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1643-4]

Capture of Thionville.

Turenne

595

France? It must be reckoned to the credit of Mazarin that Enghien seldom failed to receive his full support and confidence until he had incurred suspicion through the rebellion of his relatives.

On

Mazarin saw the necessity for coöperation between the army of the Low Countries and that of the Rhine. As a preliminary step towards this end, he accepted Enghien's proposal to lay siege forthwith to Thionville (Diedenhofen) on the Moselle. The army of Champagne was ordered to assist. Guébriant was strengthened and commanded to give occupation to the Bavarians and other German forces in the south. June 14 the investment of Thionville began; but, before it was complete, a force of 2000 men contrived their entry and raised the garrison to adequate strength. The siege was vigorously pushed; and, in spite of accidents, Thionville was forced to capitulate on August 10. Sierck was then taken, and Enghien advanced even to the gates of Luxemburg. His task in this direction was now completed, and he availed himself of permission duly granted to return to Court. Had he waited a few days, orders would have reached him cancelling his leave and bidding him march to Guébriant's succour in Elsass. The time wasted in Paris was precious; and, when at length Enghien had joined Guébriant, handed over to him the requisite reinforcements, and sent him forth to find his winter-quarters elsewhere than in Elsass, winter had almost begun. Disaster and death came to Guébriant, and the Bernardines were left without a leader. Turenne was at once chosen to command the broken and demoralised army. It can hardly have been only good fortune that led Mazarin in his first year of power to choose for high command two generals so different in stamp from those employed by Richelieu. was certainly more than good fortune that caused him to use them and support them after their high qualities had been proved.

It

Older by ten years than Enghien, Henry de La Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, younger brother of the Duke of Bouillon, was at the head of a regiment in 1630, had recently held a command in Italy, and became Marshal of France in 1643. Patient, laborious, and thoughtful, Turenne attained by slow degrees the eminence which Enghien reached more rapidly. The task now before him was arduous. He had to restore order where all discipline had ceased, to reconstruct an army out of mutinous units, to conciliate the jealousy of the Bernardine captains. This work was not completed until the following June.

Meanwhile Mazarin had been gaining strength. At first he was regarded as a temporary stop-gap, and hardly taken seriously. The easy liberality of the Regency in its early months confirmed this opinion. A Government which refused nothing could not in the nature of things last long. Ambition saw an easy path to power. Even the Protestants seemed once more to be a danger; and the mission of Turenne to Italy had in part at least the object of removing from France their most illustrious leader. Their strength was, however, small, and their

596

Les Importants

[1643

grievances in reality slight; a little firmness and tact and the punctilious observance of the edicts allayed the disquiet. Personal ambitions were more dangerous. Condé and Orleans could be kept in check by playing off one against the other. But a clique was soon formed among those who had espoused the Queen's cause in the days when her friendship was perilous, and who now claimed the reward of their fidelity.

The head of this clique was the Duke of Beaufort. Vain, showy, and incapable, his ambitions were in direct proportion to his ignorance of affairs. All the malcontents gathered about him. His followers, SaintIbal, Montrésor, Béthune, and Fontrailles, pluming themselves upon their merit, received the name of Les Importants. Their object was no doubt to displace the Cardinal and open a fair field for the display of their own supposed capacity. They formed an alliance with the Bishop of Beauvais, who seemed most likely to supplant Mazarin in the Queen's confidence. They were hostile to Richelieu's heirs and Richelieu's agents. They drove from the Council the two Bouthilliers, thereby in fact removing from Mazarin's path two Ministers whose experience and ministerial record marked them as his rivals. But for the moment Mazarin seemed to stand almost alone, and his fall was daily expected. The Duchess of Chevreuse, that indefatigable intriguer, returned to Paris and counted on reassuming her former ascendancy over the Queen. She allied herself with Châteauneuf, in whom his contemporaries recognised high qualities and capacities, which he never had sufficient opportunity to prove. Her policy was reconciliation with Spain; and she remembered that the Queen was a Spaniard. She remembered also the treatment which she had received from Richelieu, and, by pressing the claims of the Vendôme family to Britanny, was preparing an alliance with Beaufort and a blow at her enemy's heirs.

Amid these intrigues Mazarin steered his way patiently and skilfully, steadily increasing his personal ascendancy over the Queen's mind. Owing to a quarrel with Madame de Longueville, Condé's beautiful daughter, the Duchess of Montbazon was ordered to leave the Court. The Duke of Beaufort, at that time her lover, resolved to avenge the insult to his mistress. In August, 1643, it would seem, he determined to attempt the assassination of the Cardinal. Several schemes having failed, the design became known; and the Duke of Beaufort was arrested on September 2 and imprisoned on the following day at Vincennes.

It seems probable that there was a plot; had there been none, it would still have been useful to invent one. With Beaufort in prison, the cabal of the Importants was easily scattered. Châteauneuf, Madame de Chevreuse, and the Vendôme family were banished from the Court; other supporters of the party retired, fled, or were disgraced. Mazarin felt himself strong enough to recall Chavigny to the Council. The Queen took up her residence at Richelieu's palace, henceforward known as the Palais-Royal, where she was constantly accessible from Mazarin's

1643-8]

Campaigns in Flanders and in Germany

597

own dwelling. This act marked the establishment between the Queen and her Minister of still more intimate relations. The remaining adherents of the Importants party were gradually dispersed or reduced to impotence. Mazarin even succeeded in procuring the recall of Goring, the British Ambassador, on account of his friendship with Madame de Chevreuse.

The summer of 1644 was devoted to a campaign such as Richelieu affected. An overwhelming force, commanded by Gaston of Orleans, undertook the siege of Gravelines, supported by the Dutch fleet. Enghien had only an inferior command, and had to be pacified by the gift of the government of Champagne. Meanwhile the Dutch were to undertake the siege of Sas-van-Gent. The siege of Gravelines was begun in May, and the town capitulated on July 28. Sas-van-Gent held out until September. When the fall of Gravelines appeared certain, Enghien was allowed to join Turenne; and the two generals advanced together against Mercy and fought the three vigorous actions in the neighbourhood of Freiburg (August). Mercy was forced to retreat; and the French armies, working down the Rhine, seized Philippsburg. Speier and Worms placed themselves under French protection; Mainz opened its gates; Landau was taken; and the whole of the left bank of the Rhine from Breisach to Coblenz was thus in the possession of France (September, 1644).

Though Orleans, when policy required his employment as a commander, followed on the old lines, wherever Enghien or Turenne commanded, bold and rapid movements, intrepid attacks, took the place of Richelieu's cautious strategy, his tedious sieges. This was even more evident in the following year, when the defeat of Turenne at Herbsthausen near Mergentheim was avenged by Enghien and Turenne near Nördlingen (August 3, 1645). The campaigns in Bavaria, 1646, 1647, and 1648, forced the Elector Maximilian first to temporise and finally to yield. These operations, described elsewhere, prove either that the generals had escaped from the control of the Government, or that the conduct of the war was no longer mainly regulated by the fears of the Minister for his own personal ascendancy. The latter is more probably the case. Mazarin was secure in the royal favour as Richelieu had never been; victories enhanced his credit; France and her Government needed peace; and peace could only be won by a vigorous offensive. Enghien, who in 1646 became by his father's death the Prince of Condé, was more dangerous in inactivity than at the head of victorious armies; Mazarin trusted his own influence and his own astuteness to defeat the claims of all possible rivals. Such may have been his calculations; yet the glory of these six years of almost unbroken success must in part belong to the Minister who was not afraid of victory.

In Flanders the summer of 1645 was devoted to another campaign under the Duke of Orleans. A number of places were seized in the

598 Conquests in Flanders. -The Dutch make peace [1645–8

direction of Dunkirk - Mardyk, Linck, Bourbourg; but the Duke did not venture to besiege Dunkirk itself, which was covered by Piccolomini. The French army then turned aside and occupied various strongholds on the Lys, among others Béthune. A separate army laid siege to one of the few uncaptured fortresses in Lorraine, La Mothe-en-Argonne, and took it. After the Duke of Orleans had left the front his lieutenants continued this petty warfare until late in the autumn. Lens, Orchies, and Arleux were occupied. Gassion even crossed Flanders between Ghent and Bruges and joined hands with the Dutch, who captured Hulst. However, the results of great efforts and expenditure during these two years were hardly adequate.

A different spirit pervaded the campaign of 1646. Political reasons suggested that the armies of the north should be divided. Orleans and Enghien received separate commands. But the two rivals united their forces and Enghien infused more energy into their joint operations. Courtrai was taken in the face of the united forces of Lorraine, Piccolomini, Beck, and Lamboy. The Dutch were beginning to be jealous of the French advance, and refused to coöperate in a joint campaign. After the recapture of Mardyk, lost during the previous winter, Orleans left the army and Enghien was in sole command. The difference was On September 19 the siege of Dunkirk was begun. This place was the chief arsenal of the Spaniards in these parts and the base of their maritime raids. The Dutch, whose desire to protect their commerce for the moment outweighed their fears of France, ordered Tromp to blockade the port while Enghien vigorously pushed the attack by land. On October 11 Dunkirk surrendered. The French frontier was thus moved forward in this direction to nearly its present line, including also Furnes and Courtrai, which now form part of Belgium.

The danger to Dutch trade from the possession of Dunkirk by the French, the proposal of France to exchange Catalonia for the Spanish Netherlands, the declining health of Frederick Henry and his death in March, 1647, all contributed to stimulate the Dutch desire for peace. Their coöperation in 1645-6 had been but slight; they now seriously prepared to treat. Though their Treaty of Münster was not concluded until January, 1648, it had been settled in principle more than a year before; and the year 1647 saw the French left alone in their northern struggle with Spain. In this year Louis de Bourbon, now Prince of Condé, was occupied in Catalonia, and Turenne was detained in Germany by the revolt of the Bernardine troops. France was exhausted, and the conquests of Dixmuyden in Flanders and La Bassée between Béthune and Lille were compensated by the loss of Menin, Armentières, and Landrecies. In October Gassion was killed at the siege of Lens. In 1648 Condé, recalled from Catalonia, was nominated to the command in Flanders. A final effort was to be made to extort peace. Ypres had been taken and Courtrai lost, when in July he was summoned to Paris in

1643-8]

Battle of Lens.

Catalonia

599

consequence of the opening troubles of the Fronde. Once more at the front, and joined by Erlach with 4000 men from the army of Breisach, he advanced to the relief of Lens, which he found had already surrendered to the Archduke Leopold. Retreating towards Béthune, he enticed the Spaniards to leave their entrenchments, and a general engagement followed according to his desire (August 20). The French army, though its right wing at first was roughly handled, was completely victorious. Both wings of the Spaniards were driven in flight. Beck was wounded and captured, refused all assistance, and died of his wounds. Leopold and Fuensaldaña fled to Douai. The Spanish infantry, no longer maintaining the tradition of those who had fallen at Rocroi, surrendered in thousands. The Spanish loss was 8000 men, 30 cannon, all their baggage, and 120 banners. Six days later Paris was in revolt. Many years were to pass before a similar victory was gained by the arms of France.

The great successes of France were won in fields where Condé or Turenne commanded. In Catalonia the occasional gains were outweighed by the repeated failures. In 1643 the whole of Catalonia, with the exception of Rosas and Tarragona, was in French hands. The war was to be vigorously pursued by land and sea. La Mothe Houdancourt commanded by land, the young Admiral de Brézé by sea. Brézé did his part. A fleet convoying provisions to Rosas was attacked and defeated with the loss of six vessels. A little later (September 3) the main fleet of Spain suffered a disastrous reverse off Carthagena, and the French became masters of the western Mediterranean. The complete conquest of Catalonia and perhaps further acquisitions seemed to be in sight. But La Mothe Houdancourt did nothing, laying the blame, as it would seem unjustly, on Michel Le Tellier, the Minister of War. The following year he was defeated before Lerida, which the Spaniards were besieging; and, when at length he undertook the siege of Tarragona, he was forced to raise it (September). The general was recalled, and Harcourt, with a brilliant record from Casale and Turin, was sent in his place. Siege was laid to Rosas (April 2, 1645), which at length, after a glorious resistance, capitulated (May 28). Fleix was lost, but afterwards recovered, and Balaguer surrendered after a prolonged investment (October 20). The discontent of the Catalans was for the moment appeased. Harcourt in May, 1646, laid siege to Lerida, and endeavoured to reduce the fortress by famine. But in November it was still holding out when the Spanish army attacked and surprised the French in their lines. Supplies were thrown into the beleaguered town; Harcourt was forced to raise the siege, abandoning his heavy artillery and his baggage. Catalan complaints broke out again; and, perhaps to show the province that France was in earnest, Condé himself was sent to take command as Viceroy.

But Catalonia was the grave of reputations. Condé determined to

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