But she had other things in store for him. A number of Spanish officers, captured by San Martin in Chile, were confined within the same walls. Goaded to the energy of despair by their sufferings, and convinced that after all they could die no more than once, the Spaniards rose one day, broke open the doors of their prison, and proceeded to that part of the building where the common malefactors, and among them Juan Facundo, were confined. No sooner was Facundo set at liberty, than he snatched the bolt of the prison-gate, from the very hand which had just withdrawn it to set him free, crushed the Spaniard's skull with the heavy iron, and swung it right and left, until, according to his own statement, made at a later date, no less than fourteen corpses were stiffening on the ground. His example incited his companions to aid him in subduing the revolt of their fellow-prisoners; and, as a reward for "loyal and heroic conduct," he was restored to his privileges as a citizen.
Thus, in the energetic language of his biographer, was his name ennobled, and cleansed, but withblood, from the stains that defiled it. Persecuted no longer, nay, even caressed by the government, he returned to his native plains, to stalk with added haughtiness and new titles to esteem among his brother Gauchos of La Rioja.
Having in this manner taken a rapid survey of the most salient points in his private career up to the year 1820, we may pause for a moment, before studying his public life, to glance at the condition of his native country in the first decade of its independence. The partial separation from Spain, which was effected on the 25th May, 1810, was followed by a long and bloody struggle, in all the southern provinces, between the royal forces and the adherents of the Provisional Junta. Such framework of government as had been in existence was practically annihilated, and the various provinces of the late Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres fell a prey to the military chieftains who could attract around them the largest number of Gaucho cavalry,—while civilization, commerce, and every peaceful art, declined at a rapid rate. No alteration in this state of affairs was effected by the final Declaration of Independence, made at Tucuman, July 9, 1816; and in 1820, Buenos Ayres, the seat of the government which claimed to be supreme, was seized by a confederacy of the provincial chiefs, who secured, by the destruction of the Directorial Government, complete and unchallenged independence for themselves. During this anarchical period, the famous Artigas was harrying the Banda Oriental; Rosas and Lopez were preparing for their blood-stained careers; Bustos, Ibarra, and a host of othercaudillos, ruled the interior provinces; and Juan Facundo Quiroga was raised to irresponsible power.
In his native province of La Rioja the mastery had for many years been disputed by two powerful houses, the Ocampos and the Dávilas, both descended from noble families in Spain. In the year 1820 the former were triumphant, and possessed all the authority then wielded in the province. From them Facundo received the appointment of Sergeant-Major of Militia, with the powers ofComandante de Campaña, or District Commandant.
In any other country the nomination to such a post of a man rendered notorious by his contempt for authority, who already boasted of no less than thirty murders, and who had voluntarily placed himself in the lowest ranks of society, would be a thing absolutely incredible; but the Ocampos probably felt the insecurity of their authority, and were sufficiently sagacious to attempt, at least, to render that man a useful adherent or ally, who might, if allured by their foes, prove a terrible weapon against them. But they found in Quiroga no submissive servant. So openly did he disregard the injunctions of his superiors, that a corps of the principal officers in the army entreated their general, Ocampo, to seize upon and execute the rebellious Gaucho, but failed in inducing him to adopt their advice. It was not long before he had occasion to repent his leniency, or his weakness.
A mutiny having occurred among some troops at San Juan, a detachment was sent against them, and with it Quiroga and his horsemen. The mutineers proved victorious, and, headed by their ringleaders, Aldao and Corro, continued their line of march towards the North. While Ocampo with his beaten troops fell back to wait for reinforcements, Quiroga pursued the retreating victors, harassed their rear, clogged their every movement, and proved so formidable to the enemy, that Aldao, abandoning his companion, made an arrangement with the government of La Rioja, by which he was to be allowed free passage into San Luis, whither Quiroga was ordered to conduct him. He joined Aldao.
And here, close upon the summit of the steep he has so easily ascended, we cannot help pausing for an instant to reflect upon the singular manifestation ofdestinyin his life. History acquaints us with no similar character who displayed so little forethought with such astonishing results. He premeditated nothing, unless now and then a murder. He took no trouble to form a plan of government, yet his authority was unquestioned during many years in Mendoza, Córdova, and San Juan. Even his most monstrous acts of perfidy appear to have been committed on the spur of the moment, with less calculation than he gave to a game at cards. Thrown upon the world with brutal passions scarcely controlled by a particle of reason, whirled hither and thither in a general and fearful cataclysm, he shows us preëminently the wonderful designs of Providence carried into effect, as it were, by a succession of blind and sudden impulses. In a community of established order the gallows would have put a speedy check upon his misdeeds; in the Argentine Confederation of 1820 he was gradually lifted, by an ever-rising tide of blood, to the eminence of lawless power.
Only for a while, however; for the stream did not cease to rise. The flood that had elevated him alone disregarded his commands. For a few moments he might maintain his footing upon the fearful peak; and then—
But as yet he is onlyComandante de Campaña, escorting the rebel Aldao into San Luis. He took no pains to conceal his discontent with the government of Ocampo, nor was Aldao slow in noticing or availing himself of his disaffection. He offered Quiroga a hundred men, if he chose to overturn the government and seize upon La Rioja. Quiroga eagerly accepted, marched upon the city, took it by surprise, threw the Ocampos and their subordinates into prison, and sent them confessors, with the order to prepare for death. The remainder of Aldao's force was subsequently induced to join his cause, and, on the intercession of some of its leaders, the incarcerated Ocampos were suffered to escape with their lives.
Their banished enemy, Don Nicolas Dávila, was called from Tucuman to the nominal governorship of La Rioja, while Quiroga retained, with his old title, the actual rule of the province. But Dávila was not long content with this mere semblance of authority. During the temporary absence of Quiroga, he concerted with Araya, one of the men of Aldao, a plan for the capture of their master. Quiroga heard of it,—he heard of everything,— and his answer was the assassination of Captain Araya! Summoned by the government which he himself had created to answer the accusation of instigated murder, he advanced upon the Dávilas with his Llanista horsemen. Miguel and Nicolas Dávila hastily assembled a body of troops, and prepared for a final struggle. While the two armies were in presence of each other, a commissioner from Mendoza endeavored to effect a peaceable arrangement between their chiefs. Passing from one camp to the other with propositions and conditions, he inspired the soldiers of the Dávilas with a fatal security. Quiroga, falling suddenly upon them in the midst of the negotiations, routed them with ease, and slew their general, who, with a small body of devoted followers, made a fierce onslaught upon him personally, and succeeded in inflicting upon him a severe wound before he was shot down. Thenceforth,—from the year 1823,—Quiroga was despot of La Rioja.
His government was simple enough. His two engrossing objects—if objects, indeed, he may be said to have possessed—were extortion and the uprooting of the last vestiges of civilization and law; his instruments, the dagger and the lash; his amusement, the torture of unwitting offenders; his serious occupation, the shuffling of cards. For gambling the man had an insatiable thirst; he played once for forty hours without intermission; it was death to refuse a game with him; no one might cease playing without his express commands; no one durst win the stakes; and as a consequence, he accumulated at cards in a few years almost all the coined money then existing in the province.[2] Not content with this source of revenue, he became a farmer of thediezmoor tithes, appropriated to himself themostrencoor unbranded cattle, by which means he speedily became proprietor of many thousand head, even established a monopoly of beef in his own favor,—and woe to the luckless fool who should dare to infringe upon the terrible barbarian's prerogative!
[Footnote 2: Thus the Monagas, the late rulers of Venezuela, are accused of denuding their country of specie in order to accumulate a vast treasure abroad in expectation of a rainy day.]
What was the state of society, it will undoubtedly be inquired, in which the defeat of a handful of men could result in such a despotism? We have already glanced at the people of La Rioja,—at their dreamy, Oriental character, at their pastoral pursuits. A community of herdsmen, scattered over an extensive territory, and deprived at one blow of the two great families to whom they had been accustomed to look up, with infantine submission, as their God-appointed chiefs,—these were not the men to stand up, unprompted by a single master-mind, to rid themselves of one whose oppression was, after all, only a new form of the treatment to which, for an entire generation, they had been subjected. La Rioja and San Juan were the only two provinces in which Quiroga's heavy hand was felt continuously; in the others he ruled rather by influence than in person; and the Gauchos, as a matter of course, were enthusiastic for a man who exalted the peasant at the expense of the citizen, whose exactions were actually burdensome only to the wealthy, and who permitted every license to his followers, with the single exception of disobedience to himself.
He was not without—it is impossible that he should have lacked—some of those instinctive and personal attributes with which almost every savage chieftain who has maintained so extraordinary an ascendency over his fellows has been endowed. Sarmiento tells us that he was tall, immensely powerful, a famousgineteor horseman, a more adroit wielder of the lasso and thebolasthan even his rival, Rosas, capable of great endurance, and abstinent from intoxicating drinks.
His eye and voice were dreaded more by his soldiers than the lances of their antagonists. He could wring a Gaucho's secret from his breast; it was useless to attempt a subterfuge before him. Some article, we are told, was once stolen from a company of his troops, and every effort for its recovery proved fruitless. It was reported to Quiroga. He paraded the men, and, having procured a number of sticks, exactly equal in length, gave to each man one, proclaiming that the soldier whose stick should be found longer than the others next morning had been the thief. Next morning he again drew up his troops. The sticks were mustered by Quiroga himself. Not one had grown since the previous day; but there was one which was shorter than the rest. With a terrible roar, Quiroga seized the trembling Gaucho to whom the stick belonged. "Thou art the thief!" he exclaimed. It was so; the fellow had cut off a portion of the wood, hoping thus to escape detection by its growth![3]—
[Footnote 3: Since the above was written, we have heard of the adoption of an expedient identical with that of Quiroga, under similar circumstances, and with the same result. The detector was, however, an English seaman, now captain of a well-known steam-vessel, who forming part of a crew one of whom had lost a sum of money, broke off ten twigs of equal length from a broom, and distributed them among his shipmates, with the same observation as was used by the Argentine chief. Two hours later he examined them, and found that the negro steward hadshortenedhis allotted twig. The money was restored.—The coincidence is instructive.]
Another time, one of his soldiers had been robbed of some trappings, and no trace of the thief could be discovered. Quiroga ordered the detachment to file past him, one by one. He stood, himself, with folded arms and terrible eyes, perusing each man as he passed. At length he darted forward, pounced upon one of the soldiers, and shouted, "Where is themontura?" "In yonder thicket!" stammered out the self-convicted thief. "Four musketeers this way!" and the commander was not out of sight before the wretched Gaucho was a corpse. In these instinctive qualities, so awful to untutored minds, lay the secret of the power of Quiroga,—and of how many others of the world's most famous names!
Already in 1825 he was recognized as a lawful authority by the government of Buenos Ayres, and invited to take part in a Congress of Generals at that city. At the same time, however, he received a military errand. The Province of Tucuman having been seized by a young Buenos Ayrean officer, Colonel Madrid, Quiroga was requested to march against the successful upstart, and to restore the cause of law and order,—an undertaking scarcely congruous with his own antecedents. The chief of La Rioja, however, eagerly accepted the mission, marched with a small force into Tucuman, routed Madrid, (and this literally, for his army ran away, leaving the Colonel to charge Quiroga's force alone, which he did, escaping by a miracle with his life,) and returned to La Rioja and San Juan. Into the latter town he made a triumphal entry, through streets lined on both sides with the principal inhabitants, whom he passed by in disdainful silence, and who humbly followed the Gaucho tyrant to his quarters in a clover-field, where he allowed them to stand in anxious humiliation while he conversed at length with an old negress whom he seated by his side. Not ten years had elapsed since these very men might have beheld him poundingtapiason this spot!
We do not propose following the blood-stained career of Juan Facundo through all its windings and episodes of cruelty and blood. Suffice it to say, that, with the title ofComandante de Campaña, he retained in La Rioja every fraction of actual power,—nominating, nevertheless, a shadowy governor, who, if he attempted any independent action, was instantly deposed. His influence gradually extended over the neighboring provinces; thrice he encountered and defeated Madrid; while at home he gambled, levied contributions, bastinadoed, and added largely to his army. He excelled his contemporary, Francia, in the art of inspiring terror; he only fell short of Rosas in the results. A wry look might at any time call down upon a luckless child a hundred lashes. He once split the skull of his own illegitimate son for some trifling act of disobedience. A lady, who once said to him, while he was in a bad humor,Adios, mi General, was publicly flogged. A young girl, who would not yield to his wishes, he threw down upon the floor, and kicked her with his heavy boots until she lay in a pool of blood. Truly, a ruler after the Russian sort!
Dorrego, meanwhile, was at the head of affairs at Buenos Ayres. Opposed to the "Unitarianism" of Lavalle and Paz, who would have made of their country, not a republic "one and indivisible," but a confederation after the model in the North, Dorrego was chiefly anxious to consolidate his power in the maritime state of Buenos Ayres, leaving the interior provinces to their own devices, and to the tender mercies of Lopez, Quiroga, Bustos, with a dozen other Gaucho chiefs. Rosas, the incarnation of the spirit which was then distracting the entire Confederation, was made Commandant General by Dorrego, who, however, frequently threatened to shoot "the insolent boor," but who, unfortunately for his country, never fulfilled the threat. As for himself, he, indeed, met with that fate at the hands of Lavalle, who landed with an army from the opposite coast of Uruguay, defeated Dorrego and Rosas in a pitched battle at the gates of Buenos Ayres, and entered the city in triumph a few hours later.
With the ascendency of Lavalle came the inauguration—and, alas! only the inauguration—of a new system. Paz, one of the few Argentinians who really deserved the name of General that they bore, was sent to Córdova, with eight hundred veterans of his old command. He defeated Bustos, the tyrant of Córdova, took possession of the city, (one of the most important strategic points upon the Pampas,) and restored that confidence and security to which its inhabitants had so long been strangers. This action was at the same time a challenge to Quiroga in his neighboring domain. It was a warning that right was beginning to assert its supremacy over might; nor was the hero of La Rioja slow to understand it. Collecting a band of four thousand Gaucho lancers, he marched upon Córdova with the assurance of an easy victory. TheboleadoGeneral! The idea ofhisopposing the Tiger of the Plains!
What followed this movement is a matter of general history. The battle of the Tablada has had European, and therefore American, celebrity. It is known to those who think of Chacabuco and Maipú, of Navarro and Monte Caseros, only as of spots upon the map; let it, therefore, suffice to say that Quiroga was beaten decisively, unmistakably, terribly. The serried veterans of Paz, schooled in the Brazilian wars, stood grimly to the death before the fiery onslaught of Quiroga; in vain did his horsemen shatter themselves against the Unitarian General's scanty squares; the tactics of civilized warfare proved for the first time successful on these plains against wild ferocity and a larger force; Quiroga was driven back at length with fearful slaughter, with the loss of arms, ammunition, reputation, and of seventeen hundred men. He returned to La Rioja, with the disorganized remnant of his band, marking his path with blood and the infliction of atrocious chastisements. Even in adversity he is terrible and is obeyed.
For nearly two years he divided his time between the provinces of San Juan, Tucuman, and La Rioja, engaged in the prosecution of his designs, chief among which was the destruction of Paz, who remained at Córdova, intending to act only on the defensive. At length, in 1830, he considered himself sufficiently strong for an attack on his recent conqueror. Paz was unwilling to shed blood a second time; he offered advantageous terms to Quiroga; but the boastful Gaucho, full of confidence in his savage lancers, refused to negotiate, and marched against his skilful but unpresuming antagonist. Paz secretly evacuated Córdova, and, moving westward, hazarded a feat which is alone sufficient to establish his character as the best tactician of the New World,—San Martin alone, perhaps, excepted. Splitting his little army into a dozen brigades, he occupied the entire mountain-range behind the town, operated, with scarce five thousand men, upon a front of two hundred miles in extent, held in his own unwavering grasp the reins which controlled the movements of every division, and gradually inclosed, as in a net, the forces of Quiroga and Villafañe. In vain they struggled and blindly sought an exit; every door was closed; until, finally, after a campaign of fifteen days, the narrowing battalions of Paz surrounded, engaged, and utterly defeated at Oncativo the bewildered army on whose success Quiroga had staked his all.
The Gaucho himself again escaped. After seven years of dictatorial power, he is once more reduced to the level upon which we saw him standing in 1818, a vagabond at Buenos Ayres, although from that level he may raise his head a trifle higher.
And here we might conclude, having seen his rocket-like ascent, and the swiftly-falling night of his career,—having seen him a laborer, a deserter, a General, a Dictator, a fugitive; but much remains to be narrated. Passing over, with the barest mention, his temporary return to power, which he accomplished by one of those lightning-like expeditions that even among Gaucho horsemen rendered him conspicuous, let us hasten on to the great dramatic crisis of his history; and taking no notice of the five years of marching and countermarching, scheming, fighting, and negotiating, that intervened between his defeat at the Laguna Larga and 1835, draw to a close our hasty sketch.
In that year, after taking part in a disorderly and fruitless expedition planned by Rosas to secure the southern frontier against Indian attacks, he suddenly made his appearance at Buenos Ayres, with a body of armed satellites, who inspired the newly-seated Dictator—the famous Juan Manuel de Rosas, who has been already so often mentioned in these pages—with vivid apprehensions. Rosas, Quiroga, Lopez—the Triumvirate of La Plata— were bound together, it is true, by a potent tie,—by the strongest, indeed,—that of self-interest; but as each of the three, and especially Rosas, was in continual dread lest that consideration in his colleagues should clash with his own intentions, the presence of Quiroga at Buenos Ayres was far from satisfactory to the remaining two. His influence over half a dozen of the despotic governors in the interior was still immense; the Pampa was his own, after all his defeats; and it was shrewdly suspected that his indifference to power in La Rioja, and his mysterious visit to the maritime capital, were indications of a design to seize upon the government of Buenos Ayres itself. Nor were the actions of Quiroga suited to remove these apprehensions. The sanguinary despot of the interior bloomed in the Buenos Ayreancafésinto a profound admirer of Rivadavia, Lavalle, and Paz, his ancient Unitarian enemies; Buenos Ayres, the Confederation, he loudly proclaimed, must have a Constitution; conciliation must supplant the iron-heeled tyranny under which the people had groaned so long; the very jaguar of the Pampa, said the Porteño wits, —not yet wholly muzzled by the dreadMazorca, or Club, of Rosas,—was to be stripped of his claws, and made to live onmatagusanotwigs and thistles!Redeunt Saturnia regna!The reign of blood, according to Quiroga, its chief evangelist, was approaching its termination.
In order to form a conception of the effect produced by these transactions, we must imagine Pelissier or Walewski entertaining, twenty- three years later, thecerclesat Paris with discourses from the beauty of the lastrégime, with eulogies of Lamartine, and apotheoses of Louis Blanc; sneering at Espinasse, and eulogizing Cavaignac; vowing that France can be governed only under a liberal constitution, and paying a visit to his Majesty, the Elect of December, with a rough-and-tumble suite of Republican bravos. Assuredly, were such a thing possible in Paris, the gentlemen in question would very shortly be reviling English hospitality under its protecting aegis, if not dying of fever at Cayenne. Nor could Rosas, who was at that time far less firmly seated on his throne than is at present the man who wields the destinies of France, endure so powerful a rival in his vicinity. But how to get rid of him? Assassination, by which a minor offender was so speedily put out of the way, could not safely be attempted with a man who yet retained a singular mastery over the minds of thousands of brutal and strong-armed horsemen; a false step would result in inevitable destruction; and many anxious days were spent by the gloomy tyrant ere he could decide upon a plan for disposing of his inconvenient friend.
In the midst of this perplexity intelligence was received of a disagreement between the governments of Salta, Tucuman, and Santiago, provinces of the interior, which threatened to expand into warlike proceedings. Rosas sent for Quiroga. No one but the hero of La Rioja, he insinuated, had sufficient influence to bring about a settlement of these disputes; no one but he had power to prevent a war; would he not, therefore, hasten to Tucuman, and obviate so dire a calamity? Quiroga hesitated, refused, consented, wavered, and again declined the task. With a vacillation to which he had hitherto been a stranger, he remained for many days undecided; a suspicion of deceit appears to have presented itself to his mind; but at length he resolved to accept the commission. His hesitation, meanwhile, had completed his ruin; it had given time for the maturing of deadly plans.
In midsummer, 1835, (December 18th,) the Gaucho chieftain commenced his fateful journey. As he entered the carriage which was to be his home for many days, and bade farewell to the adherents who were assembled to witness his departure, he turned toward the city with a wild expression and words that were remembered afterwards.Si salgo bien, he said,te volevré á ver; si no, adios para siempre!"If I succeed, I shall see thee again; if not, farewell forever!" Was it a presentiment of the truth which came upon him, like that which clouded the great mind of the first Napoleon as he left the Tuileries when the Hundred Days were running out?
One hour before his departure, a mounted messenger had been dispatched from Buenos Ayres in the same direction as that he was about to follow; and the city was scarcely out of sight when Quiroga manifested the most feverish anxiety to overtake this man. His travelling companions were his secretary, Dr. Ortiz, and a young man of his acquaintance, bound for Córdova, to whom he had given a seat in his vehicle. The postilions were incessantly admonished to make haste. At a shallow stream which they forded, in the mud of which the wheels became imbedded, resisting every effort for their release, Quiroga actually hooked the postmaster of the district, who had hastened to the spot, to the carriage, and made him join his exertions to those of the horses until the vehicle was extricated, when he sped onward with fearful velocity, asking at every post-station, "When did thechasquífrom Buenos Ayres pass? An hour ago! Forward, then!" and the carriage swept onward, on unceasingly, across the lonely Pampa,—racing, as it afterwards proved, with Death.
At last, Córdova, nearly six hundred miles from his starting-point, was reached, just one hour after the arrival of the hunted courier. Quiroga was besought by the cringing magistracy to spend the night in their city. His only answer was, "Give me horses!" and two hours before midnight he rolled out of Córdova, havingbeatenin the grisly race.
Beaten, inasmuch as he was yet alive. For Córdova was ringing with the details of his intended assassination. Such and such men were to have done the deed; at such a shop the pistol had been bought; at such a spot it was to have been fired;—but the marvellous swiftness of the intended victim had ruined all.
Meanwhile, Quiroga sped onward more at ease toward Tucuman. Arrived there, he speedily arranged the matters in dispute, and was entreated by the governors of that province and of Santiago to accept of an escort on his return; he was besought to avoid Córdova, to avoid Buenos Ayres; he was counselled to throw off the mask of subservience, and to rally his numerous adherents in La Rioja and San Juan;—but remonstrance and advice were alike thrown away upon him. In vain was the most circumstantial account of the preparations for his murder sent by friends from Córdova; he appeared as foolhardy now in February as in December he had been panic- stricken. "To Córdova!" he shouted, as he entered hisgalera; and for Córdova the postilions steered.
At the little post-hut of Ojos del Agua, in the State of Córdova, Quiroga, with his secretary, Ortiz, halted one night on the homeward journey. Shortly before reaching the place, a young man had mysteriously stopped the carriage, and had warned its hurrying inmates that at a spot called Barranca Yaco apartida, headed by one Santos Perez, was awaiting the arrival of Quiroga. There the massacre was to take place. The youth, who had formerly experienced kindness at the hands of Ortiz, begged him to avoid the danger. The unhappy secretary was rendered almost insane with terror, but his master sternly rebuked his fears.—"The man is not yet born," he said, "who shall slay Facundo Quiroga! At a word from me these fellows will put themselves at my command, and form my escort into Córdova!"
The night at Ojos del Agua was passed sleeplessly enough by the unhappy Ortiz, but Quiroga was not to be persuaded into ordinary precautions. Confident in his mastery over the minds of men, he set out unguarded, on the 18th of February, at break of day. The party consisted of the chieftain and his trembling secretary, a negro servant on horseback, two postilions,—one of them a mere lad,—and a couple of couriers who were travelling in the same direction.
Who that has been on the Pampas but can picture to himself this party as it left the little mud-hut on the plain? The cumbrous, oscillatinggalera, with its shaggy, straggling four-in-hand,—the caracoling Gaucho couriers,—the negro pricking on behind,—the tall grass rolling out on every side,—the muddy pool that forms the watering-place for beasts and men scattered over a hundred miles of brookless plain,—the great sun streaming up from the herbage just in front, awakening the voices of a million insects and the carols of unnumbered birds in the thickets here and there! Look long, Quiroga, on that rising sun! listen to the well- known melody that welcomes his approach! gaze once more upon the rolling Pampa! look again upon those flying hills! Thou who hast said, "There is no life but this life," who didst "believe in nothing," shalt know these things no more! five minutes hence thy statecraft will be over, thy long apprenticeship will have expired! thou shalt be standing—where thou mayst learn the secret that the wisest man of all the bookworms thou despisest will never know alive!
Barranca Yaco is reached. The warning was well founded. A crack is heard, —there is a puff of smoke,—and two musket-balls pass each other in the carriage, yet without inflicting injury on its occupants. From either side the road, however, thepartidadashes forth. In a moment the horses are disabled, the postilions, the negro, and the couriers cut down. Ortiz trembles more violently than ever; Quiroga rises above himself. Looking from the carriage while the butchery is going on, he addresses the murderers with a few unfaltering words. There is glamour in his speech; the ensanguined assassins hesitate,—another instant, only one moment more, and they will be on their knees before him; but Santos Perez, who was at one side, comes up, raises his piece,—and the body of Juan Fecundo Quiroga falls in a soulless heap with a bullet in the brain! Ortiz was immediately hacked to pieces; and the tragedy of Córdova is at an end.
Such were the life, misdeeds, and death of the Terror of the Pampas. Having in the most rapid and imperfect manner sketched the career of this extraordinary Fortune's-child, his rise from the most abject condition to unbridled power, his ferocious rule, and his almost heroic end, we may surely exclaim, that "nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it," and, presenting this barerésuméof facts as a mere outline, a mere pen-and-ink sketch of the terrible chieftain, refer the curious student to the impassioned narrative whence our facts are mainly derived.
It may be well to add, that Santos Perez, who was actively pursued by the government of Buenos Ayres, which itself had instigated him to the commission of the crime, was finally, after many hairbreadth escapes, betrayed by his mistress to the agents of Rosas, and suffered death at Buenos Ayres with savage fortitude. The Lord have mercy on his soul!
The heroine of our tale is one so famous in history that her proper name never appears in it. The seeming paradox is the soberest fact. To us Americans, glory lies in the abundant display of one's personal appellation in the newspapers. Our heroine lived in the most gossiping of all ages, herself its greatest gossip; yet her own name, patronymic or baptismal, never was talked about. It was not that she sank that name beneath high-sounding titles; she only elevated the most commonplace of all titles till she monopolized it, and it monopolized her. Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Souveraine de Dombes, Princesse Dauphine d'Auvergne, Duchesse de Montpensier, is forgotten, or rather was never remembered; but the great name of MADEMOISELLE,La Grande Mademoiselle, gleams like a golden thread shot through and through that gorgeous tapestry of crimson and purple which records for us the age of Louis Quatorze.
In May of the year 1627, while the Queen and Princess of England lived in weary exile at Paris,—while the slow tide of events was drawing their husband and father to his scaffold,—while Sir John Eliot was awaiting in the Tower of London the summoning of the Third Parliament,—while the troops of Buckingham lay dying, without an enemy, upon the Isle of Rhé,— while the Council of Plymouth were selling their title to the lands of Massachusetts Bay,—at the very crisis of the terrible siege of Rochelle, and perhaps during the very hour when the Three Guardsmen of Dumas held that famous bastion against an army, the heroine of our story was born. And she, like the Three Guardsmen, waited till twenty years after for a career.
The twenty years are over. Richelieu is dead. The strongest will that ever ruled France has passed away; and the poor, broken King has hunted his last badger at St. Germain, and meekly followed his master to the grave, as he had always followed him. Louis XIII., called Louis Le Juste, not from the predominance of that particular virtue (or any other) in his character, but simply because he happened to be born under the constellation of the Scales, has died like a Frenchman, in peace with all the world except his wife. That beautiful and queenly wife, Anne of Austria, (Spaniard though she was,)—no longer the wild and passionate girl who fascinated Buckingham and embroiled two kingdoms,—has hastened within four days to defy all the dying imprecations of her husband, by reversing every plan and every appointment he has made. The little prince has already shown all the Grand Monarque in his childish "Je suis Louis Quatorze," and has been carried in his bib to hold his first parliament. That parliament, heroic as its English contemporary, though less successful, has reached the point of revolution at last. Civil war is impending. Condé, at twenty-one the greatest general in Europe, after changing sides a hundred times in a week, is fixed at last. Turenne is arrayed against him. The young, the brave, the beautiful cluster around them. The performers are drawn up in line,—the curtain rises,—the play is "The Wars of the Fronde,"—and into that brilliant arena, like some fair circus equestrian, gay, spangled, and daring, rides Mademoiselle.
Almost all French historians, from Voltaire to Cousin, (St. Aulaire being the chief exception,) speak lightly of the Wars of the Fronde. "La Fronde n'est pas sérieuse." Of course it was not. If it had been serious, it would not have been French. Of course, French insurrections, like French despotisms, have always been tempered by epigrams; of course, the people went out to the conflicts in ribbons and feathers; of course, over every battle there pelted down a shower of satire, like the rain at the Eglinton tournament. More than two hundred pamphlets rattled on the head of Condé alone, and the collection ofMazarinades, preserved by the Cardinal himself, fills sixty-nine volumes in quarto. From every field the first crop was glory, the second abon-mot. When the dagger of De Retz fell from his breast-pocket, it was "our good archbishop's breviary"; and when his famous Corinthian troop was defeated in battle, it was "the First Epistle to the Corinthians." While, across the Channel, Charles Stuart was listening to his doom, Paris was gay in the midst of dangers, Madame de Longueville was receiving her gallants in mimic court at the Hôtel de Ville, De Retz was wearing his sword-belt over his archbishop's gown, the little hunchback Conti was generalissimo, and the starving people were pillaging Mazarin's library, in joke, "to find something to gnaw upon." Outside the walls, the maids-of-honor were quarrelling over the straw beds which annihilated all the romance of martyrdom, and Condé, with five thousand men, was besieging five hundred thousand. No matter, they all laughed through it, and through every succeeding turn of the kaleidoscope; and the "Anything may happen in France," with which La Rochefoucauld jumped amicably into the carriage of his mortal enemy, was not only the first and best of his maxims, but the key-note of French history for all coming time.
But behind all this sport, as in all the annals of the nation, were mysteries and terrors and crimes. It was the age of cabalistic ciphers, like that of De Retz, of which Guy Joli dreamed the solution; of inexplicable secrets, like the Man in the Iron Mask, whereof no solution was ever dreamed; of poisons, like that diamond-dust which in six hours transformed the fresh beauty of the Princess Royal into foul decay; of dungeons, like that cell at Vincennes which Madame de Rambouillet pronounced to be "worth its weight in arsenic." War or peace hung on the color of a ball-dress, and Madame de Chevreuse knew which party was coming uppermost, by observing whether the binding of Madame de Hautefort's prayer-book was red or green. Perhaps it was all a little theatrical, but the performers were all Rachels.
And behind the crimes and the frivolities stood the Parliaments, calm and undaunted, with leaders, like Molé and Talon, who needed nothing but success to make their names as grand in history as those of Pym and Hampden. Among the Brienne Papers in the British Museum there is a collection of the manifestoes and proclamations of that time, and they are earnest, eloquent, and powerful, from beginning to end. Lord Mahon alone among historians, so far as our knowledge goes, has done fit and full justice to the French parliaments, those assemblies which refused admission to the foreign armies which the nobles would gladly have summoned in,—but fed and protected the banished princesses of England, when the court party had left those descendants of the Bourbons to die of cold and hunger in the palace of their ancestors. And we have the testimony of Henrietta Maria herself, the only person who had seen both revolutions near at hand, that "the troubles in England never appeared so formidable in their early days, nor were the leaders of the revolutionary party so ardent or so united." The character of the agitation was no more to be judged by its jokes and epigrams, than the gloomy glory of the English Puritans by the grotesque names of their saints, or the stern resolution of the Dutch burghers by their guilds of rhetoric and symbolical melodrama.
But popular power was not yet developed in France, as it was in England; all social order was unsettled and changing, and well Mazarin knew it. He knew the pieces with which he played his game of chess: the king powerless, the queen mighty, the bishops unable to take a single straightforward move, and the knights going naturally zigzag; but a host of plebeian pawns, every one fit for a possible royalty, and therefore to be used shrewdly, or else annihilated as soon as practicable. True, the game would not last forever; but after him the deluge.
Our age has forgotten even the meaning of the word Fronde; but here also the French and Flemish histories run parallel, and the Frondeurs, like the Gueux, were children of a sarcasm. The Counsellor Bachaumont one day ridiculed insurrectionists, as resembling the boys who played with slings (frondes) about the streets of Paris, but scattered at the first glimpse of a policeman. The phrase organized the party. Next morning all fashions wereà la fronde,—hats, gloves, fans, bread, and ballads; and it cost six years of civil war to pay for the Counsellor's facetiousness.
That which was, after all, the most remarkable characteristic of these wars might be guessed from this fact about the fashions. The Fronde was preëminently "the War of the Ladies." Educated far beyond the Englishwomen of their time, they took a controlling share, sometimes ignoble, as often noble, always powerful, in the affairs of the time. It was not merely a courtly gallantry which flattered them with a hollow importance. De Retz, in his Memoirs, compares the women of his age with Elizabeth of England. A Spanish ambassador once congratulated Mazarin on obtaining temporary repose. "You are mistaken," he replied, "there is no repose in France, for I have always women to contend with. In Spain, women have only love- affairs to employ them; but here we have three who are capable of governing or overthrowing great kingdoms: the Duchess de Longueville, the Princess Palatine, and the Duchess de Chevreuse." And there were others as great as these; and the women who for years outwitted Mazarin and outgeneralled Condé are deserving of a stronger praise than they have yet obtained, even from the classic and courtly Cousin.
What men of that age eclipsed or equalled the address and daring of those delicate and highborn women? What a romance was their ordinary existence! The Princess Palatine gave refuge to Mme. de Longueville when that alone saved her from sharing the imprisonment of her brothers Condé and Conti,— then fled for her own life, by night, with Rochefoucauld. Mme. de Longueville herself, pursued afterwards by the royal troops, wished to embark in a little boat, on a dangerous shore, during a midnight storm so wild that not a fisherman could at first be found to venture forth; the beautiful fugitive threatened and implored till they consented; the sailor who bore her in his arms to the boat let her fall amid the furious surges; she was dragged senseless to the shore again, and, on the instant of reviving, demanded to repeat the experiment; but as they utterly refused, she rode inland beneath the tempest, and travelled for fourteen nights before she could find another place of embarkation.
Madame de Chevreuse rode with one attendant from Paris to Madrid, fleeing from Richelieu, remaining day and night on her horse, attracting perilous admiration by the womanly loveliness which no male attire could obscure. From Spain she went to England, organizing there the French exiles into a strength which frightened Richelieu; thence to Holland, to conspire nearer home; back to Paris, on the minister's death, to form the faction of the Importants; and when the Duke of Beaufort was imprisoned, Mazarin said, "Of what use to cut off the arms while the head remains?" Ten years from her first perilous escape, she made a second, dashed through La Vendée, embarked at St. Malo for Dunkirk, was captured by the fleet of the Parliament, was released by the Governor of the Isle of Wight, unable to imprison so beautiful a butterfly, reached her port at last, and in a few weeks was intriguing at Liège again.
The Duchess de Bouillon, Turenne's sister, purer than those we have named, but not less daring or determined, after charming the whole population of Paris by her rebel beauty at the Hôtel de Ville, escaped from her sudden incarceration by walking through the midst of her guards at dusk, crouching in the shadow of her little daughter, and afterwards allowed herself to be recaptured, rather than desert that child's sick-bed.
Then there was Clémence de Maille, purest and noblest of all, niece of Richelieu and hapless wife of the cruel ingrate Condé, his equal in daring and his superior in every other high quality. Married a child still playing with her dolls, and sent at once to a convent to learn to read and write, she became a woman the instant her husband became a captive; while he watered his pinks in the garden at Vincennes, she went through France and raised an army for his relief. Her means were as noble as her ends. She would not surrender the humblest of her friends to an enemy, or suffer the massacre of her worst enemy by a friend. She threw herself between the fire of two hostile parties at Bordeaux, and, while men were falling each side of her, compelled them to peace. Her deeds rang through Europe. When she sailed from Bordeaux for Paris at last, thirty thousand people assembled to bid her farewell. She was loved and admired by all the world, except that husband for whom she dared so much,—and the Archbishop of Taen. The respectable Archbishop complained, that "this lady did not prove that she had been authorized by her husband, an essential provision, without which no woman can act in law." And Condé himself, whose heart, physically twice as large as other men's, was spiritually imperceptible, repaid this stainless nobleness by years of persecution, and bequeathed her, as a life-long prisoner, to his dastard son.
Then, on the royal side, there was Anne of Austria, sufficient unto herself, Queen Regent, and every inch a queen, (before all but Mazarin,)— from the moment when the mob of Paris filed through the chamber of the boy-king, in his pretended sleep, and the motionless and stately mother held back the crimson draperies, with the same lovely arm which had waved perilous farewells to Buckingham,—to the day when the news of the fatal battle of Gien came to her in her dressing-room, and "she remained undisturbed before the mirror, not neglecting the arrangement of a single curl."
In short, every woman who took part in the Ladies' War became heroic,— from Marguerite of Lorraine, who snatched the pen from her weak husband's hand and gave De Retz the order for the first insurrection, down to the wife of the commandant of the Porte St. Roche, who, springing from her bed to obey that order, made the drums beat to arms and secured the barrier; and fitly, amid adventurous days like these, opened the career of Mademoiselle.
Grandchild of Henri Quatre, niece of Louis XIII., cousin of Louis XIV., first princess of the blood, and with the largest income in the nation, (500,000 livres,) to support these dignities, Mademoiselle was certainly born in the purple. Her autobiography admits us to very gorgeous company; the stream of her personal recollections is a perfect Pactolus. There is almost a surfeit of royalty in it; every card is a court-card, and all her counters are counts. "I wore at this festival all the crown-jewels of France, and also those of the Queen of England." "A far greater establishment was assigned to me than anyfille de Francehad ever had, not excepting any of my aunts, the Queens of England and of Spain, and the Duchess of Savoy." "The Queen, my grandmother, gave me as a governess the same lady who had been governess to the late King." Pageant or funeral, it is the same thing. "In the midst of these festivities we heard of the death of the King of Spain; whereat the Queens were greatly afflicted, and we all went into mourning." Thus, throughout, her Memoirs glitter like the coat with which the splendid Buckingham astonished the cheaper chivalry of France: they drop diamonds.
But for any personal career Mademoiselle found at first no opportunity, in the earlier years of the Fronde. A gay, fearless, flattered girl, she simply shared the fortunes of the court; laughed at the festivals in the palace, laughed at the ominous insurrections in the streets; laughed when the people cheered her, their pet princess; and when the royal party fled from Paris, she adroitly secured for herself the best straw-bed at St. Germain, and laughed louder than ever. She despised the courtiers who flattered her; secretly admired her young cousin Condé, whom she affected to despise; danced when the court danced, and ran away when it mourned. She made all manner of fun of her English lover, the future Charles II., whom she alone of all the world found bashful; and in general she wasted the golden hours with much excellent fooling. Nor would she, perhaps, ever have found herself a heroine, but that her respectable father was a poltroon.
Lord Mahon ventures to assert, that Gaston, Duke of Orléans, was "the most cowardly prince of whom history makes mention." A strong expression, but perhaps safe. Holding the most powerful position in the nation, he never came upon the scene but to commit some new act of ingenious pusillanimity; while, by some extraordinary chance, every woman of his immediate kindred was a natural heroine, and became more heroic through disgust at him. His wife was Marguerite of Lorraine, who originated the first Fronde insurrection; his daughter turned the scale of the second. But, personally, he not only had not the courage to act, but he had not the courage to abstain from acting; he could no more keep out of parties than in them; but was always busy, waging war in spite of Mars, and negotiating in spite of Minerva.
And when the second war of the Fronde broke out, it was in spite of himself that he gave his name and his daughter to the popular cause. When the fate of the two nations hung trembling in the balance, the royal army under Turenne advancing on Paris, and almost arrived at the city of Orléans, and that city likely to take the side of the strongest,—then Mademoiselle's hour had come. All her sympathies were more and more inclining to the side of Condé and the people. Orléans was her own hereditary city. Her father, as was his custom in great emergencies, declared that he was very ill and must go to bed immediately; but it was as easy for her to be strong as it was for him to be weak; so she wrung from him a reluctant plenipotentiary power; she might go herself and try what her influence could do. And so she rode forth from Paris, one fine morning, March 27, 1652,—rode with a few attendants, half in enthusiasm, half in levity, aiming to become a second Joan of Arc, secure the city, and save the nation. "I felt perfectly delighted," says the young girl, "at having to play so extraordinary a part."
The people of Paris had heard of her mission, and cheered her as she went. The officers of the army, with an escort of five hundred men, met her half way from Paris. Most of them evidently knew her calibre, were delighted to see her, and installed her at once over a regular council of war. She entered into the position with her natural promptness. A certain grave M. de Rohan undertook to tutor her privately, and met his match. In the public deliberation, there were some differences of opinion. All agreed that the army should not pass beyond the Loire: this was Gaston's suggestion, and nevertheless a good one. Beyond this all was left to Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle intended to go straight to Orléans. "But the royal army had reached there already." Mademoiselle did not believe it. "The citizens would not admit her." Mademoiselle would see about that. Presently the city government of Orléans sent her a letter, in great dismay, particularly requesting her to keep her distance. Mademoiselle immediately ordered her coach, and set out for the city. "I was naturally resolute," she naïvely remarks.
Her siege of Orléans is perhaps the most remarkable on record. She was right in one thing; the royal army had not arrived: but it might appear at any moment; so the magistrates quietly shut all their gates, and waited to see what would happen.
Mademoiselle happened. It was eleven in the morning when she reached the Porte Bannière, and she sat three hours in her state carriage without seeing a person. With amusing politeness, the governor of the city at last sent her some confectionery,—agreeing with John Keats, who held that young women were beings fitter to be presented with sugar-plums than with one's time. But he took care to explain that the bonbons were not official, and did not recognize her authority. So she quietly ate them, and then decided to take a walk outside the walls. Her council of war opposed this step, as they did every other; but she coolly said (as the event proved) that the enthusiasm of the populace would carry the city for her, if she could only get at them.
So she set out on her walk. Her two beautiful ladies-of-honor, the Countesses de Fiesque and de Frontenac, went with her; a few attendants behind. She came to a gate. The people were all gathered inside the ramparts. "Let me in," demanded the imperious young lady. The astonished citizens looked at each other and said nothing. She walked on,—the crowd inside keeping pace with her. She reached another gate. The enthusiasm was increased. The captain of the guard formed his troops in line and saluted her. "Open the gate," she again insisted. The poor captain made signs that he had not the keys. "Break it down, then," coolly suggested the daughter of the House of Orléans; to which his only reply was a profusion of profound bows, and the lady walked on.
Those were the days of astrology, and at this moment it occurred to our Mademoiselle, that the chief astrologer of Paris had predicted success to all her undertakings, from the noon of this very day until the noon following. She had never had the slightest faith in the mystic science, but she turned to her attendant ladies, and remarked that the matter was settled; she should get in. On went the three, until they reached the bank of the river, and saw, opposite, the gates which opened on the quay. The Orléans boatmen came flocking round her, a hardy race, who feared neither queen nor Mazarin. They would break down any gate she chose. She selected one, got into a boat, and sending back her terrified male attendants, that they might have no responsibility in the case, she was rowed to the other side. Her new allies were already at work, and she climbed from the boat upon the quay by a high ladder, of which several rounds were broken away. They worked more and more enthusiastically, though the gate was built to stand a siege, and stoutly resisted this one. Courage is magnetic; every moment increased the popular enthusiasm, as these highborn ladies stood alone among the boatmen; the crowd inside joined in the attack upon the gate; the guard looked on; the city government remained irresolute at the Hôtel de Ville, fairly beleaguered and stormed by one princess and two maids-of-honor.
A crash, and the mighty timbers of the Porte Brûlée yield in the centre. Aided by the strong and exceedingly soiled hands of her new friends, our elegant Mademoiselle is lifted, pulled, pushed, and tugged between the vast iron bars which fortify the gate; and in this fashion, torn, splashed, and dishevelled generally, she makes entrance into her city. The guard, promptly adhering to the winning side, present arms to the heroine. The people fill the air with their applauses; they place her in a large, wooden chair, and bear her in triumph through the streets. "Everybody came to kiss my hands, while I was dying with laughter to find myself in so odd a situation."
Presently our volatile lady told them that she had learned how to walk, and begged to be put down; then she waited for her countesses, who arrived bespattered with mud. The drums beat before her, as she set forth again, and the city government, yielding to the feminine conqueror, came to do her homage. She carelessly assured them of her clemency. She "had no doubt that they would soon have opened the gates, but she was naturally of a very impatient disposition, and could not wait." Moreover, she kindly suggested, neither party could now find fault with them; and as for the future, she would save them all trouble, and govern the city herself,— which she accordingly did.
By confession of all historians, she alone saved the city for the Fronde, and, for the moment, secured that party the ascendency in the nation. Next day the advance-guard of the royal forces appeared,—a day too late. Mademoiselle made a speech (the first in her life) to the city government; then went forth to her own small army, by this time drawn near, and held another council. The next day she received a letter from her father, (whose health was now decidedly restored,) declaring that she had "saved Orléans and secured Paris, and shown yet more judgment than courage." The next day Condé came up with his forces, compared his fair cousin to Gustavus Adolphus, and wrote to her that "her exploit was such as she only could have performed, and was of the greatest importance."
Mademoiselle staid a little longer at Orléans, while the armies lay watching each other, or fighting the battle of Bléneau, of which Condé wrote her an official bulletin, as being generalissimo. She amused herself easily, went to mass, played at bowls, received the magistrates, stopped couriers to laugh over their letters, reviewed the troops, signed passports, held councils, and did many things "for which she should have thought herself quite unfitted, if she had not found she did them very well." The enthusiasm she had inspired kept itself unabated, for she really deserved it. She was everywhere recognized as head of affairs; the officers of the army drank her health on their knees, when she dined with them, while the trumpets sounded and the cannons roared; Condé, when absent, left instructions to his officers, "Obey the commands of Mademoiselle, as my own"; and her father addressed a despatch from Paris to her ladies of honor, as Field-Marshals in her army: "À Mesdames les Comtesses Maréchales de Camp dans l'Armée de ma Fille contre le Mazarin."
Mademoiselle went back to Paris. Half the population met her outside the walls; she kept up the heroine, by compulsion, and for a few weeks held her court as Queen of France. If the Fronde had held its position, she might very probably have held hers. Condé, being unable to marry her himself, on account of the continued existence of his invalid wife, (which he sincerely regretted,) had a fixed design of marrying her to the young King. Queen Henrietta Maria cordially greeted her, lamented more than ever her rejection of the "bashful" Charles II., and compared her to the original Maid of Orléans,—an ominous compliment from an English source.
The royal army drew near; on July 1, 1652, Mademoiselle heard their drums beating outside. "I shall not stay at home to-day," she said to her attendants, at two in the morning; "I feel convinced that I shall be called to do some unforeseen act, as I was at Orléans." And she was not far wrong. The battle of the Porte St. Antoine was at hand.
Condé and Turenne! The two greatest names in the history of European wars, until a greater eclipsed them both. Condé, a prophecy of Napoleon, a general by instinct, incapable of defeat, insatiable of glory, throwing his marshal's baton within the lines of the enemy, and following it; passionate, false, unscrupulous, mean. Turenne, the precursor of Wellington rather, simple, honest, truthful, humble, eating off his iron camp-equipage to the end of life. If it be true, as the ancients said, that an army of stags led by a lion is more formidable than an army of lions led by a stag, then the presence of two such heroes would have given lustre to the most trivial conflict. But that fight was not trivial upon which hung the possession of Paris and the fate of France; and between these two great soldiers it was our Mademoiselle who was again to hold the balance, and to decide the day.
The battle raged furiously outside the city. Frenchman fought against Frenchman, and nothing distinguished the two armies except a wisp of straw in the hat, on the one side, and a piece of paper on the other. The people of the metropolis, fearing equally the Prince and the King, had shut the gates against all but the wounded and the dying. The Parliament was awaiting the result of the battle, before taking sides. The Queen was on her knees in the Carmelite Chapel. De Retz was shut up in his palace, and Gaston of Orléans in his,—the latter, as usual, slightly indisposed; and Mademoiselle, passing anxiously through the streets, met nobleman after nobleman of her acquaintance, borne with ghastly wounds to his residence. She knew that the numbers were unequal; she knew that her friends must be losing ground. She rushed back to her father, and implored him to go forth in person, rally the citizens, and relieve Condé. It was quite impossible; he was so exceedingly feeble; he could not walk a hundred yards. "Then, Sir," said the indignant Princess, "I advise you to go immediately to bed. The world had better believe that you cannot do your duty, than that you will not."
Time passed on, each moment registered in blood. Mademoiselle went and came; still the same sad procession of dead and dying; still the same mad conflict, Frenchman against Frenchman, in the three great avenues of the Faubourg St. Antoine. She watched it from the city walls till she could bear it no longer. One final, desperate appeal, and her dastard father consented, not to act himself, but again to appoint her his substitute. Armed with the highest authority, she hastened to the Hôtel de Ville, where the Parliament was in irresolute session. The citizens thronged round her, as she went, imploring her to become their leader. She reached the scene, exhibited her credentials, and breathlessly issued demands which would have made Gaston's hair stand on end.
"I desire three things," announced Mademoiselle: "first, that the citizens shall be called to arms."
"It is done," answered the obsequious officials.
"Next," she resolutely went on, "that two thousand men shall be sent to relieve the troops of the Prince."
They pledged themselves to this also.
"Finally," said the daring lady, conscious of the mine she was springing, and reserving the one essential point till the last, "that the army of Condé shall be allowed free passage into the city."
The officials, headed by the Maréchal de l'Hôpital, at once exhibited the most extreme courtesy of demeanor, and begged leave to assure her Highness that under no conceivable circumstances could this request be granted.
She let loose upon them all the royal anger of the House of Bourbon. She remembered the sights she had just seen; she thought of Rochefoucauld, with his eye shot out and his white garments stained with blood,—of Guitant shot through the body,—of Roche-Giffard, whom she pitied, "though a Protestant." Condé might, at that moment, be sharing their fate; all depended on her; and so Conrart declares, in his Memoirs, that "Mademoiselle said some strange things to these gentlemen": as, for instance, that her attendants should throw them out of the window; that she would pluck off the Marshal's beard; that he should die by no hand but her's, and the like. When it came to this, the Maréchal de l'Hôpital stroked his chin with a sense of insecurity, and called the council away to deliberate; "during which time," says the softened Princess, "leaning on a window which looked on the St. Esprit, where they were saying mass, I offered up my prayers to God." At last they came back, and assented to every one of her propositions.
In a moment she was in the streets again. The first person she met was Vallon, terribly wounded. "We are lost!" he said. "You are saved!" she cried, proudly. "I command to-day in Paris, as I commanded in Orléans." "Vous me rendez la vie," said the reanimated soldier, who had been with her in her first campaign. On she went, meeting at every step men wounded in the head, in the body, in the limbs,—on horseback, on foot, on planks, on barrows,—besides the bodies of the slain. She reached the windows beside the Porte St. Antoine, and Condé met her there; he rode up, covered with blood and dust, his scabbard lost, his sword in hand. Before she could speak, that soul of fire uttered, for the only recorded time in his career, the wordDespair: "Ma cousine, vous voyez un homme au désespoir,"—and burst into tears. But her news instantly revived him, and his army with him. "Mademoiselle is at the gate," the soldiers cried; and, with this certainty of a place of refuge, they could do all things. In this famous fight, five thousand men defended themselves against twelve thousand, for eight hours. "Did you see Condé himself?" they asked Turenne, after it was over. "I saw not one, but a dozen Condés," was the answer; "he was in every place at once."
But there was one danger more for Condé, one opportunity more for Mademoiselle, that day. Climbing the neighboring towers of the Bastille, she watched the royal party on the heights of Charonne, and saw fresh cavalry and artillery detached to aid the army of Turenne. The odds were already enormous, and there was but one course left for her. She was mistress of Paris, and therefore mistress of the Bastille. She sent for the governor of the fortress, and showed him the advancing troops. "Turn the cannon under your charge, Sir, upon the royal army." Without waiting to heed the consternation she left behind her, Mademoiselle returned to the gate. The troops had heard of the advancing reinforcements, and were drooping again; when, suddenly, the cannon of the Bastille, those Spanish cannon; flamed out their powerful succor, the royal army halted and retreated, and the day was won.
The Queen and the Cardinal, watching from Charonne, saw their victims escape them. But the cannon-shots bewildered them all. "It was probably a salute to Mademoiselle," suggested some comforting adviser. "No," said the experienced Maréchal de Villeroi, "if Mademoiselle had a hand in it, the salute was for us." At this, Mazarin comprehended the whole proceeding, and coldly consoled himself with abon-motthat became historic. "Elle a tué son mari," he said,—meaning that her dreams of matrimony with the young king must now be ended. No matter; the battle of the Porte St. Antoine was ended also.
There have been many narratives of that battle, including Napoleon's; they are hard to reconcile, and our heroine's own is by no means the clearest; but all essentially agree in the part they ascribe to her. One brief appendix to the campaign, and her short career of heroism fades into the light of common day.
Yet a third time did Fortune, showering upon one maiden so many opportunities at once, summon her to arm herself with her father's authority, that she might go in his stead into that terrible riot which, two days after, tarnished the glories of Condé, and by its reaction overthrew the party of the Fronde ere long. None but Mademoiselle dared to take the part of that doomed minority in the city government, which, for resisting her own demands, were to be terribly punished on that fourth-of- July night. "A conspiracy so base," said the generous Talon, "never stained the soil of France." By deliberate premeditation, an assault was made by five hundred disguised soldiers on the Parliament assembled in the Hôtel de Ville; the tumult spread; the night rang with a civil conflict more terrible than that of the day. Condé and Gaston were vainly summoned; the one cared not, the other dared not. Mademoiselle again took her place in her carriage and drove forth amid the terrors of the night. The sudden conflict had passed its cruel climax, but she rode through streets slippery with blood; she was stopped at every corner. Once a man laid his arm on the window, and asked if Condé was within the carriage. She answered "No," and he retreated, the flambeaux gleaming on a weapon beneath his cloak. Through these interruptions, she did not reach the half-burned and smoking Hôtel de Ville till most of its inmates had left it; the few remaining she aided to conceal, and emerged again amid the lingering, yawning crowd, who cheered her with, "God bless Mademoiselle! all she does is well done."
At four o'clock that morning she went to rest, weary with these days and nights of responsibility. Sleep soundly, Mademoiselle, you will be troubled with such no longer. An ignominious peace is at hand; and though peace, too, has her victories, yours is not a nature grand enough to grasp them. Last to yield, last to be forgiven, there will yet be little in your future career to justify the distrust of despots, or to recall the young heroine of Orléans and St Antoine.
Like a river which loses itself, by infinite subdivision, in the sands, so the wars of the Fronde disappeared in petty intrigues at last. As the fighting ended and manoeuvring became the game, of course Mazarin came uppermost,—Mazarin, that super-Italian, finessing and fascinating, so deadly sweet,l'homme plus agréable du monde, as Madame de Motteville and Bussy-Rabutin call him,—flattering that he might win, avaricious that he might be magnificent, winning kings by jewelry and princesses by lapdogs,—too cowardly for any avoidable collision,—too cool and economical in his hatred to waste an antagonist by killing him, but always luring and cajoling him into an unwilling tool,—too serenely careless of popular emotion even to hate the mob of Paris, any more than a surgeon hates his own lancet when it cuts him; he only changes his grasp and holds it more cautiously. Mazarin ruled. And the King was soon joking over the fight at the Porte St. Antoine, with Condé and Mademoiselle; the Queen at the same time affectionately assuring our heroine, that, if she could have got at her on that day, she would certainly have strangled her, but that, since it was past, she would love her as ever,—as ever; while Mademoiselle, not to be outdone, lies like a Frenchwoman, and assures the Queen that really she did not mean to be so naughty, but "she was with those who induced her to act against her sense of duty!"
The day of civil war was over. The daring heroines and voluptuous blonde beauties of the Frondeur party must seek excitement elsewhere. Some looked for it in literature; for the female education of France in that age was far higher than England could show. The intellectual glory of the reign of the Grand Monarque began in its women. Marie de Médicis had imported the Italian grace and wit,—Anne of Austria the Spanish courtesy and romance; the Hôtel de Rambouillet had united the two, and introduced thegenre précieux, or stately style, which was superb in its origin, and dwindled to absurdity in the hands of Mlle. de Scudéry and her valets, before Molière smiled it away forever. And now that the wars were done, literary society came up again. Madame de Sablé exhausted the wit and the cookery of the age in her fascinating entertainments,—pâtésand Pascal, Rochefoucauld andragoûts,—Mme. de Brégy's Epictetus, Mme. de Choisy's salads,—confectionery, marmalade, elixirs, Des Cartes, Arnould, Calvinism, and the barometer. Mme. de Sablé had a sentimental theory that no woman should eat at the same table with a lover, but she liked to see her lovers eat, and Mademoiselle, in her obsolete novel of the "Princesse de Paphlagonie," gently satirizes this passion of her friend. And Mademoiselle herself finally eclipsed the Sablé by her own entertainments at her palace of the Luxembourg, where she offered no dish but one of gossip, serving up herself and friends in a course of "Portraits" so appetizing that it became the fashion for ten years, and reached perfection at last in the famous "Characters" of La Bruyère.
Other heroines went into convents, joined the Carmelites, or those nuns of Port-Royal of whom the Archbishop of Paris said that they lived in the purity of angels and the pride of devils. Thither went Madame de Sablé herself, finally,—"the late Madame," as the dashing young abbés called her when she renounced the world. Thither she drew the beautiful Longueville also, and Heaven smiled on one repentance that seemed sincere. There they found peace in the home of Angélique Arnould and Jacqueline Pascal. And thence those heroic women came forth again, when religious war threatened to take the place of civil: again they put to shame their more timid male companions, and by their labors Jesuit and Jansenist found peace.
But not such was to be the career of our Mademoiselle, who, at twenty, had tried the part of devotee for one week and renounced it forever. No doubt, at thirty-five, she "began to understand that it is part of the duty of a Christian to attend High Mass on Sundays and holy days"; and her description of the deathbed of Anne of Austria is a most extraordinary jumble of the next world and this. But thus much of devotion was to her only a part of the proprieties of life, and before the altar of those proprieties she served, for the rest of her existence, with exemplary zeal. At forty, she was still the wealthiest unmarried princess in Europe; fastidious in toilette, stainless in reputation, not lovely in temper, rigid in etiquette, learned in precedence, an oracle in court traditions, a terror to the young maids-of-honor, and always quarrelling with her own sisters, younger, fairer, poorer than herself. Her mind and will were as active as in her girlhood, but they ground chaff instead of wheat. Whether her sisters should dine at the Queen's table, when she never had; who should be her trainbearer at the royal marriage; whether the royal Spanish father-in-law, on the same occasion, should or should not salute the Queen-mother; who, on any given occasion, should have atabouret, who apliant, who a chair, who an arm-chair; who should enter the King'sruelle, or her own, or pass out by the private stairway; how she should arrange the duchesses at state-funerals: these were the things which tried Mademoiselle's soul, and these fill the later volumes of that autobiography whose earlier record was all a battle and a march. From Condé's "Obey Mademoiselle's orders as my own," we come down to this: "For my part, I had been worrying myself all day; having been told that the new Queen would not salute me on the lips, and that the King had decided to sustain her in this position. I therefore spoke to Monsieur the Cardinal on the subject, bringing forward as an important precedent in my favor, that the Queen-mother had always kissed the princesses of the blood"; and so on through many pages. Thus lapsed her youth of frolics into an old age of cards.
It is a slight compensation, that this very pettiness makes her chronicles of the age very vivid in details. How she revels in the silver brocades, the violet-colored velvet robes, the crimson velvet carpets, the purple damask curtains fringed with gold and silver, the embroideredfleurs de lis, the wedding-caskets, the cordons of diamonds, the clusters of emeraldsen poireswith diamonds, and the Isabelle-colored linen, whereby hangs a tale! She still kept up her youthful habit of avoiding the sick-rooms of her kindred, but how magnificently she mourned them when they died! Her brief, genuine, but quite unexpected sorrow for her father was speedily assuaged by the opportunity it gave her to introduce the fashion of gray mourning, instead of black; it had previously, it seems, been worn by widows only. Servants and horses were all put in deep black, however, and "the court observed that I was verymagnifiquein all my arrangements." On the other hand, be it recorded, that our Mademoiselle, chivalrous royalist to the last, was the only person at the French court who refused to wear mourning for the usurper Cromwell!