The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

The second style of statesmanship is seen in the reorganization of old states to fit new times. In this the chiefs are such men as Cranmer and Turgot.

But there is a third class of statesmen sometimes doing more brilliant work than either of the others. These are they who serve a state in times of chaos—in times when a nation is by no means ripe for revolution, but only stung by desperate revolt. These are they who are quick enough and firm enough to bind all the good forces of the state into one cosmic force, therewith to compress or crush all chaotic forces; these are they who throttle treason and stab rebellion; who fear not, when defeat must send down misery through ages, to insure victory by using weapons of the hottest and sharpest. Theirs, then, is a statesmanship which it may be well for the leading men of this land and time to be looking at and thinking of, and its representative man shall be Richelieu.

Never perhaps did a nation plunge more suddenly from the height of prosperity into the depth of misery than did France on May 14, 1610, when Henry IV fell dead by the dagger of Ravaillac. All earnest men, in a moment, saw the abyss yawning—felt the state sinking—felt themselves sinking with it. And they did what in such a time men always do: first all shrieked, then every man clutched at the means of safety nearest him. Sully, Henry's great minister, rode through the streets of Paris with big tears streaming down his face; strong men whose hearts had been toughened and crusted in the dreadful religious wars sobbed like children; all the populace swarmed abroad bewildered—many swooned—some went mad. This was the first phase of feeling.

Then came a second phase yet more terrible. For now burst forth that old whirlwind of anarchy and bigotry and selfishness and terror which Henry had curbed during twenty years. All earnest men felt bound to protect themselves, and seized the nearest means of defence. Sully shut himself up in the Bastille, and sent orders to his son-in-law, the Duke of Rohan, to bring in six thousand soldiers to protect the Protestants. All unearnest men, especially the great nobles, rushed to the court, determined now, that the only guardians of the state were a weak-minded woman and a weak-bodied child, to dip deep into the treasury which Henry had filled to develop the nation, and to wrench away the power which he had built to guard the nation.

In order to make ready for this grasp at the state treasure and power by the nobles, the Duke of Épernon—from the corpse of the King by whose side he was sitting when Ravaillac struck him—strides into the Parliament of Paris and orders it to declare the late Queen, Marie de' Medici, regent; and when this Parisian court, knowing full well that it had no right to confer the regency, hesitated, he laid his hand on his sword, and declared that, unless they did his bidding at once, his sword should be drawn from its scabbard. This threat did its work. Within three hours after the King's death the Paris Parliament, which had no right to give it, bestowed the regency on a woman who had no capacity to take it.

At first things seemed to brighten a little. The Queen Regent sent such urgent messages to Sully that he left his stronghold of the Bastille and went to the palace. She declared to him before the assembled court that he must govern France still. With tears she gave the young King into his arms, telling Louis that Sully was his father's best friend, and bidding him pray the old statesman to serve the state yet longer.

But soon this good scene changed. Mary had a foster-sister, Leonora Galligai, and Leonora was married to an Italian adventurer, Concini. These seemed a poor couple, worthless and shiftless, their only stock in trade Leonora's Italian cunning; but this stock soon came to be of vast account, for thereby she soon managed to bind and rule the Queen Regent—managed to drive Sully into retirement in less than a year—managed to make herself and her husband the great dispensers at court of place and pelf. Penniless though Concini had been, he was in a few months able to buy the Marquisate of Ancre, which cost him nearly a half a million livres; and, soon after, the post of first gentleman of the bedchamber, and that cost him nearly a quarter of a million; and, soon after that, a multitude of broad estates and high offices at immense prices. Leonora also was not idle; among her many gains was the bribe of three hundred thousand livres to screen certain financiers under trial for fraud.

Next came the turn of the great nobles. For ages the nobility of France had been the worst among her many afflictions. From age to age attempts had been made to curb them. In the fifteenth century Charles VII had done much to undermine their power, and Louis XI had done much to crush it. But strong as was the policy of Charles, and cunning as was the policy of Louis, they had made one omission, and that omission left France, though advanced, miserable. For these monarchs had not cut the root of the evil. The French nobility continued practically a serf-holding nobility.

Despite, then, the curb put upon many old pretensions of the nobles, the serf-owning spirit continued to spread a network of curses over every arm of the French government, over every acre of the French soil, and, worst of all, over the hearts and minds of the French people. Enterprise was deadened, invention crippled. Honesty was nothing, honor everything. Life was of little value. Labor was the badge of servility; laziness the very badge and passport of gentility. The serf-owning spirit was an iron wall between noble and not noble—the only unyielding wall between France and prosperous peace.