Louis XIII, the Just

11. GOVERNMENTAL REVOLUTION

GOVERNMENTAL REVOLUTION !3 stunning as the coup d'etat of 11November 1630 was to Louis XIII's France, it was not an isolated event, but part of a broader historical process. The policies that had evolved during the first thirteen years of Louis XIII's personal rule continued during his last thirteen. What the Day of Dupes did alter was the degree and scope of political change. The king of France disciplined his family and court more than before; he whittled away more extensively at the autonomy and privileges of groups within the society of orders; and he pursued more foreign policy initiatives along previous antiHabsburg lines. This acceleration of the pre-1630 pace amounted to a governmental revolution, the outlines of which were clear by the time France began a twenty-fiveyear war with Spain in 1635.* The quickened pace of political change had no single overriding cause. An economic conjuncture of deep subsistence crisis, made worse by the acute lack of coinage to pay taxes, certainly intensified the conflict between sovereign and subjects over the same resources. Equally important were the basic social structure and popular mentalite of the realm, which assumed subjects' privileges to be inalienable rights, thus forcing monarchicaldemands to be couched in terms just as strong. Yethuman beings and their actions were more powerful in this drama than was the backdrop of conjuncture, structure, and mentalite. Center stage was held by the French people, who objected to war and taxes and controls, and their king, who was intent on doing what he thought was right for them, acting on the adviceof 220 11 A Governmental Revolution 221 an improvising minister. The drama did not follow a prepared script, nor did it have a preordained final act. First on LouisXIII's mind was what to do with his mostrecalcitrant subjects: Marie de' Medici, Gaston d'Orleans, and Anne of Austria. He still wanted his mother to get along with his advisor; he wanted his only brother to make something of his life; and he wanted to be a good husband and produce an heir. He also did not want to see the three of them act as a unit. This was a formidable family agenda, even with the psychological advantages derived from the coup d'etat of November. During the first weeks after the Day of Dupes, the king tried personal diplomacy. In summit meetings involving Marie, their mutual confessor, Suffren, Richelieu, and sometimes Gaston and Anne, Louis persuaded his mother to resume attendance at council meetings . Marie remained sullenly silent in council, however, refusing to look at the cardinal. Rumors reached the king that the remnants of the devot party were still influencing her. Meanwhile, Louis persuaded Gaston, in Richelieu's presence, to "love, assist, and protect M. le cardinal de Richelieu on all occasions, in accordance with the wishes of the king." Louis also made it clear to Queen Anne that he was unhappy with the moral support she had given her mother-in-law on the Day of Dupes. And he kept his eyes on Marie's friend and Anne's lady-in-waiting, Mme du Fargis, who had urged the queen to oppose Richelieu.2 Louis was very open in his battles. When Marie first came to see him at St-Germain on 19November, he told her that he would "honor and serve her always as he should, but that he [was] obliged to maintain the cardinal to the death."3 Twodays later, he launched into an impromptu speech to delegates from the high tribunals of Paris, who had come to confer over the renewal of the paulette. He made his points with breathtaking directness: "He had done all he could to prevent the violence of the queen, his mother, and he would always bear all sorts of respect toward her. But because M. le cardinal had served him so well and faithfully both inside and outside the kingdom , he was resolved to employ his services more than ever; and to protect him before all and against all."4 Marie assumed that Richelieu had dictated this speech. In truth, the cardinal was not privy to it, and he later bewailed the king's undiplomatic words on his behalf to Bullion. The cardinal desperately wanted to be reconciled with the queen mother. Her coldness had left him "so plunged in gloom," Bullion wrote, "that he is no longer rec- 222 French...