Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-tn8tq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-21T12:29:08.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conviction, Ambition and the Genesis of Sully's Économies royales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Edmund H. Dickerman
Edmund H. Dickerman
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Although Maximilien de Béthune, duke of Sully (1559–1641), held many high offices under Henry IV (superintendent of finances, grand voyer, grand master of artillery, among others), he never held the realm's highest military post, constable of France. Sully once had the chance to acquire the position, he tells us in his memoirs, the famous Économies royales, but turned it down. The occasion came when Henry IV offered Sully succession to the office held by the aged duke of Montmorency if Sully and his son would convert to Catholicism (Sully's son Maximilien II was to receive Henry's illegitimate daughter Mlle de Vendôme in marriage). Sully thanked the king but claimed he already held sufficient offices and declined to convert. When pressed further, the duke agreed to consider the offer for a month, at the end of which time he informed the king that his Calvinist convictions forbade a conversion’. Henry ‘showed great regret that you remained so firm in that resolution’, Sully's secretaries wrote, ‘and told you that he saw that you no longer loved him, and that since you were more attached to the Huguenots than to him, he would speak to you no more of it…’ This, Sully wished posterity to believe, was all there was to the episode. Since historians of the duke have credited his version of the affair, his wish prevailed. A close scrutiny of the episode and its aftermath reveals, however, that Sully's account concealed far more than it revealed. Henry's offer was far more than just a great ‘temptation.’ What really happened was that Sully tried to secure the ‘great elevation’ without converting. Henry grew angry when Sully refused to yield to his will and briefly threatened him with disgrace. In the end the king acclaimed his minister's firmness of will and forgot his pique. Sully did not, however, and decided that even if his master refused to reward him sufficiently for his contributions to Henry and France, posterity would learn of them. Thus was born the idea of, and very possibly a first draft of, Sully's famous Économies royales.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , September 1987 , pp. 513 - 521
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Les Économies royales, in Michaud, and Poujoulat, (eds.), Nouvelle collection des mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de France, 2nd series (Paris, 1837), III, 224–5, 233–4Google Scholar.

2 Les Économies royales, III, 234.

3 Both Barbiche, Bernard, Sully (Paris, 1978), pp. 188–9Google Scholar, and Buisseret, David, Sully and the growth of centralized government in France, 1598–1610 (London, 1968), pp. 197–8, date the episode in late 1607Google Scholar.

4 ‘It must have been a great temptation.’ Buisseret, David and Barbiche, Bernard, ‘Les convictions religieuses de Sully’, Bibliothèque de l' École des Charles, CXXI (1963), 227Google Scholar.

5 Les Économies royales, III, 223.

6 Ubaldini to the pope, 29 Nov. 1608, in Perrens, François Tommy, Les mariages espagnols sous le règne de Henri IV et la régence de Marie de Médicis, 1602–15 (Paris, 1869), p. 301Google Scholar; Brunet, and Champollion, et al. , eds., Mémoires-journaux de Pierre de l' Estoile (Paris, 1875–1896), IX, 173Google Scholar.

7 Foscarini to the Doge and Senate, 17 Dec. 1608, Bibliothèque nationale (Paris), Fonds Italien 1760, fo. 172.

8 Carew to Lord Salisbury, 5/15 Feb. 1609, Public Record Office, SP 78/55, fo. 33V; Foscarini to the Doge and Senate, 10 Feb. 1609, Fonds Italien 1760, fo. 219; Francois Aerssens to John of Oldenbarneveld, 9 Feb. 1609, in Motley, John L., The life and death of John of Barneveld (New York, 1874), I, 48–52Google Scholar.

9 Carew to Salisbury, 14/24 March 1609, P.R.O., SP 78/55, fo. 56.

10 Barbiche, , Sully, p. 121Google Scholar.

11 Foscarini to the Doge and Senate, 31 Dec. 1608, Fonds Italien 1760, fos. 182V–183; Carew to Salisbury, 20/30 Dec. 1608, P.R.O., SP 78/54, fo. 239V.

12 Barbiche, , Sully, p. 121Google Scholar.

13 Barbiche, , Sully, p. 124Google Scholar.

14 It was published in the 1668 edition of Les Économies royales, 1, 641–60.

15 Mémoires-journaux, IX, 219.

16 Malherbe to Peiresc, 16 Apr. 1609, Lalanne, L., ed., Oeuvres de Malherbe (Paris, 1862), III, 85Google Scholar.

17 Dickerman, Edmund H., ‘Sully, the Press and the pursuit of power’, Renaissance Quarterly XXVII, 3 (Autumn, 1975), 343–9Google Scholar.

18 It is printed in the 1638 edition of Les Économies royales, 1, 600–4, ‘Abrégé des exploits et hautes merveilles de Henry le Grand…’ and in Le Mercure de France, 1609.

19 Le Mercure de France, 1609, p. 345; The duke de la Force to Mme de la Force, February 12, 1609, the Grange, marquis de la (ed.), Mémoires du due de la Force (Paris, 1843), 11, 218Google Scholar.

20 Carew to Salisbury, 14/24 Mar. 1609, P.R.O., SP 78/55, fo. 56.

21 Le Mercure de France, 1609, p. 352.

22 Le Mercure de France, 1609, p. 352.

23 Enclosure in Carew to Salisbury, 14/24 Mar. 1609, P.R.O., SP 78/55, fo. 56.

24 The plan is reproduced in Barbiche, , Sully, p. 122Google Scholar and Buisseret, , Sully, p. 188Google Scholar.

25 Mémoires-jaurnaux, IX, 234.

26 P.R.O., SP 78/55, fo. 56.

27 Malherbe to Peiresc, 19 Oct. 1609, Oeuvres de Malherbe, III, I I I–12.

28 Le Mercure dt France, 1609, pp. 346–50.

29 Buisseret, David and Barbiche, Bernard (eds.), Les Économies royales de Sully (Paris, 1970), I, 182–90, 223–9, 235–43, 254–6. 263–5, 282–92, 354–7, 456–8Google Scholar.

30 Le Mercure dt France, 1609, pp. 350–1.

31 Le Mercure dt France, 1609, p. 345.

32 Barbiche, , Sully, p. 192Google Scholar.

33 Enclosure in Carew to Salisbury, 14/24 Mar. 1609, P.R.O., SP 78/55, fo. 56.

34 P.R.O, SP 78/55, fo. 56.

35 P.R.O., SP 78/55, fo. 56.

36 Foscanni to the Doge and Senate, 25 Mar 1609, Fonds Italien 1761, fo 10

37 Barbiche, , Sully, p 187Google Scholar, Buisseret, , Sully, pp 52–3Google Scholar

38 Foscanni to the Doge and Senate, 17 Dec 1608, Fonds Italien 1760, fo 176, Guidi to the Grand Duke, 24 Mar 1609, Desjardins, Abel (ed ), Negociations diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscaru (Paris, 1875), V, 591Google Scholar

39 Henry IV to Mme de Verneuil, [1608], Xivrey, Berger de, ed, Lettres missives de Henri IV (Paris, 1843–1876), VII, 664Google Scholar. Henry's determination to triumph over others in war, the hunt and games of chance is demonstrated in Dickerman, Edmund H, ‘Henry IV, the duel and the battle within’, Societas – A Review of Social History, III, 3 (Summer, 1973), 216–20Google Scholar

40 Foscanni to the Doge and Senate, 17 Dec 1608, Fonds Italien 1760, fos 172–172V

41 Mémoires-joumaux, IX, 213

42 Malherbe, to Peiresc, , 19 10 1609, Oeuvres de Malherbe, III, 111Google Scholar

43 Carew to Salisbury, 7/17 Dec. 1608, P.R.O., SP 78/54, fos. 223V – 224. Foscarini to the Doge and Senate, 31 Dec. 1608, Fonds Italien 1760, fos. 182–182v.

44 Henry, to Sully, , [24 12 1608], Lettres missives de Henri IV, VII, 656Google Scholar.

45 Carew to Salisbury, 30 Dec/9 Jan., 23 Jan./2 Feb. 1608/09, P.R.O., SP 78/54, fos. 237v, 239v; SP 78/55, fo. 23v.

46 Carew to Salisbury, 23 Jan./2 Feb. 1609, P.R.O., SP 78/55, fos. 22–22v. The Force, duke de La to Force, Mme de la, 28 09, 17 02 1609, Mémoires du due de la Force, II, 216, 219Google Scholar.

47 Carew to Salisbury, 5/15 Feb. 1609, P.R.O., SP 78/55, fo. 215v.

48 Foscarini to the Doge and Senate, 10 Feb. 1609, Fonds Italien 1760, fo. 215v.

49 Pfister, Christian, ‘Les Économies royales de Sully et le Grand Dessein de Henry IV’, Revue historique LIV (1894), 313–14Google Scholar.

50 Pfister, , ‘Sully’, Revue historique, LIV (1894), 304Google Scholar; Barbiche, , Sully, pp. 13–14Google Scholar.

51 Carew to Salisbury, 14/24 Mar. 1609, P.R.O., SP 78/55, fo. 56.

52 Pfister, , ‘Sully’, Revue historique, LIV (1894), 308–9Google Scholar; Buisseret, and Barbiche, (eds.), Les Économies royales de Sully (Paris, 1970), I, xxivGoogle Scholar.

53 Ibid. p. xvii.

54 Ibid. p. xxviii, note 3.

55 Carew to Salisbury, 5/15 Apr. 1609, P.R.O., SP 78/55, fo. 67.

56 Ibid. fo. 66v; Foscarini to the Doge and Senate, 25 Mar. 1609, Fonds Italien 1761, fo. 10.

57 Mousnier, Roland, L'Assassinat d' Henri IV (Paris, 1964), pp. 234–6Google Scholar; Hennequin, Jacques, Henri IV dans ses oraisons funèbres (Paris, 1977), passimGoogle Scholar.

58 The phrase is Buisseret's, David, Sully, p. 202Google Scholar.