212 His family had belonged for generations to It is also a specially difficult time to understand-as it might be supposed it would be, even from what has here been said of it. When every body, high and low, conspicuous, and obscure, was busying himself, and effectually busying himself with plots, schemes, intrigues of every sort, On the 18th of January, 1650, an event 1872.1 AN ARCH-CONSPIRATOR. lence were Louis II. of Bourbon, Prince de Condé, and his younger brother, Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti. The former was the man known in French history as the Grand Condé. He was the great-grandson of Charles of Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, and was the head of "The that branch of the Bourbons. Princes," therefore, so-called as being princes of the blood royal. Condé had done much to deserve the title of "Great." Voltaire says of him that he was a "born He delivered France from a general." great danger when, with much inferior forces, and giving battle against the advice of his council, he beat the Spaniards in the memorable fight of Rocroi, destroying in that and subsequent victories the famous Spanish infantry, at that day considered the finest in the world. Louis XIII. died in 1642. Rocroi was fought on the 19th of May, 1643. So that Condé was, perhaps fortunately for himself and for France, absent from Paris when the first It is troubles of the Fronde broke out. probable that he would have ranged himself on the side opposed to Cardinal Mazarin and the Court had he then been at leisure to busy himself with the intestine discords of his country. Of course there could be little sympathy between any of the Grands Seigneurs of France, the remains of the old feudal nobility which Richelieu had so successfully crushed, and Mazarin. Richelieu was hated and feared. Mazarin was hated and despised. Nevertheless, when Condé, having vanquished the foreign enemies of France, and obtained an advantageous peace, ventured to Paris, and when both parties to the struggle, which was going on between Mazarin and the Court on the one hand, against the Parliament and the Frondeurs on the other, were eager to enlist the hero on their side, he took the side of the Court, probably from a real patriotic sense of duty, and contributed largely to that first pacification, which was, after all, but a hollow truce. Overt violence was stayed, but plotting went on only the more actively on all sides. Mazarin was hated equally by the Parliament and by the Grands Seigneurs. The Noblesse de l'Epée and the Noblesse de Robe were equally against him. And the fact that he was able, amid much difficulties, to maintain his power so long, is a very curious and suggestive testimony to the efficacy of the work which his great pre- But if Condé deemed it his duty to lend the weight of his name and influence to the support of the Court against the malcontent Frondeurs and Parliament, it did not follow that he was to dissemble his disgust at the spectacle of French chivalry ruled by the rod of an intriguing cardinal, or to brook the insolently ambitious projects of the upstart priest. Accordingly, he was not sparing of mordant criticism and biting ridicule of every part of Mazarin's administration. And he especially exerted himself, and plotted to prevent the marriage which the Cardinal was extremely anxious to bring about between his niece and the Duc de Mercœur. These are the causes to which French historians generally attribute the sudden arrest of "the Princes" on the 18th of July, 1650. But there was another cause -one of those back-stair causes which history is very apt to miss, unless she seeks for them in the pages of comparatively obscure mémoire writers-which seems to have led immediately to the catastrophe. Among the gentlemen who "served" Condé, was one Jarzé, who had conceived an absurd notion that the Queen Regent, Anne of Austria, looked on him with eyes The Queen took of affection, and absolutely sent her a declaration of love! the first opportunity of reading him a severe lecture before all the Court, ending by commanding him never to come into her sight again. Condé most unreasonably, moved probably by a desire of picking a quarrel with Mazarin, chose to consider himself affronted by the disgrace put upon his follower; and, demanding an interview with the minister, insolently reAnne subquired that Jarzé should be received by the Queen that very evening. mitted; but it is easy to imagine what must have been her feelings while doing so. Nevertheless, so important, so startling a step as the arrest of the victor of Rocroi was not to be undertaken lightly; and it was thought necessary to procure the consent of Gaston, the late king's brother, who was lieutenant-general of the kingdom. To this end Anne wrote with her own hand a note to Gondi, that most extraordinary of archbishops, who is better known in history as the Cardinal de Retz. Gondi was at that time one of the most popular men in Paris, and a leader of the opposition in the Parliament. The summons of the Queen, however, brought him to her at once; the terms of a coalition between the Fronde and the Court were quickly agreed upon, and Gondi undertook, and succeeded in, the task of obtaining Gaston's consent to the proposed step. That obtained, the Queen did not hesitate an instant in signing the fatal order, which was the cause of a new series of troubles and civil war to the unhappy country. "The Princes" were arrested as they were leaving the Palais Royal, and were safely lodged in Vincennes before a soul in Paris knew any thing about it. From Vincennes the prisoners were removed to Marcoussy, and thence to Havre. They were three in number-Condé himself, his brother the Prince de Conti, and the Duc de Longueville, who had married their sister, and who must always be understood to be included in the mention of "the Princes," so often met with in the records of those times. Condé was born in 1621, and was therefore twentynine years old at the time of his arrest. Immense was the sensation produced all over France when this extraordinary news became known. People could not believe their ears. Nobody knew what it meant, or what it portended. But especially the news fell like a thunderbolt in Burgundy, and Dijon, the capital of it. That was Condé's special country; there were the principal castles and strong places belonging to him; there was the greatest number of the closest friends and adherents of his family; there the chief seat of his influence. Now our friend Pierre Lenet, and his fathers before him, had always been special friends and followers of the Condés; and Pierre himself had been particularly distinguished by the present Prince, who, among other marks of favor, had been godfather to one of his children. And Lenet, whatever else he may have been, now in the time of his patron's adversity proved himself a faithful friend and most devoted partisan. Nor was he a man to be content with wringing his hands and lamenting, while keeping quiet to see how matters would go, like most of the rest of his fellow-townsmen. He instantly conceived projects of the widest and most audacious scope for the recovery of his patron's liberty. He aimed at nothing less than raising such a flame throughout the country as should produce a civil war, the first result of which should be the destruction of Mazarin. Lenet had been on the point of starting from Dijon for Paris. The last thing before leaving the town he went to the castle, to take leave of the two commanders, to whose joint care Condé had committed it, and to enable himself to give his patron an account of the state of his fortress. This was on the 21st of January, 1650. He found the two officers-Bussière and Comean their names were-in a strange state of agitation. For awhile they would not tell Lenet what it was that was moving them. But at last they let out the fact that a courtier had that morning reached the castle with tidings of the arrest of the Princes! Lenet's first thought was to encourage these men to be firm in doing their duty to the Prince; he inquired into the condition of the castle and its means of defence, and treated it as a matter of course that they would hold it against all comers to the last extremity. Then abandoning the idea of his journey, he set himself to consider what best could be done in Dijon. Thinking over the matter as he walked home, he tells us that it appeared to him beyond all doubt that a "general revolution in favor of the Prince and against the Cardinal would declare itself, and that twenty-four hours would not pass without bringing tidings of a rising. Still less could I doubt," he goes on to say, "that we should be able to excite in Burgundy, by means of the strongholds, the friends, and the troops the Prince possessed there, similar movements to those which I foresaw in Paris; which would give the example to the neighboring provinces, and especially to Champagne, which was under the government of the Prince de Conti. I thought, too, that Normandy, where the government and most part of the strong places were in the hands of the Duc de Longueville, or of his relations, where he had many friends, and where there was much discontent, would at once declare itself, as well as Guienne or Provence, where the disaffection of last year was by no means altogether healed." He goes on to assign sundry other reasons for feeling sure that this, that, and the other part of the country would assuredly rise. Nevertheless, there was some reason to fear that a formidable rising might have the result of causing Mazarin to put the Princes to death in their prison. But, on mature reflection, he came to the conclusion that the Cardinal was not the man to dare any so violent a measure, "particularly if the young Duc d'Enghien, (Condé's son,) the Princess Dowager, (his mother,) the Princesse de Condé, (she was a niece of Richelieu,) and the Duchess of Longueville remained at liberty, as was confidently reported to be the case, and if they could withdraw themselves out of the reach of the Court." "I at once therefore dispatched a courier with three letters for the three Princesses." It is curious to observe the capable man thus taking command of the family interests in the time of storm. Lenet had never held any particular office in the household of the Prince, or had ever been in a position either in the world generally, or in his relations with the Prince's family, to make it natural that he should thus put himself forward to say what should be done in the critical circumstances in which the family was placed; but he felt himself to be the man that was needed, and seized the opportunity of launching himself on a sea of plots, and intrigues, and adventures, which made up exactly the sort of life for which he was fitted, and calculated to shine in. Not that Lenet was altogether so much a stranger to the grand monde as another procureur-général of a provincial parliament would in all probability have been. The special favor of Condé had often kept him near his person, and the credit and influence he was supposed to enjoy with the Prince caused his acquaintance to be sought by all the crowd of young nobles of both sexes, who, for one reason or another, wished to pay court to the young hero of Rocroi. Thus we find him to have been an intimate friend and companion of Bussy Rabutin, Madame Sevigné's well-known cousin; and there is a letter in verse extant, which Lenet and Bussy wrote conjointly to Madame Sevigné and her husband when they were rusticising in Brittany. This epistle made rather a succès de société in its day; and as French critics have praised it, and it is a good specimen of the sort of literary play which was then so much in fashion in French society, the reader is here presented with an English version of it "TO M. LE MARQUIS AND MDE. LA MARQUISE SEVIGNE. "To you, good friends, who've taken root You stay-at-homes in every season, At fair or dance, or when the priest From childbirth perils safe and free; To rent the farm the lease expires For all his noble forefathers.' Who shirk of plough or spade the labor." In days long afterwards, when Lenet's plottings and schemings were all over, and gné speaks of him as having had " de l'eshe was at length at rest, Madame de Seviprit comme douze," and again, in another whom we often laughed so much, for there our poor friend Lenet, with never was a more laughing youth than ours in every way." Lenet, therefore, letter, as * The name of Madame de Sevigne's home in Brittany. knew many people, and was probably no stranger to the three Princesses, whose conduct he put himself forward to direct. His letter to the Dowager urged her to come at once with her grandson, the Duc d'Enghien, into Burgundy; that to the young Princesse de Condé begged her to hasten to her father, the Maréchal de Brezé, in Anjou, with a view of raising that province in favor of her husband; and the third dispatch, to the Duchesse de Longueville, counseled her to go with all speed to Rouen, for a similar purpose. Lenet's next care was to see the principal people in Dijon, and ascertain how far they were disposed to second him in raising the standard of revolt against the Government. A bitter disappointment awaited him. It would not be unamusing to follow in the detail with which he has recorded them the different answers he met with from all the provincial city magnates. But to do so would leave us no space for the account of his subsequent proceedings, which are yet more characteristic of the society and manners of the time. Haste to desert a sinking ship is unhappily no special characteristic of any period. One magistrate, who owed every thing to Condé, hoped that the Cardinal would not fail to put to death prisoners who were such dangerous enemies to the State. Another contented himself with sighing sadly as he twirled his thumbs, and expressing his profound conviction that the best thing they could do in the interest of the prisoners was to keep cautiously quiet, and strictly refrain from saying any thing or doing any thing. A third would have been ready for any thing had it not been that unfortunately he was just threatened with a fit of the gout. The most favorable reply he got, was that of an old priest, who promised him his prayers! Among the officers of the troops depending on Condé, to whom Lenet next applied, he found a somewhat more hopeful reception. And it was finally agreed that a portion of them should throw themselves into the strong fortress of Bellegarde, while one large regiment of eighteen hundred men should persuade the Court that it was fully purposed to be faithful to the Crown, while in reality they would be ready to seize the first opportunity of striking a blow in favor of the Princes. An attempt to introduce a portion of this regiment into the castle of Dijon was frustrated, not by the fidelity of the two commandants either to Condé or to the Crown, but by their cautious timidity. It is curiously characteristic of the strange anarchical confusion of the times to find these regimental officers consulting, plotting with, and taking directions from this lawyer, whose only sort of title to meddle in the affair at all, was the known fact that he was an adherent and friend of the Prince! These matters thus arranged, Lenet awaited with such patience as he could muster the return of the courier he had sent to the Princesses. In a day or two he returned, but brought no letters from them. The Dowager only sent him a verbal message. She had read, and immediately burned, the courier said, the letter from Lenet, and had done the same by the letter he had written to the young Princess, saying that she was not of an age to be trusted with such a matter. For herself, she said that the smallest movement on her part would cause them all to be thrown into prison; that the friends of the family might act as they, or any of them, should think best; that, for her part, her only hope was to end her days in peace, and, if possible, in liberty; that the remainder of her life could but be spent in weeping the misfortunes of her house, but that she would not hazard the smallest step which could bring on her the risk of spending it in prison. Finally, she begged Lenet not to write to her any more. Here was, as Lenet says, an end to all his hope of raising Burgundy in revolt. It could only have been done by the Princess Dowager showing herself in the province, and putting herself at its head. But for any such rôle as this she was far too timid, and, as he insinuates, too stingy of money. As for the Duchesse de Longueville, she was already off to Stenay, a place of surety. A very different woman indeed from her mother was she! No plotter or intriguer of any kind could have wished a better helpmate in petticoats than the beautiful Duchesse. To use a vulgar phrase, which, however, characterizes her better than any other, she was "up to any thing, from" what you please to what you will. It was of her that Rochefoucauld (who, however, at this period was called Prince de Marsillac, but became Duc de Roche |