I took Madame de Longueville and Madame de Bouillon in a coach by way of triumph to the Hotel de Ville. They were both of rare beauty, and appeared the more charming because of a careless air, the more becoming to both because it was unaffected. Each held one of her children, beautiful as the mother, in her arms. The place was so full of people that the very tops of the houses were crowded; all the men shouted and the women wept for joy and affection. I threw five hundred pistoles out of the window of the Hotel de Ville, and went again to the Parliament House, accompanied by a vast number of people, some with arms and others without. M. d'Elbeuf's captain of the guards told his master that he was ruined to all intents and purposes if he did not accommodate himself to the present position of affairs, which was the reason that I found him much perplexed and dejected, especially when M. de Bellievre, who had amused him hitherto designedly, came in and asked what meant the beating of the drums. I answered that he would hear more very soon, and that all honest men were quite out of patience with those that sowed divisions among the people. I saw then that wisdom in affairs of moment is nothing without courage. M. d'Elbeuf had little courage at this juncture, made a ridiculous explanation of what he had said before, and granted more than he was desired to do, and it was owing to the civility and good sense of M. de Bouillon that he retained the title of General and the precedence of M. de Bouillon and M. de La Mothe, who were equally Generals with himself under the Prince de Conti, who was from that instant declared Generalissimo of the King's forces under the direction of the Parliament.

There happened at this time a comical scene in the Hotel de Ville, which I mention more particularly because of its consequence. De Noirmoutier, who the night before was made lieutenant-general, returning by the Hotel de Ville from a sally which he had made into the suburbs to drive away Mazarin's skirmishers, as they were called, entered with three officers in armour into the chamber of Madame de Longueville, which was full of ladies; the mixture of blue scarfs, ladies, cuirassiers, fiddlers, and trumpeters in and about the hall was such a sight as is seldom met with but in romances. De Noirmoutier, who was a great admirer of Astrea, said he imagined that we were besieged in Marcilli. "Well you may," said I; "Madame de Longueville is as fair as Galatea, but Marsillac (son of M. de La Rochefoucault) is not a man of so much honour as Lindamore." I fancy I was overheard by one in a neighbouring window, who might have told M. de La Rochefoucault, for otherwise I cannot guess at the first cause of the hatred which he afterwards bore me.

Before I proceed to give you the detail of the civil war, suffer me to lead you into the gallery where you, who are an admirer of fine painting, will be entertained with the figures of the chief actors, drawn all at length in their proper colours, and you will be able to judge by the history whether they are painted to the life. Let us begin, as it is but just, with her Majesty.

Character of the Queen.

The Queen excelled in that kind of wit which was becoming her circle, to the end that she might not appear silly before strangers; she was more ill-natured than proud, had more pride than real grandeur, and more show than substance; she loved money too well to be liberal, and her own interest too well to be impartial; she was more constant than passionate as a lover, more implacable than cruel, and more mindful of injuries than of good offices. She had more of the pious intention than of real piety, more obstinacy than well-grounded resolution, and a greater measure of incapacity than of all the rest.

Character of the Duc d' Orleans.

The Duc d'Orleans possessed all the good qualities requisite for a man of honour except courage, but having not one quality eminent enough to make him notable, he had nothing in him to supply or support the weakness which was so predominant in his heart through fear, and in his mind through irresolution, that it tarnished the whole course of his life. He engaged in all affairs, because he had not power to resist the importunities of those who drew him in for their own advantage, and came off always with shame for want of courage to go on. His suspicious temper, even from his childhood, deadened those lively, gay colours which would have shone out naturally with the advantages of a fine, bright genius, an amiable gracefulness, a very honest disposition, a perfect disinterestedness, and an incredible easiness of behaviour.

Character of the Prince de Conde.

The Prince de Conde was born a general, an honour none could ever boast of before but Caesar and Spinola; he was equal to the first, but superior to the second. Intrepidity was one of the least parts of his character. Nature gave him a genius as great as his heart. It was his fortune to be born in an age of war, which gave him an opportunity to display his courage to its full extent; but his birth, or rather education, in a family submissively attached to the Cabinet, restrained his noble genius within too narrow bounds. There was no care taken betimes to inspire him with those great and general maxims which form and improve a man of parts. He had not time to acquire them by his own application, because he was prevented from his youth by the unexpected revolution, and by a constant series of successes. This one imperfection, though he had as pure a soul as any in the world, was the reason that he did things which were not to be justified, that though he had the heart of Alexander so he had his infirmities, that he was guilty of unaccountable follies, that having all the talents of Francois de Guise, he did not serve the State upon some occasions as well as he ought, and that having the parts of Henri de Conde, his namesake, he did not push the faction as far as he might have done, nor did he discharge all the duties his extraordinary merit demanded from him.

Character of the Duc de Longueville.

M. de Longueville, though he had the grand name of Orleans, together with vivacity, an agreeable appearance, generosity, liberality, justice, valour, and grandeur, yet never made any extraordinary figure in life, because his ideas were infinitely above his capacity. If a man has abilities and great designs, he is sure to be looked upon as a man of some importance; but if he does not carry them out, he is not much esteemed, which was the case with De Longueville.

Character of the Duc de Beaufort.

M. de Beaufort knew little of affairs of moment but by hearsay and by what he had learned in the cabal of "The Importants," of whose jargon he had retained some smattering, which, together with some expressions he had perfectly acquired from Madame de Vendome, formed a language that would have puzzled a Cato. His speech was short and stupidly dull, and the more so because he obscured it by affectation. He thought himself very sufficient, and pretended to a great deal more wit than came to his share. He was brave enough in his person, and outdid the common Hectors by being so upon all occasions, but never more 'mal a propos' than in gallantry. And he talked and thought just as the people did whose idol he was for some time.

Character of the Dice d'Elbeuf.

M. d'Elbeuf could not fail of courage, as he was a Prince of the house of Lorraine. He had all the wit that a man of abundantly more cunning and good sense could pretend to. He was a medley of incoherent flourishes. He was the first Prince debased by poverty; and, perhaps, never man was more at a loss than he to raise the pity of the people in misery. A comfortable subsistence did not raise his spirits; and if he had been master of riches he would have been envied as a leader of a party. Poverty so well became him that it seemed as if he had been cut out for a beggar.

Character of the Duc de Bouillon.

The Duc de Bouillon was a man of experienced valour and profound sense. I am fully persuaded, by what I have seen of his conduct, that those who cry it down wrong his character; and it may be that others had too favourable notions of his merit, who thought him capable of all the great things which he never did.

Character of M. de Turenne.

M. de Turenne had all the good qualities in his very nature, and acquired all the great ones very early, those only excepted that he never thought of. Though almost all the virtues were in a manner natural to him, yet he shone out in none. He was looked upon as more proper to be at the head of an army than of a faction, for he was not naturally enterprising. He had in all his conduct, as well as in his way of talking, certain obscurities which he never explained but on particular occasions, and then only for his own honour.

Character of Marechal de La Mothe.

The Marechal de La Mothe was a captain of the second rank, full of mettle, but not a man of much sense. He was affable and courteous in civil life, and a very useful man in a faction because of his wonderful complacency.

Character of the Prince de Conti.

The Prince de Conti was a second Zeno as much as he was a Prince of the blood. That is his character with regard to the public; and as to his private capacity, wickedness had the same effect on him as weakness had on M. d'Elbeuf, and drowned his other qualities, which were all mean and tinctured with folly.

Character of M. de La Rochefoucault.

M. de La Rochefoucault had something so odd in all his conduct that I know not what name to give it. He loved to be engaged in intrigues from a child. He was never capable of conducting any affair, for what reasons I could not conceive; for he had endowments which, in another, would have made amends for imperfections . . . . He had not a long view of what was beyond his reach, nor a quick apprehension of what was within it; but his sound sense, very good in speculation, his good-nature, his engaging and wonderfully easy behaviour, were enough to have made amends more than they did for his want of penetration. He was constantly wavering in his resolution, but what to attribute it to I know not, for it could not come from his fertile imagination, which was lively. Nor can I say it came from his barrenness of thought, for though he did not excel as a man of affairs, yet he had a good fund of sense. The effect of this irresolution is very visible, though we do not know its cause. He never was a warrior, though a true soldier. He never was a courtier, though he had always a good mind to be one. He never was a good party man, though his whole life was engaged in partisanship. He was very timorous and bashful in conversation, and thought he always stood in need of apologies, which, considering that his "Maxims" showed not great regard for virtue, and that his practice was always to get out of affairs with the same hurry as he got into them, makes me conclude that he would have done much better if he had contented himself to have passed, as he might have done, for the politest courtier and the most cultivated gentlemen of his age.

Character of Madame de Longueville.

Madame de Longueville had naturally a great fund of wit, and was, moreover, a woman of parts; but her indolent temper kept her from making any use of her talents, either in gallantries or in her hatred against the Prince de Conde. Her languishing air had more charms in it than the most exquisite beauty. She had few or no faults besides what she contracted in her gallantry. As her passion of love influenced her conduct more than politics, she who was the Amazon of a great party degenerated into the character of a fortune-hunter. But the grace of God brought her back to her former self, which all the world was not able to do.

Character of Madame de Chevreuse.

Madame de Chevreuse had not so much as the remains of beauty when I knew her; she was the only person I ever saw whose vivacity supplied the want of judgment; her wit was so brilliant and so full of wisdom that the greatest men of the age would not have been ashamed of it, while, in truth, it was owing to some lucky opportunity. If she had been born in time of peace she would never have imagined there could have been such a thing as war. If the Prior of the Carthusians had but pleased her, she would have been a nun all her lifetime. M. de Lorraine was the first that engaged her in State affairs. The Duke of Buckingham—[George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, assassinated when preparing to succour Rochelle.]—and the Earl of Holland (an English lord, of the family of Rich, and younger son of the Earl of Warwick, then ambassador in France) kept her to themselves; M. de Chateauneuf continued the amusement, till at last she abandoned herself to the pleasing of a person whom she loved, without any choice, but purely because it was impossible for her to live without being in love with somebody. It was no hard task to give her one to serve the turn of the faction, but as soon as she accepted him she loved him with all her heart and soul, and she confessed that, by the caprice of fortune, she never loved best where she esteemed most, except in the case of the poor Duke of Buckingham. Notwithstanding her attachment in love, which we may, properly call her everlasting passion, notwithstanding the frequent change of objects, she was peevish and touchy almost to distraction, but when herself again, her transports were very agreeable; never was anybody less fearful of real danger, and never had woman more contempt for scruples and ceremonies.

Character of Mademoiselle de Chevreuse.

Mademoiselle de Chevreuse was more beautiful in her person than charming in her carriage, and by nature extremely silly; her amorous passion made her seem witty, serious, and agreeable only to him whom she was in love with, but she soon treated him as she did her petticoat, which to-day she took into her bed, and to-morrow cast into the fire out of pure aversion.

Character of the Princess Palatine.

The Princess Palatine' had just as much gallantry as gravity. I believe she had as great a talent for State affairs as Elizabeth, Queen of England. I have seen her in the faction, I have seen her in the Cabinet, and found her everywhere equally sincere.

Character of Madame de Montbazon.

Madame de Montbazon was a very great beauty, only modesty was visibly wanting in her air; her grand air and her way of talking sometimes supplied her want of sense. She loved nothing more than her pleasures, unless it was her private interest, and I never knew a vicious person that had so little respect for virtue.

Character of the First President.

If it were not a sort of blasphemy to say that any mortal of our times had more courage than the great Gustavus Adolphus and the Prince de Conde, I would venture to affirm it of M. Mole, the First President, but his wit was far inferior to his courage. It is true that his enunciation was not agreeable, but his eloquence was such that, though it shocked the ear, it seized the imagination. He sought the interest of the public preferably to all things, not excepting the interest of his own family, which yet he loved too much for a magistrate. He had not a genius to see at times the good he was capable of doing, presumed too much upon his authority, and imagined that he could moderate both the Court and Parliament; but he failed in both, made himself suspected by both, and thus, with a design to do good, he did evil. Prejudices contributed not a little to this, for I observed he was prejudiced to such a degree that he always judged of actions by men, and scarcely ever of men by their actions.

To return to our history. All the companies having united and settled the necessary funds, a complete army was raised in Paris in a week's time. The Bastille surrendered after five or six cannon shots, and it was a pretty sight to see the women carry their chairs into the garden, where the guns were stationed, for the sake of seeing the siege, just as if about to hear a sermon.

M. de Beaufort, having escaped from his confinement, arrived this very day in Paris. I found that his imprisonment had not made him one jot the wiser. Indeed, it had got him a reputation, because he bore it with constancy and made his escape with courage. It was also his merit not to have abandoned the banks of the Loire at a time when it absolutely required abundance of skill and courage to stay there. It is an easy matter for those who are disgraced at Court to make the best of their own merit in the beginning of a civil war. He had a mind to form an alliance with me, and knowing how to employ him advantageously, I prepossessed the people in his favour, and exaggerated the conspiracy which the Cardinal had formed against him by means of Du Hamel.

As my friendship was necessary to him, so his was necessary to me; for my profession on many occasions being a restraint upon me, I wanted a man sometimes to stand before me. M. de La Mothe was so dependent on M. de Longueville that I could not rely on him; and M. de Bouillon was not a man to be governed.

We went together to wait on the Prince de Conti; we stopped the coach in the streets, where I proclaimed the name of M. de Beaufort, praised him and showed him to the people; upon which the people were suddenly fired with enthusiasm, the women kissed him, and the crowd was so great that we had much ado to get to the Hotel de Ville. The next day he offered a petition to the Parliament desiring he might have leave to justify himself against the accusation of his having formed a design against the life of the Cardinal, which was granted; and he was accordingly cleared next day, and the Parliament issued that famous decree for seizing all the cash of the Crown in all the public and private receipt offices of the kingdom and employing it in the common defence.

The Prince de Conde was enraged at the declaration published by the Prince de Conti and M. de Longueville, which cast the Court, then at Saint Germain, into such a despair that the Cardinal was upon the point of retiring. I was abused there without mercy, as appeared by a letter sent to Madame de Longueville from the Princess, her mother, in which I read this sentence: "They rail here plentifully against the Coadjutor, whom yet I cannot forbear thanking for what he has done for the poor Queen of England." This circumstance is very curious. You must know that a few days before the King left Paris I visited the Queen of England, whom I found in the apartment of her daughter, since Madame d'Orleans. "You see, monsieur," said the Queen, "I come here to keep Henriette company; the poor child has lain in bed all day for want of a fire." The truth is, the Cardinal having stopped the Queen's pension six months, tradesmen were unwilling to give her credit, and there was not a chip of wood in the house. You may be sure I took care that a Princess of Great Britain should not be confined to her bed next day, for want of a fagot; and a few days after I exaggerated the scandal of this desertion, and the Parliament sent the Queen a present of 40,000 livres. Posterity will hardly believe that the Queen of England, granddaughter of Henri the Great, wanted a fagot to light a fire in the month of January, in the Louvre, and at the Court of France.

There are many passages in history less monstrous than this which make us shudder, and this mean action of the Court made so little impression upon the minds of the generality of the people at that time that I have reflected a thousand times since that we are far more moved at the hearing of old stories than of those of the present time; we are not shocked at what we see with our own eyes, and I question whether our surprise would be as great as we imagine at the story of Caligula's promoting his horse to the dignity of a consul were he and his horse now living.

To return to the war. A cornet of my regiment being taken prisoner and carried to Saint Germain, the Queen immediately ordered his head to be cut off, but I sent a trumpeter to acquaint the Court that I would make reprisals upon my prisoners, so that my cornet was exchanged and a cartel settled.

As soon as Paris declared itself, all the kingdom was in a quandary, for the Parliament of Paris sent circular letters to all the Parliaments and cities in the kingdom exhorting them to join against the common enemy; upon which the Parliaments of Aix and Rouen joined with that of Paris. The Prince d'Harcourt, now Duc d'Elbeuf, and the cities of Rheims, Tours, and Potiers, took up arms in its favour. The Duc de La Tremouille raised men for them publicly. The Duc de Retz offered his service to the Parliament, together with Belle Isle. Le Mans expelled its bishop and all the Lavardin family, who were in the interest of the Court.

On the 18th of January, 1649, I was admitted to a seat and vote in
Parliament, and signed an alliance with the chief leaders of the party:
MM. de Beaufort, de Bouillon, de La Mothe, de Noirmoutier, de Vitri, de
Brissac, de Maure, de Matha, de Cugnac, de Barnire, de Sillery, de La
Rochefoucault, de Laigues, de Sevigny, de Bethune, de Luynes, de
Chaumont, de Saint-Germain, d'Action, and de Fiesque.

On the 9th of February the Prince de Conde attacked and took Charenton. All this time the country people were flocking to Paris with provisions, not only because there was plenty of money, but to enable the citizens to hold out against the siege, which was begun on the 9th of January.

On the 12th of February a herald came with two trumpeters from the Court to one of the city gates, bringing three packets of letters, one for the Parliament, one for the Prince de Conti, and the third for the Hotel de Ville. It was but the night before that a person was caught in the halls dropping libels against the Parliament and me; upon which the Parliament, Princes, and city supposed that this State visit was nothing but an amusement of Cardinal Mazarin to cover a worse design, and therefore resolved not to receive the message nor give the herald audience, but to send the King's Council to the Queen to represent to her that their refusal was out of pure obedience and respect, because heralds are never sent but to sovereign Princes or public enemies, and that the Parliament, the Prince de Conti, and the city were neither the one nor the other. At the same time the Chevalier de Lavalette, who distributed the libels, had formed a design to kill me and M. de Beaufort upon the Parliament stairs in the great crowd which they expected would attend the appearance of the herald. The Court, indeed, always denied his having any other commission than to drop the libels, but I am certain that the Bishop of Dole told the Bishop of Aire, but a night or two before, that Beaufort and I should not be among the living three days hence.

The King's councillors returned with a report how kindly they had been received at Saint Germain. They said the Queen highly approved of the reasons offered by the Parliament for refusing entrance to the herald, and that she had assured them that, though she could not side with the Parliament in the present state of affairs, yet she received with joy the assurances they had given her of their respect and submission, and that she would distinguish them in general and in particular by special marks of her good-will. Talon, Attorney-General, who always spoke with dignity and force, embellished this answer of the Queen with all the ornaments he could give it, assuring the Parliament in very pathetic terms that, if they should be pleased to send a deputation to Saint Germain, it would be very kindly received, and might, perhaps, be a great step towards a peace.

When I saw that we were besieged, that the Cardinal had sent a person into Flanders to treat with the Spaniards, and that our party was now so well formed that there was no danger that I alone should be charged with courting the alliance of the enemies of the State, I hesitated no longer, but judged that, as affairs stood, I might with honour hear what proposals the Spaniards would make to me for the relief of Paris; but I took care not to have my name mentioned, and that the first overtures should be made to M. d'Elbeuf, who was the fittest person, because during the ministry of Cardinal de Richelieu he was twelve or fifteen years in Flanders a pensioner of Spain. Accordingly Arnolfi, a Bernardin friar, was sent from the Archduke Leopold, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands for the King of Spain, to the Duc d'Elbeuf, who, upon sight of his credentials, thought himself the most considerable man of the party, invited most of us to dinner, and told us he had a very important matter to lay before us, but that such was his tenderness for the French name that he could not open so much as a small letter from a suspected quarter, which, after some scrupulous and mysterious circumlocutions, he ventured to name, and we agreed one and all not to refuse the succours from Spain, but the great difficulty was, which way to get them. Fuensaldagne, the general, was inclined to join us if he could have been sure that we would engage with him; but as there was no possibility of the Parliaments treating with him, nor any dependence to be placed upon the generals, some of whom were wavering and whimsical, Madame de Bouillon pressed me not to hesitate any longer, but to join with her husband, adding that if he and I united, we should so far overmatch the others that it would not be in their power to injure us.

M. de Bouillon and I agreed to use our interest to oblige the Parliament to hear what the envoy had to say. I proposed it to the Parliament, but the first motion of it was hissed, in a manner, by all the company as much as if it had been heretical. The old President Le Coigneux, a man of quick apprehension, observing that I sometimes mentioned a letter from the Archduke of which there had been no talk, declared himself suddenly to be of my opinion. He had a secret persuasion that I had seen some writings which they knew nothing of, and therefore, while both sides were in the heat of debate, he said to me:

"Why do you not disclose yourself to your friends? They would come into your measures. I see very well you know more of the matter than the person who thinks himself your informant." I vow I was terribly ashamed of my indiscretion. I squeezed him by the hand and winked at MM. de Beaufort and de La Mothe. At length two other Presidents came over to my opinion, being thoroughly convinced that succours from Spain at this time were a remedy absolutely necessary to our disease, but a dangerous and empirical medicine, and infallibly mortal to particular persons if it did not pass first through the Parliament's alembic.

The Bernardin, being tutored by us beforehand what to say when he came before the Parliament, behaved like a man of good sense.

When he desired audience, or rather when the Prince de Conti desired it for him, the President de Mesmes, a man of great capacity, but by fear and ambition most slavishly attached to the Court, made an eloquent and pathetic harangue, preferable to anything I ever met with of the kind in all the monuments of antiquity, and, turning about to the Prince de Conti, "Is it possible, monsieur," said he, "that a Prince of the blood of France should propose to let a person deputed from the most bitter enemy of the fleurs-de-lis have a seat upon those flowers?" Then turning to me, he said, "What, monsieur, will you refuse entrance to your sovereign's herald upon the most trifling pretexts?" I knew what was coming, and therefore I endeavoured to stop his mouth by this answer: "Monsieur, you will excuse me from calling those reasons frivolous which have had the sanction of a decree." The bulk of the Parliament was provoked at the President's unguarded expression, baited him very fiercely, and then I made some pretence to go out, leaving Quatresous, a young man of the warmest temper, in the House to skirmish with him in my stead, as having experienced more than once that the only way to get anything of moment passed in Parliamentary or other assemblies is to exasperate the young men against the old ones.

In short, after many debates, it was carried that the envoy should be admitted to audience. Being accordingly admitted, and bidden to be covered and sit down, he presented the Archduke's credentials, and then made a speech, which was in substance that his master had ordered him to acquaint the company with a proposal made him by Cardinal Mazarin since the blockade of Paris, which his Catholic Majesty did not think consistent with his safety or honour to accept, when he saw that, on the one hand, it was made with a view to oppress the Parliament, which was held in veneration by all the kingdoms in the world, and, on the other, that all treaties made with a condemned minister would be null and void, forasmuch as they were made without the concurrence of the Parliament, to whom only it belonged to register and verify treaties of peace in order to make them authoritative; that the Catholic King, who proposed to take no advantage from the present state of affairs, had ordered the Archduke to assure the Parliament, whom he knew to be in the true interest of the most Christian King, that he heartily acknowledged them to be the arbiters of peace, that he submitted to their judgment, and that if they thought proper to be judges, he left it to their choice to send a deputation out of their own body to what place they pleased. Paris itself not excepted, and that his Catholic Majesty would also, without delay, send his deputies thither to meet and treat with them; that, meanwhile, he had ordered 18,000 men to march towards their frontiers to relieve them in case of need, with orders nevertheless to commit no hostilities upon the towns, etc., of the most Christian King, though they were for the most part abandoned; and it being his resolution at this juncture to show his sincere inclination for peace, he gave them his word of honour that his armies should not stir during the treaty; but that in case his troops might be serviceable to the Parliament, they were at their disposal, to be commanded by French officers; and that to obviate all the reasonable jealousies generally, attending the conduct of foreigners, they, were at liberty to take all other precautions they should think proper.

Before his admission the Prdsident de Mesmes had loaded me with invectives, for secretly corresponding with the enemies of the State, for favouring his admission, and for opposing that of my sovereign's herald.

I had observed that when the objections against a man are capable of making greater impression than his answers, it is his best course to say but little, and that he may talk as much as he pleases when he thinks his answers of greater force than the objections. I kept strictly to this rule, for though the said President artfully pointed his satire at me, I sat unconcerned till I found the Parliament was charmed with what the envoy had said, and then, in my turn, I was even with the President by telling him in short that my respect for the Parliament had obliged me to put up with his sarcasms, which I had hitherto endured; and that I did not suppose he meant that his sentiments should always be a law to the Parliament; that nobody there had a greater esteem for him, with which I hoped that the innocent freedom I had taken to speak my mind was not inconsistent; that as to the non-admission of the herald, had it not been for the motion made by M. Broussel, I should have fallen into the snare through overcredulity, and have given my vote for that which might perhaps have ended in the destruction of the city, and involved myself in what has since fully proved to be a crime by the Queen's late solemn approbation of the contrary conduct; and that, as to the envoy, I was silent till I saw most of them were for giving him audience, when I thought it better to vote the same way than vainly to contest it.

This modest and submissive answer of mine to all the scurrilities heaped upon me for a fortnight together by the First President and the President de Mesmes had an excellent effect upon the members, and obliterated for a long time the suspicion that I aimed to govern them by my cabals. The President de Mesmes would have replied, but his words were drowned in the general clamour. The clock struck five; none had dined, and many had not broken their fast, which the Presidents had, and therefore had the advantage in disputation.

The decree ordering the admission of the Spanish envoy to audience directed that a copy of what he said in Parliament, signed with his own hand, should be demanded of him, to the end that it might be registered, and that, by a solemn deputation, it should be sent to the Queen, with an assurance of the fidelity of the Parliament, beseeching her at the same time to withdraw her troops from the neighbourhood of Paris and restore peace to her people. It being now very late, and the members very hungry,—circumstances that have greater influence than can be imagined in debates, they were upon the point of letting this clause pass for want of due attention. The President Le Coigneux was the first that discovered the grand mistake, and, addressing himself to a great many councillors, who were rising up, said, "Gentlemen, pray take your places again, for I have something to offer to the House which is of the highest importance to all Europe." When they had taken their places he spoke as follows:

"The King of Spain takes us for arbiters of the general peace; it may be he is not in earnest, but yet it is a compliment to tell us so. He offers us troops to march to our relief, and it is certain he does not deceive us in this respect, but highly obliges us. We have heard his envoy, and considering the circumstances we are in, we think it right so to do. We have resolved to give an account of this matter to the King, which is but reasonable; some imagine that we propose to send the original decree, but here lies the snake in the grass. I protest, monsieur," added he, turning to the First President, "that the members did not understand it so, but that the copy only should be carried to Court, and the original be kept in the register. I could wish there had been no occasion for explanation, because there are some occasions when it is not prudent to speak all that one thinks, but since I am forced to it, I must say it without further hesitation, that in case we deliver up the original the Spaniards will conclude that we expose their proposals for a general peace and our own safety to the caprice of Cardinal Mazarin; whereas, by delivering only a copy, accompanied with humble entreaties for a general peace, as the Parliament has wisely ordered, all Europe will see that we maintain ourselves in a condition capable of doing real service both to our King and country, if the Cardinal is so blind as not to take a right advantage of this opportunity."

This discourse was received with the approbation of all the members, who cried out from all corners of the House that this was the meaning of the House. The gentlemen of the Court of Inquests did not spare the Presidents. M. Martineau said publicly that the tenor of this decree was that the envoy of Spain should be made much of till they received an answer from Saint Germain, which would prove to be another taunt of the Cardinal's. Pontcarre said he was not so much afraid of a Spaniard as of a Mazarin. In short, the generals had the satisfaction to see that the Parliament would not be sorry for any advances they should make towards an alliance with Spain.

We sent a courier to Brussels, who was guarded ten leagues out of Paris by 500 horse, with an account of everything done in Parliament, of the conditions which the Prince de Conti and the other generals desired for entering into a treaty with Spain, and of what engagement I could make in my own private capacity.

After he had gone I had a conference with M. de Bouillon and his lady about the present state of affairs, which I observed was very ticklish; that if we were favoured by the general inclination of the people we should carry all before us, but that the Parliament, which was our chief strength in one sense, was in other respects our main weakness; that they were very apt to go backward; that in the very last debate they were on the point of twisting a rope for their own necks, and that the First President would show Mazarin his true interests, and be glad to amuse us by stipulating with the Court for our security without putting us in possession of it, and by ending the civil war in the confirmation of our slavery. "The Parliament," I said, "inclines to an insecure and scandalous peace. We can make the people rise to-morrow if we please; but ought we to attempt it? And if we divest the Parliament of its authority, into what an abyss of disorders shall we not precipitate Paris? But, on the other hand, if we do not raise the people, will the Parliament ever believe we can? Will they be hindered from taking any further step in favour of the Court, destructive indeed to their own interest, but infallibly ruinous to us first?"

M. de Bouillon, who did not believe our affairs to be in so critical a situation, was, together with his lady, in a state of surprise. The mild and honourable answer which the Queen returned to the King's councillors in relation to the herald, her protestations that she sincerely forgave all the world, and the brilliant gloss of Talon upon her said answer, in an instant overturned the former resolutions of the Parliament; and if they regained sometimes their wonted vigour, either by some intervening accidents or by the skilful management of those who took care to bring them back to the right way, they had still an inclination to recede. M. de Bouillon being the wisest man of the party, I told him what I thought, and with him I concerted proper measures. To the rest, I put on a cheerful air, and magnified every little circumstance of affairs to our own advantage.

M. de Bouillon proposed that we should let the Parliament and the Hotel de Ville go on in their own way, and endeavour all we could clandestinely to make them odious to the people, and that we should take the first opportunity to secure, by banishment or imprisonment, such persons as we could not depend upon. He added that Longueville, too, was of opinion that there was no remedy left but to purge the Houses. This was exactly like him, for never was there a man so positive and violent in his opinion, and yet no man living could palliate it with smoother language. Though I thought of this expedient before M. de Bouillon, and perhaps could have said more for it, because I saw the possibility of it much clearer than he, yet I would not give him to understand that I had thought of it, because I knew he had the vanity to love to be esteemed the first author of things, which was the only weakness I observed in his managing State affairs. I left him an answer in writing, in substance as follows:

"I confess the scheme is very feasible, but attended with pernicious consequences both to the public and to private persons, for the same people whom you employ to humble the magistracy will refuse you obedience when you demand from them the same homage they paid to the magistrates. This people adored the Parliament till the beginning of the war; they are still for continuing the war, and yet abate their friendship for the Parliament. The Parliament imagines that this applies only to some particular members who are Mazarined, but they are deceived, for their prejudice extends to the whole company, and their hatred towards Mazarin's party supports and screens their indifference towards all the rest. We cheer up their spirits by pasquinades and ballads and the martial sound of trumpets and kettle-drums, but, after all, do they pay their taxes as punctually as they did the first few weeks? Are there many that have done as you and I, monsieur, who sent our plate to the mint? Do you not observe that they who would be thought zealous for the common cause plead in favour of some acts committed by those men who are, in short, its enemies? If the people are so tired already, what will they be long before they come to their journey's end?

"After we have established our own authority upon the ruin of the Parliament's, we shall certainly fall into the same inconveniences and be obliged to act just as they do now. We shall impose taxes, raise moneys, and differ from the Parliament only in this, that the hatred and envy they have contracted by various ways from one-third part of the people,—I mean the wealthy citizens,—in the space of six weeks will devolve upon us, with that of the other two-thirds of the inhabitants, and will complete our ruin in one week. May not the Court to-morrow put an end to the civil war by the expulsion of Mazarin and by raising the siege of Paris? The provinces are not yet sufficiently inflamed, and therefore we must double our application to make the most of Paris. Besides the necessity of treating with Spain and managing the people, there is another expedient come into my head capable of rendering us as considerable in Parliament as our affairs require.

"We have an army in Paris which will be looked upon as the people so long as it continues within its walls. Every councillor of inquest is inclined to believe his authority among the soldiers to be equal to that of the generals. But the leaders of the people are not believed to be very powerful until they make their power known by its execution. Pray do but consider the conduct of the Court upon this occasion. Was there any minister or courtier but ridiculed all that could be said of the disposition of the people in favour of the Parliament even to the day of the barricades? And yet it is as true that every man at Court saw infallible marks of the revolution beforehand. One would have thought that the barricades should have convinced them; but have they been convinced? Have they been hindered from besieging Paris on the slight supposition that, though the caprice of the people might run them into a mutiny, yet it would not break out into a civil war? What we are now doing might undeceive them effectually; but are they yet cured of their infatuation? Is not the Queen told every day that none are for the Parliament but hired mobs, and that all the wealthy burghers are in her Majesty's interests?

"The Parliament is now as much infatuated as the Court was then. This present disturbance among the people carries in it all the marks of power which, in a little time, they will feel the effects of, and which, as they cannot but foresee, they ought to prevent in time, because of the murmurs of the people against them and their redoubled affection for M. de Beaufort and me. But far from it, the Parliament will never open its eyes until all its authority is quashed by a sudden blow. If they see we have a design against them they will, perhaps, have so inconsiderable an opinion of it that they will take courage, and if we should but flinch, they will bear harder still upon us, till we shall be forced to crush them; but this would not turn to our account; on the contrary, it is our true interest to do them all the good we can, lest we divide our own party, and to behave in such a manner as may convince them that our interest and theirs are inseparable. And the best way is to draw our army out of Paris, and to post it so as it may be ready to secure our convoys and be safe from the insults of the enemy; and I am for having this done at the request of the Parliament, to prevent their taking umbrage, till such time at least as we may find our account in it. Such precautions will insensibly, as it were, necessitate the Parliament to act in concert with us, and our favour among the people, which is the only thing that can fix us in that situation, will appear to them no longer contemptible when they see it backed by an army which is no longer at their discretion."

M. de Bouillon told me that M. de Turenne was upon the point of declaring for us, and that there were but two colonels in all his army who gave him any uneasiness, but that in a week's time he would find some way or other to manage them, and that then he would march directly to our assistance. "What do you think of that?" said the Duke. "Are we not now masters both of the Court and Parliament?"

I told the Duke that I had just seen a letter written by Hoquincourt to Madame de Montbazon, wherein were only these words: "O fairest of all beauties, Peronne is in your power." I added that I had received another letter that morning which assured me of Mazieres. Madame de Bouillon threw herself on my neck; we were sure the day was our own, and in a quarter of an hour agreed upon all the preliminary precautions.

M. de Bouillon, perceiving that I was so overjoyed at this news that I, as well as his lady, gave little attention to the methods he was proposing for drawing the army out of Paris without alarming the Parliament, turned to me and spoke thus, very hastily: "I pardon my wife, but I cannot forgive you this inadvertence. The old Prince of Orange used to say that the moment one received good news should be employed in providing against bad."

The 24th of February, 1649, the Parliament's deputies waited on the Queen with an account of the audience granted to the envoy of the Archduke. The Queen told them that they should not have given audience to the envoy, but that, seeing they had done it, it was absolutely necessary to think of a good peace,—that she was entirely well disposed; and the Duc d'Orleans and the Prince de Conde promised the deputies to throw open all the passages as soon as the Parliament should name commissioners for the treaty.

Flamarin being sent at the same time into the city from the Duc d'Orleans to condole with the Queen of England on the death of her husband (King Charles I.), went, at La Riviere's solicitation, to M. de La Rochefoucault, whom he found in his bed on account of his wounds and quite wearied with the civil war, and persuaded him to come over to the Court interest. He told Flamarin that he had been drawn into this war much against his inclinations, and that, had he returned from Poitou two months before the siege of Paris, he would have prevented Madame de Longueville engaging in so vile a cause, but that I had taken the opportunity of his absence to engage both her and the Prince de Conti, that he found the engagements too far advanced to be possibly dissolved, that the diabolical Coadjutor would not bear of any terms of peace, and also stopped the ears of the Prince de Conti and Madame de Longueville, and that he himself could not act as he would because of his bad state of health. I was informed of Flamarin's negotiations for the Court interest, and, as the term of his passport had expired, ordered the 'prevot des marchands' to command him to depart from the city.

On the 27th the First President reported to the Parliament what had occurred at Saint Germain. M. de Beaufort and I had to hinder the people from entering the Great Chamber, for they threatened to throw the deputies into the river, and said they had betrayed them and had held conferences with Mazarin. It was as much as we could do to allay the fury of the people, though at the same time the Parliament believed the tumult was of our own raising. This shows one inconvenience of popularity, namely, that what is committed by the rabble, in spite of all your endeavours to the contrary, will still be laid to your charge.

Meanwhile we met at the Duc de Bouillon's to consider what was best to be done at this critical juncture between a people mad for war, a Parliament for peace, and the Spaniards either for peace or war at our expense and for their own advantage. The Prince de Conti, instructed beforehand by M. de La Rochefoucault, spoke for carrying on the war, but acted as if he were for peace, and upon the whole I did not doubt but that he waited for some answer from Saint Germain. M. d'Elbeuf made a silly proposal to send the Parliament in a body to the Bastille. M. de Beaufort, whom we could not entrust with any important secret because of Madame de Montbazon, who was very false, wondered that his and my credit with the people was not made use of on this occasion.

It being very evident that the Parliament would greedily catch at the treaty of peace proposed by the Court, it was in a manner impossible to answer those who urged that the only way to prevent it was to hinder their debates by raising tumults among the people. M. de Beaufort held up both his hands for it. M. d'Elbeuf, who had lately received a letter from La Riviere full of contempt, talked like an officer of the army. When I considered the great risk I ran if I did not prevent a tumult, which would certainly be laid at my door, and that, on the other hand, I did not dare to say all I could to stop such commotion, I was at a loss what to do. But considering the temper of the populace, who might have been up in arms with a word from a person of any credit among us, I declared publicly that I was not for altering our measures till we knew what we were to expect from the Spaniards.

I experienced on this occasion that civil wars are attended with this great inconvenience, that there is more need of caution in what we say to our friends than in what we do against our enemies. I did not fail to bring the company to my mind, especially when supported by M. de Bouillon, who was convinced that the confusion which would happen in such a juncture would turn with vengeance upon the authors. But when the company was gone he told me he was resolved to free himself from the tyranny, or, rather, pedantry of the Parliament as soon as the treaty with Spain was concluded, and M. de Turenne had declared himself publicly, and as soon as our army was without the walls of Paris. I answered that upon M. de Turenne's declaration I would promise him my concurrence, but that till then I could not separate from the Parliament, much less oppose them, without the danger of being banished to Brussels; that as for his own part, he might come off better because of his knowledge of military affairs, and of the assurances which Spain was able to give him, but, nevertheless, I desired him to remember M. d'Aumale, who fell into the depth of poverty as soon as he had lost all protection but that of Spain, and, consequently, that it was his interest as well as mine to side with the Parliament till we ourselves had secured some position in the kingdom; till the Spanish army, was actually on the march and our troops were encamped without the city; and till the declaration of M. de Turenne was carried out, which would be the decisive blow, because it would strengthen our party with a body of troops altogether independent of strangers, or rather it would form a party perfectly French, capable by its own strength to carry on our cause.

This last consideration overjoyed Madame de Bouillon, who, however, when she found that the company was gone without resolving to make themselves masters of the Parliament, became very angry, and said to the Duke:

"I told you beforehand that you would be swayed by the Coadjutor."

The Duke replied: "What! madame, would you have the Coadjutor, for our sakes only, run the risk of being no more than chaplain to Fuensaldagne? Is it possible that you cannot comprehend what he has been preaching to you for these last three days?"

I replied to her with a great deal of temper, and said, "Don't you think that we shall act more securely when our troops are out of Paris, when we receive the Archduke's answer, and when Turenne has made a public declaration?"

"Yes, I do," she said, "but the Parliament will take one step to-morrow which will render all your preliminaries of no use."

"Never fear, madame," said I, "I will undertake that, if our measures succeed, we shall be in a condition to despise all that the Parliament can do."

"Will you promise it?" she asked.

"Yes," said I, "and, more than that, I am ready to seal it with my blood."

She took me at my word, and though the Duke used all the arguments with her which he could think of, she bound my thumb with silk, and with a needle drew blood, with which she obliged me to sign a promissory note as follows: "I promise to Madame la Duchesse de Bouillon to continue united with the Duke her husband against the Parliament in case M. de Turenne approaches with the army under his command within twenty leagues of Paris and declares for the city." M. de Bouillon threw it into the fire, and endeavoured to convince the Duchess of what I had said, that if our preliminaries should succeed we should still stand upon our own bottom, notwithstanding all that the Parliament could do, and that if they did miscarry we should still have the satisfaction of not being the authors of a confusion which would infallibly cover me with shame and ruin, and be an uncertain advantage to the family of De Bouillon.

During this discussion a captain in M. d'Elbeuf's regiment of Guards was seen to throw money to the crowd to encourage them to go to the Parliament House and cry out, "No peace!" upon which M. de Bouillon and I agreed to send the Duke these words upon the back of a card: "It will be dangerous for you to be at the Parliament House to-morrow." M. d'Elbeuf came in all haste to the Palace of Bouillon to know the meaning of this short caution. M. de Bouillon told him he had heard that the people had got a notion that both the Duke and himself held a correspondence with Mazarin, and that therefore it was their best way not to go to the House for fear of the mob, which might be expected there next day.

M. d'Elbeuf, knowing that the people did not care for him, and that he was no safer in his own house than elsewhere, said that he feared his absence on such an occasion might be interpreted to his disadvantage. M. de Bouillon, having no other design but to alarm him with imaginary fears of a public disturbance, at once made himself sure of him another way, by telling him it was most advisable for him to be at the Parliament, but that he need not expose himself, and therefore had best go along with me.

I went with him accordingly, and found a multitude of people in the Great Hall, crying, "God bless the Coadjutor! no peace! no Mazarin!" and M. de Beaufort entering another way at the same time, the echoes of our names spread everywhere, so that the people mistook it for a concerted design to disturb the proceedings of Parliament, and as in a commotion everything that confirms us in the belief of it augments likewise the number of mutineers, we were very near bringing about in one moment what we had been a whole week labouring to prevent.

The First President and President de Mesmes having, in concert with the other deputies, suppressed the answer the Queen made them in writing, lest some harsh expressions contained therein should give offence, put the best colour they could upon the obliging terms in which the Queen had spoken to them; and then the House appointed commissioners for the treaty, leaving it to the Queen to name the place, and agreed to send the King's Council next day to demand the opening of the passages, in pursuance of the Queen's promise. The President de Mesmes, surprised to meet with no opposition, either from the generals or myself, said to the First President, "Here is a wonderful harmony! but I fear the consequences of this dissembled moderation." I believe he was much more surprised when the sergeants came to acquaint the House that the mob threatened to murder all that were for the conference before Mazarin was sent out of the kingdom. But M. de Beaufort and I went out and soon dispersed them, so that the members retired without the least danger, which inspired the Parliament with such a degree of boldness afterwards that it nearly proved their ruin.

On the 2d of March, 1649, letters were brought to the Parliament from the Duc d'Orleans and the Prince de Conde, expressing a great deal of joy at what the Parliament had done, but denying that the Queen had promised to throw open the passages, upon which the Parliament fell into such a rage as I cannot describe to you. They sent orders to the King's Council, who were gone that morning to Saint Germain to fetch the passports for the deputies, to declare that the Parliament was resolved to hold no conference with the Court till the Queen had performed her promise made to the First President. I thought it a very proper time to let the Court see that the Parliament had not lost all its vigour, and made a motion, by Broussel, that, considering the insincerity of the Court, the levies might be continued and new commissions given out. The proposition was received with applause, and the Prince de Conti was desired to issue commissions accordingly.

M. de Beaufort, in concert with M. de Bouillon, M. de La Mothe and myself, exclaimed against this contravention, and offered, in the name of his colleagues and his own, to open all the passages themselves if the Parliament would but take a firm resolution and be no more beguiled by deceitful proposals, which had only served to keep the whole nation in suspense, who would otherwise have declared by this time in favour of its capital. It is inconceivable what influence these few words had upon the audience, everybody concluded that the treaty was already broken off; but a moment after they thought the contrary, for the King's Council returned with the passports for the deputies, and instead of an order for opening the passages, a grant—such a one as it was—of 500 quarters of corn per diem was made for the subsistence of the city. However, the Parliament took all in good part; all that had been said and done a quarter of an hour before was buried in oblivion, and they made preparations to go next day to Ruel, the place named by the Queen for the conference.

The Prince de Conti, M. de Beaufort, M. d'Elbeuf, Marechal de La Mothe, M. de Brissac, President Bellievre, and myself met that night at M. de Bouillon's house, where a motion was made for the generals of the army to send a deputation likewise to the place of conference; but it was quashed, and indeed nothing would have been more absurd than such a proceeding when we were upon the point of concluding a treaty with Spain; and, considering that we told the envoy that we should never have consented to hold any conference with the Court were we not assured that it was in our power to break it off at pleasure by means of the people.

The Parliament having lately reproached both the generals and troops with being afraid to venture without the gates, M. de Bouillon, seeing the danger was over, proposed at this meeting, for the satisfaction of the citizens, to carry them to a camp betwixt the Marne and the Seine, where they might be as safe as at Paris. The motion was agreed to without consulting the Parliament, and, accordingly, on the 4th of March, the troops marched out and the deputies of Parliament went to Ruel.

The Court party flattered themselves that, upon the marching of the militia out of Paris, the citizens, being left to themselves, would become more tractable, and the President de Mesmes made his boast of what he said to the generals, to persuade them to encamp their army. But Senneterre, one of the ablest men at Court, soon penetrated our designs and undeceived the Court. He told the First President and De Mesmes that they were beguiled and that they would see it in a little time. The First President, who could never see two different things at one view, was so overjoyed when he heard the forces had gone out of Paris that he cried out:

"Now the Coadjutor will have no more mercenary brawlers at the Parliament
House."

"Nor," said the President de Mesmes, "so many cutthroats."

Senneterre, like a wise man, said to them both:

"It is not the Coadjutor's interest to murder you, but to bring you under. The people would serve his turn for the first if he aimed at it, and the army is admirably well encamped for the latter. If he is not a more honest man than he is looked upon to be here, we are likely to have a tedious civil war."

The Cardinal confessed that Senneterre was in the right, for, on the one hand, the Prince de Conde perceived that our army, being so advantageously posted as not to be attacked, would be capable of giving him more trouble than if they were still within the walls of the city, and, on the other hand, we began to talk with more courage in Parliament than usual.

The afternoon of the 4th of March gave us a just occasion to show it. The deputies arriving at Ruel understood that Cardinal Mazarin was one of the commissioners named by the Queen to assist at the conference. The Parliamentary deputies pretended that they could not confer with a person actually condemned by Parliament. M. de Tellier told them in the name of the Duc d'Orleans that the Queen thought it strange that they were not contented to treat upon an equality with their sovereign, but that they should presume to limit his authority by excluding his deputies. The First President and the Court seeming to be immovable, we sent orders to our deputies not to comply, and to communicate, as a great secret, to President de Mesmes and M. Menardeau, both creatures of the Court, the following postscript of a letter I wrote to Longueville:

"P.S.—We have concerted our measures, and are now capable to speak more to the purpose than we have been hitherto, and since I finished this letter I have received a piece of news which obliges me to tell you that if the Parliament do not behave very prudently, they will certainly be ruined."

Upon this the deputies were resolved to insist upon excluding the Cardinal from the conference, a determination which was so odious to the people that, had we permitted it, we should certainly have lost all our credit with them, and been obliged to shut the gates against our deputies upon their return.

When the Court saw that the deputies desired a convoy to conduct them home, they found out an expedient, which was received with great joy; namely, to appoint two deputies on the part of the Parliament, and two on the part of the King, to confer at the house of the Duc d'Orleans, exclusive of the Cardinal, who was thereupon obliged to return to Saint Germain with mortification.

On the 5th of March, Don Francisco Pisarro, a second envoy from the Archduke, arrived in Paris, with his and Count Fuensaldagne's answer to our former despatches by Don Jose d'Illescas, and full powers for a treaty; instructions for M. de Bouillon, an obliging letter from the Archduke to the Prince de Conti, and another to myself, from Count Fuensaldagne, importing that the King, his master, would not take my word, but would depend upon whatever I promised Madame de Bouillon.

The Prince de Conti and Madame de Longueville, prompted by M. de La Rochefoucault, were for an alliance with Spain, in a manner without restriction. M. d'Elbeuf aimed at nothing but getting money. M. de Beaufort, at the persuasion of Madame de Montbazon, who was resolved to sell him dear to the Spaniards, was very scrupulous to enter into a treaty with the enemies of the State; Marechal de La Mothe declared he could not come to any resolution till he saw M. de Longueville, and Madame de Longueville questioned whether her husband would come into it; and yet these very persons but a fortnight before unanimously wrote to the Archduke for full powers to treat with him.

M. de Bouillon told them that he thought they were absolutely obliged to treat with Spain, considering the advances they had already made to the Archduke to that end, and desired them to recollect how they had told his envoy that they waited only for these full powers and instructions to treat with him; that the Archduke had now sent his full powers in the most obliging manner; and that, moreover, he had already gone out of Brussels, to lead his army himself to their assistance, without staying for their engagement. He begged them to consider that if they took the least step backwards, after such advances, it might provoke Spain to take such measures as would be both contrary to our security and to our honour; that the ill-concerted proceedings of the Parliament gave us just grounds to fear being left to shift for ourselves; that indeed our army was now more useful than it had been before, but—yet not strong enough to give us relief in proportion to our necessities, especially if it were not, at least in the beginning, supported by a powerful force; and that, consequently, a treaty was necessary to be entered into and concluded with the Archduke, but not upon any mean conditions; that his envoys had brought carte blanche, but that we ought to consider how to fill it up; that he promised us everything, but though in treaties the strongest may safely promise to the weaker what he thinks fit, it is certain he cannot perform everything, and therefore the weakest should be very wary.

The Duke added that the Spaniards, of all people, expected honourable usage at the beginning of treaties, and he conjured them to leave the management of the Spanish envoys to himself and the Coadjutor, "who," said he, "has declared all along that he expects no advantage either from the present troubles or from any arrangement, and is therefore altogether to be depended upon."

This discourse was relished by all the company, who accordingly engaged us to compare notes with the envoys of Spain, and make our report to the Prince de Conti and the other generals.

M. de Bouillon assured me that the Spaniards would not enter upon French ground till we engaged ourselves not to lay down our arms except in conjunction with them; that is, in a treaty for a general peace; but our difficulty was how to enter into an engagement of that nature at a time when we could not be sure but that the Parliament might conclude a particular peace the next moment. In the meantime a courier came in from M. de Turenne, crying, "Good news!" as he entered into the court. He brought letters for Madame and Mademoiselle de Bouillon and myself, by which we were assured that M. de Turenne and his army, which was without dispute the finest at that time in all Europe, had declared for us; that Erlach, Governor of Brisac, had with him 1,000 or 1,200 men, who were all he had been able to seduce; that my dear friend and kinsman, the Vicomte de Lamet, was marching directly to our assistance with 2,000 horse; and that M. de Turenne was to follow on such a day with the larger part of the army. You will be surprised, without doubt, to hear that M. de Turenne, General of the King's troops, one who was never a party man, and would never hear talk of party intrigues, should now declare against the Court and perform an action which, I am sure, Le Balafre—

[Henri de Lorraine, first of that name, Duc de Guise, surnamed Le
Balafre, because of a wound he received in the left cheek at the battle
of Dormans, the scar of which he carried to his grave. He formed the
League, and was stabbed at an assembly of the States of Blois in 1588.]

and Amiral de Coligny would not have undertaken without hesitation. Your wonder will increase yet more when I tell you that the motive of this surprising conduct of his is a secret to this day. His behaviour also during his declaration, which he supported but five days, is equally surprising and mysterious. This shows that it is possible for some extraordinary characters to be raised above the malice and envy of vulgar souls; for the merit of any person inferior to the Marshal must have been totally eclipsed by such an unaccountable event.

Upon the arrival of this express from Turenne I told M. de Bouillon it was my opinion that, if the Spaniards would engage to advance as far as Pont-a-Verre and act on this side of it in concert only with us, we should make no scruple of pledging ourselves not to lay down our arms till the conclusion of a general peace, provided they kept their promise given to the Parliament of referring themselves to its arbitration. "The true interest of the public," said I, "is a general peace, that of the Parliament and other bodies is the reestablishment of good order, and that of your Grace and others, with myself, is to contribute to the before-mentioned blessings in such manner that we may be esteemed the authors of them; all other advantages are necessarily attached to this, and the only way to acquire them is to show that we do not value them. You know that I have frequently vowed I had no private interest to serve in this affair, and I will keep my vow to the end. Your circumstances are different from mine; you aim at Sedan, and you are in the right. M. de Beaufort wants to be admiral, and I cannot blame him. M. de Longueville has other demands—with all my heart. The Prince de Conti and Madame de Longueville would be, for the future, independent of the Prince de Conde; that independence they shall have.

"Now, in order to attain to these ends, the only means is to look another way, to turn all our thoughts to bring about a general peace, and to sign to-morrow the most solemn and positive engagement with the enemy, and, the better to please the public, to insert in the articles the expulsion of Cardinal Mazarin as their mortal enemy, to cause the Spanish forces to come up immediately to Pont-a-Verre, and those of M. de Turenne to advance into Champagne, and to go without any loss of time to propose to the Parliament what Don Josh d'Illescas has offered them already in relation to a general peace, to dispose them to vote as we would have them, which they will not fail to do considering the circumstances we are now in, and to send orders to our deputies at Ruel either to get the Queen to nominate a place to confer about a general peace or to return the next day to their seats in Parliament. I am willing to think that the Court, seeing to what an extremity they are reduced, will comply, than which what can be more for our honour?

"And if the Court should refuse this proposition at present, will they not be of another mind before two months are at an end? Will not the provinces, which are already hesitating, then declare in our favour? And is the army of the Prince de Conde in a condition to engage that of Spain and ours in conjunction with that of M. de Turenne? These two last, when joined, will put us above all the apprehensions from foreign forces which have hitherto made us uneasy; they will depend much more on us than we on them; we shall continue masters of Paris by our own strength, and the more securely because the intervening authority of Parliament will the more firmly unite us to the people. The declaration of M. de Turenne is the only means to unite Spain with the Parliament for our defence, which we could not have as much as hoped for otherwise; it gives us an opportunity to engage with Parliament, in concert with whom we cannot act amiss, and this is the only moment when such an engagement is both possible and profitable. The First President and De Mesmes are now out of the way, and it will be much easier for us to obtain what we want in Parliament than if they were present, and if what is commanded in the Parliamentary decree is faithfully executed, we shall gain our point, and unite the Chambers for that great work of a general peace. If the Court still rejects our proposals, and those of the deputies who are for the Court refuse to follow our motion or to share in our fortune, we shall gain as much in another respect; we shall keep ourselves still attached to the body of the Parliament, from which they will be deemed deserters, and we shall have much greater weight in the House than now.

"This is my opinion, which I am willing to sign and to offer to the Parliament if you seize this, the only opportunity. For if M. de Turenne should alter his mind before it be done, I should then oppose this scheme with as much warmth as I now recommend it."

The Duke said in answer: "Nothing can have a more promising aspect than what you have now proposed; it is very practicable, but equally pernicious for all private persons. Spain will promise all, but perform nothing after we have once promised to enter into no treaty, with the Court but for a general peace. This being the only thing the Spaniards have in view, they will abandon us as soon as they, can obtain it, and if we urge on this great scheme at once, as you would have us, they would undoubtedly obtain it in a fortnight's time, for France would certainly make it with precipitation, and I know the Spaniards would be glad to purchase it on any terms. This being the case, in what a condition shall we be the next day after we have made and procured this general peace? We should indeed have the honour of it, but would this honour screen us against the hatred and curses of the Court? Would the house of Austria take up arms again to rescue you and me from a prison? You will say, perhaps, we may stipulate some conditions with Spain which may secure us from all insults of this kind; but I think I shall have answered this objection when I assure you that Spain is so pressed with home troubles that she would not hesitate, for the sake of peace, to break the most solemn promises made to us; and this is an inconvenience for which I see no remedy.

"If Spain should be worse than her word with respect to the expulsion of Mazarin, what will become of us? And will the honour of our contributing to the general peace atone for the preservation of a minister to get rid of whom they took up arms? You know how they abhor the Cardinal; and, suppose the Cardinal be excluded from the Ministry, according to promise, shall we not still be exposed to the hatred of the Queen, to the resentment of the Prince de Conde, and to all the evil consequences that may be expected from an enraged Court for such an action? There is no true glory but what is durable; transitory honour is mere smoke. Of this sort is that which we shall acquire by this peace, if we do not support it by such alliances as will gain us the reputation of wisdom as well as of honesty. I admire your disinterestedness above all, and esteem it, but I am very well assured that if mine went the length of yours you would not, approve of it. Your family is settled; consider mine, and cast your eyes on the condition of this lady and on that of both the father and children."

I answered: "The Spaniards must needs have great regard for us, seeing us absolute masters of Paris, with eight thousand foot and three thousand horse at its gates, and the best disciplined troops in the world marching to our assistance." I did all I could to bring him over to my opinion, and he strove as much to persuade me to enter into his measures; namely, to pretend to the envoys that we were absolutely resolved to act in concert with them for a general peace, but to tell them at the same time that we thought it more proper that the Parliament should likewise be consulted; and, as that would require some time, we might in the meanwhile occupy the envoys by signing a treaty with them, previous to coming to terms with. The Parliament, which by its tenor would not tie us up to conclude anything positively in relation to the general peace; "yet this," said he, "would be a sufficient motive to cause them to advance with their army, and that of my brother will come up at the same time, which will astonish the Court and incline them to an arrangement. And forasmuch as in our treaty with Spain we leave a back door open by the clause which relates to the Parliament, we shall be sure to make good use of it for the advantage of the public and of ourselves in case of the Court's noncompliance."

These considerations, though profoundly wise, did not convince me, because I thought his inference was not well-grounded. I saw he might well enough engage the attention of the envoys, but I could not imagine how he could beguile the Parliament, who were actually treating with the Court by their deputies sent to Ruel, and who would certainly run madly into a peace, notwithstanding all their late performances. I foresaw that without a public declaration to restrain the Parliament from going their own lengths we should fall again, if one of our strings chanced to break, into the necessity of courting the assistance of the people, which I looked upon as the most dangerous proceeding of all.

M. de Bouillon asked me what I meant by saying, "if one of our strings chanced to break." I replied, "For example, if M. de Turenne should be dead at this juncture, or if his army has revolted, as it was likely to do under the influence of M. d'Erlach, pray what would become of us if we should not engage the Parliament? We should be tribunes of the people one day, and the next valets de chambre to Count Fuensaldagne. Everything with the Parliament and nothing without them is the burden of my song."

After several hours' dispute neither of us was convinced, and I went away very much perplexed, the rather because M. de Bouillon, being the great confidant of the Spaniards, I doubted not but he could make their envoys believe what he pleased.

I was still more puzzled when I came home and found a letter from Madame de Lesdiguieres, offering me extraordinary advantages in the Queen's name the payment of my debts, the grant of certain abbeys, and a nomination to the dignity of cardinal. Another note I found with these words: "The declaration of the army of Germany has put us all into consternation." I concluded they would not fail to try experiments with others as well as myself, and since M. de Bouillon began to think of a back door when all things smiled upon us, I guessed the rest of our party would not neglect to enter the great door now flung open to receive them by the declaration of M. de Turenne. That which afflicted me most of all was to see that M. de Bouillon was not a man of that judgment and penetration I took him for in this critical and decisive juncture, when the question was the engaging or not engaging the Parliament. He had urged me more than twenty times to do what I now offered, and the reason why I now urged what I before rejected was the declaration of M. de Turenne, his own brother, which should have made him bolder than I; but, instead of this, it slackened his courage, and he flattered himself that Cardinal Mazarin would let him have Sedan. This was the centre of all his views, and he preferred these petty advantages to what he might have gained by procuring peace to Europe. This false step made me pass this judgment upon the Duke: that, though he was a person of very great parts, yet I questioned his capacity for the mighty things which he has not done, and of which some men thought him very capable. It is the greatest remissness on the part of a great man to neglect the moment that is to make his reputation, and this negligence, indeed, scarcely ever happens but when a man expects another moment as favourable to make his fortune; and so people are commonly deceived both ways.

The Duke was more nice than wise at this juncture, which is very often the case. I found afterwards that the Prince de Conti was of his opinion, and I guessed, by some circumstances, that he was engaged in some private negotiation. M. d'Elbeuf was as meek as a lamb, and seemed, as far as he dared, to improve what had been advanced already by M. de Bouillon. A servant of his told me also that he believed his master had made his peace with the Court. M. de Beaufort showed by his behaviour that Madame de Montbazon had done what she could to cool his courage, but his irresolution did not embarrass me very much, because I knew I had her in my power, and his vote, added to that of MM. de Brissac, de La Mothe, de Noirmoutier and de Bellievre, who all fell in with my sentiments, would have turned the balance on my side if the regard for M. de Turenne, who was now the life and soul of the party, and the Spaniards' confidence in M. de Bouillon, had not obliged me to make a virtue of necessity.

I found both the Archduke's envoys quite of an other mind; indeed, they were still desirous of an agreement for a general peace, but they would have it after the manner of M. de Bouillon, at two separate times, which he had made them believe would be more for their advantage, because thereby we should bring the Parliament into it. I saw who was at the bottom of it, and, considering the orders they had to follow his advice in everything, all I could allege to the contrary would be of no use. I laid the state of affairs before the President de Bellievre, who was of my opinion, and considered that a contrary course would infallibly prove our ruin, thinking, nevertheless, that compliance would be highly convenient at this time, because we depended absolutely on the Spaniards and on M. de Turenne, who had hitherto made no proposals but such as were dictated by M. de Bouillon.

When I found that all M. de Bellievre and I said could not persuade M. de Bouillon, I feigned to come round to his opinion, and to submit to the authority of the Prince de Conti, our Generalissimo. We agreed to treat with the Archduke upon the plan of M. de Bouillon; that is, that he should advance his army as far as Pont-A-Verre, and further, if the generals desired it; who, on their part, would omit nothing to oblige the Parliament to enter into this treaty, or rather, to make a new one for a general peace; that is to say, to oblige the King to treat upon reasonable conditions, the particulars whereof his Catholic Majesty would refer to the arbitration of the Parliament. M. de Bouillon engaged to have this treaty 'in totidem verbis' signed by the Spanish ministers, and did not so much as ask me whether I would sign it or no. All the company rejoiced at having the Spaniards' assistance upon such easy terms, and at being at full liberty to receive the propositions of the Court, which now, upon the declaration of M. de Turenne, could not fail to be very advantageous.

The treaty was accordingly signed in the Prince de Conti's room at the Hotel de Ville, but I forbore to set my hand to it, though solicited by M. de Bouillon, unless they would come to some final resolution; yet I gave them my word that, if the Parliament would be contented, I had such expedients in my power as would give them all the time necessary to withdraw their troops. I had two reasons for what I said: first, I knew Fuensaldagne to be a wise man, that he would be of a different opinion from his envoys, and that he would never venture his army into the heart of the kingdom with so little assurance from the generals and none at all from me; secondly, because I was willing to show to our generals that I would not, as far as it lay in my power, suffer the Spaniards to be treacherously surprised or insulted in case of an arrangement between the Court and the Parliament; though I had protested twenty times in the same conference that I would not separate myself from the Parliament.

M. d'Elbeuf said, "You cannot find the expedients you talk of but in having recourse to the people."

"M. de Bouillon will answer for me," said I, "that it is not there that I am to find my expedients."

M. de Bouillon, being desirous that I should sign, said, "I know that it is not your intent, but I am fully persuaded that you mean well, that you do not act as you would propose, and that we retain more respect for the Parliament by signing than you do by refusing to sign; for," speaking very low, that he might not be heard by the Spanish ministers, "we keep a back door open to get off handsomely with the Parliament."

"They will open that door," said I, "when you could wish it shut, as is but too apparent already, and you will be glad to shut it when you cannot; the Parliament is not a body to be jested with."

After the signing of the treaty, I was told that the envoys had given 2,000 pistoles to Madame de Montbazon and as much to M. d'Elbeuf.

De Bellievre, who waited for me at home, whither I returned full of vexation, used an expression which has been since verified by the event: "We failed, this day," said he, "to induce the Parliament, which if we had done, all had been safe and right. Pray God that everything goes well, for if but one of our strings fails us we are undone."

As for the conferences for a peace with the Court at Ruel, it was proposed on the Queen's part that the Parliament should adjourn their session to Saint Germain, just to ratify the articles of the peace, and not to meet afterwards for two or three years; but the deputies of Parliament insisted that it was their privilege to assemble when and where they pleased. When these and the like stories came to the ears of the Parisians they were so incensed that the only talk of the Great Chamber was to recall the deputies, and the generals seeing themselves now respected by the Court, who had little regard for them before the declaration of M. de Turenne, thought that the more the Court was embarrassed the better, and therefore incited the Parliament and people to clamour, that the Cardinal might see that things did not altogether depend upon the conference at Ruel. I, likewise, contributed what lay in my power to moderate the precipitation of the First President and President de Mesmes towards anything that looked like an agreement.

On the 8th of March the Prince de Conti told the Parliament that M. de Turenne offered them his services and person against Cardinal Mazarin, the enemy of the State. I said that I was informed a declaration had been issued the night before at Saint Germain against M. de Turenne, as guilty of high treason. The Parliament unanimously passed a decree to annul it, to authorise his taking arms, to enjoin all the King's subjects to give him free passage and support, and to raise the necessary funds for the payment of his troops, lest the 800,000 livres sent from Court to General d'Erlach should corrupt the officers and soldiers. A severe edict was issued against Courcelles, Lavardin, and Amilly, who had levied troops for the King in the province of Maine, and the commonalty were permitted to meet at the sound of the alarm-bell and to fall foul of all those who had held assemblies without order of Parliament.

On the 9th a decree was passed to suspend the conference till all the promises made by the Court to allow the entry of provisions were punctually executed.

The Prince de Conti informed the House the same day that he was desired by M. de Longueville to assure them that he would set out from Rouen on the 15th with 7,000 foot and 3,000 horse, and march directly to Saint Germain; the Parliament was incredibly overjoyed, and desired the Prince de Conti to press him to hasten his march as much as possible.

On the 10th the member for Normandy told the House that the Parliament of Rennes only stayed for the Duc de la Tremouille to join against the common enemy.

On the 11th an envoy from M. de la Tremouille offered the Parliament, in his master's name, 8,000 foot and 2,000 horse, who were in a condition to march in two days, provided the House would permit his master to seize on all the public money at Poitiers, Niort, and other places whereof he was already master. The Parliament thanked him, passed a decree with full powers accordingly, and desired him to hasten his levies with all expedition.

Posterity will hardly believe that, notwithstanding all this heat in the party, which one would have thought could not have immediately evaporated, a peace was made and signed the same day; but of this more by and by.

While the Court, as has been before hinted, was tampering with the generals, Madame de Montbazon promised M. de Beaufort's support to the Queen; but her Majesty understood that it was not to be done if I were not at the market to approve of the sale. La Riviere despised M. d'Elbeuf no longer. M. de Bouillon, since his brother's declaration, seemed more inclined than before to come to an arrangement with the Court, but his pretentions ran very high, and both the brothers were in such a situation that a little assistance would not suffice, and as to the offers made to myself by Madame de Lesdiguieres, I returned such an answer as convinced the Court that I was not so easily to be moved.

In short, Cardinal Mazarin found all the avenues to a negotiation either shut or impassable. This despair of success in the Court was eventually more to the advantage of the Court than the most refined politics, for it did not hinder them from negotiating, the Cardinal's natural temper not permitting him to do otherwise; but, however, he could not trust to the carrying out of negotiations, and therefore beguiled our generals with fair promises, while he remitted 800,000 livres to buy off the army of M. de Turenne, and obliged the deputies at Ruel to sign a peace against the orders of the Parliament that sent them. The President de Mesmes assured me several times since that this peace was purely the result of a conversation he had with the Cardinal on the 8th of March at night, when his Eminence told him he saw plainly that M. de Bouillon would not treat till he had the Spaniards and M. de Turenne at the gates of Paris; that is, till he saw himself in the position to seize one-half of the kingdom. The President made him this answer:

"There is no hope of any security but in making the Coadjutor a cardinal."

To which Mazarin answered: "He is worse than the other, who at least seemed once inclined to treat, but he is still for a general peace, or for none at all."

President de Mesmes replied: "If things are come to this pass we must be the victims to save the State from perishing—we must sign the peace. For after what the Parliament has done to-day there is no remedy, and perhaps tomorrow we shall be recalled; if we are disowned in what we do we are ruined, the gates of Paris will be shut against us, and we shall be prosecuted and treated as prevaricators and traitors. It is our business and concern to procure such conditions as will give us good ground to justify our proceedings, and if the terms are but reasonable, we know how to improve them against the factions; but make them as you please yourself, I will sign them all, and will go this moment to acquaint the First President that this is the only expedient to save the State. If it takes effect we have peace, if we are disowned by the Parliament we still weaken the faction, and the danger will fall upon none but ourselves." He added that with much difficulty he had persuaded the First President.

The peace was signed by Cardinal Mazarin, as well as by the other deputies, on the part of the King. The substance of the articles was that Parliament should just go to Saint Germain to proclaim the peace, and then return to Paris, but hold no assembly that year; that all their public decrees since the 6th of January should be made void, as likewise all ordinances of Council, declarations and 'lettres de cachet'; that as soon as the King had withdrawn his troops from Paris, all the forces raised for the defence of the city should be disbanded, and the inhabitants lay down their arms and not take them up again without the King's order; that the Archduke's deputy should be dismissed without an answer, that there should be a general amnesty, and that the King should also give a general discharge for all the public money made use of, as also for the movables sold and for all the arms and ammunition taken out of the arsenal and elsewhere.

M. and Madame de Bouillon were extremely surprised when they heard that the peace was signed. I did not expect the Parliament would make it so soon, but I said frequently that it would be a very shameful one if we should let them alone to make it. M. de Bouillon owned that I had foretold it often enough. "I confess," said he, "that we are entirely to blame," which expression made me respect him more than ever, for I think it a greater virtue for a man to confess a fault than not to commit one. The Prince de Conti, MM. d'Elbeuf, de Beaufort, and de La Mothe were very much surprised, too, at the signing of the peace, especially because their agent at Saint Germain had assured them that the Court was fully persuaded that the Parliament was but a cipher, and that the generals were the men with whom they must negotiate. I confess that Cardinal Mazarin acted a very wily part in this juncture, and he is the more to be commended because he was obliged to defend himself, not only against the monstrous impertinences of La Riviere, but against the violent passion of the Prince de Conde.

We held a council at the Duc de Bouillon's, where I persuaded them that as our deputies were recalled by an order despatched from Parliament before the treaty was signed, it was therefore void, and that we ought to take no notice of it, the rather because it had not been communicated to Parliament in form; and, finally, that the deputies should be charged to insist on a general treaty of peace and on the expulsion of Mazarin; and, if they did not succeed, to return forthwith to their seats in Parliament. But I added that if the deputies should have time to return and make their report, we should be under the necessity of protesting, which would so incense the people against them that we should not be able to keep them from butchering the First President and the President de Mesmes, so that we should be reputed the authors of the tragedy, and, though formidable one day, should be every whit as odious the next. I concluded with offering to sacrifice my coadjutorship of Paris to the anger of the Queen and the hatred of the Cardinal, and that very cheerfully, if they would but come into my measures.

M. de Bouillon, after having opposed my reasons, concluded thus: "I know that my brother's declaration and my urging the necessity of his advancing with the army before we come to a positive resolution may give ground to a belief that I have great views for our family. I do not deny but that I hope for some advantages, and am persuaded it is lawful for me to do so, but I will be content to forfeit my reputation if I ever agree with the Court till you all say you are satisfied; and if I do not keep my word I desire the Coadjutor to disgrace me."

After all I thought it best to submit to the Prince de Conti and the voice of the majority, who resolved very wisely not to explain themselves in detail next morning in Parliament, but that the Prince de Conti should only say, in general, that it being the common report that the peace was signed at Ruel, he was resolved to send deputies thither to take care of his and the other generals' interests.

The Prince agreed at once with our decision. Meantime the people rose at the report I had spread concerning Mazarin's signing the treaty, which, though we all considered it a necessary stratagem, I now repented of. This shows that a civil war is one of those complicated diseases wherein the remedy you prescribe for obviating one dangerous symptom sometimes inflames three or four others.

On the 13th the deputies of Ruel entering the Parliament House, which was in great tumult, M. d'Elbeuf, contrary to the resolution taken at M. de Bouillon's, asked the deputies whether they had taken care of the interest of the generals in the treaty.

The First President was going to make his report, but was almost stunned with the clamour of the whole company, crying, "There is no peace! there is no peace!" that the deputies had scandalously deserted the generals and all others whom the Parliament had joined by the decree of union, and, besides, that they had concluded a peace after the revocation of the powers given them to treat. The Prince de Conti said very calmly that he wondered they had concluded a treaty without the generals; to which the First President answered that the generals had always protested that they had no separate interests from those of the Parliament, and it was their own fault that they had not sent their deputies. M. de Bouillon said that, since Cardinal Mazarin was to continue Prime Minister, he desired that Parliament should obtain a passport for him to retire out of the kingdom. The First President replied that his interest had been taken care of, and that he would have satisfaction for Sedan. But M. de Bouillon told him that he might as well have said nothing, and that he would never separate from the other generals. The clamour redoubled with such fury that President de Mesmes trembled like an aspen leaf. M. de Beaufort, laying his hand upon his sword, said, "Gentlemen, this shall never be drawn for Mazarin."

The Presidents de Coigneux and de Bellievre proposed that the deputies might be sent back to treat about the interests of the generals and to reform the articles which the Parliament did not like; but they were soon silenced by a sudden noise in the Great Hall, and the usher came in trembling and said that the people called for M. de Beaufort. He went out immediately, and quieted them for the time, but no sooner had he got inside the House than the disturbance began afresh, and an infinite number of people, armed with daggers, called out for the original treaty, that they might have Mazarin's sign-manual burnt by the hangman, adding that if the deputies had signed the peace of their own accord they ought to be hanged, and if against their will they ought to be disowned. They were told that the sign-manual of the Cardinal could not be burnt without burning at the same time that of the Duc d'Orleans, but that the deputies were to be sent back again to get the articles amended. The people still cried out, "No peace! no Mazarin! You must go! We will have our good King fetched from Saint Germain, and all Mazarins thrown into the river!"

The people were ready to break open the great door of the House, yet the First President was so far from being terrified that, when he was advised to pass through the registry into his own house that he might not be seen, he replied, "If I was sure to perish I would never be guilty of such cowardice, which would only serve to make the mob more insolent, who would be ready to come to my house if they thought I was afraid of them here." And when I begged him not to expose himself till I had pacified the people he passed it off with a joke, by which I found he took me for the author of the disturbance, though very unjustly. However, I did not resent it, but went into the Great Hall, and, mounting the solicitors' bench, waved my hands to the people, who thereupon cried, "Silence!" I said all I could think of to make them easy. They asked if I would promise that the Peace of Ruel should not be kept. I answered, "Yes, provided the people will be quiet, for otherwise their best friends will be obliged to take other methods to prevent such disturbances." I acted in a quarter of an hour above thirty different parts. I threatened, I commanded, I entreated them; and, finding I was sure of a calm, at least for a moment, I returned to the House, and, embracing the First President, placed him before me; M. de Beaufort did the same with President de Mesmes, and thus we went out with the Parliament, all in a body, the officers of the House marching in front. The people made a great noise, and we heard some crying, "A republic!" but no injury was offered to us, only M. de Bouillon received a blow in his face from a ragamuffin, who took him for Cardinal Mazarin.

On the 16th the deputies were sent again to Ruel by the Parliament to amend some of the articles, particularly those for adjourning the Parliament to Saint Germain and prohibiting their future assemblies; with an order to take care of the interest of the generals and of the companies, joined together by the decree of union.

The late disturbances obliged the Parliament to post the city trained-bands at their gates, who were even more enraged against the "Mazarin peace," as they called it, than the mob, and who were far less dreaded, because they consisted of citizens who were not for plunder; yet this select militia was ten times on the point of insulting the Parliament, and did actually insult the members of the Council and Presidents, threatening to throw the President de Thore into the river; and when the First President and his friends saw that they were afraid of putting their threats into execution, they took an advantage of us, and had the boldness even to reproach the generals, as if the troops had not done their duty; though if the generals had but spoken loud enough to be heard by the people, they would not have been able to hinder them from tearing the members to pieces.

The Duc de Bouillon came to the Hotel de Ville and made a speech there to
Prince de Conti and the other generals, in substance as follows:

"I could never have believed what I now see of this Parliament. On the 13th they would not hear the Peace of Ruel mentioned, but on the 15th they approved of it, some few articles excepted; on the 16th they despatched the same deputies who had concluded a peace against their orders with full and unlimited powers, and, not content with all this, they load us with reproaches because we complain that they have treated for a peace without us, and have abandoned M. de Longueville and M. de Turenne; and yet it is owing only to us that the people do not massacre them. We must save their lives at the hazard of our own, and I own that it is wisdom so to do; but we shall all of us certainly perish with the Parliament if we let them go on at this rate." Then, addressing himself to the Prince de Conti, he said, "I am for closing with the Coadjutor's late advice at my house, and if your Highness does not put it into execution before two days are at an end, we shall have a peace less secure and more scandalous than the former."

The company became unanimously of his opinion, and resolved to meet next day at M. de Bouillon's to consider how to bring the affair into Parliament. In the meantime, Don Gabriel de Toledo arrived with the Archduke's ratification of the treaty signed by the generals, and with a present from his master of 10,000 pistoles; but I was resolved to let the Spaniards see that I had not the intention of taking their money, though at his request Madame de Bouillon did all she could to persuade me. Accordingly, I declined it with all possible respect; nevertheless, this denial cost me dear afterwards, because I contracted a habit of refusing presents at other times when it would have been good policy to have accepted them, even if I had thrown them into the river. It is sometimes very dangerous to refuse presents from one's superiors.

While we were in conference at M. de Bouillon's the sad news was brought to us that M. de Turenne's forces, all except two or three regiments, had been bribed with money from Court to abandon him, and, finding himself likely to be arrested, he had retired to the house of his friend and kinswoman, the Landgravine of Hesse. M. de Bouillon, was, as it were, thunderstruck; his lady burst out into tears, saying, "We are all undone," and I was almost as much cast down as they were, because it overturned our last scheme.

M. de Bouillon was now for pushing matters to extremes, but I convinced him that there was nothing more dangerous.

Don Gabriel de Toledo, who was ordered to be very frank with me, was very reserved when he saw how I was mortified about the news of M. de Turenne, and caballed with the generals in such a manner as made me very uneasy. Upon this sudden turn of affairs I made these remarks: That every company has so much in it of the unstable temper of the vulgar that all depends upon joining issue with opportunity; and that the best proposals prove often fading flowers, which are fragrant to-day and offensive to-morrow.

I could not sleep that night for thinking about our circumstances. I saw that the Parliament was less inclined than ever to engage in a war, by reason of the desertion of the army of M. de Turenne; I saw the deputies at Ruel emboldened by the success of their prevarication; I saw the people of Paris as ready to admit the Archduke as ever they could be to receive the Duc d'Orleans; I saw that in a week's time this Prince, with beads in his hand, and Fuensaldagne with his money, would have greater power than ourselves; that M. de Bouillon was relapsing into his former proposal of using extremities, and that the other generals would be precipitated into the same violent measures by the scornful behaviour of the Court, who now despised all because they were sure of the Parliament. I saw that all these circumstances paved the way for a popular sedition to massacre the Parliament and put the Spaniards in possession of the Louvre, which might overturn the State.

These gloomy thoughts I resolved to communicate to my father, who had for the last twenty years retired to the Oratory, and who would never hear of my State intrigues. My father told me of some advantageous offers made to me indirectly by the Court, but advised me not to trust to them.

Next day, M. de Bouillon was for shutting the gates against the deputies of Ruel, for expelling the Parliament, for making ourselves masters of the Hotel de Ville, and for bringing the Spanish army without delay into our suburbs. As for M. de Beaufort, Don Gabriel de Toledo told me that he offered Madame de Montbazon 20,000 crowns down and 6,000 crowns a year if she could persuade him into the Archduke's measures. He did not forget the other generals. M. d'Elbeuf was gained at an easy rate, and Marechal de La Mothe was buoyed up with the hopes of being accommodated with the Duchy of Cardonne. I soon saw the Catholicon of Spain (Spanish gold) was the chief ingredient. Everybody saw that our only remedy was to make ourselves masters of the Hotel de Ville by means of the people, but I opposed it with arguments too tedious to mention. M. de Bouillon was for engaging entirely with Spain, but I convinced Marechal de La Mothe and M. de Beaufort that such measures would in a fortnight reduce them to a precarious dependence on the counsels of Spain.

Being pressed to give my opinion in brief, I delivered it thus: "We cannot hinder the peace without ruining the Parliament by the help of the people, and we cannot maintain the war by the means of the same people without a dependence upon Spain. We cannot have any peace with Saint Germain but by consenting to continue Mazarin in the Ministry."

M. de Bouillon, with the head of an ox, and the penetration of an eagle, interrupted me thus: "I take it, monsieur," said he, "you are for suffering the peace to come to a conclusion, but not for appearing in it."

I replied that I was willing to oppose it, but that it should be only with my own voice and the voices of those who were ready to run the same hazard with me.

"I understand you again," replied M. de Bouillon; "a very fine thought indeed, suitable to yourself and to M. de Beaufort, but to nobody else."

"If it suited us only," said I, "before I would propose it I would cut out my tongue. The part we act would suit you as well as either of us, because you may accommodate matters when you think it for your interest. For my part, I am fully persuaded that they who insist upon the exclusion of Mazarin as a condition of the intended arrangement will continue masters of the affections of the people long enough to take their advantage of an opportunity which fortune never fails to furnish in cloudy and unsettled times. Pray, monsieur, considering your reputation and capacity, who can pretend to act this part with more dignity, than yourself? M. de Beaufort and I are already the favourites of the people, and if you declare for the exclusion of the Cardinal, you will be tomorrow as popular as either of us, and we shall be looked upon as the only centre of their hopes. All the blunders of the ministers will turn to our advantage, the Spaniards will caress us, and the Cardinal, considering how fond he is of a treaty, will be under the necessity to court us. I own this scheme may be attended with inconveniences, but, on the other side of the question, we are sure of certain ruin if we have a peace and an enraged minister at the helm, who cannot hope for reestablishment but upon our destruction. Therefore, I cannot but think the expedient is as proper for you to engage in as for me, but if, for argument's sake, it were not, I am sure it is for your interest that I should embrace it, for you will by that means have more time to make your own terms with the Court before the peace is concluded, and after the peace Mazarin will in such case be obliged to have more regard for all those gentlemen whose reunion with me it will be to his interest to prevent."

M. de Bouillon was so convinced of the justice of my reasoning that he told me, when we were by ourselves, that he had, as well as myself, thought of my expedient as soon as he received the news of the army deserting M. de Turenne, that he could still improve it, as the Spaniards would not fail to relish it, and that he had been on the point several times one day to confer about it with me; but that his wife had conjured him with prayers and tears to speak no more of the matter, but to come to terms with the Court, or else to engage himself with the Spaniards. "I know," said he, "you are not for the second arrangement; pray lend me your good offices to compass the first." I assured him that all my best offices and interests were entirely at his service to facilitate his agreement with the Court, and that he might freely make use of my name and reputation for that purpose.

In fine, we agreed on every point. M. de Bouillon undertook to make the proposition palatable to the Spaniards, provided we would promise never to let them know that it was concerted among ourselves beforehand, and we never questioned but that we could persuade M. de Longueville to accept it, for men of irresolution are apt to catch at all overtures which lead them two ways, and consequently press them to no choice.

I had almost forgotten to tell you what M. de Bouillon said to me in private as we were going from the conference. "I am sure," said he, "that you will not blame me for not exposing a wife whom I dearly love and eight children whom she loves more than herself to the hazards which you run, and which I could run with you were I a single man."

I was very much affected by the tender sentiments of M. de Bouillon and the confidence he placed in me, and assured him I was so far from blaming him that I esteemed him the more, and that his tenderness for his lady, which he was pleased to call his weakness, was indeed what politics condemned but ethics highly justified, because it betokened an honest heart, which is much superior both to interest and politics. M. de Bouillon communicated the proposal both to the Spanish envoys and to the generals, who were easily persuaded to relish it.

Thus he made, as it were, a golden bridge for the Spaniards to withdraw their troops with decency. I told him as soon as they were gone that he was an excellent man to persuade people that a "quartan ague was good for them."

The Parliamentary deputies, repairing to Saint Germain on the 17th of March, 1649, first took care to settle the interests of the generals, upon which every officer of the army thought he had a right to exhibit his pretensions. M. de Vendome sent his son a formal curse if he did not procure for him at least the post of Superintendent of the Seas, which was created first in favour of Cardinal de Richelieu in place of that of High Admiral, but Louis XIV. abolished it, and restored that of High Admiral.

Upon this we held a conference, the result of which was that on the 20th the Prince de Conti told the Parliament that himself and the other generals entered their claims solely for the purpose of providing for their safety in case Mazarin should continue in the Ministry, and that he protested, both for himself and for all the gentlemen engaged in the same party, that they would immediately renounce all pretensions whatsoever upon the exclusion of Cardinal Mazarin.

We also prevailed on the Prince de Conti, though almost against his will, to move the Parliament to direct their deputies to join with the Comte de Maure for the expulsion of Cardinal Mazarin. I had almost lost all my credit with the people, because I hindered them on the 13th of March from massacring the Parliament, and because on the 23d and 24th I opposed the public sale of the Cardinal's library. But I reestablished my reputation in the Great Hall among the crowd, in the opinion of the firebrands of Parliament, by haranguing against the Comte de Grancei, who had the insolence to pillage the house of M. Coulon; by insisting on the 24th that the Prince d'Harcourt should be allowed to seize all the public money in the province of Picardy; by insisting on the 25th against a truce which it would have been ridiculous to refuse during a conference; and by opposing on the 30th what was transacted there, though at the same time I knew that peace was made.

I now return to the conference at Saint Germain.

The Court declared they would never consent to the removal of the Cardinal; and that as to the pretensions of the generals, which were either to justice or favour, those of justice should be confirmed, and those of favour left to his Majesty's disposal to reward merit. They declared their willingness to accept the Archduke's proposal for a general peace.

An amnesty was granted in the most ample manner, comprehending expressly the Prince de Conti, MM. de Longueville, de Beaufort, d'Harcourt, de Rieug, de Lillebonne, de Bouillon, de Turenne, de Brissac, de Duras, de Matignon, de Beuron, de Noirmoutier, de Sdvigny, de Tremouille, de La Rochefoucault, de Retz, d'Estissac, de Montresor, de Matta, de Saint Germain, d'Apchon, de Sauvebeuf, de Saint Ibal, de Lauretat, de Laigues, de Chavagnac, de Chaumont, de Caumesnil, de Cugnac, de Creci, d'Allici, and de Barriere; but I was left out, which contributed to preserve my reputation with the public more than you would expect from such a trifle.

On the 31st the deputies, being returned, made their report to the
Parliament, who on the 1st of April verified the declaration of peace.

As I went to the House I found the streets crowded with people crying "No peace! no Mazarin!" but I dispersed them by saying that it was one of Mazarin's stratagems to separate the people from the Parliament, who without doubt had reasons for what they had done; that they should be cautious of falling into the snare; that they had no cause to fear Mazarin; and that they might depend on it that I would never agree with him. When I reached the House I found the guards as excited as the people, and bent on murdering every one they knew to be of Mazarin's party; but I pacified them as I had done the others. The First President, seeing me coming in, said that "I had been consecrating oil mixed, undoubtedly, with saltpetre." I heard the words, but made as if I did not, for had I taken them up, and had the people known it in the Great Hall, it would not have been in my power to have saved the life of one single member.

Soon after the peace the Prince de Conti, Madame de Longueville and M. de Bouillon went to Saint Germain to the Court, which had by some means or other gained M. d'Elbeuf. But MM. de Brissac, de Retz, de Vitri, de Fiesque, de Fontrailles, de Montresor, de Noirmoutier, de Matta, de la Boulaie, de Caumesnil, de Moreul, de Laigues, and d'Annery remained in a body with us, which was not contemptible, considering the people were on our side; but the Cardinal despised us to that degree that when MM. de Beaufort, de Brissac, de La Mothe, and myself desired one of our friends to assure the Queen of our most humble obedience, she answered that she should not regard our assurances till we had paid our devoirs to the Cardinal.

Madame de Chevreuse having come from Brussels without the Queen's leave, her Majesty sent her orders to quit Paris in twenty-four hours upon which I went to her house and found the lovely creature at her toilet bathed in tears. My heart yearned towards her, but I bid her not obey till I had the honour of seeing her again. I consulted with M. de Beaufort to get the order revoked, upon which he said, "I see you are against her going; she shall stay. She has very fine eyes!"

I returned to the Palace de Chevreuse, where I was made very welcome, and found the lovely Mademoiselle de Chevreuse. I got a very intimate acquaintance with Madame de Rhodes, natural daughter of Cardinal de Guise, who was her great confidant. I entirely demolished the good opinion she had of the Duke of Brunswick-Zell, with whom she had almost struck a bargain. De Laigues hindered me at first, but the forwardness of the daughter and the good-nature of the mother soon removed all obstacles. I saw her every day at her own house and very often at Madame de Rhodes's, who allowed us all the liberty we could wish for, and we did not fail to make good use of our time. I did love her, or rather I thought I loved her, for I still had to do with Madame de Pommereux.

Fronde (sling) being the name given to the faction, I will give you the etymology of it, which I omitted in the first book.

When Parliament met upon State affairs, the Duc d'Orleans and the Prince de Conde came very frequently, and tempered the heat of the contending parties; but the coolness was not lasting, for every other day their fury returned upon them.

Bachoumont once said, in jest, that the Parliament acted like the schoolboys in the Paris ditches, who fling stones, and run away when they see the constable, but meet again as soon as he turns his back. This was thought a very pretty comparison. It came to be a subject for ballads, and, upon the peace between the King and Parliament, it was revived and applied to those who were not agreed with the Court; and we studied to give it all possible currency, because we observed that it excited the wrath of the people. We therefore resolved that night to wear hatbands made in the form of a sling, and had a great number of them made ready to be distributed among a parcel of rough fellows, and we wore them ourselves last of all, for it would have looked much like affectation and have spoilt all had we been the first in the mode.

It is inexpressible what influence this trifle had upon the people; their bread, hats, gloves, handkerchiefs, fans, ornaments were all 'a la mode de la Fronde', and we ourselves were more in the fashion by this trifle than in reality. And the truth is we had need of all our shifts to support us against the whole royal family. For although I had spoken to the Prince de Conde at Madame de Longueville's, I could not suppose myself thoroughly reconciled. He treated me, indeed, civilly, but with an air of coldness, and I know that he was fully persuaded that I had complained of his breach of a promise which he made by me to some members of Parliament; but, as I had complained to nobody upon this head, I began to suspect that some persona studied to set us at variance. I imagined it came from the Prince de Conti, who was naturally very malicious, and hated me, he knew not why. Madame de Longueville loved me no better. I always suspected Madame de Montbazon, who had not nearly so much influence over M. de Beaufort as I had, yet was very artful in robbing him of all his secrets. She did not love me either, because I deprived her of what might have made her a most considerable person at Court.

Count Fuensaldagne was not obliged to help me if he could. He was not pleased with the conduct of M. de Bouillon, who, in truth, had neglected the decisive point for a general peace, and he was much less satisfied with his own ministers, whom he used to call his blind moles; but he was pleased with me for insisting always on the peace between the two Crowns, without any view to a separate one. He therefore sent me Don Antonio Pimentel, to offer me anything that was in the power of the King his master, and to tell me that, as I could not but want assistance, considering how I stood with the Ministry, 100,000 crowns was at my service, which was accordingly brought me in bills of exchange. He added that he did not desire any engagement from me for it, nor did the King his master propose any other advantage than the pleasure of protecting me. But I thought fit to refuse the money, for the present, telling Don Antonio that I should think myself unworthy, of the protection of his Catholic Majesty if I took any, gratuity, while I was in no capacity, of serving him; that I was born a Frenchman, and, by virtue of my, post, more particularly, attached than another to the metropolis of the kingdom; that it was my misfortune to be embroiled with the Prime Minister of my King, but that my resentment should never carry me to solicit assistance among his enemies till I was forced to do so for self-preservation; that Divine Providence had cast my lot in Paris, where God, who knew the purity of my intentions, would enable me in all probability to maintain myself by my own interest. But in case I wanted protection I was fully persuaded I could nowhere find any so powerful and glorious as that of his Catholic Majesty, to whom I would always think it an honour to have recourse. Fuensaldagne was satisfied with my answer, and sent back Don Antonio Pimentel with a letter from the Archduke, assuring me that upon a line from my hand he would march with all the forces of the King his master to my assistance.

BOOK III.

MADAME:—Cardinal Mazarin thought of nothing else now but how to rid himself of the obligations he lay under to the Prince de Conde, who had actually saved him from the gallows. And his principal view was an alliance with the House of Vendome, who had on some occasions opposed the interest of the family of Conde.

In Paris the people libelled not only the Cardinal, but the Queen. Indeed it was not our interest to discourage libels and ballads against the Cardinal, but it concerned us to suppress such as were levelled against the Queen and Government. It is not to be imagined what uneasiness the wrath of the people gave us upon that head. Two criminals, one of whom was a printer, being condemned to be hanged for publishing some things fit to be burnt and for libelling the Queen, cried out, when they were upon the scaffold, that they were to be put to death for publishing verses against Mazarin, upon which the people rescued them from justice.

On the other hand, some gay young gentlemen of the Court, who were in Mazarin's interest, had a mind to make his name familiar to the Parisians, and for that end made a famous display in the public walks of the Tuileries, where they had grand suppers, with music, and drank the Cardinal's health publicly. We took little notice of this, till they boasted at Saint Germain that the Frondeurs were glad to give them the wall. And then we thought it high time to correct them, lest the common people should think they did it by authority. For this end M. de Beaufort and a hundred other gentlemen went one night to the house where they supped, overturned the table, and broke the musicians' violins over their heads.

Being informed that the Prince de Conde intended to oblige the King to return to Paris, I was resolved to have all the merit of an action which would be so acceptable to the citizens. I therefore resolved to go to the Court at Compiegne, which my friends very much opposed, for fear of the danger to which I might be exposed, but I told them that what is absolutely necessary is not dangerous.

I went accordingly, and as I was going up-stairs to the Queen's apartments, a man, whom I never saw before or since, put a note into my hand with these words: "If you enter the King's domicile, you are a dead man." But I was in already, and it was too late to go back. Being past the guard-chamber, I thought myself secure. I told the Queen that I was come to assure her Majesty of my most humble obedience, and of the disposition of the Church of Paris to perform all the services it owed to their Majesties. The Queen seemed highly pleased, and was very kind to me; but when we mentioned the Cardinal, though she urged me to it, I excused myself from going to see him, assuring her Majesty that such a visit would put it out of my power to do her service. It was impossible for her to contain herself any longer; she blushed, and it was with much restraint that she forbore using harsh language, as she herself confessed afterwards.

Servien said one day that there was a design to assassinate me at his table by the Abbe Fouquet; and M. de Vendome, who had just come from his table, pressed me to be gone, saying that there were wicked designs hatching against me.

I returned to Paris, having accomplished everything I wanted, for I had removed the suspicion of the Court that the Frondeurs were against the King's return. I threw upon the Cardinal all the odium attending his Majesty's delay. I braved Mazarin, as it were, upon his throne, and secured to myself the chief honour of the King's return.

The Court was received at Paris as kings always were and ever will be, namely, with acclamations, which only please such as like to be flattered. A group of old women were posted at the entrance of the suburbs to cry out, "God save his Eminence!" who sat in the King's coach and thought himself Lord of Paris; but at the end of three or four days he found himself much mistaken. Ballads and libels still flew about. The Frondeurs appeared bolder than ever. M. de Beaufort and I rode sometimes alone, with one lackey only behind our coach, and at other times we went with a retinue of fifty men in livery and a hundred gentlemen. We diversified the scene as we thought it would be most acceptable to the spectators. The Court party, who blamed us from morning to night, nevertheless imitated us in their way. Everybody took an advantage of the Ministry from our continual pelting of his Eminence. The Prince, who always made too much or too little of the Cardinal, continued to treat him with contempt; and, being disgusted at being refused the post of Superintendent of the Seas, the Cardinal endeavoured to soothe him with the vain hopes of other advantages.

The Prince, being one day at Court, and seeing the Cardinal give himself extraordinary airs, said, as he was going out of the Queen's cabinet, "Adieu, Mars." This was told all over the city in a quarter of an hour. I and Noirmoutier went by appointment to his house at four o'clock in the morning, when he seemed to be greatly troubled. He said that he could not determine to begin a civil war, which, though the only means to separate the Queen from the Cardinal, to whom she was so strongly attached, yet it was both against his conscience and honour. He added that he should never forget his obligations to us, and that if he should come to any terms with the Court, he would, if we thought proper, settle our affairs also, and that if we had not a mind to be reconciled to the Court, he would, in case it did attack us, publicly undertake our protection. We answered that we had no other design in our proposals than the honour of being his humble servants, and that we should be very sorry if he had retarded his reconciliation with the Queen upon our account, praying that we might be permitted to continue in the same disposition towards the Cardinal as we were then, which we declared should not hinder us from paying all the respect and duty which we professed for his Highness.

I must not forget to acquaint you that Madame de Guemenee, who ran away from Paris in a fright the moment it was besieged, no sooner heard that I had paid a visit to Mademoiselle de Chevreuse than she returned to town in a rage. I was in such a passion with her for having cowardly deserted me that I took her by the throat, and she was so enraged at my familiarity with Mademoiselle de Chevreuse that she threw a candlestick at my head, but in a quarter of an hour we were very good friends.

The Prince de Conde was no sooner reconciled with the Court than he was publicly reproached in the city for breaking his word with the Frondeurs; but I convinced him that he could not think such treatment strange in a city so justly exasperated against Mazarin, and that, nevertheless, he might depend on my best services, for which he assured me of his constant friendship.

Moissans, now Marechal d'Albret, who was at the head of the King's gendarmes, accustomed himself and others to threaten the chief minister, who augmented the public odium against himself by reestablishing Emeri, a man detested by all the kingdom. We were not a little alarmed at his reestablishment, because this man, who knew Paris better than the Cardinal, distributed money among the people to a very good purpose. This is a singular science, which is either very beneficial or hurtful in its consequences, according to the wisdom or folly of the distributor.

These donations, laid out with discretion and secrecy, obliged us to yield ourselves more and more unto the bulk of the people, and, finding a fit opportunity for this performance, we took care not to let it slip, which, if they had been ruled by me, we should not have done so soon, for we were not yet forced to make use of such expedients. It is not safe in a faction where you are only upon the defensive to do what you are not pressed to do, but the uneasiness of the subalterns on such occasions is troublesome, because they believe that as soon as you seem to be inactive all is lost. I preached every day that the way was yet rough, and therefore must be made plain, and that patience in the present case was productive of greater effects than activity; but nobody comprehended the truth of what I said.

An unlucky expression, dropped on this occasion by the Princesse de Guemenee, had an incredible influence upon the people. She called to mind a ballad formerly made upon the regiment of Brulon, which was said to consist of only two dragoons and four drummers, and, inasmuch as she hated the Fronde, she told me very pleasantly that our party, being reduced to fourteen, might be justly compared to that regiment of Brulon. Noirmoutier and Laigues were offended at this expression to that degree that they continually murmured because I neither settled affairs nor pushed them to the last extremity. Upon which I observed that heads of factions are no longer their masters when they are unable either to prevent or allay the murmurs of the people.

The revenues of the Hotel de Ville, which are, as it were, the patrimony of the bourgeois, and which, if well managed, might be of special service to the King in securing to his interest an infinite number of those people who are always the most formidable in revolutions—this sacred fund, I say, suffered much by the licentiousness of the times, the ignorance of Mazarin, and the prevarication of the officers of the Hotel de Ville, who were his dependents, so that the poor annuitants met in great numbers at the Hotel de Ville; but as such assemblies without the Prince's authority are reckoned illegal, the Parliament passed a decree to suppress them. They were privately countenanced by M. de Beaufort and me, to whom they sent a solemn deputation, and they made choice of twelve syndics to be a check upon the 'prevot des marchands'.

On the 11th of December a pistol, as had been concerted beforehand, was fired into the coach of Joly, one of the syndics, which President Charton, another of the syndics, thinking was aimed at himself, the Marquis de la Boulaie ran as if possessed with a devil, while the Parliament was sitting, into the middle of the Great Hall, with fifteen or twenty worthless fellows crying out "To Arms!" He did the like in the streets, but in vain, and came to Broussel and me; but the former reprimanded him after his way, and I threatened to throw him out at the window, for I had reason to believe that he acted in concert with the Cardinal, though he pretended to be a Frondeur.

This artifice of Servien united the Prince to the Cardinal, because he found himself obliged to defend himself against the Frondeurs, who, as he believed, sought to assassinate him. All those that were his own creatures thought they were not zealous enough for his service if they did not exaggerate the imminent danger he had escaped, and the Court parasites confounded the morning adventure with that at night; and upon this coarse canvas they daubed all that the basest flattery, blackest imposture, and the most ridiculous credulity was capable of imagining; and we were informed the next morning that it was the common rumour over all the city that we had formed a design of seizing the King's person and carrying him to the Hotel de Ville, and to assassinate the Prince.

M. de Beaufort and I agreed to go out and show ourselves to the people, whom we found in such a consternation that I believed the Court might then have attacked us with success. Madame de Montbazon advised us to take post-horses and ride off, saying that there was nothing more easy than to destroy us, because we had put ourselves into the hands of our sworn enemies. I said that we had better hazard our lives than our honour. To which she replied, "It is not that, but your nymphs, I believe, which keep you here" (meaning Mesdames de Chevreuse and Guemenee). "I expect," she said, "to be befriended for my own sake, and don't I deserve it? I cannot conceive how you can be amused by a wicked old hag and a girl, if possible, still more foolish. We are continually disputing about that silly wretch" (pointing to M. de Beaufort, who was playing chess); "let us take him with us and go to Peronne."

You are not to wonder that she talked thus contemptibly of M. de Beaufort, whom she always taxed with impotency, for it is certain that his love was purely Platonic, as he never asked any favour of her, and seemed very uneasy with her for eating flesh on Fridays. She was so sweet upon me, and withal such a charming beauty, that, being naturally indisposed to let such opportunities slip, I was melted into tenderness for her, notwithstanding my suspicions of her, considering the then situation of affairs, and would have had her go with me into the cabinet, but she was determined first to go to Peronne, which put an end to our amours.

Beaufort waited on the Prince and was well received, but I could not gain admittance.

On the 14th the Prince de Conde went to Parliament and demanded that a committee might be appointed to inquire into the attempt made on his life.

The Frondeurs were not asleep in the meantime, yet most of our friends were dispirited, and all very weak.

The cures of Paris were my most hearty friends; they laboured with incredible zeal among the people. And the cure of Saint Gervais sent me this message: "Do but rally again and get off the assassination, and in a week you will be stronger than your enemies."

I was informed that the Queen had written to my uncle, the Archbishop of Paris, to be sure to go to the Parliament on the 23d, the day that Beaufort, Broussel, and I were to be impeached, because I had no right to sit in the House if he were present. I begged of him not to go, but my uncle being a man of little sense, and that much out of order, and being, moreover, fearful and ridiculously jealous of me, had promised the Queen to go; and all that we could get out of him was that he would defend me in Parliament better than I could defend myself. It is to be observed that though he chattered to us like a magpie in private, yet in public he was as mute as a fish. A surgeon who was in the Archbishop's service, going to visit him, commended him for his courage in resisting the importunities of his nephew, who, said he, had a mind to bury him alive, and encouraged him to rise with all haste and go to the Parliament House; but he was no sooner out of his bed than the surgeon asked him in a fright how he felt. "Very well," said my Lord. "But that is impossible," said the surgeon; "you look like death," and feeling his pulse, he told him he was in a high fever; upon which my Lord Archbishop went to bed again, and all the kings and queens in Christendom could not get him out for a fortnight.

We went to the Parliament, and found there the Princes with nearly a thousand gentlemen and, I may say, the whole Court. I had few salutes in the Hall, because it was generally thought I was an undone man. When I had entered the Great Chamber I heard a hum like that at the end of a pleasing period in a sermon. When I had taken my place I said that, hearing we were taxed with a seditious conspiracy, we were come to offer our heads to the Parliament if guilty, and if innocent, to demand justice upon our accusers; and that though I knew not what right the Court had to call me to account, yet I would renounce all privileges to make my innocence apparent to a body for whom I always had the greatest attachment and veneration.

Then the informations were read against what they called "the public conspiracy from which it had pleased Almighty God to deliver the State and the royal family," after which I made a speech, in substance as follows:

"I do not believe, gentlemen, that in any of the past ages persons of our quality had ever received any personal summons grounded merely upon hearsay. Neither can I think that posterity will ever believe that this hearsay evidence was admitted from the mouths of the most infamous miscreants that ever got out of a gaol. Canto was condemned to the gallows at Pau, Pichon to the wheel at Mans, Sociande is a rogue upon record. Pray, gentlemen, judge of their evidence by their character and profession. But this is not all. They have the distinguishing character of being informers by authority. I am sorely grieved that the defence of our honour, which is enjoined us by the laws of God and man, should oblige me to expose to light, under the most innocent of Kings, such abominations as were detested in the most corrupt ages of antiquity and under the worst of tyrants. But I must tell you that Canto, Sociande, and Gorgibus are authorised to inform against us by a commission signed by that august name which should never be employed but for the preservation of the most sacred laws, and which Cardinal Mazarin, who knows no law but that of revenge, which he meditates against the defenders of the public liberty, has forced M. Tellier, Secretary of State, to countersign.

"We demand justice, gentlemen, but we do not demand it of you till we have first most humbly implored this House to execute the strictest justice that the laws have provided against rebels, if it appears that we have been concerned directly or indirectly in raising this last disturbance. Is it possible, gentlemen, that a grandchild of Henri the Great, that a senator of M. Broussel's age and probity, and that the Coadjutor of Paris should be so much as suspected of being concerned in a sedition raised by a hot-brained fool, at the head of fifteen of the vilest of the mob? I am fully persuaded it would be scandalous for me to insist longer on this subject. This is all I know, gentlemen, of the modern conspiracy."

The applause that came from the Court of Inquiry was deafening; many voices were heard exclaiming against spies and informers. Honest Doujat, who was one of the persons appointed by the Attorney-General Talon, his kinsman, to make the report, and who had acquainted me with the facts, acknowledged it publicly by pretending to make the thing appear less odious. He got up, therefore, as if he were in a passion, and spoke very artfully to this purpose:

"These witnesses, monsieur, are not to accuse you, as you are pleased to say, but only to discover what passed in the meeting of the annuitants at the Hotel de Ville. If the King did not promise impunity to such as will give him information necessary for his service, and which sometimes cannot be come at without involving evidence in a crime, how should the King be informed at all? There is a great deal of difference between patents of this nature and commissions granted on purpose to accuse you."

You might have seen fire in 'the face of every member. The First President called out "Order!" and said, "MM. de Beaufort, le Coadjuteur, and Broussel, you are accused, and you must withdraw."

As Beaufort and I were leaving our seats, Broussel stopped us, saying, "Neither you, gentlemen, nor I are bound to depart till we are ordered to do so by the Court. The First President, whom all the world knows to be our adversary, should go out if we must."

I added, "And M. le Prince," who thereupon said, with a scornful air:

"What, I? Must I retire?"

"Yes, yes, monsieur," said I, "justice is no respecter of persons."

The President de Mesmes said, "No, monseigneur, you must not go out unless the Court orders you. If the Coadjutor insists that your Highness retire, he must demand it by a petition. As for himself, he is accused, and therefore must go out; but, seeing he raises difficulties and objections to the contrary, we must put it to the vote." And it was passed that we should withdraw.

Meanwhile, most of the members passed encomiums upon us, satires upon the Ministry, and anathemas upon the witnesses for the Crown. Nor were the cures and the parishioners wanting in their duty on this occasion. The people came in shoals from all parts of Paris to the Parliament House. Nevertheless, no disrespect was shown either to the King's brother or to M. le Prince; only some in their presence cried out, "God bless M. de Beaufort! God bless the Coadjutor!"

M. de Beaufort told the First President next day that, the State and royal family being in danger, every moment was precious, and that the offenders ought to receive condign punishment, and that therefore the Chambers ought to be assembled without loss of time. Broussel attacked the First President with a great deal of warmth. Eight or ten councillors entered immediately into the Great Chamber to testify their astonishment at the indolence and indifference of the House after such a furious conspiracy, and that so little zeal was shown to prosecute the criminals. MM. de Bignon and Talon, counsel for the Crown, alarmed the people by declaring that as for themselves they had no hand in the conclusions, which were ridiculous. The First President returned very calm answers, knowing well that we should have been glad to have put him into a passion in order to catch at some expression that might bear an exception in law.

On Christmas Day I preached such a sermon on Christian charity, without mentioning the present affairs, that the women even wept for the unjust persecution of an archbishop who had so great a tenderness for his very enemies.

On the 29th M. de Beaufort and I went to the Parliament House, accompanied by a body of three hundred gentlemen, to make it appear that we were more than tribunes of the people, and to screen ourselves from the insults of the Court party. We posted ourselves in the Fourth Chamber of the Inquests, among the courtiers, with whom we conversed very frankly, yet upon the least noise, when the debates ran high in the Great Chamber, we were ready to cut one another's throats eight or ten times every morning. We were all distrustful of one another, and I may venture to say there were not twenty persons in the House but were armed with daggers. As for myself, I had resolved to take none of those weapons inconsistent with my character, till one day, when it was expected the House would be more excited than usual, and then M. de Beaufort, seeing one end of the weapon peeping out of my pocket, exposed it to M. le Prince's captain of the guards and others, saying, "See, gentlemen, the Coadjutor's prayer-book." I understood the jest, but really I could not well digest it. We petitioned the Parliament that the First President, being our sworn enemy, might be expelled the House, but it was put to the vote and carried by a majority of thirty-six that he should retain his station of judge.

Paris narrowly escaped a commotion at the time of the imprisonment of Belot, one of the syndics of the Hotel de Ville annuitants, who, being arrested without a decree, President de la Grange made it appear that there was nothing more contrary to the declaration for which they had formerly so exerted themselves. The First President maintaining the legality of his imprisonment, Daurat, a councillor of the Third Chamber, told him that he was amazed that a gentleman who was so lately near being expelled could be so resolute in violating the laws so flagrantly. Whereupon the First President rose in a passion, saying that there was neither order nor discipline in the House, and that he would resign his place to another for whom they had more respect. This motion put the Great Chamber all in a ferment, which was felt in the Fourth, where the gentlemen of both parties hastened to support their respective sides, and if the most insignificant lackey had then but drawn a sword, Paris would have been all in an uproar.

We solicited very earnestly for our trial, which they delayed as much as it was in their power, because they could not choose but acquit us and condemn the Crown witnesses. Various were the pretences for putting it off, and though the informations were not of sufficient weight to hang a dog, yet they were read over and over at every turn to prolong the time.

The public began to be persuaded of our innocence, as also the Prince de Conde, and M. de Bouillon told me that he very much suspected it to be a trick of the Cardinal's.

On the 1st of January, 1650, Madame de Chevreuse, having a mind to visit the Queen, with whom she had carried on in all her disgrace an unaccountable correspondence, went to the King's Palace. The Cardinal, taking her aside in the Queen's little cabinet, said to her:

"You love the Queen. Is it not possible for you to make your friends love her?"

"How can that be?" said she; "the Queen is no more a Queen, but a humble servant to M. le Prince."

"Good God!" replied the Cardinal; "we might do great things if we could get some men into our interest. But M. de Beaufort is at the service of Madame de Montbazon, and she is devoted to Vigneul and the Coadjutor; " at the mention of which he smiled. "I take you, monsieur," said Madame de Chevreuse; "I will answer for him and for her."

Thus the conversation began, and the Cardinal making a sign to the Queen, Madame de Chevreuse had a long conference that night with her Majesty, who gave her this billet for me, written and signed with her own hand:

Notwithstanding what has passed and what is now doing, I cannot but persuade myself that M. le Coadjuteur is in my interest. I desire to see him, and that nobody may know it but Madame and Mademoiselle de Chevreuse. This name shall be your security. ANNE

Being convinced that the Queen was downright angry with the Prince de Conde on account of a rumour spread abroad that he had some intriguing gallantries with her Majesty, I weighed all circumstances and returned the answer to the Queen:

Never was there one moment of my life wherein I was not devoted to your Majesty. I am so far from consulting my own safety that I would gladly die for your service . . . I will go to any place your Majesty shall order me.

My answer, with the Queen's letter enclosed, was carried back by Madame de Chevreuse and well received. I went immediately to Court, and was taken up the back staircase by the Queen's train-bearer to the petit oratoire, where her Majesty was shut up all alone. She showed me as much kindness as she could, considering her hatred against M. le Prince and her friendship for the Cardinal, though the latter seemed the more to prevail, because in speaking of the civil wars and of the Cardinal's friendship for me she called him "the poor Cardinal" twenty times over. Half an hour after, the Cardinal came in, who begged the Queen to dispense with the respect he owed her Majesty while he embraced me in her presence. He was pleased to say he was very sorry that he could not give me that very moment his own cardinal's cap. He talked so much of favours, gratifications, and rewards that I was obliged to explain myself, knowing that nothing is more destructive of new reconciliations than a seeming unwillingness to be obliged to those to whom you are reconciled. I answered that the greatest recompense I could expect, though I had saved the Crown, was to have the honour of serving her Majesty, and I humbly prayed the Queen to give me no other recompense, that at least I might have the satisfaction to make her Majesty sensible that this was the only reward I valued.

The Cardinal desired the Queen to command me to accept of the nomination to the cardinalate, "which," said he, "La Riviere has snatched with insolence and acknowledged with treachery." I excused myself by saying that I had taken a resolution never to accept of the cardinalship by any means which seemed to have relation to the civil wars, to the end that I might convince the Queen that it was the most rigid necessity which had separated me from her service. I rejected upon the same account all the other advantageous propositions he made me, and, he still insisting that the Queen could do no less than confer upon me something that was very considerable for the signal service I was likely to do her Majesty, I answered:

"There is one point wherein the Queen can do me more good than if she gave me a triple crown. Her Majesty told me just now that she will cause M. le Prince to be apprehended. A person of his high rank and merit neither can nor ought to be always shut up in prison, for when he comes abroad he will be full of resentment against me, though I hope my dignity will be my protection. There are a great many gentlemen engaged with me who, in such a juncture, would be ready to serve the Queen. And if it seemed good to your Majesty to entrust one of them with some important employment, I should be more pleased than with ten cardinals' hats."

The Cardinal told the Queen that nothing was more just, and the affair should be considered between him and me.

We had several conferences, at which we agreed on gratifications for some of our friends and to arrest the Prince de Conde, the Prince de Conti, and the Duc de Longueville.

The Cardinal took occasion to speak of the treachery of La Riviere. "This man," said he, "takes me to be the most stupid creature living, and thinks he shall be to-morrow a cardinal. I diverted myself to-day with letting him try on some scarlet cloth I lately received from Italy, and I put it near his face to know whether a scarlet colour or carnation became him best."

I heard from Rome that his Eminence was not behindhand with La Riviere upon the score of treachery. For on the very day he got him nominated by the King, he wrote a letter to Cardinal Sachelli more fit to recommend him to a yellow cap than to a red one. This letter, nevertheless, was full of tenderness for La Riviere, which Mazarin knew was the only way to ruin him with Pope Innocent, who hated Mazarin and all his adherents.

Madame de Chevreuse undertook to see how the Duc d'Orleans would relish the design of imprisoning the Princes. She told him that, though the Queen was not satisfied with M. le Prince, yet she could not form a resolution of apprehending him without the concurrence of his Royal Highness. She magnified the advantages of bringing over to the King's service the powerful faction of the Fronde, and the daily dangers Paris was exposed to, both by fire and sword. This last reason touched him as much or more than all, for he trembled every time he came to the Parliament; M. le Prince very often could not prevail upon him to go at all, and a fit of colic was generally assigned as the reason of his absence. At length he consented, and on the 18th of January the three Princes were put under arrest by three officers of the Queen's Guards.

The people having a notion that M. de Beaufort was apprehended, ran to their arms, which I caused to be laid down immediately, by marching through the streets with flambeaux before me. M. de Beaufort did the like, and the night concluded with bonfires.

The Queen sent a letter from the King to the Parliament with the reasons, which were neither strong nor well set out, why the Prince de Conde was confined. However, we obtained a decree for our absolution.

The Princesses were ordered to retire to Chantilly. Madame de Longueville went towards Normandy, but found no sanctuary there, for the Parliament of Rouen sent her a message to desire her to depart from the city. The Duc de Richelieu would not receive her into Havre, and from there she retired to Dieppe.

M. de Bouillon, who after the peace was strongly attached to the Prince de Conde, went in great haste to Turenne; M. de Turenne got into Stenai; M. de La Rochefoucault, then Prince de Marsillac, returned home to Poitou; and Marechal de Breze, father-in-law to the Prince de Conde, went to Saumur.

There was a declaration published and registered in Parliament against them, whereby they were ordered to wait on the King within fifteen days, upon pain of being proceeded against as disturbers of the public peace and guilty of high treason.

The Court carried all before them. Madame de Longueville, upon the King going into Normandy, escaped by sea into Holland, whence she went afterwards to Arras, to try La Tour, one of her husband's pensioners, who offered her his person, but refused her the place. She repaired at last to Stenai, whither M. de Turenne went to meet her, with all the friends and servants of the confined Princes that he could muster. The King went from Normandy to Burgundy, and returned to Paris crowned with laurels of victory.

The Princess-dowager, who had been ordered to retire to Bourges, came with a petition to Parliament, praying for their protection to stay in Paris, and that she might have justice done her for the illegal confinement of the Princes her children. She fell at the feet of the Duc d'Orleans, begged the protection of the Duc de Beaufort, and said to me that she had the honour to be my kinswoman. M. de Beaufort was very much perplexed what to do, and I was nearly ready to die for shame; but we could do nothing for her, and she was obliged to go to Valery.

Several private annuitants, who had made a noise in the assemblies at the Hotel de Ville, were afraid of being called to account, and therefore, after M. le Prince was arrested, they desired me to procure a general amnesty. I spoke about it to the Cardinal, who seemed very pliable, and, showing me his hatband, which was 'a la mode de la Fronde', said he hoped himself to be comprised in that amnesty; but he shuffled it off so long that it was not published and registered in Parliament till the 12th of May, and it would not have been obtained then had not I threatened vigorously to prosecute the Crown witnesses, of which they were mightily apprehensive, being so conscious of the heinousness of their crime that two of them had already made their escape.

The present calm hardly deserved that name, for the storm of war began to rise again in several places at once.

Madame de Longueville and M. de Turenne made a treaty with the Spaniards, and the latter joined their army, which entered Picardy and besieged Guise, after having taken Catelet; but for want of provisions the Archduke was obliged to raise the siege. M. de Turenne levied troops with Spanish money, and was joined by the greater part of the officers commanding the soldiers that went under the name of the Prince's troops.

The wretched conduct of M. d'Epernon had so confounded the affairs of
Guienne that nothing but his removal could retrieve them.

One of the greatest mischiefs which the despotic authority of ministers has occasioned in the world in these later times is a practice, occasioned by their own private mistaken interests, of always supporting superiors against their inferiors. It is a maxim borrowed from Machiavelli, whom few understand, and whom too many cry up for an able man because he was always wicked. He was very far from being a complete statesman, and was frequently out in his politics, but I think never more grossly mistaken than in this maxim, which I observed as a great weakness in Mazarin, who was therefore the less qualified to settle the affairs of Guienne, which were in so much confusion that I believe if the good sense of Jeannin and Villeroi had been infused into the brains of Cardinal de Richelieu, it would not have been sufficient to set them right.

Senneterre, perceiving that Cardinal Mazarin and I were not cordial friends, undertook to reconcile us, and for that end took me to the Cardinal, who embraced me very tenderly, said he laid his heart upon the table, that was one of his usual phrases,—and protested he would talk as freely to me as if I were his own son. I did not believe a word of what he said, but I assured his Eminence that I would speak to him as if he were my father, and I was as good as my word. I told him I had no personal interest in view but to disengage myself from the public disturbances without any private advantage, and that for the same reason I thought myself obliged to come off with reputation and honour. I desired him to consider that my age and want of skill in public affairs could not give him any jealousy that I aimed to be the First Minister. I conjured him to consider also that the influence I had over the people of Paris, supported by mere necessity, did rather reflect disgrace than honour upon my dignity, and that he ought to believe that this one reason was enough to make me impatient to be rid of all these public broils, besides a thousand other inconveniences arising every moment, which disgusted me with faction. And as for the dignity of cardinal, which might peradventure give him some umbrage, I could tell him very sincerely what had been and what was still my notion of this dignity, which I once foolishly imagined would be more honourable for me to despise than to enjoy. I mentioned this circumstance to let him see that in my tender years I was no admirer of the purple, and not very fond of it now, because I was persuaded that an Archbishop of Paris could hardly miss obtaining that dignity some time or other, according to form, by actions purely ecclesiastical; and that he should be loth to use any other means to procure it.

I said that I should be extremely sorry if my purple were stained with the least drop of blood spilt in the civil wars; that I was resolved to clear my hands of everything that savoured of intrigue before I would make or suffer any step which had any tendency that way; that he knew that for the same reason I would neither accept money nor abbeys, and that, consequently, I was engaged by the public declarations I had made upon all those heads to serve the Queen without any interest; that the only end I had in view, and in which I never wavered, was to come off with honour, so that I might resume the spiritual functions belonging to my profession with safety; that I desired nothing from him but the accomplishment of an affair which would be more for the King's service than for my particular interest; that he knew that the day after the arrest of the Prince he sent me with his promise to the annuitants of the Hotel de Ville, and that for want of performance those men were persuaded that I was in concert with the Court to deceive them. Lastly, I told him that the access I had to the Duc d'Orleans might perhaps give him umbrage, but I desired him to consider that I never sought that honour, and that I was very sensible of the inconveniences attending it. I enlarged upon this head, which is the most difficult point to be understood by Prime Ministers, who are so fond of being freely admitted into a Prince's presence that, notwithstanding all the experience in the world, they cannot help thinking that therein consists the essence of happiness.

When truth has come to a certain point, it darts such powerful rays of light as are irresistible, but I never knew a man who had so little regard for truth as Mazarin. He seemed, however, more regardful of it than usual, and I laid hold of the occasion to tell him of the dangerous consequences of the disturbances of Guienne, and that if he continued to support M. d'Epernon, the Prince's faction would not let this opportunity slip; that if the Parliament of Bordeaux should engage in their party, it would not be long before that of Paris would do the same; that, after the late conflagration in this metropolis, he could not suppose but that there was still some fire hidden under the ashes; and that the factious party had reason to fear the heavy punishment to which the whole body of them was liable, as we ourselves were two or three months ago. The Cardinal began to yield, especially when he was told that M. de Bouillon began to make a disturbance in the Limousin, where M. de La Rochefoucault had joined him with some troops.

To confirm our reconciliation, a marriage was proposed between my niece and his nephew, to which he, gave his consent; but I was much averse to it, being not yet resolved to bury my family in that of Mazarin, nor did I set so great a value on grandeur as to purchase it with the public odium. However, it produced no animosity on either side, and his friends knew that I should be very glad to be employed in making a general peace; they acted their parts so well that the Cardinal, whose love-fit for me lasted about a fortnight, promised me, as it were of his own accord, that I should be gratified.

News came about this time from Guienne that the Ducs de Bouillon and de La Rochefoucault had taken Madame la Princesse into Bordeaux, together with M. le Duc, her son. The Parliament was not displeased with the people for receiving into their city M. le Duc, yet they observed more decorum than could be expected from the inhabitants of Gascogne, so irritated as they were against M. d'Epernon. They ordered that Madame la Princesse, M. le Duc, MM. de Bouillon and de La Rochefoucault should have liberty to stay in Bordeaux, provided they would promise to undertake nothing against the King's service, and that the petition of Madame la Princesse should be sent to the King with a most humble remonstrance from the Parliament against the confinement of the Princes.

At the same time, one of the Presidents sent word to Senneterre that the Parliament was not so far enraged but that they would still remember their loyalty to the King, provided he did but remove M. d'Epernon. But in case of any further delay he would not answer for the Parliament, and much less for the people, who, being now managed and supported by the Prince's party, would in a little time make themselves masters of the Parliament. Senneterre did what he could to induce the Cardinal to make good use of this advice, and M. de Chateauneuf, who was now Chancellor, talked wonderfully well upon the point, but seeing the Cardinal gave no return to his reasons but by exclaiming against the Parliament of Bordeaux for sheltering men condemned by the King's declaration, he said to him very plainly, "Set out to-morrow, monsieur, if you do not arrange matters to-day; you should have been by this time upon the Garonne."

The event proved that Chateauneuf was in the right, for though the Parliament was very excited, they stood out a long time against the madness of the people, spurred on by M. de Bouillon, and issued a decree ordering an envoy of Spain, who was sent thither to commence a treaty with the Duc de Bouillon, to depart the city, and forbade any of their body to visit such as had correspondence with Spain, the Princess herself not excepted. Moreover, the mob having undertaken to force the Parliament to unite with the Princes, the Parliament armed the magistracy, who fired upon the people and made them retire.

A little time before the King departed for Guienne, which was in the beginning of July, word came that the Parliament of Bordeaux had consented to a union with the Princes, and had sent a deputy to the Parliament of Paris, who had orders to see neither the King nor the ministers, and that the whole province was disposed for a revolt. The Cardinal was in extreme consternation, and commended himself to the favour of the meanest man of the Fronde with the greatest suppleness imaginable.

As soon as the King came to the neighbourhood of Bordeaux the deputies of Parliament, who went to meet the Court at Lebourne, were peremptorily commanded to open the gates of the city to the King and to all his troops. They answered that one of their privileges was to guard the King themselves while he was in any of their towns. Upon this, Marechal de La Meilleraye seized the castle of Vaire, in the command of Pichon, whom the Cardinal ordered to be hanged; and M. de Bouillon hanged an officer in Meilleraye's army by way of reprisal.

After that the Marshal besieged the city in form, which, despairing of succour from Spain, was forced to capitulate upon the following terms:

That a general pardon should be granted to all who had taken up arms and treated with Spain, that all the soldiers should be disbanded except those whom the King had a mind to keep in his pay, that Madame la Princesse and the Duke should be at liberty to reside either in Anjou or at Mouzon, with no more than two hundred foot and sixty horse, and that M. d'Epernon should be recalled from the government of Guienne.

The Princess had an interview with both the King and Queen, at which there were great conferences between the Cardinal and the Ducs de Bouillon and de La Rochefoucault.

The deputy from Bordeaux, arriving at Paris soon after the King's departure, went immediately, to Parliament, and, after an eloquent harangue, presented a letter from the Parliament of Bordeaux, together with their decrees, and demanded a union between the two Parliaments. After some debates it was resolved that the deputy should deliver his credentials in writing, which should be presented to his Majesty by the deputies of the Parliament of Paris, who would, at the same time, most humbly beseech the Queen to restore peace to Guienne.

The Duc d'Orleans was against debating about the petition to the Queen for the liberation of the Priuces and the banishment of Cardinal Mazarin; nevertheless, many of the members voted for it, upon a motion made by the President Viole, who was a warm partisan of the Prince de Conde, not because he had hopes of carrying it, but on purpose to embarrass M. de Beaufort and myself upon a subject of which we did not care to speak, and yet did not dare to be altogether silent about, without passing in some measure for Mazarinists. President Viole did the Prince a great deal of service on this occasion, for Bourdet a brave soldier, who had been captain of the Guards and was attached to the interest of the Prince—performed an action which emboldened the party very much, though it had no success. He dressed himself and fourscore other officers of his troops in mason's clothes, and having assembled many of the dregs of the people, to whom he had distributed money, came directly to the Duc d'Orleans as he was going out, and cried, "No Mazarin! God bless the Princes!" His Royal Highness, at this apparition and the firing of a brace of pistols at the same time by Bourdet, ran to the Great Chamber; but M. de Beaufort stood his ground so well with the Duke's guards and our men, that Bourdet was repulsed and thrown down the Parliament stairs.

But the confusion in the Great Chamber was still worse. There were daily assemblies, wherein the Cardinal was severely attacked, and the Prince's party had the pleasure of exposing us as his accomplices. What is very strange is that at the same time the Cardinal and his friends accused us of corresponding with the Parliament of Bordeaux, because we maintained, in case the Court did not adjust affairs there, we would infallibly bring the Parliament of Paris into the interest of the Prince. If I were at the point of death I should have no need to be confessed on account of my behaviour on this occasion. I acted with as much sincerity in this juncture as if I had been the Cardinal's nephew, though really it was not out of any love to him, but because I thought myself obliged in prudence to oppose the progress of the Prince's faction, owing to the foolish conduct of his enemies; and to this end I was obliged to oppose the flattery of the Cardinal's tools as much as the efforts made by those who were in the service of the Prince.

On the 3d of September President Bailleul returned with the other deputies, and made a report in Parliament of his journey to Court; it was, in brief, that the Queen thanked the Parliament for their good intentions, and had commanded them to assure the Parliament in her name that she was ready to restore peace to Guienne, and that it would have been done before now had not M. de Bouillon, who had treated with the Spaniards, made himself master of Bordeaux, and thereby cut off the effects of his Majesty's goodness.

The Duc d'Orleans informed the House that he had received a letter from the Archduke, signifying that the King of Spain having sent him full powers to treat for a general peace, he desired earnestly to negotiate it with him. But his Royal Highness added that he did not think it proper to return him any answer till he had the opinion of the Parliament. The trumpeter who brought the letter gathered a party at Tiroir cross, and spoke very seditious words to the people. The next day they found libels posted up and down the city in the name of M. de Turenne, setting forth that the Archduke was coming with no other disposition than to make peace, and in one of them were these words: "It is your business, Parisians, to solicit your false tribunes, who have turned at last pensioners and protectors of Mazarin, who have for so long a time sported with your fortunes and repose, and spurred you on, kept you back, and made you hot or cold, according to the caprices and different progress of their ambition."

You see the state and condition the Frondeurs were in at this juncture, when they could not move one step but to their own disadvantage. The Duc d'Orleans spoke to me that night with a, great deal of bitterness against the Cardinal, which he had never done before, and said he had been tricked by him twice, and that he was ruining himself, the State, and all of us, and would, by so doing, place the Prince de Conde upon the throne. In short, Monsieur owned that it was not yet time to humble the Cardinal. "Therefore," said M. Bellievre, "let us be upon our guard; this man can give us the slip any moment."

Next day a letter was sent from the Prince de Conde, by the Baron de Verderonne, to the Archduke, desiring him to name the time, place and persons for a treaty. The Baron returned with a letter from the Archduke to his Royal Highness, desiring that the conferences might be held between Rheims and Rhetel, and that they might meet there personally, with such others as they should think fit to bring with them. The Court was surprised, but, however, did not think fit to delay sending full powers to his Royal Highness to treat for peace on such terms as he thought reasonable and advantageous for the King's service; and there were joined with him, though in subordination, MM. Mole, the First President, d'Avaux, and myself, with the title of Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiaries. M. d'Avaux obliged me to assure Don Gabriel de Toledo, in private, that if the Spaniards would but come to reasonable terms, we would conclude a peace with them in two days' time. And his Royal Highness said that Don Gabriel being a lover of money, I should promise him for his part 100,000 crowns if the conference that was proposed ended in a peace, and bid him tell the Archduke that, if the Spaniards proposed reasonable terms, he would sign and have them registered in Parliament before Mazarin should know anything of the matter.

Don Gabriel received the overture with joy; he had some particular fancies, but Fuensaldagne, who had a particular kindness for him, said that he was the wisest fool he ever saw in his life. I have remarked more than once that this sort of man cannot persuade, but can insinuate perfectly well, and that the talent of insinuation is of more service than that of persuasion, because one may insinuate to a hundred where one can hardly persuade five.

The King of England, after having lost the battle of Worcester, arrived in Paris the day that Don Gabriel set out, the 13th of September, 1651. My Lord Taff was his great chamberlain, valet de chambre, clerk of the kitchen, cup-bearer, and all,—an equipage answerable to his Court, for his Majesty had not changed his shirt all the way from England. Upon his arrival at Paris, indeed, he had one lent him by my Lord Jermyn; but the Queen, his mother, had not money to buy him another for the next day. The Duc d'Orleans went to compliment his Majesty upon his arrival, but it was not in my power to persuade his Royal Highness to give his nephew one penny, because, said he, "a little would not be worth his acceptance, and a great deal would engage me to do as much hereafter." This leads me to make the following digression: that there is nothing so wretched as to be a minister to a Prince, and, at the same time, not his favourite; for it is his favour only that gives one a power over the more minute concerns of the family, for which the public does, nevertheless, think a minister accountable when they, see he has power over affairs of far greater consequence.

Therefore I was not in a condition to oblige his Royal Highness by assisting the King of England with a thousand pistoles, for which I was horridly, ashamed, both upon his account anal my own; but I borrowed fifteen hundred for him from M. Morangis, and carried them to my Lord Taff.—[Lord Clarendon extols the civilities of Cardinal de Retz to King Charles II., and has reported a curious conversation which the Cardinal had with that Prince.]—It is remarkable that the same night, as I was going home, I met one Tilney, an Englishman whom I had formerly known at Rome, who told me that Vere, a great Parliamentarian and a favourite of Cromwell, had arrived in Paris and had orders to see me. I was a little puzzled; however, I judged it would be improper to refuse him an interview. Vere gave me a brief letter from Cromwell in the nature of credentials, importing that the sentiments I had enunciated in the "Defence of Public Liberty" added to my reputation, and had induced Cromwell to desire to enter with me into the strictest friendship. The letter was in the main wonderfully civil and complaisant. I answered it with a great deal of respect, but in such a manner as became a true Catholic and an honest Frenchman. Vere appeared to be a man of surprising abilities.

I now return to our own affairs. I was told as a mighty secret that Tellier had orders from the Cardinal to remove the Princes from the Bois de Vincennes if the enemy were likely to come near the place, and that he should endeavour by all means to procure the consent of the Duc d'Orleans for that end; but that, in case of refusal, these orders should be executed notwithstanding, and that he should endeavour to gain me to these measures by the means of Madame de Chevreuse. When Tellier came to me I assured him that it was all one, both to me and the Duc d'Orleans, whether the Princes were removed or not, but since my opinion was desired, I must declare that I think nothing can be more contrary to the true interest of the King; "for," said I, "the Spaniards must gain a battle before they can come to Vincennes, and when there they must have a flying camp to invest the place before they can deliver the Princes from confinement, and therefore I am convinced that there is no necessity for their removal, and I do affirm that all unnecessary changes in matters which are in themselves disagreeable are pernicious, because odious. I will maintain, further, that there is less reason to fear the Duc d'Orleans and the Frondeurs than to dread the Spaniards. Suppose that his Royal Highness is more disaffected towards the Court than anybody; suppose further that M. de Beaufort and I have a mind to relieve the Princes, in what way could we do it? Is not the whole garrison in that castle in the King's service? Has his Royal Highness any regular troops to besiege Vincennes? And, granting the Frondeurs to be the greatest fools imaginable, will they expose the people of Paris at a siege which two thousand of the King's troops might raise in a quarter of an hour though it consist of a hundred thousand citizens? I therefore conclude that the removal would be altogether impolitic. Does it not look rather as if the Cardinal feigns apprehension of the Spaniards only as a pretence to make himself master of the Princes, and to dispose of their persons at pleasure? The generality of the people, being Frondeurs, will conclude you take the Prince de Conde out of their hands,—whom they look upon to be safe while they see him walking upon the battlements of his prison,—and that you will give him his liberty when you please, and thus enable him to besiege Paris a second time. On the other hand, the Prince's party will improve this removal very much to their own advantage by the compassion such a spectacle will raise in the people when they see three Princes dragged in chains from one prison to another. I was really mistaken just now when I said the case was all one to me, for I see that I am nearly concerned, because the people—in which word I include the Parliament will cry out against it; I must be then obliged, for my own safety, to say I did not approve of the resolution. Then the Court will be informed that I find fault with it, and not only that, but that I do it in order to raise the mob and discredit the Cardinal, which, though ever so false; yet in consequence the people will firmly believe it, and thus I shall meet with the same treatment I met with in the beginning of the late troubles, and what I even now experience in relation to the affairs of Guienne. I am said to be the cause of these troubles because I foretold them, and I was said to encourage the revolt at Bordeaux because I was against the conduct that occasioned it."

Tellier, in the Queen's name, thanked me for my unresisting disposition, and made the same proposal to his Royal Highness; upon which I spoke, not to second Tellier, who pleaded for the necessity of the removal, to which I could by no means be reconciled, but to make it evident to his Royal Highness that he was not in any way concerned in it in his own private capacity, and that, in case the Queen did command it positively, it was his duty to obey. M. de Beaufort opposed it so furiously as to offer the Duc d'Orleans to attack the guards which were to remove him. I had solid reasons to dissuade him from it, to the last of which he submitted, it being an argument which I had from the Queen's own mouth when she set out for Guienne, that Bar offered to assassinate the Princes if it should happen that he was not in a condition to hinder their escape. I was astonished when her Majesty trusted me with this secret, and imagined that the Cardinal had possessed her with a fear that the Frondeurs had a design to seize the person of the Prince de Conde. For my part, I never dreamed of such a thing in my life. The Ducs d'Orleans and de Beaufort were both shocked at the thought of it, and, in short, it was agreed that his Royal Highness should give his consent for the removal, and that M. de Beaufort and myself should not give it out among the people that we approved of it.

The day that the Princes were removed to Marcoussi, President Bellievre told the Keeper of the Seals in plain terms, that if he continued to treat me as he had done hitherto, he should be obliged in honour to give his testimony to the truth. To which the Keeper of the Seals returned this blunt answer: "The Princes are no longer in sight of Paris; the Coadjutor must not therefore talk so loud."

I return now to the Parliament, which was so moderate at this time that the Cardinal was hardly mentioned, and they agreed, 'nemine contradicente', that the Parliament should send deputies to Bordeaux to know once for all if that Parliament was for peace or not.

Soon after this the Parliament of Toulouse wrote to that of Paris concerning the disturbances in Guienne, part whereof belonged to their jurisdiction, and expressly demanded a decree of union. But the Duc d'Orleans warded off the blow very dexterously, which was of great consequence, and, more by his address than by his authority, brought the Parliament to dismiss the deputies with civil answers and insignificant expressions, upon which President Bellievre said to me, "What pleasure should we not take in acting as we do if it were for persons that had but the sense to appreciate it!"

The Parliament did not continue long in that calm. They passed a decree to interrogate the State prisoners in the Bastille, broke out sometimes like a whirlwind, with thunder and lightning, against Cardinal Mazarin; at other times they complained of the misapplication of the public funds. We had much ado to ward off the blows, and should not have been able to hold out long against the fury of the waves but for the news of the Peace of Bordeaux, which was registered there on October the 1st, 1650, and put the Prince de Conde's party into consternation.

One mean artifice of Cardinal Mazarin's polity was always to entertain some men of our own party, with whom, half reconciled, he played fast and loose before our eyes, and was eternally negotiating with them, deceiving and being deceived in his turn. The consequence of all this was a great, thick cloud, wherein the Frondeurs themselves were at last involved; but which they burst with a thunderclap.

The Cardinal, being puffed up with his success in settling the troubles of Guienne, thought of nothing else than crowning his triumph by chastising the Frondeurs, who, he said, had made use of the King's absence to alienate the Duc d'Orleans from his service, to encourage the revolt at Bordeaux, and to make themselves masters of the persons of the Princes. At the same time, he told the Princess Palatine that he detested the cruel hatred I bore to the Prince de Conde, and that the propositions I made daily to him on that score were altogether unworthy of a Christian. Yet he suggested to the Duc d'Orleans that I made great overtures to him to be reconciled to the Court, but that he could not trust me, because I was from morning to night negotiating with the friends of the Prince de Conde. Thus the Cardinal rewarded me for what I did with incredible application and, I must say, uncommon sincerity for the Queen's service during the Court's absence. I do not mention the dangers I was in twice or thrice a day, surpassing even those of soldiers in battles. For imagine, I beseech you, what pain and anguish I must have been in at hearing myself called a Mazarinist, and at having to bear all the odium annexed to that hateful appellation in a city where he made it his business to destroy me in the opinion of a Prince whose nature it was to be always in fear and to trust none but such as hoped to rise by my fall.

The Cardinal gave himself such airs after the peace at Bordeaux that some said my best way would be to retire before the King's return.

Cardinal Mazarin had been formerly secretary to Pancirole, the Pope's nuncio for the peace of Italy, whom he betrayed, and it was proved that he had a secret correspondence with the Governor of Milan. Pancirole, being created cardinal and Secretary of State to the Church, did not forget the perfidiousness of his secretary, now created cardinal by Pope Urban, at the request of Cardinal de Richelieu, and did not at all endeavour to qualify the anger which Pope Innocent had conceived against Mazarin after the assassination of one of his nephews, in conjunction with Cardinal Anthony.

[Anthony Barberini, nephew to Urban VIII., created Cardinal 1628, made
Protector of the Crown of France 1633, and Great Almoner of the Kingdom
1653. He was afterwards Bishop of Poitiers, and, lastly, Archbishop of
Rheims in 1657. Died 1671.]

Pancirole, who thought he could not affront Mazarin more than by contributing to make me cardinal, did me all the kind offices with Pope Innocent, who gave him leave to treat with me in that affair.

Madame de Chevreuse told the Queen all that she had observed in my conduct in the King's absence, and what she had seen was certainly one continued series of considerable services done to the Queen.

She recounted at last all the injustice done me, the contempt put upon me, and the just grounds of my diffidence, which, she said, of necessity ought to be removed, and that the only means of removing it was the hat. The Queen was in a passion at this. The Cardinal defended himself, not by an open denial, for he had offered it me several times, but by recommending patience, intimating that a great monarch should be forced to nothing. Monsieur, seconding Madame de Chevreuse in her attack, assailed the Cardinal, who, at least in appearance, gave way, out of respect for his Royal Highness. Madame de Chevreuse, having brought them to parley, did not doubt that she should also bring them to capitulate, especially when she saw the Queen was appeased, and had told his Royal Highness that she was infinitely obliged to him, and would do what her Council judged most proper and reasonable. This Council, which was only a specious name, consisted only of the Cardinal, the Keeper of the Seals, Tellier, and Servien.

The matter was proposed to the Council by the Cardinal with much importunity, concluding with a most submissive petition to the Queen to condescend to the demand of the Duc d'Orleans, and to what the services and merits of the Coadjutor demanded. The proposition was rejected with such resolution and contempt as is very unusual in Council in opposition to a Prime Minister. Tellier and Servien thought it sufficient not to applaud him; but the Keeper of the Seals quite forgot his respect for the Cardinal, accused him of prevarication and weakness, and threw himself at her Majesty's feet, conjuring her in the name of the King her son, not to authorise, by an example which he called fatal, the insolence of a subject who was for wresting favours from his sovereign, sword in hand. The Queen was moved at this, and the poor Cardinal owned he had been too easy and pliant.

I had myself given a very natural handle to my adversaries to expose me so egregiously. I have been guilty of many blunders, but I think this is the grossest that I ever was guilty of in all my life. I have frequently made this observation, that when men have, through fear of miscarriage, hesitated a long time about any undertaking of consequence, the remaining impressions of their fear commonly push them afterwards with too much precipitancy upon the execution of their design. And this was my case. It was with the greatest reluctance that I determined to accept the dignity of a cardinal, because I thought it too mean to form a pretension to it without certainty of success; and no sooner was I engaged in the pursuit of it but the impression of the former fearful ideas hurried me on, as it were, to the end, that I might get as soon as possible out of the disagreeable state of uncertainty.

The Cardinal would have paid my debts, given me the place of Grand Almoner, etc.; but if he had added twelve cardinals' hats into the bargain, I should have begged his excuse. I was now engaged with Monsieur, who had, meanwhile, resolved upon the release of the Princes from their confinement.

Cardinal Mazarin, after his return to Paris, made it his chief study to divide the Fronde. He thought to materially weaken my interest with Monsieur by detaching from me Madame de Chevreuse, for whom he had a natural tenderness, and to give me a mortal blow by embroiling me with Mademoiselle her daughter. To do this effectually he found a rival, who, he hoped, would please her better, namely, M. d'Aumale, handsome as Apollo, and one who was very likely to suit the temper of Mademoiselle de Chevreuse. He had entirely devoted himself to the Cardinal's interest, looked upon himself as very much honoured by this commission, and haunted the Palace of Chevreuse so diligently that I did not doubt but that he was sent thither to act the second part of the comedy which had miscarried so shamefully in the hands of M. de Candale. I watched all his movements, and complained to Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, but she gave me indirect answers. I began to be out of humour, and was soon appeased. I grew peevish again; and Mademoiselle de Chevreuse saying in his presence, to please me and to sting him, that she could not imagine how it was possible to bear a silly fellow, "Pardon me, mademoiselle," replied I, "we suffer fops sometimes very patiently for the sake of their extravagances." This man was notoriously foppish and extravagant. My answer pleased, and we soon got rid of him at the Palace of Chevreuse. But he thought to have despatched me, for he hired one Grandmaison, a ruffian, to assassinate me, who apprised me of his design. The first time I met M. d'Aumale, which was at the Duc d'Orleans's house, I did not fail to let him know it; but I told it him in a whisper, saying that I had too much respect for the House of Savoy to publish it to the world. He denied the fact, but in such a manner as to make it more evident, because he conjured me to keep it secret. I gave him my word, and I kept it.

Madame de Guemenee, with whom I had several quarrels, proposed to the Queen likewise to despatch me, by shutting me up in a greenhouse in her garden, which she might easily have done, because I often went to her alone by night; but the Cardinal, fearing that the people would have suspected him as the author of my sudden disappearance, would not enter into the project, so it was dropped.

To return to our negotiations for the freedom of the Princes. The Duc d'Orleans was with much difficulty induced to sign the treaty by which a marriage was stipulated between Mademoiselle de Chevreuse and the Prince de Conti, and to promise not to oppose my promotion to the dignity of a cardinal. The Princes were as active in the whole course of these negotiations as if they had been at liberty. We wrote to them, and they to us, and a regular correspondence between Paris and Lyons was never better established than ours. Bar,

[Bar was, according to M. Joly, an unsociable man, who was for raising his fortune by using the Princes badly, and who, on this account, was often the dupe of Montreuil, secretary to the Prince de Conti.—See JOLY'S "Memoirs," vol. i., p. 88.]

their warder, was a very shallow fellow; besides, men of sense are sometimes outwitted.

Cardinal Mazarin, upon his return with the King from Guienne, was greatly pleased with the acclamations of the mob, but he soon grew weary of them, for the Frondeurs still kept the wall.

The Cardinal being continually provoked at Paris by the Abbe Fouquet, who sought to make himself necessary, and being so vain as to think himself qualified to command an army, marched abruptly out of Paris for Champagne, with a design to retake Rhetel and Chateau-Portien, of which the enemy were possessed, and where M. de Turenne proposed to winter.

On the feast of Saint Martin, the First President and the Attorney-General Talon exhorted the Parliament to be peaceable, that the enemies of the State might have no advantage. A petition was read from Madame la Princesse, desiring that the Princes should be brought to the Louvre and remain in the custody, of one of the King's officers, and that the Solicitor-General be sent for to say what he had to allege against their innocence, and that in case he should have nothing solid to offer they be set at liberty.

The Chambers, being assembled on the 7th of December, to take the affair into consideration, Talon, the Attorney-General, informed the House that the Queen had sent for the King's Council, and ordered them to let the Parliament know that it was her pleasure that the House should not take any cognisance of the Princess's petition, because everything that had relation to the confinement of the Princes belonged to the royal authority. Talon made a motion that the Parliament should depute some members to carry the petition to the Queen, and to beseech her Majesty to take it into her consideration. At the same time another petition was presented from Mademoiselle de Longueville, for the liberty of the Duke her father, and that she might have leave to stay in Paris to solicit it.

No sooner was this petition read than a letter from the three Princes was presented and read, praying that they might be brought to trial or set at liberty.

On the 9th day of the month an order was brought to the Parliament from the King, commanding the House to suspend all deliberations on this subject till they had first sent their deputies to Court to know his Majesty's pleasure.

Deputies were sent immediately, to whom, accordingly, the Queen gave audience in bed, telling them that she was very much indisposed. The Keeper of the Seals added that it was the King's pleasure that the Parliament should not meet at all until such time as the Queen his mother had recovered her health.

On the 10th the House resolved to adjourn only to the 14th, and on that day a general procession was proposed to the Archbishop by the Dean of Parliament, to beg that God would inspire them with such counsels only as might be for the good of the public.

On the 14th they received the King's letter, forbidding their debates, and informing them that the Queen would satisfy them very speedily about the affair of the Princes; but this letter was disregarded. They sent a deputation to invite the Duc d'Orleans to come to the House, but, after consulting with the Queen, he told the deputies that he did not care to go, that the Assembly was too noisy, that he could not divine what they would be at, that the affairs in debate were never known to fall under their cognisance, and that they had nothing else to do but to refer the said petitions to the Queen.

On the 18th news came that Marechal du Plessis had gained a signal victory over M. de Turenne, who was coming to succour Rhetel, but found it already surrendered to Marechal du Plessis; and the Spanish garrison, endeavouring to retreat, was forced to an engagement on the plains of Saumepuis; that about 2,000 men were killed upon the spot, among the rest a brother of the Elector Palatine, and six colonels, and that there were nearly 4,000 prisoners, the most considerable of whom were several persons of note, and all the colonels, besides twenty colours and eighty-four standards. You may easily guess at the consternation of the Princes' party; my house was all night filled with the lamentations of despairing mourners, and I found the Duc d'Orleans, as it were, struck dumb.

On the 19th, as I went to the Parliament House, the people looked melancholy, dejected, and frightened out of their wits. The members were afraid to open their mouths, and nobody would mention the name of Mazarin except Menardeau Champre, who spoke of him with encomiums, by giving him the honour of the victory of Rhetel, and then he moved the House to entreat the Queen to put the Princes into the hands of that good and wise Minister, who would be as careful of them as he had been hitherto of the State. I wondered most of all that this man was not hissed in the House, and especially as he passed through the Great Hall. This circumstance, together with what I saw that afternoon in every street, convinced me how much our friends were dispirited, and I therefore resolved next day to raise their courage. I knew the First President to be purblind, and such men greedily swallow every new fact which confirms them in their first impression. I knew likewise the Cardinal to be a man that supposed everybody had a back door. The only way of dealing with men of that stamp is to make them believe that you design to deceive those whom you earnestly endeavour to serve.

For this reason, on the 20th, I declaimed against the disorders of the State, and showed that it having pleased Almighty God to bless his Majesty's arms and to remove the public enemy from our frontiers by the victory gained over them by Marechal du Plessis, we ought now to apply ourselves seriously to the healing of internal wounds of the State, which are the more dangerous because they are less obvious. To this I thought fit to add that I was obliged to mention the general oppression of the subjects at a time when we had nothing more to fear from the lately routed Spaniards; that, as one of the props of the public safety was the preservation of the royal family, I could not without the utmost concern see the Princes breathe the unwholesome air of Havre-de-Grace, and that I was of opinion that the House should humbly entreat the King to remove them, at least to some place more healthy. At this speech everybody regained their courage and concluded that all was not yet lost. It was observed that the people's countenances were altered. Those in the Great Hall resumed their former zeal, made the usual acclamations as we went out, and I had that day three hundred carriages of visitors.

On the 22d the debate was continued, and it was more and more observed that the Parliament did not follow the triumphant chariot of Cardinal Mazarin, whose imprudence in hazarding the fate of the whole kingdom in the last battle was set off with all the disadvantages that could be invented to tarnish the victory.

The 30th crowned the work, and produced a decree for making most humble remonstrances to the Queen for the liberty of the Princes and for Mademoiselle de Longueville staying in Paris.

It was further resolved to send a deputation to the Duc d'Orleans, to desire his Royal Highness to use his interest on this occasion in favour of the said Princes.

The King's Council having waited on her Majesty with the remonstrances aforesaid, she pretended to be under medical treatment, and put off the matter a week longer. The Duc d'Orleans also gave an ambiguous answer. The Queen's course of treatment continued eight or ten days longer than she imagined, or, rather, than she said, and consequently the remonstrances of the Parliament were not made till the 20th of January, 1651.

On the 28th the First President made his report, and said the Queen had promised to return an answer in a few days.

It happened very luckily for us at this time that the imprudence of the Cardinal was greater than the inconstancy of the Duc d'Orleans, for a little before the Queen returned an answer to the remonstrances, he talked very roughly to the Duke in the Queen's presence, charging him with putting too much confidence in me. The very day that the Queen made the aforesaid answer he spoke yet more arrogantly to the Duke in her Majesty's apartment, comparing M. de Beaufort and myself to Cromwell and Fairfax in the House of Commons in England, and exclaimed furiously in the King's presence, so that he frightened the Duke, who was glad he got out of the King's Palace with a whole skin, and who said that he would never put himself again in the power of that furious woman, meaning the Queen, because she had improved on what the Cardinal had said to the King. I resolved to strike the iron while it was hot, and joined with M. de Beaufort to persuade his Royal Highness to declare himself the next day in Parliament. We showed him that, after what had lately passed, there was no safety for his person, and if the King should go out of Paris, as the Cardinal designed, we should be engaged in a civil war, whereof he alone, with the city of Paris, must bear the heavy load; that it would be equally scandalous and dangerous for his Royal Highness either to leave the Princes in chains, after having treated with them, or, by his dilatory proceedings, suffer Mazarin to have all the honour of setting them at liberty, and that he ought by all means to go to the Parliament House.

The Duchess, too, seconded us, and upon his Highness saying that if he went to the House to declare against the Court the Cardinal would be sure to take his Majesty out of Paris, the Duchess replied, "What, monsieur, are you not Lieutenant-General of France? Do not you command the army? Are you not master of the people? I myself will undertake that the King shall not go out of Paris." The Duke nevertheless remained inflexible, and all we could get out of him was that he would consent to my telling the Parliament, in his name, what we desired he should say himself. In a word, he would have me make the experiment, the success of which he looked upon to be very uncertain, because he thought the Parliament would have nothing to say against the Queen's answer, and that if I succeeded he should reap the honour of the proposition. I readily accepted the commission, because all was at stake, and if I had not executed it the next morning I am sure the Cardinal would have eluded setting the Princes at liberty a great while longer, and the affair have ended in a negotiation with them against the Duke.

The Duchess, who saw that I exposed myself for the public good, pitied me very much. She did all she could to persuade the Duke to command me to mention to the Parliament what the Cardinal had told the King with relation to Cromwell, Fairfax and the English Parliament, which, if declared in the Duke's name, she thought would excite the House the more against Mazarin; and she was certainly in the right. But he forbade me expressly.

I ran about all night to incite the members at their first meeting to murmur at the Queen's answer, which in the main was very plausible, importing that, though this affair did not fall within the cognisance of Parliament, the Queen would, however, out of her abundant goodness, have regard to their supplications and restore the Princes to liberty. Besides, it promised a general amnesty to all who had borne arms in their favour, on condition only that M. de Turenne should lay down his arms, that Madame de Longueville should renounce her treaty with Spain, and that Stenai and Murzon should be evacuated.

At first the Parliament seemed to be dazzled with it, but next day, the 1st of February, the whole House was undeceived, and wondered how it had been so deluded. The Court of Inquests began to murmur; Viole stood up and said that the Queen's answer was but a snare laid for the Parliament to beguile them; that the 12th of March, the time fixed for the King's coronation, was just at hand; and that as soon as the Court was out of Paris they, would laugh at the Parliament. At this discourse the old and new Fronde stood up, and when I saw they, were greatly excited I waved my, cap and said that the Duke had commanded me to inform the House that the regard he had for their sentiments having confirmed him in those he always naturally, entertained of his cousins, he was resolved to concur with them for procuring their liberty, and to contribute everything in his power to effect it; and it is incredible what influence these few words had upon the whole assembly. I was astonished at it myself. The wisest senators seemed as mad as the common people, and the people madder than ever. Their acclamations exceeded anything you can imagine, and, indeed, nothing less was sufficient to give heart to the Duke, who had all night been bringing forth new projects with more sorrowful pangs and throes (as the Duchess expressed it) than ever she had felt when in labour with all her children.

When he was fully informed of the good success of his declaration, he embraced me several times before all the company, and M. Tellier going to wait upon him from the Queen, to know if he acknowledged what I had said in his name in the House, "Yes," replied he, "I own, and always will own, all that he shall say or act in my name." We thought that after a solemn declaration of this nature the Duke would not scruple to take all the necessary precautions to prevent the Cardinal carrying away the King, and to that end the Duchess did propose to have all the gates of the city well guarded, under pretence of some popular tumults. But he was deaf to all she said, pretending that he was loth to make his King a prisoner.

On the 2d of February, 1651, the Duke, urged very importunately by the Princes' party informing him that their liberty depended on it, told them that he was going to perform an action which would remove all their diffidence. He sent immediately for the Keeper of the Seals, Marechal Villeroi; and Tellier, and bade them tell the Queen that he would never come to the Palais Royal as long as Mazarin was there, and that he could no longer treat with a man that ruined the State. And, then, turning towards Marechal Villeroi, "I charge you," said he, "with the King's person; you shall be answerable for him to me." I was sadly afraid this would be a means to hasten the King's departure, which was what we dreaded most of all, and I wondered that the Cardinal did not remove after such a declaration. I thought his head was turned, and indeed I was told that he was beside himself for a fortnight together.

The Duke having openly declared against Mazarin, and being resolved to attack and drive him out of the kingdom, bade me inform the House next day, in his name, how the Cardinal had compared their body to the Rump Parliament in England, and some of their members to Cromwell and Fairfax. I improved upon this as much as possible, and I daresay that so much heat and ferment was never seen in any society before. Some were for sending the Cardinal a personal summons to appear on the spot, to give an account of his administration; but the most moderate were for making most humble remonstrances to the Queen for his removal. You may easily guess what a thunderclap this must have been to the Court. The Queen asked the Duke whether she might bring the Cardinal to his Royal Highness. His answer was that he did not think it good for the safety of his own person. She offered to come alone to confer with his Highness at the Palais d'Orleans, but he excused himself with a great deal of respect.

He sent orders an hour after to the Marshals of France to obey him only, as Lieutenant-General of the State, and likewise to the 'prevots des marchands' not to take up arms except by his authority. You will wonder, without doubt, that after all this noise no care was taken of the gates of Paris to prevent the King's departure. The Duchess, who trembled at the thoughts of it, daily redoubled her endeavours to induce the Duke to secure the gates of the city, but all to no purpose; for weak minds are generally deficient in some respect or other.

On the 4th the Duke came to the Parliament and assured the assembly of his concurrence in everything to reform the State and to procure the liberty of the Princes and the Cardinal's removal. As soon as his Royal Highness had done speaking, the Master of the Ceremonies was admitted with a letter from the King, which was read, and which required the House to separate, and to send as many deputies as they could to the Palais Royal to hear the King's will and pleasure. Deputies were accordingly sent immediately, for whose return the bulk of the members stayed in the Great Chamber. I was informed that this was one trick among others concerted to ruin me, and, telling the Duc d'Orleans of it, he said that if the old buffoon, the Keeper of the Seals, was concerned in such a complication of folly and knavery, he deserved to be hanged by the side of Mazarin. But the sequel showed that I was not out in my information.

As soon as the deputies were come to the Palais Royal, the First President told the Queen that the Parliament was extremely concerned that the Princes were still confined, notwithstanding her royal promise for setting them at liberty. The Queen replied that Marchal de Grammont was sent to release them and to see to their necessary security for the public tranquillity, but that she had sent for them in relation to another affair, which the Keeper of the Seals would explain to them, and which he couched in a sanguinary manifesto, in substance as follows:

"All the reports made by the Coadjutor in Parliament are false, and invented by him. He lies!" (This is the only word the Queen added to what was already written). "He is a very wicked, dangerous man, and gives the Duke very pernicious advice; he wants to ruin the State because we have refused to make him cardinal, and has publicly boasted that he will set fire to the four corners of the kingdom, and that he will have 100,000 men in readiness to dash out the brains of those that shall attempt to put it out." These expressions were very harsh, and I am sure that I never said anything like that; but it was of no use at this time to make the cloud which was gathering over the head of Mazarin fall in a storm upon mine. The Court saw that Parliament was assembled to pass a decree for setting the Princes at liberty, and that the Duke in person was declaring against Mazarin in the Grand Chamber, and therefore they believed that a diversion would be as practicable as it was necessary, namely, to bring me upon my trial in such a manner that the Parliament could not refuse nor secure me from the railleries of the most inconsiderable member. Everything that tended to render the attack plausible was made use of, as well as everything that might weaken my defence. The writing was signed by the four Secretaries of State, and, the better to defeat all that I could say in my justification, the Comte de Brienne was sent at the heels of the deputies with an order to desire the Duc d'Orleans to come to a conference with the Queen in relation to some few difficulties that remained concerning the liberty of the Princes.

When the deputies had returned to Parliament, the First President began with reading the paper which had been delivered to him against me, upon which you might have read astonishment in every face. Menardeau, who was to open the trenches against me, was afraid of a salvo from the Great Hall, where he found such a crowd of people, and heard so many acclamations to the Fronde, and so many imprecations against Mazarin, that he durst not open his mouth against me, but contented himself with a pathetic lamentation of the division that was in the State, and especially in the royal family. The councillors were so divided that some of them were for appointing public prayers for two days; others proposed to desire his Royal Highness to take care of the public safety. I resolved to treat the writing drawn up against me by the Cardinal as a satire and a libel, and, by some ingenious, short passage, to arouse the minds of my hearers. As my memory did not furnish me with anything in ancient authors that had any relation to my subject, I made a small discourse in the best Latin I was capable of, and then spoke thus:

"Were it not for the profound respect I bear to the persons who have spoken before me, I could not forbear complaining of their not crying out against such a scurrilous, satirical paper, which was just now read, contrary to all forms of proceeding, and written in the same style as lately profaned the sacred name of the King, to encourage false witnesses by letters-patent. I believe that those persons thought this paper, which is but a sally of the furious Mazarin, to be much beneath themselves and me. And that I may conform my opinion to theirs, I will answer only by repeating a passage from an ancient author: 'In the worst of times I did not forsake the city, in the most prosperous I had no particular views, and in the most desperate times of all I feared nothing.' I desire to be excused for running into this digression. I move that you would make humble remonstrances to the King, to desire him to despatch an order immediately for setting the Princes at liberty, to make a declaration in their favour, and to remove Cardinal Mazarin from his person and Councils."

My opinion was applauded both by the Frondeurs and the Prince's party, and carried almost 'nemine contradicente'.

Talon, the Attorney-General, did wonders. I never heard or read anything more eloquent or nervous. He invoked the names of Henri the Great, and upon his knees recommended the kingdom of France in general to the protection of Saint Louis.

Brienne, who had been sent by the Queen to desire an interview with the Duc d'Orleans, was dismissed with no other answer than that the Duke would come to pay his humble duty to the Queen as soon as the Princes were at liberty, and Cardinal Mazarin removed from the King's person and Councils.

On the 5th of February there was an assembly of the, nobility at Nemours for recovering their privileges. I opposed it to the utmost of my power, for I had experienced more than once that nothing can be more pernicious to a party than to engage without any necessity in such affairs as have the bare appearance of faction, but I was obliged to comply. This assembly, however, was so terrifying to the Court that six companies of the Guards were ordered to mount, with which the Duc d'Orleans was so offended that he sent word to the officers, in his capacity of Lieutenant-General of the State, to receive no orders but from himself. They answered very respectfully, but as men devoted to the Queen's interest.

On the 6th, the Duke having taken his place in the Parliament, the King's Council acquainted the House that, having been sent to wait on her Majesty with the remonstrances, her Majesty's answer was that no person living wished more for the liberty of the Princes than herself, but that it was reasonable at the same time to consult the safety of the State; that as for Cardinal Mazarin, she was resolved to retain him in her Council as long as she found his assistance necessary for the King's service; and that it did not belong to the Parliament to concern themselves with any of her ministers.

The First President was shrewdly attacked in the House for not being more resolute in speaking to the Queen. Some were for sending him back to demand another audience in the afternoon; and the Duc d'Orleans having said that the Marshals of France were dependent on Mazarin, it was resolved immediately that they should obey none but his Royal Highness.

I was informed that very evening that the Cardinal had made his escape out of Paris in disguise, and that the Court was in a very great consternation.

The Cardinal's escape was the common topic of conversation, and different reasons were assigned to it, according to the various interests of different parties. As for my part, I am very well persuaded that fear was the only reason of his flight, and that nothing else hindered him from taking the King and the Queen along with him. You will see in the sequel of this history that he endeavoured to get their Majesties out of Paris soon after he had made his escape, and that it was concerted in all probability before he left the Court; but I could never understand why he did not put it into execution at a time when he had no reason to fear the least opposition.

On the 17th the Parliament ordered the thanks of the House to be returned to the Queen for removing the Cardinal, and that she should be humbly asked to issue an order for setting the Princes at liberty, and a declaration for excluding all foreigners forever from the King's Council. The First President being deputed with the message, the Queen told him that she could return him no answer till she had conferred with the Duc d'Orleans, to whom she immediately deputed the Keeper of the Seals, Marechal Villeroi, and Tellier; but he told them that he could not go to the Palais Royal till the Princes were set at liberty and the Cardinal removed further from the Court. For he observed to the House that the Cardinal was no further off than at Saint Germain, where he governed all the kingdom as before, that his nephew and his nieces were yet at Court; and the Duke proposed that the Parliament should humbly beseech the Queen to explain whether the Cardinal's removal was for good and all. If I had not seen it, I could not have imagined what a heat the House was in that day. Some were for an order that there should be no favourites in France for the future. They became at length of the opinion of his Royal Highness, namely, to address the Queen to ask her to explain herself with relation to the removal of Cardinal Mazarin and to solicit orders for the liberty, of the Princes.

On the same day the Queen sent again to desire the Duc d'Orleans to come and take his place in the Council, and to tell him that, in case he did not think it convenient, she would send the Keeper of the Seals to concert necessary measures with him for setting the Princes at liberty. His Royal Highness accepted the second, but rejected the first proposal, and treated M. d'Elbeuf roughly, because he was very pressing with his Royal Highness to go to the King's Palace. The messengers likewise acquainted the Duke that they were ordered to assure him that the removal of the Cardinal was forever. You will see presently that, in all probability, had his Royal Highness gone that day to Court, the Queen would have left Paris and carried the Duke along with her.

On the 19th the Parliament decreed that, in pursuance of the Queen's declaration, the Cardinal should, within the space of fifteen days, depart from his Majesty's dominions, with all his relations and foreign servants; otherwise, they should be proceeded against as outlaws, and it should be lawful for anybody to despatch them out of the way.

I suspected that the King would leave Paris that very day, and I was almost asleep when I was sent for to go to the Duc d'Orleans, whom Mademoiselle de Chevreuse went to awaken in the meantime; and, while I was dressing, one of her pages brought me a note from her, containing only these few words:

"Make haste to Luxembourg, and be upon your guard on the way." I found Mademoiselle de Chevreuse in his chamber, who acquainted me that the King was out of bed, and had his boots on ready for a journey from Paris.

I waited on the Duke, and said, "There is but one remedy, which is, to secure the gates of Paris." Yet all that we could obtain of him was to send the captain of the Swiss Guards to wait on the Queen and desire her Majesty to weigh the consequences of an action of that nature. His Duchess, perceiving that this expedient, if not supported effectually, would ruin all, and that his Royal Highness was still as irresolute as ever, called for pen and ink that lay upon the table in her cabinet, and wrote these words on a large sheet of paper:

M. le Coadjuteur is ordered to take arms to hinder the adherents of Cardinal Mazarin, condemned by the Parliament, from carrying the King out of Paris. MARGUERITE DE LORRAINE.

Des Touches, who found the Queen bathed in tears, was charged by her Majesty to assure the Duc d'Orleans that she never thought of carrying away the King, and that it was one of my tricks.

The Duc d'Orleans saying at the House next day that orders for the Princes' liberty would be despatched in two hours' time, the First President said, with a deep sigh, "The Prince de Conde is at liberty, but our King, our sovereign Lord and King, is a prisoner." The Duc d'Orleans, being now not near so timorous as before, because he had received more acclamations in the streets than ever, replied, "Truly the King has been Mazarin's prisoner, but, God be praised, he is now in better hands."

The Cardinal, who hovered about Paris till he heard the city had taken up arms, posted to Havre-de-Grace, where he fawned upon the Prince de Conde with a meanness of spirit that is hardly to be imagined; for he wept, and even fell down on his knees to the Prince, who treated him with the utmost contempt, giving him no thanks for his release.

On the 16th of February the Princes, being set at liberty, arrived in
Paris, and, after waiting on the Queen, supped with M. de Beaufort and
myself at the Duc d'Orleans's house, where we drank the King's health and
"No Mazarin!"

On the 17th his Royal Highness carried them to the Parliament House, and it is remarkable that the same people who but thirteen months before made bonfires for their confinement did the same now for their release.

On the 20th the declaration demanded of the King against the Cardinal, being brought to be registered in Parliament, was sent back with indignation because the reason of his removal was coloured over with so many encomiums that it was a perfect panegyric. Honest Broussel, who always went greater lengths than anybody, was for excluding all cardinals from the Ministry, as well as foreigners in general, because they swear allegiance to the Pope. The First President, thinking to mortify me, lauded Broussel for a man of admirable good sense, and espoused his opinion; and the Prince de Conde, too, seemed to be overjoyed, saying, "It is a charming echo." Indeed, I might well be troubled to think that the very day after a treaty wherein the Duc d'Orleans declared that he was resolved to make me a cardinal, the Prince should second a proposition so derogatory to that dignity. But the truth is, the Prince had no hand in it, for it came naturally, and was supported for no other reason but because nothing that was brought as an argument against Mazarin could then fail of being approved at the same time. I had some reason to think that the motion was concerted beforehand by my enemies, to keep me out of the Ministry. Nevertheless, I was not offended with the Parliament, the bulk of whom I knew to be my friends, whose sole aim was to effectually demolish Mazarin, and I acquiesced in the solid satisfaction which I had in being considered in the world as the expeller of Mazarin, whom everybody hated, and the deliverer of the Princes, who were as much their darlings.

The continual chicanery of the Court provoked the Parliament of Paris to write to all the Parliaments of France to issue decrees against Cardinal Mazarin, which they did accordingly. The Parliament obliged the Court to issue a declaration setting forth the innocence of the Princes, and another for the exclusion of cardinals—French as well as foreigners—from the King's Council, and the Parliament had no rest till the Cardinal retired from Sedan to Breule, a house belonging to the Elector of Cologne.

I had advice sent me from the Duchesse d'Orleans to be upon my guard, and that she was on the point of dying with fear lest the Duke should be forced by the daily menaces of the Court to abandon me. I thereupon waited on the Duke, and told him that, having had the honour and satisfaction of serving his Royal Highness in the two affairs which he had most at heart,—namely, the expelling of Mazarin and the releasing of the Princes his cousins,—I found myself now obliged to reassume the functions of my profession; that the present opportunity seemed both to favour and invite my retreat, and if I neglected it I should be the most imprudent man living, because my presence for the future would not only be useless but even prejudicial to his Royal Highness, whom I knew to be daily importuned and irritated by the Court party merely upon my account; and therefore I conjured him to make himself easy, and give me leave to retire to my cloister. The Duke spared no kind words to retain me in his service, promised never to forsake me, confessed that he had been urged to it by the Queen, and that, though his reunion with her Majesty and the Princes obliged him to put on the mask of friendship, yet he could never forget the great affronts and injuries which he had received from the Court. But all this could not dissuade me, and the Duke at last gave his approbation, with repeated assurances to allow me a place next his heart and to correspond with me in secret.