As a mere observer, he was able to act and speak with a freedom that would have been impossible in an ambassador; as the right-hand man of Cardinal Richelieu, he was listened to with an attention and a deference which a mere civil servant, like Brulart, could not command. From the General of the Capuchins Father Joseph had received an’ obedience’ which permitted him so far to infringe the rules of his order as to ride in a carriage and handle money. Armed with this and his letters of credence, he rejoined Brulart in Switterland, where the latter had been acting as French ambassador, and together, in the month of July 1630, they set out with all the pomp befitting a King’s representative, for Ratisbon.
There was not much active fighting going on at the moment and, as there was still something to eat in southern Germany, Wallenstein had established his headquarters at Memmingen, about half-way between Augsburg and the Swiss frontier. Hearing of the approach of the French envoy and his interesting companion, the commander of the imperial army drove out of the town to meet them, accompanied by ‘eighteen coaches, filled with princes, dukes and palatines of Hungary and Bohemia.’
One can imagine the scene on that hot July afternoon: trains of coaches halted in the dusty road; the coming and going, between ambassador and generalissimo, of emissaries to discuss the delicate and, for seventeenth century noblemen, infinitely important question of precedence; the happy solution of the problem by a decision that both parties should alight simultaneously and greet one another at a point exactly half-way between the two foremost carriages; then the solemn approach and beautifully stylized salutation -the low bow, with the right foot advanced and pointed slightly outwards in the first position of the dance, the elaborate flourish of the plumed hat, followed by the handshake, the few well-chosen words, the enormous compliments.
And when the two protagonists have gone through their ritual, there is a similar baroque exchange of courtesies between Brulart’s suite and the eighteen carriage-loads of princes, dukes and palatines. In the background, meanwhile, conspicuously grey and tattered in the midst of so much crimson velvet, so much lace and jewelry, stands the Capuchin, his bare horny feet sunk in the dust. To those who salute him, he inclines his head and raises his right hand in benediction. When Wallenstein invites him to join the ambassador and himself in his huge gilded coach, Father Joseph protests that the honour is too great; but the general insists, and in the end he climbs in after the others, and away they roll towards Memmingen and an official banquet, of which it will be impossible for him to partake as he is in the midst of one of his four annual Lents. Next day, during a lull in the festivities, Wallenstein invited the friar to his quarters for a long confidential talk, the gist of which was communicated to the Cardinal in Father Joseph’s next dispatch.
It was an interesting conversation and one which any casual eavesdropper would have found extremely odd. For what the two men chiefly discussed was Byzantium and the Holy Places, Turkish power and joint expeditions from the West. Not since those happy days with the Duke of Nevers and Paul V had Father Joseph had the joy of talking crusades with so ardent an enthusiast. Wallenstein was as keen to smash the infidels as St. Louis had been, albeit, as Father Joseph came little by little to discover, not for quite the same reasons. For one who had been sent to school, first with the Moravians, then with the Jesuits, who had exchanged Lutheranism for Romanism out of personal interest, and who believed with conviction only in astrology, the triumph of the Church Militant was not of the smallest interest. Crusading, for Wallenstein, was merely an excuse for the Drang nach Osten.
That he talked of his vast projects in terms of the Cross and Crescent was merely a historical accident and a matter of convenience. If steam engines had existed in the seventeenth century, he would have talked just as enthusiastically about the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway. His ambition was to create a great federated empire, stretching from the Baltic to the Bosphorus and beyond, into Asia Minor and Syria. Such an empire could be ruled either by the Hapsburgs, with himself, Albrecht von Wallenstein, as their generalissimo and mayor of the palace, or else (and at this point that dark and horribly sinister face of his, the face of a bloated Mephistopheles, the face of a devil who is not a gentleman, lit up with inward exultation as he leaned confidentially towards the friar) or else why not? -by Albrecht von Wallenstein himself ruling in his own name, by virtue of an irresistible military force.
Coming as they did from the Emperor’s commander-in-chief, and addressed as they were to the man who was travelling to Ratisbon, among other reasons, for the express purpose of undermining Wallenstein’s position with the Emperor, these remarks were, to say the least of it, surprising. But along with his cunning and caution, Wallenstein had the recklessness of one who knows that all things are predestined, that fate is written in the stars and cannot be changed. Let them all know what he planned-Emperor, Cardinal, Pope, King of Spain, the whole lot of them I What did it matter, so long as, from their heavenly houses, the planets looked down on him with favour?
From crusades the conversation shifted, by way of the Palaeologi, to Mantua; and with the same astonishing frankness Wallenstein declared himself entirely opposed to the Hapsburg policy in Italy. He knew Nevers and liked him; besides, as the last of the Palaeologi, the man might come in useful one day. And anyhow, it was senseless for the Emperor to add to his troubles by going to war with France over a piddling little duchy that mattered to nobody except the Spaniards. In these sentiments Father Joseph most heartily concurred and went on to express the hope that His Highness would do all he could to bring His Imperial Majesty to the same opinion.
Not that Wallenstein would have much time or opportunity to influence the Emperor, he reflected inwardly; for he felt pretty certain of being able to persuade the Electors to force the general’s resignation. Which was a pity in some ways; for Wallenstein would be a most useful ally in the Mantuan affair. But mean; while Gustavus Adolphus was already on German soil, and it was essential that before the campaign started, the imperial armies should be weakened by the loss of their commander. Later on, perhaps, when the King of Sweden had done his work, Wallenstein might be called back to power, might be encouraged in his wild ambitions for personal rule-encouraged just sufficiently to make him a paralysing embarrassment to the Emperor, but not enough, of course, to permit him to become the military dictator of all the Germanies.
Refreshed and considerably enlightened by his stay at Memmingen, Father Joseph drove on with Brulart and their following to Ratisbon, where the Diet was already in session. The Emperor and the five Catholic Electors were present in person; the two Protestant Electors had sent only their representatives. To his surprise-for he persisted in regarding himself as what in fact he was in private life, a humble Capuchin friar -Father Joseph found himself the man most talked about, most in view, most generally notorious in all Ratisbon.
Six years of close association with Richelieu had given him already an international reputation. Every well-informed person in Europe had heard of the bare-footed friar who had left his convent to become the collaborator of the most astute and, so far as Hapsburg sympathizers were concerned, the most dangerous politician of his century. Universally known, Father Joseph was almost universally reprobated. This follower of St. Francis who had betrayed the Lady Poverty to live among princes, this dedicated servant of the Church who had conspired with the heretics to thwart the Counter Reformation what was he but a renegade, an enemy of God and man? At Ratisbon, Father Joseph discovered for the first time what his contemporaries thought of him. The first revelation came to him one day, early in the proceedings, when he had gone to pay his respects on Tilly, the old general to whom, in the Turciad, he had devoted two graceful lines of praise:
“Tilli, etenim te nostra canet testudo, nee unquam
Egregium nomen gelidi teget umbra sepulcri.”20
The compliment had been penned at a time when Father Joseph was still an ardent imperialist; now that he had become convinced that Hapsburg power must be destroyed, if true religion, under Bourbon leadership, was to flourish, he would have written rather differently. But whatever his present opinions of Tilly, etiquette demanded that he should call on him. When the interview was over, Tilly accompanied his guest to the door of the reception room, and from there the friar was escorted by a group of the general’s aides to the foot of the steps leading into the street. On the way out, one of the gentlemen called de Flame turned to the friar, asked him if he was really Father Joseph and, on receiving
