Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/605

 RICHELIEU.] FRANCE 569 S-32. blow to the civil wars of the previous century. No very severe penalties were exacted from the town ; it was simply rendered powerless. The fall of the place roused a warm patriotic feeling in France ; it was regarded as a great de feat of England. Buckingham s assassination had opened the way to peace, which was signed between the courts of England and France in September 1628. nl 3. It was full time for Richelieu to interfere elsewhere. &amp;lt;xl The utter collapse of the resistance against the house of is Austria in Germany had come. Wallenstein was omni potent in the north ; Christian IV. had been driven back into Denmark ; the king of Spain was in league with the duke of Rohan and the discontented Huguenots of Langue doc ; affairs in Italy were very threatening; the Spaniards were pressing Casale, the key of the great valley of the Po; on the two sieges, La Rochelle and Casale, which took place at the same time, the fortunes of Europe turned. Richelieu, while he sent his agent Charnac6 to North Germany to do what ho could to check the Austrian ad vance and to raise up fresh barriers, set himself to relieve Casale. In January 1629 he had carried Louis XIII. into Italy, and the Spaniards at once raised the siege of Casale. Thence he returned into Languedoc, where the Protestant rebels were moving ; they too were speedily put down ; and Richelieu, with Father Joseph, once more posed before Europe as the champion of Catholicism. Urban VIII., who little knew his man, wrote him a letter of warm thanks and congratulations. With the fall of Moutauban, the last glimmer of local independence in France died out. Before the end of 1629 Richelieu was called on once more to in terfere, and this time more seriously, in Italy ; the pope, the duke of Mantua, the republic of Venice, all in alarm appealed to him to save them from Spanish domination. He prevailed on the king to appoint him lieutenant-general, and with a splendid staff and army crossed the mountains into Italy early in 1630. His campaign, which did not include any open warfare against Spain, was thoroughly successful : he reduced all Savoy to submission, in spite of the duke s ill-will. While he was thus making a splendid and theatrical campaign in Italy, he was quietly engaged on far greater things elsewhere ; he was busy organizing and encouraging the resistance of northern Europe to the house of Austria. Charnace with Gustavus Adolphus, and Father Joseph at the Ratisbon Diet, were charged with this duty, and fulfilled it with eminent success. It was in 1630 ta- that Gustavus accepted the friendship and help of France,
 * ^1- and early in 1631 signed at Biirenwald a treaty of alliance

, s. with that power, which consented to pay him a great subsidy for five years. This treaty, in which Gustavus promised not to coerce peaceful Catholics, was approved even by Urban VIII. At the Ratisbon Diet in June 1630 Father Joseph had a more delicate task ; yet he too succeeded. The jealousies of the German princes neutralized all the advan tages of the emperor Ferdinand, and brought about the fall of Wallenstein, who withdrew in haughty disdain to Bohemia ; the princes also protested against the attempts of Ferdinand on Italy ; and he, wishing above all things to conciliate them, and to get his son Ferdinand named Rex Romanorum, promised to secure the Gonzaga-Nevers duke at Mantua, and to withdraw his troops from the second siege of Casale. The first treaty of Cherasco (April 1631) brought the Italian war to an end ; a second treaty, made by Richelieu with Victor Amadeus, the new duke of Savoy, secured for France Pinerolo, tlia key of the approaches to Turin. Giulio Mazarini, the pope s agent, made his first public appearance in the negotiations of this Italian war, and laid the foundations of his fortunes in France. A little before this time Richelieu had passed through the most critical moment of his career ; the queen-mother, the reigning queen, Gaston of Orleans, still heir to the throne, the house of Guise, a group of generals and officers of the 1632-38. crown, the duke of Bouillon, the count of Soissons, all the favourites and courtiers of Louis XIII., had conspired together to overthrow the cardinal. In the very moment of their apparent success, when the king, as they thought, had entirely given him up, the skilful audacity of Richelieu reversed all their plans. He threw himself on Louis XIII. for support, and the king, glad to be delivered from their hands, gave the cardinal carte blanche; the &quot;great storm of the court,&quot; the &quot; Day of Dupes,&quot; passed by and left him stronger than before. He showed no hesitation in punish ing and crippling his foes. The queen-mother was got rid of ; she took refuge at Brussels, and her ladies were exiled ; Gaston fled to Lorraine, the duke of Guise to Italy ; the parliament of Paris, which had favoured the plot, was re duced to humble submission. Richelieu was now made duke and peer, with the government of Brittany. The attempts of the emigrant nobles to raise the provinces on the borders were sternly and swiftly put down; the battle of Castelnaudary in Languedoc closed the series of out breaks. The duke of Montmorency, son of the constable, was taken there, and afterwards executed. After pacifying Languedoc, Richelieu rearranged the governorships of the provinces, removing hostile or suspected governors, and putting his own friends in their places. By the end of 1632 lie had crushed all the serious elements of resistance throughout France. This period coincides with the splendid career and pre mature death of Gustavus Adolphus. His rapid advance and high aims had alarmed Richelieu; his fall at Liitzen was a distinct relief to his ally ; it enabled him to step in between the combatants with emphasis, and to shape the latter years of the Thirty Years War so that they might conduce to the advantage of France. In July 1632 he had seized the duchy of Lorraine, almost without striking a blow, the duke having taken part with the emigrants against him. He was now prepared to advance thence to the Rhine ; he took the Protestant adventurers, Bernard of Saxe-Weimar and others, into his pay. Things worked well for Richelieu: the murder of Wallenstein in 1634, the abandonment of the prince s party by the elector of Saxony (peace of Prague, 1635), the lack of a head for the German Calvinists, all these things combined to open the way for the last and most brilliant period of Richelieu s career. 4. Late in 1634 he had renewed his alliances with Sweden Fourth and the German Calvinists ; he persuaded the Dutch to r el i ( l attack the Spanish Netherlands in May 1635 ; he declared war on Spain, and came openly into the field, in which hitherto he had worked only by secret and oblique methods. He had under his command such a force as France had never seen : 132,000 men in four armies seemed likely soon to bring the weary war to an end. One army was to join the Dutch under Frederick Henry of Orange and to march on Brussels, a second to unite with Bernard of Weimar and the Swedes across the Rhine, a third to hold the line of the Vosges and protect Lorraine ; the fourth with the duke of Savoy should reduce the Milanese country. The result, however, in no way answered the expecta tions ; the campaigns of 1635 and 1636 were unsuccessful and burdensome ; neither glory nor profit followed ; the Spaniards and Austrians invaded France on three sides, in Picardy, across the Pyrenees, and in Burgundy. Nor was 1637 more decisive. Though the invaders had been swept out, no important actions took place, no great results followed. The successes of Bernard of Saxe-Weimar on the Rhine in 1638 first showed that the Austro-Spanish power was checked. In this year the first steps were made towards the peace of Westphalia. The birth of tin; dauphin Louis also now ruined the court party, and secured to Richelieu a firmer lease of power; if their sickly king IX. - 72