The high point of the celebrations was a ball held in one of the chambers of the palace, “gilded and lined with great frames in which were pictures painted in perspective.”34 At one end of the hall stood a throne, over which was draped a fringed cloth of estate in shimmering silver and gold. Louis appeared wearing a suit of black satin heavily embroidered with gold and silver thread. His costume was enhanced with cherry-colored plumes and ribbons, which showed off the beauty of the eight-year-old king, with his pale complexion, blond hair, and blue eyes that were marked by a seriousness unusual in one so young.35
As a courtesy to Charles, Louis did not take the throne, offering it instead to his cousin, the duchesse de Montpensier. There was an ulterior motive: some attempt was being made to secure a match between the duchess and Charles, although, by this stage it was becoming obvious to all that neither party was very excited at the prospect.36
Everyone was aware of the troubles in England, but France was enjoying great victories in the field; the duc d’Enghien had just won the Battle of Nordlingen, and he would make further gains in the coming weeks. The continuing war weighed heavily on the treasury, and a lit de justice was held on Louis’s seventh birthday, September 5, 1645, to raise taxes still further.37 The parlement, however, was increasingly hostile towards the regency government, a sentiment driven in no small part by the members’ disdain for Mazarin as a low-born Italian, as well as the fact that promises to ennoble them within eighteen months showed no sign of being fulfilled. At first, parlement attempted to prevent Anne from enforcing edicts in a lit de justice, saying she had no right to do so. Anne, however, pointed out that her right was founded on precedent, that of Marie de’ Médicis.38 To ensure the success of her appeal, Anne waited for the duc d’Orléans to return to Paris.
The last time Louis held a lit de justice, he was carried into the chamber; this time, he walked in, holding his mother’s hand. When he finished speaking, the parlementaires applauded him, but their adulation did not prevent their regaling the child and his ministers with terrible reports of poverty-stricken peasants and the wretchedness that reigned throughout the kingdom. In the end, the edicts were passed, but it was becoming clear to Louis, young though he was, that all was not well in his kingdom.
In the summer of 1647, Louis was taken on a journey to the frontier, where the town of Armentières was currently under siege. This was a vital role for the king, whose presence boosted the morale of his men and the local citizenry, and served to encourage new recruits. The first stop was Amiens, where Louis wrote to his brother, Philippe, signing himself off with “your affectionate and kind petit papa, Louis.”39
On one occasion, Louis misbehaved and his mother threatened to spank him, telling him that it was she who had the authority, not him, and that “it is too long since you have had a beating. I will show you that you can be spanked at Amiens as well as in Paris.” Louis, angry and resentful, wept for quite some time before throwing himself on his knees before Anne, saying, “Maman, I ask your pardon. I promise never to have any other will but yours.” Anne’s heart softened; she kissed her beloved son and the two were friends again.40
The next stop was Abbeville, from which the royal party expected to go on to Rouen. However, this leg of the journey was abandoned because Rouen was found to be “insensible to the honor of the king.”41 Instead, Louis travelled on to the coastal town of Dieppe, where he stayed three days. Here, he inspected a large ship, a gift from Queen Christina of Sweden. A mock naval battle was held, lasting several hours and culminating in the French striking their victory colors, much to the delight of the king.
The people of Dieppe continued to cherish the memory of Louis’s grandfather, Henri IV, and now they were honored with the responsibility of guarding Louis. Everywhere he went, Louis was followed by throngs of his subjects, who boasted that “there were no Ravaillacs among them,”42 while the women poured out endless benedictions on the king.
During his stay at Dieppe, Louis received officials from the parlement of Normandy, the Cour des Aides, and the Chambre des Comptes, but the occasion was overshadowed by a tragic incident. The chief judge of Rys, a man of about sixty and said still to be in good health, took ill as he was leaving the royal presence. Hearing the commotion, Louis rushed out to find the man prostrate on the floor. His efforts to make the man take some remedy were in vain, for he had died instantly.
Having been on progress for much of the summer, the court made its way back to Paris, where it arrived in late August, but it moved on to Fontainebleau after only three weeks. Once again, the court was joined by Prince Charles, whose unhappy state of affairs “made every one regard him with the tenderness that accompanies pity.”43 The king and the prince were awkward together, as though embarrassed by each other’s presence, a state of affairs that was not helped by their shyness and the lack of “freedom of spirit which intercourse with the world gives to private individuals.” Louis, who never lost his serious demeanor, said little “from fear of not speaking well.”44
Shortly after the court returned to Paris, Louis, whose health had previously been good, began to complain of feeling unwell on November 10. He had pains in his lower back accompanied by a high fever, and within a short while it became obvious that he had smallpox.45 Anne moved her bed into Louis’s room, “resolved to be comforted by the loss of his beauty provided his life was saved.”
For the first eleven days, Louis was ill but not dangerously so; however, his condition changed on November 21, when his fever increased still further. Louis fainted and was unconscious for forty-five minutes. At about midnight on that Sunday, his life was despaired of by his doctors because the smallpox had “gone in,” the pustules having been dried by the heat of the fever.
Louis was subjected to four bleedings, but this treatment, far from being helpful, merely served to debilitate him further. Within a few hours, though, the fever reduced and the smallpox came out once more. The child, “whose life was so necessary to France,” began to recover. Still, he was given purges on Monday and Tuesday, at which point the illness rapidly left him and he was completely cured.
Young though he was, throughout his illness, Louis was “wholly inclined to gentleness and kindness, he spoke humanely to all who served him, said obliging and intelligent things, and was docile to all that the doctors desired of him.” Louis gave his mother marks of affection, “which touched her keenly” and, having begged her to stay with him throughout the course of his infirmity, assured her that “her presence lessened his illness.”
Although Anne had insisted on staying with the king, there were those who, not having had smallpox, hurriedly left court. One of those to stay away was the prince de Condé, who ignored several couriers sent by the queen urging his return from the front. Louis, his face still red and swollen, so that even his brother did not recognize him at first, “scolded those who had abandoned him.” Already he had begun to take note of the faces of his courtiers, and he would remember those who absented themselves from his presence.
THREE
The Fronde
When it came to the education of princes, politics was considered “the true grammar,”1 that essential ingredient for what Louis would later describe as his métier de roi, his profession as king. In this, there was no greater teacher than experience. While lengthy council meetings and endless discussions about war or the finances were beyond his powers of understanding, let alone concentration, Louis would attend short meetings with ministers or join in the occasional longer session. However, as he approached his tenth birthday, a series of events began to unfold that was to have the most far-reaching effect on the young king. Louis was about to learn his greatest lesson in statecraft.
The storm that was about to break over Louis’s kingdom came to be known as the Fronde, named after the catapult or sling that was used in a child’s game. It comprised a series of civil wars lasting from 1648 to 1653 and is one of the most complex events of Louis’s reign.
The Fronde was
the culmination of a succession of difficulties that had developed over a period of several years. In one respect, it was an expression of anger on the part of the peasantry and bourgeoisie at the ruinous levels of taxation required to support the ongoing Thirty Years’ War, a situation made worse by the dishonest activities of the tax farmers and frustration over the delayed or limited payment of interest on rentes.2 It shared some similarities with previous uprisings, such as occurred in Normandy in 1639 and more recently in the Rouergue.3
The Fronde was also a response to the gradual consolidation of power to the monarch, or more accurately to his first minister, to the detriment of the parlements and other courts. This process, which had begun under Richelieu, entailed the increasing use of government agents, known as intendants, who went into the provinces to do the work that was traditionally the responsibility of the local courts, and was a major step towards the establishment of an absolute monarchy. Moreover, officeholders were threatened financially by a recent rise in the number of offices created, the sale of which raised money for the treasury but devalued existing posts.
The Fronde, therefore, was also an attempt by the sovereign courts and others in positions of power to reassert the authority they had enjoyed in previous reigns; to protect themselves, the peasantry, and the bourgeoisie against increasingly crushing taxation; and, especially, to resist the advancement of absolutism, whether monarchical or ministerial.
The government inevitably saw the Fronde as a rebellion against the crown, and it is sometimes described as a dress rehearsal for the French Revolution, which would shake the country to its foundations some 150 years later. This view is not entirely accurate, as those involved in the Fronde directed their anger at Mazarin, not Louis.4
Although resentment had been simmering for some time, it reached a critical point in May 1648, when the paulette came up for renewal. This was an annual payment in exchange for which officeholders were allowed to bequeath their offices to heirs or assignees. Seeing it as an opportunity to raise additional funds for the war, Anne and Mazarin decreed that the payment should be increased. The courts appealed to the parlement, which supported their cause.
However, the parlement went one step further and appointed thirty-two delegates to the newly established Chambre Saint-Louis. This was an assembly of representatives from each of the sovereign courts of France—the Parlement of Paris, the Cour des Aides, the Grand Conseil, and the Chambre des Comptes, which sought to reform the government and restore, as they saw it, order to the realm.5 Defying Anne, who accused them of trying to “make a republic within a monarchy,”6 they agreed upon a list of demands.7 These included a version of habeas corpus, the abolition of the intendants, and the preservation of the rights and powers of officeholders. More audaciously, they demanded the right to superintend the crown’s decisions on taxation, which would have made them more powerful than the king and equal to the House of Commons in England.8
Anne, who had sworn to preserve monarchical power and pass it on intact to Louis, refused to grant these demands. Mazarin, however, noted that the French armies were winning significant victories in the field and peace negotiations were going well. Believing that the war, the root of all their troubles, would soon be over, he advised Anne to allow parlement this one triumph. Louis watched as his mother wept with rage, but she saw the wisdom in Mazarin’s words and agreed to remove the intendants, stipulating only that those serving in Picardy, Champagne, and the Lyonnais should stay. Her concession was welcomed by the Chambre Saint-Louis, but not to the extent that they suspended their sittings.
At this point, Louis’s cousin, the prince de Condé,9 the young and charismatic leader of the French forces, won a spectacular victory at Lens.10 The battle had been crucial; the king of Spain knew that a defeated France “would fall prey to his ambition.”11 Condé recognized this too, and he urged his troops on with a stirring rallying cry, leading them to victory against heavy odds.12 Louis, upon hearing the good news, exclaimed that parlement “would be very sorry” for it.
A few days later, Notre-Dame, decked with the captured colors of Archduke Leopold’s Spanish forces, welcomed Louis and his court. They had come to hear the Te Deum in celebration of Condé’s victory; yet, even as the hymn was being sung, three members of the parlement—Blancmesnil, Charton, and Broussel—were placed under arrest: Anne’s revenge for the humiliation heaped upon her and Louis.
The most important of these men was Pierre Broussel, beloved as one of the fathers of the people. When the populace saw him being bundled into a carriage, they immediately began to riot for his release. Before long, they had blocked the roads with bricks, pieces of furniture, and chains. The infamous Day of the Barricades had dawned.
The following day, August 27, saw the situation deteriorate still further, forcing a delegation from the parlement to go to the Palais-Royal to petition for Broussel’s release. Anne listened with disdain as she was urged to surrender to the will of the people. Throughout, the sound of children’s laughter could be heard as Louis and his friends played outside, causing the comte d’Avaux to observe that while the young king played, he was losing his crown.13 The comment was all the more poignant because this scene was taking place against the backdrop of civil war in England, where King Charles I was yet a prisoner.
As the negotiations continued, Anne knew she would eventually have to give way; she issued the order to free Broussel, but her price was that parlement should henceforth attend exclusively to matters of law. This was enough to cause the barricades to be removed and businesses to open again, but the peace that fell upon the city was uneasy. Night brought with it a dark rumor that the royal troops were planning to fire upon the people, and the barricades returned with astonishing swiftness. When news of this latest development reached the Palais-Royal, Philippe began to cry. It was all too much for the eight-year-old, but Louis drew his toy sword and adopted the air of a general. Putting his arms around his brother, he reassured him and tried to cheer him up. He then took Philippe to his room, tucking him safely into bed.14
Although Louis was aware of the troubles that had erupted in his capital, it is uncertain how much of it he understood. It was clearly a frightening time, in which the parlement threatened to seize the person of the king, while the people loathed the thought that he might leave Paris. Public anger and the resentment of the parlement were directed at Mazarin, but even Anne was afraid whenever she had to go out. Something had to be done, and it was decided that the court should retreat to Rueil15 for a while under the plausible pretext that the Palais-Royal required a thorough cleaning.
For the first time, Louis was to be evacuated from his own capital. The plans were kept secret until the last moment when, at six in the morning of September 13, 1648, Louis, who had celebrated his tenth birthday only a week earlier, climbed into a carriage with the cardinal and a small entourage. Anne slowly made her way to the Val-de-Grâce in an attempt to show that nothing was amiss. As the king’s carriage trundled towards the city gates, it encountered “some groups of rascals who shouted, ‘To arms!’ and attempted to pillage the carts that carried his baggage.”16 A panicked Mazarin sent a message from Louis to the queen begging her not to go to the Val-de-Grâce after all but to come straight to Rueil.
After a few days, the court moved on to Saint-Germain, from where Louis sent a declaration to parlement forbidding them to discuss anything except taxes and rentes. Yet the parlement had pressing matters to discuss; a delegation arrived at Saint-Germain, where a peace conference took place. The result was a charter of sorts, signed on October 22, in which most of the demands of the Chambre Saint-Louis were formally accepted.
At first, Anne was reluctant to sign the document because it seriously curtailed Louis’s authority. She added her name to it only when Mazarin assured her that she could infringe it whenever she saw fit. Here was a valuable lesson for Louis in methods to use when dealing with his parlement. Two days after this, the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, a monumental achi
evement by Mazarin that ended the Thirty Years’ War with the Austrian Habsburgs, but which went almost unnoticed.
The court returned to the Palais-Royal, and it was now that a schism appeared in the Fronde. Many of the bourgeois and senior members of the parlement were eager for peace, while some of the younger members continued to resist Mazarin. These divisions were exploited by the government, which adopted a policy of conciliation; however, this did nothing to stop the appearance of the Mazarinades. Defamatory and insulting to both Mazarin and Anne of Austria, the purpose of these pamphlets was to discredit the cardinal and further stir up opinion against him.17 Their appearance coincided with a new threat to seize the person of the king, as well as a remonstrance against Mazarin, issued by the parlement on January 2, 1649.
There was a clear need for decisive action. Anne had no wish to “continue longer in a place where the royal authority was no longer respected, where her person was insulted daily, and where that of her minister [Mazarin] was threatened with every outrage.”18 After consulting Mazarin, Condé, and Orléans, she decided to remove Louis from Paris and “speak to its people henceforth by the mouth of cannon.”19
January 5 marked the vigil of Epiphany. Life within the Palais-Royal went on as usual.20 Louis sat in his mother’s cabinet playing cards as the queen and her ladies looked on. As the afternoon darkened into evening, Mazarin and the princes paid court, but they left early to take supper with the maréchal de Gramont, who always gave a great feast on this day. Anne spoke to her ladies about her devotions and her plans to spend the next day at the Val-de-Grâce. The Twelfth Night cake was cut for Louis’s amusement, and the bean was found in the Virgin’s slice, so Anne was made the Twelfth Night queen. The ladies then shared a bottle of hippocras and retired to Anne’s dressing room for supper. The talk was light—what the captain of the guards might be serving, Condé’s little violin band, and they laughed at those who thought that Anne meant to leave Paris that night.
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