CHAPTER V

I. The Beginning of Trouble--Paris and the Parisians in

1648--II. The Parliamentary Fronde--Mademoiselle Would Be Queen

of France--III. The Fronde of the Princes and the Union of the

Frondes--Projects for an Alliance with Condé--IV. La Grande

Mademoiselle's Heroic Period--The Capture of Orleans--The Combat in

the Faubourg Saint Antoine--The End of the Fronde.

I

Few political crises have left, either upon participants or upon

witnesses, impressions as diverse as the impressions left by the

Fronde. As examples of this fact take Retz (whose _Mémoires_ are the

epopee of revolutionary Paris), Omer Talon, the Queen's friend, M.

de Motteville, La Rochefoucauld, duke and peer, Gaston d'Orléans, de

Beaufort, Anne de Gonzague, Mme. de Chevreuse, and all the messieurs

and mesdames whose ways of thinking we know. They furnished the divers

views of the Fronde from which we gain our knowledge of that event,

and as they deduced their impressions from the effect which the Fronde

had upon their personal interests or sympathies, and from their mental

conditions, it is difficult to form an independent or a just idea.

Versatile and brilliant imaginations have left kaleidoscopic visions

of a limited number of very plain realities, and as the only means of

giving uniformity and sequency to a narrative which, though it covers

various periods, is circumscribed by certain limits, is to make a

selection from the many means of study furnished by a voluminous mass

of documents, I have detached from history nothing but the facts which

were connected with the life of the person around whom I have woven

this narrative.

By relating everything concerning La Grande Mademoiselle and by showing

her actively engaged in her daily pursuits when the Fronde took shape

and during the war, I have hoped to make visible to the reader at least

one figure of the most confused of all the harassed epochs of our

modern history.

Mademoiselle's point of view may not have been one of the best, but it

had at least one merit: it was not the point of view of an ordinary

observer. The Fronde was La Grande Mademoiselle's heroic period,

and her reasons for embracing the cause were fit for the fabric of

a romance. She intended to marry, and a marriage appropriate to her

high station required the veiling smoke of the battle-field and the

booming music of great guns. She entered the army and played her part

with such spirit that, according to her own story, she wondered to the

end of her days how she could have committed so many follies. These

pages are written to explain the mental condition which evolved not

only La Grande Mademoiselle's follies but the follies of many of her

countrymen.

It is evident from the memoirs on record that Mademoiselle did not

expect a revolution, but in that respect she was as clear-sighted as

her contemporaries; no one looked for any change. Four years had passed

since the people raised the barricades, and all that time Paris had

growled its discontent. Neither the Regent nor the courtiers had cared

to ask what the canaille were thinking. The curés had been driven

from the devastated country parishes to beg bread and shelter in the

monasteries, and the industrious French people who had always been neat

and merry lay in rags on their sordid beds, dying of famine because the

usurers of the State--the national note-holders--had seized their tools

and confiscated all means of paying the labourer.

In 1644 the people invaded the Palais de Justice and noisily protested

against the new tax. They ordered Parliament to take their threats to

the Queen. The Queen refused to remit the tax, and the city immediately

assumed the aspect which it habitually wore on the eve of revolution.

Groups of men and women stood about the streets, the people were

eager and excited,--they knew not why. Business was suspended. The

shopkeepers stood on their doorsteps. The third night after the Queen

refused to listen to the appeal of the people, the milk-soup boiled

over! Bands of men armed with clubs descended from the faubourgs,

crowded the streets of Paris, and, to quote an eye-witness, "they gave

fright enough to the city where fear and like emotions were unknown."

After a few hours the crowd dispersed and the city became calm. But

the road was clear, the canaille had found the way; they knew that

it was possible to arm with clubs, or with anything that they could

handle, and surge into the streets against the Crown. From that hour

forerunners of the approaching storm multiplied. Parliament openly

sustained the demands of the people. In Parliament there were natural

orators whose denunciations of the causes of the prevailing misery

were brilliant and terrible. The people's envoys accused the Regency

of permitting the abuses, the injustice, and the oppression which had

wrecked the peace of France. They persisted in their protestations,

and the Majesty of the Throne could not silence them. At the solemn

sessions of the beds of justice and in the Queen's own chambers they

presented their arguments, and with voices hoarse with indignation,

and with hands raised threateningly toward heaven they cried their

philippics in the Queen's ears. Seated beside his mother the child-king

looked on and listened. He could not understand the meaning of all the

vehement words, but he never pardoned the voices which uttered them.

The Court listened, astonished.

Mademoiselle weighed the words of the people, she paid close attention,

but her memoirs do not speak of the revolts of public opinion. She was

as unconscious of their meaning as the Queen,--and to say that is to

tell the whole story. Only sixty years before that time the barricades

of the League had closed the streets of Paris, and only ten years

before the theatre lovers had witnessed a comedy called _Alizon_, in

which one of the ancient leaguers had fixed such eyes upon the King

as our Communardes fixed upon the Versaillais. No one had forgotten

anything! The Parisians had kept their old arms bright; they were

looking forward to a time when arms would be needed; yet the Regent

thought that when she had issued an order commanding the people not to

talk politics she had provided against everything.

The nation's depths, as represented by the middle classes, had found

a new apostle in the person of a member of the Parliament, "President

Barillon." Barillon had been a pillar of the Government, but his

feelings had changed. Mme. de Motteville, who was in warm sympathy with

the Regent, wrote bitterly of his new opinions. She said:

That man has a little of the shade of feeling which colours the

actions of some of the men of our century who always hate the happy

and the powerful. Such men think that they prove their greatness

of heart by loving only the unfortunate, and that idea incessantly

involves them in parties, and makes them do things adverse to the

Queen.

The Court was as blind as the Queen's friend; it could not see that

the day was coming when the determination to abolish abuses would

sweep away the ancient social forms before their eyes. In the opinion

of the Queen the criticisms and the ideas of the King's subjects

constituted felony, and it was Barillon's fate to go down. Barillon had

been the Queen's devoted friend and champion. After the King died he

had worked hard to seat the royal widow on the throne. He believed--no

one knew what excuse he had for believing such a thing--that the Queen

shared his ideas of the rights of the poor and the humble, and that

she believed as he believed: that kings owed certain duties to their

subjects. Barillon was not forced to wait long for his enlightenment.

Anne of Austria was a woman of short patience, and advice irritated

her. As soon as the President's eyes were opened to the truth he rushed

headlong into the arms of the Opposition. Anne of Austria scorned "his

treachery to the Crown." His impassioned thoughts of divine justice

were enigmatical to the sovereign understanding. She was enraged by

the obstinacy of her old friend, and by her orders he was cast into

the prison of Saint Piguerol, where he died, as the just Motteville

said, "regretted by every one." Barillon was the precursor of the

"Idealogues" of the eighteenth century and of the Socialists of our own

day.

The Queen was one of the people who seem to have received eyes because

they could not be blind without eyes. The King's porringer was empty

because the King had no money. The Queen, his mother, had pawned the

jewels of the crown to appease her creditors, yet she was indignant

when the bourgeois said that France was bankrupt. She did not attach

any importance to "that canaille,"--as she called the Parliament,--but

she regarded criticism or disapproval as an attempt upon the authority

of her son. As she expressed her exotic ideas freely, the bourgeois

knew what she thought of them, and her abusive epithets were scored to

the credit of the Opposition. As much from interest as from sympathy

the Opposition invariably sustained the claims of the people. "The

bourgeois were all infected with love for the public welfare," said

the gentle Motteville bitterly. So the Court knew that in case of

difficulty it could not count upon "that canaille."

Neither could Parliament count upon itself. There were too many

counter-currents in its channels, too many individual interests, too

many ambitions, too many selfish intrigues, to say nothing of the

instinct of self-preservation which had turned the thoughts of the

nobles toward a last desperate attempt to prevent the establishment of

the absolute monarchy. They had resolved to make the attempt, and by it

they hoped to save the remnant of their ancient privileges. They would

have been justified in saving anything that they could lay their hands

on, for no man is morally bound to commit suicide. In point of fact the

only thing which they were morally bound to do was to remember that

duty to country precedes all other duties, but in that day people had a

very dim idea of duty to country. La Grande Mademoiselle believed that

the King's right was divine, but she did not hesitate to act against

the Court when her personal interests or the interests of her house

demanded such action. After the "Affair Saujon,[127]" she practically

retired from Court. Alluding to that fact, she said: "I did not think

that the presence of a person whom the Queen had so maltreated could be

agreeable to her Majesty."

She made long visits at her château of Bois-le-Vicomte, near Meaux.

Her little court knew her prejudices and respected her feelings. She

regarded the success of the French arms as a personal misfortune,

because a French victory conferred more glory upon Monsieur le Prince.

The death of the elder Condé had not lessened the insolent pretensions

of the second junior branch, and the honours claimed by the hawk-eyed

general afflicted the haughty Princess d'Orléans, who had no valiant

soldier to add glory to her name.

Referring to the battle of Lens Mademoiselle said:

No one dared to tell me of it; the paper containing the account of

it was sent to me from Paris, and they placed it on my table, where

I saw it as soon as I arose. I read it with astonishment and grief.

On that occasion I was less of a good Frenchman than an enemy.

This avowal is worthy of note because it furnishes a key to the

approaching national crisis. Mademoiselle's treason was the crime of

architects of the Fronde; of the Nobility first, afterward of all

France. Mademoiselle wept over the battle of Lens, and when her father

commanded her to return to Paris to appear with the Queen and to join

in the public rejoicings her grief knew no bounds. The scene in the

Palais Royal had destroyed her confidence and her sympathy, and she

could not have "rejoiced with the Queen" on any occasion; but her

father's commands were formal, and she was forced to assist with the

Court (August 26th) at Notre Dame, when the _Te Deum_ was chanted in

thanksgiving for the victory of France.

On that occasion [said Mademoiselle] I placed myself beside

Cardinal Mazarin, and as he was in a good humour I spoke to him of

liberating Saujon. He promised me to do all in his power. He said

that he should try to influence the Queen. I left them all at the

Palais Royal and went away to get my dinner, and when I arrived I

was informed of the clamour in the city; the bourgeois had taken

arms.

The bourgeois had taken arms because of the unexpected arrest of two

members of Parliament. "Old Broussel" was one of the two, and to the

people he personified the democratic and humanitarian doctrines of

President Barillon, who had died in his prison because he had angered

the Queen by pleading the people's cause. The news of his arrest

fell like a thunderbolt, and the people sprang to arms. The general

excitement dispelled Mademoiselle's grief; she was not sorry for the

uprising. She could not see anything to regret in the disturbance of

the monarchy. Monsieur and the Queen had shown her that her interests

were not theirs, they had tormented and humiliated her, and it pleased

her wounded pride to think that her enemies were to be punished. The

Tuileries were admirably situated for the occasion. Should there be a

revolution it could not fail to take place under her windows, and even

were she to be imprisoned--as she had been before--she could still

amuse herself and witness the uprising at her ease. At that time there

were no boulevards; the Seine was the centre of the capital. It was

the great street and the great open hall in which the Parisians gave

their fêtes. Entering Paris either from Rouen or from Dijon, travellers

knew by the animation on the water when they were near the city. From

the Cours la Reine to the little isle Saint Louis the river was edged

with open-air shops and markets. On the river were barges laden with

merchandise, with rafts, with water-coaches (which looked like floating

houses), and with all the objects that man sets in the public view to

tempt his fellows and to offer means of conveyance either to business

or to pleasure. At various points the bargees and other river-men held

jousts. All through the city there were exhibitions of fireworks and

"water serenades," and along the shore, or moving swiftly among the

delicate shallops and the heavy barges were gilded pleasure galleys

with pennants flying in the wind.

The light, mirrored by the water, danced upon the damp walls of the

streets which opened upon the quays.

The Seine was the light and the joy of Paris, the pride of the public

life. Its arms enveloped Notre Dame, the mass of buildings called

"the Palais," the Houses of the Parliament and the Bourse, an immense

bazar whose galleried shops were the meeting-place of strollers and

of gossips. A little below the Palais stretched the Pont-Neuf, with

its swarms of street peddlers, jugglers, charlatans, and idlers who

passed their days watching the parade of the people of Paris. "The

disinherited," unfortunate speculators in the public bounty, sat apart

from the stream of travellers, preparing for their business by slipping

glass eyes into their heads, or by drawing out their teeth the better

to amuse the public and to solicit alms.

All the emotions of the people were manifested first upon the river.

The Seine was a queen; we have made it a sewer.

Even then Paris was a great cosmopolitan city, capable of receiving the

people of the world; it was the only place in Europe where a palace

could be made ready for guests in less than two hours. In less than one

hour the hosts of the inns prepared dinner for one hundred guests at

twenty écus a cover.

Yet in many respects the powerful city was in a barbarous condition; it

was neither lighted nor swept, and as its citizens threw everything out

of their windows, the streets were paved with black and infected mud.

There was little or nothing like a police system, and the city was sown

with "places of refuge" (a survival of the Middle Ages), which served

as hiding-places for highwaymen and other malefactors, who enshrined

themselves among the shadows and lay in wait for the weak or the unwary.

At that time the Duc d'Angoulême, the illegitimate son of Charles IX.,

used to send his servants into the streets to collect their wages

from the passers-by. Having collected their money, the clever fellows

returned to the ducal palace. The Duc d'Angoulême possessed the right

of shelter, and his palace was vested with all the power of the horns

of the altar: once within his gates, the criminal was in safety and

"inviolable."

The Duc de Beaufort used to send his servants out into the streets to

rob travellers for his personal benefit. When the robbers were arrested

their proprietor demanded their release and made great talk of an

indemnification.

The excessively mobile Parisian character has changed many times since

the day of the Duc de Beaufort; but the people of the present are

counterparts of the people of the times[128] of Louis XIII. and the

Regency. One of Mademoiselle's contemporaries said: "The true Parisians

love to work; they love the novelty of things; they love changes in

their habits; they even love changes in their business. They are very

pious, and very--credulous. They are not in the least drunkards; they

are polite to strangers."

Subtract the piety and add absinthe, the mother of Folly, and we

have the Parisians of our own day. They too are industrious; they are

always changing something; they are changeable in themselves; they

are credulous; they call religion "superstition," but they believe

in "systems," in "panaceas," in high-sounding words, and in "great

men"--men truly great, or spuriously great; they still cherish a belief

in revolutions. They are as ready now as they were centuries ago to die

for an idea, for a Broussel, and for much less than a Broussel. Just

such Parisians as we meet in our daily walks raised the barricades in

1648. Broussel's windows looked out upon the river; the boatmen and

the people of the water were the first to hear of his arrest, and they

rushed crying into the streets; the people of the _Halles_ joined them;

and the "good bourgeoisie" followed the people's lead. The tradesmen

closed their shops, the chains were drawn across the streets; and in

the twinkling of an eye Paris bristled with antiquated firearms like an

historical procession.

Mademoiselle, who heard the noise, ordered her carriage, and went

out to pass the barricades. She had never seen the mob as she saw it

then. The people swayed forward to meet the insolent noble who dared

to defy them; but when they recognised their Princess, their hoarse

cries turned to shouts of welcome, and eager hands raised the chains.

Then, haughtily ignoring their fond smiles, Mademoiselle passed and the

chains fell behind her.

So, with the canaille hailing her, she reached the Luxembourg, turned

and recrossed the river, firm in her power as the Princess of the

people. She had seen the barricades, and the sight was to influence her

life.

* * * * *

She returned to the Tuileries in a glow not of triumph,--she had never

doubted the people,--but she had passed the barriers raised by the

people against her enemies, and the people had confirmed her right to

rule, while the Regent trembled!

The Granddaughter of France was the real head of the people, and as

the faëries had been present at her baptism, obstacles and monsters

vanished at her approach.

With tender pride the people watched her progress; their favour was

never based upon reason; they did not ask why they loved the haughty

Princess who called them "Knaves" and considered them fit for the

scaffold or the fagots. She was their goddess, and whenever she

appeared they fell at her feet and worshipped her.

The Court did not approve of Mademoiselle's democratic popularity. When

she arrived at the Tuileries she was imprisoned in her room; but as the

whole Court was imprisoned, and as no one dared to cross his threshold,

she was not inclined to murmur. Upon the whole the situation pleased

her. She watched the pale, frightened faces of the courtiers with

secret joy. Until then the Court had taken the people's threats for

jests, but the barricades had opened their eyes to the danger of their

position; the mob was at the palace gates, and no one knew how soon

it would be in the palace! Mademoiselle was in high spirits. Standing

at her open window, she watched the people; they were massed upon the

quays eating and drinking by the light of little bonfires; many of them

stretched out upon the ground where they could watch her and slept

there until morning.

The night was calm, but Mademoiselle said of the day which followed it:

Early in the morning I was awakened by the Long Roll; the troops

were starting to take back the Tour-de-Nesle, which some of the

wretches had captured. I sprang from my bed and looked out of my

window; it was not long before they came back; some of them were

wounded, and I was seized with great fear and pity.

The canaille crowded the rue des Tuileries; the men carried swords, and

they did it so awkwardly that Mademoiselle laughed at them.

The courtiers were prisoners; all the streets were barricaded with

wine-butts filled with earth and with manure. Given time, skilled

workmen could not have raised a more effective obstacle; it was good

work, well done, and as a symbol of the strength and the intention of

the people it was redoubtable.

[Illustration: THE TOWER OF NESLE

FROM A CONTEMPORARY PRINT]

The barricades of the Fronde, floating the old banners of the League,

had evoked the past and touched the revolutionary current in the

abandoned souls of the Parisians. Retz claimed that his hand fired

the powder, and to do him justice, though his Memoirs make a great

deal of the part that he played in the Fronde, they tell less than

the truth. He might have said without boasting that he held Paris in

the hollow of his hand. He had worked hard to acquire the power by

which he bent the people to his will. Vincent de Paul had been his

tutor, and Retz had been an unworthy pupil; he had remembered but one

of Père Vincent's many lessons of brotherly love. His mind had seized

the warning: "Know that the people is a Being, to be considered; not

an inanimate object to be ignored," and from that simple precept he

had deduced utilitarian conclusions fitted for his personal service,

and drawn from them a plan for his own conduct. The principle of

man's humanity had given him his idea. He had based his system on the

susceptibility of men to the influence of intelligent suggestion, and

by the judicious warmth of his sympathy he had surrounded himself with

just such elements as his plan required.

This young Abbé Retz was the coadjutor of his uncle, the Archbishop

of Paris. He was of an excellent family. He was astute, and, having

decided to turn the people to account, he applied his mind to the task

of learning the opinions of the lockpickers and ruffians of the city.

His office gave him the right to go everywhere and to be seen in all

company. He frequented the cellars and the garrets, he fraternised

with the cut-throats, he distributed alms, and as equivalent for

what he gave received instruction in the magic vocabulary of the men

who shut the streets of a city as easily as a warder shuts a door; he

studied the ways of the canaille seven years, living hand-in-glove

and cheek-by-jole with the men of the dens; he studied his world as

he studied the policy of the ministry and the face of the Queen; and

when he felt that the footing of the Court was insecure he broke away

from Royalty and put into action the science of the cut-throats. To act

the part of Marius or Coriolanus before the people was to satisfy an

ambition which had haunted him since he had first read Plutarch. Retz

was the type of the hero of romance at a time when Corneille met his

models in the public streets.

He cared more to excite the admiration of the masses than to acquire

position or money; he was influenced more by passionate love of

brilliant and extraordinary exploits than by ambition, because he

knew that his exploits made the people admire him. In his opinion an

out-and-out adventure was worth more than all else, and no condition

seemed to him as desirable as the life of a conspirator. He was called

_le petit Catilina_, and the title pleased him better than any other.

His "popolo," collectively and individually, gloried in him, understood

him, trusted him, and sympathised with him in all his longings. He was

at home and at ease and as safe as in the archiepiscopal palace in the

most dangerous of their dens.

[Illustration: CARDINAL DE RETZ]

He was the subject of all species of critical judgments; La

Rochefoucauld and Saint Simon spoke admiringly of his "prodigious

genius." Anne of Austria called him a "factionist." Mazarin, who as

he loved neither virtue nor vice, could not judge justly of one of

Plutarch's heroes, did not like Retz; but he feared him. Mademoiselle

said in her memoirs: "The Cardinal tells me that he believes that

Retz has a black soul." People who knew no better laughed at the

Archbishop's nephew, and Retz involuntarily fostered their delusion.

His swarthy face, crooked legs, and near-sighted awkwardness were well

fitted to call forth the gayety of light-minded courtiers. To add to

his questionable appearance, he robed himself in the costumes of a

cavalier; his doublets and other garments were of gaudy stuffs, belaced

and bedecked with baubles which were in all respects, and without

any qualifying reservation, beneath the notice of a serious or an

appreciative gentleman. His personal carriage (a prancing and tiptoeing

swagger) impressed strangers with the idea that he was an unfortunate

ballet-master whose troubles had dethroned his reason. But there are

men upon the earth who are so constituted that they can support all the

ridicule that can be heaped upon them; Retz was one of them; the fact

that he was pleasing to women proves it.

While this enterprising episcopal agitator was engaged in earnest

contemplation of the first effects of the mischief that he had made

in his own quarter (the quarter of Notre Dame) the Parisians were

preparing for battle; the fathers were polishing their muskets,

the children were sharpening their pocket-knives. But Paris was

calm, the rioters had gone back to the faubourgs. The streets were

clear between the Tuileries and the Palais Royal, and Mademoiselle

paid a visit to the Queen. She was in the Queen's salon when the

Parliamentary deputation arrived, acting under stern orders from "the

nation's depths," to demand the release of Broussel. Anne of Austria

was angry; she refused the demand and the deputies went back to the

bourgeoisie. They were not gone long; Mademoiselle was still with the

Queen when they returned with the people's ultimatum: _The people

will have Monsieur Broussel!_ Anne of Austria was not dull and every

possible contingency had been covered by her astute mentor. She ordered

Broussel's release and the deputies departed, calm but triumphant.

Mathieu Molé negotiated the release, and while he talked to the Queen

a member of Parliament, accompanying him, explained the political

situation to Mademoiselle. The deputy's discourse was a clear statement

of ugly facts and their consequences; it gave Mademoiselle an insight

into the reasons and the secret views of the magistrates. The canaille

spoke so loud that all the world could hear; the people's messengers

held their heads as high as the nobles. As Mademoiselle watched "the

long robes" file out of the royal presence she realised that all the

riots and all the menaces had been but the beginning; she knew that

the time was coming when, married or not married, every woman in France

would be given her chance to do her duty.

When Broussel returned to the people the barricades disappeared; but

the canaille was still nervous; a practical joker cried out that the

Queen was preparing another Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, and the old

muskets followed by the pocket-knives rushed into the streets. Another

joker said that the Queen of Sweden with her army was at the gates of

Saint Denis, and a prolonged roar was heard and the mob filled the

streets and began to pillage. So, amidst alarms and alternations of

hope and fear, the days passed for a time. The people of Paris rioted,

then returned to their wretched homes. Whatever the day had been,

the night brought vigilance. All slept dressed, ready for action.

Mademoiselle, who was everywhere at once, was not afraid. When the

canaille growled the loudest she went her way. She was happy; she

revelled in sound and in movement and in the fears of the Court. At

a ball in the rue Saint Antoine she heard shots fired all night and

"danced to the music of the guns."

The Queen was anxious to be far from Paris; Mazarin too craved rest;

but the royal habit of carrying about all the furniture of the

household made secret escape difficult. The people were watching the

Palais Royal; they were determined that the Queen should not leave

them. Nevertheless the Court decided to make the attempt.

Apparently there had been no change at the royal palace; the

roast-hasteners and the soup-skimmers were in their places, and all

the mouth-servants were watching with ears pricked to hear the first

whisper of an order, ready to hand water or to run at the beck and call

of the myrmidons of the myrmidons. In the streets around the palace

lounged the people, silent and sullen, giving vent to angry criticisms

or watching for "tall Mademoiselle." Mademoiselle appeared frequently

at her windows, and the people greeted her with friendly cries. Paris

was calm; the silent river, bearing its gilded galleys, its charlatans,

jugglers, serenaders, and shouting and singing river-men, ran by under

its bridges as it had always run; the Parisians laughed at their own

suspicions; one group left its post, then another, and thus, gradually

relaxing their vigilance, the King's warders returned to their homes.

The 12th September, before daylight, a few wains loaded with furniture

crept away from the Palais Royal and took the road to Rueil. At

daybreak the more suspicious of the Parisians approached the palace and

watched and listened. Evidently the royal life was still progressing in

regular order. The following morning before Paris was awake the young

King was drawn from his bed, dressed, carried out into the courtyard,

hidden in a coach, and set upon the road taken by the furniture.

Mazarin accompanied him. Anne of Austria, "as the most valiant" (to

quote the words of Mme. de Motteville) remained in the palace to cover

the retreat of her Minister. In the course of the morning she was seen

in various parts of Paris; that evening she vanished as the King and

the Cardinal had done before her.

II

The royal flight deflected Paris. The members of Parliament reproached

themselves for their excess of severity. They made overtures to the

Queen.

It was believed that Anne of Austria, assured of the safety of her

little brood, would reopen some of her old foreign correspondence and

attempt to avenge her wrongs. Broussel had been released against her

will--the city had raised the barricades--the Minister was an Italian

and the Queen was anything but French! Paris prepared for the worst.

Whence would the trouble come, from Spain or from England?

Parliament continued to send deputies to Saint Germain, but the Queen

was obdurate. All business was suspended; people slept in their

clothes; the bourgeois hid their money. The courtiers, who had remained

in their palaces, hurried away followed by their furniture; and the

evil faces which appear in Paris on the eve of a revolution were seen

all over the city. The wains carrying the courtiers' furniture were

pillaged, and the pillagers sacked the bakeries. Parliament had seized

the reins of State, but the Parliamentary sessions resembled the stormy

meetings of the existing Chamber. Personal interests and the interests

of the coteries had entered politics. After a deplorable day in

Parliament Olivier d'Ormesson noted sadly in his journal: "The public

welfare is now used only as a pretext for avenging private wrongs."

Mademoiselle's feelings in regard to the events of the day were varied;

they could not be wholly pleasant, for there was nothing in the revolt

of the people to tempt the imagination of a personage fully convinced

that the King was the deputy of God. The first Fronde was an outburst

of despair provoked by an excess of public anguish. Yet Mademoiselle

considered it the adventure of a party of agitators. The preceding

century France had been an exceedingly rich country. Under Richelieu

Monsieur had depicted it in a state of famine, and in the early days

of the Regency, and later, when foreign nations were lauding Mazarin's

diplomacy, the people of Paris were perishing from every form of

squalid misery. The State paid out its moneys without counting them,

lent at usurious interest, and gave the notes of its creditors to its

note-holders, the bankers; the note-holders fell upon the debtors

like brigands; the taxes were collected by armed men. Wherever the

tax-gatherer had passed the land was bare, cattle, tools, carts,

household furniture, and all the personal property of the victims of

the State had been seized; the farmers had nothing to eat, nothing to

sleep on, no shelter; they were homeless and hopeless; they had but one

alternative: to go out upon the highways, and, in their turn, force

a living from the passers-by at the point of the knife. Through the

brigandage of the note-holders every year added a strip of abandoned

ground to the waste lands of France.

The nation had turned honest men into thieves and pariahs.

Barillon raised his voice and the grave opened to receive him. Broussel

was saved, but his salvation precipitated the catastrophe. The Queen

had fled, abducting the King. The national Treasury was empty; affairs

were desperate, and Parliament, its honour menaced, decided upon a

measure which, had it been successfully effected, would have changed

the course of French history.

England had inaugurated a successful political method by giving the

nation a Constitution, and by introducing in France the orderly

system with which the House of Commons had endowed England. With that

end in view the magistrates and all the officials, who had paid for

their offices, tried to seize the legislative and financial power

of the State. They thought that by that means they could bring the

royal authority to terms, and make the national Government an honest

executive and guardian of the people's rights,--in the words of

the reformers, "make it what it should be, to reign as it ought to

reign."[129]

The nation, individually, approved the Parliamentary initiative. Each

citizen, courtier, or man of the lower order urged on the scheme. Some

applauded because they wished for the good of France. Others looked

forward to "fishing in troubled waters." All knew that a great deal of

business could be done under cover of the excitement attendant upon

national disturbances. They who had no need of money and no thought

of financial speculation hoped that their personal schemes might be

advanced by a national crisis. Mademoiselle was of the latter class.

She had decided to unite her acres and her millions with the fortunes

of the King of France. Louis XIV. was ten years old. Anne-Marie-Louise

was one and twenty, and she looked her age; her beauty was of the

robust type which, mildly speaking, is not of a character to make a

woman look younger than her years. Her manners were easy and assured.

To the child who had so recently been dandled upon her knee the tall

cousin was neither more nor less than the dreaded though respectable

daughter of his uncle; the young King shrank from her. Mademoiselle

suspected that he feared rather than loved her, and although her

flatterers had told her that age was not an obstacle among people of

her rank,[130] she was troubled by a presentiment that she should not

be able to capture that particular husband unless she could carry him

off by force; the thought unhinged all her political convictions; but

the enterprises of Parliament gave promise of utility. Her memoirs

show that she studied the situation from every point of view, and

that a conflict raged within her breast. At times she believed that a

public disturbance would be favourable to her interests; at other times

she was worried by the thought of the inconveniences attendant upon

war. One day she approved the designs of Parliament; the next day she

indignantly denounced the subjects who had attempted to circumscribe

the authority of the King. She adapted to the royal situation all the

maxims derived from the "Divine Right," yet she rejoiced at all the

errors of the Court.

She had errors in plenty to sustain her courage; the situation was so

false that anything but error would have been impossible. Married or

not married, Anne of Austria allowed herself a dangerous latitude;

Mazarin did not protect her, she protected and defended him; to her

mind all that he did was charming; she glanced knowingly at her

courtiers if he opened his mouth or if he moved his hand. Her eyes

beamed upon him with familiar meaning, and while he talked her arch

smiles asked the Court if her Chief of Council was not a prince

among men and the flower of ministers. She would have been happy

in a hovel had she been able to fix him stably among his precious

ancient draperies and the thousands of rare objects with which he

had surrounded his handsome form. Mazarin had feathered his nest _à

l'Italien_, and the style was by far too superfine for the times and

for the taste of France. The gossips of the royal domestic offices had

circulated the intimate details of the royal life. The public knew all

about the favourite; they knew what he wore, what he ate, and what he

did; and they thought of him as always at play with small, strangely

rare animals, as graceful, as handsome, and as highly perfumed as their

master. In imagination they saw Mazarin steeped in sloth, battening on

the public funds, and nourishing his soft beauty by the aid of secrets

of the toilet of his own invention. Anne of Austria did not care what

the people thought. She delighted in Mazarin. She was happy because she

had been able to lay the nation at his feet. The people said that she

had laid them under his feet, and they declared with curses that it

should not be.

Mazarin had rendered France incalculable services, but no one thanked

him or did him justice. No one understood the work that he had

accomplished. Paris knew nothing of foreign affairs. The people's minds

were engrossed by the local misery, and so little interest was taken

in politics that when the Peace of Westphalia was signed no one in

France noticed it although the world classed it among great historical

events.[131]

Paris knew more of the King's scullions than of Mazarin's diplomacy.

The King's cousin: Mademoiselle la Princesse Anne-Marie-Louise

d'Orléans,--fit bride for any king! must remain upon the stocks to

pleasure "the Queen's thief."

The King, also, was the victim of the foreigner.

There was little in the royal larder, and that little was not equally

distributed; the cohorts of the kitchen had made more than one strong

personal drive in the King's interest. The wilful head with its

floating veil of curls, the pouting mouth and tear-dimmed eyes were

the oriflamme of the cooks' pantries. "Monsieur le Cardinal had forty

little fishes[132] on his platter! I only had two on mine!" wailed

the young monarch, and the cooks' corps rose in a body to defend the

"Divine Right."

"_Ma foi!_" growled the bourgeois, "but he has _toupet_, that one! he

makes himself master of the King's mother, takes the food out of the

King's mouth, and sets up his pomade-pots in the King's house!" The

people knew that, if they knew nothing of Westphalia; the handsome fop

had eclipsed the diplomatist.

The people called Mazarin "the pomade inventor" and "moustache of the

paste-pots" (not to cite their grosser expressions). When the mob

cried: _Vive le Roi!_ Retz heard echo answer: _Mais point de Mazarin!_

The Queen was like all women deep in love; she wondered why people

blamed her.

Her anger embittered the situation, but after making many futile

attempts Parliament persuaded her to resume her duties and (the last

day of October) the King, the Queen, the Court, and the retinue,

followed by loaded vans, passed through the suburbs homeward bound.

Before they reached the city they saw that public feeling had changed.

The people had lost their respect for the Court. No one cared either

for the Queen or for her Minister. The canaille hummed significant

songs and cast bold glances at the mature lovers; the courtiers' eyes

furtively lingered upon the walls where coarsely worded posters accused

the Queen of her delinquencies. Anne of Austria was brave. She entered

Paris with cheeks aflame but with head high. She would change all that!

Parliament had urged her to return....

Time passed and the general attitude retained its flippancy. At Court

all were counting the cost and planning how they could best turn the

coming misfortunes of the Crown to their own profit; écus, dignities,

offices, benefits of all kinds, would be within the gift of the new

administration. The great were prepared for the emergency. Retz had

driven his curés over to the opposition. La Rochefoucauld had urged

Mme. de Longueville after the clerical sheep and Conti after her. Anne

of Austria's patience was at an end; she had no one to advise her;

after she had assured herself that the Condés would sustain her, she

set out to the Luxembourg. Monsieur was in the agonies of one of the

diplomatic attacks to which he was subject; no one knew whether his

pains were real or feigned. He was in bed. He had not changed since the

days of Richelieu; he was the same light-hearted, nervous, and bold

poltroon, but his intellect was keen, he charmed strangers, he was

pleasing even to those who knew him best. Though the Queen was used to

his arts, she was dazed by the flood of words with which he welcomed

her. From tender anxiety for her well-being he passed to the real

anxiety of well-defined personal terror. Then, without stopping to take

breath, he gave vent to such sentimental emotions that when Anne of

Austria told her errand he had neither the face nor the force to refuse

her prayer. She begged him to conduct the King out of Paris secretly,

and--"_By the faith of Monsieur!_" he swore that he would do it.

This second flight was fixed for the night between the 5th-6th January.

It was agreed that they should retire to Saint Germain, although

there was no furniture in the château. Nothing could be sent out this

time--the palace was full of spies--the people were on the watch! Let

the furniture follow! Fatality must see to that! Mazarin bought two

small camp-beds and sent them to Saint Germain; he left to Providence

the task of providing for the rest.

The night of the 5th January Anne of Austria went to bed at her

habitual hour for retiring. When she was assured that all the people

of the palace were asleep she arose and confided her secret to her

_femme-de-chambre_ who awakened the servants, whom she could not do

without. At three o'clock they took the King and little Monsieur from

their beds and dressed them in their warmest garments. The Queen then

led the children down an abandoned flight of steps which opened on the

garden. It was moonlight and the cold was stinging. The royal family,

followed by one _femme-de-chambre_ and a few officers, passed out of

the garden by the small door opening into the rue Richelieu. In the

street they found two coaches waiting for them. They reached the Cours

la Reine, which had been chosen for the general meeting-place, without

difficulty; no one had arrived, and they waited. Mazarin had passed the

evening at a soirée; at the appointed hour he entered his carriage and

drove straight to the Cours la Reine. Monsieur and Condé had been with

Mazarin all the evening, but instead of going directly to the Cours

they hurried to their homes to prepare their unconscious families. Mme.

de Longueville refused to leave her bed; she declared that she would

never abandon Paris. Monsieur awakened his wife; she believed that

she was dying, and her cries aroused the children; Monsieur had three

infant daughters,[133] the eldest was two years and six months old; the

youngest had attained the age of two months and fifteen days. The young

Lorraines were vociferous, and mother and babes wept together; Gaston

sang and whistled, laughed and grimaced. Finally when all the buckles

had been adjusted, when the last limp arm had been introduced into its

warm sleeve, the four helpless beings, struggling against the efforts

of their natural leader, moved painfully through the dark passages of

the Luxembourg into the little streets, and across the river. As the

murmuring band passed the Tuileries a light struck in Mademoiselle's

apartment illumined all the windows. Mademoiselle was rising at her own

time! No need of haste for her, no need of secrecy! Her will was the

people's law. At sight of the lighted windows the tears of the feeble

wife flowed afresh.

Beyond the Tuileries all was confusion. At the last moment the Queen

had despatched messengers to summon the courtiers and the courtiers

had sent messengers to warn their relatives that the Court was on

the march; all had hurried from their homes, and lord and lady were

pressing forward toward the Cours la Reine, the gentlemen fastening

their garments askew, or wrong side out as they went; the ladies,

still in their nightcaps, moving wearily, soothing or upbraiding their

weeping children. All wondered what it meant, all asked what the

Canaille had done to force the Court to flee.

Mademoiselle was the last to reach the Cours. To quote her own words,

she had been "all troubled with joy" when ordered to prepare for

flight, because she had believed that her enemies were about to take a

step which would force them to look upon the effects of their folly;

but the misery of the sudden flitting, the indecent haste, the broken

rest, the consciousness of bodily weakness had swallowed up her glee,

and she arrived at the Cours in an ugly humour. She ached with cold;

she was crowded in the coach; she sought excuses for intimating that

the Queen had brought a useless flight upon the Court. The children

voiced their woes. Numb with the cold, worn out and querulous, the

ladies chided their husbands and the husbands rudely answered. The moon

went down upon the wretched exiles; day had not dawned and black night

hid the general woe.

They fled in the darkness, _cahin-caha_, the children sobbing, the

women expressing their sufferings in ways equally tempestuous. The

Queen was gay; she was running away with Mazarin! "Never," said

Mademoiselle, "had I seen a creature as gay as she was! had she won

a battle, taken Paris and had all who displeased her put to death,

she could not have been happier." They found Saint Germain bare; they

had neither furniture nor clothing; they were worn out and anxious,

and the château furnished no means of rest or refreshment; the exiles

stood at the gates all day watching the highway and questioning the

passers-by. No one had seen the luggage or the furniture. Toward night

news arrived from Paris; the wains were not coming; the people were

angry because the Queen had run away; they had fallen upon the loads;

they had broken the courtiers' furniture. Only one load was on the

road,--Mademoiselle's; the King's loads had been respected, but they

were not to leave Paris.

Mademoiselle had left the bulk of her commodities to be sent out at a

later day; only one load belonging to her had started to leave Paris;

the people had examined that tenderly and then despatched it for Saint

Germain.

No need to watch longer for the loaded wains! The tired courtiers made

the best of a bad business; half a dozen of the highest of the Great

"shared the Cardinal's two camp-beds"; the quilts on which the children

had been bedded on the way from Paris were spread upon the floor. Those

who had no mattresses lay upon straw or upon bare boards. The ladies

fared worst of all; they had been used to the tender cares of their

_femmes-de-chambre_.

* * * * *

Mademoiselle's spirits rose; she had always boasted that she was "a

creature superior to trifles," and the general difficulty had put her

on her mettle. Monsieur's wife wept feebly; she told the courtiers of

the luxury of her early life, and of her present sufferings. Monsieur's

little daughters were restless and displeased. Mademoiselle noted this

adventure in her memoirs:

I slept in a vast and finely gilded room, but there was very little

fire in it, and it had neither window-panes nor windows, which, as

the month was January, was not agreeable. My mattress was on the

floor, and my sister, who had no mattress, slept with me. I had to

sing to her to put her to sleep; she greatly troubled my sleep. She

turned, and re-turned; then, feeling me close to her, she cried

out that she "saw the beast," and then I had to sing to her again,

and thus the night passed. I had no underclothing to change, and

they washed my nightdress during the day and my day-chemise during

the night. I had not my women to comb my hair and to dress me, and

that was very inconvenient. I ate with Monsieur, who made very bad

cheer.... I lived in that way ten days, then my equipage arrived,

and I was very glad to have all my commodities.

Louis XIV. and little Monsieur played about Saint Germain in the wintry

weather, and as the days passed their garments acquired the marks

of use. The King's furniture did not arrive, neither did his boxes;

the Parisians would not permit them to leave the city. All the gates

of Paris were guarded; no one was passed without papers. It was so

difficult for people of quality to obtain passports that the ladies ran

away in the garb of monks, or disguised in some other way. The Marquise

d'Huxelles went through the gates in the uniform of a soldier, with

an "iron pot" on her head.[134] Paris had never refused its favourite

anything, and Mademoiselle's chariots went and came and no one asked

what they contained; the belongings of her friends were transported

as freely as her own if they were in her boxes or in her wains. In

after life she used to call those days "the time of plenty." "I had

everything!" she wrote exultantly; "they gave me passports for all

that I wished taken out, and not only that, but they watched over and

escorted my chariots! nothing equalled the civilities that they showed

me."

Time passed; the royal garments were unfit for wear and the Queen,

reduced to extremities, begged Mademoiselle to smuggle for her.

Mademoiselle granted her request with joy. She recorded the event

exultantly: "One has enough of it,--when one is in condition to render

services to such people, and when one sees that one is of importance!"

The Parisians had given their favourite a convincing token of their

love, and she regarded it as a proof that she was the one best fitted

to share the throne of France.

As the Parisians slept well on the night of the Queen's second flight,

they were not conscious of their separation from royalty until the

morning of the 6th January. The first emotion felt was consternation.

Parliament made overtures to the Queen; the Queen rudely repulsed

the overtures, and Parliament issued an edict of expulsion against

Mazarin. Mazarin expelled, Parliament raised money, and set about

recruiting an army. The Council of the Hôtel de Ville, representing

Parisian commerce, sent a delegation to the King. Arrived in the royal

presence, the deputies fell at the King's feet. They portrayed the

horrors of civil war, they explained to the child that to be driven to

attack Paris would be abominable. In the midst of his supplications

the chief speaker, choked by sobs, cut short his plea. His emotion was

more effective than any argument; his tears proved the solemnity of

the hour. The King wept bitterly, and, in fact, every one wept but the

Queen and Condé, who surveyed the general distress dry-eyed.

When calm was restored Anne of Austria refused to yield. The die was

cast; civil war was inevitable. After long deliberation the Hôtel de

Ville declared for resistance. The masses of the people were defiant;

they accused the royal family of treason; they demanded vengeance.[135]

At that moment, when the nation stood alone, without a king, when a

mob, driven mad by despair, clamoured for justice from the nobles,

Mme. de Longueville entered the political field. Nature had not

intended Mme. la Duchesse de Longueville for a business career; she

was the impersonation of the soft graces of elegant leisure; and even

in her grave she charmed men, as she will always charm them while

there exists a portrait of her pale hair and angelic eyes, or an

historian to recount "the delights of her calm mind illumined by the

reflection of celestial light."[136] The fashionable education of the

day had been her ruin; the little court of the Hôtel de Condé, long

sojourns at Chantilly, where people lived as the heroes and heroines

lived in _Astrée_,[137] excessive novel-reading and frequent and

subtle discussions of "love" had made Mme. de Longueville a finished

sentimentalist; and in her path she had found waiting for her a man

well disposed and well fitted to exploit her sentimentalism, and bold

enough to avow the part played by him in her career.

La Rochefoucauld's ambition was to augment the grandeur of his house,

and he could not see why he should not put France to fire and sword,

if by doing so he could seat his wife on a tabouret close to the

Queen.[138] Under his guidance, Mme. de Longueville cast off her sloth

and sacrificing her indolence to what she was assured was her "glory,"

became a political centre and acquired an influence as romantic as

herself. Many of the lords who, after the flight of the Court, offered

their swords to Parliament "for the service of the oppressed King"

(that was the formula), were urged to that action by the persuasive

Mme. de Longueville. M. de Longueville was her first recruit, the

Prince de Conti was her second.

As soon as it was known that France was preparing for civil war,

Mesdames de Longueville and de Bouillon started for Paris. The day

after they arrived at their destination they presented themselves at

the Hôtel de Ville, saying that they had come "to live right there, in

the Town Hall, under the eye of the municipality, as hostages for the

fidelity of their husbands."

Imagine [said Retz] these two ladies seated in the portico of the

Hôtel de Ville, all the more beautiful because they had arranged

themselves as if they had not cared for their appearance, though,

in fact, they had taken great pains with it. Each held one of her

children in her arms; and the children were as beautiful as their

mothers. The Grève was full of people, even to the roofs. All the

men shouted with joy, and all the women wept their tenderness.

Having been gently led into the street by the aldermen, the

Duchesses timidly returned to the portico and seated themselves

in their old places. The city authorities then abandoned a vacant

room to them, and in a few hours, with furniture and with other

articles, they turned the concession into a luxurious salon, where

they received the visits of the Parisians that same evening. Their

salon was full of people of the fine world; the women were in full

evening dress, the men were in war harness; violins were played in

a corner, trumpets sounded an answer from the street, and people

who loved romance were able to fancy that they were at the home of

"Galatée" in _Astrée_.

So the Parisians were duped in the first days of the Fronde. "Galatée"

reigned, and the reign of nymphs is expensive. The Court of the nymphs

was daily augmented by general officers who offered themselves to the

cause amidst the artless plaudits of the people. The generals were as

expensive as the nymphs; they demanded money for themselves and for

their soldiers; they exacted from Parliament a promise which Parliament

agreed to put into effect whenever it could make terms with the Regent.

M. le Prince de Conti demanded an important place at Court, money, and

favours for his friends. M. de Beaufort demanded an important position,

the government of a province for his father, money and pensions for

himself, favours for his friends.

The Duc de Beaufort was a jolly dog whom the people loved. He was

called "the King of the Halles," a title which expressed his popularity

with the fish-wives, rabbit-pullers, agents of the abattoirs,

strong-porters, sellers of mortuary wreaths, cheese merchants, and

all the rest. He lounged through the markets and the slums tossing

his sumptuous head like a Phœbus-Apollo. He affected the _argot_ of

the canaille. His good nature was infectious and although he was an

Harpagon and a brigand by proxy, he was a very agreeable courtier.

[Illustration: MADAME DE LA VALLIÉRE

FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING]

The Maréchal de la Motte demanded a colonelcy for himself and favours

for his friends. Every one wanted something, and all felt that whatever

was to be had must be had at once; the time was coming when the nation

would have nothing to bestow.

A document now before me contains sixteen names; the greatest names of

France.[139] The owners of those names betrayed the King for the people

because they hoped to gain honours and benefits by their treason. They

would have betrayed the people for the King had they hoped to gain more

from the King than from the people. The nobility had taken the position

held by certain modern agitators; they resorted to base means because

they were at an extremity. Like the farmers of France, the nobles had

been ruined by the egotism of the royal policy.

They had been taught to think that they could not stand alone.

Richelieu had prepared for an absolute monarchy by making them

dependent upon the King's bounty; he had habituated them to look for

gifts. This fact does not excuse the sale of their signatures, but it

explains it. They knew that they had lost everything, they knew that

the time was at hand when, should all go, as they had every reason

of believing that it would go, the Government would have favours to

bestow; they knew that their only means of speculation lay in their

signatures. They were not base hirelings,--their final struggle was

proof of that! they were the "fools of habit"; Richelieu had taught

them to beg and they begged clamorously with outstretched hands, and

not only begged but trafficked.

When they demanded honours and favours they did nothing more than their

hierarchical head had habituated them to do. So much for their sale of

signatures. The fact that they had resolved to make a supreme fight,

not for independence,--they had no conception of independence,--but

against an absolute monarchy,[140] explains the Fronde of the Princes.

At the other end of the social ladder the mobility, or riff-raff, had

taken the upper hand, dishonoured the people's cause, and made the

Parisians ridiculous.

Driven to arms by their wrongs, lured by the magnetic eloquence of the

skilled agents of political egotists, led by a feverish army of men who

held their lives in their hands, and commanded by women who played with

war as they played with love, the soldiers of the Fronde wandered over

the country encamping with gaily attired and ambitious coquettes, and

with ardent cavaliers whose gallant examples fretted their own enforced

inaction. They were practical philosophers, moved by the instinct which

sends the deer to its sanctuary. "Country" and "Honour" had come to be

but shibboleths: they, the Frondeurs, were of a race apart from the

stern regulars who blocked the capital under Condé, and when the time

to fight came they ran, crying their disgust so loud that the whole

country halted to listen. The public shame was unquestionable, and the

national culpability, like the culpability of the individual, was well

understood; the cry of "treason" aroused a general sense of guilt.

Certain of the men of France had been faithful to the country from the

beginning; the nation's statesmen, notably the magistrates, had acted

for the public good; but in the general accusation Parliament, like

all the other factors of the Government, was branded; its motives were

questioned, and the names of honest men were made a by-word.

Passing and repassing, in and out of all the groups and among all the

coteries, glided the Archbishop's coadjutor; now in the costume of

a cavalier, bedizened with glittering tinsel, now in the lugubrious

habit of his office. When dressed to represent the Church he harangued

the people wherever he chanced to meet them; the night-hawks saw him

disguised and masked running to the dens of his conspirators. Whatever

else he was doing, he found time to preach religion, and he never

missed a gathering of pretty women.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the price of bread had tripled; the Revolution had reached

the provinces, and the generals had signed a treaty of alliance with

Spain. This was paying dear for the violins of the heroines of the

Hôtel de Ville!

In Parliament the magistrates, the solid men of France, revolted

against the seigniors as they had revolted against the barricades. They

knew what influences had been brought to bear upon individuals, they

had seen the royal power exercised to the ruin of the country, they

knew the strength of the mobility, and their own honour had been called

in question; but their action was the result of an unselfish impulse.

National affection, a natural patriotism, had raised them above fear

and above rancour. They were determined to rescue the country, and they

had lost faith in all intentions save their own.

Acting on their own counsel and on their own responsibility, they

hastened to conclude the peace negotiations of Rueil (11th March,

1649). Their action irritated the generals. Peace thus arranged was not

in their plan; it brought them no profit: they argued and bargained.

To quote Mme. de Motteville, they "demanded all France" in payment

for their part in the treaty. They made it plain that if they should

give their signatures it would be because they had been paid for

them. Shameless haggling marked this period of the Fronde. After all

those who had influence or signatures to dispose of had plucked the

many-membered monarchy even to its pin-feathers, and after each of

the assistants had taken a leg or a wing for himself, the generals

consented to lay down their arms, and peace was proclaimed to the sound

of trumpets.

The day after the proclamation was issued, Mademoiselle asked her

father and the Queen for permission to return to Paris.

She wished to see how the Parisians regarded her and how they would

receive her. She set out from Saint Germain across the devastated

country. The soldiers of both parties had burned the houses, cut down

the trees, and massacred or put to flight the inhabitants. It was

April, the time when all the orchards are in flower, but the suburbs

within six miles of Paris were bare and black; the ground was as

lifeless as a naked rock.

III

"Monday, 8th April," noted a contemporary, "Mlle. d'Orléans arrived

at her lodgings in the Tuileries, amidst the great applause of the

Parisians. Tuesday, the 9th, every one called on Mademoiselle."

Mademoiselle wrote: "As soon as I was in my lodgings every one came

to see me; all Paris came, the highest and the lowest of the party.

During my three days' stay in Paris my house was never empty." A second

visit to the Tuileries was equally triumphant, and Mademoiselle was

confirmed in her determination to accomplish her destiny by marrying

the King of France. The project was public property; the capital of the

kingdom approved it, and the people were ready to barricade the streets

in case the King, the Queen, or the Italian objected to it.

_Mademoiselle should sit upon the throne! the People willed it!_

* * * * *

At that time a comedy equal to any presented upon the stages of the

theatres was played at Saint Germain, and the Queen was leading

lady. The chiefs of the Fronde, generals, members of Parliament,

representatives of all the corporate bodies and of all the

classes--even the humblest--visited the château and assured the Queen

of their allegiance. As Mademoiselle said: "No one would confess that

he had ever harboured an intention against the King; it was always some

one else whom he or she had opposed." The Queen received every one.

She was as gracious to the shop-keeper as to the duke and peer. Anne

of Austria appeared to believe all the professions that the courtiers

made; and all alike, high and low, went away with protestations of joy

and love.[141] The only one who lost her cue in this courtly comedy

was Mme. de Longueville. Her position was so false that though she

was artful she quailed; she was embarrassed, she blushed, stammered,

and left the royal presence furiously angry at the Queen, although,

to quote an ingenuous chronicler,[142] "the Queen had done nothing to

intimidate her."

Saint Germain returned the visits made by the city, and each courtier

was received in a manner appropriate to his deserts. Condé was saluted

with hoots and hisses. The Parisians had not forgotten the part that

he had played in the suburbs. The other members of the Court were well

received, and when the Queen, seated in her coach, appeared, holding

the little King by her hand, the people's enthusiasm resembled an

attack of hysteria. The city had ordered a salute, and the gunners

were hard at work, but the public clamour was so great that it drowned

the booming of the cannon, and the aldermen fumed because, as they

supposed, their orders to fire the salute had been ignored.[143]

Exclamations and plaudits hailed the procession at every step. The

canaille thrust their heads through the doors of the royal carriage and

smiled upon the King; they voiced their praises with vehemence. Mazarin

was the success of the day; the women thought him beautiful, and they

told him so; the men clasped his hands. Mazarin eclipsed Mademoiselle,

and Mademoiselle, neglected by the people, found the time very long.

Speaking of that hour she said, "Never was I bored as I was that day!"

The beauty of the Queen's favourite won the hearts of the people of

the Halles, and the royal party entered the palace in triumph. When

Anne of Austria first left her palace, after her return from exile, the

women who peddled herrings fell upon her in a mass and with streaming

eyes begged her to forgive them for opposing her. Anne of Austria was

bewildered by the transports of their admiration. They approved of her

choice of a lover; they sympathised with her in her love, and they were

determined to make her understand it. The Queen's delicacy was wounded

by the latitude of their protestations.

Paris had made the first advances and royalty had accepted them. As

there were no public "journals," to speak to the country, a ball was

given to proclaim that peace had been made, and the ball and the

fireworks which followed--and which depicted a few essential ideas upon

the sky by means of symbolical figures--acted as official notices. The

fête took place with great magnificence the 5th September.

Louis XIV. was much admired, and his tall cousin almost as much so.

"In the first figure the King led Mademoiselle," said the _Chronicle_

"and he did it so lightly and with such delicacy that he might have

been taken for a cupid dancing with one of the graces." The guests of

the Hôtel de Ville, the little and the large Bourgeoisie, men, wives,

and daughters, contemplated the spectacle from the tribunes; they were

not permitted to mingle with the Court. Anne of Austria watched them

intently; she was unable to conceal her surprise at their appearance.

The wives of the bourgeois displayed a luxury equal to that of the

wives of the nobles. Apparently their costumes were the work of a Court

dressmaker. Their diamonds were superb. Anne of Austria had assisted at

all the official fêtes of thirty years, and she had never seen such a

thing.

The French Bourgeoisie was to be counted; not ignored. The appearance

of the bourgeoises was a warning, but the quality either could not, or

would not seize it.

When Paris had wept all the tears of its tenderness it returned to its

former state of discontent. The whole country was restless; news of

revolts came from the provinces. Condé was hated; he was imperious and

exacting; he was in bad odour at Court; he had offended the Queen. As

Mazarin was in the way of his plans, he had attempted to present the

Queen with another favourite. Jarzé, a witless popinjay, was the man

chosen by Condé to supplant the accomplished successor of de Richelieu.

Jarzé was a human starling; he was giddy, stupid, and in every way

ill-fitted to enter the lists with a rival armed with the gravity, the

personal beauty, and the subtlety of Mazarin. Jarzé had full confidence

in his own powers; he believed that to win his amorous battles he had

only to have his hair frizzed and storm the fort. Anne of Austria was

sedate and modest and she was deep in love. Jarzé had hardly opened the

attack when she ordered him from her presence. Condé, stunned by the

effect of his diplomacy, wavered an instant upon the field, but a sharp

order from the Queen sent him after his protégé. Anne of Austria felt

the outrage, and she vowed eternal anger to Condé.

* * * * *

Condé's lack of tact, coupled with his determination to work miracles,

led him into many false positions. He had no political wit, and nothing

could have been less like the great Condé of the battle-field than the

awkward and insignificant Condé of civil life. In battle he acted as

by inspiration. He surged before his armies like the god of war; he

was calm, indifferent to danger, impetuous, and terrible; face to face

with death, his mind developed and he could give a hundred orders to a

hundred persons at once.[144] In Parliament, or with the chiefs of his

political party, he was as nervous as a woman; he stood trembling, with

face paling or reddening, laughing when he ought to weep, and bursting

into fits of anger when the occasion called for joy. There was nothing

fixed, or stable, in his whole make-up, except his overweening pride

and an "invincible immoderation,"[145] which eventually precipitated

him into the abyss. No one had as much natural wit, yet no one was as

fantastic in tastes and in behaviour. He adored literature: sobbed

over _Cinna_ and thought Gomberville's _Polexandre_ admirable. He

swooned when he parted with Mlle. de Vigean, a few days later he--as

Mademoiselle termed it--"forgot her all at one blow." He was a great

genius but a crackbrain; a complicated being, full of contrasts and

contradictions, but singularly interesting. He has been described as a

"lank prince, with unkempt, dusty hair, a face like a bird-of-prey, and

a flaming eye whose look tried men's souls."

The summer was barely over when Condé forced the Cardinal to sign

a promise not to do any thing without his (Condé's) permission.

Condé's imperious nature had driven him head long, and at that moment

Monsieur's position depended upon his own activity. He had it in his

power to sell support to the Crown; the Queen was on Change as a

buyer. One step more and it would be d'Orléans against Condé with the

Throne of France at his back! Monsieur's wife and Mademoiselle seldom

agreed upon any subject, but they united in urging Monsieur to seize

his opportunity. As usual, the household spies informed the people

of the family discussions, and the popular balladists celebrated the

aspirations of the ladies d'Orléans by a song which was sung all over

Paris. France was represented as imploring Monsieur to save her from

Condé, and Gaston was represented as answering:

... "I am sleepy! I would pass my life in sleep,

Never have I a wish to be awakened:

My wife, my daughter, you plead in vain,

I sleep."[146]

Monsieur trembled with fear [wrote Retz]; at times it was

impossible to persuade him to go to Parliament; he would not go

even with Condé for an escort; the bare thought of it terrified

him. When a paroxysm of fear seized him it was said that his Royal

Highness was suffering from another attack of colic.

One day when several of his friends had, by their united efforts

succeeded in getting him as far as the Saint Chapelle, he turned and

ran back to his palace with the precipitation and the grimaces of a

client of M. Purgon.[147]

Nothing could be done with Gaston; his conduct made Mademoiselle

heart-sick. When the second or new Fronde took shape she had no part

in it. She looked, on as a listless spectator, while Mazarin spun

his web around his enemies and worked his way toward the old Fronde.

Condé was marching on to a species of dictatorship when the King's

minions brought him to a halt. He was arrested and cast into prison

and the Parisians celebrated his disgrace by building bonfires (18th

January). A great political party composed of women from all parts of

France arose to champion Condé, and still the bravest of all women, La

Grande Mademoiselle, sat with head bowed, deep in grief; her father's

cowardice had drained life of its joy.

Having aroused the wrath of France by adventures which were the scandal

of their hour, Mme. de Longueville had taken refuge in a foreign land

and formed an alliance with Spain. France looked on bewildered by the

turn of events; Mme. de Chevreuse and the Princess Palatine were in

active life regarded as equals of men of State, consulted, and obeyed.

Mme. de Montbazon had her own sphere of action; Mme. de Chatillon had

hers[148]; both ladies were powerful and dangerous politicians. Others,

by the dozen, and from one end of the kingdom to the other, were

engaged in directing affairs of State.

Even the insignificant wife of Condé whom no one--not even her

husband--had counted as worthy of notice, had reached the front rank at

a bound by the upheaval of Bordeaux; yet La Grande Mademoiselle, who

possessed the spirit and the energy of a man, was peremptorily ordered

by her father and forced to follow Anne of Austria from province to

province suppressing insurrections.

In the many months which Mademoiselle considered as unworthy of note in

her memoirs, the only period of time well employed by her was passed in

an attack of smallpox, which she received so kindly that it embellished

her; she said of it: "Before then my face was all spotted; the smallpox

took that all away."

* * * * *

Mme. de Longueville's alliance with Spain had cost France the invasion

of the Archduke Leopold and de Turenne. In 1650 the Court went to the

siege of Bordeaux and Mademoiselle was compelled to accompany the Queen

and to appear as an adherent of the King's party; but before she set

out upon her distasteful journey she wrote a letter to the invader

(the Archduke Leopold) which she was not ashamed to record and which

contained a frank statement of her opinion:

Your troops are more capable of causing joy than fear. The whole

Court takes your arrival in good part, and your enterprises will

never be regarded as suspicious. Do all that it pleases you to do;

the victories that you are to win will be victories of benevolence

and affection.[149]

Let us remember the nature of those victories of "benevolence and

affection" before we form an opinion. Time has veiled with romance the

manœuvres which the amazons of the Fronde made to excite the masses to

rebellion, but the legend loses its glamour when we consider the brutal

ferocity of the armies of the seventeenth century and the abominations

practised in the name of glory. The women who shared the life of the

generals of the Fronde were travesties of heroines, devoid of the

gentler instincts of woman; there was nothing good in them; their

imaginations were perverted, they incited their followers to cruelty,

and playing with tigerish grace with the love of men, they babbled

musically, in artful and well-turned sentences, of the questions of

the day, and mocked and wreathed their arms above their heads when

their victims were dying.

* * * * *

The Court arrived at Libourne 1st August and remained there thirty

days. The weather was very warm, and the Queen secluded herself in her

apartment and forced Mademoiselle to sit at her side working on her

tapestry. Mademoiselle fumed; she was imprisoned like a child while

all the ladies of France were engaged in military service. To add to

her mortification, she felt that the Queen had taken a false step and

that all Paris was laughing at the Court. Sitting in the Queen's close

rooms, Mademoiselle reflected bitterly on her position. She had again

entered into collusion with Saujon. The Emperor was for the second time

a widower, and Mademoiselle had re-employed the services of her old

ambassador. She had sent Saujon to the Emperor to make a second attempt

to arrange a marriage. But she had not renounced the King of France,

and one of her confidential friends had opened her eyes to the real

character of her enterprise. Until then it had seemed natural enough

that she should make efforts to establish herself in life; but through

the officious indelicacy of her friend she had learned that she was

pursuing two husbands at once. One of the objects of her pursuit was

a man of ripe age, doubly widowed, the husband of two dead wives; the

other a child of tender years,--and neither one nor the other would

consent to marry her. She was glad to be far from Paris, where every

one knew and pitied her. She burned incense to all her gods and prayed

that civil war might keep the Parisians too busy to remember her. Her

grief and shame were at their height when the scene changed. Monsieur

awoke; Retz had worked a miracle. By means of his peculiar method,

acting upon the principle of humanity's susceptibility to intelligent

suggestion, Retz had persuaded Monsieur that he, Monsieur, was the only

man in France fit to mediate between the parties; after long-continued

series of efforts his clerical insinuations had aroused Gaston from

his torpor, and one evening when the Queen, flushed and irritable, and

Mademoiselle, dejected but defiant, sat at their needlework Gaston

entered the dim salon and announced his importance. The trickster of

the pulpit and of the slums had managed to infuse a little of his own

spirit into the royal poltroon, and for the first time in his political

career Gaston displayed some of the characteristics of a man. In an

hour Bordeaux knew that the Prince d'Orléans had arrived in Libourne as

the accredited mediator of the parties. The politicians fawned at his

feet, and Anne of Austria rose effusively to do honour to Monsieur le

Prince d'Orléans. By order of the Regent all despatches were submitted

to Gaston, who passed upon them as best he could.

Mazarin rose to meet the situation; he was not bewildered by Retz's

tactics; he affected to believe that Monsieur must be consulted upon

all matters, and by his orders Monsieur's tables were littered with

documents. Mazarin multiplied occasions for displaying his allegiance

to the royal arbiter. Mademoiselle met the change in her situation

joyfully, but calmly. It was the long-expected first smile of fortune;

it was the natural consequence of her birth; things were entering

their natural order; but she was observant and her mémoirs show us

that she valued her incense at its real worth. While the political

world bent the knee before Monsieur Mazarin fortified his own position.

He sat with the ladies in the Queen's salon, he betrayed a fatherly

solicitude in Mademoiselle's future and, as he acted his part, his

enthusiasm increased. One day when he was alone with Mademoiselle he

assured her that he had prayed long and earnestly for her establishment

upon one of the thrones of the world. Sitting at her tapestry,

Mademoiselle listened and averted her head to hide her anger. Mazarin,

supposing that he had aroused her gratitude, exposed all his anxiety.

Mademoiselle did not answer. At last, astonished by her silence, he

cut short his declamation. Mademoiselle counted her stitches and

snipped her threads; Mazarin watched her impassive face. After a long

silence she arose, pushed aside her embroidery frame, and turning to

enter her own apartment, she said calmly: "There is nothing upon earth

so base that you have not thought of it this morning." Mazarin was

alone; he sat with eyes fixed upon the floor, smiling indulgently,

wrapt in thought; he was not angry,--he was never visibly excited to

anger; but he did not return to the subject. Mademoiselle had resented

his overtures because she had made known her projects freely and he

had promised her a king, not an emperor. She reported the Cardinal's

conduct to Lenet: "The Cardinal has promised me, a hundred times, that

he would arrange to have me marry the King[150]--but the Cardinal is

a knave!" The Queen said with truth that Mademoiselle was becoming

a rabid Frondeuse. Mademoiselle had her own corps of couriers, who

carried her the latest news from Paris; her court was larger than the

Regent's. When Bordeaux was taken the people saw nothing and talked of

nothing but Monsieur's daughter. Mademoiselle exultantly recorded her

triumph:

"No one went to the Queen's, and when she passed in the streets no one

cared at all for her. I do not know that it was very agreeable to her

to hear that my court was large and that no one was willing to leave my

house, when so few cared to go to her house."

While the Regent languished in solitude waiting for visitors who

did not arrive her Minister received the rebuffs of the people of

Bordeaux. The Queen was sick from chagrin, and as soon as arrangements

could be made she returned to Paris. On the way to Paris the Court

stopped at Fontainebleau. Gaston descended brusquely from his coach

and as his foot touched the ground gave way to a violent outburst

of nervous anger. Mazarin was the object of his fury; in some occult

way the Cardinal had wounded his feelings. He fled to his room and

locked his door, refusing to see either Mazarin or the Queen. As he

stood his ground, and as no one could approach him, the Queen implored

Mademoiselle to pacify him; and Mademoiselle, carrying her olive

branch with a very bad grace, set out to play the part of dove in the

ark. After many goings and comings, Monsieur consented to receive the

Queen; but the Queen acidulated rather than sweetened the royal broth,

and Monsieur broke away from her in a passion of fury. From that time

all that Anne of Austria attempted to do failed; her evil hour was

approaching. Mazarin had thought of two alternatives: he believed that

he might buy Retz by making him a cardinal; or that he might win the

good-will of Mademoiselle by marrying her to the King. But could he do

either one thing or the other? Could he mortify his own soul by doing

anything to give Retz pleasure? Retz was hateful to him.

Despite his powerful diplomatic capacity, Mazarin was not a politician,

and some of his instincts bore a curious family resemblance to the

characteristic instincts of the average woman; so although he believed

that it would be possible to buy Retz with a red hat the thought of

giving him the hat distressed him. So much for one of his alternatives!

As to marrying Mademoiselle to the King of France,--that would be

difficult, if not impossible; the thought of such a marriage was

repugnant to the King. Louis XIV. was wilful and the Queen was an

indulgent mother. She pampered her children; she excused the King's

failings. Mazarin was patient, but he had often considered Anne of

Austria adverse to reason when the King was in question. The Cardinal

was master of the Queen, but he was not, he never had been, he never

could be, master of the Queen-mother.

In his extremity he resorted to his usual means,--intrigue; but he

found that his power had waned. There were people who might have helped

him, and who would have helped him in former times, but they had ceased

to fear him; they demanded pay and refused to work without it. Mazarin

was too normally natural a man to act against nature; he clung to his

economies and as his supposititious agents refused to take their pay in

"blessed water," his plans failed. His attempts were reported to his

intended victims and before the sun set Mademoiselle of the Court and

of the people, and the Abbé Retz of the Archbishopric and of the slums

had arisen in their might against "the foreigner." Both of the leaders

of the masses were implacable; each was powerful in his own way; both

believed that they had been duped by the Archbishop's coadjutor; Retz

had expected a hat; Mademoiselle had expected a husband; both, vowing

vengeance to the death, turned their backs upon Mazarin. Mademoiselle

had acquired the habit of suspicion; politics had given her new

ideas; Retz had always been suspicious and he had prepared for every

emergency. Mazarin, sitting in his perfumed bower, felt that the end

was near. What was he? What had they always called him? "The stranger."

... The whole world was against him ... the nobles, the Parliaments

... the old Fronde, the Fronde of the Princes! ... Retz with his

adjutants of the mobility! To crown his imprudence and to prove that

he was more powerful as a lover than as a politician, Mazarin took the

field at Rethel (15th December, 1650) and won the day; Turenne and

his foreigners were beaten, and fear seized the people of France. An

intriguer of that species could do anything! France was not safe in his

presence; he must be driven out! During the Fronde it was common for

women to dictate the terms of treaties. Anne de Gonzague, the Palatine

Princess, whose only mandate lay in her eyes, her wit, and her bold

spirit, drew up the treaty which followed Rethel, and the principal

articles were liberty for the princes and exile for Mazarin.

Mademoiselle approved both articles before the treaty was signed. The

times were full of possibilities for her; her visions of a marriage

with Louis XIV. had been blurred by a sudden apparition. Condé had

arisen in her dreams with a promise of something better. Might it not

be wiser policy to unite the junior branches of the House of France?

Might it not be more practical, more fruitful in results, to marry M.

le Prince de Condé than to wage war against him? That he was a married

man was of small importance. His wife, the heroine of Bordeaux, was

in delicate health and as liable to die as any mortal; in the event

of her death the dissent of the Opposition would be the only serious

obstacle. Mademoiselle confided all her perplexities to her memoirs;

she foresaw that the dissent of the Opposition would be ominous for

the royal authority, and therefore ominous for the public peace. She

reflected; Condé was a strong man; and who was stronger than the

Granddaughter of France? She decided that they two, she and Condé,

made one by marriage, might defy the obstacle. Mazarin knew all her

thoughts, and he felt that the earth was crumbling under his feet; to

quote Mademoiselle's own words: "He was quasi-on-his-knees" before her,

offering her the King of France; but he made one condition: she must

prevent her father's adhesion to the cause of M. le Prince.[151] Anne

of Austria, with eyes swimming in tears, presented herself humbly,

imploring Mademoiselle, in the name of their ancient friendship, to

soften Monsieur's heart to "Monsieur le Cardinal." The Queen begged

Mademoiselle to make her father understand that she, the Queen, "could

not refuse Monsieur anything should he render her such service."

Mademoiselle was ready to burst with pride when she repeated the

Queen's promise. A future as bright as the stars lay before her; for

the first time and for the last time she had a reason for her dreams.

Monsieur was the recognised chief of the coalition against Mazarin, but

he was afraid to act; he did not like to leave compromising traces;

he resisted when it was necessary to sign his name. Knowing that the

treaty uniting the two Frondes must be signed and that he must sign it,

his political friends went in a body to the Luxembourg treaty in hand.

Gaston saw them coming and tried to escape, but they caught him in the

opening of a double door, and closing the two sides of the door upon

his body, squeezing him as in a vise, they thrust a pen between his

fingers; then holding a hat before him for the treaty to rest on, they

compelled him to sign his name. An eye-witness said that "he signed it

as he would have signed a compact with the devil had he feared to be

interrupted by his good angel." A few weeks later Parliament demanded

the release of the princes and the exile of Mazarin. Then Mademoiselle

was given a vision which filled her cup of joy to overflowing.

I had intended [she wrote in her memoirs] to go to bed very early,

because I had arisen very early that morning; but I did not do

it, because just as I was undressing they came to tell me of a

rumour in the city. My curiosity led me out upon the terrace of

the Tuileries. The terrace looked out upon several sides. It was

a very beautiful moonlight night and I could see to the end of

the street.[152] On the side toward the water was a barrier; some

cavaliers were guarding the barrier to favour the departure of M.

le Cardinal, who was leaving by way of La Conférence; the boatmen

were crying out against his getting away; there were many valets

and my violin players, who are soldiers, although that is not their

profession. They were all trying to drive away the cavaliers, who

were helping Mazarin to escape. Some pretty hot shots were fired.

* * * * *

At that same hour the Palais Royal was the scene of a drama. Mazarin

was taking leave, and the Queen thought that she was looking upon him

for the last time. The lovers who shared so many memories, and who must

have had so many things to say before they parted, dared not, even for

a moment, evade the hundreds of eyes fixed upon them. Mazarin could not

conceal his grief; the Queen, though calm, was very grave. To the last

moment the unhappy pair were forced to speak in such a way that the

courtiers could not judge of their sorrow by their looks. At last it

was over; the door closed upon Mazarin, and the wretched Queen was left

among her courtiers. Mazarin hurried to his rooms, disguised himself

as a cavalier, and went on foot out of the Palais Royal. Finding that

the cavaliers and river-men were fighting on the quay, he turned into

the rue de Richelieu and went away unmolested. It is known that before

going to Germany he went to the prison of Havre and set the princes

free. Eleven days after Mazarin took leave of the Queen Paris learned

that Condé was _en route_ and that he was to sup at the Luxembourg the

following day. Mademoiselle knew that her new projects depended upon

her first meeting with M. le Prince. She had sent the olive branch to

his prison, but she did not know how he had received it. She awaited

his coming at the Luxembourg. She said of that first interview:

Messieurs the Princes came into Madame's salon, where I was,

and after they saluted they came to me and paid me a thousand

compliments. M. le Prince bore witness in particular that he had

been very much pleased when Guiteau assured him of my repentance

for the great repugnance that I had felt for him. The compliments

ended, we avowed the aversion that we had felt for one another.

He confessed that he had been delighted when I fell sick of

the smallpox, that he had passionately wished that I might be

disfigured by it, and that I might be left with some deformity,--in

short, he said that nothing could have added to the hatred that

he felt for me. I avowed to him that I had never felt such joy as

I felt when he was put in prison, that I had strongly wished that

he might be kept there, and that I had thought of him only to wish

him evil. This reciprocal enlightenment lasted a long time, and it

cheered and amused the company and ended in mutual assurances of

friendship.

During the interview the tumult of a great public fête was heard. At

sight of Condé Paris had been seized by one of her sudden infatuations.

At the gates of the Palais Royal the masses mounted guard night and day

to prevent the abduction of the King. It was generally supposed that

the Queen would try to follow the Cardinal.

The Frondeurs were masters of Paris; their hour had come, and they held

it in their power to prove that they had led France into adventures

because they had formed a plan which they considered better than the

old plan. But if there were any among them who were thinking of

reform, their good intentions were not perceptible. The people of the

past resembled the people of our day; they thought little of the public

suffering. Interest in the actions of the great, or in the actions

of the people whose positions gave them relative greatness, excluded

interest in the general welfare. The rivalries and the personal efforts

of the higher classes were the public events of France. Parliament

was working along its own lines, hoping to gain control of the State,

to hold a monopoly of reforms, and to break away from the nobility.

The nobility, jealous of the "long robes," had directly addressed the

nation's depths: the bourgeoisie and the mobility.

Retz had supreme hope: to be a Cardinal. Condé hoped to be Prime

Minister. Gaston had staked a throw on all the games. Mme. de

Longueville dreamed of new adventures; and the Queen, still guided by

her far-off lover, laboured in her own blind way upon a plan to benefit

her little brood. She looked upon France, upon the people, and upon

the Court as enemies; she had concentrated her mind upon one object;

she meant to deceive them all and turn events to her own advantage.

By the grace of the general competition of egotism, falsehood, broken

promises, and treason, the autumn of 1651 found the Spaniards in the

East, civil war in the West, the Court in hot pursuit of the rebels,

want and disease stalking the land, and La Grande Mademoiselle still

in suspense. In the spring during a period of thirty-six hours she

had supposed that she was about to marry Condé. Condé's wife had been

grievously sick from erysipelas in the head; to quote Mademoiselle's

words: "The disease was driven inward, which gave people reason for

saying that were she to die I might marry M. le Prince."

At that critical moment Mademoiselle freely unfolded her hopes and

fears; she said:

Madame la Princesse lingered in that extremity three days,

and during all that time the marriage was the subject of my

conversation with Préfontaine. We did not speak of anything else.

We agitated all those questions. What gave me reason to speak of

them was that, to add to all that I heard said, M. le Prince came

to see me every day. But the convalescence of Madame la Princesse

closed the chapter for the time being and no one thought of it any

more.

In the course of the summer the Princess Palatine, who supposed that

she could do anything because she had effected, or to say the least

concluded the union of the Frondes, offered to marry Mademoiselle

to the King "before the end of September." Mme. de Choisy, another

prominent politician, exposed the conditions of the bargain to

Mademoiselle, who recorded them in the following lucid terms:

Mme. de Choisy said to me: "The Princess Palatine is such a

blatant beggar that you will have to promise her three hundred

écus in case she makes your affair a success." I said "yes" to

everything. "And," pursued Mme. de Choisy, "I wish my husband to

be your Chancellor. We shall pass the time so agreeably, because

la Palatine will be your steward; you will give her a salary of

twenty thousand écus; she will sell all the offices in the gift of

your house,--so you may imagine that it will be to her interest to

make your affair succeed. We will have a play given at the Louvre

every day. She will rule the King." Those were the words she used!

One may guess how charmed I was at the idea of being in such a

state of dependence! Evidently she thought that she was giving me

the greatest pleasure in the world.

Although Mademoiselle did not go as far as to say "no," she ceased to

say "yes" to everything. Her reason for doing so was baseless. She

had acquired the conviction that the young King, Louis XIV., loved

the tall cousin who seemed so old to his thirteen-year mind.[153] La

Grande Mademoiselle appalled him; her abrupt ways and her explosions

of anger drove back his timid head into its tender shell; but she had

persuaded herself that he wished to marry her. And she was so sure of

her facts that she dropped the oars provided by Mme. de Choisy, and

sat up proudly in her rudderless bark, without sail or compass. She

believed that the King loved her, she was thankful to be at rest, and

she left to her supposed lover the care of the royal betrothal; she

sighed ingenuously: "That way of becoming Queen would have pleased me

more than the other." That is easily understood; however, nothing came

of it. Anne of Austria had sworn to her niece that she would give her

the King; but when Mademoiselle's back was turned she, the Queen, said

stiffly: "He would not be for her nose even were he well grown!"[154]

Mazarin had done well in supposing that there would be some advantage

in intermarrying the junior branches as a means of ending the family

quarrels.

I have learned from different sources [he wrote to the Queen] that

Mademoiselle's marriage to the King would arrange everything. Le

Tellier[155] came expressly to see me; he came from Retz and the

Princess Palatine and for that very purpose. And the others also

have written to me about it; but if the King and the Queen have the

same feeling in regard to that matter that they did have, I do not

think that it would be easy to arrange it (7th January, 1652).

Mazarin dared not insist; he felt that he was no longer in a posture

where he could indulge in displeasing exactions. While Parliament was

rendering decisions against Mazarin, the people close to the Queen were

working to obliterate his image from her heart, and their efforts were

successful.[156] They occupied the Queen's mind with other friends,

the thought of whom filled Mazarin with the torments of jealousy. He

was in retreat in Brühl. May 11th he wrote to the Queen: "I wish that

I could express the hatred that I feel for the mischief-makers who are

unceasingly working to make you forget me so that we shall never meet

again."

The 6th July Mazarin had heard that Lyonne had boasted that he pleased

the Queen, and he wrote:

If they could make me believe such a thing either I should die of

grief or I should go away to the end of the world. If you could see

me you would pity me ... there are so many things to torment me

so that I can hardly bear it. For instance, I know that you have

several times asked Lyonne _why he does not take the Cardinal's

apartments_,[157] showing your tenderness for him because he gets

wet passing through the court. I have endured the horrors of two

sleepless nights because of that!

Mazarin spoke passionately of his love; he told the Queen that he was

"dying" for her; that his only joy was to read and re-read her letters,

and that he "wept tears of blood" when they seemed cold; although, as

he said, he knew that no one on earth could break the tie that bound

them. We have none of the Queen's answers, but we know that they called

forth Mazarin's despairing declaration that he should return to Rome.

Three weeks later the Queen caused the King to sign a declaration which

the betrayed lover answered by a pathetic letter.

26th September. I have taken my pen ten times to write to you

... I could not ... I could not ... I am so wretched ... I am so

beside myself at the mortal blow that you have given me, that

I do not know that there will be any sense in what I say. By

an authenticated act the King and the Queen have declared me a

traitor, a public thief, a being inadequate to his office, an

enemy to the repose of Christianity.... Even now that declaration

is sounding all over Europe, and the most faithful, the most

devoted Minister, is held up before the world as a scoundrel ...

an infamous villain. I no longer hope for happiness or for rest.

I ask for nothing but my honour. Give that back to me and let them

take the rest.... Let them strip me, even to my shirt ... I will

renounce all--cardinalates--benefices,--everything! if I can stand

with sustained honour ... as I was before I dreamed of your love.

Time passed, and Mazarin regained his senses, "made arrows of all sorts

of wood," raised an army, and entered France. As he drew near Poitiers,

where the Court was staying, the Queen's heart softened, and when he

arrived she had been at her window an hour watching for him.

IV

In 1651 Mademoiselle was busy. She attended all the sessions of

Parliament and all the seditious soirées of the Luxembourg. She urged

the Frondeurs to violence, and as she was a magnetic speaker, her

influence was great. Her leisure was given to the pleasures which Paris

offers even in time of revolution. She accompanied the King in his

walks and drives; she rode with him to the hunt; whenever he was in

Paris they were together. Mademoiselle had again refused the hand of

Charles II. of England. Charles was still waiting for his kingdom, but

his interest in his future had been awakened; his mind had developed,

and he had determined to enter into possession of his States.

Mademoiselle was courted and ardently admired. The people worshipped

her, the popular voice echoed the spirit of the "Mazarinades" sung by

the street singers. Paris was determined to place her upon the Throne

of France. Well employed though her time had been, she had done nothing

to distinguish herself, nothing to give her a place among heroines

like the Princesse de Condé and the enticing Mme. de Longueville. But

the year 1652 was on its way, and it was to bring her her long-awaited

glory.

After an unsuccessful attempt to make peace, Condé had again taken

the field and called his allies, the Spaniards, to his assistance. He

had carried on his parleys as he had carried on his chastisement of

the suburbs, and his exactions had confirmed hostilities. Maddened by

his failure, he had set out with eyes flaming to break the spirit of

the people and to turn the absolute power instituted by Richelieu to

his own account. Monsieur sustained him against the King. Retz and a

party of Frondeurs were trying to make an alliance with the Queen; they

were ready to consent to everything, even to the return of Mazarin.

Parliament was working for France upon its own responsibility; it

opposed Condé as it opposed Mazarin. Mazarin had bought Turenne and led

the army into the West to fight the rebels. Monsieur's appanage, the

city of Orléans, was menaced by both parties, and it had called its

Prince to its assistance. The people of Orléans had sent word to Paris

that either Monsieur or Mademoiselle must go to Orléans at once: "If

Monsieur could not go Mademoiselle must take his place." Mademoiselle

heard the news and went to the Luxembourg to see her father. She

reported her visit thus:

"I found Monsieur very restless. He complained to me that M. le

Prince's friends were persecuting him by trying to send him to Orléans;

he assured me that to abandon Paris would be to lose our cause. He

declared that he would not go."

[Illustration: VICOMTE DE TURENNE]

The evening of the day of the visit thus reported when Mademoiselle was

at supper in her own palace, an officer approached her and said in a

low voice: "Mademoiselle, we are too happy! it is you who are coming

with us to Orléans."

Mademoiselle's joy knew no bounds. She passed the greater part of

the night preparing for the journey. In the morning she implored

the blessing of God upon her enterprise; and that done, went to the

Luxembourg to take leave of her father. She appeared before Monsieur

dressed for the campaign and followed by her staff. Under the helmets

of her field marshals appeared the bright eyes of women. Inquisitive

people, all eager to see Mademoiselle depart for war, had assembled

in and around the Luxembourg. Some of Monsieur's friends applauded;

others shrugged their shoulders. Monsieur was of too alert a mind to be

blind to the ridiculous side of his daughter's chivalry, and though his

affections were sluggish, he realised that he had set loose a dangerous

spirit. He knew that Mademoiselle was an ardent enemy, that she was

impetuous; that she cared nothing for public opinion; when once started

what could arrest her progress? His paternalism overcame his prudence,

and in a loud, commanding voice he ordered the astonished generals to

obey Mademoiselle _as if she were himself_; then, dragging the most

serious officers of his staff into a far corner of the room where

Mademoiselle could not hear him, he commanded them to hold his daughter

in leash and prevent her from doing anything important "without

explicit orders from her father."

Mademoiselle was in high spirits; her fair hair was coiled under her

helmet, her cheeks glowed, and her eyes blazed; the records of the

day tell us that she was "every inch a handsome queen and soldier,"

that she was "dressed in grey," and that her habit was "all covered

with military lace of pure gold." She took leave of her father amidst

the hurrahs of the people, and all through the city her subjects

wished her joy, called upon God to bless her arms, or blasphemously

proclaimed that such a goddess had no need of the god of the priests.

The day following her departure she was met by the escort sent forward

in advance of her departure by the generals of the Fronde. She was

received by them as chief of the army, and long after that time had

passed with all its triumphs, she proudly noted the fact in her memoirs:

"They were in the field and they all saluted me as their leader!"

To prove her authority she arrested the couriers and seized and read

their despatches. At Toury, where the greater part of the army of

the Fronde was encamped, she presided over the council of war. The

council was all that she could have wished it to be, and her advice

was considered admirable. After the council Mademoiselle gave orders

for the march. In vain the generals repeated her father's last

instructions; in vain they begged her to "await the consent of his

Royal Highness." She laughed in their faces; she cried "_En avant!_"

with the strength of her young lungs. All the trumpets of her army

answered her; the batons of the tambour majors danced before high

Heaven; and, fired by such enthusiasm as French soldiers never knew

again until the Little Corporal called them to glory, the army of

the Fronde took the road, lords, ladies, gallant gentlemen, and raw

recruits.

Night saw them gaily marching; the next morning they thundered at the

gates of Orléans (27th March, 1652).

Mademoiselle announced her presence, but the gates did not open. From

the parapet of the ramparts the garrison rendered her military honours;

she threatened, and the Governor of the city sent her bonbons. The

people locked in the city hailed her with plaudits, but not a hinge

turned. The authorities feared that to let in Mademoiselle would be to

open the city to the entire army. Tired of awaiting the pleasure of the

provost of the merchants, Mademoiselle, followed by Mesdames de Fiésque

and de Frontenac, her field marshals, went round the city close to

the walls, searching for some unguarded or weak spot where she might

enter. All Orleans climbed upon the walls to watch the progress of the

gallant and handsome cavalier-maiden and her aids. It was an adventure!

Mademoiselle was happy; she looked up at the people upon the walls and

cried merrily, "I may have to break down the gates, or scale the walls,

but I will enter!"

Thus, skirting the city close to the walls, the three ladies reached

the banks of the river Loire, and the river-men ran up from their boats

to meet them, and offered to break in a city gate which opened upon the

quay. Mademoiselle thanked them, gave them sums of money, told them to

begin their work, and the better to see them climbed upon a wine-butt.

She recorded that feat, as she recorded all her feats, for the benefit

of posterity: "I climbed the wine-butt like a cat; I caught my hands

on all the thorns, and I leaped all the hedges." Her gentlemen, who

had followed her closely, surrounded her and implored her to return

to her staff. Their importunities exasperated her, and she ordered

them back to their places before the principal gates. She animated the

river-men to do their best, and they worked with a will. The people

within the walls had become impatient, and while the river-men battered

at the outside of the gates they battered at the inside. Gangs of

men, reinforced by women, formed living wedges to help on the good

work. Suddenly a plank gave way and an opening was made. Mademoiselle

descended from her lookout, and the river-men gently carried her

forward and helped her to enter the city. To quote her own words:

As there was a great deal of very bad dirt on the ground, a

_valet-de-pied_ lifted me from the ground and urged me through

the opening; and as soon as my head appeared the people began to

beat the drums.... I heard cries ... "_Vive le Roi!_" "_Vive les

Princes!_" ... "_Point de Mazarin!_" Two men seated me on a wooden

chair, and so glad was I ... so beside myself with joy, that I did

not know whether I was in the chair or on the arm of it! Every one

kissed my hands, and I nearly swooned with laughter to find myself

in such a pleasant state!

The people were transported with delight; they carried her in

procession; a company of soldiers, with drums beating, marched before

the procession to clear the way. Mmes. de Fiésque and de Frontenac

trudged after their leader through the "quantity of very bad dirt,"

surrounded by the people, who did not cease to caress them because, as

is explicitly stated, "they looked upon the two fairly beautiful ladies

as curiosities." The local contemporary chronicles lead us to suppose

that the people were not the only ones who indulged in kisses on that

occasion; the beautiful Comtesse de Fiésque is said to have kissed the

river-men; she was in gallant spirits; la Frontenac finished the last

half of her promenade with "one shoe off and one shoe on," though the

legendary dumpling supposed to attend a parade in "stocking feet" was

lacking.

After events had resumed their regular course, the people wrote and

sung a song which was known all over France:

Deux jeunes et belles comtesses,

Ses deux maréchales de camp,

Suiverent sa royale altesse

Dont on faisait un grand cancan.

Fiésque, cette bonne comtesse!

Allait baisant les bateliers;

Et Frontenac (quelle detresse!)

Y perdit un de ses souliers.

On the way to the Hôtel de Ville the procession met the city

authorities, who stood speechless before them. Mademoiselle feigned

to believe that they had started to open the gates. She greeted them

blandly, listened to their addresses, returned their greetings, and

closed a very successful day by sending a triumphant message to her

father. One by one her staff had entered by the broken gate, and the

generals saluted her with heads low; they were abashed; they had taken

no part in the capture of Orleans.

The Orleanists were firm in their refusal to let the army enter the

city, and the young general, accepting the situation, ordered her

troops to encamp where they were, outside of the chief gates of the

city. The following day at seven o'clock in the morning, Mademoiselle,

enthroned upon the summit of one of the city's towers, looked down

scornfully upon "a quantity of people of the Court" who had hurried

after her hoping to share her victory. The people of Orleans were quick

to catch the spirit of their Princess; they climbed upon the city walls

and jeered at the wornout laggards, and Mademoiselle's cup of joy was

full. She looked with delight upon the discomfiture of the belated

courtiers and upon the envious tears of the travel-stained ladies.

That day she made her first appearance as an orator. Her memoirs tell

us that at first she was "as timid as a girl"; then, regaining her

self-possession, she expounded the theories of the Fronde and told

the people why the nobles had arisen to deliver the country from the

foreigner. When she had said all that she had to say she returned to

her quarters. In her absence the Duc de Beaufort had sallied out,

attacked a city, and been repulsed. Mademoiselle was indignant; she

had not given de Beaufort orders to leave the camp. She called a

court-martial to try him for insubordination and breach of discipline.

Court was convened very early in the morning, in a wine-shop outside

of the city. Despite the long skirts of the field marshals, it was a

stormy meeting. Messieurs de Beaufort and de Nemours came to words,

and from words to blows. They tore off each other's wigs; they drew

their swords. Mademoiselle's hands were full. She passed that day and

the night which followed it in strenuous efforts to calm the tumult.

All the people within hearing of the mêlée had hastened to the field

of action, and being on the spot and in fighting trim, every man had

seized his occasion and settled his difficulty with his neighbour, and

all, civil and military, had fought equally well.

The 30th, letters of congratulation arrived from Paris. Monsieur wrote:

"My daughter, you have saved my appanage, you have assured the peace of

Paris; this is the cause of public rejoicing. You are in the mouths of

the people. All say that your act did justice to the Granddaughter of

Henry the Great." This, from her father, was praise. Condé supplemented

it: "It was your work and due to you alone, and it was a move of the

utmost importance."

Mademoiselle's officers assured her that she had "the eye of a

general," and she accepted as truth all that they told her and

considered it all her due. About that time she wrote to some one at

Court a letter which she intended for the eyes of the Queen, and in the

letter she said in plain words that she intended to espouse the King of

France, and that any one--no matter who it might be--would be unwise to

attempt to thwart her wishes, because she, Mademoiselle, held it in her

power to put affairs in such a state that people would be compelled to

beg favours of her on their knees.[158] Anne of Austria read the letter

and scoffed at it.

Despite her brilliant débuts, Mademoiselle was tired of life. The

authorities of Orleans considered her a girl, and no one in the city

government honoured her orders. Her account of those days is a record

of paroxysms: "I was angry!... I flew into a passion.... I was in a

rage.... I berated them furiously.... I was so angry that I wept!"

Yes, Mademoiselle, whose will had been law to the people of Paris,

could not make the people of Orleans obey her. In answer to her

commands the town authorities sent her sweetmeats, bonbons, and fair

words. When Mademoiselle commanded them, they answered: "Just what

Mademoiselle pleases we shall do!" and having given their answer,

they acted to please themselves. The general commanding the army of

the Fronde was ill-at-ease, sick for Paris, tired of Orleans. She

begged to be permitted to leave Orleans, but her father commanded her

to remain. He enjoyed her absence. She had tried in vain to persuade

him to relieve her of her command; human nature could endure no more;

forgetting her first duty as a soldier, she disobeyed orders and joined

the army of the Fronde at Étampes (May 2d). The weather was perfect;

she had escaped from Orleans, she was on her horse, surrounded by her

ladies. All the generals and "a quantity of officers" had gone on

before, and she could see them, as in a vision, in the golden dust

raised by the feet of their horses; the cannon of the fortified towns

thundered, the drums of her own army rolled; she was in her element;

she was a soldier! Condé once told her, when speaking of a march which

she had ordered, that Gustavus Adolphus could not have done better.

The morning after her arrival at Étampes she went to Mass on foot,

preceded by a military band.[159] After Mass she presided at a council

of war, mounted. After the council she rode down the line and her

troops implored her to lead them to battle.

The review over, she turned her horse toward Paris, not knowing that

Turenne had planned to circumvent the army of the Fronde. Turenne

knew that the presence of the Amazons distracted the young generals,

and he considered the moment favourable to his advance. Near Bourg

la Reine Condé appeared, followed by his staff. Immediately after

his return from the South he had set out for Étampes to salute the

General-in-Chief of the army of the Fronde.

The people had missed their Princess. In her absence they had rehearsed

the sorrows of her life, and she had become doubly dear to them; they

had magnified her trials and idealised her virtues; they had gloried

in her exploits. Relaying one another along the road beyond the city's

gates, they had waited for her coming. At last, after many days, the

outposts of the canaille descried the upright grey figure followed by

the glittering general staff and guarded by the staff of Condé.

The beloved of the people, insulted by the Queen, despoiled by the

Queen's lover of the right of woman to a husband, imprisoned and

forsaken by her father in her hour of need, had risen above humanity!

She had been a heroine, she had forgiven all her enemies, had captured

Orleans, had assured the safety of her own city,--and now she had come

home! They laid their cheeks to the flanks of her horse; they clasped

the folds of her habit; and a cry arose from their wasted throats

that scared the wild doves in the blighted woods along the highway.

Mademoiselle had come home! "_Vive Anne-Marie-Louise, la petite-fille

de la France!_"

* * * * *

Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans, Duchesse de Montpensier, who had taken a

stronghold unaided save by a few boatmen, heard thanksgiving on all

hands, and to crown her joy--for she loved to dance--the city gave a

great fête in her honour. But there was one bitter drop in her cup: her

father had been made sick by her arrival. He dared not punish her in

the face of the people's joy; but he retired to his bed and abandoned

himself to the pangs of colic and, when Mademoiselle, flushed with

pride, arrived at the Luxembourg, he refused to see her; he sent word

to her to "Begone!" he was "too sick to talk of affairs of State."

* * * * *

Monsieur had cares of various species. Condé and his associates had

forced him to take a prominent position in politics, and his terror

of possible consequences made his life a torment. Condé was deep in

treasonable plots. He had returned from his Southern expedition

flaming with anger; he had goaded the people to the verge of fury, and

reduced Parliament to such a state that it had adjourned its assemblies

without mention of further sessions. He had made all possible

concessions to the foreigners; he had so terrified Monsieur that the

unhappy Prince saw an invasion in every corner. But Gaston had still

another master; he had fallen a victim to the machinations of the wily

Retz. For reasons of his own, the Archbishop's coadjutor had found it

expedient to familiarise Monsieur with the canaille, and he had so

impressed the people with the idea that "d'Orléans" sympathised with

them that they fawned upon Gaston and dogged his footsteps. An incoming

and outgoing tide of ignoble people thronged the Luxembourg. Monsieur's

visitors were the lowest of the mobility, and they forced their way

even into his bed-chamber. They sat by him while his _coiffeur_ dressed

his hair, they assisted at his colics, and officiously dropped sugar

in his _café-au-lait_. Among his visitors were ex-convicts, half-grown

daughters of the pavement, and street urchins, and they all offered him

advice, sympathised with him, urged him to take courage, and assured

him of their protection, until Gaston, helpless in his humiliation,

writhed in his bed. When he had been alone and free from the sharp

scrutiny of his natural critic, his daughter, his lot had been hard,

but with Mademoiselle at hand it was torment. Mademoiselle was a

general of the army; she had taken her father's place; she felt that

her exploits had given her the right to speak freely, and one day when

she visited Madame (she told the story herself), she "rated her like

a dog." Madame was in her own apartment; she studied her complaints,

sipped her "tisanes," swathed her head in aromatised linen, and neither

saw nor heard the droning of the throngs who buzzed like flies about

her husband.

[Illustration: VIEW OF THE LUXEMBOURG (LATER CALLED THE PALAIS

D'ORLÉANS) IN THE 17TH CENTURY

FROM AN OLD PRINT]

It is worthy of note that the princes did not forecast the future.

Reason ought to have shown them that the revolution would sweep them

away as it swept all else should not Royalty intervene in their behalf.

The Canaille was mistress of the streets, and her means was always

violent. Her leaders were strong men. In 1651 she had her Marats and

her Héberts, who used their pens to incite France to massacre; and her

Maillards, who urged her on to pillage the homes of the nobility and

to fell, as an ox is felled in the shambles, all, however innocent,

whom it served their purpose to call suspicious. Such men did bloody

work, and they did not ask what the nobles thought of it. Insolent, on

fire with hate, lords of a day! they sprang from the slimy ooze with

the first menace of Revolution to vanish with the Revolution when the

last head rolled in the sawdust; cruel, but useful instruments, used by

immutable Justice to avenge the wrongs of a tormented people!

* * * * *

When Mademoiselle returned from Orleans Paris wore the aspect of the

early days of the Terror. Even the peaceable and naturally thrifty sat

in idleness, muttering prayers for help or for vengeance, either to God

or to the devil. All were afraid. The people of the Bourgeoisie had

set their faces against the entrance of Condé's troops. The devastated

suburbs were still in evidence; it was supposed that Condé would bring

with him drunkenness, rapine, fire, and all the other horrors of a

military possession. So matters stood when the army of the King and the

army of the Fronde, after divers combats for divers issues, fought the

fight which gave Mademoiselle her glory.

She was then the Queen of Paris. Her palace was the political centre as

well as the social centre of France. Of those days she said:

"I was honoured to the last point. I was held in great consideration."

Yes, she was "honoured," but the honour was in name only; the

ceremonial was all that there was of it and--worst of all for her proud

heart--she knew that it was so. It was the affair of Orleans over

again. In Orleans, when she had issued orders, the city government had

sent her bonbons, paid her compliments, and followed their own counsel.

They had answered blandly, "As Mademoiselle pleases"; but, in point of

fact, Mademoiselle was of no practical importance. To her, flattery and

fine words; to others, confidence and influence. The statesmen thought

that she was neither discreet nor capable of wise counsel. She was too

frank and too upright to be useful as a politician. Monsieur hid his

secrets from her. Condé's manner told her everything, but he never gave

her the assurance which would have established her on firm ground; and,

looking practically upon that matter, what assurance could he have

given her? What, in honour, was he free to say?

The Prince de Condé, who was continually spoken of as Mademoiselle's

possible husband, paid hypothetical court to Mademoiselle, but when he

had serious subjects to discuss he carried them to the salon of the

beautiful Duchesse de Chatillon, who was then the rising star of the

political world of Paris. Mesdames de Longueville and de Chevreuse were

setting suns, and very close to the horizon. Ignoring Mademoiselle,

they had made an independent attempt to reconcile the princes and

restore them to the good graces of the Court; their attempt had

failed. The Duchesse de Montpensier was the only one at Court who had

maintained friendly relations with the princes.

* * * * *

One night, in the Cours la Reine, Mademoiselle found herself close to a

marching army. Condé's troops, pressed by Turenne, were hurrying into

Paris close to the ramparts (which then stood where we now see the

Place de la Concorde and the great boulevards).

Mademoiselle was mounted; she was talking with an officer. She watched

the winding line of the troops thoughtfully, and when the Cours hid

it from view she went into Renard's garden, where she could watch it

out of sight. Her heart ached with forebodings; the army had marched in

disorder at the pace of utter rout and with flank exposed. She wrote in

her memoirs:

All the troops passed the night beside the moat[160], and as there

were no buildings between them and my lodgings, I could hear their

trumpets distinctly. As I could distinguish the different calls,

I could see the order in which they were moving. I remained at

my window two hours after the bells rang midnight, hearing them

pass,--and with grief enough I listened! because I was thinking of

all that might happen. But in all my grief I had, I know not what

strange presentiment,--I knew that I should help to draw them out

of their trouble.

Mademoiselle had intended to take a medicine which she considered

necessary, but as she thought that it might interfere with her

usefulness, she countermanded the doctor's orders. On what a slender

thread hangs glory!

July 2d, at six o'clock in the morning, some one knocked at

Mademoiselle's door, and Mademoiselle sprang from her bed but half

awake. Condé had sent to ask for help. He was with his army held at bay

against the closed gates of Paris attacked by the army of de Turenne.

The messenger had been sent to Monsieur, but Monsieur, declaring that

he was in agony, had refused to see him. On that answer the messenger

sped to the palace of the Tuileries. Mademoiselle dressed and hurried

to the Luxembourg. As she entered the palace Monsieur came down the

stairs, and Mademoiselle attacked him angrily; she accused him of

disloyalty, and reproached him for his pretence of sickness. Gaston

assured her calmly: "I _am_ sick; I am not sick enough to be in bed,

but I am too sick to leave this house."

"Either mount your horse or go to bed!" cried Mademoiselle. She

stormed, she wept, all in a breath (as she always did when she could

not force her father to do his duty), but Monsieur was a coward and

nature was too strong to be controlled; she could not move him. Retz

had worked upon Gaston's cowardice as a means of furthering his own

plans; his plans included the death of Condé and the failure of the

Fronde; therefore tortures would not have drawn Gaston from his house

upon that occasion, even had he favoured intervention in behalf of

Condé.

* * * * *

Long before the messenger of Monsieur le Prince had knocked at the door

of the Tuileries, the army of the Fronde, at bay against the wall of

the city, had awaited the word required to open the gates of Paris.

Still another hour had passed and Mademoiselle's endeavour had been

vain. Years after she recorded the fact with sorrow: "I had begged

an hour, and I knew that in that time all my friends might have been

killed--Condé as well as the others! ... and no one cared; that seemed

to me hard to bear!"

* * * * *

While Mademoiselle was imploring her father to help her Condé's friends

arrived; they beset Gaston and commanded him to send help at once to

the Faubourg Saint Antoine. Condé and his men were fighting for their

lives; the people of the Faubourg had mounted the heights to see the

battle.

Gaston was exasperated, and to rid himself of the importunities of his

party he ordered his daughter to go to the Hôtel de Ville and tell the

authorities that he commanded them to issue an order to open the gates.

As Mademoiselle ran through the streets the bourgeois, who had gathered

in groups to give each other countenance, begged her for passports;

they were ready to leave the city.

A half-starved, ragged mob filled the Place de Grève; the canaille

blocked the adjoining streets. The palace was like an abandoned

barrack. The sunlight fell upon the polished locks of the old muskets

of the League, and not a head dared approach the windows. Mademoiselle

ran through the mob and entered the Hôtel de Ville. Let her tell her

errand in her own way:

They were all there; the provost of the merchants, the aldermen,

the Maréchal de l'Hôpital, the Governor ... and I cried to them:

"Monsieur le Prince is in peril of death in our faubourgs! What

grief, what eternal shame it would be to us were he to perish for

lack of our assistance! You have it in your power to help him! Do

it then, and quickly!"

[Illustration: LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING ]

They went into the council-room. Mademoiselle fell upon her knees at

the open window, and, in silence, the people watched her; they were on

guard, waiting for her orders. In the church of Saint Gervais priests

were offering the Mass; she could hear them and she tried to pray.

Minutes had passed and nothing had been done. She arose from her knees

and, entering the council-room, urged the men to act; she implored,

she threatened; then, hurrying back to the window, she fell upon her

knees. Rising for the last time, pale and resolute, she entered the

council-room; she pointed to the Grève where the people stood with eyes

fixed upon the windows, then, stretching her arm high above her head,

she cried violently: "Sign that order! or--_I swear it by my Exalted

Name!_ I will call in my people and let them teach you what to do!"

* * * * *

They fell upon the paper like wolves upon a lamb, and an instant later

Mademoiselle, grasping the order, hurried up the rue Saint Antoine to

open the city's gates.

* * * * *

Not far from the Hôtel de Ville a cavalier in a blood-stained doublet,

blinded by blood from a wound in his forehead, passed her, led like a

child between two soldiers; both of the soldiers were weeping: it was

La Rochefoucauld.

Mademoiselle called his name, but he did not answer. At the entrance to

the rue Saint Antoine another wounded man appeared, bareheaded, with

blood-stained raiment; a man walking beside him held him on his horse.

Mademoiselle asked him: "Shalt thou die of thy wounds?" he tried to

move his head as he passed on. He was "little Guiteau," Mademoiselle's

friend who had carried the "olive branch" to Condé's prison. But they

were coming so fast that it was hard to count them--another--then

another! Mademoiselle said: "I found them in the rue Saint Antoine

at every step! and they were wounded everywhere ... head ... arms

... legs! ... they were on horse--on foot--on biers--on ladders--on

litters! Some of them were dead."

An aristocratic procession! The quality of France, sacrificed in the

supreme attempt against man's symbol of God's omnipotence: the Royalty

of the King!

By the favour of the leader of the tradesmen the gates of Paris had

opened to let pass the high nobility. Paris enjoyed the spectacle. The

ramparts swarmed with sightseers; and Louis XIV., guarded by Mazarin,

looked down upon them all from the heights of Charonne.

* * * * *

The soldiers of the Fronde had had enough! Crying, "_Let the chiefs

march!_" they broke ranks. So it came to pass that all who fought that

day were nobles. The faubourg saw battalions formed of princes and

seigniors, and the infantry who manned the barricades bore the mighty

names of ancient France. Condé was their leader and, culpable though he

had been, that day he purged his crimes against the country by giving

France one of the visions of heroism which exalt the soul.

* * * * *

Condé was everywhere! "A demon!" said the soldiers of the King;

"superhuman" his own men called him. Like the _preux chevaliers_ of

the legends, he plunged into the fray, went down and rose with cuirass

dented and red with blood, to plunge and to come forth again.

The friends dearest to his heart fell at his feet, and still he bore

his part. He fought with all-mastering courage; he inspired his men;

and the stolid bourgeois and the common people upon the ramparts, moved

to great pity, cried out with indignation that it was a shame to France

to leave such a man to perish. That combat was like a dream to the

survivors. Condé's orders were so sharp and clear that they rang like

the notes of a trumpet; his action was miraculous, and in after years,

when his officers talked of Roland or of Rodrigue, they asserted, to

the astonishment of their hearers, that they had known both those

redoubtable warriors and fought in their company on many a hard won,

or a hard lost, field. To their minds there was neither _Rodrigue nor

Roland_; they knew but one hero, and he was "Condé."

* * * * *

That day in the Faubourg Saint Antoine, at the gates of Paris, bathed

with the blood and the sweat of the combat, when he had all but swooned

in his cuirass, he rushed from the field, stripped, and rolled in the

grass as a horse rolls; then slipped into his war harness and took

his place at the head of his army, as fresh as he had been before the

battle.

But neither his courage nor his strength could have saved him, and he,

and all his men, would have perished by the city ditch if Mademoiselle

had not forced Paris to open the gates.

Some one living in the rue Saint Antoine offered Mademoiselle shelter,

and she retired an instant from the field. Soon after she entered her

refuge Condé visited her and she thus recorded her impressions of the

day:

As soon as I entered the house M. le Prince came in to see me. He

was in piteous case. His face was covered with dust two inches

deep; his hair was tangled, and although he had not been wounded,

his collar and shirt were full of blood. His cuirass was dented;

he held his bare sword in his hand; he had lost the scabbard. He

gave his sword to my equerry and said to me: "You see before you

a despairing man! I have lost all my friends!" ... Then he fell

weeping upon a chair and begged me to forgive him for showing his

sorrow,--and to think that people say that Condé cannot love! I

have always known that he can love, and that when he loves he is

fond and gentle.

[Illustration: PRINCE DE CONDÉ]

Mademoiselle spoke to Condé of the battle. They agreed upon a plan

for ending it, and Condé returned to the field to lead the retreat.

Mademoiselle went to the window to watch the men take out the baggage

and make ready for the march. She could see the guns. The people of

the faubourgs carried drink to the men in the ranks and tried to help

the wounded; and she who had been taught to ignore the emotions and the

actions of inferiors wept when she saw the famished people of the lower

orders depriving themselves to comfort the men who had laid waste the

suburbs; Condé and his troops were well known to them all.

Disgust for the prevailing disorder had turned the thoughts of the

bourgeois toward Mazarin, whose earlier rule had given the nation

a taste of peace. Mademoiselle, who knew nothing of the bourgeois,

was aghast at their indifference to the sufferings of the wounded.

The men of peace looked with curiosity upon the battle; some laughed

aloud; others stood upon the ramparts and fired upon the retreating

Frondeurs. Mademoiselle left her window but once; then she ran through

the rue Saint Antoine to the Bastille, and, climbing to the summit

of the tower, looked through the glass. The battle was raging; she

saw the order given to cut off Condé, and, commanding the gunners to

train their guns on the King's army, she returned to her post, veiled

by smoke and choked by powder, to enjoy her glory; and it was glory

enough. Twice in the same day she had saved M. le Prince. As one man

the retreating army of the Fronde turned to salute her, and all cried:

"_You have delivered us!_" Condé was so grateful that his voice failed

him.

* * * * *

That evening at the Luxembourg, and the evening following, at the

Tuileries, after a night robbed of sleep by thoughts of the dead and

the wounded of her army, Mademoiselle heard praise which called her

back to the demands of life.

Her father did not address her, and his manner repelled her advances.

Toward evening, when he supposed that all danger had passed, he went

to congratulate Condé. His bearing was gay and pleasant and his face

was roguish and smiling. In the evening his expression changed, and

Mademoiselle noted the change and explained it to his credit; she said:

"I attributed that change to his repentance. He was thinking that he

had let me do what he ought to have done." We know that Gaston was not

given to repentance; all that he regretted was that he had permitted

his daughter to take an important place among the active agents of the

Fronde; he was envious and spiteful; but neither envy nor spite could

have been called his ruling failing; his prevailing emotion was fear.

The 4th July the bourgeois of Paris met in the Hôtel de Ville to

decide upon future action. The city was without a government. The

princes, Monsieur, and Condé attended the meeting; they supposed that

the Assembly would appoint them Directors of Public Affairs. The

supposition was natural enough. However, the Assembly ignored them and

discussed plans for a reconciliation with the Regency, and they, the

princes, retired from the meeting furiously angry. When they went out

the Grève was full of people; in the crowd were officers of the army,

soldiers, and priests.[161]

[Illustration: DUC D'ORLÉANS]

Several historians have said that the princes, or their following,

incited the people to punish the bourgeois for the slight offered by

them to their natural directors. No one knew how it began. As Monsieur

and Condé left the Grève and crossed the river, shots were fired

behind them. They went their way without looking back. Mademoiselle

was awaiting them at the Luxembourg. Her account of the night's work

follows:

As it was very warm, Monsieur entered his room to change his shirt.

The rest of the company were talking quietly when a bourgeois came

in all out of breath; he could hardly speak, he had come so fast

and in such fear. He said to us: "The Hôtel de Ville is burning

and they are firing guns; they are killing each other." Condé went

to call Monsieur, and Monsieur, forgetting the disorder in which

he was, came into the room in his shirt, before all the ladies.

Monsieur said to Condé: "Cousin, do you go over to the Hôtel de

Ville." But Condé refused to go, and when he would not go to quiet

the disturbance people had reason to say that he had planned the

whole affair and paid the assassins.

That was what was unanimously declared. It was the most barbarous

action known since the beginning of the Monarchy.[162] Outraged in his

pride and in his will because the bourgeois had dared to offer him

resistance, the splendid hero of the Faubourg Saint Antoine, at the

fatal moment, fell to the level of Septembrist; and as Monsieur must

have known all about it, and as he did nothing to prevent it, he was

Condé's accomplice.

* * * * *

As de Beaufort was on excellent terms with the mob, the princes

sent him to the Hôtel de Ville; he set out upon his mission and

Mademoiselle, who had followed close upon his heels, loitered and

listened to the comments of the people. When she returned and told her

father what she had heard Gaston was terrified; he ordered her to go

back to the Hôtel de Ville and reconnoitre.

It was long past midnight, and the streets were deserted. The Hôtel de

Ville was a ruin; the doors and windows were gone, and the flames were

still licking the charred beams; the interior had been pillaged. "I

picked my way," said Mademoiselle, "among the planks; they were still

flaming. I had never seen such a desolate place; we looked everywhere,

but we could see no one." They were about to leave the ruins when the

provost of the merchants emerged from his hiding-place (probably in the

cellar) with the men who had been with him.

Mademoiselle found them a safe lodging and went back to her palace.

Day had dawned; people were gathering in the Place de Grève; some were

trying to identify the dead. Among the dead were priests, members of

Parliament, and between thirty and forty bourgeois. Many had been

wounded.

The people blessed Mademoiselle, but she turned sorrowfully away. She

thought that nothing could atone for such a murder. She said of the

event: