XXX. CHAP. appointment the permanent exclusion of Mazarin, was highly offensive to the Duke of Orleans and the Fronde. They met in anger. The Duke of Orleans was ready to sanction any violence. And the coadjutor proposed nothing less than a popular insurrection, to force the palace and restore Chateauneuf. But the Duke of Beaufort, as well as Condé, who had been called to their council, deprecated any such violent measures. Condé declared himself good for nothing in a popular tumult, and, declining to take part in or sanction it, completely defeated the rash design. The queen having been thus restored, through the secret support of Condé, to the full exercise of her authority for not only was she able to dismiss or disown ministers and appoint others, but the Parisians ceased to mount guard or take precautions against the court's departure the prince demanded the execution of the promises made to him. The queen would have acquiesced, but the most urgent letters arrived from the cardinal at Bruhl, counselling and beseeching her not to make such enormous concessions as would transfer all power to the House of Condé. Mazarin has himself enumerated these concessions-Condé and Conti were to be allowed "to exchange the governments of Champagne and Burgundy for those of Guyenne and Provence, still retaining Bellegarde and the fortresses of the provinces ceded. Thus, possessing the towns of Champagne, they might communicate with Flanders and Germany, by Bellegarde with Franche Comté and Savoy, by Guyenne with Spain itself, and by Provence with Naples, Italy, and the Mediterranean; whilst Damville governing Lorraine, La Rochefoucauld Poitou, Montansier the Angoumois, Grammont Bearn, Condé would be master of half the kingdom.* In consequence of Mazarin's representations the queen * Mazarin's Letters, Ravenel. hesitated to execute this large transfer of authority to Condé. She granted him the government of Guyenne indeed, in lieu of Burgundy, an important boon, but to this she limited her concessions. Condé in consequence sought to soften and regain the Duke of Orleans. The latter professed the greatest objection to Molé as chancellor; Condé obtained the revocation of the appointment, and the seals were given to Seguier. The coadjutor, however, kept alive the resentment of the duke as well as of the Fronde against Condé. And Anne was sufficiently alarmed by the prince's menacing attitude to recur once more to the chiefs of the Fronde. De Retz had an interview with her, in which she offered him the apartment of Mazarin at the Palais Royal and the place of prime minister. Mazarin preferred even this to putting all power into the hands of Condé. De Retz, however, did not think fit to accept, and gave excellent reasons for not doing so. He preferred the restoration of Chateauneuf. He also proposed to take the life of Condé rather than arrest him. The queen shrank from the audacious act. When Condé had been urged on his return to proceed to extremities against Anne, he replied, "I am not the Duke of Guise." Anne now repaid his generosity by showing that she was not Catherine of Medicis. She consented to arrest, not slay him. De Retz was compelled to be satisfied, but all that he foresaw took place. Condé, perceiving his liberty was aimed at, first withdrew to St. Maur, and thenceforward was too invariably accompanied to permit of his arrest. He accused before the parliament the secretaries of state, Lionne, Servien, and Letellier who, indeed, had been the instruments to negotiate with him and deceive him, but whom he now denounced as the creatures of Mazarin. Anne thought it prudent to dismiss them, in order to soften the parliament; but she at the same time sent away Chavigny. She then met Condé with his own weapons, and denounced him CHAP. XXX. XXX. CHAP. to parliament, as having treated with the Spaniards whilst pretending hostility to Mazarin, and making use of his forces and fortresses in the north against the king's interests, not in defence of them. Condé met this accusation by denial, and by bringing Monsieur's attestation of his innocence. But the two parties did not trust to wordy arguments, largely as they employed them not only by mouth but through the press. Condé and the coadjutor prepared to dispute ascendency in the Palais de Justice and in the streets by the number of their partisans. Each came to the parliament with an armed following that completely filled its halls and approaches. On the 21st of August these two armies, for they were no less, found themselves in each other's presence in the great hall outside the grande chambre, where the parliament was assembled. The Prince of Condé, after taking his seat, expressed his disgust that any one dared dispute his superiority (the haut du pavé as he called it). The coadjutor replied that the king was superior to them all, and his majesty had the best right to the pavé. "I will make you quit it,” rejoined the prince. "You'll find it difficult," observed the coadjutor. This seemed the signal for strife. Both parties arose, and those without drew their swords. The chief judges instantly flung themselves between the coadjutor and Condé, praying the latter especially not to make the Palais de Justice the scene of carnage. They entreated him to command his armed followers to withdraw, to which the prince assented, and begged the Duke de la Rochefoucauld to see to it. When the latter arose to give the order, the coadjutor sprang up too to make his own friends also withdraw. He passed out of the great folding doors before La Rochefoucauld, and, having given the command for withdrawal, the coadjutor put one foot within the doors to return, when the Duke de la Rochefoucauld closed them upon him, holding his head within them, leaving his body without, XXX. and calling to Coligny and Ricousse, followers of Condé, CHAP. to despatch De Retz with their weapons. In the previous age, the deed would have been done at once; but assassination was not the law or licence of the time. A more vulgar assassin was ready to strike, but his attention was distracted and his aim baffled. The coadjutor was able to resume his seat, and his first words were to accuse La Rochefoucauld of attempting to assassinate him. "It will be little matter what befalls a traitor,' retorted the duke. "Ho, ho, La Franchise!" exclaimed De Retz, addressing La Rochefoucauld by this nickname; "between a poltroon like you and a priest like me, there is no danger of armed conflict." * Condé saw there was nothing to gain from conflicts like these. However he might have withstood the coadjutor, aided by the court or the parliament, he was no match for De Retz in the streets. The moment of the young king's majority was approaching, which could not but add to the authority of the government, carried on no longer in the name of a regent, but in that of the monarch himself. Mazarin, he saw, still maintained his influence, and, with the connivance of the Fronde, would soon return. Calling a council of his friends at Chantilly, and exposing to them the state of his affairs, they and he unanimously resolved to have recourse to arms, and raise the standard of rebellion † (Sept. 1651). The narration of wars engaged in between countries struggling for existence or predominance is fraught with interest, as are civil wars between classes, each fighting for a principle. But a struggle like that which closed the Fronde between the Prince of Condé and Mazarin, the latter aiming merely at the resuming of his authority over the government of the queen, the *La Rochefoucauld seems to say he spared the coadjutor, though affirming how justly he might have been put to death. De Retz recalls † Lenet, La Rochefoucauld, &c. XXX. CHAP. former considering that nothing but his rising in arms could save him from spoliation and arrest, can have little interest, save for those curious in strategy, and pleased to learn the details of campaigns fought between a Condé and a Turenne. History has perhaps never presented the picture of a great country in such a complete state of agitation and anarchy, without any of its personages or parties entertaining any fixed views or principles for the public good. Men struggled for advancement, authority, wealth; women for their lovers or for their marriage; the great bodies of the state for their corporate interests; but a high disinterested feeling seems never to have influenced the minds of any, or even occurred to them as a decorous pretext; for it must be admitted that the personages of the Fronde are frank and open in telling their own story. As to the opinions of the age, we have them in a thousand pamphlets*, and they are of all kinds and colours, from the worshippers of absolute monarchy to the abettors of popular massacres. But though all rise into passion, none show the seriousness of a conviction. Moral, religious, political belief were all wanting. The anarchy of the body politic was but the counterpart of that of the national mind. Yet there were here and there gleams of wisdom and efforts, even joint efforts, which might have led to better things. When the arrest of the prince, so soon after the royal declaration, was made known throughout the kingdom, the members of that assembly of the noblesse which had met for a short time in 1648 came together at the Marquis de la Vieuville's on the 4th of February 1651, to consider the interests and security of their order. They complained "that while ecclesiastics *The several collections of the pamphlets by the Fronde, and styled Mazarinades, in the libraries of the Arsenal, St. Geneviève, and Bibliothèque Impériale, amount to hundreds of volumes. |