第76章 BOOK III(13)

Cardinal Mazarin, after his return to Paris, made it his chief study to divide the Fronde. He thought to materially weaken my interest with Monsieur by detaching from me Madame de Chevreuse, for whom he had a natural tenderness, and to give me a mortal blow by embroiling me with Mademoiselle her daughter. To do this effectually he found a rival, who, he hoped, would please her better, namely, M. d'Aumale, handsome as Apollo, and one who was very likely to suit the temper of Mademoiselle de Chevreuse. He had entirely devoted himself to the Cardinal's interest, looked upon himself as very much honoured by this commission, and haunted the Palace of Chevreuse so diligently that I did not doubt but that he was sent thither to act the second part of the comedy which had miscarried so shamefully in the hands of M. de Candale. I watched all his movements, and complained to Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, but she gave me indirect answers. I began to be out of humour, and was soon appeased.

I grew peevish again; and Mademoiselle de Chevreuse saying in his presence, to please me and to sting him, that she could not imagine how it was possible to bear a silly fellow, "Pardon me, mademoiselle,"replied I, "we suffer fops sometimes very patiently for the sake of their extravagances." This man was notoriously foppish and extravagant. My answer pleased, and we soon got rid of him at the Palace of Chevreuse.

But he thought to have despatched me, for he hired one Grandmaison, a ruffian, to assassinate me, who apprised me of his design. The first time I met M. d'Aumale, which was at the Duc d'Orleans's house, I did not fail to let him know it; but I told it him in a whisper, saying that Ihad too much respect for the House of Savoy to publish it to the world.

He denied the fact, but in such a manner as to make it more evident, because he conjured me to keep it secret. I gave him my word, and I kept it.

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

To return to our negotiations for the freedom of the Princes. The Duc d'Orleans was with much difficulty induced to sign the treaty by which a marriage was stipulated between Mademoiselle de Chevreuse and the Prince de Conti, and to promise not to oppose my promotion to the dignity of a cardinal. The Princes were as active in the whole course of these negotiations as if they had been at liberty. We wrote to them, and they to us, and a regular correspondence between Paris and Lyons was never better established than ours. Bar, [Bar was, according to M. Joly, an unsociable man, who was for raising his fortune by using the Princes badly, and who, on this account, was often the dupe of Montreuil, secretary to the Prince de Conti. --See JOLY'S "Memoirs," vol. i., p. 88.] their warder, was a very shallow fellow; besides, men of sense are sometimes outwitted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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