Louis XIII, the Just

10. ALAIS, MANTUA, AND THE DAY OF DUPES

10 ALAIS, MANTUA, AND THE DAY OF DUPES hree months after subduing La Rochelle, Louis XIII embarked on one of the most daring exploits of his life. In the dead of winter, against the objections of his family and the devots, he led thirty-five thousand foot soldiers and three thousand cavalry across the snow-driven Alps to fight Savoy, Spain, and the German emperor on behalf of the new duke of Mantua. He then reentered southern France and took the last fortified towns of the French Protestants. This whirlwind campaign of 1629 destroyed the Huguenot state within the state, and opened the first of France's "gates" beyond its borders. (See Appendix, map 3.) There was a storm of protest. Devots were aghast at the end product of the Wars of Religon, for the royally imposed "Grace of Alais" permitted the continuation of Protestant worship in local Huguenot communities, even as it dictated the dismantling of all remaining Protestant fortifications. The devots were more horrified still that their Catholic king and his cardinal-minister had made rivalry with Catholic states a top priority. Tensions became unbearable in 1630, the year of the grand orage, or "great storm." Louis mounted a second rescue mission for Mantua, fell deathly ill, and then fended off a personal assault on his mode of governance, led by the queen mother, that became known as the Day of Dupes. The Day of Dupes! The very words suggest a fundamental turning point in Louis XIII's reign, and in French and European history. For on 11November 1630, a beleaguered king chose definitively between 199 T 200 French Absolutism in the Making his mother and his chief minister; between the devot program and a bon Francois one; and between external peace and sweeping internal reform on the one hand and unceasing foreign war with the Habsburgs on the other. What new perspective can we give to this famous denouement of the Grace of Alais and the Mantuan War? Louis's court understood the main features of the personal drama between Marie and Richelieu. Modern scholarship has added its understanding of the underlying conflict between two plausible policies.1 Yetthis historical whodunit still has some mystery. We know little of the person in the middle who made the ultimate decisions on 11 November. It is time to find out where Louis XIII stood on the issues of 1629-30.2 Was the king caught between equally unflattering alternatives of caving in to his mother or following his chief minister's will? Historians think so, but that is an assumption. Did he have doubts about the policies he was pursuing during the preceding two years? Louis's recent biographer, echoing the greatest historians of the period, represents the scholarly consensus: "For his part, the king clearly leaned towards the solutions advocated by Richelieu, but his extraordinarily scrupulous conscience was not yet irrevocablycommitted, and we can say that right up to 11 November 1630 there was a constant conflict between the two policies."3 To the contrary, Louis's policy stands were remarkably consistent from the moment he decided to take on the latest challenge by the Habsburgs, in tandem with a knockout blow against the Huguenots. The king was fortunate that the Mantuan succession crisis did not break until his siege of La Rochellewas well under way. As it was, by the time the siege ended Louis had his hands full. The new Mantuan ruler was a subject of the French king, the duke of Nevers; his succession was disputed by the duke of Savoy, king of Spain, and Holy Roman Emperor. Spanish forces were already closing in on the key Mantuan town of Casale. The strategy devised by Louis and Richelieu was to take the royal army close enough to Savoy to intimidate the Mantuan duke's enemies into lifting the siege of Casale, after which they could besiege the southern Huguenots' remainingfortified towns. Part of the plan was for king and cardinal to lead the way, as they had at LaRochelle. At a fierce council debate sometime in December 1628,4 the personality and policy conflicts that would characterize the next two years were already evident. Marie de' Medici's position stemmed more from personal pique than from political convictions. She was a Alois, Mantua, and the Day of Dupes 201 disruptive force, nonetheless. Marie was dead set against aid to the new duke of...