The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack

by H. Bedford-Jones

  Louis was a king at once cruel, jealous, and ambitious to be known to posterity as “The Just.” He feared the personal power of Richelieu the man, trusted the statecraft of Richelieu the Cardinal, and did not hesitate to place his armies in the band of Richelieu the Minister. The king was afraid of his mother, detested his brother the Duc d’Orleans, distrusted the great nobles about him, and was wise enough to let responsibility rest on worthier shoulders. And the queen-mother also hated Richelieu furiously and vindictively. She hated him for having stripped her of power and destroyed her influence over the king; she hated him for carrying war into her beloved Italy; she hated him because he did well what she had done so badly; she hated him because he was Richelieu and she was Marie de Medici. And most of all she could not forget that in the beginning it was she herself who had raised him from obscurity. So around the queen-mother gathered all the festering rancor of enmity, supported by the princes of the blood and the nobles of France.

  Richelieu, on the third side, began to realize his insecurity. He had subdued the queen-mother, humiliated the queen, Anne of Austria, crushed the Vendomes, stamped out the Huguenots, and driven Chevreuse into exile. He was the victor, but he was not the master. The storm of envy, hatred and malice was checked, but it was secretly gathering force against him.

  The sole strength of Richelieu was that none guessed his strength. The princes had lands and wealth and rank; the great nobles bad positions of power; the Duc d’Orleans, heir to the throne, had immunity; Richeiieu had only a man, a simple Capuchin friar. It was keenly significant that this Pere Joseph was confidential secretary to the cardinal, while his brother, M. Charles du Tremblay, commanded the Bastille.

  This friar was the only man in France who wanted nothing, who refused everything, who could be given neither reward nor place because he accepted none. He served Richelieu; this was his sole honor, dignity and ambition. Nothing was done in France without his approval, and everything that he advised was brought to pass. The minister depended on the friar’s diplomacy, the cardinal depended on the friar’s sagacity, the general depended on the friar’s knowledge of men and armies; the cardinal who wore the red robe depended on the friar who wore the gray robe.

  In the quarters occupied by Richelieu at Grenoble, these two men were alone together. This Pere Joseph who had caused the siege of La Rochelle, who had written a commentary on Machiavelli, and who was the mainstay of his master, was large, well-built, and marked by smallpox. Once his hair had been flaming red; learning that the king had an aversion for this color, he became white before his thirtieth year. His eyes were small, brilliant, filled with hidden fires.

  Richelieu, far more imposing in appearance, was at this time at the height of his physical powers. He was handsome, and knew the worth of this quality to the full; he was proud, and used pride as a mask when need was; above all, he was sagacious—and his sagacity was best proven by the fact that his relations with his secretary were never ambiguous, never strained, never open to misunderstanding from either side. Just now his aristocratic features were thoughtful; the penetrating gaze he bent upon Pere Joseph was disturbed and even melancholy.

  “My friend and father,” he said, “I believe that affairs are too threatening for me to remain away from Paris. The queen has not provided an heir to the throne; intrigues are rife, the king insists on joining the army. I shall plead ill-health, give the command to Crequy or Bassompierre, and return to the capital.”

  Pere Joseph was used to these sudden decisions.

  “Excellent, Your Eminence, excellent!” he returned in his dry, phlegmatic voice. “The king’s confessor writes that you should take this action. It would be your best possible course. Unfortunately, it would not particularly advance the interests of France.”

  “Do the interests of France then demand that I should be deposed from the ministry?”

  Pere Joseph, who had been writing at a secretary, pushed away the papers from before him and folded his lean, powerful hands on the desk, and regarded the cardinal.

  “Your Eminence has been too much occupied in the field, perhaps,” he said smoothly, “to take thought to other matters. Have I your permission to expound them?”

  “Proceed, preacher!” Smiling, Richelieu settled himself in his chair.

  “Then consider.” The voice of the Capuchin came as from a machine, unemotional, steady, inflexible. “In making war upon the House of Austria, as we now do, Your Eminence picked up the threads of policy dropped when Henri IV died; very good! Personally, I consider that the welfare of France demands that you retain your present position. I argue from this base.”

  Richelieu inclined his head slightly, as though to signify that this base was entirely acceptable to him. The Capuchin went on.

  “Those who would depose you—the two queens, and certain great houses—are more bitter enemies of France than her external foes; because, like the Duc de Rohan, they set personal affairs before the good of their country. It becomes plain, Monseigneur, that France must no longer be a house divided against itself.”

  “Provided these enemies of Prance can hurt her.”

  “They can. With Your Eminence leading the army, one serious reverse would be the signal for them to strike.”

  “Granted,” said Richelieu, “if there were danger of such a reverse.”

  “Within two months it will happen.”

  The Cardinal gave his secretary a look of startled astonishment.

  “Casale is under siege by the Imperial forces,” continued Pere Joseph. “Our relief army is insufficient; the city must infallibly be taken. This will be a serious blow to France, and a more serious blow to Your Eminence. A certain policy has occurred to me,” and he touched his pile of papers, “toward which end I have drafted a scheme for your approval.”

  “Tell it to me,” said Richelieu. “The ear is less liable to deceit than the eye.”

  “Very well. In the first place, something occurs next month which everyone in France has forgotten. The Imperial Diet will meet at Ratisbon.”

  “That I know,” and Richelieu frowned slightly, intently. “What of it?

  “By law, the Emperor is strictly forbidden to make peace except with the approval of the Diet.”

  “Peace? Who has talked of making peace?” exclaimed Richelieu.

  “I trust Your Eminence will find it worthy of consideration. I have every reason to believe the Emperor would find an immediate peace with France highly acceptable—if the matter were rightly presented at Ratisbon. Everything depends on the presentation.”

  “It would,” said Richelieu drily. “The Diet would refuse.”

  “Your pardon—the Diet could be made to accept,” said Pere Joseph. “On the other hand, I find that Gustavus Adolphus, who is the deadliest foe of Austria—”

  Richelieu started. “The arch-heretic! The arch-enemy of Holy Church!”

  “And the arch-general of all Europe,” added the Capuchin. “He might welcome a treaty of alliance with France, provided it were rightly presented—as before. In other words, France makes peace with the House of Austria on the one hand, and on the other, an alliance with the bitterest foe of the House of Austria.”

  “And gains—what?” demanded Richelieu. He knew well that the four secretaries of Pere Joseph were closely in touch with the entire political and religious affairs not only of Europe, but of the whole world.

  “Time to order her internal affairs, Monseigneur. A humiliating reverse in the field is avoided. By the end of summer, the Minister is in Paris again—and none too soon for the welfare of France. His Majesty insists on being with the army. The army is notoriously unhealthy, even now it is being decimated by fever and sickness.”

  “Ah!” Richelieu’s brow knotted. “Ah! If the King should die—”

  “God forbid!” exclaimed the Capuchin piously. “If the King should die, then Monsieur his brother would rule France.”

  Richelieu stared at him in a singular manner. The Duc d’Orleans on the throne, m
eant the Cardinal de Richelieu in the Bastille.

  “And all these possibilities,” said the minister slowly, “might be averted—”

  “By proper attention to the sitting of the Diet at Ratisbon.”

  “The King would never consent.”

  “Let His Majesty command the victorious campaign in Savoy, and he will consent to anything. Besides, the influence of the queen, Anne of Austria, will here come to our help.”

  Richelieu remained thoughtful for a space. He began to perceive the value of this advice, though he knew that any treaty with Austria must be galling in its terms. Peace with the Emperor would mean external peace for France—

  “Such a peace could not endure,” he muttered.

  “Monseigneur, we ask only that it endure until spring.”

  “True.”

  “Also, no one in France would believe that peace could be obtained. And it could only be obtained by the right man.”

  “True again. We have the right man—Bassompierre. He has served as ambassador to Spain and England,” murmured the cardinal reflectively. “He is wealthy, popular, of the highest attainments. He is beloved on all sides—”

  “Greatly beloved,” corrected the other drily, and Richelieu smiled. Bassompierre had been the rival of Henry IV more than once; and if the Duchesse de Chevreuse had seduced princes, Bassompierre had seduced queens.

  “True, Bassompierre is attached to the queen-mother,” said Richelieu slowly. “And—”

  “He is the second captain in France, Your Eminence being the first.”

  “But he is not ambitious. He would perform this duty admirably.”

  “Most admirably, Monseigneur, since he has been secretly married to the Princesse de Conti.”

  “What!”

  Richelieu started out of his chair, stared at Pere Joseph with incredulous eyes.

  “The sister of Guise? Impossible! Secretly married?”

  “To the princess who bore him a son some years ago.”

  The minister lowered himself into his chair again, almost with a gasp, as he perceived the gulf opening before him. Bassompierre, marshal of France, who laughed at dukedoms and was content to be Colonel General of the Swiss Guards, content to be the greatest gambler, lover and spendthrift in France—if this man were no longer content, then beware!

  King’s favorite, devoted to the two queens, yet fully trusted by Richelieu, the Marshal de Bassompierre was the first and most powerful gentleman of France, ever holding aloof from intrigue and plot. Now that he was secretly married to the sister of the Duc de Guise, all was changed. He was instantly suspect. The princes had won him over to their side.

  Bassompierre,” went on Pere Joseph, “has in his house six caskets of letters, and the keys of these caskets never leave him. This, Monseigneur, is significant. He is a Lorrainer by birth. His influence is extraordinary. True, he has never been ambitious, and therefore has never been feared. But now—”

  “But now!” The red minister roused himself. “I see. Who, then, can go to Ratisbon? Who posesses the acumen to fool the German princes, play with them, wind them around his finger?”

  “That is for Your Eminence to say, if the proposal meets with your approval.”

  Richelieu gave him a sharp look. “Peace is imperative?”

  “At any cost, Monseigneur.”

  “Very well. You shall go.”

  Pere Joseph assumed intense surprise. “Monseigneur, you jest! In my simple robe, to present myself among princes, electors, ambassadors, illustrious men? No, no! I am too humble a person for such a duty.”

  It was characteristic of Richelieu that he would hear this man to the end, would weigh his advice and judgment, would accept his findings—and then exercise his own eagle swoop of authority and thought.

  The revelation of Bassompierre’s marriage to the Princesse de Conti had startled him, alarmed him, roused him. That Bassompierre had been her lover, that she had borne him a son, meant nothing; that he was now allied to the House of Guise meant everything. With a flash, Riche]ieu perceived how urgent was the danger enveloping him.

  Everything else must be abandoned; he must lay aside his statecraft, and bend every effort to meet the threat from inside.

  He knew only too well that the envoy to Ratisbon must be a consummate juggler, or all was lost. The German princes, who dreamed of crushing France, would not readily consent; Louis XIII, who dreamed of being another Henri IV, would not readily consent. Richelieu could handle the business at home—but the man handling it at Ratisbon must be another Richelieu abroad.

  “Enough!” he exclaimed. “My friend, you go to Ratisbon. Bulart de Leon, now Ambassador to Switzerland, will go as envoy; you’ll be associated with him, and the work will be placed in your hands. Let Bulart de Leon glitter among the princes—let the written treaty come from your pen and brain. You are the man.”

  “As Your Excellency desires,” said the Capuchin humbly.

  His eyes glowed with a flame at thought of the intrigue to pass between his hands at Ratisbon. This man, who could read the very heart and thought of other men around him, could have asked nothing greater than the chance to hoodwink all the princes of Germany.

  “And the treaty with Gustavus Adolphus?”

  “Is in your hands as well,” said Richelieu impatiently. “Come! This means that you’ll be at Ratisbon for weeks, perhaps months; you must depart at once, and I’ll secure full authority for you.

  Fortunately, Bulart de Leon is now at Lyon with the court. We must send for him. But—but—”

  The minister’s voice died away, his energetic eye became thoughtful; his long, slender fingers tapped on his chair-arm. He had always apprehended that in any approaching crisis, which would certainly come sometime, from some unexpected angle, with hidden enemies exerting every intrigue against him, he would be cut off from the man who had arrested the Marshal d’Ornano, humbled the Duc d’Orleans, discovered the conspiracy of Chalais, and who was openly accused of having caused the murder of Buckingham. How could he dispense with this man, at this moment?

  When Richelieu was roused, his decisions were swift.

  “My friend,” and his eye flashed once more, “everything hinges on Ratisbon; it is in your hands. You’ll be given full powers to sign for France. As for matters here at home—well! The one thing is settled. Let us now proceed to other things. Your advice?”

  “Is simplicity itself.” The brilliant eyes of the friar, alight with exultation, once more became narrowed, thoughtful, penetrating. His steady and inflexible voice showed no emotion; he might have been expounding theological points which admitted of no dispute. “Only one person can dismiss ministers—the king.”

  “Granted.”

  “Therefore, the king must not dismiss you. If necessary, you must dismiss yourself.”

  “Understood.”

  “He must realize clearly that his power depends upon you.”

  “He does.”

  “You must become friendly with the queen-mother.”

  “Impossible. Marie de Medici will hate me to the death.”

  “You must love your enemies. She is great, because another queen is allied with her—the Queen of France. The Austrian and the Italian are together against you”

  A hint of pain shot through the eyes of Richelieu. He had humiliated the Queen of France, he had humbled Anne of Austria—but he loved the woman.

  “Marie de Medici is the central point of enmity against me,” he said slowly. “She would like to see Gaston d’Orleans on the throne. While they live—”

  “Gaston is a greedy fool,” said Pere Joseph. “He yields to bribes.”

  “Marie de Medici yields to nothing.”

  “What does not yield, can be broken,” said Pere Joseph, and now the cardinal looked at him attentively, expectantly. “Louis does not love his mother, but he fears her. He does not love his queen, but he listens to her. Your safety demands two things; first, that the queen-mother and the queen be separated. Second, t
hat the king be left without these insidious voices, always whispering against you. It is possible to exile Marie de Medici. But with Anne of Austria—”

  Richelieu lifted his head, and his glance was stern.

  “What do you dare suggest?” he demanded in a sharp, angry voice. “When one speaks of the Queen of France—”

  “One speaks of a woman, Monseigneur,” said the other, and added: “who hates you.”

  There was a little silence. Richelieu was struggling with himself, but these last words stung him deeply. He knew that behind all this advice was something definite.

  “A woman who hates,” he said gloomily, “cannot be reconciled.”

  “She can be deprived of all power to injure, now or later.”

  “Fh?” The cardinal started slightly, and his gaze rested on the Capuchin for a moment. Then he made a slight gesture as of assent. Another man would have hesitated, but Pere Joseph obeyed the tacit command.

  “By chance, Your Eminence, my attention was drawn to the royal abbey of Benedictines at St. Saforin,” he said in his inexorable voice. “The prior of this abbey is one Dom Lawrence, of the Luynes family, an excellent man, most discreet. When M. de Bassompierre was Ambassador to England, Dom Lawrence accompanied him as chaplain. This, if you will recall, was before the taking of La Rochelle, while the Duke of Buckingham still lived.”

  At this name, Richelieu’s face slowly drained of its color. Before him seemed to rise the phantom of dead Buckingham, that handsome, proud, reckless man, who doomed to disaster everyone and everything he touched. The minister made an impulsive gesture, as though exorcising this spectre. The terrible look he bent upon Pere Joseph would have made a prince tremble, for a prince would have had much to lose. Pere Joseph, who had nothing to lose, received it calmly.

  “Be careful, my friend,” said the minister in a low voice. “I do not choose to hear idle conjectures.”

  “Monseigneur,” returned the Capuchin imperturbably, “I have only facts to offer. When one speaks the truth alone, the care belongs to God. If you desire me to be silent—”

  “Speak,” said Richelieu.

  Pere Joseph laid his hand upon anumber of written reports, enclosed in a vellum cover.