Under the Queen Mother’s regency, the traditional anti-Spanish policy of France had been reversed; but it was suficiently obvious that fear of Hapsburg domination must sooner or later cause a return to the strategy of François I and Henri IV. Meanwhile, all the states of Germany had been building up their armies; the huge military machine of Spain had reached a perfection unknown since the time of the Romans; Dutch naval power was growing; the Swedes had started to apply scientific methods to warfare. All Europe fairly swarmed with soldiers, ready at a word to march. Scoffers might regard a crusade as absurd and chimerical; but at this particular moment of history, a shrewd politician could find a great deal to be said for the idea. If a crusade could be organized in time, the war which everyone regarded as inevitable might be averted and the great powers reconciled in their effort against a common enemy. Ezechiely’s dream of a reunited Christendom would be realized. Events were to prove the plan unworkable.
But, if we grant for the moment the desirability of slaughtering huge numbers of Moslems, we are forced to agree with Father Joseph that, in this second decade of the seventeenth century, there was no more far-sighted policy than that of a great international expedition against the Turks. The immediate, practical problem was that of persuading the great powers to accept so far-sighted a policy. Richelieu, when consulted, shook his head and enumerated the obstacles which would have to be surmounted. But the others would not allow their enthusiasm to be damped; and in the end the bishop agreed to do what he could to forward the scheme, on condition that the Duke of Nevers should join forces with Father Joseph in pressing his own claims to political power.
No crusade could possibly be launched without the express approval and encouragement of the Holy See. As soon, therefore, as the necessary permissions could be obtained and the necessary arrangements made, Father Joseph set out, on foot as usual, for Rome. The crusade was not his only business, nor was Nevers the only important personage whom he represented. From Condé he carried explanations, apologies and a plea to be forgiven for his recent co-operation with the Huguenots; from Marie de Medicis a message of greeting; from Mme d’Orteans a reminder that her Calvarians were still waiting for the bull that would make of them an independent congregation; and from his own order a request for the right to organize missions among the heretics of Poitou.
Camillo Borghese, who ruled in Rome as Paul V, was a man of an intensely legalistic turn of mind, a stickler -for the letter as against the spirit, a martinet. But though he started by feeling rather suspicious of the friar’s hints of visions and revelations, that ‘ravishing conversation,’ ‘that infinite dexterity in dealing with the nobility’ soon had their usual effect. The pope was impressed and finally convinced. He promised to support the scheme for a crusade with all the machinery of the Church. But before official representations could he made, it would be necessary, he insisted, that the friar should sound out the various governments concerned.
When Father Joseph left Rome in the spring of 1617, he took with him the definite promise of bulls for the Calvarians and the missions of Poitou, and a pontifical letter addressed to the court of Spain and empowering him to negotiate for the crusade. His stay in Rome had been long about eight months in all-but he had achieved everything he set out to accomplish there. More than that, he had made the acquaintance of some of the highest dignitaries .of the Roman Curia, and had left them all profoundly impressed by his zeal, his integrity and his outstanding talents. The weeks at Loudun had made of him a man to be reckoned with in France; the months at Rome, a figure of some consequence within the Church. From this time forward we find him exchanging letters with nuncios, legates, cardinals, even the papal secretary of state.
Another man would have been exultant; but Father Joseph was perpetually on his guard against such lapses into pride and vanity. He had long since schooled himself out of the external manifestations of personal satisfaction or displeasure; and to a considerable extent, no doubt, he had suppressed even their inward manifestations. The only emotional indulgence he permitted himself, as he hastened northward, through Umbria and Tuscany, was versifying.
Under the stimulus of repressed elation, his mind fairly seethed with poetic imagery. In the intervals between his meditations he composed and committed to memory an astonishing number of verses in French and Latin. In the dead language he began, and, at the astonishing rate of two hundred lines a day, half finished a full length epic about Turks and crusaders. In French he expressed his feelings in a series of religious lyrics, one of which-a long rhapsody on the spring-time as the symbol of eternal life contains these really charming stanzas on the nightingale.
“En mille tours il façonne
De sa voix les longs replis:
Ainsi tout le ciel résonne
De mille chœurs accomplis.
Aisément l’ on ne peut dire
De ce long chant nuit et jour,
S’ il meurt, s’ il pâme, ou soupire
De tourment, d’aise ou d’amour.
Quand par les champs je m’ égaye,
En quelque air devotieux,
Ce chantre jaloux s’ essaye
D’ elever sa voix au cieux.
Mais en plus pleine musique
La violente douceur
De l’ harmonie angelique
Répond aux voix de mon cœur.
Ces oisillons qui rassemblent
En un leurs accents divers
Aux motet des Saints ressemblent
Unis en tout l’univers.”12
Versifying, praying, singing hymns in competition with the innumerable nightingales of the Italian spring, Father Joseph entered Turin. Here once again he became the diplomat. The prophetic eloquence, the ravishing conversation, the infinite dexterity with the nobility-all were brought out; but without much success. Charles Emanuel of Savoy had a war with Spain on his hands and was in no position to think about crusades against the Turks! After a few weeks, Father Joseph took the road again, crossed the Alps by forced marches and reached Paris in early June. During the twelve months of his absence, many strange things had happened in that exalted political world, into which his destiny was slowly but surely drawing him. In the autumn of 1616, Richelieu had been made a member of the Council of State and appointed minister for war and foreign affairs. That supreme power at which, from earliest manhood, he had steadily aimed, and which he had pursued by ways so devious and often so degrading, seemed now within his grasp.
Then, suddenly, the Queen Mother’s system of education bore fruit, and the fruit was terrible. The boy who had been whipped every morning was now legally as well as in name the King of France. His mother, however, still continued to treat him as a child and to keep all the power in her own and the Concini’s hands. By force of habit and from sloth and diffidence, Louis XIII had hitherto silently acquiesced in this state of things. Then, without warning, he took his revenge for all his mother’s long neglect, all those thousands of cold-blooded and methodical birchings. He gave orders to the captain of the guard that Concini should be arrested, adding that, if he resisted, he might be killed. It was a death warrant. Concini was shot as he entered the Louvre, and a few hours later his naked and mutilated body was hanging by the heels from the gibbet on the Pont Neuf, while the mob danced around, howling with bestial glee.
Even on the following afternoon the crowd was still so dense that Richelieu’s carriage was held up for many minutes at the approach to the bridge, and the future cardinal was given ample opportunity to observe what happens to unpopular ministers when they lose the King’s favour. For him, the moral of the revolting spectacle was clear: ‘If ever you get political power,’ that poor gelded and gutted carcase proclaimed, ‘take very good care to stick to it.’ For the eighteen years of his dominion, Richelieu never ceased to act upon this precept. Meanwhile, of course, the game was up, at any rate for the time being. Too unimportant to suffer Concini’s fate, the Bishop of Luçon followed the Queen Mother into exile. For the next four years the country was ruled by Luynes, a middle-aged country gentleman, for whom the young Louis had conceived the most intense affection and admiration, on account of his skill in falconry.
Father Joseph remained loyal to his exiled friend, and patiently awaited the opportunity to bring him back to power. For the time being, however, there was no hope for the Bishop of Luçon. Luynes hated and feared him for his ability, and to Louis he was repugnant as a creature of his mother’s ignoble favourite. Father Joseph bided his time and continued to work on his great project of the crusade. From the reports which came in from Nevers, who was visiting the various courts of Germany, and from his numerous ecclesiastical correspondents, he learned that his plan was winning a fair measure of approval among all except the Spaniards. He decided that it was time to make
