La Grande Mademoiselle

In Paris de Sales had often visited a young priest named Pierre de Bérulle, who also was deeply grieved by the condition of Catholicism, and who was ambitious to work a change in the clergy and in the Church. Père Bérulle had discussed the subject with Vincent de Paul, de Sales, Bourdoise, and other pious friends, and after serious reflection, he had determined to undertake the stupendous work of reforming the clergy. In 1611 he founded a mission-house called the Oratoire. "The chief object of the mission was to put an end to the uselessness of so many ecclesiastics." The missionaries began their work cautiously and humbly, but their progress was rapid. Less than fifteen months after the first Mass was offered upon the altar of the new house, the Oratoire was represented by fifty branch missions. The brothers of the company were seen among all classes; their aim, like the individual aim of Père François, was to make the love of God familiar to men by habituating man to the love of his brother. They turned aside from their path to help wherever they saw need; they nursed the sick, they worked among the common people, they lent their strength to the worn-out labourer.

They were as true, as simple, and as earnest as the men who walked with the Son of Mary by the Lake of Galilee. Bound by no tie but Christian Charity, free to act their will, they manifested their faith by their piety, and it was impossible to deny the beneficence of their example. From the mother-house they set out for all parts of France, exhorting, imploring the dissolute to forsake their sin, and proclaiming the love of Christ. Protestants were making a strong point of the wrath of God; the Oratorians talked of God's mercy. They passed from province to province, they searched the streets and the lanes of the cities, they laboured with the labourers, they feasted with the bourgeois. Dispensing brotherly sympathy, they entered the homes of the poor as familiar friends, confessing the adults, catechising the children, and restoring religion to those who had lost it or forgotten it. They demanded hospitality in the provincial presbyteries, aroused the slothful priests to repentant action, and, raising the standard of the Faith before all eyes, they pointed men to Eternal Life and lifted the fallen brethren from the mire.

Shoulder to shoulder with the three chevaliers of the Faith, de Sales, de Bérulle, and Père Vincent, was the stern Saint Cyran (Jean Duvergier de Hauranne) who lent to the assistance of the Oratorians the powerful influence of his magnetic fervour. The impassioned eloquence of the author of Lettres Chrétiennes et Spirituelles was awe-inspiring. The members of the famous convent (Port Royal des Champs) were equally devoted; their fervour was gentler, but always grave and salutary. Saint Cyran's characteristics were well defined in Joubert's Pensée.

The Jansenists carried into their religious life more depth of thought and more reflection; they were more firmly bound by religion's sacred liens; there was an austerity in their ideas and in their minds, and that austerity incessantly circumscribed their will by the limitations of duty.

They were pervaded, even to their mental habit, by their uncompromising conception of divine justice; their inclinations were antipathetic to the lusts of the flesh. The companions of the community of Port Royal were as pure in heart as the Oratorians, but they were childlike in their simplicity; they delighted in the beauties of nature and in the society of their friends; they indulged their humanity whenever such indulgence accorded with their vocation; they permitted "the fêtes of Christian love," to which we of the present look back in fancy as to visions of the first days of the early Church. Jules Lemaître said in his address at Port Royal:107

Port Royal is one of the most august of all the awe-inspiring refuges of the spiritual life of France. It is holy ground; for in this vale was nourished the most ardent inner life of the nation's Church. Here prayed and meditated the most profound of thinkers, the souls most self-contained, most self-dependent, most absorbed by the mystery of man's eternal destiny. None caught in the whirlpool of earthly life ever seemed more convinced of the powerlessness of human liberty to arrest the evolution of the inexorable Plan, and yet none ever manifested firmer will to battle and to endure than those first heralds of the resurrection of Catholicism.

François de Sales loved the convent of Port Royal; he called it his "place of dear delight"! In its shaded cloisters de Bérulle, Père Vincent, and Saint Cyran laboured together to purify the Church, until the time came when the closest friends were separated by dogmatic differences; and even then the tempest that wrecked Port Royal could not sweep away the memory of the peaceful days when the four friends lent their united efforts to the work which gave the decisive impulsion to the Catholic Renaissance.

Whenever the Church established religious communities, men were called to direct them from all the branches of de Bérulle's Oratoire, because it was generally known that the Oratorians inspired the labourers of the Faith with religious ardour, and in time the theological knowledge gained in the Oratoire and in its branches was considered essential to the true spiritual establishment of the priest. Men about to enter the service of the Church went to the Oratoire to learn how to dispense the sacramental lessons with proper understanding of their meaning; new faces were continually appearing, then vanishing aglow with celestial fire. Once when an Oratorian complained that too many of their body were leaving Paris, de Bérulle answered: "I thank God for it! This congregation was established for nothing else; its mission is to furnish worthy ministers and workmen fitted for the service of the Church."

De Bérulle knew that, were he to give all the members of his community, their number would be too feeble to regenerate the vast and vitiated body of the French clergy. He could not hope to reap the harvest, but he counted it as glory to be permitted to sow the seed.

Vincent de Paul was the third collaborator of the company. It was said of him that he was "created to fill men's minds with love of spiritual things and with love for the Creator." Père Vincent was a simple countryman. In appearance he resembled the disciples of Christ, as represented in ancient pictures. His rugged features rose above a faded and patched soutane, but his face expressed such kindness and such sympathy that, like his heavenly Ensample, he drew men after him. Bernard of Cluny deplored the evil days; but the time of Louis XIII. was worse than the time of Bernard. The mercy proclaimed by the Gospel had been effaced from the minds of men, and the Charity of God had been dishonoured even by the guides sent to make it manifest. Mercy and Charity incarnate entered France with Père Vincent, and childlike fondness and gentle patience crept back into human relations – not rapidly – the influences against them were too strong – but steadily and surely. Père Vincent was amusing; it was said of him that he was "like no one else"; the courtiers first watched and ridiculed, then imitated him. When they saw him lift the fallen and attach importance to the sufferings of the common people, and when they heard him insist that criminals were men and that they had a right to demand the treatment due to men, they shrugged their shoulders, but they knew that through the influence of the simple peasant-priest something unknown and very sweet had entered France.

Vincent de Paul was a worker. He founded the Order of the Sisters of Charity, the Convicts' Mission-Refuge, a refuge for the unfortunate, the Foundling Hospital, and a great general hospital and asylum where twenty thousand men and women were lodged and nourished. To the people of France Père Vincent was a man apart from all others, the impersonation of human love and the manifestation of God's mercy. By the force of his example pity penetrated and pervaded a society in which pity had been unknown, or if known, despised. The people whose past life had prepared them for anything but good works sprang with ardour upon the road opened by the gentle saint who had taught France the way of mercy. Even the great essayed to be like Père Vincent; every one, high and low, each in his own way and to the extent of his power, followed the unique example. Saint Vincent became the national standard; the nobles pressed forward in his footsteps, concerning themselves with the sick and the poor and trying to do the work of priests. They laboured earnestly lavishing their money and their time, and, fired by the strength of their purpose, they came to love their duty better than they had loved their pleasure. They imitated the Oratorians as closely as they had imitated the shepherds of Astrée, and "the monsters of the will," Indifference, Infidelity, and Licence, hid their heads for a time, and Charity became the fashion of the day.

Père Vincent's religious zeal equalled his brotherly tenderness; he was de Bérulle's best ally. A special community, under his direction, assisted in the labours of the Oratoire. The chief purpose of the mother-house and its branches was the purification of the priesthood and the increase of religion. When a young priest was ready to be ordained he was sent to Père Vincent's mission, where, by means of systematic retreats, he received the deep impression of the spiritual devotion and the charity peculiar to the Oratorians.

Bossuet remembered with profound gratitude the retreats that he made in Père Vincent's Oratoire. But there was one at Court to whom the piety of Père Vincent was a thorn in the flesh. We have seen that de Bérulle's work was the purification of the clergy, and that Père Vincent was de Bérulle's chief ally. Mazarin was the Queen's guardian, and the Queen held the list of ecclesiastical appointments. A Council called the Conseil de Conscience had been instituted to guide the Regent in her "Collation of Benefices." The nominees were subject to the approbation of the Council. When their names were read the points in their favour and against them were discussed. In this Conseil de Conscience Père Vincent confronted Mazarin ten years. Before Père Vincent appeared men were appointed abbots regardless of their characters. Chantelauze says in Saint Vincent de Paul et les Gondis that "Mazarin raised Simony to honour." The Cardinal gave the benefices to people whom he was sure of: people who were willing to devote themselves, body and soul, to his purposes. Père Vincent had awakened the minds of many influential prelates, and a few men and women prominent at Court had been aroused to a sense of the condition of the Church. These few priests and laymen were called the "Saints' Party."

They sat in the Council convened for the avowed purpose of purifying the Church. When Mazarin made an ignoble appointment, Père Vincent objected, and the influential prelates and the others of their party echoed his objections. Through the energy of the "Saints," as they were flippantly called by the courtiers, many scandalous appointments were prevented, and gradually the church positions were filled by sincere and devoted men. The determined and earnest objections of so many undeniably disinterested, well-known, and unimpeachable people aroused the superstitious scruples of the Queen, and when her scruples were aroused, she was obstinate. Mazarin knew this. He knew that Anne of Austria was a peculiar woman, he knew that she had been a Queen before he had had any hold upon her, and he knew that he had not been her first favourite. He was quick, keen-sighted, flexible. He was cautious. He had no intention of changing the sustained coo of his turtle-dove for the shrill "Tais-toi!" of the Regent of France. But he was not comfortable. His little diaries contain many allusions to the distress caused by his inability to digest the interference of the "Saints." He looked forward to the time when he should be so strong that it would be safe for him to take steps to free himself from the obsessions of the Conseil de Conscience. He was amiable and indulgent in his intercourse with all the cabals and with all the conflicting agitations; he studied motives and forestalled results; he brought down his own larks with the mirrors of his enemies. He had a thousand different ways of working out the same aims. He did nothing to actively offend, but there was a persistence in his gentle tenacity which exasperated men like Condé and disheartened the frank soldiers of the Faith of the mission of Port Royal and the Oratoire. He foresaw a time when he could dispose of benefices and of all else. A few years later the Conseil de Conscience was abolished, and Père Vincent was ignominiously vanquished. Père Vincent lacked the requisites of the courtier; he was artless, and straightforward, and intriguers found it easy to make him appear ridiculous in the eyes of the Queen.108 Mazarin watched his moment, and when he was sure that Anne of Austria could not refuse him anything, he drew the table of benefices from her hand. From that time "pick and choose" was the order of the day. "Monsieur le Cardinal" visited the appointments secretly, and secured the lion's share for himself. When he had made his choice, the men who offered him the highest bids received what he had rejected. In later years Mazarin was, by his own appointment, Archbishop of Metz and the possessor of thirty fat benefices. His revenues were considerable.

Nowhere did the Oratorians meet as determined opposition as at Court. The courtiers had gone to Mass because they lost the King's favour if they did not go to Mass, but to be inclined to skepticism was generally regarded as a token of elegance. Men thought that they were evincing superior culture when they braved God, the Devil, and the King, at one and the same time, by committing a thousand blasphemies. Despite the pressure of the new ideas, the "Saints' Party" had been difficult to organise. It was a short-lived party because Mazarin was not a man to tolerate rivals who were liable to develop power enough to counteract his influence over Anne of Austria concerning subjects even more vital than the distribution of the benefices. The petty annoyances to which the Prime Minister subjected the "Saints' Party" convinced people that when a man was of the Court, if he felt the indubitable touch of the finger of Grace, the only way open to him was the road to the cloister. It was known that wasps sting, and that they are not meet adversaries for the sons of God, and the wasps were there in swarms. François de Sales called the constantly recurring annoyances, "that mass of wasps." As there was no hope of relief in sight, it was generally supposed that the most prudent and the wisest course for labourers in the vineyard of the Lord was to enter the hive and take their places in the cells, among the manufacturers of honey. So when La Grande Mademoiselle looked upon the convent as her natural destination, she was carrying out the prevalent idea that retreat from the world was the natural result of conversion to true religion. It was well for her and for the convent which she had decided to honour with her presence that just at the moment when she laid her plans her father had one of his rare attacks of common sense – yes, well for her and well for the convent!

IV

Mademoiselle's crisis covered a period of six months; when she reappeared patches adorned her face and powder glistened in her hair. She said of her awakening: "I recovered my taste for diversions, and I attended the play and other amusements with pleasure, but my worldly life did not obliterate the memory of my longings; the excessive austerity to which I had reduced myself was modified, but I could not forget the aspirations which I had supposed would lead me to the Carmelites!" Not long after she emerged from her religious retreat politics called her from her frivolity. Political life was the arena at that hour, and it is not probable that the most radical of the feministic codes of the future will restore the power which women then possessed by force of their determined gallantry, their courage, their vivacity, their beauty, and their coquetry. The women of the future will lack such power because their rights will be conferred by laws; legal rights are of small importance compared to rights conferred and confirmed by custom. The women of Mademoiselle's day ordered the march of war, led armies, dictated the terms of peace, curbed the will of statesmen, and signed treaties with kings, not because they had a right to do so, but because they possessed invincible force. Richelieu, who had a species of force of his own, and at times wielded it to their temporary detriment, planned his moves with deference to their tactics, and openly deplored their importance. Mazarin, who dreaded women, wrote to Don Luis del Haro: "We have three such amazons right here in France, and they are fully competent to rule three great kingdoms; they are the Duchesse de Longueville, the Princesse Palatine, and the Duchesse de Chevreuse." The Duchesse de Chevreuse, having been born in the early century, was the veteran of the trio. "She had a strong mind," said Richelieu,109 "and powerful beauty, which, as she knew well how to use it, she never lowered by any disgraceful concessions. Her mind was always well balanced."

Retz completed the portrait: "She loved without any choice of objects for the simple reason that it was necessary for her to love some one; and when once the plan was laid it was not difficult to give her a lover. But from the moment when she began to love her lover, she loved him faithfully, – and she loved no one else." She was witty, spirited, and of a very vigorous mind. Some of her ideas were so brilliant that they were like flashes of lightning; and some of them were so wise and so profound that the wisest men known to history might have been proud to claim them. Rare genius and keen wits which she had trained to intrigue from early youth had made her one of the most dangerous politicians in France. She had been an intimate friend of Anne of Austria, and the chief architect of the Chalais conspiracy. After the exposure of the conspiracy, Richelieu sentenced her to banishment for a term of twenty-five years, and no old political war-horse could have taken revenge sterner than hers. She did not rest on her wrongs; her entrance upon foreign territory was marked by the awakening of all the foreign animosities. Alone and single-handed, the unique Duchess formed a league against France, and when events reached a crisis she had attained such importance in the minds of the allies that England, though vanquished and suing for peace, made it a condition of her surrender that the Duchesse de Chevreuse, "a woman for whom the King of England entertained a particular esteem," should be recalled to France. Richelieu yielded the point instantly; he was too wise to invest it with the importance of a parley; he recalled the woman who had convened a foreign league against her own people, and eliminated the banishment of powerful women from his list of penalties. He had learned an important political lesson; thereafter the presence of the Duchesse de Chevreuse was considered in high diplomatic circles the one thing needful for the even balance of the State of France. After the Spanish intrigue, which ended in Val de Grâce, the Cardinal, fearing another "league," made efforts to keep the versatile Duchess under his hand, but she slipped through his fingers and was seen all over France actively pursuing her own peculiar business. (1637.)

The Duchesse de Chevreuse once traversed France on horseback, disguised as a man, and she used to say that nothing had ever amused her as well as that journey. She must have been a judge of amusements, as she had tried them all. When she ran away disguised as a man, her husband and Richelieu both ran after her, to implore her to remain in France, and, in her efforts to escape her pursuers, she was forced to hide in many strange places, and to resort to stratagems of all kinds. In one place where she passed the night, her hostess, considering her a handsome boy, made her a declaration of love. Her guides, deceived by her appearance gave her a fair idea of the manners worn by a certain class of men when they think that they are among men and free from the constraint of woman's presence. On her journeys through Europe, she slept one night or more in a barn, on a pile of straw, the next night in a field, under a hedge, or in one of the vast beds in which our fathers bedded a dozen persons at once without regard to their circumstances. Alone, or in close quarters, the Duchesse de Chevreuse maintained her identity. Hers was a resolute spirit; she kept her own counsel, and she feared neither man nor devil. Thus, in boys' clothes, in company with cavaliers who lisped the language of the Précieuses, or with troopers from whose mouths rushed the fat oaths of the Cossacks, sleeping now on straw and now with a dozen strangers, drunk and sober, she crossed the Pyrenees and reached Madrid, where she turned the head of the King of Spain and passed on to London, where she was fêted as a powerful ally, and where, incidentally, she became the chief official agent of the enemies of Richelieu.

When Louis XIII. was dying he rallied long enough to enjoin the Duchesse de Chevreuse from entering France.110 Standing upon the brink of Eternity, he remembered the traitress whom he had not seen in ten years. The Duchesse de Chevreuse was informed of his commands, and, knowing him to be in the agonies of death, she placed her political schemes in the hands of agents and hurried back to France to condole with the widow and to assume the control of the French nation as the deputy of Anne of Austria. She entered the Louvre June 14, 1643, thinking that the ten years which had passed since she had last seen her old confidante had made as little change in the Queen as in her own bright eyes. She found two children at play together, – young Louis XIV. and little Monsieur, a tall proud girl with ash-blonde hair: La Grande Mademoiselle, and a mature and matronly Regent who blushed when she saluted her. One month to a day had passed since Louis XIII. had yielded up the ghost.

The Duchesse de Chevreuse installed herself in Paris in her old quarters and bent her energies to the task of dethroning Mazarin.

The Palatine Princess, Anne de Gonzague, was a ravishingly beautiful woman endowed with great executive ability. "I do not think," said Retz, "that Elizabeth of England had more capacity for conducting a State." Anne de Gonzague did not begin her career by politics. When, as a young girl, she appeared in the world of the Court, she astonished France by the number and by the piquancy of her adventures. She was another of the exalted dames who ran upon the highways disguised as cavaliers or as monks. No one was surprised no matter when or where he saw Anne de Gonzague, though she was often met far beyond the limits of polite society. Fancy alone – and their own sweet will – ruled the fair ladies of those heroic days. During five whole years Anne de Gonzague111 gave the world to understand that she was "Mme. de Guise, wife of Henri de Guise, Archbishop of Rheims" (the same Henri de Guise who afterward married Mme. de Bossut).

Having passed for "Mme. de Guise" sixty months, the Lady Anne appeared at Court under her own name "as if nothing had happened," reported Mademoiselle. Whatever may have here "happened," Anne de Gonzague reappeared at Court as alluring as in the flower of her first youth; and, as the Chronicle expressed it: "had the talent to marry herself – between two affairs of womanly gallantry – to the Prince Palatine,112 one of the most rabidly jealous of gentlemen," because, as the pious and truthful Bossuet justly remarked, "everything gave way before the secret charm of her conversation." When nearly thirty years of age she obeyed the instincts of her genius and engaged in politics, with other politically inclined ladies, including Mme. de Longueville, whose only talent lay in her blonde hair and charming eyes.

Despite the poverty of her mental resources, Mme. de Longueville was a natural director of men, and she was but one of a very brilliant coterie. The prominent and fiery amazons of the politics of that epoch are too historically known to require detailed mention. They were: the haughty, dazzlingly superb, but too vicious and too practical in vice, Montbazon; the Duchesse de Chatillon (the imperious beauty who had her hand painted upon a painted lion whose face was the face of the great Condé), and many others who to the measure of their ability played with the honour and the lives of men, with Universal Suffrage, and with the stability of France, and who, like La Grande Mademoiselle, were called from their revelries by the dangers which threatened them.