women, who were sitting by themselves at work
+in a chamber, and whose looks appeared to betoken that they were of kind
+dispositions. Having caught the eye of one of them, he respectfully
+saluted her by a motion of his hand; the sign was answered by both of
+them in a similar manner. After this dumb intercourse had continued for
+some days, he showed them a packet, and they motioned to him to fling it;
+but he gave them to understand that it was not yet ready.
+
+The means of conveyance for his intended work were now secured, but, as
+he no longer had materials for writing, he had still much to contrive.
+But he was not of a nature to be discouraged even by serious obstacles.
+He had fortunately been allowed to purchase some books, and he resolved
+to write between the lines and on the margins of the pages. As a pen
+made of a carp bone would not write a sufficiently small hand for
+interlineations, he beat a halfpenny as thin as paper, and succeeded in
+shaping it into a tolerable pen. Ink was yet to be provided, and this
+was the worst task of all to accomplish. Having on the former occasion
+narrowly escaped gangrene in his fingers, he was afraid to use blood,
+and was therefore compelled to find a substitute. To make his ink of
+lampblack was the mode which occurred to him; but as he was allowed
+neither fire nor candle, how was the black to be obtained? By a series
+of stratagems he managed to surmount the difficulty. Under pretence of
+severe tooth-ache, he borrowed from the serjeant, who attended him on
+the platform, a pipe and the articles for lighting it, and he secreted a
+piece of the tinder. By a simulated fit of colic, he got some oil from
+the doctor. This he put into a pomatum pot, and made a wick from threads
+drawn out of the sheets. He then made a bow and peg, like a drill, and
+with this and the piece of tinder, by dint of rapid friction, he ignited
+two small bits of dry wood, and lighted his lamp. The first view of the
+light threw him, he says, into a delirium of joy. The condensed smoke he
+collected on the bottom of a plate, and in six hours he had sufficient
+for his purpose. But here he was stopped short, and all his trouble
+seemed likely to be thrown away; for the light and oily black floated
+on the water instead of mixing with it. He got over this by affecting
+to have a violent cold. The prison apothecary sent him some syrup, and
+Latude employed it to render the lamp black miscible with water.
+
+Thus provided with materials for writing, Latude sat down to compose
+his work. “My whole heart and soul were in it,” says he, “and I steeped
+my pen in the gall with which they were overflowing.” Having completed
+the history of his persecutor, he wrote a letter of instructions to La
+Beaumelle, another to a friend, the Chevalier de Mehegan, in case of La
+Beaumelle being absent, and a third to his two female friends, in which
+he directed them how to proceed, and entreated them to exert themselves
+in his behalf. The whole of the papers he packed up in a leathern bag,
+which he formed out of the lining of a pair of breeches. As the packet
+was rather bulky, and the carrying of it about his person was dangerous,
+he was anxious to get rid of it as soon as possible. Some time, however,
+elapsed before he could catch sight of his friendly neighbours. At length
+one of them saw his signal, descended into the street, and caught the
+packet. Three months and a half passed away, during which he frequently
+saw them, and they seemed to be pleased with something that related to
+him, but he was unable to comprehend their signs. At last, on the 18th of
+April, 1764, they approached the window, and displayed a roll of paper,
+on which was written in large characters, “The Marchioness of Pompadour
+died yesterday.”
+
+“I thought I saw the heavens open before me!” exclaimed Latude. His
+oppressor was gone, and he felt an undoubting confidence that his
+liberation would immediately follow as a necessary consequence. He was
+soon cruelly undeceived. After some days had passed over, he wrote to the
+lieutenant of police, and claimed his freedom. Sartine had given strict
+orders to all the officers of the Bastile to conceal the death of the
+marchioness, and he instantly hurried to the prison, to discover how the
+news had reached Latude. He summoned the prisoner into his presence, and
+harshly questioned him on the subject. Latude perceived that a disclosure
+might be prejudicial to the kind females, and, with equal firmness and
+honour, he refused to make it. “The avowal,” said Sartine, “is the price
+of your liberty.” The captive, however, again declared that he would
+rather perish than purchase the blessing at such a cost. Finding him
+inflexible, the baffled lieutenant of police retired in anger. Irritated
+by repeated letters, petitions, and remonstrances being neglected, and
+having been led to fear that he was to be perpetually imprisoned, to
+prevent him from suing Pompadour’s heirs, Latude in an evil hour lost all
+command over himself, and wrote a violent epistle to Sartine, avowedly
+for the purpose of enraging him. This act of insane passion was punished
+by instant removal to one of the worst dungeons, where his fare was bread
+and water.
+
+After Latude had been for eighteen days in the dungeon, M. de Sartine
+obtained an order to transfer him to Vincennes, and immure him in an
+oubliette. Before he removed the prisoner, he circulated a report “that
+he meant to deliver him, but that, to accustom him by degrees to a change
+of air, he was going to place him for a few months in a convent of
+monks.” On the night of the 14th of August, 1764, an officer of police,
+with two assistants, came to convey him to his new prison. “My keepers,”
+says he, “fastened an iron chain round my neck, the end of which they
+placed under the bend of my knees; one of them placed one hand upon my
+mouth, and the other behind my head, whilst his companion pulled the
+chain with all his might, and completely bent me double. The pain I
+suffered was so intense, that I thought my loins and spine were crushed;
+I have no doubt it equalled that endured by the wretch who is broken on
+the wheel. In this state I was conveyed from the Bastile to Vincennes.”
+
+At Vincennes he was placed in a cell. His mind and body were now both
+overpowered by the severity of his fate, dangerous illness came on,
+and he every day grew weaker. Fortunately for Latude, M. Guyonnet, the
+governor of the fortress, had nothing of “the steeled jailer” about him;
+he was a generous, humane man, of amiable manners. He listened to the
+mournful tale of the captive, wept for his misfortunes, took on himself
+the responsibility of giving him a good apartment, and obtained for him
+the privilege of walking daily for two hours in the garden.
+
+Despairing, as well he might, of being ever released by his inflexible
+enemies, Latude meditated incessantly on the means of escaping. Fifteen
+months elapsed before an opportunity occurred, and then it was brought
+about by chance. He was walking in the garden, on a November afternoon,
+when a thick fog suddenly came on. The idea of turning it to account
+rushed into his mind. He was guarded by two sentries and a serjeant, who
+never quitted his side for an instant; but he determined to make a bold
+attempt. By a violent push of his elbows he threw off the sentries, then
+pushed down the serjeant, and darted past a third sentry, who did not
+perceive him till he was gone by. All four set up the cry of “Seize him!”
+and Latude joined in it still more loudly, pointing with his finger, to
+mislead the pursuers. There remained only one sentry to elude, but he
+was on the alert, and unfortunately knew him. Presenting his bayonet, he
+threatened to kill the prisoner if he did not stop. “My dear Chenu,”
+said I to him, “you are incapable of such an action; your orders are
+to arrest, and not to kill me. I had slackened my pace, and came up to
+him slowly; as soon as I was close to him, I sprang upon his musket, I
+wrenched it from him with such violence, that he was thrown down in the
+struggle; I jumped over his body, flinging the musket to a distance of
+ten paces, lest he should fire it after me, and once more I achieved my
+liberty.”
+
+Favoured by the fog, Latude contrived to hide himself in the park till
+night, when he scaled the wall, and proceeded, by by-ways, to Paris.
+He sought a refuge with the two kind females to whom he had entrusted
+his packet. They were the daughters of a hair-dresser, named Lebrun.
+The asylum for which he asked was granted in the kindest manner. They
+procured for him some linen, and an apartment in the house, gave him
+fifteen livres which they had saved, and supplied him with food from all
+their own meals. The papers confided to them they had endeavoured, but in
+vain, to deliver to the persons for whom they were intended: two of those
+persons were absent from France; the third was recently married, and his
+wife, on hearing that the packet was from the Bastile, would not suffer
+her husband to receive it.
+
+Latude was out of prison, but he was not out of danger. He was convinced
+that, to whatever quarter he might bend his steps, it would be next
+to impossible to elude M. de Sartine, who, by means of his spies, was
+omnipresent. In this emergency, he deemed it prudent to conciliate
+his persecutor; and he accordingly wrote a letter to him, entreating
+forgiveness for insults offered in a moment of madness, promising future
+silence and submission, and pathetically imploring him to become his
+protector. This overture had no result. He tried the influence of various
+persons, among whom was the prince of Conti, but everywhere he was met
+by the prejudice which Sartine had raised against him; and, to add to his
+alarm and vexation, he learned that a strict search was making for him,
+and that a reward of a thousand crowns was offered for his apprehension.
+
+As a last resource, he determined to make a personal appeal to the
+duke of Choiseul, the first minister, who was then with the court at
+Fontainebleau. It was mid-December when he set out, the ground was
+covered with ice and snow, and the cold was intense. A morsel of bread
+was his whole stock of provisions, he had no money, and he dared not
+approach a house, proceed on the high road, or travel by day, lest he
+should be intercepted. In his nightly circuitous journey, of more than
+forty miles, he often fell into ditches, or tore himself in scrambling
+through the hedges. “I hid myself in a field,” says he, “during the whole
+of the 16th; and, after walking for two successive nights, I arrived on
+the morning of the 17th at Fontainebleau, worn out by fatigue, hunger,
+grief, and despair.”
+
+Latude was too soon convinced that there was no chance of escaping from
+the vengeance of M. de Sartine. As soon as he had announced his arrival
+to the duke, two officers of the police came to convey him, as they said,
+to the minister; but their mask was speedily thrown off, and he found
+that they were to escort him back to Vincennes. They told him that every
+road had been beset, and every vehicle watched, to discover him, and they
+expressed their wonder at his having been able to reach Fontainebleau
+undetected. “I now learned,” says he, “for the first time, that there
+was no crime so great, or so severely punished, as a complaint against
+a minister. These exempts quoted to me the case of some deputies from
+the provinces, who, having been sent a short time before to denounce to
+the king the exactions of certain intendants, had been arrested, and
+punished as dangerous incendiaries!”
+
+On his reaching Vincennes, he was thrown into a horrible dungeon, barely
+six feet by six and a half in diameter, which was secured by four
+iron-plated, treble-bolted doors, distant a foot from each other. To
+aggravate his misery, he was told that he deserved a thousand times worse
+treatment; for that he had been the cause of the serjeant who guarded
+him being hanged. This appalling news entirely overwhelmed him; he gave
+himself up to frantic despair, and incessantly accused himself as the
+murderer of the unfortunate man. In the course of a few days, however, a
+compassionate sentinel, who was moved by his cries and groans, relieved
+his heart, by informing him that the serjeant was well, and had only been
+imprisoned.
+
+The kind-hearted governor sometimes visited Latude, but the information
+which he brought was not consolatory. He had tried to move M. de Sartine,
+and had found him inflexible. Sartine, however, sent to offer the
+prisoner his liberty, on condition that he would name the person who held
+his papers, and he pledged his honour that no harm should come to that
+person. Latude knew him too well to trust him. He resolutely answered, “I
+entered my dungeon an honest man, and I will die rather than leave it a
+dastard and a knave.”
+
+Into the den, where he was as it were walled up, no ray of light entered;
+the air was never changed but at the moment when the turnkey opened the
+wicket; the straw on which he lay was always rotten with damp, and the
+narrowness of the space scarcely allowed him room to move. His health
+of course rapidly declined, and his body swelled enormously, retaining
+in every part of it, when touched, the impression of the finger. Such
+were his agonies that he implored his keepers, as an act of mercy, to
+terminate his existence. At last, after having endured months of intense
+suffering, he was removed to a habitable apartment, where his strength
+gradually returned.
+
+Though his situation was improved, he was still entirely secluded from
+society. Hopeless of escape, he pondered on the means of at least opening
+an intercourse with his fellow-prisoners. On the outer side of his
+chamber was the garden, in which each of the prisoners, Latude alone
+being excluded, was daily allowed to walk by himself for a certain time.
+This wall was five feet thick; so that to penetrate it seemed almost as
+difficult as to escape. But what cannot time and perseverance accomplish!
+His only instruments were a broken piece of a sword and an iron hoop of
+a bucket, which he had contrived to secrete; yet with these, by dint of
+twenty-six months’ labour, he managed to perforate the mass of stone.
+The hole was made in a dark corner of the chimney, and he stopped the
+interior opening with a plug, formed of sand and plaster. A long wooden
+peg, rather shorter than the hole, was inserted into it, that, in case of
+the external opening being noticed and sounded, it might seem to be not
+more than three inches in depth.
+
+For a signal to the prisoner walking in the garden, he tied several
+pieces of wood so as to form a stick about six feet long, at the end of
+which hung a bit of riband. The twine with which it was tied was made
+from threads drawn out of his linen. He thrust the stick through the
+hole, and succeeded in attracting the attention of a fellow-captive,
+the Baron de Venac, who had been nineteen years confined for having
+presumed to give advice to Madame de Pompadour. He successively became
+acquainted with several others, two of whom were also the victims of
+the marchioness; one of them had been seventeen years in prison, on
+suspicion of having spoken ill of her; the other had been twenty-three
+years, because he was suspected of having written against her a pamphlet,
+which he had never even seen. The prisoners contrived to convey ink and
+paper to Latude through the hole; he opened a correspondence with them,
+encouraged them to write to each other, and became the medium through
+which they transmitted their letters. The burthen of captivity was much
+lightened to him by this new occupation.
+
+An unfortunate change for the prisoners now took place. The benevolent
+and amiable-mannered Guyonnet was succeeded by Rougemont, a man who was
+a contrast to him in every respect; he was avaricious, flinty-hearted,
+brutal, and a devoted tool of M. de Sartine. The diet which he provided
+for the captives was of the worst kind; and their scanty comforts were
+as much as possible abridged. That he might not be thwarted in the
+exercise of his tyranny, he dismissed such of the prison attendants as he
+suspected of being humane, and replaced them by men whose dispositions
+harmonised with his own. How utterly devoid of feeling were the beings
+whom he selected, may be judged by the language of his cook. This libel
+on the human race is known to have said, “If the prisoners were ordered
+to be fed upon straw, I would give them stable-litter;” and, on other
+occasions, he declared, “If I thought there was a single drop of juice in
+the meat of the prisoners, I would trample it under my foot to squeeze it
+out.” Such a wretch would not have scrupled to put poison into the food,
+had not his master had an interest in keeping the captives alive. When
+any one complained of the provisions, he was insultingly answered, “It is
+but too good for prisoners;” when he applied for the use of an article,
+however insignificant, the reply was, “It is contrary to the rules.” So
+horrible was the despotism of the governor that, within three months,
+four of the prisoners strangled themselves in despair. “The Inquisition
+itself,” says Latude, “might envy his proficiency in torture!”
+
+Latude was one of the first to suffer from the brutality of Rougemont.
+The apartment in which Guyonnet had placed him commanded a fine view.
+The enjoyment of a prospect was thought to be too great a luxury for a
+prisoner, and, accordingly, Rougemont set about depriving him of it. He
+partly built up the windows, filled the interstices of the bars with
+close iron net-work; and then, lest a blade of grass should still be
+visible, blockaded the outside with a blind like a mill-hopper, so that
+nothing could be perceived but a narrow slip of sky. But his situation
+was soon made far worse. In a fit of anger, caused by his being refused
+the means of writing to the lieutenant of police, he imprudently chanced
+to wish himself in his former cell again. He was taken at his word. On
+the following morning, when he had forgotten his unguarded speech, he was
+led back to his dark and noisome dungeon. “Few will believe,” says he,
+“that such inhuman jests could be practised in a civilised country.”
+
+M. de Sartine, being now appointed minister of the marine, was replaced
+by M. Le Noir. It was some time before Latude knew of this change, and
+he derived no benefit from it, the new head of the police being the
+friend of Sartine. He wished to address the minister, but the means were
+refused, and he again tasked his skill to remove the obstacle. The only
+light he enjoyed was when his food was brought to him. The turnkey then
+set down the lamp at the entrance of the wicket, and went away to attend
+to other business. Of the turnkey’s short absence Latude availed himself
+to write a letter; it was written on a piece of his shirt, with a straw
+dipped in blood. His appeal was disregarded; and, to prevent him from
+repeating it in the same manner, the governor ordered a socket for the
+candle to be fixed on the outside of the wicket, so that only a few
+feeble rays might penetrate into the dungeon. But the captive was not
+to be easily discouraged; and, besides, he took a delight in baffling
+his persecutors. He had remaining in a pomatum pot some oil, sent by the
+surgeon to alleviate the colic pains which were caused by the dampness
+of his abode. Cotton drawn from his stockings supplied him with a wick.
+He then twisted some of his straw into a rope, which he coiled up, and
+fastened, in the shape of a bee-hive. With another portion of straw he
+made a sort of stick, five feet long, with a bit of linen at the end of
+it. The turnkey was always obliged to bring his food at twice; and, while
+he was fetching the second portion, Latude thrust out the stick, obtained
+a light from the candle, lighted his taper, and then closely covered it
+over with the bee-hive basket. When he was left by himself he unhooded
+the lamp, and wrote a second letter with his own blood. The only result
+was, to make his jailers believe that he was aided by the prince of
+darkness.
+
+It was not till Latude was again at death’s-door that he was removed
+from his dungeon; on being taken out he fainted, and remained for a long
+while insensible. When he came to himself his mind wandered, and for
+some time he imagined that he had passed into the other world. Medical
+aid was granted to him, and he slowly recovered his health. The turnkeys
+now occasionally dropped obscure hints of some beneficial change, which
+he was at a loss to understand. The mystery was at length explained.
+The benevolent M. de Malesherbes had lately been appointed a cabinet
+minister, and one of his first acts was to inspect the state prisons.
+He saw Latude, listened to his mournful story, was indignant at his
+six-and-twenty years’ captivity, and promised redress.
+
+Latude had been more than eleven years at Vincennes, when the order
+arrived for his release. His heart beat high with exultation; but he was
+doomed to suffer severe disappointment. At the moment when he imagined
+that he was free, an officer informed him, that the minister thought
+it expedient to accustom him gradually to a purer air, and that he was
+therefore directed to convey him to a convent, where he was to remain for
+a few months. These were the very same words which had been spoken to
+him when he was sent from the Bastile to Vincennes; and, knowing their
+meaning but too well, they almost palsied his faculties. His enemies
+had been busily at work; by gross misrepresentations, and by forging in
+his name an extravagant memorial to the king, they had induced M. de
+Malesherbes to believe that the prisoner’s intellects were disordered,
+and that he could not be immediately released without peril.
+
+It was to the hospital of Charenton, the Parisian bedlam, that the
+officers were removing Latude. When he was about to quit Vincennes,
+he heard the brutal Rougemont describe him to them as a dangerous and
+hardened criminal, who could not be too rigorously confined. It was also
+hinted, that the prisoner was gifted with magical powers, by virtue of
+which he had thrice escaped in an extraordinary manner. When he was
+turned over to the monks, called the Brothers of Charity, who had the
+management of Charenton, these particulars were faithfully reported to
+them, and he was introduced under the name of Danger, in order to excite
+an idea of his formidable character.
+
+Unacquainted with the nature of Charenton, Latude, on seeing the monks,
+had supposed that he was in a monastery. On finding that he was in a
+mad-house, he dropped lifeless to the ground. He was conducted to a cell,
+which was over the vault where the furious lunatics were chained, and
+their shrieks and groans were horrible. In the night he heard the sound
+of voices, and discovered that two prisoners, one in the adjoining
+room, and the other in that above, were talking about him, out of their
+windows. They were both of them state prisoners, the hospital being
+occasionally converted into a jail by the ministers; one was named St.
+Magloire, the other the Baron de Prilles. Latude introduced himself to
+them, and they promised him all the services in their power. De Prilles
+possessed considerable influence with the officers of the establishment,
+and he exerted it so effectually, that he obtained permission for Latude
+to be visited by his fellow-captives. He had, however, enjoyed this
+comfort only for a short time, when Rougemont came and gave orders for
+his being placed in close and solitary confinement.
+
+Latude remained in seclusion for a considerable time; but, at length, by
+dint of incessant remonstrances, De Prilles induced the superiors of the
+hospital to allow his new friend to take his meals in the apartment of
+St. Bernard, one of his fellow-captives. Another favour was soon after
+granted; he was permitted to take some exercise in the smaller court,
+when all the inmates of the place had been shut up for the night. It was
+then winter; and, at eight o’clock, the keeper led him to the court; and,
+when he was not disposed to walk with him, he placed his lantern on a
+stone, and watched him through some holes purposely bored in the door.
+
+Trifling as were these indulgences, the worthy monks had disobeyed
+positive orders in allowing them. But they did not stop here. The head of
+the hospital, Father Facio, was so deeply moved by the injustice done to
+the captive, that he waited on M. de Malesherbes to intercede for him.
+On his assuring the minister that the prisoner was submissive, docile,
+and perfectly sane, his hearer, who had been told that Latude was a
+furious madman, was astonished and indignant at having been deceived. He
+promised that he would speedily release him, and desired that he might,
+in the meanwhile, enjoy as much liberty as the hospital regulations would
+allow. Unfortunately, however, for Latude, Malesherbes very shortly after
+ceased to be one of the ministers.
+
+Though he failed to obtain his freedom, the situation of Latude was
+much ameliorated; he might roam wherever he would, within the bounds
+of the establishment. He derived additional comfort from several of
+the state prisoners being now suffered to take their meals together,
+instead of having them separately in their apartments. The party thus
+formed admitted to their society several of the lunatics who had been
+liberally educated, and were harmless. One of these unfortunate men
+asserted himself to be the Divinity, another claimed to be a son of
+Louis XV., a third took a higher flight, and was the reigning monarch.
+These aspiring pretensions were strongly contrasted with the humility
+of others. A barrister, whose intellect love had shaken, manifested his
+insanity by throwing himself at every one’s feet and imploring pardon.
+Another individual, who had been a hermit, obstinately persisted in
+believing that Latude was a German elector, and, in spite of all attempts
+to prevent it, would perform for him the meanest domestic offices. “If
+I told him in the morning,” says Latude, “that a flea had disturbed my
+rest, he would not leave my chamber till he had killed it: he would bring
+it to me in the hollow of his hand, to show me what he had done. ‘My
+lord,’ he would say, ‘it will bite no more, and will never again disturb
+the sleep of your most serene highness.’”
+
+A fellow prisoner who had recently been confined in a cell during a
+furious paroxysm of insanity, now gave some information to Latude,
+which deeply wounded his feelings. From him Latude learned that his
+early friend D’Alegre was in the prison, a raving maniac, shut up in an
+iron cage. His entreaties were so pressing, that the monks granted him
+permission to visit this unfortunate being. He found him a lamentable
+spectacle, shrunk to a skeleton, his hair matted, and his eyes sunken
+and haggard. Latude rushed to embrace him, but was repelled with signs
+of aversion by the maniac. In vain he strove to recall himself to the
+maniac’s recollection; the lost being only looked fiercely at him, and
+exclaimed, in a hollow tone, “I know you not!—begone!—I am God!” This
+victim of despotism had been ten years at Charenton, and he continued
+there, in the same melancholy state, during the remainder of his
+existence, which was protracted till a very late period.
+
+After Latude had been for nearly two years at Charenton, his friends
+succeeded in obtaining an order for his release, on condition that he
+should permanently fix his abode at Montagnac, his native place. He
+quitted the prison without hat or coat; all his dress consisting of
+a tattered pair of breeches and stockings, a pair of slippers, and a
+great-coat thirty years old, which damp had reduced to rottenness. He
+was penniless, too; “but,” says he, “I was regardless of all these
+circumstances; it was enough that I was free!”
+
+With some money, which he borrowed from a person who knew his family,
+Latude procured decent clothing. He called on M. Le Noir, who received
+him not unfavourably, and desired him to depart without delay for
+Montagnac. Unfortunately, he did not follow this advice. He lingered in
+Paris to draw up a memorial to the king, soliciting a recompense for his
+plans; and he had an interview with the Prince de Beauveau, to whom he
+related his woeful story. In his memorial, he mentioned M. de Sartine;
+and, though he intimates that he said nothing offensive, we may doubt
+whether he manifested much forbearance. The ministers now gave him
+peremptory orders to quit Paris; it is obvious that they were acquainted
+with his memorial, and were irritated by it beyond measure. He had
+proceeded forty-three leagues on his journey to the south of France, when
+he was overtaken by an officer of police, who carried him back a prisoner
+to the capital.
+
+Latude was now taught that hitherto he had not reached the lowest depth
+of misery; he was doomed to experience “a bitter change, severer for
+severe.” Till this time his companions in suffering had been men with
+whom it was no disgrace to associate; but, in this instance, he was
+tossed among a horde of the most abandoned ruffians on earth; he was
+immured in the Bicêtre, in that part of the jail which was appropriated
+to swindlers, thieves, murderers, and other atrocious criminals, the scum
+and offscouring of France. On his arrival there, he was stripped, clad
+in the coarse and degrading prison attire, thrust into a dungeon, and
+supplied with a scanty portion of bread and water.
+
+He was now in the midst of wretches, who tormented him with questions
+as to what robberies and murders he had committed, boasted of their own
+numerous crimes, and laughed at his pretending to innocence. “I was
+condemned,” says he, “to endure their gross and disgusting language,
+to listen to their unprincipled projects, in short to breathe the very
+atmosphere of vice.” It was in vain that, to procure his liberation from
+this den of infamy, he wrote to the friends who had rescued him from
+Charenton; some of them were silenced by the old falsehood that he was
+a dangerous madman, and others were alienated by being told that he had
+broken into the house of a lady of rank, and by threats had terrified
+her into giving him a large sum of money. This last calumny stung him
+to the soul, and he wrote to M. de Sartine to demand a trial; but his
+letter produced no other effect than the issuing of an order to take from
+him the means of writing. Such accumulated injustice soured his mind,
+and, brooding over the hope of revenge, he assumed the name of Jedor, in
+allusion to a dog so called, the figure of which he had seen on the gate
+of a citadel, with a bone between its paws, and underneath, as a motto,
+“I gnaw my bone, expecting the day when I may bite him who has bitten me.”
+
+While the money lasted which Latude had taken into the prison, he could
+obtain a supply of food, bad indeed in quality, and villanously cooked,
+but still capable of supporting nature. But the money was soon spent,
+and he was then reduced to the prison allowance, which was scanty in
+quantity, of the worst kind, and often polluted by an admixture of filth
+and vermin. Latude was a large eater, and the portion of food allowed to
+him was so trifling, that he was tortured by hunger. To such extremity
+was he driven, that he was compelled to petition the sweepers to give him
+some of the hard crusts which were thrown into the passages by the richer
+prisoners, and which were collected every morning for the pigs.
+
+Bad as the fare of Latude was, his lodging was far worse. His windowless
+cell, only eight feet square, swarmed with fleas and rats to such a
+degree that to sleep was all but impossible; fifty rats at a time were
+under his coverlet. He had neither fire nor candle, his clothing was
+insufficient, and the wind, rain, and snow beat furiously through the
+iron grating, which barely admitted the light. In rainy weather, and
+during thaws, the water ran in streams down the walls of the dungeon.
+
+Eight-and-thirty months were spent in this infernal abode. Rheumatism,
+that prevented him from quitting his pallet, was the first consequence
+of his exposed situation. This brought with it an aggravation of another
+evil; for when Latude was unable to approach the wicket, the keeper flung
+in his bread, and gave him no soup. Scurvy of the most inveterate kind
+at length attacked him, his limbs were swelled and blackened, his gums
+became spongy, and his teeth loose, and he could no longer masticate the
+bread. For three days he lay without sustenance, voiceless and moveless,
+and he was just on the point of expiring, when he was conveyed to the
+infirmary. The infirmary was a loathsome place, little better than a
+charnel-house, but the medical aid which he obtained there restored him,
+after a struggle of many months, to a tolerable state of health.
+
+On his recovery he was placed in a decent apartment. He did not,
+however, long enjoy it. Having attempted to present a petition to a
+princess of the house of Bouillon, who came to see the Bicêtre, he was
+punished by being thrust into a dungeon more horrible than that which
+he had previously inhabited. His own words will best describe what he
+underwent. “I was,” says he, “still enduring a physical torture which I
+had experienced before, though never to so cruel and dangerous an extent.
+After having triumphed over so many disasters, and vanquished so many
+enemies by my unshaken constancy, I was on the point of yielding to the
+intolerable pain occasioned by the vermin which infested my person. My
+dungeon was totally dark, my eye-sight was nearly extinguished, and I
+tried in vain to deliver myself from the myriads of these noxious animals
+that assailed me at once; the dreadful irritation made me tear my flesh
+with my teeth and nails, until my whole body became covered with ulcers;
+insects generated in the wounds, and literally devoured me alive. It was
+impossible to sleep: I was driven mad with agony, my sufferings were
+drawing to a close, and death in its most horrid shape awaited me.”
+
+Gloomy as appearances were, the dawn of a brighter day was at hand. A
+providential occurrence, which seemed calculated to destroy his last
+hope, was the cause of his redemption. In 1781, the President de Gourgue
+visited the Bicêtre, heard the story of Latude, desired that the captive
+would draw up a memorial, and promised to exert himself in his behalf.
+Latude wrote the memorial, and intrusted it to a careless messenger, who
+dropped it in the street. The packet was found by a young female, Madame
+Legros, who carried on in a humble way the business of a mercer, and
+whose husband was a private teacher. The envelope being torn by lying
+in the wet, and the seal broken, she looked at the contents, which were
+signed “Masers de Latude, a prisoner during thirty-two years, at the
+Bastile, at Vincennes, and at the Bicêtre, where he is confined on bread
+and water, in a dungeon ten feet under ground.”
+
+The gentle heart of Madame Legros was shocked at the idea of the
+protracted agony which the prisoner must have suffered. After she
+had taken a copy of the memorial, her husband, who participated in
+her feelings, carried it to the president. But the magistrate had
+been deceived by the falsehood, that the captive was a dangerous
+incurable lunatic, and he advised them to desist from efforts which
+must be fruitless. Madame Legros, however, who had much good sense and
+acuteness, would not believe that the captive was mad; she again read
+the memorial attentively, and could perceive in it no indication of
+disordered intellect. She was firmly convinced that he was the victim of
+persecution, and she resolved to devote her time and her faculties to
+his deliverance. Never, perhaps, was the sublime of benevolence so fully
+displayed as by this glorious woman, whose image ought to have been
+handed down to posterity by the painter’s and the sculptor’s hand. In
+the course of her philanthropic struggles, she had to endure calumny and
+severe privations, she was reduced to sell her ornaments and part of her
+furniture, and to subsist on hard and scanty fare, yet she never paused
+for a moment from the pursuit of her object, never uttered a sentence
+of regret that she had engaged in it. Her husband, too, though less
+personally active, has the merit of having entirely coincided with her in
+opinion, and aided her as far as he had the power.
+
+It is delightful to know that her noble labours were crowned with
+success. Her toils, and the result of them, are thus summed up by Latude,
+who has also narrated them at great length. “Being thoroughly convinced
+of my innocence, she resolved to attempt my liberation; she succeeded,
+after occupying three years in unparalleled efforts, and unwearied
+perseverance. Every feeling heart will be deeply moved at the recital
+of the means she employed, and the difficulties she surmounted. Without
+relations, friends, fortune, or assistance, she undertook everything,
+and shrank from no danger and no fatigue. She penetrated to the levées
+of ministers, and forced her way to the presence of the great; she spoke
+with the natural eloquence of truth, and falsehood fled before her words.
+They excited her hopes and extinguished them, received her with kindness
+and repulsed her rudely; she reiterated her petitions, and returned a
+hundred times to the attack, emboldened by defeat itself. The friends
+her virtues had created trembled for her liberty, even for her life.
+She resisted all their entreaties, disregarded their remonstrances, and
+continued to plead the cause of humanity. When seven months pregnant, she
+went on foot to Versailles, in the midst of winter; she returned home
+exhausted with fatigue and worn out with disappointment; she worked more
+than half the night to obtain subsistence for the following day, and then
+repaired again to Versailles. At the expiration of eighteen months, she
+visited me in my dungeon, and communicated her efforts and her hopes.
+For the first time I saw my generous protectress; I became acquainted
+with her exertions, and I poured forth my gratitude in her presence.
+She redoubled her anxiety, and resolved to brave everything. Often, on
+the same day, she has gone to Montmartre to visit her infant, which was
+placed there at nurse, and then came to the Bicêtre to console me and
+inform me of her progress. At last, after three years, she triumphed, and
+procured my liberty!”
+
+In the first instance, the boon of liberty could not be said to be more
+than half granted; Latude being ordered to fix his abode at Montagnac,
+and not to leave the town without the permission of the police officer
+of the district. As his fortune was entirely lost, a miserable pension
+of four hundred livres (about £16) was assigned for his subsistence. By
+the renewed exertions of Madame Legros, however, the decree of exile was
+rescinded, and he was allowed to remain at Paris, on condition of his
+never appearing in the coffee-houses, on the public walks, or in any
+place of public amusement. The government might well be ashamed that such
+a living proof of its injustice should be contemplated by the people.
+
+It was on the 24th of March, 1784, that Latude emerged into the world,
+from which he had for five-and-thirty years been secluded. He and his
+noble-minded benefactress were, for a considerable time, objects of
+general curiosity. Happily, that curiosity did not end in barren pity and
+wonder, but proved beneficial to those who excited it. A subscription
+was raised, by which two annuities, each of 300 livres, were purchased,
+one for Latude, the other for his deliverer. Two other pensions, of 600
+livres and 100 crowns, were soon after granted by individuals to Madame
+Legros, and the Montyon gold medal, annually given as the prize of
+virtue, was unanimously adjudged to her by the French Academy. The income
+of Latude also obtained some increase; but it was not till 1793 that it
+received any addition of importance; in that year he brought an action
+against the heirs of the Marchioness de Pompadour, and heavy damages
+were awarded to him. Notwithstanding the severe shocks his frame had
+undergone, the existence of Latude was protracted till 1805, when he died
+at the age of eighty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+    Reign of Louis XVI.—Enormous number of Lettres de Cachet
+    issued in two reigns—William Debure the elder—Blaizot
+    imprisoned for obeying the King—Pelisseri—Prisoners from
+    St. Domingo—Linguet—Duvernet—The Count de Paradès—Marquis
+    de Sade—Brissot—The Countess de la Motte—Cardinal de
+    Rohan—Cagliostro—The affair of the Diamond Necklace—Reveillon
+    takes shelter in the Bastile—Attack and capture of the Bastile
+    by the Parisians—Conclusion.
+
+
+The reign of Louis XV., which, as far as regarded himself, was every
+way inglorious, was protracted to the length of fifty-nine years; a
+duration which has rarely been equalled. Popular enthusiasm, or rather
+popular folly—the terms are often synonymous—at one time conferred on
+him the title of “the Well-beloved;” he lived to be sincerely hated,
+and he died unlamented, except by such of his flatterers and parasites
+as feared that they would be cast off by a new monarch. Of the enormous
+amount of private misery which, during the period of his sway, he must
+have inflicted, in exercising only one attribute of his despotism, some
+idea may be formed, from the circumstance of more than 150,000 _lettres
+de cachet_ having been issued while he occupied the throne; an annual
+average of more than 2500. How many wives, parents, children, must have
+been yearly driven to despair by this atrocious tyranny! Though it is
+certain that the prisoners were not all treated with the same brutality
+as Masers de Latude, the mass of suffering must, nevertheless, have been
+more than can be contemplated without a shudder by any one who is not
+dead to the feelings of humanity.
+
+In 1774, Louis XVI. ascended the throne. He was a perfect contrast to
+his predecessor. In his manners there was little of the dignity of a
+sovereign, and he was deficient in firmness and penetration; but, pure
+in morals, kind in heart, and honest in principle, he was unfeignedly
+desirous to do justice to his people, and to contribute to their welfare.
+Yet, so difficult is it to uproot a long-established abuse, and such is
+the power of ministers and men in office, that, even under the government
+of this well-meaning king, no fewer than 14,000 _lettres de cachet_ are
+said to have been granted in the fifteen years which elapsed between the
+accession of Louis and the meeting of the States General.
+
+The very first instances which I shall bring forward of the use made of
+_lettres de cachet_, in this reign, will afford proof of the unprincipled
+and arbitrary spirit of the men who held authority. We commence with
+William Debure the elder, one of the most eminent and intelligent of the
+Parisian booksellers. The family of the Debures carried on, from father
+to son, the same business in Paris, for nearly two centuries. The subject
+of this sketch was in habits of intimacy with the most distinguished
+literary characters. His catalogues of celebrated libraries, to the
+number of forty-three, are much esteemed. At the time of his decease,
+in 1820, when he was eighty-six, he was the oldest bookseller in France,
+and was considered as the patriarch of bibliography. It was in 1778
+that he was sent to the Bastile. In 1777, the Council of State thought
+proper to issue an ordinance, decreeing that the term of copyright should
+not in future extend beyond the time which was required to defray the
+expense of publishing. The Council followed this up by another ordinance,
+authorizing the sale of pirated editions, on payment of a stamp duty.
+These acts, equally absurd and unjust, were, in fact, licenses to commit
+robbery upon authors and publishers, for the benefit of the treasury,
+which shared the spoil with the robbers. Debure then held in his company
+the place of syndic, which seems to be analogous to that of master in
+our stationers’ company. To him fell the task of stamping the pirated
+works. Well knowing that a great number of booksellers would inevitably
+be ruined by the new law, or rather violation of law, which the Council
+had promulgated, Debure declined to comply with it, and desired that he
+might be allowed to resign. His resignation was not accepted, and he was
+thrice summoned to proceed to the stamping of the spurious books; and in
+each instance the significant hint was thrown out, “Stamp, or if you do
+not——.” Debure remained immovable, and he was at length committed to the
+Bastile. The ministers, however, either became ashamed of their conduct,
+or, which is more probable, were overruled by the monarch; for, in the
+course of a few days, he recovered his liberty.
+
+Another bookseller is said to have been punished in the same manner, for
+the extraordinary offence of executing, in the way of trade, an order
+which was given to him by his sovereign. Suspecting that his ministers
+kept him in ignorance of the sentiments and wishes of the people, Louis
+determined to obtain some knowledge of them from another quarter. To
+peruse the various political pamphlets of the day seemed to him the best
+mode of accomplishing his purpose. Accordingly, he directed a bookseller,
+named Blaizot, to send them regularly and secretly to a certain place,
+whence they were to be conveyed to him. This was done for about two
+months. Alarmed to find the king possessed of so much information,
+upon subjects with which they had believed him to be unacquainted, the
+ministers set to work to discover the source of it. Either Blaizot’s
+imprudence, or the activity of their spies, soon made them masters of
+the secret. The luckless bookseller was speedily taught that there
+was an influence behind the throne which was greater than the throne
+itself. The Bastile received him. This audacious act is attributed to
+the Baron de Breteuil; of whom, however, it is but justice to state,
+that he is said to have liberated many prisoners, and much ameliorated
+the prison discipline. But he was at times harsh and impetuous, and may,
+perhaps, on this occasion, have yielded to passion, or to the wish of his
+colleagues. Surprised by the customary supply of pamphlets being abruptly
+stopped, Louis inquired into the cause of it, and was equally astonished
+and indignant to find that Blaizot had been lodged in the Bastile, by
+virtue of one of those laconic billets which were signed Louis, and
+countersigned by a cabinet minister. Blaizot was instantly released, and
+the Baron de Breteuil was reprimanded, in the severest language, by his
+offended master.
+
+That Breteuil, highly aristocratic in his principles, and believing the
+established order of things to be perfection itself, should consider it
+as a matter of course to silence all opponents by means of the Bastile,
+can excite no wonder; but, if a minister who sprang from the people,
+a republican by birth, and a professed friend of reform, could punish
+by imprisonment a man who ventured to criticise his measures, we must
+wonder indeed! Yet, if M. Linguet was not misinformed, such a case did
+actually happen. He tells us that, while he was in the Bastile, there
+was in the prison a captive named Pelisseri, who had been three years
+in confinement, and whose sole crime was that he had made some remarks
+on the financial operations of M. Necker. The story is not probable.
+With some important faults, the minister had many virtues, and certainly
+had nothing cruel in his nature. It is very likely that the captivity
+of Pelisseri was the work of some secret enemy, who hated both him and
+Necker, and doubly gratified his vindictive feelings, by incarcerating
+the one and calumniating the other.
+
+The agents of the French government in the colonies seem not to have
+been backward in following the example of tyranny which was set to them
+by their superiors at home. In one instance, a governor of St. Domingo,
+who had quarrelled with all the members of a court of justice, adopted a
+summary mode of proceeding against them. He shipped the whole of them,
+and sent them off to France as criminals. On their arrival they were
+placed in the Bastile, and kept separate from each other; and in this
+painful situation they remained for eight months. They were at length
+pronounced innocent, and were conveyed back to St. Domingo; but they
+received not the slightest compensation for more than a year’s endurance
+of bodily and mental suffering.
+
+The Bastile received, in September, 1780, a man whose talents were
+more worthy of praise than his temper. This was Simon Nicholas Henry
+Linguet, a native of Rheims, who was born in 1736. He was learned, acute,
+and eloquent both in speech and writing; but paradoxical, changeful,
+suspicious, violent, and wrong-headed. At the age of sixteen, he gained
+the three highest University prizes. After having visited Poland with
+the Duke of Deux Ponts, and Portugal with the Prince de Beauveau, he
+commenced his literary career by a History of the Times of Alexander the
+Great. Disappointed by D’Alembert, in his wish to obtain a seat in the
+French Academy, he became an inveterate enemy of D’Alembert, and the
+party which was called the philosophical. His works succeeded each other
+with uncommon rapidity: the most remarkable of those which he published
+at this period are, the History of the Revolutions of the Roman Empire,
+and the Theory of Civil Laws. Both these works, which in many respects
+have great merit, excited a loud clamour, especially the latter, by the
+leaning which they manifest towards despotism. Linguet had soon reason to
+change his opinion on this subject.
+
+The literary labours of Linguet might seem sufficient to occupy all
+his time; but the fact was not so. He was all the while a barrister
+in extensive practice. In splendid eloquence, and in the successful
+management of causes, he had few if any rivals. He boasted that he
+never lost more than two causes, “and those,” said he, “I had a strong
+inclination to lose.” It was mainly by his efforts that the obnoxious
+Duke d’Aiguillon escaped from deserved punishment. The duke proved
+ungrateful, and his irritated counsellor wrote him word that he had
+“stolen him from the scaffold,” and that, if the peer did not do what was
+right with regard to his advocate, “he would keep him hanging for ten
+years at the point of his pen.” D’Aiguillon thought it prudent to yield,
+but he took care to avenge himself in the end. The lucrative career of
+Linguet, as a barrister, was suddenly brought to a close by his brethren
+of the bar, some of whom envied his superior gains, and all of whom
+had been irritated by his violent and sarcastic language. They refused
+to plead with him, and the parliament sanctioned this resolution, and
+expunged his name from the roll of counsellors.
+
+Shut out from forensic honours and emoluments, Linguet devoted himself
+to literature and politics. He began to publish a journal in 1774, but,
+in 1776, it was suppressed by the minister Maurepas. Apprehensive for
+his liberty, he quitted France, and successively resided in Switzerland,
+Holland, and England. It was in 1777, while he was in exile, that he
+established his well-known work, the Political, Civil, and Literary
+Annals of the Eighteenth Century, which forms nineteen volumes. The Count
+de Vergennes gave him permission to return to France; but scarcely had
+he availed himself of it ere he was shut up in the Bastile, where he
+continued for above two years. On his release, he settled at Brussels,
+and gained the good-will of the emperor Joseph, which, however, he
+soon lost, by espousing the party of the Belgian revolutionists. In
+1791, he returned to France. During the reign of terror, he withdrew
+into retirement. He was, however, unable to elude the vigilance of the
+Jacobins; he was sent by them before the revolutionary tribunal, which,
+without suffering him to make any defence, condemned him to death, and he
+was accordingly executed in the summer of 1794.
+
+While Linguet was in the Bastile, one of his opponents was sharing the
+same fate, though for a much shorter term. Duvernet, an ecclesiastic,
+published a pamphlet, anonymously, in 1781, in which he indulged his
+wit at the expense of Linguet, D’Espremenil, and other well-known
+characters. This he might have done with impunity; but he also attacked
+the government; and the government, in return, sent him to the Bastile
+for three weeks, to learn prudence. The lesson was thrown away upon him;
+for, soon after his release, he ventured to animadvert upon the conduct
+of the Count de Maurepas, and was again lodged in the Bastile. His
+confinement lasted longer than in the first instance; and he availed
+himself of this compulsory leisure to write a life of Voltaire. The
+minister of police detained the manuscript; but the work, nevertheless,
+found its way into print in 1786, and had such an extensive sale, that
+the French bishops took the alarm, and commissioned the keeper of the
+seals to complain to the king. Louis XVI., however, replied, “I will not
+meddle with this affair; if Duvernet is wrong, let him be refuted,—that
+is the business of the bishops.” The author afterwards enlarged and
+remodelled his work; but he died in 1796, the year before the new edition
+was published.
+
+Another prisoner, who was also contemporary with Linguet in the Bastile,
+was an individual of mysterious origin and conduct, who ought to have
+found a place in an English prison rather than in a French one. This
+was a person who assumed the title of the Count de Paradès. He himself
+claimed to be descended from an ancient Spanish family of the same name;
+some affirmed him to be the natural son of a Count de Paradès; but he
+was generally believed to be of far humbler origin, the offspring of
+a pastry-cook named Richard, who resided at Phalsburg. Of his early
+life nothing is known; it is at the age of twenty-five that we find him
+entering on his public career; and, by some means or other, he contrived
+to procure an extremely flattering reception at the French court.
+Fearing that he was too old to attain elevated rank in the military
+profession, he looked about for another road to fortune, and thought he
+had found it in adopting the perilous and undignified occupation of a
+spy. France was at that period secretly preparing for hostilities against
+England, the revolt of the British American colonies seeming to afford
+her a favourable opportunity of taking vengeance for the defeats and
+disgrace which she had suffered in the seven years’ war. Deeming this
+an excellent opportunity to bring himself forward, Paradès voluntarily
+visited England, where he gathered some valuable information relative to
+our arsenals, ports, and naval and military establishments. The memorial
+which, on his return, he presented to Sartine, the French minister of
+marine, was so much approved of, that he was despatched to procure
+further particulars. He was so successful in his inquiries, that he was
+regularly engaged as a spy by Sartine, and was profusely supplied with
+the means to purchase the services of British traitors. Paradès was not
+idle; he bribed highly, and, if his own assertion may be credited, he
+found no difficulty in corrupting many clerks and officers of an inferior
+class. Though he may have exaggerated in this respect, there can be no
+doubt that there were too many base-minded wretches who were willing
+to sell their country. This fact is established by the circumstances
+which came out on the trial of La Motte, his less fortunate successor.
+Paradès reconnoitred all the English and Irish ports. In a part of his
+journeys he was accompanied by an officer of engineers, and they were
+several times in the utmost danger of being discovered. For the purpose
+of keeping up an intercourse with the French ministry, he fitted out a
+vessel, and had a regular establishment of messengers; the vessel served
+the double purpose of trading and conveying his despatches. Many of
+the communications which he made were highly important; he complains,
+in his memoirs, that some of them, which would have enabled France to
+strike fatal blows, were unaccountably neglected. One of his projects
+was to set fire to the British fleet in the harbour of Portsmouth. His
+services were not unrewarded; he was pensioned, and appointed a colonel
+of cavalry. In the short time that he had been acting his part, he had
+also contrived to amass about £35,000 by speculations in commerce
+and the funds, and perhaps by pocketing a heavy per centage on the
+remittances from the French ministry. Nearly £30,000 was sent to him by
+his employers, and it is obvious that, as to the disbursement of it, they
+could have no check whatever upon him. It was with a scheme for seizing
+upon Plymouth that he closed his career as a spy. In that port he either
+had, or pretended to have emissaries, and to have corrupted a serjeant
+and several soldiers of the feeble garrison. It was in pursuance of this
+plan that D’Orvilliers, with the combined French and Spanish squadrons,
+consisting of sixty-five sail, entered the Channel. It is notorious that
+Plymouth was then in an extremely imperfect state of defence, and would
+have been much endangered by a vigorous attack. Fortunately, however,
+D’Orvilliers, in spite of the remonstrances of Paradès, declined to make
+an attempt upon the place. Paradès now visited France, and immediately
+received instructions to return to England; but, before he could depart,
+his adventurous occupation was brought to an abrupt close. He is said to
+have been suspected of playing the Janus-faced traitor, equally bribed
+by England and by France. The suspicion, though natural, was probably
+unjust, and may have been prompted by the friends of those officers whom
+he had accused of missing favourable opportunities. He was committed to
+the Bastile in April 1780, and was not liberated till April 1781. He was
+allowed to have what books he pleased, to carry on a free correspondence,
+and to be visited by his friends. The presumptions against him could not
+have been strong; if they had been so, he would have been rigorously
+treated, and permanently confined. For three years after he was set free,
+Paradès continued to press the government for the payment of £25,000,
+which he asserted to be due to him. The war, however, had exhausted the
+French treasury, and he consequently solicited in vain. In 1784 he
+sailed to St. Domingo, where he had purchased an estate, and he died
+there in the course of the following year.
+
+He who appears next on the list of captives was a man—if indeed the name
+of man is not misapplied to him—whose crimes were of so dark a dye that
+to imprison him for them was unjust, solely because it was nothing less
+than assisting him to evade the punishment which justice would have
+inflicted on him. This abandoned individual has been correctly described,
+by a French writer, as “the profound villain named the Marquis de Sade,
+who, by his atrocious examples, and his equally horrible writings,
+proved himself to be the apostle of every crime,—of assassination, of
+poisoning,—and the enemy of all social order; this monster spent great
+part of his life in prison, and was twenty times saved from the scaffold
+by his title of marquis.”
+
+The Marquis de Sade, who was descended from an ancient family of the
+Comtat Venaissin, was born at Paris, in 1740. He embraced the military
+profession, and served in all the German campaigns of the seven years’
+war. In 1766, he married an amiable and virtuous woman, to whom he proved
+a perpetual source of wretchedness. A sense of duty induced her, for a
+considerable period, to aid in extricating him from the difficulties in
+which he involved himself, but she was finally obliged to give him up. In
+the same year that he was united to her, one of his infamous adventures
+caused him to be imprisoned and exiled; and no sooner was he allowed
+to return to Paris than he took an actress into keeping, carried her
+to Provence, and introduced her as his wife to the gentry around his
+mansion. These, however, were merely the venial offences of Sade. His
+criminality took a far higher flight. In 1778, he would have fallen a
+victim to the justice of his country, for horrible cruelty to a female,
+had he not been snatched from it by a _lettre de cachet_, which confined
+him for a time at Saumur, whence he was removed to Pierre-Encise.
+
+This danger did not operate as a warning to him. At Marseilles, in 1772,
+in company with his valet, who was the companion of his debaucheries,
+he acted in such a manner that the parliament of Aix prosecuted him and
+his servant, and ultimately pronounced them guilty of unnatural acts
+and of poisoning; the persons poisoned are said to have been two loose
+women, to whom they administered stimulants of the most dangerous kind.
+Sade took flight, but was seized in Savoy by the king of Sardinia, and
+sent to the castle of Miolans. He made his escape from the castle, and
+concealed himself in Paris, where, in 1777, he was discovered, and sent
+to Vincennes. He escaped, was retaken, was lodged again at Vincennes, and
+was treated with great rigour for two years. In 1784, he was transferred
+to the Bastile.
+
+At Vincennes and the Bastile he wrote the earliest of those works which
+alone would suffice to brand his name with indelible infamy. It is truly
+said of them, that “everything the most monstrous and revolting, that
+can be dreamt by the most frenzied, obscene, and sanguinary imagination,
+seems to be combined in these works, the mere conception of which ought
+to be looked upon as a crime against social order.” Sade was a voluminous
+writer, and produced many other works, plays, romances, verses, and
+miscellanies, which have never seen the light.
+
+At the Bastile, but a short time before the attack on it, he quarrelled
+with the governor, and, by means of a sort of speaking trumpet, harangued
+the passengers in St. Anthony’s Street, and endeavoured to excite them
+to arms. For this he was sent off to Charenton. In 1790, the decree of
+the National Assembly, which liberated all the victims of _lettres des
+cachet_, put an end to his imprisonment, after it had continued for
+thirteen years. Sade was a partisan of the revolution, in its worst
+aspect; but even the revolutionists of 1793 shrank from contact with
+so foul a being. He was arrested by them, and for nearly a year was an
+inmate of various prisons. After this, he remained at large till the
+reins of government were assumed by Napoleon. The First Consul put a
+stop, in 1801, to the publication of Sade’s works, and sent him to St.
+Pelagie; from that prison he was removed to Charenton, in 1803, and there
+he spent his days till the close of his dishonoured existence in 1814,
+when he was seventy-five years of age. To the very last his detestable
+doctrines and habits experienced not the slightest change.
+
+One of the most eminent of the French revolutionists, from whom a
+considerable party took its denomination, was among the latest prisoners
+of the Bastile. John Peter Brissot was born in 1754, at the village of
+Ouarville, near Chartres, where his father, who was a pastry-cook in
+Chartres, had a trifling property. It was from his native place, the name
+of which he anglicised, that he afterwards styled himself Brissot de
+Warville. He received a good education, and, as he also read with great
+avidity, he accumulated a large stock of miscellaneous but undigested
+knowledge. In the English language he acquired a proficiency which was
+unusual among Frenchmen at that period, and his study of it contributed
+powerfully to give his sentiments a republican tinge; for he dwelt with
+delight on the characters of the great men who withstood the tyranny
+of Charles the First. Brissot was placed in an attorney’s office at
+Paris; and it is a curious circumstance, that one of his fellow-clerks
+was Robespierre, who afterwards became his deadly political foe. In
+two years Brissot got tired of legal drudgery, and determined to look
+to literature for subsistence. His first essay was a satire, which he
+subsequently owned to contain much injustice, and for which he narrowly
+escaped being lodged in the Bastile. A pamphlet which he published
+attracted the notice of Swinton, an Englishman, a man utterly devoid of
+honourable feelings, who engaged him to superintend the reprinting of the
+Courrier de l’Europe, at Boulogne. This engagement was soon terminated;
+and Brissot, who had received two hundred pounds on his father’s death,
+purchased the necessary titles for practising at the bar. The money thus
+laid out was thrown away, he being soon compelled to resign all hope of
+succeeding as an advocate. His next scheme, of the success of which he
+did not allow himself to doubt, was to establish, in the British capital,
+a Lyceum, which was to serve as a point of union to literary men of all
+countries, and was to carry on a universal correspondence with them,
+and to issue a periodical work for the more wide diffusion of English
+literature. As might have been foreseen, this magnificent institution, of
+which he was of course to be the presiding genius, proved to be nothing
+more than an abortion. Instead of reaping fame and profit from the
+periodical, Brissot found that no one would buy it, and he was arrested
+and imprisoned by the printer. Having, however, contrived to get free,
+he returned penniless to France in 1784, where another prison was ready
+to receive him. Merely, it is said, because he had spoken lightly of
+the works of D’Aguesseau, he was sent to the Bastile. Others attribute
+his imprisonment to the malice of his inveterate and unprincipled enemy
+Morande, who accused him of having written a libel, entitled le Diable à
+Quatre, which was from the pen of the Marquis de Pelleport. Through the
+influence of Madame de Genlis, Brissot was released at the expiration
+of two months. This visit to the Bastile was not calculated to diminish
+his republican fervour. That fervour was no doubt much increased by his
+visit to the United States, whither he went early in 1788, and whence he
+returned in the following year.
+
+Brissot, on his return, threw himself with all his heart and soul into
+the Revolution. His mind was heated by the reading of ancient and
+modern writers, who have held up republican heroes to our admiration,
+and it was irritated by wrongs which arbitrary power had inflicted;
+and he rashly and illogically concluded, that under a monarchy it was
+impossible for liberty to exist. Such was the case, also, with many of
+the talented, eloquent, and warm-hearted men who, acting in concert
+with him, were known by the title of Brissotins and Girondists. No one
+who has attentively perused the numerous documents relative to the
+French revolution can deny that, at a moment when, according to their
+own confession, there was not a handful of republicans in France, the
+Brissotins had determined to subvert the monarchical government and
+establish their favourite system. It is as certain, too, that they were
+not delicate in the choice of means, and that truth was not allowed to
+stand in the way of their designs. Believing a republican order of things
+to be the perfection of human wisdom, they seem to have thought that, “to
+do a great right, they might do a little wrong.” They were soon taught
+by woeful experience that the strict rule of right can never be violated
+without danger; and that, however good his intentions may be, he who does
+a little wrong opens the way for the commission of the worst of crimes.
+
+Brissot was elected a member of the Parisian Common Council, an assembly
+which, in less than four years, became infamous for its ferocious and
+sanguinary proceedings. It must have been gratifying to his feelings,
+that one of the first acts which it fell to his lot to perform, was
+to receive the keys of the Bastile. He now established a newspaper
+called the French Patriot, in which he made daily violent attacks on the
+monarch, the ministers, and all the institutions of the state. It was
+he who, in conjunction with Laclos, after the flight of Louis XVI. to
+Varennes, drew up the petition which called on the Constituent Assembly
+to depose the king, and which gave rise to a riot that cost some blood.
+At the period when the election of members to the Legislative Assembly
+was going forward, the court exerted itself to prevent him from being
+chosen a representative. Its misdirected efforts, however, as was the
+case in many other instances, only produced a diametrically opposite
+effect to that which was intended; the attention of the electors was
+directed to Brissot, and he was unanimously returned as one of the
+Parisian members.
+
+Brissot was nominated a member of the diplomatic committee, and its
+reports were almost uniformly drawn up by him. It was principally by
+his exertions that a war was brought about with Austria; his purpose in
+producing that war was to forward the dethroning of the king. In the
+Legislative Assembly he, for a while, enjoyed great popularity, and
+he availed himself of it to batter in breach the tottering fabric of
+the monarchy. But the Jacobins, meanwhile, with Robespierre at their
+head, all animated by a deadly hatred of Brissot and his friends,
+were gradually gaining influence; and, in proportion as they won over
+the populace and the most hot-headed of the legislators, the power
+of Brissot declined. For a moment he meditated making common cause
+with the constitutional royalists, in order to avert the disastrous
+consequences which he began to dread would ensue, in case the Jacobins
+should triumph. The plan, however, was abandoned. In the revolution
+of the 10th of August he did not participate; Danton was the prime
+mover in that transaction. The department of the Eure deputed Brissot
+to the convention; and thenceforth, with a few exceptions, his conduct
+was prudent and moderate. From the moment that he and his friends took
+their seats, they were daily and furiously assailed by the Jacobins.
+They maintained the contest for several months, but they were finally
+overthrown, and the majority of them perished on the scaffold. Brissot
+was put to death on the 31st of October, 1793, and met his fate as calmly
+as though he had only been ascending the tribune to read a report to his
+late colleagues. The few tears which he shed during his imprisonment were
+not for himself, they were wrung from him by the agonizing thought that
+he must leave a beloved wife and children in a state of destitution.
+
+The last prisoners that remain to be noticed, owed their residence
+in the Bastile to an affair which excited the public attention in an
+extraordinary degree, and contributed greatly to render the Queen of
+France an object of suspicion and unpopularity. This was the affair of
+the diamond necklace, in which the principal part was played by the
+Countess de la Motte. The countess, and a brother and sister, were
+descendants of Henry de St. Remi, a natural son of Henry II., but her
+family had been reduced to beggary. The three children, two of whom she
+had found asking alms, were taken under the protection of the Marchioness
+of Boulainvilliers, who charitably brought them up at her own expense.
+D’Hozier, the eminent genealogist, having ascertained that they really
+sprang from the house of Valois, the Duke of Brancas presented to the
+queen a memorial in their favour, and a small pension was in consequence
+granted to each of them.
+
+In 1780, Jane, the eldest, married the Count de la Motte, who was
+one of the guards of the Count d’Artois. Their united resources being
+exceedingly scanty, the Countess looked about for the means of improving
+them at the cost of some dupe. She had a prepossessing appearance,
+fluency of speech, and considerable talents for intrigue, masked by
+a semblance of openness and candour. The personage whom she selected
+to try her experiment on, was the Cardinal Prince de Rohan, Bishop of
+Strasburgh, who was then in his fiftieth year. Rohan, though a bishop
+and a cardinal, did not think it necessary to assume even the appearance
+of decorum and virtue. He was weak, vain, dissolute, presumptuous,
+and extravagant. For a long time he had been in great disfavour with
+Maria Antoinetta, the Queen of France. She, as well as her mother, the
+Empress Queen, had been disgusted by his unseemly conduct, some years
+before this, while he was ambassador at Vienna, and the queen’s disgust
+was heightened by his indiscreet language respecting her, and by the
+insulting manner in which he had spoken of her mother, in a letter to
+the Duke d’Aiguillon. She, however, did not interfere to prevent his
+obtaining several ill-deserved appointments from the government, but she
+manifested her resentment by refusing to admit him into her presence, and
+by expressing her unbounded contempt of him.
+
+Rohan was in despair at not being admitted into the society of the
+queen. All that he enjoyed seemed worthless, while he was denied that
+privilege. It was on this egregious weakness that Madame de la Motte
+founded her hopes of success. The deceiver acted her part with much
+skill; she gradually led the besotted cardinal to believe that she
+had acquired the queen’s entire confidence, and could exercise great
+influence over her. She was, therefore, obviously the fittest person to
+bring about the reconciliation for which he was so eager. The countess
+readily undertook to be the mediator. Week after week she deluded him by
+tales of her pleadings to the queen, and of the slow but sure progress
+that she made in restoring him to the royal favour. At last he was told,
+that though the queen had forgiven him, there were reasons why she could
+not alter her behaviour towards him at court, and that all intercourse
+between them must be carried on through the medium of Madame de la Motte.
+Billets, forged by a M. Villette, now began to be addressed to him in her
+Majesty’s name; twice the writer requested a loan from Rohan, and the
+request was granted by the delighted dupe. To lure him on still further,
+he was informed, that Maria Antoinetta would admit him to an interview at
+night, in the Bois du Boulogne. To play this character, a lady of easy
+virtue, named d’Oliva, whose person and voice resembled the queen’s,
+was tutored by La Motte. The cardinal saw her for a moment, and was in
+raptures, but he had not time to express them before the nocturnal farce
+was put an end to, by a preconcerted interruption. This last fraud having
+raised the infatuation of the cardinal to the highest pitch, measures
+were taken to turn his folly to advantage. There was in the hands of
+Bœhmer and Bossange, the court jewellers, a splendid diamond necklace,
+valued at 1,800,000 francs, which the queen had recently declined to
+purchase, on the ground that it was too expensive. It was this rich prize
+which La Motte had in view. To get possession of it, she made Rohan her
+tool; she succeeded in making him believe—for his fund of credulity
+appears to have been inexhaustible—that the queen was extremely desirous
+to be mistress of the necklace; but that, as she did not choose to be
+seen in the affair, she wished him to negotiate for her, and to purchase
+it on his own credit. A forged authority, from Maria Antoinetta, was
+produced, in support of this fiction. Rohan rushed blindly into the
+snare; he bought the necklace, giving for it four bills, payable at
+intervals of six months, which the jewellers consented to receive, on his
+showing them the paper authorizing him to treat with them. Another forged
+document, bearing the queen’s signature, enabled Madame de la Motte to
+get the necklace into her own possession. Her husband is said to have
+been immediately sent off to London, to dispose of a part of the diamonds.
+
+When the first bill became due, it was dishonoured, for Rohan had no
+money, and had relied upon receiving the amount from the queen. The
+alarmed jewellers hastened to the palace, to remonstrate with her majesty
+on the subject. The queen was indignant and astonished at the story
+which they told. Cardinal de Rohan, the Countess de la Motte, and some
+others, were arrested, and conveyed to the Bastile. The parliament was
+charged with the trial of the prisoners. The trial was not brought to a
+conclusion till the 31st of May, 1786. Rohan was acquitted, but Madame
+de la Motte was sentenced to make the _amende honorable_, to be branded
+on both shoulders, and publicly whipped, and be confined for the rest
+of her days in the prison of the Salpêtrière. Villette, the forger, and
+d’Etionville, his accomplice, were condemned to the galleys for life.
+After having undergone the ignominious part of her sentence, the countess
+contrived to escape, and joined her husband in London, where she died in
+1791.
+
+Rohan, though acquitted, was compelled by the king to resign the office
+of high almoner, and the Order of the Holy Ghost, and was exiled to one
+of his abbeys. In the early part of the Revolution, he for a short time
+seemed friendly to it; but, his aristocratic feelings soon getting the
+upper hand, he became one of its most inveterate enemies, and strained
+every nerve to forward the designs of the emigrants. He died in Germany,
+in 1803.
+
+Besides La Motte and Rohan, there were committed to the Bastile some
+subordinate actors in the affair of the diamond necklace, and also a
+singular adventurer, who was known to the world under the title of
+Count Cagliostro. The count himself, while he threw a veil of mystery
+over his birth, appeared to claim an oriental and illustrious origin;
+but his enemies assert that his real name was Joseph Balsamo, and that
+he was the son of poor parents at Palermo, where he was born in 1743.
+They represent him, too, as a degraded being, sometimes living by the
+sale of chemical compositions, sometimes by swindling, and, still more
+frequently, by the prostitution of a handsome wife. Yet it is certain
+that, in his travels over the largest portion of Europe, he gained the
+esteem and confidence of many distinguished characters. That he was a man
+of talents is undeniable; his person and manners were attractive, he was
+acquainted with most of the European and Asiatic languages, his knowledge
+is said to have been extensive, and he had a powerful flow of eloquence.
+Where he procured the funds, by which he kept up the appearance of a man
+of distinction, it would not be easy to ascertain. He was intimate with
+Cardinal de Rohan, who had sought his friendship, and this intimacy was
+the cause of his being incarcerated, on suspicion of being an accomplice
+of the cardinal. He was acquitted by the parliament. Cagliostro
+subsequently spent two years in England, whence he passed into Italy. At
+Rome, his wanderings were brought to a close; he was arrested in 1791,
+and sent to the castle of St. Angelo, on a charge of having established
+a masonic lodge, and written a seditious, heretical, and blasphemous
+work, entitled Egyptian Masonry. He was condemned to death, but for this
+penalty the Pope substituted perpetual imprisonment. He is believed to
+have died in confinement in 1795.
+
+The long catalogue of captives is now exhausted; ruin impends over
+the fortress in which they spent their solitary and mournful hours;
+but, before its doom is sealed, we must see it changing its character,
+and becoming, for the first time, a place of refuge to a persecuted
+individual. In April 1789, at a period when the minds of all Frenchmen
+were in a state of fermentation, and when, like the ground-swell, which
+announces a coming tempest, popular outbreaks were happening in various
+quarters, there occurred a riot of a very serious nature in the suburb of
+St. Antoine. Reveillon, a man of good character, who had himself risen
+from the working class, was the person against whom the fury of the mob
+was directed. He was a paper-hanging manufacturer, and employed three
+hundred men. The charge against him, which was calumniously made by an
+abbé, who was in his debt, was, that he had declared bread to be not yet
+dear enough, and expressed a hope that hunger would compel the workmen
+to labour for half their present wages. The thoughtless multitude,
+always too ready to credit such slanders, immediately determined to take
+summary vengeance on him; the first step of the rioters was to hang him
+in effigy. On the first day they were prevented from going further, but
+on the following day, they returned to the charge with increased numbers
+and means of offence. Reveillon’s house and manufactory were plundered
+of everything that was portable, and were then burned to the ground. It
+was not till the mischief was completed, that the troops arrived. They
+seem to have thought it necessary to atone for their extraordinary delay
+by extraordinary severity; a furious contest ensued, and between four
+and five hundred of the rioters are said to have been slaughtered on
+the spot. Each of the political parties accused its rival of having, for
+sinister purposes, been the planner of this sanguinary scene. In the
+midst of the confusion, Reveillon was so fortunate as to escape from the
+mob, and he sought for shelter in the Bastile, where, during a whole
+month, he deemed it prudent to remain.
+
+In little more than three months after the destruction of Reveillon’s
+establishment, the storm of popular anger, which had long been gathering
+in the capital, burst forth with irresistible violence, and shook to its
+very basis the throne of France. Matters were, indeed, come to a crisis,
+between the royalist and the reforming parties. The court seemed resolved
+to commit the question to the decision of the sword; a formidable
+force, consisting chiefly of foreign troops, was accumulated around the
+metropolis; and the language held by some of the courtiers and ministers
+was of the most sanguinary kind. The Baron de Breteuil did not hesitate
+to say, “If it should be necessary to burn Paris, it shall be burned,
+and the inhabitants decimated: desperate diseases require desperate
+remedies.” To dissolve the National Assembly by force, and to consign
+to the scaffold its most distinguished members, were among the remedies
+which this political Sangrado designed to administer for the purpose of
+checking the disease.
+
+As a preliminary to the projected operations, the ministry of M. Necker
+was abruptly broken up, and another was formed, composed of men notorious
+for their hostility to the rights of the people. It was a sufficient
+indication of what was intended, that Necker, Montmorin, De la Lezarne,
+De Puysegur, and De St. Priest, were replaced by Breteuil, Broglie, De la
+Vauguyon, and others of the same stamp. Necker was ordered to quit the
+kingdom, and to keep his departure a profound secret.
+
+The dismissed minister obeyed the order so strictly that not even his
+daughter knew of his setting out; but the ridiculous silence which
+was required of him was of no avail. On the following day, which was
+Sunday, the 12th of July, it was known at Paris that the favourite of
+the people was expelled from office, and was leaving the country. All
+the citizens were instantly in alarm. Groups assembled in every street,
+and more than ten thousand persons were soon congregated at the Palais
+Royal. Every one was enraged, but no one knew what to propose, till
+Camille Desmoulins ascended a table, in the Palais Royal, and exhorted
+his hearers to take up arms; he then plucked a green leaf, which he put
+into his hat, as a rallying-sign, and the symbol of hope. His example
+was universally followed. The crowd now proceeded to a waxwork museum,
+took from it the busts of Necker and the Duke of Orleans, covered
+them with crape, carried them in procession through the streets, and
+compelled the passengers to take off their hats. Near the place Vendôme,
+they were assailed by a detachment of the Royal German regiment, and
+several persons were wounded. The Germans were, however, repulsed. At
+the place de Louis XV. there was another contest. They were charged by
+the dragoons of the Prince de Lambesc, who dispersed them, and killed a
+soldier of the French guards, and one of the bearers of the busts. The
+prince himself, a brutal character, followed some of them into the garden
+of the Tuileries, sabring indiscriminately the fugitives and those who
+were walking; among those who fell beneath his hand were a female and
+an aged man. The multitude rallied, and chairs, stones, and everything
+that could be converted into a weapon, was employed against the dragoons,
+who were finally compelled to fly. By this time the French guards, who
+were confined in their barracks, because they favoured the people,
+had learned the death of their comrade. It was impossible to restrain
+their rage; they broke out, fired on the Royal German regiment, and then
+took post to cover the multitude from further attack. Some of the Swiss
+regiments were ordered to reduce them to obedience, but they refused
+to obey; and it was thus rendered obvious, that the court had fatally
+miscalculated in relying upon the army for support.
+
+During that night, and the whole of the succeeding day, Paris was like a
+hive about to send forth a swarm. In the course of the night, the most
+disorderly part of the populace burned the custom-houses at the barriers,
+and plundered the gunsmiths’ shops. Weapons of every kind, and of all
+ages and countries, were eagerly sought for and brought into use. In
+the morning, the electors met at the town-hall to decide upon the steps
+which ought to be taken. It was manifest that they had nothing to expect
+from the leniency of the court; it was, in fact, understood that Paris
+was to be attacked on seven points in the evening of the 14th, and it
+was therefore absolutely necessary to provide the means of defence. In
+a few hours a plan was matured and proclaimed, for arraying forty-eight
+thousand Parisian militia. The alarm-bells were kept incessantly ringing
+throughout Paris, and drums were beating in every street, to summon
+the inhabitants to their posts. The scanty supply of arms was the most
+serious obstacle which the citizens had to overcome. To remove it in
+part, pikes were fabricated, fifty thousand of which were distributed
+within six-and-thirty hours. Fortunately, it was discovered that there
+was a large quantity of arms at the Hôtel des Invalides; these were
+immediately seized upon, and thus 28,000 muskets, besides sabres and some
+cannon, were obtained. Sufficient powder was procured, and hundreds of
+men were occupied in casting balls.
+
+The position of the Bastile, interrupting the communication between
+various parts of the capital, and commanding a considerable portion
+of the city, was a cause of much embarrassment to the citizens. M.
+de Launey had received instructions to defend his post to the last
+extremity. He was provided with ample means, as far as regarded
+ammunition and arms; for he had on the ramparts fifteen cannon, and
+twelve wall-pieces, each of which carried a ball of a pound and a half;
+he had also plenty of shot, 15,000 cartridges, and 31,000 pounds of
+powder. Besides these, there were, on the summit of the building, six
+cartloads of paving-stones, bars of iron, and other missiles, to hurl on
+an approaching enemy, when the cannon could no longer reach him. But,
+with unaccountable negligence, no magazine of provisions had been formed;
+there was not food enough in the place to last for twenty-four hours. The
+garrison consisted of 32 Swiss and 82 invalids.
+
+It is certain that the Committee of Electors, sitting at the town-hall,
+did not entertain any idea of reducing the Bastile by arms. A sort of
+neutrality was the most for which they hoped. That this is the fact,
+is proved by their having twice sent a deputation to the governor,
+calling on him to admit a detachment of the Parisian militia, to act in
+conjunction with the garrison. The ground on which they claimed this
+admission was, that the city ought to have a control over any military
+force which was stationed within its limits. To such a proposal the
+governor could not accede without perilling his head.
+
+A M. Thuriot was now sent, by the district of St. Louis de la Culture,
+to desire that the cannon might be removed from the towers. De Launey
+replied that this could not be done without the king’s orders, but that
+he would withdraw them from the embrasures to prevent their appearance
+from exciting alarm. Thuriot was permitted to ascend to the summit of the
+fortress, that he might be enabled to report to those who sent him the
+real state of things, and he availed himself of this permission to exhort
+the soldiers to surrender. This they refused to do, but they unanimously
+and solemnly promised that they would not be the first to fire.
+
+But though the Committee of Electors was not disposed to engage in
+hostilities which seemed likely to be both fruitless and dangerous, there
+were others, who were more daring, and some, perhaps, who were aware that
+the garrison had no provisions, and little inclination to fight. From
+various parts, but especially from the suburb of St. Antoine, an enormous
+multitude, with every variety of weapon, hurried to the fortress,
+shouting “We will have the Bastile! down with the troops!” Two of them
+boldly ascended the roof of the guard-house, and with axes broke the
+chains of the great drawbridge. The throng then pressed into the court,
+and advanced towards the second bridge, firing all the while upon the
+garrison. The latter replied with such effect, that the assailants were
+driven back; but they placed themselves under shelter, whence they kept
+up an incessant discharge of musketry.
+
+A despatch to the governor, informing him that succour was at hand,
+having been intercepted by the committee, that body sent a third
+deputation to prevail on him to admit the Parisian forces. It reached the
+outer court, and was invited to enter the place by some officers of the
+garrison; but either it mistook the meaning of the invitation, or was
+intimidated by the scene of carnage, for it retired without fulfilling
+its mission. The firing was recommenced by the people, and was answered
+with deadly effect by their antagonists. Three waggon-loads of straw were
+now brought in and set on fire, to burn the buildings near the fortress;
+but they were so unskilfully managed, that they proved obstacles to the
+besiegers, who were compelled to remove them. While they were thus
+employed, they received a discharge of grape-shot from the only cannon
+which the garrison fired during the conflict.
+
+The French guards now arrived with four pieces of cannon, to take a part
+in the attack. The sight of this reinforcement entirely depressed the
+spirits of the besieged, which had already begun to sink. They called on
+their commander to capitulate. Anticipating, no doubt, the fate which was
+reserved for him, he is said to have seized a lighted match, intending
+to apply it to the powder-magazine. A large portion of the neighbourhood
+would have been destroyed with the Bastile, had not two non-commissioned
+officers repelled him with their bayonets from the dangerous spot. A
+white handkerchief was hoisted on one of the towers as a flag of truce,
+and a parley was beaten by the drums of the invalids. These signs were
+unnoticed for a considerable time by the besiegers, who continued their
+fire. At length, finding that all was silent in the Bastile, they
+advanced towards the last drawbridge, and called to the garrison to let
+it down. A Swiss officer looked through a loop-hole, and required that
+his comrades should be allowed to march out with the honours of war. That
+being refused, he declared that they were willing to submit, on condition
+of not being massacred. “Let down the bridge, and nothing shall happen to
+you,” was the reply. On this assurance, the governor gave up the key of
+the bridge, and the conquerors entered in triumph.
+
+A vast majority of the assailants were undoubtedly brave and honourable
+men; but there were among them numbers of the most infamous of mankind;
+men who lent their aid in tumults only that they might gratify their
+love of plunder and blood. To these degraded wretches must be attributed
+the cruelties which sullied the victory. No sooner was the day won,
+than they began to gratify their diabolical propensities. Their first
+achievement was to attempt to throw into the flames a young girl, whom
+they found in a fainting fit, and supposed to be the governor’s daughter.
+She was, however, saved by one of the Parisian volunteers. Others were
+less happy. The unfortunate De Launey was massacred on his way to the
+town-hall, after having received innumerable sword and bayonet stabs from
+the savages around him. Five of his officers were put to death in an
+almost equally barbarous manner.
+
+The loss of the besiegers was eighty-three killed on the spot, fifteen
+who died afterwards, thirteen crippled, and sixty wounded.
+
+In the Bastile there were found only seven prisoners; four of them had
+forged bills to an immense amount, two were insane, and the last, the
+Count de Solange, had been confined at the request of his father for
+dissipated conduct.
+
+The Bastile soon ceased to exist. It was demolished by order of the civic
+authorities of Paris; and, when the demolition was completed, a grand
+ball was given on the levelled space. The capture and downfall of this
+obnoxious fabric were hailed with delight by the friends of liberty in
+every part of the globe, and they long furnished a favourite and fertile
+theme for moralists, orators, and poets.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+                                  LONDON:
+                       BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS,
+                               WHITEFRIARS.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+[1] M. Linguet says, that each of these niches was but just large enough
+for one person, and had neither light nor air except at the moment when
+the door was opened.
+
+[2] M. de Fratteaux was seized in England, and carried off, by the
+French officers of police. “His misfortunes seem to have been owing to
+an unnatural father, who being on terms of intimacy with the minister,
+obtained a _lettre de cachet_ to arrest and confine his son.”
+
+[3] Prisoners who were not allowed to have a servant of their own,
+sometimes were indulged with an invalid soldier to attend them; but those
+who had neither, made their bed, lighted their fire, and swept their
+room, themselves.
+
+[4] I have passed lightly over the life of Palissy, because I shall have
+occasion to dwell upon it, in another volume of the Family Library.
+
+[5] Henry pointed his advice with a pun, which is not translatable. He
+recommended to Biron, “Qu’il l’otât d’auprès de lui, sinon que _La Fin
+l’affineroit_.” In English, if such a deceiver’s name were Cousin, we
+might similarly say, “If you do not get rid of that Cousin, he will cozen
+you.”
+
+[6] Biographers and historians differ with respect to the circumstances
+which ensued on the pardon being announced. While some give the statement
+which I have adopted, others affirm that, when de Jars was taken back to
+prison, he remained for a long while speechless, and seemingly deprived
+of all consciousness. This is asserted by Madame de Motteville; and,
+as she was his intimate friend, her authority has considerable weight.
+But her assertion may be correct, and yet it is more than probable
+that de Jars may have made the reply which is attributed to him. I
+think the conduct ascribed to him in the text more consonant than any
+other with his intrepid character. Nature, however, can endure only to
+a certain point, and the effort that is made to bear up, and which,
+as long as danger is present, seldom fails with the honourable and
+brave, necessarily produces exhaustion when the struggle is over. It
+may therefore, easily be believed, that, though de Jars was capable of
+answering Laffemas with his wonted spirit—and the very sight of such a
+monster would stimulate that spirit—he might sink into insensibility on
+his return to prison.
+
+[7] It has been conjectured, by some writers, that Richelieu was
+stimulated to this new attack upon the queen by the circumstance of her
+being pregnant, which induced him to dread that her influence would be
+greatly increased, if he did not find the means of rendering her an
+object of suspicion. But the conjecture is erroneous, as a comparison
+of dates will prove. The attack upon her was commenced in the summer of
+1637 (La Porte was sent to the Bastile in August), and the queen was not
+brought to bed till September 1638, thirteen months afterwards.
+
+[8] The mask is said to have been improperly described as being of iron;
+it being formed of black velvet. Only the frame work and the springs were
+of metal.
+
+[9] This seems to be a quantity of linen so enormous as to stagger
+belief. But Latude is probably correct in his assertion. In some of the
+French provinces, families have an immense stock of linen; and it is
+necessary that they should, as the operation of washing is not performed
+more than twice or thrice a year.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76902 ***