And it broke out, accordingly, on the 19th of May, 1635.  The violation of the electorate of Treves by the Cardinal Infante, and the carrying-off of the elector-archbishop served as pretext; and Louis XIII. declared himself protector of a feeble prince who had placed in his hands the custody of several places.  Alencon, herald-at-arms of France, appeared at Brussels, proclamation of war in hand; and, not be able to obtain an interview with the Cardinal Infante, he hurled it at the feet of the Belgian herald-at-arms commissioned to receive him, and he affixed a copy of it to a post he set up in the ground in the last Flemish village, near the frontier.  On the 6th of June, a proclamation of the king’s summoned the Spanish Low Countries to revolt.  A victory had already been gained in Luxembourg, close to the little town of Avein, over Prince Thomas of Savoy, the duke-regnant’s brother, who was embroiled with him, and whom Spain had just taken into her service.  The campaign of 1635 appeared to be commencing under happy auspices.  These hopes were deceived; the Low Countries did not respond to the summons of the king and of his confederates; there was no rising anywhere against the Spanish yoke; traditional jealousy of the heretics of Holland prevented the Flanders from declaring for France; it was necessary to undertake a conquest instead of fomenting an insurrection.  The Prince of Orange was advancing slowly into Germany; the Elector of Saxony had treated with the emperor, and several towns were accepting the peace concluded between them at Prague; Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, supported by Cardinal Valette, at the head of French troops, had been forced to fall back to Metz in order to protect Lothringen and Elsass.  In order to attach this great general to himself forever, the king had just ceded to Duke Bernard the landgravate of Elsass, hereditary possession, as it was, of the house of Austria.  The Prince of Conde was attacking Franche-Comte; the siege of Dole was dragging its slow length along, when the emperor’s most celebrated lieutenants, John van Weert and Piccolomini, who had formed a junction in Belgium, all at once rallied the troops of Prince Thomas, and, advancing rapidly towards Picardy, invaded French soil at the commencement of July, 1636.  La Capelle and Le Catelet were taken by assault, and the Imperialists laid siege to Corbie, a little town on the Somme four leagues from Amiens.

Great was the terror at Paris, and, besides the terror, the rage; the cardinal was accused of having brought ruin upon France; for a moment the excitement against him was so violent that his friends were disquieted by it:  he alone was unmoved.  The king quitted St. Germain and returned to Paris, whilst Richelieu, alone, without escort, and with his horses at a walk, had himself driven to the Hotel de Ville right through the mob in their fury.  “Then was seen,” says Fontenay-Mareuil, “what can be done by a great heart (vertu), and how it is revered even of the basest souls, for the streets were so full of folks that there was hardly room to pass, and all so excited that they spoke of nothing but killing him:  as soon as they saw him approaching, they all held their peace or prayed God to give him good speed, that he might be able to remedy the evil which was apprehended.”