The whole Court went to Vaux on the 17th August, 1661.[70]
These festivities exasperated Louis XIV. "Ah, Madame," he said to his mother, "shall we not make all these people disgorge?" Infallible signs announced the approaching catastrophe. In his Council, the King proposed to suppress those very orders to pay cash which served, as we have said, to cover the secret expenditure of the Superintendents. The Chancellor strongly supported the proposal. "Do I count for nothing, then?" cried Foucquet indiscreetly. Then he suddenly corrected himself and said that other ways would be found to provide for the secret expenses of the State. "I myself will provide for them," said Louis XIV. Nevertheless, Foucquet, though deprived of the gown, was still a formidable enemy. Before he could be reduced his Breton strongholds must be captured. The prudent King had thought of this, and presently conceived a clever scheme. As there was need of money, it was resolved to increase the taxation of the State domains. This impost, described euphemistically as a gratuitous gift, was voted by the Provincial Assemblies. The presence of the King seemed necessary in order to determine the Breton Estates to make a great financial sacrifice, and Foucquet himself advised the King to go to Nantes, where the Provincial Assembly was to be held.[71]Foucquet himself helped to bring about his own ruin. At Nantes he had a sorrowful presentiment of this. He was suffering from an intermittent fever, the attacks of which were very weakening. "Why," he said, in a low voice to Brienne, "is the King going to Brittany, and to Nantes in particular? Is it not in order to make sure of Belle-Isle?" And several times in his weakness he murmured: "Nantes, Belle-Isle!" When Brienne went out, he embraced him with tears in his eyes.[72]
The King arrived at Nantes on the ist of September, and took up his abode at the Château. Foucquet had his lodging at the other end of the town, in a house which communicated with the Loire by means of a subterranean passage. In that way he could reach the river, where a boat was waiting for him, and escape to Belle-Isle.
Summoned by the King, on the 5th September, at seven o'clock in the morning, he went to the Council Meeting, which was prolonged until eleven o'clock. During this time meticulous measures were taken for his arrest, and for the seizure of his papers. The Council over, the King detained Foucquet to discuss various matters with him. Finally, he dismissed him, and Foucquet entered his chair. Having passed through the gate of the Château, he had entered a little square near the Cathedral, when D'Artagnan, 2nd Lieutenant of the Company of Musketeers, signed to him to get out. Foucquet obeyed, and D'Artagnan read him the warrant for his arrest. The Superintendent expressed great surprise at this misfortune, and asked the officer to avoid attracting public attention. The latter took him into a house which was near at hand; it was that of the Archdeacon of Nantes, whose niece had been Foucquet's first wife. A cup of broth was given to the prisoner; the papers he had on him were taken and sealed. In one of the King's coaches he was conveyed to the Château d'Angers. There he remained for three months, from the 7th of September to the 1st of December.
Meanwhile his prosecution was being prepared. Certain letters from women, found in a casket at Saint-Mandé, were taken to Fontainebleau, and given to the King. They combined a great deal of gallantry with a great deal of politics. Many women's names were to be read in them, or guessed at. Madame Scarron's was mentioned and even Madame de Sévigné's, but in an innocent connection. On the whole, only one woman, Menneville, was shown to be guilty.
Foucquet was removed from Angers to Saumur. Taken on the 2nd of December to La Chapelle-Blanche, he lodged on the 3rd in a suburb of Tours, and from the 4th to the 25th of December remained in the Château d'Amboise. Shortly after Foucquet's departure, La Fontaine, in company with his uncle, Jannart, who had been exiled to Limousin, halted below the Château and swept his eyes over the fair and smiling valley.
"All this," he said, "poor Monsieur Foucquet could never, during his imprisonment here, enjoy for a single moment. All the windows of his room had been blocked up, leaving only a little gap at the top. I asked to see him; a melancholy pleasure, I admit, but I did ask. The soldier who escorted us had no key, so that I was left for a long time gazing at the door, and I got them to tell me how the prisoner was guarded. I should like to describe it to you, but the recollection is too painful.
Qu'est-il besoin que je retraceUne garde au soin non pareil,Chambre murée, étroite place,Quelque peu d'air pour toute grâce;Jours sans soleil,Nuits sans sommeil;Trois portes en six pieds d'espace!Vous peindre un tel appartement,Ce serait attirer vos larmes;Je l'ai fait insensiblement,Cette plainte a pour moi des charmes.
Nothing but the approach of night could have dragged me from the spot."[73]
On the 31st December, Foucquet reached Vincennes. As he passed he caught sight of his house at Saint-Mandé, in which he had collected all that can flatter and adorn life, and which he was never again to inhabit. He was, indeed, to remain in the Bastille until after his condemnation; that is to say, for more than three years; and he left that fortress only to suffer an imprisonment of which the protracted severity has become a legend.
The public anger was now loosed upon the stricken financier. The people whose poverty had been insulted by his ostentatious display wished to snatch him from his guards and tear him to pieces in the streets. Several times during the journey from Nantes, D'Artagnan had been obliged to protect his prisoner from riotous mobs of peasants. In the higher classes of society the indignation was fully as bitter, although it was only expressed in words.
Society never forgave Foucquet for having allowed his love-letters to be seized. It was considered that to keep and classify women's letters in this manner was not the act of a gallant gentleman. Such was the opinion of Chapelain, who wrote to Madame de Sévigné:
"Was it not enough to ruin the State, and to render the King odious to his people by the enormous burdens which he imposed upon them, and to employ the public finances in impudent expenditure and insolent acquisitions, which were compatible neither with his honour nor with his office, and which, on the other hand, rather tended to turn his subjects and his servants against him, and to corrupt them? Was it necessary to crown his irregularities and his crimes, by erecting in his own honour a trophy of favours, either real or apparent, of the modesty of so many ladies of rank, and by keeping a shameful record of his commerce with them in order that the shipwreck of his fortunes should also be that of their reputations?
"Is this consistent with being, I do not say an upright man, in which capacity, his flatterers, the Scarrons, Pellissons and Sapphos, and the whole of that self-interested scum have so greatly extolled him, but a man merely, a man with a spark of enlightenment, who professes to be something better than a brute? I cannot excuse such scandalous, dastardly behaviour, and I should be hardly less enraged with this wretch if your name had not been found among his papers."[74]
We can admire such generous indignation, but it is hard to be called "self-interested scum" when one is merely faithful in misfortune.
The truth is that Foucquet still had friends; the women and the poets did not abandon him. Hesnault, to whom he had given a pension, was not a favourite of the Muses, but he showed himself a man of feeling, and his courageous fidelity did him credit. He attacked Colbert in an eloquent sonnet, which was circulated everywhere by the prisoner's friends:
Ministre avare et lâche, esclave malheureux,Qui gémis sous le poids des affaires publiques,Victime dévouée aux chagrins politiques,Fantôme révéré sous un titre onéreux:Vois combien des grandeurs le comble est dangereux;Contemple de Foucquet les funestes reliques,Et tandis qu'à sa perte en secret tu t'appliques,Crains qu'on ne te prépare un destin plus affreux!Sa chute, quelque jour, te peut être commune;Crains ton poste, ton rang, la cour et la fortune;Nul ne tombe innocent d'où l'on te voit monté.Cesse donc d'animer ton prince à son supplice,Et près d'avoir besoin de toute sa bonté,Ne le fais pas user de toute sa justice.
This sonnet was circulated privately. It was generally read with pleasure, for Colbert was not liked, and it will not be inappropriate to cite here an anecdote for which Bayle is responsible.[75]
When the sonnet was mentioned to the Minister, he asked: "Is the King offended by it?" And when he was told that he was not, "Then neither am I," he said, "nor do I bear the author any ill will."
If Molière kept silence, Corneille, on the contrary, now gave proof of his greatness of soul; by praising Pellisson's fidelity, he showed that he shared it:
En vain pour ébranler ta fidèle constance,On vit fondre sur toi la force et lat puissance;En vain dans la Bastille, on t'accabla de fers,En vain on te flatta sur mille appas divers;Ton grand cœur, inflexible aux rigueurs, aux caresses,Triompha de la force et se rit des promesses;Et comme un grand rocher par l'orage insultéDes flots audacieux méprise la fierté,Et, sans craindre le bruit qui gronde sur sa tête,Voit briser à ses pieds l'effort de la tempête,C'est ainsi, Pellisson, que dans l'adversité,Ton intrépide cœur garde sa fermeté,Et que ton amitié, constante et généreuse,Du milieu des dangers sortit victorieuse.
Poor Loret found it difficult at first to collect his bewildered wits and relate the catastrophe. It was a terrible affair; he didn't know much about it, and he says still less. But, far from accusing the fallen Minister, he was inclined to pity and esteem him. This was courageous; and his bad verses were a kind action:
Notre Roi, qui par politiqueSe transportait vers l'Amorique,Pour raisons qu'on ne savait pas,S'en revient, dit-on, à grands pas.Je n'ai su par aucun messageLes circonstances du voyage:Mais j'ai du bruit commun appris,C'est-à-dire de tout Paris,Que par une expresse ordonnance,Le sieur surintendant de FranceJe ne sais pourquoi ni comment,Est arrêté présentement(Nouvelles des plus surprenantes)Dans la ville et château de Nantes,Certes, j'ai toujours respectéLes ordres de Sa MajestéEt crû que ce monarque augusteNe commandait rien que de juste;Mais étant rémemoratifQue cet infortuné captifM'a toujours semblé bon et sageEt que d'un obligeant langageIl m'a quelquefois honoré,J'avoue en avoir soupiré,Ne pouvant, sans trop me contraindre,Empêcher mon cœur de le plaindre.Si, sans préjudice du Roi(Et je le dis de bonne foi)Je pouvais lui rendre serviceEt rendre son sort plus propiceEn adoucissant sa rigueur,Je le ferais de tout mon cœur;Mais ce seul désir est frivole,Et prions Dieu qu'il le console.En l'état qu'il est aujourd'hui,C'est tout ce que je puis pour lui.[76]
In time poor Loret did more; he tried to deny his benefactor's crimes. "I doubt half of them," he said in the execrable style of the rhyming Gazetteer:[77]
Et par raison et par pitié,Et même pour la conséquenceJe passe le tout sous silence.
Pellisson was admirable. He wrote from the Bastille, where he was imprisoned, eloquent defences in which, neglecting his own cause, he sought only to justify Foucquet. His defence followed the same lines as that of Foucquet himself. He pleaded the necessities of France, the need of provisioning and equipping her armies and of fortifying her strongholds. He imagined a case in which Mazarin himself might have been criticized for the means by which he had procured money for the war and ensured victory. "In all conscience," he said, "what man of good sense could have advised him to reply in other than Scipio's words: 'Here are my accounts: I present them but only to tear them up. On this day a year ago I signed a general peace, and the contract of the King's marriage, which gave peace to Europe. Let us go and celebrate this anniversary at the foot of the altar.'"[78]
Mademoiselle de Scudéry distinguished herself by her zeal on behalf of her friend, formerly so powerful, and now so unfortunate. Pecquet, whom the Superintendent had chosen as his doctor, in order that he might discourse with him on physics and philosophy, the learned Jean Pecquet, was inconsolable at having lost so good a master. He used to say that Pecquet had always rhymed, and always would rhyme with Foucquet.[79]
As for La Fontaine, all know how his fidelity, rendered still more touching by his ingenuous emotions and the spell of his poetry, adorns and defends the memory of Nicolas Foucquet to this very day. Nothing can equal the divine complaint in which the truest of poets grieved over the disgrace of his magnificent patron.
ÉLÉGIE[80]Remplissez l'air de cris en vos grottes profondes,Pleurez, nymphes de Vaux, faites croître vos ondes;Et que l'Anqueil[81]enflé ravage les trésorsDont les regards de Flore ont embelli vos bords.On ne blâmera point vos larmes innocentes,Vous pourrez donner cours à vos douleurs pressantes;Chacun attend de vous ce devoir généreux:Les destins sont contents, Oronte est malheureux[82]
"In a letter written under the name of M. de la Visclède, to the permanent secretary of the Academy of Pau, in 1776, Voltaire," says M. Marty-Laveaux, "quotes these verses, and adds: 'He (La Fontaine) altered the wordCabalewhen he had been made to realize that the great Colbert was serving the King with great equity, and was not addicted to cabals. But La Fontaine had heard some one make use of the term, and had fully believed that it was the proper word to use.'"
Vous l'avez vu naguère au bord de vos fontaines,Qui sans craindre du sort les faveurs incertaines,Plein d'éclat, plein de gloire, adoré des mortels,Recevait des honneurs qu'on ne doit qu'aux autels.
Hélas! qu'il est déchu de ce bonheur suprême!Que vous le trouverez différent de lui-même!Pour lui les plus beaux jours sont de secondes nuits,Les soucis dévorans, les regrets, les ennuis,Hôtes infortunés de sa triste demeure,En des gouffres de maux le plongent à toute heureVoilà le précipice où l'ont enfin jetéLes attraits enchanteurs de la prospérité!Dans les palais des Rois cette plainte est commune;On n'y connaît que trop les jeux de la fortune,Ses trompeuses faveurs, ses appas inconstants:Mais on ne les connaît que quand il n'est plus temps,Lorsque sur cette mer on vogue à pleines voiles,Qu'on croit avoir pour soi les vents et les étoiles.Il est bien malaisé de régler ses désirs;Le plus sage s'endort sur la foi des zéphirs.Jamais un favori ne borne sa carrière,Il ne regarde point ce qu'il laisse en arrière;Et tout ce vain amour des grandeurs et du bruitNe le saurait quitter qu'après l'avoir détruit.Tant d'exemples fameux que l'histoire en raconteNe suffisaient-ils pas sans la perte d'Oronte?Ah! si ce faux éclat n'eût point fait ses plaisirs,Si le séjour de Vaux eût borné ses désirsQu'il pouvait doucement laisser couler son âge!Vous n'avez pas chez vous ce brillant équipage,Cette foule de gens qui s'en vont chaque jourSaluer à longs flots le soleil de la cour:Mais la faveur du ciel vous donne en récompenseDu repos, du loisir, de l'ombre et du silence,Un tranquille sommeil, d'innocents entretiens,Et jamais à la cour on ne trouve ces biens.Mais quittons ces pensers, Oronte nous appelle.Vous, dont il a rendu la demeure si belle,Nymphes, qui lui devez vos plus charmants appas,Si le long de vos bords Louis porte ses pas,Tâchez de l'adoucir, fléchissez son courage;Il aime ses sujets, il est juste, il est sage;Du titre de clément, rendez-le ambitieux;C'est par là que les Rois sont semblables aux dieux.Du magnanisme Henri[83]qu'il contemple la vie;Dès qu'il put se venger, il en perdit l'envie.Inspirez à Louis cette même douceur:La plus belle victoire est de vaincre son cœur.Oronte est à présent un objet de clémence;S'il a cru les conseils d'une aveugle puissance,Il est assez puni par son sort rigoureux,Et c'est être innocent que d'être malheureux.[84]
La Fontaine, not satisfied with this poem, addressed an ode to the King on Foucquet's behalf. But the ode is far from equalling the elegy.
... Oronte seul, ta creature,Languit dans un profond ennui,Et les bienfaits de la natureNe se répandent plus sur lui.Tu peux d'un éclat de ta foudreAchever de le mettre en poudre;Mais si les dieux à ton pouvoirAucunes bornes n'ont prescrites,Moins ta grandeur a de limites,Plus ton courroux en doit avoir.. . . . . . .Va-t-en punir l'orgueil du Tibre;Qu'il se souvienne que ses loisN'ont jadis rien laissé de libreQue le courage des Gaulois.Mais parmi nous sois débonnaire:A cet empire si sévèreTu ne te peux accoutumer;Et ce serait trop te contraindre:Les étrangers te doivent craindre,Tes sujets te veulent aimer.
These verses refer to the attack made by the Corsicans on the Guard of Alexander VII, who, on the 20th August, 1667, fired on the coach of the Due de Créqui, the French Ambassador.
L'amour est fils de la clémence,La clémence est fille des dieux;Sans elle toute leur puissanceNe serait qu'un titre odieux.Parmi les fruits de la victoire,César environné de gloireN'en trouva point dont la douceurA celui-ci pût être égale,Non pas même aux champs où PharsaleL'honora du nom de vainqueur.. . . . . . .Laisse-lui donc pour toute grâceUn bien qui ne lui peut durer,Après avoir perdu la placeQue ton cœur lui fit espérer.Accorde-nous les faibles restesDe ses jours tristes et funestes,Jours qui se passent en soupirs:Ainsi les tiens filés de soiePuissent se voir comblés de joie,Même au delà de tes désirs.[85]
La Fontaine submitted this ode to Foucquet, who sent it back to him with various suggestions. The prisoner requested that the reference to Rome should be suppressed. Doubtless he did not understand it, not having heard in prison of the attack upon the French Ambassador at the Papal Court.[86]He also disapproved of the allusion to the clemency of the victor of Pharsalia. "Cæsar's example," he said, "being derived from antiquity would not, I think, be well enough known." He also noted a passage—which I do not know—"as being too poetical to please the King." The last suggestion speaks of a true nobility of mind. It refers to the last passage, in which the poet implores the King to grant the life of "Oronte." Foucquet wrote in the margin: "You sue too humbly for a thing that one ought to despise."
La Fontaine did not willingly give in on any of these points; to the last suggestion he replied as follows: "The sentiment is worthy of you, Monsignor, and, in truth, he who regards life with such indifference does not deserve to die. Perhaps you have not considered that it is I who am speaking, I who ask for a favour which is dearer to us than to you. There are no terms too humble, too pathetic and too urgent to be employed in such circumstances. When I bring you on to the stage, I shall give you words which are suitable to the greatness of your soul. Meanwhile permit me to tell you that you have too little affection for a life such as yours is."
It was in the month of November only that a Chamber was instituted by Royal Edict with the object of instituting financial reforms, and of punishing those who had been guilty of maladministration. Foucquet was to appear before this Chamber. It met solemnly in the month of December. The greater part of it was composed of Members of the Parliament, but it also included Members of the Chambre des Comptes, the Cour des Aides, the Grand Council and the Masters of Requests. The magistrates who composed it were, to mention those only who sat in it as finally constituted:
The Chancellor Pierre Séguier, first President of the Parliament of Paris, who presided; Guillaume de Lamoignon, deputy president; the President de Nesmond; the President de Pontchartrain; Poncet, Master of Requests; Olivier d'Ormesson, Master of Requests; Voysin, Master of Requests; Besnard de Réze, Master of Requests; Regnard, Catinat, De Brillac, Fayet, Councillors in the Grand Chamber of the Paris Parliament; Massenau, Councillor in the Toulouse Parliament; De la Baulme, of the Grenoble Parliament; Du Verdier, of the Bordeaux Parliament; De la Toison, of the Dijon Parliament; Lecormier de Sainte-Hélène, of the Rouen Parliament; Raphélis de Roquesante, of the Aix Parliament; Hérault, of the Rennes Parliament; Noguès, of the Pau Parliament; Ferriol, of the Metz Parliament; De Moussy, of the Paris Chambre des Comptes; Le-Bossu-le-Jau, of the Paris Chambre des Comptes; Le Féron, of the Cour des Aides; De Baussan, of the Cour des Aides; Cuissotte de Gisaucourt, of the Grand Council; Pussort, of the Grand Council.
It must be recognized that the creation of such a Chamber of Justice was in conformity with the rules of the public law as it then existed. Had not Chalais and Marillac, Cinq-Mars and Thou, been judged by commissions of Masters of Requests and Councillors of the Parliament? And, if our sense of legality is wounded when we behold the accusing Monarch himself choosing the judges of the accused man, we must remember this maxim was then firmly established: "All justice emanates from the King." By this very circumstance the Chamber of Justice of 1661 was invested with very extensive powers; it became the object of public respect, and of the public hopes, for the poor, deeming it powerful, attributed to it the power of helping the wretched populace, after it had punished those who robbed them.
Such illusions are very natural, and one may wonder whether any government would be possible if unhappy persons did not, from day to day, expect something better on the morrow.
Thus the tribunal constituted by the King was no unrighteous tribunal; yet there was no security in it for the accused. He was apparently ruined. Condemned beforehand by the King and by the people, everything seemed to fail him, but he did not fail himself. After having wrought his own ruin, Foucquet worked out his own salvation, if he may be said to have saved himself when all he saved was his life.
His first act was to protest energetically against the competence of the Chamber; he alleged that, having held office in the Parliament for twenty-five years, he was still entitled to the privileges of its officers, and he recognized no judges except those of that body, of both Chambers united. Having made this reservation, he consented to reply to the questions of the examining magistrates, and his replies bore witness to the scope and vigour of a mind which was always collected. The Chamber, on its side, declared itself competent, and decided that the trial should be conducted as though Foucquet were dumb: that is, that there would be no cross-examination, and no pleading. By this method of procedure the Attorney-General put his questions in writing, and the accused replied in writing. As the documents of the prosecution and of the defence were produced, the recorders prepared summaries for the judges.[87]
It is obvious that in such a case the reporters, who are the necessary intermediaries between the magistrates and the parties to the case, possess considerable influence, and that the issue of the lawsuit depends largely on their intelligence and their morality. Consequently, the King wished to reserve to himself the right of appointing them, although according to tradition, this belonged to the President of the Chamber.
Messieurs Olivier d'Ormesson and Le Cormier de Sainte-Hélène were chosen by the Royal Council, and their names were put before the First President, Guillaume de Lamoignon. This magistrate apologized for being unable to accede to the King's wish, alleging that M. Olivier d'Ormesson and M. de Sainte-Hélène would be suspected by the accused; at least, he feared so. "This fear," replied the King, "is only another reason for appointing them." Lamoignon—and it did him honour—gave way only upon the King's formal command.
That was quite enough to make Lamoignon suspected by Foucquet's enemies. Powerful as they were, he did nothing to reassure them; on the contrary, he saw that the accused was granted the assistance of counsel, and that the forms of procedure were scrupulously observed. When one day Colbert was trying to discover his opinions, Lamoignon made this fine reply: "A judge ought never to declare his opinion save once, and that above the fleurs-de-lys."[88]
The King, growing more and more suspicious, nominated Chancellor Séguier to preside over the Chamber. Lamoignon, thus driven from his seat, withdrew, but unostentatiously, alleging as his reason that Parliamentary affairs occupied the whole of his time.[89]
In vain the King and Colbert, alarmed at having themselves dismissed so upright a magistrate, endeavoured to restore him to a position of diminished authority; he was deaf to entreaties, and was content to say to his friends:"Lavavi manus meas; quomodo inquinabo eas?"[90]Old Séguier, who though lacking in nobility of soul possessed brilliant intellectual powers, grew more servile than ever. Feeling that he had not long to live, he prompdy accepted dishonour. In this trial his conduct was execrable and his talents did not, on this occasion, succeed in masking his partiality. Great jurisconsult though he was, he did not understand finance, and this stupendous trial was altogether too much for an old man of seventy-four. He was always impatiently complaining of the length of the trial, which, he declared, would outlast him.
With audacity and skill Foucquet held his own against this violent judge. Brought up in chicanery, the accused was acquainted with all the mysteries of procedure. He made innumerable difficulties; sometimes he accused a judge, sometimes he challenged the accuracy of an inventory, sometimes he demanded documents necessary for the defence. In short, he gained time, and this was to gain much. The more protracted the trial, the less he had to fear that its termination would be a capital sentence.
The King was not at all comfortable as to its issue; his activity was unwearying, and he never hesitated to throw his whole weight into the balance. The public prosecutor, Talon, was not an able person; he allowed himself to be defeated by the accused, and was immediately sacrificed. He was replaced by two Masters of Requests, Hotmann and Chamillart. One of the recorders caused the Court a great deal of anxiety; this was the worthy Olivier d'Ormesson. Efforts were made to intimidate him, but in vain; to win him over, but equally in vain. He was punished. His offices of Intendant of Picardy and Soissonnais were taken away from him. Finally, the idea was conceived of enlisting his father, and of trying to induce the old man to corrupt the honesty of his son. Old André would not lend himself to these attempts at corruption; he replied that he was sorry that the King was not satisfied with his son's behaviour. "My son," he added, "does what I have always recommended him to do: he fears God, serves the King, and he renders justice without distinction of person."
The Court and the Minister were, indeed, exceeding all bounds; Séguier, Pussort, Sainte-Hélène and others displayed the most odious partiality. False inventories were drawn up; the official reports of the proceedings were falsified. The King carried off the Court of Justice with him to Fontainebleau, fearing lest it should become independent in his absence. This was going too far; Foucquet grew interesting.
Public opinion, at first hostile to the accused, had almost completely turned in his favour, when, more than three years after his arrest, on the 14th October, 1664, the Attorney-General, Chamillart, pronounced his conclusions, which were to the effect that Foucquet, "attainted and convicted of the crime of high treason, and other charges mentioned during the trial," should be "hanged and strangled until death should follow, on a gallows erected on the Place de la Rue Sainte-Antoine, near the Bastille."
The trial was generally regarded as being overweighted. Turenne said, in his picturesque manner, that the cord had been made too thick to strangle M. Foucquet. The financiers, always influential, having recovered from their first alarm, tried to save a man who, in his fall, might drag them down with him. For, in so comprehensive an accusation, who was there that was not compromised?
Colbert was now detested; as a result his enemy appeared less black. As for the Chamber itself, it was divided into two parts, almost of equal strength. On the one hand there were those who, like Séguier and Pussort, wished to please the Court by ruining Foucquet, and on the other those who, like Olivier d'Ormesson, favoured the strict administration of justice, exempt from anger and hatred.
It was on the 14th November, 1664, that Nicolas Foucquet appeared for the first time before the Chamber, which sat in the Arsenal. He wore a citizen's costume, a suit of black cloth, with a mantle. He excused himself for appearing before the Court without his magistrate's robe, declaring that he had asked for one in vain. He renewed the protest which he had made previously against the competency of the Chamber, and refused to take the oath. He then took his place on the prisoners' bench and declared himself ready to reply to the questions which might be put to him.
The accusations made against him may be classified under four heads: payment collected from the tax-farmers; farmerships which he had granted under fictitious names; advances made to the Treasury; and the crime of high treason, projected but not executed, proved by the papers discovered at Saint-Mandé.
Foucquet's defenie, which disdained petty expedients, was powerful and adroit. He confessed irregularities, but he held that the disorders of the administration in a time of public disturbance were responsible for them. According to him, the payments levied on the tax-farmers were merely the repayment of his advances, and that the imposts which he had appropriated were the same. As for the loans which he had made to the State, they were an absolute necessity. To the insidious and insulting questions of the Chancellor he replied with the greatest adroitness. He was as bold as he was prudent. Only once he lost patience, and replied with an arrogance likely to do him harm. He certainly interested society. Ladies, in order to watch him as he was being reconducted to the Bastille, used to repair, masked, to a house which looked on to the Arsenal. Madame de Sévigné was there. "When I saw him," she said, "my legs trembled, and my heart beat so loud that I thought I should faint. As he approached us to return to his gaol, M. d'Artagnan nudged him, and called his attention to the fact that we were there. He thereupon saluted us, and assumed that laughing expression which you know so well. I do not think he recognized me, but I confess to you that I felt strangely moved when I saw him enter that little door. If you knew how unhappy one is when one has a heart fashioned as mine is fashioned, I am sure you would take pity on me."[91]
All that was known about his attitude intensified public sympathy. The judges themselves recognized that he was incomparable; that he had never spoken so well in Parliament, and that he had never shown so much self-possession.[92]
The last Interrogatory, that of the 4th December, turned on the scheme found at Saint-Mandé, and was particularly favourable to the accused.
Foucquet replied that it was nothing but an extravagant idea which had remained unfinished, and was repudiated as soon as conceived. It was an absurd document, which could only serve to make him ashamed and confused, but it could not be made the ground of an accusation against him. As the Chancellor pressed him and said, "You cannot deny that it is a crime against the State," he replied, "I confess, sir, that it is an extravagance, but it is not a crime against the State. I entreat these gentlemen," he added, turning towards the judges, "to permit me to explain what is a crime against the State. It is when a man holds a great office; when he is in the secret confidence of his Sovereign, and suddenly takes his place among that Sovereign's enemies; when he engages his whole family in the cause; when he induces his son-in-law[93]to surrender the passes and to open the gates to a foreign army of intruders in order to admit it to the interior of the kingdom. Gentlemen, that is what is called a crime against the State."
The Chancellor, whose conduct during the Fronde every one remembered, did not know where to look, and it was all the judges could do not to laugh.[94]The cross-examination over, the Chamber listened to the opinion of the reporters and pronounced sentence. On the 9th of December, Olivier d'Ormesson began his report. He spoke for five successive days, and his conclusion was perpetual exile, confiscation of goods and a fine of one hundred thousand livres, of which half should be given to the Public Treasury, and the other half employed in works of piety. Le Cormier de Sainte-Hélène spoke after Olivier d'Ormesson. He continued for two days, and concluded with sentence of death. Pussort, whose vehement speech lasted for five hours, came to the same conclusion.
On the 18th December, Hérault, Gisaucourt, Noguès and Ferriol concurred, as did Le Cormier de Sainte-Hélène, and Roquesante after them, in the opinion of Olivier d'Ormesson.
On the following day, the 19th, MM. de La Toison, Du Verdier, de La Baume and de Massenau also expressed the same opinion; but the Master of Requests, Poncet, came to the opposite conclusion. Messieurs Le Féron, de Moussy, Brillac, Regnard and Besnard agreed with the first recorder. Voysin was of the opposite opinion. President de Pontchartrain voted for banishment, and the Chancellor, pronouncing last, voted for death. Thirteen judges had pronounced for banishment, and nine for death. Foucquet's life was saved.
"All Paris," said Olivier d'Ormesson, "awaited the news with impatience. It was spread abroad everywhere, and received with the greatest rejoicing, even by the shopkeepers. Every one blessed my name, even without knowing me. Thus M. Foucquet, who had been regarded with horror at the time of his imprisonment, and whom all Paris would have been immeasurably delighted to see executed directly after the beginning of his trial, had become the subject of public grief and commiseration, owing to the hatred which every one felt for the present Government, and that, I think, was the true cause of the general acclamation."[95]
On the 22d of December, this same Olivier d'Ormesson having gone to the Bastille to give D'Artagnan his discharge for the Treasury registers, the gallant Musketeer embraced him and said: "You are a noble man!"[96]
Foucquet, as a matter of form, protested against the sentence of a tribunal whose competence he did not recognize. And the sentence did not please the King, who commuted banishment into imprisonment for life in the fortress of Pignerol. Such a commutation, which was really an aggravation of the sentence, is cruel and offends our sense of justice. Nevertheless, one must recognize that such a measure was dictated by reasons of State. Foucquet, had he been free, would have been dangerous. He would certainly have intrigued; his plots and strategies would have caused the King much anxiety. The religion of patriotism had not yet taken root in the heart of the great Condé's contemporaries. The strongest bond then uniting citizens was loyalty to the King. Foucquet was liberated from that bond by his master's hatred and anger. It was to be expected that the fallen Minister would probably have conspired against France with foreign aid. These previsions justified the severity of the King, who throughout the whole business appeared hypocritical, violent, pitiless and patriotic.[97]
The wisdom of the King's action is proved by Foucquet's conduct at Pignerol, where he arrived in January, 1665. There, in spite of the most vigilant supervision, he succeeded in carrying on intrigues. He could not communicate with any living soul. He had neither ink nor pens, nor paper at his disposal. This able man, whose genius was quickened by solitude, attempted the impossible in order to enter into communication with his friends. He manufactured ink out of soot, moistened with wine. He made pens out of chicken bones, and wrote on the margin of books which were lent to him, or on handkerchiefs. But his warder, Saint-Mars, detected all these contrivances. The servants whom the prisoner had won over were arrested, and one of them was hanged.
In the end, these futile energies were defeated by captivity and disease. Foucquet became addicted to devotional exercises. Like Mademoiselle de la Vallière, he wrote pious reflections.[98]
It is even thought that he composed religious verses, for it is known that he asked for a dictionary of rhymes, which was given to him.
For seven years he had been cut off from living men. Then a voice called him. It was Lauzun,[99]who was imprisoned at Pignerol, and who had made a hole in the wall. Lauzun told his companion news of the outer world. Foucquet listened eagerly, but when the Cadet de Gascogne told him that he held a general's commission, and that he had married La Grande Mademoiselle, at first with the approval of the King, and then against it, Foucquet considered him mad and ceased to believe anything that he said.
About 1679, Foucquet's captivity at length became less severe; he was permitted to receive his family. But it was too late; those fourteen cruel years had irreparably undermined his strong constitution; his sight had grown weak; he was losing his teeth; he was suffering pain in his whole body, and his piety was increasing with his weakness. He died in March, 1680, just as he had received permission to go and drink the waters of Bourbon. His body, which had been laid in the crypt of Sainte-Claire de Pignerol, Madame Foucquet had transferred the following year to the church of the Convent of the Visitation in the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine. The register of this church contains the following entry: "On the 28th March, 1681, Messire Nicolas Foucquet was buried in our church, in the Chapel of Saint-François de Sales. He had risen to the highest honours in the magistracy; had been Councillor in Parliament, Master of Requests, Attorney-General, Superintendent of Finance, and Minister of State."[100]
Whatever may be said to the contrary, posterity does not judge with equity, for it is partial; it is indifferent, and makes but hasty work of the trial of the dead who appear before it. And posterity is not a Court of Justice; it is a noisy mob, in which it is impossible to make oneself heard, but which, at rare intervals, is dominated by some great voice. Finally, its judgments are not definitive, since another posterity follows which may cancel the sentence of the first, and pronounce new ones, which again may be revoked by a new posterity. Nevertheless, certain cases seem to have been definitely lost in the court of mankind, and I find myself constrained to rank with these the case of Foucquet. He was an embezzler, and was definitely condemned on this point—condemned without appeal. As for extenuating circumstances, it is not difficult to find them. Illustrious examples, even more, perpetual solicitings and the impossibility of observing any regularity in troubled times, impelled him to steal, both for the State and for certain great men. Of his thefts he kept something; he kept too much. He was guilty, doubtless, but his fault seems greatly mitigated when one remembers the circumstances and the spirit of the time.
I am going to say something which is a kind of redemption of Nicolas Foucquet's memory; I will say it in two charming lines which are attributed to Pellisson, and which appear to have been written by Foucquet's friend, the fabulist. Pellisson, in an epistle to the King, said of Foucquet:
D'un esprit élevé, négligeant l'avenir,Il toucha les trésors, mais sans les retenir.
This it is which redeems and exalts this man. He was liberal, he loved to give, and he knew how to give, and let it not be said in the name of any morbid and morose morality that, even if he had taken the State's money without retaining it, he was only the more guilty, uniting prodigality to unscrupulousness. No, his liberality remains honourable; it showed that the principle which prompted his embezzlements was not a vile one, that, if this man was ruined, the cause of his ruin was not natural baseness, but the blind impulse of a naturally magnificent temperament. Thus Foucquet will live in history as the consoler of the aged Corneille, and the tactful patron of La Fontaine.
No one will deny his faults, the crimes he committed against the State, but for a moment one may forget them, and say that what was truly noble, and even nobly foolish in his temperament, half atones for the evil which has been only too thoroughly proved.