CHAP. XXXV.] MAZARIN RETURNS.-END OF THE FRONDE. 289 management of the affairs of France at Rome; but De Retz demanded in addition, honours, governments, and money for his friends; and when these were refused, he began to negotiate with Condé. But the time for such pretensions was past. On December 19th, after paying a visit to the Queen, he was arrested by a captain of the guard, and confined at Vincennes; whence he was afterwards removed to Nantes. This was the end of his political career; for though he contrived to escape from Nantes, whence he proceeded into Spain, and afterwards to Rome, he was not allowed to return to France during the lifetime of Mazarin.1 De Retz has preserved a great reputation chiefly through his literary talent. As a politician he had no patriotic, nor even definite views; he loved embroilment and disturbance, partly for their own sake, partly for the advantage he derived from them. After the pacification of Paris, the malcontents in the provinces were soon reduced. Bordeaux, where the Fronde had taken a singular turn under the name of L'Ormée, was one of the last places to submit. While these things were going on, Mazarin had joined Turenne and his army near Bar; and towards the end of January, 1653, he set out for Paris, which he entered February 3rd. Louis XIV. went out in state to meet him, and gave him a place in his own carriage. It is said that the Cardinal had distributed money among the leaders of the mob to cheer him on his entrance; it is certain that he was not only received with acclamation by the populace, but also feasted by the magistrates. The jurists of the Parliament displayed a grovelling servility, and he received the humble visits of some of those very counsellors who had set a price upon his head. Such was the end of the Fronde; a movement without grandeur or possible result, whose sterility only confirmed the power of the King and of the minister. From this time till the end of his life Mazarin reigned with absolute power; for he maintained the same influence over the young King as he had previously exerted over Louis's mother. His avarice and despotism grew worse than before. The management of the finances was intrusted to the most unworthy persons, among whom Fouquet astonished Europe by his magnificence. Mazarin made the interests of France subordinate to his own avaricious views, and his plans for the advancement of his family. Fortune After the death of Mazarin, however, de Retz obtained the archbishopric of Paris. His uncle, the old Archbishop Gondi, died in 1654. The Mémoires of De Retz terminate in 1655. They have been completed by Champollion-Figeac. (See Coll. Michaud, sér. iii. t. i.) 290 COMMONWEALTH IN ENGLAND. [CHAP. XXXV. seemed to favour all his enterprises. His nieces, the Mancini, celebrated for their beauty and vivacity, were all married into princely houses; and Louis XIV. himself was with difficulty dissuaded from giving his hand to one of the six. The Fronde is the last occasion on which we find the French nobles arrayed in open war against the Crown. Henceforth they became the mere satellites of the Court, whose power was supported, and whose splendour was increased, by their presence. How different from the great revolution which took place about the same time in England! The English reader hardly needs to be reminded that King Charles I., after a solemn trial, was publicly executed on the scaffold, January 20th, 1649; that the House of Peers, as well as the monarchy, was abolished, and the government of the kingdom conducted by the Commons; that Cromwell gradually assumed the supreme power, both military and civil, and after reducing the Royalists by his victories in Ireland, Scotland, and England, and reviving by his vigorous foreign policy the lustre of the English name, he finally, in December, 1653, caused himself to be named "Lord Protector." Meanwhile the Spanish war had been going on, with disastrous consequences to the French. The Spaniards had good leaders in the Archduke Leopold William and Don John of Austria, to whom was now added the great Condé. They also received material assistance from the Emperor Ferdinand III. In spite of the Peace of Westphalia, Ferdinand sent thousands of men into Flanders under the flag of Charles IV., Duke of Lorraine, who, since his quarrels with France, had become a sort of partisan chief. Don John, whose exploit in saving Naples from the French we have already related,' and who subsequently recovered from them the Tuscan ports, had, in 1651, laid siege to Barcelona: which city, after a blockade of thirteen months, both by sea ani land, at length surrendered (October 12th, 1652). Girona, Palamos, Balaguer, and other places next fell; and all Catalonia was ultimately reunited to the Spanish Crown, from which it had been separated during a period of thirteen years. In the same year the Spaniards wrested back from the French Gravelines and Dunkirk. Their conquest of Dunkirk had been facilitated by the conduct of the English Government. The Parliament which the ruled in England had offered D'Estrades, the French commandart of Dunkirk, a large sum to put that place in their hands. D'Estrades honourably refused to accept the bribe, but referred 1 Above, p. 269. CHAP. XXXV.] WAR BETWEEN FRANCE AND SPAIN. 291 the English agent to his own Court. Mazarin was inclined to cede Dunkirk to the English on condition of receiving 15,000 men and fifty vessels to act against the French rebels and the Spaniards; but Anne of Austria would not consent. In consequence of this refusal, the English fleet under Blake defeated a French fleet which was proceeding to the relief of Dunkirk (September 14th, 1652); and four days after D'Estrades was compelled to surrender to the Spaniards. Yet so fearful were the French Government of bringing upon them another enemy, that even this gross outrage failed to produce a war with England. It would be tedious to detail all the campaigns between the French and Spaniards, in which nothing decisive was achieved till, in the year 1657, Cromwell threw the weight of England into the scale. The most prominent figures on the scene during this struggle were Condé and Turenne, who, like two Homeric heroes, seemed to hold in their hands the fortune of war. Their skill was conspicuously displayed in 1654, when Turenne compelled the Spaniards to raise the siege of Arras; but was prevented by the manœuvres of Condé from pursuing his advantage. It was in this school that the youthful Louis XIV. served his apprenticeship in arms. The campaign of 1655 was almost wholly unimportant; but the reverses of the French in the following year, as well as the failure of some negotiations with Spain, which would not consent to abandon Condé, induced Mazarin to enter into a close alliance with the Protector Cromwell. France had not been so forward as Spain in recognizing the new order of things in England. The French Court, connected with Charles I. by his marriage with Henrietta, had viewed the rebellion with displeasure; and had exhibited this feeling by prohibiting the importation of certain articles of English manufacture. The English Parliament had naturally resented this conduct, and the establishment of the Republic had not been announced to France, as to other countries. Subsequently, in 1650, Mazarin had even listened to the proposals of the Dutch Stadholder, William II., to co-operate with him for the restoration of the Stuarts. The Spanish Cabinet, on the other hand, being desirous of the English alliance, had, immediately after the execution of Charles, acknowledged the Republic; and when Cromwell seized the supreme power, he was not only congratulated by the Spanish ambassador, but even informed that if he should assume the crown, the King of Spain would venture his 66 292 DUTCH HOSTILITY TO ENGLISH REPUBLIC. [CHAP. XXXV. own to defend him in it.' At a later period, however, Mazarin, seeing the necessity for the English alliance, became a rival suitor for Cromwell's friendship. But the Protector, though well aware of the advantages of his position, was for some time prevented by a war with the Dutch from declaring for either nation. Instead of that sympathy and support which the English Republicans might naturally have expected from the Dutch Commonwealth, which English blood and treasure had contributed to establish, the States-General had interposed to save the life of Charles I.; had acknowledged his son as lawful King of England, condoled with him on the "murder," as they styled it, of his royal father, and given him an asylum in their dominions. This conduct was influenced by the youthful Stadholder, William II., who, having married Mary, the eldest daughter of Charles I., was naturally in favour of the Stuarts; and he had at various times supplied Queen Henrietta with arms, ammunition, and soldiers in aid of her husband's cause. In this policy William was supported by the Dutch clergy and the populace; which, incited by its ministers, was so furious against the English Parliament, cr rebels," that Strickland, the Parliamentary envoy, durst not leave his lodgings; and on May 2nd, 1649, Dr. Dorislaus, his colleague, was murdered. The higher classes of the Dutch alone. and especially in the province of Holland, where the principles of an aristocratic republic prevailed, as well as with a view to commercial interests, were for the English Parliament, and advocate. at least a strict neutrality. These principles had even threatene to bring the province of Holland into a dangerous collision with the Stadholder. After the peace with Spain, the question ha arisen as to the reduction of the army, and what regiments were to be dismissed; and on these points the States of Holland were at complete variance with the Stadholder. They had shown disposition to assert the right of self-government on these ar other subjects, so that it even became a question whether t supreme power was to be vested in the States-General, or wheth each province was to form an independent State. Wiliar attempted to decide this question by force, and despatched so of his troops against Amsterdam, while the citizens prepared : defend themselves by cutting the dykes; when the young prin was fortunately saved from this foolish enterprise by the adv of his relative, Van Beverweert, and the mediation of the Stat General. William's negotiations, before mentioned, with t.. 'Thurloe, State Papers, vol. i. p. 759. 2 Harris, Life of Cromwell, p. 24.. CHAP. XXXV.] REVOLUTION IN HOLLAND. 293 French Court for the restoration of the Stuarts,' which he had entered into without consulting the States, were cut short by death. He was carried off by the small-pox, November 6th, 1650, in the twenty-fifth year of his age. A week after his death his wife gave birth to a son, William Henry, the future King of England. The death of William was followed by a change in the constitution of the United Netherlands. In a great assembly of the States, held at the Hague in January, 1651, Holland had succeeded in establishing the principle that, though the union should be maintained, there should be no Stadholder of the United Netherlands; that each province should conduct its own affairs; and that the army should be under the direction of the StatesGeneral. In conformity with this decision, the office of Stadholder remained vacant till 1672. These events, however, not having produced any sensible alteration in the general conduct of the Dutch towards England, the Parliament, with a view to change this disposition, sent St. John, Lord Chief Justice, and Mr. Walter Strickland as ambassadors extraordinary to the Hague; and, to prevent a repetition of the former violence, forty gentlemen were appointed to accompany them. The ambassadors were instructed to propose a complete union and coalition between the two republics, and to insist that no enemy of the English Commonwealth should be sheltered in the Dutch provinces. But they could not succeed in bringing the States into their views, and were even again publicly insulted in the streets. It must not be concealed that a good deal of commercial jealousy lay at the bottom of all these proceedings. The Dutch were now at the height of their commercial prosperity, and besides their large colonial trade, which often clashed with that of England, they almost monopolized the carrying trade of Europe. Sir Henry Vane, who was the chief director of all the transactions with the Dutch, declared it to be his fixed opinion that the commercial interests of Holland and England were irreconcilable, and that, in order to a permanent peace, the two republics must either form a coalition or else that the English must subjugate the Dutch Republic and reduce it to the condition of a province. Soon after the return of the English ambassadors from their fruitless errand, the House of Commons passed the celebrated Navigation Act, by which it was ordained On this subject see D'Estrades, Lettres et Négociations. * Thurloe, State Papers, vol. i. p. 182; Ladlow, vol. i. p. 344. Stubbe, Further Justification of the War with the United Netherlands, p. 118, sqq. 4to. London, 1673. |