From the Dublin University Magazine.

ANNE OF AUSTRIA, AND VOLTAIRE.

was even carried so far as to ransack her kill him. He laughed, and disregarded the pockets, and to look under her neckhand- intelligence, as Cæsar neglected the augury kerchief. The most faithful domestics were respecting the ides of March. His nephew, torn away from her, some immured in dun- Lord Fielding, riding in company with him, geons, and others treated with savage bar- desired him to exchange doublets, and to let barity. On one of these trying occasions, him have his blue ribbon; and undertook when Richelieu himself superintended the to muffle himself up in such a manner that proceedings, she lost her habitual self-com- he should be mistaken for the Duke. The mand, and, bursting into an ecstasy of tears, Duke immediately caught him in his arms, exclaimed, "Monseigneur le Cardinal, Dieu saying that he could not accept of such an ne paye pas toutes les semaines, mais enfin il offer from a nephew whose life he valued as paye." ("My Lord Cardinal, God does not highly as his own. Yet the unbridled passettle his accounts with mankind every sions of Buckingham involved two great week, but at last he winds them up effectual-nations in war, and occasioned the loss of ly.") Yet this princess, in spite of the cruel treatment she received from Richelieu, was still so conscious of his great talents for legislation, that, on seeing a picture of him soon after she became regent of France, she remarked, "If Richelieu had lived till this time, he would have been more powerful than ever."

many thousand lives. Being sent to Paris with a complimentary embassy on the occasion of his master's marriage with Henrietta Maria, and to conduct the bride elect to England, he was bold enough to fall in love with the Queen of Louis XIII., and had the hardihood to declare himself, plainly, in an interview which he obtained by artifice. Nothing is more certain than that Anne The Marchioness de Senecy, lady of honor, of Austria treated the overtures of Richelieu who was present, thinking the conversation with contempt and derision. It is not so too long, placed herself in the Queen's armclear that she was equally deaf to George chair, who that day was in bed, only with a Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham, who, view of preventing the Duke from approachby his influence with two successive mon- ing too closely; and when she saw that he archs-James and Charles,-ruled over had entirely lost all self-command, and Great Britain as despotically as the Cardinal burst forth into the rhapsodies of a passiongoverned France. We are so accustomed ate lover, she interrupted him with a severe to associate with this celebrated favorite the look, saying, "Hold your tongue, sir, and idea of a worthless court-minion, swayed by remember that a Queen of France is not to caprice and evil passions, caring for nothing be spoken to in that strain.” This fact, but his own selfish pleasures, and regardless which seems somewhat romantic, is attested of the public interest, that we are scarcely by Giovanni Battista Nani, an Italian hisprepared for the eulogium pronounced on torian of good repute, who distinguished himhis character by a grave and conscientious self in an important mission from the Repubhistorian, Lord Clarendon, who, in a com-lic of Venice to the French Court. Madame parison between this nobleman and the Earl of Essex, observes, after praising the Duke's extreme affability and gentleness to all men, "He had, besides, such a tenderness and compassion in his nature, that such as think the laws dead if they are not severely executed, censured him for being too merciful; but his charity was grounded upon a wiser maxim of state: Non minus turpé principi multa supplicia, quam medico multa funera. He believed, doubtless, that hanging was the worst use man could be put to."* Buckingham, on his last fatal journey to Portsmouth, was intercepted on the road by an old woman, who told him she had heard some desperate persons vow to

de Motteville seems to confirm it in her Memoirs, for she says, that when the court went as far as Amiens, to accompany Madame Henrietta Maria, who was going to marry the King of England, the Duke of Buckingham found an opportunity to obtain a moment's private conversation with the Queen, during which that princess was obliged to exclaim and call for her equerry. She adds, also, that when the audacious envoy took leave of the Queen, he kissed her gown, and let fall some tears. According to this retailer of court gossip, it was Madame de Launay, and not the Marchioness de Senecy, who was seated near the Queen's bed, when the Duke, transported beyond reason with his passion, having left Henrietta Maria at Boulogne, came back under pretence of some forgotten affairs, but in reality to see her majesty. Other authorities say

of the frivolous gallantries of a favorite, and
of his childish caprices."

Soon after this, Richelieu laid siege to
Rochelle. The beleagured Huguenots sent
to England, imploring fresh assistance. Buck-
ingham, animated by the keenest stimulants

:

that the King, who, when the royal cortège
returned from the journey, was informed of
every minute transaction that had taken
place, and a great deal more which never
occurred, discharged several of the Queen's
servants, including her equerry, physician,
and secretary, Laporte, who has also contri-love and jealousy, and even more by the
buted some curious memoirs.
ambition of repairing his recent defeat, pre-
Richelieu, who received intelligence of all pared quickly a considerable fleet, which,
that happened within the court circle sooner had it been despatched at once, might have
than the King himself, conceived an inordi- destroyed the Cardinal's schemes, over-
nate jealousy of the pretensions of Bucking- thrown his great enterprise, and ruined his
ham, and before long made his rival feel the fortune. In this crisis, the Queen was com-
weight of his power. The Duke having pelled to use her individual influence, and to
shortly after got himself named to a second write to the Duke, begging of him to sus-
embassy for France, merely to have an op- pend his armament. He received the mis-
portunity of again pressing his suit to the sive with the obedience of a lover, counter-
Queen, he was peremptorily forbidden to set manded the sailing of the ships, and suffered
his foot within the kingdom. Hence the the glory of his antagonist to be consum-
succors granted by the English to the Hugue- mated by the conquest of Rochelle. Anne
nots of Rochelle. Nani, mentioned above, of Austria must have given some tokens that
says of this fact, "Richelieu and Bucking- the gallantry of Buckingham was not offen-
ham were appointed one against the other, sive to her, or Voiture would hardly have
barefacedly, for reasons kept so much more dared to allude to the subject in an im-
under secret as they were rash in themselves; promptu which he addressed to her when,
and afterwards the people had to pay out one day, seeing him walking alone in a gal-
of their pockets for the follies and quarrels lery of the palace, she asked him of what
of these two rivals." Hume, without hesi- he was thinking. The rhyming wit answer-
tation, ascribes the rupture between Eng-ed, without hesitation :-
land and France to the personal rivalship
of the two ministers. The jealousy of the
Cardinal became the more inflamed as he
knew the Duke had been seen and received
with favorable eyes. Our English historian
maintains that the apparent merit of Buck-
ingham made some impression on the Queer,
and created "that attachment of the soul
which conceals so many dangers under a
delicious surface." The list is almost endless,
of public calamities emanating from private
jealousy, where women are concerned, and
passion is seconded by power. The next
compiler should remember to include this
memorable instance in the amended catalogue.
Buckingham "swore a great oath" that
he would see the Queen, in spite of all the
power of France. Accordingly, he excited a
war, very much against the wishes of the
nation, the consequences of which neither
enabled him to fulfil his vow, nor add any
thing to his honor. Beaten in an attempt to
take the Isle of Rhé, and losing many of
his troops, he was compelled to return to
England, a baffled commander, and found
himself, in consequence, a little more hated
than he was before. The Parliament, already
A celebrated poet and litterateur of his day as
at variance with the King, spoke out plainly, master of the ceremonies to Gaston, Duke of Or-
He became
well as an accomplished courtier.
and expressed the most unqualified indigna-eans the King's brother.

"Je pensois (car nous autres poetes

Nous pensons extravagamment),
Ce que, dans l'humeur ou vous etes,
Vous fieriez, si dans ce moment
Vous avisiez en cette place
Venir le Duc de Buckingham;
Et lequel seroit en disgrace,

De lui, ou du Pere Vincent."†
Wherever Anne of Austria inspired love,
she was so unfortunate as to bring disaster
also, as in the earlier case of Mary of Scot-
land. The Marquis de Jarsay, who united
with his personal graces all the talents and
ornaments of the most accomplished mind,
and was, besides, a favorite of the great
Condé, was imprudent enough to suffer him-
self to be seized with a foolish penchant for
the Queen, and had the additional fatuity to
persuade himself that she looked upon him
with a partial eye. He was bold enough to
speak, even to write; and, in short, in a fit of
his frenetic passion, carried things so far as
to hide himself behind the curtains of her
majesty's bed. Full of indignation, she for-
bade him ever again to appear before her-

1

advice, never again to have a prime minister to rule over him.

The infant king was only four years and a half old when his mother commenced her Regency. The ceremony of her installation, according to the then existing forms, carried with it an air of inexpressible absurdity. A solemn bed of justice (the highest court held under the old French monarchy) was convened; the royal child was placed on an elevated throne, surrounded by all the magnates of the land; he was made to say, that he accorded the regency to his mother, and to go through a form of signing his name to a document. A chancellor on his knees re

aloud the express command of the king. Then all bent their heads and knees in token of obedience, the little puppet was carried away to the nursery, and the Queen assumed her seat. The farce seemed almost as preposterous as the elevation of Caligula's charger to the senate and consulship.

Richelieu, the bitter and persevering enemy of Anne of Austria, died in December, 1642. The King, Louis XIII., who was attacked by a mortal disease nearly at the same time, followed him to the grave in May, 1643. When on his death-bed, not having summoned the Queen to a parting adieu, she despatched Monsieur de Chavigny to demand pardon for all that had ever offended him in her conduct, and to implore him to believe that she had no participation in the conspiracy of Chalais against his life, and that she never contem-ceived the sovereign's ordinance, and repeated plated a marriage with his brother. Louis received her ambassador with coldness. "In the state to which I am reduced," said he, "it is my duty to pardon, but I cannot be lieve her." The Cardinal, though hated and feared, was admired in life, and remembered long after his death. The King, whom he had reduced to a nonentity, was forgotten According to Voltaire, Anne at the same almost before he was buried. As he disliked time made Mazarin master of France and of and despised his wife, he was determined, if herself. He had previously obtained tha possible, to leave her no power over his infant power over her which an artful man will readheir, and by his last will appointed a Regency,ily acquire over a woman, born without in which (although she was not totally excluded) her power was so limited as to be little bettter than nominal. But the monarch, who was ill obeyed when living, was not likely to be treated with much respect when numbered with the things which had been. His widow had interest enough to cause the will of her deceased husband to be annulled, within four and twenty hours after his death, by a decree of the parliament of Paris. She had the precedent of Mary de Medicis, who, after the death of Henry IV., had been declared unlimited regent during the minority of her

son.

The precedent was admitted, and custom, by which the Regency was bestowed on the King's mother, passed into a law almost as fundamental as the Salic ordinance by which women were excluded entirely from the succession. Riencourt, in his "History of Louis XIV.," says the will of Louis XIII. was confirmed in parliament for so much of it as related to the Queen being named in the Regency, but that portion was entirely abrogated which limited her authority, or encum bered with a council. Thus the only act of justice which this unamiable monarch, miscalled by strange perversion, Louis the Just, had ever executed, was set aside, while the evils he had done the state remained in full activity, and prepared the way for heavier calamities, under which the nation was doomed to suffer for the next century and a

strength sufficient to govern, yet with constancy enough to make a choice and persist in it.

Other memoirs state that Mazarin owed his elevation to the failure of Potier, Bishop of Beauvais, whom she had at first chosen for minister, but who broke down under the arduous office for want of capacity. He retained the name of minister for some time, that the nation might not be shocked too suddenly by an immediate choice of a duplicate cardinal, who was also a foreigner. But whatever might be the deficiencies of Potier, he could scarcely have been such a fool as to commence his short ministry by declaring to the Hollanders, that the only terms on which they could hope to continue in alliance with France would be by the entire nation becoming Roman Catholics. To have been consistent, he must have announced the same ultimatum to the Swedes. Yet grave historians have repeated this absurdity, and adopted it as a fact. So much for trusting popular reports, which are either invented altogether, or purposely exaggerated.

It is too difficult for decision to state what Mazarin was-all that posterity can be sure of is, what he did. At first he affected. moderation, and appeared with a retinue as modest as that of Richelieu had been ostentatious. He assumed, in his manner, affability and complaisance on all those occasions where his great predecessor had displayed