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SULLY, DUG DE. 



SULFICIA. 



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of bis master's most valued counsellors, as he was one of his bravest 

 soldiers. He was employed in many delicate and difficult negotia- 

 tions ; and at the battle of Coutras (20th of October 1587), where he 

 commanded the small park of artillery, he contributed mainly by his 

 skilful employment of it, to the gaining the victory. 



That victory was thrown away in consequence of the disunion of the 

 Protestant leaders; and the ensuing year was wasted iu skirmishes 

 which led to nothing. The death of the queen-mother, in January 

 1589, followed in rapid succession by the assassination of the Duke of 

 Guise and the insurrection of the Parisians, forced on an alliance 

 between Henri III. and his heir presumptive. Rosny was not in a 

 condition to take an active part in the operations which ensued. The 

 death of his wife kept him fettered for some time in hopeless gloom, 

 and when he rejoined the army before Paris, it was in the mood of a 

 man who braved death as a relief from painful thoughts. He was 

 startled out of his despondency by the assassination of the king of 

 France (2nd of August 1589), and the succession of the king of 

 Navarre as Henri IV. The services of Rosny from this time till the 

 entry of Henri into Paris (21st of Marchijl594) were many and weighty. 

 He fought at the battle of Arque; he was dangerously wounded at the 

 battle of Ivry ; he detected the intrigues ou foot among the Roman 

 Catholics with the view of forming a ' tiers parti,' which those who 

 dibtrusted the League might be induced to join, and which should 

 be equally hostile to Henri. This last discovery opened the eyes of 

 Sully to the impossibility of a Protestant obtaining secure possession 

 of the throne of France ; and from that moment his part was taken. 

 He urged upon Henri the necessity of re-entering the Roman Catholic 

 Church, and ultimately succeeded in overcoming his not very strong 

 reluctance to the step. Rosny was thus the main instrument in 

 opening the gates of Paris to his master ; and to this obligation he 

 added, about the same time, that of gaining for him the services of 

 the Grand-Admiral Villars and the possession of Rouen. Amid all 

 these occupations he found time to marry again, in May 1594 : his 

 second wife was Rachel Cochefilet, widow of the Sieur de Chateaupers. 



Long before Henri, by changing his religion and obtaining posses- 

 sion of Paris, had established himself securely on the throne of France, 

 he had felt severely the dilapidated state of the national finances. 

 One of his first wishes, on finding himself in a state of comparative 

 tranquillity, was to secure the services of Rosny, in whose fidelity and 

 talents he had the greatest confidence, in this important department 

 of the state. Two difficulties prevented the immediate gratification 

 of this wish ; the danger of exciting jealousy by advancing a Pro- 

 testant, and the reluctance of the professional financiers to admit one 

 not of their class into a knowledge of its secrets. The king hesitated 

 for two years before he could gather courage to beat down these 

 obstacles ; but the malversations continued to increase so shame- 

 lessly, that in 1596 Rosny was formally installed a member of the 

 great council of finance. 



His first step was to obtain from the king the appointment of a 

 commission of inquiry into the state of the revenue and its collection 

 iu all the districts into which the kingdom was divided for financial 

 purposes. Four of the principal districts were reserved for his own 

 inspection. In the course of a tour he made through them he 

 detected the various means by which money was diverted from the 

 treasury, and the king kept poor at the same time that over-exactions 

 were levied upon the people. He collected arrears of taxes which had 

 been allowed to lie over, and returned to Paris not only with evidence 

 of abuses in the management of the finances, but with a considerable 

 sum of money in hand. An assembly of notables was held at Rouen 

 soon after his return. The king left Rosny to deal with the repre- 

 sentatives of the states, and succeeded in obtaining a grant of some 

 new imposts for the king, and frustrating in a manner that gave no 

 umbrage an attempt made by the assembly to establish a board of 

 control over the royal treasury. He was now promoted to be superin- 

 tendant of finance, and entered upon the discharge of his duties with a 

 zeal that amounted almost to a passion. He was indefatigable in 

 his examination of the state records, with a view to make himself 

 familiar with the origin and actual character of the different 

 branches of revenue, and the methods of levying them and securing 

 the money they yielded. Having mastered this knowledge, he 

 availed himself of it to organise thoroughly the financial establish- 

 ment ; and he superintended with unremitting vigilance the working 

 of the machine which he constructed. Soon after he commenced 

 operations, he induced the king to order that the surplus receipts of 

 each year should at its close be deposited, in money, in the Bastile. 

 When ho undertook the management of the finances, in 1597, the 

 treasury was empty and in debt ; after the death of Henri IV., in 

 1610, 42,000,000 of livres were found in it. 



The method and regularity which Rosny had introduced into the 

 finances, suggested a wish that he should lend his assistance towards 

 bringing the other departments of government into similar order. He 

 was appointed in succession to be grand-master of the artillery, 

 director of the marine, master of works, and director of bridges and 

 highways. He became in fact sole minister of France. Six days of 

 the week councils were held every morning and evening. On the 

 Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, the council of state and finances 

 sat both in the forenoon and the evening ; on the other three days 

 special councils were held of war, commerce, &c. Rosny attended 



all, and presided in all when the king was absent, which was fre- 

 quently the case. 



In addition to these duties of routine, he was frequently engaged in 

 important negotiations. In 1601 he was delegated to meet Queen 

 Elizabeth at Dover, where arrangements were made for an alliance 

 against the house of Austria. In 1603 he was sent as ambassador to 

 James I. on his succession. Honours and emoluments flowed in upon 

 him. The grand-mastership of the artillery produced him an annual 

 income of 24,000 livres; his office of counsellor of state as much ; ho 

 held several governments, the appointment of a counsellor of Navarre, 

 the command of a troop, to all of which considerable pensions were 

 attached, and he received from time to time considerable presents 

 from Henri In 1606 he was created Due de Sully and a peer of 

 France. And his advico was taken and his services employed by the 

 king in his most delicate family arrangements, as well as in the affairs 

 of the state. 



The murder of Henri IV. in 1610 terminated the career of Sully as 

 minister. He stood alone after the death of him to whom alone he 

 had devoted himself; obnoxious to envy and intrigue on account of 

 his power and wealth, doubly obnoxious as a Protestant. He con- 

 tinued for some time to attend the council as usual, but finding him- 

 self systematically thwarted by the favourites of the new court, he 

 made preparations for resigning in the commencement of 1611, and 

 early in that year formally gave up the offices of superintendent of 

 finance and governor of the Bastile. 



From that time the chateau of Villebon became his principal resi- 

 dence. In the spring and autumn of every year he visited Sully and 

 Rosny. He had retained his government of Poitou, and the direction 

 of the artillery, the fortifications, and the roads and bridges; so, 

 though retired from court, his life was neither private nor inactive. 

 He attended at least one conference of the Protestants ; but refused 

 to take part in any of their armaments. He retained the respect of 

 the court, and was appointed a marshal of France by Louis XIII., in 

 1634. The favourite amusement of his declining years consisted 

 in preparing his Memoirs " of the great and royal economies of 

 Henri IV." for publication. He took a keen interest in the manage- 

 ment of his estates. The prodigality of his son (who died before 

 him) involved him in some disagreeable embarrassments ; and the 

 decision against him of a suit which his grandson had been instigated 

 to commence is supposed to have hastened his death. He died at 

 Villebon, December 22, 1641. 



Sully was essentially a man of action ; except for history, and 

 those branches of knowledge which are useful to the soldier and 

 practical statesman, he seems to have had little literary taste. He 

 was fearless, enterprising, and persevering. His appetites were not 

 inordinate, and were held in constant control by his powerful will. 

 He had a clear and just perception of character. He had naturally 

 a love of order and despatch, which were strengthened by habit. 

 His theoretical views of society and political economy do not evince 

 much profundity ; and the strange and cumbrous arrangements of his 

 Memoirs would seem to indicate that he laboured under the same 

 inability to tell a plain story briefly and intelligibly, which has been 

 observed in others eminent for the clearness of apprehension dis- 

 played in their actions. His moral creed seems to have closely 

 resembled that of the contemporary Puritans of England. It is more 

 difficult to conjecture) what were his religious opinions. With great 

 temptations to abjure the Protestant faith, he continued to profess it 

 to the last. Yet he advised Henri IV. to reconcile himself to the 

 Roman Catholic Church, and his affection for that king is beyond a 

 doubt. Nor can his adherence to Protestantism be explained upon 

 the assumption that he was influenced by a partisan point of honour ; 

 for he was more a Frenchman than a Protestant, and invariably 

 sacrificed the party interests of the Huguenots to the broad interests 

 of the nation. His devotion to Henri was not without a tinge of 

 superstition ; it was long affected by the predictions of astrologers, if 

 it was ever entirely cleared of them. His love of state, and display 

 in his apparel, household, and attendants, is another indication of 

 something imaginative peeping out from under his stern practical 

 character ; as is also the fragment of a romance of the Scudery school 

 found among his papers after his death. Yet he had no tolerance for 

 what weaklings call sentiment, as may be gathered from his own 

 account of his first marriage ; and from his sturdy and fearless oppo- 

 sition to the follies into which that weakness frequently led his 

 master. Sully was not a person exactly to be loved, but he was one 

 to be reverenced and implicitly trusted. He was perhaps a servant 

 such as no king but Henri IV. ever had ; as Henri on his part was 

 qualified to win the affectionate devotion of such a servant beyond 

 any king who ever existed. The administration of Sully is an import- 

 ant chapter in the history of France : the subsequent fortunes of that 

 nation cannot be thoroughly understood unless by one who has studied 

 attentively his operations. 



(The principal authority for the facts stated in this sketch is Sully's 

 own work ; but some assistance has been derived from De Thou and 

 other contemporary writers.) 



SULPI'CIA, a Roman poetess, of whose productions we possess 

 only one Satire, consisting of seventy verses, which is usually called 

 ' De Edicto Domitiani, quo Philosophos Urbe exegit.' She is gene- 

 rally supposed to be the same as the Sulpicia mentioned by Martial 



