This exciting contest continued with the keenest activity, but no change had occurred up to the end of July, and even the first days of August, 1643, though this critical state of affairs had become greatly aggravated. The violence of the Importants increased daily; the Queen defended her minister, but she also showed consideration for his enemies. She hesitated to take the decided attitude which Mazarin required at her hands, not only in his individual interest, but in that of his government. Suddenly an incident, very insignificant apparently, but which by assuming larger proportions brought about the inevitable crisis—forced the Queen to declare herself, and Madame de Chevreuse to plunge deeper into a baleful enterprise, the idea of which had already forced itself upon her imagination. A great scandal occurred. We allude to a quarrel between the two duchesses, de Longueville and de Montbazon.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] De Retz Memoirs, Petitot Collection.
[18] Madame de Motteville.
[19] Louis died May 14th, 1643.
[20] La Rochefoucauld.
[21] Mazarin himself has furnished this fact, otherwise unknown, in one of his diaries (Carnet, pp. 72, 73). The Cardinal-Minister was in the habit of jotting down the chief events of each day in these small memorandum books (Carnets), which he kept in the pocket of his cassock.
[22] La Rochefoucauld, Memoirs, p. 383.
[23] Anne de Rohan, wife of M. de Guéméné, eldest son of the Duke de Montbazon, and brother of Madame de Chevreuse.
[24] Carnet, iii. p. 39.