FRENCH ‘REASON OF STATE’ FROM THE FALL OF LA ROCHELLE TO THE FRONDES POLITICAL PRUDENCE IN THE WRITINGS OF HENRI DUC DE ROHAN AND GABRIEL NAUDÉ Jesper Schaap Cover illustration: ‘Mazarin à Casal’ In Paul Lehugeur, Histoire de France en cent tableaux (Paris: A. Lahure, s.d. [1899]), 68r. Source: Gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France French ‘Reason of State’ from the Fall of La Rochelle to the Frondes Political Prudence in the Writings of Henri duc de Rohan and Gabriel Naudé Franse ‘staatsraison’ vanaf de val van La Rochelle tot de Frondes Politieke prudentie in de geschriften van Henri duc de Rohan en Gabriel Naudé THESIS to obtain the degree of Doctor from the Erasmus University Rotterdam by command of the rector magnificus Prof.dr. R.C.M.E. Engels and in accordance with the decision of the Doctorate Board. The public defence shall be held on Thursday 17 October 2019 at 11.30 hrs by Jesper William Schaap born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands Doctoral Committee: Promotors: Prof.dr. R.C.F. von Friedeburg Prof.dr. H.J.M. Nellen Other members: Prof.dr. H.A.M. Klemann Prof.dr. L. van Bunge Prof.dr. K. van Berkel This research was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The study is part of a larger research project ‘Reason of state’ or ‘reason of princes’? The ‘new monarchy and its opponents in France, Germany and the Netherlands, during the seventeenth century (2011-2016). The research was supervised by prof. dr. R.C.F. von Friedeburg and comprised four projects of which the present study is one. Ingmar Vroomen examined the use of fatherland rhetoric in Dutch pamphlets (1618-1672) as a response to foreign threats and internal strife. Annemieke Romein studied the employment of fatherland-terminology in estate debates in Jülich and Hesse-Cassel between 1642 and 1655, and in Brittany France in the period 1648-1652. Marianne Klerk studied developments in understandings of ‘reason of state’ and ‘interest’ in the Low Countries during the second half of the seventeenth century, identifying the legacy of the Duc de Rohan’s analysis. vor den kunkelstuben jagen die löwen spinnen in front of the spinning-rooms lions chase spiders und prinzen and princes ungeheuer aus salz und blumen marvelous ones of salt and flowers die spinnen jagen die prinzen the spiders chase the princes die prinzen gleiten die jagenden löwen in blumen the princes chase the lions through the flowers die spinnen jagen die spinnerinnen the spiders pursue the spinners die löwen sind ungeheuer the lions are marvelous die spinnen sind aus salz the spiders are of salt die prinzen sind blumen the princes are flowers Hans/Jean Arp – Die Wolkenpumpe (1917) TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND THE RHETORIC OF POLITICAL PRUDENCE 1 SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE: A MONARCHY TRANSFORMED 4 THE RHETORIC OF POLITICAL PRUDENCE 7 FRIEDRICH MEINECKE AND THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF POLITICAL PRUDENCE 16 METHODOLOGICAL MEDITATIONS 25 RESEARCH OUTLINE AND THESIS 30 Chapter I ‘CRISIS-MANAGEMENT’ IN EARLY MODERN FRANCE: MONARCHICAL RULE IN THE FACE OF CRISIS, 1610-1661 33 INTRODUCTION 33 FROM RÉPUBLIQUE TO L’ÉTAT: THE FRENCH MONARCHY AND ITS ELITES 36 DYNASTIC FRAGILITY: THE BOURBON LINE, ANTICIPATING A DAUPHIN AND INSUBORDINATE GRANDS 41 POLITICAL INSTABILITY: MINOR KINGS, REGENCIES AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CARDINAL-MINISTERS 45 Governmental weakness of a royal minority 45 Two regency governments (1610-1617 and 1643-1651) 47 Two cardinal-ministers: Richelieu and Mazarin 59 Aristocratic revolt 68 FRANCO-SPANISH RELATIONS: THE FEAR OF HABSBURG ENCIRCLEMENT 70 Opposition to the ministerial government 70 The Habsburg threat of encirclement and Richelieu’s military strategy 79 From ‘cold war’ in Italy to open warfare with Spain and engagement in the Thirty Years’ War 81 CONCLUSION 85 Chapter II HENRI DUC DE ROHAN: AMBITIOUS GRAND IN A TRANSFORMING MONARCHY 87 INTRODUCTION 87 PRINCELY AMBITION 92 ROHAN AS GRAND: RELATION TO THE FRENCH CROWN AND GOVERNMENT 95 The king’s cousin 95 Royal minority: asserting grand authority and competing for favour 97 ‘Huguenot warrior’ 99 Venetian doldrums 104 Grand ambition and governmental distrust 105 Ancient rebel cut loose 108 ROHAN AS ‘DISARMED’ INTELLECTUAL ARMED WITH HIS BOOKS 111 CONCLUSION: GRAND COMPETITION AND TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE FRENCH MONARCHY 117 Intermezzo I PUBLISHING IN THE INTEREST OF A PRINCE: PUBLICATION HISTORY OF ROHAN’S DE L’INTEREST DES PRINCES 119 COMPOSITION 119 PUBLICATION 123 RECEPTION 130 PICTURING THE INTEREST OF A PRINCE 137 Chapter III ROHAN’S INTERESTS AND DE L’INTEREST DES PRINCES ET ESTATS DE LA CHRESTIENTÉ 141 ANALYSIS: DE L’INTEREST DES PRINCES ET ESTATS DE LA CHRESTIENTÉ 144 Interest 144 Enclosing the famous preamble: Rohan’s use of the terminology of interest and its function. 147 PRINCES AND ‘STATES’ IN ROHAN’S DE L’INTEREST: WHO ARE THE ACTORS? 153 Rohan’s use of the concept of the ‘state’ 153 Actions of princes 157 From bien publique to the interest of princes and their realms 160 THE EUROPEAN POWER CONSTELLATION AND ‘MACHIAVELLIAN’ RULE BY CONQUEST 161 Rohan’s conception of Europe: les deux pôles de la Chrestienté 161 Exposing Spanish designs as ‘Machiavellian’ rule by conquest 163 A call to arms: France and the rest of Europe 169 CONCLUSION 171 Chapter IV GABRIEL NAUDÉ: PARISIAN ÉRUDIT AND GALLICAN CATHOLIC 175 NAUDÉ: AMBITIONS AND PATRONS 176 EDUCATION 181 INTELLECTUAL CIRCLES 184 NAUDÉ AS AN “ANIMATED AND WALKING STUDY” 186 THE RELIGIOUS VIEWS OF GABRIEL NAUDÉ 194 Religious beliefs in Naudé’s letters 196 Naudé’s religious beliefs in the correspondence of contemporaries 199 The Naudé of the ana 204 Naudé and the conversion of ‘heretics’ 206 Naudé’s irreligion: a late seventeenth century distortion? 207 CONCLUSION: GABRIEL NAUDÉ, A GALLICAN CATHOLIC OF INDEPENDENT MIND 209 Intermezzo II THE SECRETS OF PUBLICATION: PUBLICATION HISTORY OF NAUDÉ’S CONSIDÉRATIONS POLITIQUES AND THE MASCURAT 213 INTRODUCTION 213 THE CONSIDÉRATIONS POLITIQUES: A DISSIMULATED PUBLICATION 213 THE MASCURAT AND ITS PUBLICATION 228 Chapter V NAUDÉ’S USE OF RAISON D’ÉTAT IN THE CONSIDÉRATIONS POLITIQUES AND THE MASCURAT 235 RHETORICAL PROCÉDÉ OF THE MASCURAT: A POLITICAL APOLOGY IN A DIALOGUE ‘UNDER THE ROSE’ 239 A political apology in dialogue form 239 The characters of Mascurat and Sainct-Ange 240 Sub rosa: political news and the virtue of discretion 243 Paideia in the Mascurat: an ethics of the reader as judge of the mazarinades 244 The intended audience of the Mascurat 246 JURIDICO-POLITICAL ARGUMENTATION IN NAUDÉ’S APOLOGY FOR MAZARIN 248 Ad hominem argumentation 248 Legal arguments 253 Politics, religion and morality in Naudé’s political thought 259 Reason of state and the ‘state-prisoners’-debate’ 266 Raison d’état, ‘cette loy fondamentale de la souveraineté’ 273 CONCLUSION 278 Chapter VI ROHAN AND NAUDÉ COMPARED 279 ROHAN AND NAUDÉ 282 STYLE AND HISTORICAL METHOD: CAESAR AND TACITUS 285 History and political prudence 285 Rhetorical style 288 Public, publication strategy and the importance of opinion 290 WAR WITH SPAIN, THE ‘NATURAL ENEMY’ OF THE FRENCH CROWN 292 MINISTERS AND ROYAL FAVOURITES 296 RAISON D’ÉTAT, RELIGION AND MORALITY 302 CONCLUSION 307 Conclusion ‘CRISIS-MANAGEMENT’ AND POLITICAL PRUDENCE IN THE AGE OF THE CARDINAL-MINISTERS 309 ii APPENDICES 317 APPENDIX 1 DEDICATORY LETTERS TO THE POLITICAL WRITINGS OF THE DUC DE ROHAN 319 A. Dedication of Le Parfaict Capitaine to Louis XIII. 319 B. Dedication of De l’Interest des Princes et Estats de la Chrestienté to Cardinal Richelieu. 320 APPENDIX 2 PUBLICATION HISTORY OF LE PARFAICT CAPITAINE AND DE L’INTEREST DES PRINCES 321 APPENDIX 3 ROHAN’S VENETIAN DISCOURS D’ESTAT 331 A. ‘Advis aux Princes Chrestiens, Sur les affaires publiques presentes’ 331 B. ‘A ceux qui veulent conserver leur Liberté, ou l’acquerir’ 335 APPENDIX 4 PUBLICATION HISTORY. EDITIONS OF GABRIEL NAUDÉ’S POLITICAL WRITINGS. 341 APPENDIX 5 A COMPARISON OF THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITION OF THE MASCURAT 349 BIBLIOGRAPHY 447 MANUSCRIPTS 447 Rohan 447 PRINTED PRIMARY SOURCES: 447 SECONDARY LITERATURE: 450 DIGITAL TOOLS 462 SUMMARY 463 NEDERLANDSE SAMENVATTING 467 CURRICULUM VITAE 471 iii iv Acknowledgements The completion of the book at hand is like a case of arrhythmia. At times the research and writing process accelerated in moments of euphoria, at others it resembled a faint thump. Never did it progress in a regular pace. One moment I almost felt like I was looking over the shoulders of a Rohan or Naudé, the next these historical figures or their distant age barely meant anything to me. Of course I could use these lines to describe how much I learned from doing a PhD, experiences aplenty. However, I would rather present to the reader of the several hundred pages laying in front of her (and perhaps remind myself of) the joy of historical enquiry and the quest for meaning. The most beautiful of times in the research process I experienced while tracing trails of evidence. I could approach my explorations into the past almost like detective-work, whether in the archives in Paris or in the gigantic wealth of digitized early modern prints online. In some of these moments it all seemed to come together. I leaved through the exact editions that Naudé may have consulted during the writing of his books and could virtually see the manuscript of Rohan’s De l’Interest des Princes pass from one hand to the next in the years between 1634 and 1637. What seems hard to conceive for a student commencing his or her history studies, is actually how much historical material remains unexplored. A historian may always stumble upon documents that shed new light on older interpretations of an event or a work.