[1] Bernard of Saxe-Weimar. [2] Prince of Orange. [3] The Hollanders.

Already, in Mirame, Richelieu had celebrated the fall of Rochelle and of the Huguenot party, bringing upon the scene the King of Bithynia, who is taking arms

"To tame a rebel slave, Perched proudly on his rock washed by the ocean-wave."

As epigraph to Europe there were these lines:—

"All friends of France to this my work will friendly be; And all unfriends of her will say the author ill; Yet shall I be content, say, reader, what you will; The joy of some, the rage of others, pleases me."

The enemies of France did not wait for the comedy, in heroic style, of Europe in order to frequently say ill of Cardinal Richelieu.

Occupied as he was in governing the affairs of France and of Europe otherwise than in verse, the cardinal chose out work-fellows; there were five of them, to whom he gave his ideas and the plan of his piece; he intrusted to each the duty of writing an act, and "by this means finished a comedy a month," says Pellisson. Thus was composed the comedy of the Tuileries and the Aveugle de Smyrne, which were printed in 1638; Richelieu had likewise taken part in the composition of the Visionnaires of Desmarets, and supported in a rather remarkable scene the rule of the three unities against its detractors. A new comedy, the Grande Pastorale, was in hand. "When he was purposing to publish it," says the History of the Academy, "he desired M. Chapelain to look over it, and make careful observations upon it. These observations were brought to him by M. de Bois-Robert, and, though they were written with much discretion and respect, they shocked and nettled him to such a degree, either by their number or by the consciousness they caused him of his faults, that, without reading them through, he tore them up. But on the following night, when he was in bed, and all his household asleep, having thought over the anger he had shown, be did a thing incomparably more estimable than the best comedy in the world, that is to say, he listened to reason, for he gave orders to collect and glue together the pieces of that torn paper, and, having read it from one end to the other, and given great thought to it, he sent and awakened M. de Bois-Robert to tell him that he saw quite well that the gentlemen of the Academy were better informed about such matters than he, and that there must be nothing more said about that paper and print."

The cardinal ended by permitting the liberties taken in literary matters by Chapelain and even Colletet. His courtiers were complimenting him about some success or other obtained by the king's arms, saying that nothing could withstand his Eminence. "You are mistaken," he answered, laughing; "and I find even in Paris persons who withstand me. There's Colletet, who, after having fought with me yesterday over a word, does not give in yet; look at this long letter that he has just written me!" He counted, at any rate, in the number of his five work-fellows one mind too independent to be subservient for long to the ideas and wishes of another, though it were Cardinal Richelieu and the premier minister. In conjunction with Colletet, Bois-Robert, De l'Etoile, and Rotrou, Peter Corneille worked at his Eminence's tragedies and comedies. He handled according to his fancy the act intrusted to him, with so much freedom that the cardinal was shocked, and said that he lacked, in his opinion, "the follower-spirit" (l'esprit de suite). Corneille did not appeal from this judgment; he quietly took the road to Rouen, leaving henceforth to his four work-fellows the glory of putting into form the ideas of the all-powerful minister; he worked alone, for his own hand, for the glory of France and of the human mind.



Peter Corneille, born at Rouen on the 6th of June, 1606, in a family of lawyers, had been destined for the bar from his infancy; he was a briefless barrister; his father had purchased him two government posts, but his heart was otherwise set than "on jurisprudence;" in 1635, when he quietly renounced the honor of writing for the cardinal, Corneille had already had several comedies played. He himself said of the first, Melite, which he wrote at three and twenty, "It was my first attempt, and it has no pretence of being according to the rules, for I did not know then that there were any. I had for guide nothing but a little common sense, together with the models of the late Hardy, whose vein was rather fertile than polished." "The comedies of Corneille had met with success; praised as he was by his competitors in the career of the theatre, he was as yet, in their eyes, but one of the supports of that literary glory which was common to them all. Tranquil in their possession of bad taste, they were far from foreseeing the revolution which was about to overthrow its sway and their own." [Corneille et son Temps, by M. Guizot.]

Corneille made his first appearance in tragedy, in 1633, with a Medee. "Here are verses which proclaim Corneille," said Voltaire:—

"After so many boons, to leave me can he bear? After so many sins, to leave me can he dare?"

They proclaimed tragedy; it had appeared at last to Corneille; its features, roughly sketched, were nevertheless recognizable. He was already studying Spanish with an old friend of his family, and was working at the Cid, when he brought out his Illusion Comique, a mediocre piece, Corneille's last sacrifice to the taste of his day. Towards the end of the year 1636, the Cid was played for the first time at Paris. There was a burst of enthusiasm forthwith. "I wish you were here," wrote the celebrated comedian Mondory to Balzac, on the 18th of January, 1637, "to enjoy amongst other pleasures that of the beautiful comedies that are being played, and especially a Cid who has charmed all Paris. So beautiful is he that he has smitten with love all the most virtuous ladies, whose passion has many times blazed out in the public theatre. Seated in a body on the benches of the boxes have been seen those who are commonly seen only in gilded chamber and on the seat with the fleurs-de-lis. So great has been the throng at our doors, and our place has turned out so small, that the corners of the theatre, which served at other times as niches for the pageboys, have been given as a favor to blue ribbons, and the scene has been embellished, ordinarily, with the crosses of knights of the order." "It is difficult," says Pellisson, "to imagine with what approbation this piece was received by court and people." It was impossible to tire of seeing it, nothing else was talked of in company; everybody knew some portion by heart; it was taught to children, and in many parts of France it had passed into a proverb to say, "Beautiful as the Cid." Criticism itself was silenced for a while; carried along in the general twirl, bewildered by its success, the rivals of Corneille appeared to join the throng of his admirers; but they soon recovered their breath, and their first sign of life was an effort of resistance to the torrent which threatened to carry them away; with the exception of Rotrou, who was worthy to comprehend and enjoy Corneille, the revolt was unanimous. The malcontents and the envious had found in Richelieu an eager and a powerful auxiliary.



Many attempts have been made to fathom the causes of the cardinal's animosity to the Cid. It was a Spanish piece, and represented in a favorable light the traditional enemies of France and of Richelieu; it was all in honor of the duel which the cardinal had prosecuted with such rigorous justice; it depicted a king simple, patriarchal, genial in the exercise of his power, contrary to all the views cherished by the minister touching royal majesty; all these reasons might have contributed to his wrath, but there was something more personal and petty in its bitterness. In tacit disdain for the work that had been entrusted to him, Corneille had abandoned Richelieu's pieces; he had retired to Rouen; far away from the court, he had only his successes to set against the perfidious insinuations of his rivals. The triumph of the Cid seemed to the resentful spirit of a neglected and irritated patron a sort of insult. Therewith was mingled a certain shade of author's jealousy. Richelieu saw in the fame of Corneille the success of a rebel. Egged on by base and malicious influences, he attempted to crush him as he had crushed the house of Austria and the Huguenots.

The cabal of bad taste enlisted to a man in this new war. Scudery was standard-bearer; astounded that such fantastic beauties should have seduced knowledge as well as ignorance, and the court as well as the cit, and conjuring decent folks to suspend judgment for a while, and not condemn without a hearing Sophonisbe, Cesar, Cleopdtre, Hercule, Marianne, Cleomedon, and so many other illustrious heroes who had charmed them on the stage." Corneille might have been satisfied; his adversaries themselves recognized his great popularity and success.

A singular mixture of haughtiness and timidity, of vigorous imagination and simplicity of judgment! It was by his triumphs that Corneille had become informed of his talents; but, when once aware, he had accepted the conviction thereof as that of those truths which one does not arrive at by one's self absolutely, without explanation, without modification.

"I know my worth, and well believe men's rede of it; I have no need of leagues, to make myself admired; Few voices may be raised for me, but none is hired; To swell th' applause my just ambition seeks no claque, Nor out of holes and corners hunts the hireling pack: Upon the boards, quite self-supported, mount my plays, And every one is free to censure or to praise; There, though no friends expound their views or preach my cause, It hath been many a time my lot to win applause; There, pleased with the success my modest merit won, With brilliant critics' laws I seek to dazzle none; To court and people both I give the same delight, Mine only partisans the verses that I write; To them alone I owe the credit of my pen, To my own self alone the fame I win of men; And if, when rivals meet, I claim equality, Methinks I do no wrong to whosoe'er it be."

"Let him rise on the wings of composition," said La Bruyere, "and he is not below Augustus, Pompey, Nicodemus, Sertorius; he is a king and a great king; he is a politician, he is a philosopher." Modest and bashfnl in what concerns himself, when it has nothing to do with his works and his talents, Corneille, who does not disdain to receive a pension from Cardinal Richelieu, or, in writing to Scudery, to call him "your master and and mine," becomes quite another creature when he defends his genius:

"Leaving full oft the earth, soon as he leaves the goal, With lofty flight he soars into the upper air, Looks down on envious men, and smiles at their despair."

The contest was becoming fierce and bitter; much was written for and against the Cid; the public remained faithful to it; the cardinal determined to submit it to the judgment of the Academy, thus exacting from that body an act of complaisance towards himself as well as an act of independence and authority in the teeth of predominant opinion. At his instigation, Scudery wrote to the Academy to make them the judges in the dispute. "The cardinal's desire was plain to see," says Pellisson; "but the most judicious amongst that body testified a great deal of repugnance to this design. They said that the Academy, which was only in its cradle, ought not to incur odium by a judgment which might perhaps displease both parties, and which could not fail to cause umbrage to one at least, that is to say, to a great part of France; that they were scarcely tolerated, from the mere fancy which prevailed that they pretended to some authority over the French tongue; what would be the case if they proved to have exercised it in respect of a work which had pleased the majority and won the approbation of the people? M. Corneille did not ask for this judgment, and, by the statutes of the Academy, they could only sit in judgment upon a work with the consent and at the entreaty of the author." Corneille did not facilitate the task of the Academicians: he excused himself modestly, protesting that such occupation was not worthy of such a body, that a mere piece (un libelle) did not deserve their judgment. . . . "At length, under pressure from M. de Bois-Robert, who gave him pretty plainly to understand what was his master's desire, this answer slipped from him: 'The gentlemen of the Academy can do as they please; since you write me word that my Lord would like to see their judgment, and it would divert his Eminence, I have nothing further to say.'"

These expressions were taken as a formal consent, and as the Academy still excused themselves, " Let those gentlemen know," said the cardinal at last, "that I desire it, and that I shall love them as they love me."

There was nothing for it but to obey. Whilst Bois-Robert was amusing his master by representing before him a parody of the Cid, played by his lackeys and scullions, the Academy was at work drawing up their Sentiments respecting the Cid.

Thrice submitted to the cardinal, who thrice sent it back with some strong remarks appended, the judgment of the Academicians did not succeed in satisfying the minister. "What was wanted was the complaisance of submission, what was obtained was only that of gratitude." "I know quite well," says Pellisson, "that his Eminence would have wished to have the Cid more roughly handled, if he had not been adroitly made to understand that a judge must not speak like a party to a suit, and that in proportion as he showed passion, he would lose authority."

Balzac, still in retirement at his country-place, made no mistake as to the state of mind either in the Academy or in the world when he wrote to Scudery, who had sent him his Observations sur le Cid, "Reflect, sir, that all France takes sides with M. Corneille, and that there is not one, perhaps, of the judges with whom it is rumored that you have come to an agreement, who has not praised that which you desire him to condemn; so that, though your arguments were incontrovertible and your adversary should acquiesce therein, he would still have the wherewith to give himself glorious consolation for the loss of his case, and be able to tell you that it is something more to have delighted a whole kingdom than to have written a piece according to regulation. This being so, I doubt not that the gentlemen of the Academy will find themselves much hampered in delivering a judgment on your case, and that, on the one hand, your arguments will stagger them, whilst, on the other, the public approbation will keep them in check. You have the best of it in the closet; he has the advantage on the stage. If the Cid be guilty, it is of a crime which has met with reward; if he be punished, it will be after having triumphed; if Plato must banish him from his republic, he must crown him with flowers whilst banishing him, and not treat him worse than he formerly treated Homer."

The Sentiments de l'Academie at last saw the light in the month of December, 1637, and as Chapelain had foreseen, they did not completely satisfy either the cardinal or Scudery, in spite of the thanks which the latter considered himself bound to express to that body, or Corneille, who testified bitter displeasure. "The Academy proceeds against me with so much violence, and employs so supreme an authority to close my mouth, that all the satisfaction I have is to think that this famous production, at which so many fine intellects have been working for six months, may no doubt be esteemed the opinion of the French Academy, but will probably not be the opinion of the rest of Paris. I wrote the Cid for my diversion and that of decent folks who like Comedy. All the favor that the opinion of the Academy can hope for is to make as much way; at any rate, I have had my account settled before them, and I am not at all sure that they can wait for theirs."

Corneille did not care to carry his resentment higher than the Academy. At the end of December, 1637, when writing to Bois-Robert a letter of thanks for getting him his pension, which he calls "the liberalities of my Lord," he adds, "As you advise me not to reply to the Sentiments de l'Academie, seeing what personages are concerned therein, there is no need of interpreters to understand that; I am somewhat more of this world than Heliodorus was, who preferred to lose his bishopric rather than his book; and I prefer my master's good graces to all the reputations on earth. I shall be mum, then, not from disdain, but from respect."

The great Corneille made no further defence he had become a servitor again; but the public, less docile, persisted in their opinion.

"In vain against the Cid a minister makes league; All Paris, gazing on Chimene, thinks with Rodrigue; In vain to censure her th' Academy aspires; The stubborn populace revolts and still admires; "

said Boileau subsequently.

The dispute was ended, and, in spite of the judgment of the Academy, the cardinal did not come out of it victorious; his anger, however, had ceased: the Duchess of Aiguillon, his niece, accepted the dedication of the Cid; when Horace appeared, in 1639, the dedicatory epistle, addressed to the cardinal, proved that Corneille read his works to him beforehand; the cabal appeared for a while on the point of making head again. "Horace, condemned by the decemvirs, was acquitted by the people," said Corneille. The same year Cinna came to give the finishing touch to the reputation of the great poet:—

"To the persecuted Cid the Cinna owed its birth."

Corneille had withdrawn to the obscurity which suited the simplicity of his habits; the cardinal, it was said, had helped him to get married; he had no longer to defend his works, their fame was amply sufficient. "Henceforth Corneille walks freely by himself and in the strength of his own powers; the circle of his ideas grows larger, his style grows loftier and stronger, together with his thoughts, and purer, perhaps, without his dreaming of it; a more correct, a more precise expression comes to him, evoked by greater clearness in idea, greater fixity of sentiment; genius, with the mastery of means, seeks new outlets. Corneille writes Polyeucte." [Corneille et son Temps, by M. Guizot.]

It was a second revolution accomplished for the upsetting of received ideas, at a time when paganism was to such an extent master of the theatre that, in the midst of an allegory of the seventeenth century, alluding to Gustavus Adolphus and the wars of religion, Richelieu and Desmarets, in the heroic comedy of Europe, dared not mention the name of God save in the plural. Corneille read his piece at the Hotel Rambouillet. "It was applauded to the extent demanded by propriety and the reputation already achieved by the author," says Fontenelle; "but some days afterwards, M. de Voiture went to call upon M. Corneille, and took a very delicate way of telling him that Polyeucte had not been so successful as he supposed, that the Christianism had been extremely displeasing." "The story is," adds Voltaire, "that all the Hotel Rambouillet, and especially the Bishop of Vence, Godeau, condemned the attempt of Polyeucte to overthrow idols." Corneille, in alarm, would have withdrawn the piece from the hands of the comedians who were learning it, and he only left it on the assurance of one of the comedians, who did not play in it because he was too bad an actor. Posterity has justified the poor comedian against the Hotel Rambouillet; amongst so many of Corneille's masterpieces it has ever given a place apart to Polyeucte; neither the Saint-Genest of Rotrou, nor the Zaire of Voltaire, in spite of their various beauties, have dethroned Polyeucte; in fame as well as in date it remains the first of the few pieces in which Christianism appeared, to gain applause, upon the French classic stage.



Richelieu was no longer there to lay his commands upon the court and upon the world: he was dead, without having been forgiven by Corneille:—

"Of our great cardinal let men speak as they will, By me, in prose or verse, they shall not be withstood; He did me too much good for me to say him ill, He did me too much ill for me to say him good!"

The great literary movement of the seventeenth century had begun; it had no longer any need of a protector; it was destined to grow up alone during twenty years, amidst troubles at home and wars abroad, to flourish all at once, with incomparable splendor, under the reign and around the throne of Louis XIV. Cardinal Richelieu, however, had the honor of protecting its birth; he had taken personal pleasure in it; he had comprehended its importance and beauty; he had desired to serve it whilst taking the direction of it. Let us end, as we began, with the judgment of La Bruyere: "Compare yourselves, if you dare, with the great Richelieu, you men devoted to fortune, you who say that you know nothing, that you have read nothing, that you will read nothing. Learn that Cardinal Richelieu did know, did read; I say not that he had no estrangement from men of letters, but that he loved them, caressed them, favored them, that he contrived privileges for them, that he appointed pensions for them, that he united them in a celebrated body, and that he made of them the French Academy."

The Academy, the Sorbonne, the Botanic Gardens (Jardin des Plantes), the King's Press have endured; the theatre has grown and been enriched by many masterpieces, the press has become the most dreaded of powers; all the new forces that Richelieu created or foresaw have become developed without him, frequently in opposition to him and to the work of his whole life; his name has remained connected with the commencement of all these wonders, beneficial or disastrous, which he had grasped and presaged, in a future happily concealed from his ken.



CHAPTER XLIII.——LOUIS XIV., THE FRONDE, AND THE GOVERNMENT OF CARDINAL MAZARIN. (1643-1661.)



Louis XIII. had never felt confidence in the queen his wife; and Cardinal Richelieu had fostered that sentiment which promoted his views. When M. de Chavigny came, on Anne of Austria's behalf, to assure the dying king that she had never had any part in the conspiracy of Chalais, or dreamt of espousing Monsieur in case she was left a widow, Louis XIII. answered, "Considering the state I am in, I am bound to forgive her, but not to believe her." He did not believe her, he never had believed her, and his declaration touching the Regency was entirely directed towards counteracting by anticipation the power intrusted to his wife and his brother. The queen's regency and the Duke of Orleans' lieutenant- generalship were in some sort subordinated to a council composed of the Prince of Conde, Cardinal Mazarin, Chancellor Seguier, Superintendent Bouthillier, and Secretary of State Chavigny, "with a prohibition against introducing any change therein, for any cause or on any occasion whatsoever." The queen and the Duke of Orleans had signed and sworn the declaration.

King Louis XIII. was not yet in his grave when his last wishes were violated; before his death the queen had made terms with the ministers; the course to be followed had been decided. On the 18th of May, 1643, the queen, having brought back the little king to Paris, conducted him in great state to the Parliament of Paris to hold his bed of justice there. The boy sat down and said with a good grace that he had come to the Parliament to testify his good will to it, and that his chancellor would say the rest. The Duke of Orleans then addressed the queen. "The honor of the regency is the due altogether of your Majesty," said he, "not only in your capacity of mother, but also for your merits and virtues; the regency having been confined to you by the deceased king, and by the consent of all the grandees of the realm, I desire no other part in affairs than that which it may please your Majesty to give me, and I do not claim to take any advantage from the special clauses contained in the declaration." The Prince of Condo said much the same thing, but with less earnestness, and on the evening of the same day the queen regent, having sole charge of the administration of affairs, and modifying the council at her pleasure, announced to the astounded court that she should retain by her Cardinal Mazarin. Not a word had been said about him at the Parliament; the courtiers believed that he was on the point of leaving France; but the able Italian, attractive as he was subtle, had already found a way to please the queen. She retained as chief of her council the heir to the traditions of Richelieu, and deceived the hopes of the party of Importants, those meddlers of the court at whose head marched the Duke of Beaufort, all puffed up with the confidence lately shown to him by her Majesty. Potier, Bishop of Beauvais, the queen's confidant during her troubles, "expected to be all-powerful in the state; he sought out the Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Conde, promising them governorships of places, and, generally, anything they might desire. He thought he could set the affairs of state going as easily as he could his parish-priests; but the poor prelate came down from his high hopes when he saw that the cardinal was advancing more and more in the queen's confidence, and that, for him, too much was already thought to have been done in according him admittance to the council, whilst flattering him with a hope of the purple." [Memoires de Brienne, ii. 37.]

Cardinal Mazarin soon sent him off to his diocese. Continuing to humor all parties, and displaying foresight and prudence, the new minister was even now master. Louis XIII., without any personal liking, had been faithful to Richelieu to the death; with different feelings, Anne of Austria was to testify the same constancy towards Mazarin.

A stroke of fortune came at the very first to strengthen the regent's position. Since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, the Spaniards, but recently overwhelmed at the close df 1642, had recovered courage and boldness; new counsels prevailed at the court of Philip IV., who had dismissed Olivarez; the house of Austria vigorously resumed the offensive; at the moment of Louis XIII.'s death, Don Francisco de Mello, governor of the Low Countries, had just invaded French territory by way of the Ardennes, and laid siege to Rocroi, on the 12th of May. The French army was commanded by the young Duke of Enghien, the Prince of Conde's son, scarcely twenty-two years old; Louis XIII. had given him as his lieutenant and director the veteran Marshal de l'Hopital; and the latter feared to give battle. The Duke of Enghien, who "was dying with impatience to enter the enemy's country, resolved to accomplish by address what he could not carry by authority. He opened his heart to Gassion alone. As he was a man who saw nothing but what was easy even in the most dangerous deeds, he had very soon brought matters to the point that the prince desired. Marshal de l'Hopital found himself imperceptibly so near the Spaniards that it was impossible for him any longer to hinder an engagement." [Relation de 31 de la Houssaye.] The army was in front of Rocroi, and out of the dangerous defile which led to the place, without any idea on the part of the marshal and the army that Louis XIII. was dead. The Duke of Enghien, who had received the news, had kept it secret. He had merely said in the tone of a master "that he meant to fight, and would answer for the issue. His orders given, he passed along the ranks of his army with an air which communicated to it the same impatience that he himself felt to see the night over, in order to begin the battle. He passed the whole of it at the camp-fire of the officers of Picardy." In the morning "it was necessary to rouse from deep slumber this second Alexander. Mark him as he flies to victory or death! As soon as he had kindled from rank to rank the ardor with which he was animated, he was seen, in almost the same moment, driving in the enemy's right, supporting ours that wavered, rallying the half-beaten French, putting to flight the victorious Spaniards, striking terror everywhere, and dumbfounding with his flashing looks those who escaped from his blows. There remained that dread infantry of the army of Spain, whose huge battalions, in close order, like so many towers, but towers that could repair their breaches, remained unshaken amidst all the rest of the rout, and delivered their fire on all sides. Thrice the young conqueror tried to break these fearless warriors; thrice he was driven knack by the valiant Count of Fuentes, who was seen carried about in his chair, and, in spite of his infirmities, showing that a warrior's soul is mistress of the body it animates. But yield they must: in vain through the woods, with his cavalry all fresh, does Beck rush down to fall upon our exhausted men the prince has been beforehand with him; the broken battalions cry for quarter, but the victory is to be more terrible than the fight for the Duke of Enghien. Whilst with easy mien he advances to receive the parole of these brave fellows, they, watchful still, apprehend the surprise of a fresh attack; their terrible volley drives our men mad; there is nothing to be seen but slaughter; the soldier is drunk with blood, till that great prince, who could not bear to see such lions butchered like so many sheep, calmed excited passions, and to the pleasure of victory joined that of mercy. He would willingly have saved the life of the brave Count of Fuentes, but found him lying amidst thousands of the dead whose loss is still felt by Spain. The prince bends the knee, and, on the field of battle, renders thanks to the God of armies for the victory he hath given him. Then were there rejoicings over Rocroi delivered, the threats of a dread enemy converted to their shame, the regency strengthened, France at rest, and a reign, which was to be so noble, commenced with such happy augury." [Bossuet, Oraison funebre de Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Conde.] Victory or death, below the cross of Burgundy, was borne upon most of the standards taken from the Imperialists; and "indeed," says the Gazette de France, "the most part were found dead in the ranks where they had been posted. Which was nobly brought home by one of the prisoners to our captains when, being asked how many there had been of them, he replied, "Count the dead." Conde was worthy to fight such enemies, and Bossuet to recount their defeat. "The prince was a born captain," said Cardinal de Retz. And all France said so with him, on hearing of the victory of Rocroi.

The delight was all the keener in the queen's circle, because the house of Conde openly supported Cardinal Mazarin, bitterly attacked as he was by the Importants, who accused him of reviving the tyranny of Richelieu.



A ditty on the subject was current in the streets of Paris:—

"He is not dead, he is but changed of age, The cardinal, at whom men gird with rage, But all his household make thereat great cheer; It pleaseth not full many a chevalier They fain had brought him to the lowest stage. Beneath his wing came all his lineage, By the same art whereof he made usage And, by my faith, 'tis still their day, I fear. He is not dead.

"Hush! we are mum, because we dread the cage For he's at court—this eminent personage There to remain of years to come a score. Ask those Importants, would you fain know more And they will say in dolorous language, 'He is not dead.'"

And indeed, on pretext offered by a feminine quarrel between the young Duchess of Longueville, daughter of the Prince of Conde, and the Duchess of Montbazon, the Duke of Beaufort and some of his friends resolved to assassinate the cardinal. The attempt was a failure, but the Duke of Beaufort, who was arrested on the 2d of September, was taken to the castle of Vincennes. Madame de Chevreuse, recently returned to court, where she would fain have exacted from the queen the reward for her services and her past sufferings, was sent into exile, as well as the Duke of Vendome. Madame d'Hautefort, but lately summoned by Anne of Austria to be near her, was soon involved in the same disgrace. Proud and compassionate, without any liking for Mazarin, she was daring enough, during a trip to Vincennes, to ask pardon for the Duke of Beaufort. "The queen made no answer, and, the collation being served, Madame d'Hautefort, whose heart was full, ate nothing; when she was asked why, she declared that she could not enjoy anything in such close proximity to that poor boy." The queen could not put up with reproaches; and she behaved with extreme coldness to Madame d'Hautefort. One day, at bedtime, her ill temper showed itself so plainly, that the old favorite could no longer be in doubt about the queen's sentiments. As she softly closed the curtains, "I do assure you, Madame," she said, "that if I had served God with as much attachment and devotion as I have your Majesty all my life, I should be a great saint." And, raising her eyes to the crucifix, she added, "Thou knowest, Lord, what I have done for her." The queen let her go to the convent where Mademoiselle de la Fayette had taken refuge ten years before. Madame d'Hautefort left it ere long to become the wife of Marshal Schomberg; but the party of the Importants was dead, and the power of Cardinal Mazarin seemed to be firmly established. "It was not the thing just then for any decent man to be on bad terms with the court," says Cardinal de Retz.

Negotiations for a general peace, the preliminaries whereof had been signed by King Louis XIII. in 1641, had been going on since 1644 at Munster and at Osnabriick, without having produced any result; the Duke of Enghien, who became Prince of Conde in 1646, was keeping up the war in Flanders and Germany, with the co-operation of Viscount Turenne, younger brother of the Duke of Bouillon, and, since Rocroi, a marshal of France. The capture of Thionville and of Dunkerque, the victories of Friburg and Nordlingen, the skilful opening effected in Germany as far as Augsburg by the French and the Swedes, had raised so high the reputation of the two generals, that the Prince of Conde, who was haughty and ambitious, began to cause great umbrage to Mazarin. Fear of having him unoccupied deterred the cardinal from peace, and made all the harder the conditions he presumed to impose upon the Spaniards. Meanwhile the United Provinces, weary of a war which fettered their commerce, and skilfully courted by their old masters, had just concluded a private treaty with Spain; the emperor was trying, but to no purpose, to detach the Swedes likewise from the French alliance, when the victory of Lens, gained on the 20th of August, 1648, over Archduke Leopold and General Beck, came to throw into the balance the weight of a success as splendid as it was unexpected; one more campaign, and Turenne might be threatening Vienna whilst Conde entered Brussels; the emperor saw there was no help for it, and bent his head. The house of Austria split in two; Spain still refused to treat with France, but the whole of Germany clamored for peace; the conditions of it were at last drawn up at Munster by MM. Servien and de Lionne; M. d'Avaux, the most able diplomatist that France possessed, had been recalled to Paris at the beginning of the year. On the 24th of October, 1648, after four years of negotiation, France at last had secured to her Elsass and the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun; Sweden gained Western Pomerania, including Stettin, the Isle of Rugen, the three mouths of the Oder, and the bishoprics of Bremen and Werden, thus becoming a German power: as for Germany, she had won liberty of conscience and political liberty; the rights of the Lutheran or reformed Protestants were equalized with those of Catholics; henceforth the consent of a free assembly of all the Estates of the empire was necessary to make laws, raise soldiers, impose taxes, and decide peace or war. The peace of Westphalia put an end at one and the same time to the Thirty Years' War and to the supremacy of the house of Austria in Germany.

So much glory and so many military or diplomatic successes cost dear; France was crushed by imposts, and the finances were discovered to be in utter disorder; the superintendent, D'Emery, an able and experienced man, was so justly discredited that his measures were, as a foregone conclusion, unpopular; an edict laying octroi or tariff on the entry of provisions into the city of Paris irritated the burgesses, and Parliament refused to enregister it. For some time past the Parliament, which had been kept down by the iron hand of Richelieu, had perceived that it had to do with nothing more than an able man, and not a master; it began to hold up its head again; a union was proposed between the four sovereign courts of Paris, to wit, the Parliament, the grand council, the chamber of exchequer, and the court of aids or indirect taxes; the queen quashed the deed of union; the magistrates set her at nought; the queen yielded, authorizing the delegates to deliberate in the chamber of St. Louis at the Palace of Justice; the pretensions of the Parliament were exorbitant, and aimed at nothing short of resuming, in the affairs of the state, the position from which Richelieu had deposed it; the concessions which Cardinal Mazarin with difficulty wrung from the queen augmented the Parliament's demands. Anne of Austria was beginning to lose patience, when the news of the victory of Lens restored courage to the court. "Parliament will be very sorry," said the little king, on hearing of the Prince of Conde's success. The grave assemblage, on the 26th of August, was issuing from Notre Dame, where a Te Deum had just been sung, when Councillor Broussel and President Blancmesnil were arrested in their houses, and taken one to St. Germain and the other to Vincennes. This was a familiar proceeding on the part of royal authority in its disagreements with the Parliament. Anne of Austria herself had practised it four years before.



It was a mistake on the part of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin not to have considered the different condition of the public mind. A suppressed excitement had for some months been hatching in Paris and in the provinces. "The Parliament growled over the tariff-edict," says Cardinal de Retz; "and no sooner had it muttered than everybody awoke. People went groping as it were after the laws; they were no longer to be found. Under the influence of this agitation the people entered the sanctuary and lifted the veil that ought always to conceal whatever can be said about the right of peoples and that of kings, which never accord so well as in silence." The arrest of Broussel, an old man in high esteem, very keen in his opposition to the court, was like fire to flax. "There was a blaze at once, a sensation, a rush, an outcry, and a shutting up of shops." Paul de Gondi, known afterwards as Cardinal de Retz, was at that time coadjutor of the Archbishop of Paris, his uncle witty, debauched, bold, and restless, lately compromised in the plots of the Count of Soissons against Cardinal Richelieu, he owed his office to the queen, and "did not hesitate," he says, "to repair to her, that he might stick to his duty above all things."



There was already a great tumult in the streets when he arrived at the Palais-Royal: the people were shouting, "Broussel! Broussel!" The coadjutor was accompanied by Marshal la Meilleraye; and both of them reported the excitement amongst the people. The queen grew angry. "There is revolt in imagining that there can be revolt," she said: "these are the ridiculous stories of those who desire it; the king's authority will soon restore order." Then, as old M. de Guitaut, who had just come in, supported the coadjutor, and said that he did not understand how anybody could sleep in the state in which things were, the cardinal asked him, with some slight irony, "Well, M. de Guitaut, and what is your advice?" "My advice," said Guitaut, "is to give up that old rascal of a Broussel, dead or alive." "The former," replied the coadjutor, "would not accord with either the queen's piety or her prudence; the latter might stop the tumult." At this word the queen blushed, and exclaimed, "I understand you, Mr. Coadjutor; you would have me set Broussel at liberty. I would strangle him with these hands first!" "And, as she finished the last syllable, she put them close to my face," says De Retz, "adding, 'And those who . . . ' The cardinal advanced and whispered in her ear." Advices of a more and more threatening character continued to arrive; and, at last, it was resolved to promise that Broussel should be set at liberty, provided that the people dispersed and ceased to demand it tumultuously. The coadjutor was charged to proclaim this concession throughout Paris; he asked for a regular order, but was not listened to. "The queen had retired to her little gray room. Monsignor pushed me very gently with his two hands, saying, 'Restore the peace of the realm.' Marshal Meilleraye drew me along, and so I went out with my rochet and camail, bestowing benedictions right and left; but this occupation did not prevent me from making all the reflections suitable to the difficulty in which I found myself. The impetuosity of Marshal Meilleraye did not give me opportunity to weigh my expressions; he advanced sword in hand, shouting with all his might, 'Hurrah for the king! Liberation for Broussel!' As he was seen by many more folks than heard him, he provoked with his sword far more people than he appeased with his voice." The tumult increased; there was a rush to arms on all sides; the coadjutor was felled to the ground by a blow from a stone. He had just picked himself up, when a burgess put his musket to his head. "Though I did not know him a bit," says Retz, "I thought it would not be well to let him suppose so at such a moment; on the contrary, I said to him, 'Ah! wretch, if thy father saw thee!' He thought I was the best friend of his father, on whom, however, I had never set eyes."



The coadjutor was recognized, and the crowd pressed round him, dragging him to the market-place. He kept repeating everywhere that "the queen promised to restore Broussel." The fiippers laid down their arms, and thirty or forty thousand men accompanied him to the Palais-Royal. "Madame," said Marshal Meilleraye as he entered, "here is he to whom I owe my life, and your Majesty the safety of the Palais-Royal." The queen began to smile. "The marshal flew into a passion, and said with an oath, 'Madame, no proper man can venture to flatter you in the state in which things are; and if you do not this very day set Broussel at liberty, to-morrow there will not be left one stone upon another in Paris.' I wished to speak in support of what the marshal said, but the queen cut me short, saying, with an air of raillery, 'Go and rest yourself, sir; you have worked very hard.'"

The coadjutor left the Palais-Royal "in what is called a rage;" and he was in a greater one in the evening, when his friends came and told him that he was being made fun of at the queen's supper-table; that she was convinced that he had done all he could to increase the tumult; that he would be the first to be made a great example of; and that the Parliament was about to be interdicted. Paul de Gondi had not waited for their information to think of revolt. "I did not reflect as to what I could do," says he, "for I was quite certain of that; I reflected only as to what I ought to do, and I was perplexed." The jests and the threats of the court appeared to him to be sufficient justification. "What effectually stopped my scruples was the advantage I imagined I had in distinguishing myself from those of my profession by a state of life in which there was something of all professions. In disorderly times, things lead to a confusion of species, and the vices of an archbishop may, in an infinity of conjunctures, be the virtues of a party leader." The coadjutor recalled his friends. "We are not in such bad case as you supposed, gentlemen," he said to them; "there is an intention of crushing the public; it is for me to defend it from oppression; to-morrow before midday I shall be master of Paris."

For some time past the coadjutor had been laboring to make himself popular in Paris; the general excitement was only waiting to break out, and when the chancellor's carriage appeared in the streets in the morning, on the way to the Palace of Justice, the people, secretly worked upon during the night, all at once took up arms again. The chancellor had scarcely time to seek refuge in the Hotel de Luynes; the mob rushed in after him, pillaging and destroying the furniture, whilst the chancellor, flying for refuge into a small chamber, and believing his last hour had come, was confessing to his brother, the Bishop of Meaux. He was not discovered, and the crowd moved off in another direction. "It was like a sudden and violent conflagration lighted up from the Pont Neuf over the whole city. Everybody without exception took up arms. Children of five and six years of age were seen dagger in hand; and the mothers themselves carried them. In less than two hours there were in Paris more than two hundred barricades, bordered with flags and all the arms that the League had left entire. Everybody cried, 'Hurrah! for the king!' but echo answered, 'None of your Mazarin!'"

The coadjutor kept himself shut up at home, protesting his powerlessness; the Parliament had met at an early hour; the Palace of Justice was surrounded by an immense crowd, shouting, "Broussel! Broussel!" The Parliament resolved to go in a body and demand of the queen the release of their members arrested the day before. "We set out in full court," says the premier president Mole, "without sending, as the custom is, to ask the queen to appoint a time, the ushers in front, with their square caps and a-foot: from this spot as far as the Trahoir cross we found the people in arms and barricades thrown up at every hundred paces." [Memoires de Matthieu Mole, iii. p. 255.]



"If it were not blasphemy to say that there was any one in our age more intrepid than the great Gustavus and the Prince, I should say it was M. Mole, premier president," writes Cardinal de Retz. Sincerely devoted to the public weal, and a magistrate to the very bottom of his soul, Mole, nevertheless, inclined towards the side of power, and understood better than his brethren the danger of factions. He represented to the queen the extreme danger the sedition was causing to Paris and to France. "She, who feared nothing because she knew but little, flew into a passion and answered, furiously, 'I am quite aware that there is disturbance in the city, but you shall answer to me for it, gentlemen of the Parliament, you, your wives, and your children.'" "The queen was pleased," says Mole, in his dignified language, "to signify in terms of wrath that the magisterial body should be answerable for the evils which might ensue, and which the king on reaching his majority would remember."

The queen had retired to her room, slamming the door violently; the Parliament turned back to the Palace of Justice; the angry mob thronged about the magistrates; when they arrived at Rue St. Honore, just as they were about to turn on to the Pont Neuf, a band of armed men fell upon them, "and a cookshop-lad, advancing at the head of two hundred men, thrust his halbert against the premier president's stomach, saying, 'Turn, traitor, and, if thou wouldst not thyself be slain, give up to us Broussel, or Mazarin and the chancellor as hostages.'" Matthew Mole quietly put the weapon aside, and, "You forget yourself," he said, "and are oblivious of the respect you owe to my office." "Thrice an effort was made.to thrust me into a private house," says his account in his Memoires, "but I still kept my place; and, attempts having been made with swords and pistols on all sides of me to make an end of me, God would not permit it, some of the members (Messieurs) and some true friends having placed themselves in front of me. I told President de Mesmes that there was no other plan but to return to the Palais-Royal and thither take back the body, which was much diminished in numbers, five of the presidents having dropped away, and also many of the members on whom the people had inflicted unworthy treatment." "Thus having given himself time to rally as many as he could of the body, and still preserving the dignity of the magistracy both in his words and in his movements, the premier president returned at a slow pace to the Palais-Royal, amidst a running fire of insults, threats, execrations, and blasphemies." [Memoires de Retz.]

The whole court had assembled in the gallery: Mole spoke first. "This man," says Retz, "had a sort of eloquence peculiar to himself. He knew nothing of apostrophes, he was not correct in his language, but he spoke with a force which made up for all that, and he was naturally so bold that he never spoke so well as in the midst of peril. Monsieur made as if he would throw himself on his knees before the queen, who remained inflexible; four or five princesses, who were trembling with fear, did throw themselves at her feet; the Queen of England, who had come that day from St. Germain, represented that the troubles had never been so serious at their commencement in England, nor the feelings so heated or united." [Histoire du Temps, 1647-48. (Archives curieuses, vi. p. 162.)] At last the cardinal made up his mind; he "had been roughly handled in the queen's presence by the presidents and councillors in their speeches, some of them telling him, in mockery, that he had only to give himself the trouble of going as far as the Pont Neuf to see for himself the state in which things were," and he joined with all those present in entreating Anne of Austria; finally, the release of Broussel was extorted from her, "not without a deep sigh, which showed what violence she did her feelings in the struggle."

"We returned in full court by the same road," says Matthew Mole, "and the people demanding, with confused clamor of voices, whether M. Broussel were at liberty, we gave them assurances thereof, and entered by the back-door of my lodging; before crossing the threshold, I took leave of Presidents De Mesmes and Le Coigneux, and waited until the members had passed, testifying my sentiments of gratitude for that they had been unwilling to separate until they had seen to the security of my person, which I had not at all deserved, but such was their good pleasure. After this business, which had lasted from six in the morning until seven o'clock, there was need of rest, seeing that the mind had been agitated amidst so many incidents, and not a morsel had been tasted." [Memoires de Matthieu Mole, t. iii. p. 265.]

Broussel had taken his seat in the Parliament again. The Prince of Conde had just arrived in Paris; he did not like the cardinal, but he was angry with the Parliament, which he considered imprudent and insolent. "They are going ahead," said he:—"if I were to go ahead with them, I should perhaps do better for my own interests, but my name is Louis de Bourbon, and I do not wish to shake the throne; these devils of squarecaps, are they mad about bringing me either to commence a civil war before long, or to put a rope round their own necks, and place over their heads and over my own an adventurer from Sicily, who will be the ruin of us all in the end? I will let the Parliament plainly see that they are not where they suppose, and that it would not be a hard matter to bring them to reason." The coadjutor, to whom he thus expressed himself, answered that "the cardinal might possibly be mistaken in his measures, and that Paris would be a hard nut to crack." Whereupon the prince rejoined, angrily, "It will not be taken, like Dunkerque, by mining and assaults, but if the bread of Gonesse were to fail them for a week . . ." The coadjutor took the rest as said. Some days afterwards, during the night between the 5th and 6th of January, 1649, the queen, with the little king and the whole court, set out at four A. M. from Paris for the castle of St. Germain, empty, unfurnished, as was then the custom in the king's absence, where the courtiers had great difficulty in finding a bundle of straw. "The queen had scarcely a bed to lie upon," says Mdlle. de Montpensier, "but never did I see any creature so gay as she was that day; had she won a battle, taken Paris, and had all who had displeased her hanged, she could not have been more so, and nevertheless she was very far from all that."

Paris was left to the malcontents; everybody was singing,

"A Fronde-ly wind Got up to-day, 'Gainst Mazarin It howls, they say."

On the 8th of January the Parliament of Paris, all the chambers in assembly, issued a decree whereby Cardinal Mazarin was declared an enemy to the king and the state, and a disturber of the public peace, and injunctions were laid upon all subjects of the king to hunt him down; war was declared.

Scarcely had it begun, when the greatest lords came flocking to the popular side. On the departure of the court for St. Germain, the Duchess of Longueville had remained in Paris; her husband and her brother the Prince of Conti were not slow in coming to look after her; and already the Duke of Elbeuf, of the house of Lorraine, had offered his services to the Parliament. Levies of troops were beginning in the city, and the command of the forces was offered to the Prince of Conti; the Dukes of Bouillon and Beaufort and Marshal de la Mothe likewise embraced the party of revolt; the Duchesses of Longueville and Bouillon established themselves with their children at the Hotel de Ville as hostages given by the Fronde of princes to the Fronde of the people; the Parliaments of Aix and Rouen made common cause with that of Paris; a decree ordered the seizure, in all the exchequers of the kingdom, of the royal moneys, in order that they might be employed for the general defence. Every evening Paris wore a festive air; there was dancing at the Hotel de Ville, and the gentlemen who had been skirmishing during the day around the walls came for recreation in the society of the princesses. "This commingling of blue scarfs, of ladies, of cuirasses, of violins in the hall, and of trumpets in the square, offered a spectacle which is oftener seen in romances than elsewhere." [Memoires du Cardinal de Retz, t. i.] Affairs of gallantry were mixed up with the most serious resolves; Madame de Longueville was of the Fronde because she was in love with M. de Marsillac (afterwards Duke of La Rochefoucauld), and he was on bad terms with Cardinal Mazarin.

Meanwhile war was rumbling round Paris; the post of Charenton, fortified by the Frondeurs, had been carried by the Prince of Conde at the head of the king's troops; the Parliament was beginning to perceive its mistake, and desired to have peace again, but the great lords engaged in the contest aspired to turn it to account; they had already caused the gates of Paris to be closed against a herald sent by the queen to recall her subjects to their duty; they were awaiting the army of Germany, commanded by M. de Tnrenne, whom his brother, the Duke of Bouillon, had drawn into his culpable enterprise; nay, more, they had begun to negotiate with Spain, and they brought up to the Parliament a pretended envoy from Archduke Leopold, but the court refused to receive him. "What! sir," said President de Mesmes, turning to the Prince of Conti, "is it possible that a prince of the blood of France should propose to give a seat upon the fleurs-de-lis to a deputy from the most cruel enemy of the fleurs-de-lis?"

The Parliament sent a deputation to the queen, and conferences were opened at Ruel on the 4th of March;. the great lords of the Fronde took no part in it; "they contented themselves with having at St. Germain low-voiced (a basses notes)—secret agents," says Madame de Motteville, "commissioned to negotiate in their favor." Paris was beginning to lack bread; it was festival-time, and want began to make itself felt; a "complaint of the Carnival" was current amongst the people:—

"In my extreme affliction, yet I can this consolation get, That, at his hands, my enemy, Old Lent, will fare the same as I: That, at the times when people eat, We both shall equal worship meet. Thus, joining with the whole of France In war against him a outrance, Grim Lent and festive Carnival, Will fight against the cardinal."

It was against the cardinal, in fact, that all attacks were directed, but the queen remained immovable in her fidelity. "I should be afraid," she said to Madame de Motteville, "that, if I were to let him fall, the same thing would happen to me that happened to the King of England (Charles I. had just been executed), and that, after he had been driven out, my turn would come." Grain had found its way into Paris during the truce; and when, on the 13th of March, the premier president, Molt;, and the other negotiators, returned to Paris, bringing the peace which they had signed at Ruel, they were greeted with furious shouts: "None of your peace! None of your Mazarin! We must go to St. Germain to seek our good king! We must fling into the river all the Mazarins!" A rioter had just laid his hand on the premier president's arm. "When you have killed me," said the latter, calmly, "I shall only want six feet of earth;" and, when he was advised to get back into his house by way of the record-offices, "The court never hides itself," he said; "if I were certain to perish, I would not commit this poltroonery, which, moreover, would but serve to give courage to the rioters. They would, of course, come after me to my house if they thought that I shrank from them here." The deputies of the Parliament were sent back to Ruel, taking a statement of the claims of the great lords: "according to their memorials, they demanded the whole of France." [Memoires de Madame de Motteville, t. iii. p. 247.]

Whilst Paris was in disorder, and the agitation, through its example, was spreading over almost the whole of France, M. de Turenne, obliged to fly from his army, was taking refuge, he and five others, with the landgrave of Hesse; his troops had refused to follow him in revolt; the last hope of the Frondeurs was slipping from them.

They found themselves obliged to accept peace, not without obtaining some favors from the court.

There was a general amnesty; and the Parliament preserved all its rights. "The king will have the honor of it, and we the profit," said Guy-Patin. The great lords reappeared one after another at St. Germain. "It is the way of our nation to return to their duty with the same airiness with which they depart from it, and to pass in a single instant from rebellion to obedience." [La Rochefoucauld.] The return to rebellion was not to be long delayed. The queen had gone back to Paris, and the Prince of Conde with her; he, proud of having beaten the parliamentary Fronde, affected the conqueror's airs, and the throng of his courtiers, the "petits maitres," as they were called, spoke very slightingly of the cardinal. Conde, reconciled with the Duchess of Longueville, his sister, and his brother, the Prince of Conti, assumed to have the lion's share in the government, and claimed all the favors for himself or his friends; the Fondeurs made skilful use of the ill-humor which this conduct excited in Cardinal Mazarin; the minister responded to their advances; the coadjutor was secretly summoned to the Louvre; the dowager Princess of Conde felt some apprehensions; but, "What have I to fear?" her son said to her; "the cardinal is my friend." "I doubt it," she answered. "You are wrong; I rely upon him as much as upon you." "Please God you may not be mistaken!" replied the princess, who was setting out for the Palais-Royal to see the queen, said to be indisposed that day.

Anne of Austria was upon her bed; word was brought to her that the council was waiting; this was the moment agreed upon; she dismissed the princess, shut herself up in her oratory with the little king, to whom she gave an account of what was going to be done for his service; then, making him kneel down, she joined him in praying to God for the success of this great enterprise. As the Prince of Conde arrived in the grand gallery, he saw Guitaut, captain of the guards, coming towards him; at the same instant, through a door at the bottom, out went the cardinal, taking with him Abbe de la Riviere, who was the usual confidant of the Duke of Orleans, but from whom his master had concealed the great secret. The prince supppsed that Guitaut was coming to ask him some favor; the captain of the guards said in his ear, "My lord, what I want to say is, that I have orders to arrest you, you, the Prince of Conti your brother, and M. de Longueville." "Me, M. Guitaut, arrest me?" Then, reflecting for a moment, "In God's name," he said, "go back to the queen and tell her that I entreat her to let me have speech of her!" Guitaut went to her, whilst the prince, returning to those who were waiting for him, said, "Gentlemen, the queen orders my arrest, and yours too, brother, and yours too, M. de Longueville; I confess that I am astonished, I who have always served the king so well, and believed myself secure of the cardinal's friendship." The chancellor, who was not in the secret, declared that it was Guitaut's pleasantry. "Go and seek the queen then," said the prince, "and tell her of the pleasantry that is going on; as for me, I hold it to be very certain that I am arrested." The chancellor went out, and did not return. M. Servien, who had gone to speak to the cardinal, likewise did not appear again. M. de Guitaut entered alone. "The queen cannot see you, my lord," he said. "Very well; I am content; let us obey," answered the prince: "but whither are you going to take us? I pray you let it be to a warm place." "We are going to the wood of Vincennes, my lord," said Guitaut. The prince turned to the company and took his leave without uneasiness and with the calmest countenance: as he was embracing M. de Brienne, secretary of state, he said to him, "Sir, as I have often received from you marks of your friendship and generosity, I flatter myself that you will some day tell the king the services I have rendered him." The princes went out; and, as they descended the staircase, Conde leaned towards Comminges, who commanded the detachment of guards, saying, "Comminges, you are a man of honor and a gentleman; have I anything to fear?" Comminges assured him he had not, and that the orders were merely to escort him to the wood of Vincennes. The carriage upset on the way; as soon as it was righted, Comminges ordered the driver to urge on his horses. The prince burst out laughing. "Don't be afraid, Comminges," he said; "there is nobody to come to my assistance; I swear to you that I had not taken any precautions against this trip." On arriving at the castle of Vincennes, there were no beds to be found, and the three princes passed the night playing at cards; the Princess of Conde and the dowager princess received orders to retire to their estates; the Duchess of Longueville, fearing with good cause that she would be arrested, had taken with all speed the road to Normandy, whither she went and took refuge at Dieppe, in her husband's government.

The state-stroke had succeeded; Mazarin's skill and prudence once more check-mated all the intrigues concocted against him; when the news was told to Chavigny, in spite of all his reasons for bearing malice against the cardinal, who had driven him from the council and kept him for some time in prison, he exclaimed, "That is a great misfortune for the prince and his friends; but the truth must be told: the cardinal has done quite right; without it he would have been ruined." The contest was begun between Mazarin and the great Conde, and it was not with the prince that the victory was to remain.

Already hostilities were commencing; Mazarin had done everything for the Frondeurs who remained faithful to him, but the house of Conde was rallying all its partisans; the Dukes of Bouillon and La Rochefoucauld had thrown themselves into Bordeaux, which was in revolt against the royal authority, represented by the Duke of Epernon. The Princess of Conde and her young son left Chantilly to join them; Madame de Longueville occupied Stenay, a strong place belonging to the Prince of Conde: she had there found Turenne; on the other hand, the queen had just been through Normandy; all the towns had opened their gates to her; it was just the same in Burgundy; the Princess of Conde's able agent, Lenet, could not obtain a declaration from the Parliament of Dijon in her favor. Bordeaux was the focus of the insurrection; the people, passionately devoted to "the dukes," as the saying was, were forcing the hand of the Parliament; riots were frequent in the town; the little king, with the queen and the cardinal, marched in person upon Bordeaux; one of the faubourgs was attacked, the dukes negotiated and obtained a general amnesty, but no mention was made of the princes' release.

The Parliament of Paris took the matter up. The premier president spoke in so bitter a tone of the unhappy policy of the minister, that the little king, feeling hurt, told his mother that, if he had thought it would not displease her, he would have made the premier president hold his tongue, and would have dismissed him. On the 30th of January, Anne of Austria sent word to the Parliament that she would consent to grant the release of the princes, "provided that the armaments of Stenay and of M. de Turenne might be discontinued." But it was too late; the Duke of Orleans had made a treaty with the princes. England served as pretext. Mazarin compared the Parliament to the House of Commons, and the coadjutor to Cromwell. Monsieur took the matter up for his friends, and was angry. He openly declared that he would not set foot again in the Palais-Royal as long as he was liable to meet the cardinal there, and joined the Parliament in demanding the removal of Mazarin. The queen replied that nobody had a right to interfere in the choice of ministers. By way of answer, the Parliament laid injunctions upon all the officers of the crown to obey none but the Duke of Orleans, lieutenant general of the kingdom. A meeting of the noblesse, at a tumultuous assembly in the house of the Duke of Nemours, expressed themselves in the same sense. It was the 6th of February, 1651: during the night, Cardinal Mazarin set out for St. Germain; a rumor spread in Paris that the queen was preparing to follow him with the king; a rush was made to the Palais-Royal: the king was in his bed. Next day, Anne of Austria complained to the Parliament. "The prince is at liberty," said the premier president, "and the king, the king our master, is a prisoner." "Monsieur, who felt no fear," says Retz, "because he had been more cheered in the streets and the hall of the palace than he had ever been," answered with vivacity, "The king was a prisoner in the hands of Mazarin; but, thank God, he is not any longer." The premier president was right; the king was a prisoner to the Parisians; patrols of burgesses were moving incessantly round the Palais- Royal; one night the queen was obliged to let the people into her chamber; the king was asleep; and two officers of the town-guard watched for some hours at his pillow. The yoke of Richelieu and the omnipotence of Mazarin were less hard for royalty to bear than the capricious and jealous tyranny of the populace.

The cardinal saw that he was beaten; he made up his mind, and, anticipating the queen's officers, he hurried to Le Havre to release the prisoners himself; he entered the castle alone, the governor having refused entrance to the guards who attended him. "The prince told me," says Mdlle. de Montpensier, "that, when they were dining together, Cardinal Mazarin was not so much in the humor to laugh as he himself was, and that he was very much embarrassed. Liberty to be gone had more charms for the prince than the cardinal's company. He said that he felt marvellous delight at finding himself outside Le Havre, with his sword at his side; and he might well be pleased to wear it; he is a pretty good hand at using it. As he went out he turned to the cardinal and said, 'Farewell, Cardinal Mazarin,' who kissed 'the tip of sleeve' to him."

The cardinal had slowly taken the road to exile, summoning to him his nieces, Mdlles. Mancini and Martinozzi, whom he had, a short time since, sent for to court; he crossed from Normandy into Picardy, made some stay at Doullens, and, impelled by his enemies' hatred, he finally crossed the frontier on the 12th of March. The Parliament had just issued orders for his arrest in any part of France. On the 6th of April, he fixed his quarters at Bruhl, a little town belonging to the electorate of Cologne, in the same territory which had but lately sheltered the last days of Mary de' Medici.

The Frondeurs, old and new, had gained the day; but even now there was disorder in their camp. Conde had returned to the court "like a raging lion, seeking to devour everybody, and, in revenge for his imprisonment, to set fire to the four corners of the realm." [Memoires de Montglat.] After a moment's reconciliation with the queen, be began to show himself more and more haughty towards her in his demands every day; he required the dismissal of the ministers Le Tellier, Servien, and Lionne, all three creatures of the cardinal and in correspondence with him at Bruhl; as Anne of Austria refused, the prince retired to St. Maur; he was already in negotiation with Spain, being inveigled into treason by the influence of his sister, Madame de Longueville, who would not leave the Duke of La Rochefoucauld or return into Normandy to her husband. Fatal results of a guilty passion which enlisted against his country the arms of the hero of Rocroi! When he returned to Paris, the queen had, in fact, dismissed her ministers, but she had formed a fresh alliance with the coadjutor, and, on the 17th of August, in the presence of an assembly convoked for that purpose at the Palais-Royal, she openly denounced the intrigues of the prince with Spain, accusing him of being in correspondence with the archduke. Next day Conde brought the matter before the Parliament. The coadjutor quite expected the struggle, and had brought supporters; the queen had sent some soldiers; the prince arrived with a numerous attendance. On entering, he said to the company, that he could not sufficiently express his astonishment at the condition in which he found the palace, which seemed to him more like a camp than a temple of justice, and that it was not merely that there could be found in the kingdom people insolent enough to presume to dispute (superiority) the pavement (disputer le pave) with him. "I made him a deep obeisance," says Retz, "and said that, I very humbly begged his Highness to pardon me if I told him that I did not believe that there was anybody in the kingdom insolent enough to dispute the wall (le haut du pave) with him, but I was persuaded that there were some who could not and ought not, for their dignity's sake, to yield the pavement (quitter le pave) to any but the king. The prince replied that he would make me yield it. I said that that would not be easy." The dispute grew warm; the presidents flung themselves between the disputants; Conde yielded to their entreaties, and begged the Duke of La Rochefoucauld to go and tell his friends to withdraw. The coadjutor went out to make the same request to his friends. "When he would have returned into the usher's little court," writes Mdlle. de Montpensier, "he met at the door the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, who shut it in his face, just keeping it ajar to see who accompanied the coadjutor; he, seeing the door ajar, gave it a good push, but he could not pass quite through, and remained as it were jammed between the two folds, unable to get in or out. The Duke of La Rochefoucauld had fastened the door with an iron catch, keeping it so to prevent its opening any wider. The coadjutor was 'in an ugly position, for he could not help fearing lest a dagger should pop out and take his life from behind. A complaint was made to the grand chamber, and Champlatreux, son of the premier president, went out, and, by his authority, had the door opened, in spite of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld." The coadjutor protested, and the Duke of Brissac, his relative, threatened the Duke of La Rochefoucauld; whereupon the latter said that, if he had them outside, he would strangle them both; to which the coadjutor replied, "My dear La Franchise (the duke's nickname), do not act the bully; you are a poltroon and I am a priest; we shall not do one another much harm." There was no fighting, and the Parliament, supported by the Duke of Orleans, obtained from the queen a declaration of the innocence of the Prince of Conde, and at the same time a formal disavowal of Mazarin's policy, and a promise never to recall him. Anne of Austria yielded everything; the king's majority was approaching, and she flattered herself that under cover of his name she would be able to withdraw the concessions which she felt obliged to make as regent. Her declaration, nevertheless, deeply wounded Mazarin, who was still taking refuge at Bruhl, whence he wrote incessantly to the queen, who did not neglect his counsels. "Ten times I have taken up my pen to write to you," he said on the 26th of September, 1651 [Lettres du Cardinal Mazarin a la Reine, pp. 292, 293], "but could not, and I am so beside myself at the mortal wound I have just received, that I am not sure whether anything I could say to you would have rhyme or reason. The king and the queen, by an authentic deed, have declared me a traitor, a public robber, an incapable, and an enemy to the repose of Christendom, after I had served them with so many signs of my devotion to the advancement of peace: it is no longer a question of property, repose, or whatever else there may be of the sort. I demand the honor which has been taken from me, and that I be let alone, renouncing very heartily the cardinalate and the benefices, whereof I send in my resignation joyfully, consenting willingly to have given up to France twenty-three years of the best of my life, all my pains and my little of wealth, and merely to withdraw with the honor which I had when I began to serve her." The persistent hopes of the adroit Italian appeared once more in the postscript of the letter: "I had forgotten to tell you that it was not the way to set me right in the eyes of the people to impress upon their mind that I am the cause of all the evils they suffer, and of all the disorders of the realm, in such sort that my ministry will be held in horror forever."

Conde did not permit himself to be caught by the queen's declarations: of all the princes he alone was missing at the ceremony of the bed of justice whereat the youthful Louis XIV., when entering his fourteenth year, announced, on the 7th of September, to his people that, according the laws of his realm, he "intended himself to assume the government, hoping of God's goodness that it would be with piety and justice." The prince had retired to Chantilly, on the pretext that the new minister, the president of the council, Chateauneuf, and the keeper of the seals, Matthew Mole, were not friends of his. The Duchess of Longueville at last carried the day; Conde was resolved upon civil war. "You would have it," he said to his sister on repelling the envoy, who had followed him to Bourges, from the queen and the Duke of Orleans; "remember that I draw the sword in spite of myself, but I will be the last to sheathe it." And he kept his word.

A great disappointment awaited the rebels; they had counted upon the Duke of Bouillon and M. de Turenne, but neither of them would join the faction. The relations between the two great generals had not been without rubs; Turenne had, moreover, felt some remorse because he, being a general in the king's army, had but lately declared against the court, "doing thereby a deed at which Le Balafro and Admiral de Coligny would have hesitated," says Cardinal de Retz. The two brothers went, before long, and offered their services to the queen.

Meanwhile Conde had arrived at Bordeaux: a part of Guienne, Saintonge, and Porigord had declared in his favor; Count d'Harcourt, at the head of the royal troops, marched against La Rochelle, which he took from the revolters under the very beard of the prince, who had come from Bordeaux to the assistance of the place, whilst the king and the queen, resolutely quitting Paris, advanced from town to town as far as Poitiers, keeping the centre of France to its allegiance by their mere presence. The treaty of the Prince of Conde with Spain was concluded: eight Spanish vessels, having money and troops on board, entered the Gironde. Conde delivered over to them the castle and harbor of Talmont. The queen had commissioned the cardinal to raise levies in Germany, and he had already entered the country of Liege, embodying troops and forming alliances. On the 17th of November, Anne of Austria finally wrote to Mazarin to return to the king's assistance. In the presence of Conde's rebellion she had no more appearances to keep up with anybody; and it was already in the master's tone that Mazarin wrote to the queen, on the 30th of October, to put her on her guard against the Duke of Orleans: "The power committed to his Royal Highness and the neutrality permitted to him, being as he is wholly devoted to the prince, surrounded by his partisans, and adhering blindly to their counsels, are matters highly prejudicial to the king's service, and, for my part, I do not see how one can be a servant of the king's, with ever so little judgment and knowledge of affairs, and yet dispute these truths. The queen, then, must bide her time to remedy all this."

The cardinal's penetration had not deceived him; the Duke of Orleans was working away in Paris, where the queen had been obliged to leave him, on the Prince of Conde's side. The Parliament had assembled to enregister against the princes the proclamation of high treason despatched from Bourges by the court; Gaston demanded that it should be sent back, threatened as they were, he said, with a still greater danger than the rebellion of the princes in the return of Mazarin, who was even now advancing to the frontier; but the premier president took no notice, and put the proclamation to the vote in these words "It is a great misfortune when princes of the blood give occasion for such proclamations, but this is a common and ordinary misfortune in the kingdom, and, for five or six centuries past, it may be said that they have been the scourges of the people and the enemies of the monarchy." The decree passed by a hundred votes to forty.

On the 24th of December, the cardinal crossed the frontier with a large body of troops, and was received at Sedan by Lieutenant General Fabert, faithful to his fortunes even in exile. The Parliament was furious, and voted, almost unanimously, that the cardinal and his adherents were guilty of high treason; ordering the communes to hound him down, and promising, from the proceeds of his furniture and library which were about to be sold, a sum of five hundred thousand livres to whoever should take him dead or alive. At once began the sale of the magnificent library which the cardinal had liberally opened to the public. The dispersion of the books was happily stopped in time to still leave a nucleus for the Mazarin Library.

Meanwhile Mazarin had not allowed himself to be frightened by parliamentary decrees or by dread of assassins. Re-entering France with six thousand men, he forced the passage of Pontsur-Yonne, in spite of the two councillors of the Parliaments who were commissioned to have him arrested; the Duke of Beaufort, at the head of Monsieur's troops, did not even attempt to impede his march; and, on the 28th of January, the cardinal entered Poitiers, at once resuming his place beside the king, who had come to meet him a league from the town. The court took leisurely the road to Paris.

The coadjutor had received the price of his services in the royal cause; he was a cardinal "sooner," said he, "than Mazarias would have had him;" and so the new prince of the church considered himself released from any gratitude to the court, and sought to form a third party, at the head of which was to be placed the Duke of Orleans as nominal head. Monsieur, harried by intrigues in all directions, remained in a state of inaction, and made a pretension of keeping Paris neutral; his daughter, Mdlle. de Montpensier, who detested Anne of Austria and Mazarin, and would have liked to marry the king, had boldly taken the side of the princes; the court had just arrived at Blois, on the 27th of March, 1652; the keeper of the seals, Mole, presented himself in front of Orleans to summon the town to open its gates to the king; at that very moment arrived Mdlle., the great Mdlle., as she was then called; and she claimed possession of Orleans in her father's name. "It was the appanage of Monsieur; but the gates were shut and barricaded. After they had been told that it was I," writes Mdlle., "they did not open; and I was there three hours. The governor sent me some sweetmeats, and what appeared to me rather funny was that he gave me to understand that he had no influence. At the window of the sentry-box was the Marquis d'Halluys, who watched me walking up and down by the fosse. The rampart was fringed with people who shouted incessantly, 'Hurrah for the king! hurrah for the princes! None of your Mazarin!' I could not help calling out to them, 'Go to the Hotel de Ville and get the gate opened to me!' The captain made signs that he had not the keys. I said to him, 'It must be burst open, and you owe me more allegiance than to the gentlemen of the town, seeing that I am your master's daughter.' The boatmen offered to break open for me a gate which was close by there. I told them to make haste, and I mounted upon a pretty high mound of earth overlooking that gate. I thought but little about any nice way of getting thither; I climbed like a cat; I held on to briers and thorns, and I leapt all the hedges without hurting myself at all; two boats were brought up to serve me for a bridge, and in the second was placed a ladder by which I mounted. The gate was burst at last. Two planks had been forced out of the middle; signs were made to me to advance; and as there was a great deal of mud, a footman took me up, carried me along, and put me through this hole, through which I had no sooner passed my head than the drums began beating. I gave my hand to the captain, and said to him, "You will be very glad that you can boast of having managed to get me in."



The keeper of the seals was obliged to return to Blois, and Mdlle. kept Orleans, but without being able to effect an entrance for the troops of the Dukes of Nemours and Beaufort, who had just tried a surprise against the court. Had it not been for the aid of Turenne, who had defended the bridge of Jargeau, the king might have fallen into the hands of his revolted subjects. The queen rested at Gien whilst the princes went on as far as Montargis, thus cutting off the communications of the court with Paris. Turenne was preparing to fall upon his incapable adversaries when the situation suddenly changed: the, Prince of Conde, weary of the bad state of his affairs in Guienne, where the veteran soldiers of the Count of Harcourt had the advantage everywhere over the new levies, had traversed France in disguise, and forming a junction, on the 1st of April, with the Dukes of Nemours and Beaufort, threw himself upon the quarters of Marshal d'Hocquincourt, defeated him, burned his camp, and drove him back to Bldneau; a rapid march on the part of Turenne, coming to the aid of his colleague, forced Conde to fall back upon Chatillon; on the 11th of April he was in Paris.

The princes had relied upon the irritation caused by the return of Mazarin to draw Paris into the revolt, but they were only half successful; the Parliament would scarcely give Conde admittance; President de Bailleul, who occupied the chair in the absence of Mole, declared that the body always considered it an honor to see the prince in their midst, but that they would have preferred not to see him there in the state in which he was at the time, with his hands still bloody from the defeat of the king's troops. Amelot, premier president of the Court of Aids, said to the prince's face, "that it was a matter of astonishment, after many battles delivered or sustained against his Majesty's troops, to see him not only returning to Paris without having obtained letters of amnesty, but still appearing amongst the sovereign bodies as if he gloried in the spoils of his Majesty's subjects, and causing the drum to be beaten for levying troops, to be paid by money coming from Spain, in the capital of the realm, the most loyal city possessed by the king." The city of Paris resolved not to make "common cause or furnish money to assist the princes against the king under pretext of its being against Mazarin." The populace alone were favorable to the princes' party.

Meanwhile Turenne had easy work with the secondary generals remaining at the head of the factious army; by his able maneeuvres he had covered the march of the court, which established itself at St. Germain.

Conde assembled his forces encamped around Paris: he intended to fortify himself at the confluence of the Seine and the Marne, hoping to be supported by the little army which had just been brought up by Duke Charles of Lorraine, as capricious and adventurous as ever. Turenne and the main body of his troops barred the passage. Conde threw himself back upon Faubourg St. Antoine, and there intrenched himself, at the outlet of the three principal streets which abutted upon Porte St. Antoine (now Place do la Bastille). Turenne had meant to wait for re-enforcements and artillery, but the whole court had flocked upon the heights of Charonne to see the fight; pressure was put upon him, and the marshal gave the word to attack. The army of the Fronde fought with fury. "I did not see a Prince of Conde," Turenne used to say; "I saw more than a dozen." The king's soldiers had entered the houses, thus turning the barricades; Marshal Ferte had just arrived with the artillery, and was sweeping Rue St. Antoine. The princes' army was about to be driven back to the foot of the walls of Paris, when the cannon of the Bastille, replying all on a sudden to the volleys of the royal troops, came like a thunderbolt on M. de Turenne; the Porte St. Antoine opened, and the Parisians, under arms, fringing the streets, protected the return of the rebel army. Mdlle. de Montpensier had taken the command of the city of Paris.

For a week past the Duke of Orleans had been ill, or pretended to be; he refused to give any order. When the prince began his movement, on the 2d of July, early, he sent to beg Mdlle. not to desert him. "I ran to the Luxembourg," she says, "and I found Monsieur at the top of the stairs. 'I thought I should find you in bed,' said I; 'Count Fiesque told me that you didn't feel well.' He answered, 'I am not ill enough for that, but enough not to go out.' I begged him to ride out to the aid of the prince, or, at any rate, to go to bed and assume to be ill; but I could get nothing from him. I went so far as to say, 'Short of having a treaty with the court in your pocket, I cannot understand how you can take things so easily; but can you really have one to sacrifice the prince to Cardinal Mazarin?' He made no reply: all I said lasted quite an hour, during which every friend we had might have been killed, and the prince as well as another, without anybody's caring; nay, there were people of Monsieur's in high spirits, hoping that the prince would perish; they were friends of Cardinal de Retz. At last Monsieur gave me a letter for the gentlemen of the Hotel, leaving it to me to tell them his intention. I was there in a moment, assuring those present that, if ill luck would have it that the enemy should beat the prince, no more quarter would be shown to Paris than to the men who bore arms. Marshal de l'Hopital, governor of Paris for the king, said to me, 'You are aware, Mdlle., that if your troops had not approached this city, those of the king would not have come thither, and that they only came to drive them away.' Madame de Nemours did not like this, and began to argue the point. I broke off their altercation. 'Consider, sir, that, whilst time is being wasted in discussing useless matters, the prince is in danger in your faubourgs.'" She carried with her the aid of the Duke of Orleans' troops, and immediately moved forwards, meeting everywhere on her road her friends wounded or dying. "When I was near the gate, I went into the house of an exchequer-master (maitre des comptes). As soon as I was there, the prince came thither to see me; he was in a pitiable state; he had two fingers' breadth of dust on his face, and his hair all matted; his collar and his shirt were covered with blood, although he was not wounded; his breastplate was riddled all over; and he held his sword bare in his hand, having lost the scabbard. He said to me, 'You see a man in despair; I have lost all my friends; MM. de Nemours, de la Rochefoucauld, and Clinchamps are wounded to death.' I consoled him a little by telling him that they were in better case than he supposed. Then I went off to the Bastille, where I made them load the cannon which was trained right upon the city; and I gave orders to fire as soon as I had gone. I went thence to the Porte St. Antoine. The soldiers shouted, 'Let us do something that will astonish them; our retreat is secure; here is Mdlle. at the gate, and she will have it opened for us, if we are hard pressed.' The prince gave orders to march back into the city; he seemed to me quite different from what he had been early in the day, though he had not changed at all; he paid me a thousand compliments and thanks for the great service he considered that I had rendered him. I said to him, 'I have a favor to ask of you: that is, not to say anything to Monsieur about the laches he has displayed towards you.' At this very moment up came Monsieur, who embraced the prince with as gay an air as if he had not left him at all in the lurch. The prince confessed that he had never been in so dangerous a position."