The serio-grotesque drama of the Fronde was thus initiated.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] “History of Turenne,” by Ramsay, vol. ii.
CHAPTER V.
MADAME DE LONGUEVILLE WINS HER BROTHER CONDÉ OVER TO THE FRONDE.
This first raising of bucklers by the Frondeurs was not of long duration. At the conclusion of a peace between Mazarin and the Parliament, a perfect understanding prevailed amongst all the members of the Condé family. The civil dissensions, however, were sufficiently prolonged to exhibit the errors of all parties—even those who had entered therein with virtuous inclinations and intentions, ashamed of the stains which had tarnished them in the struggle, almost invariably ended by confining themselves to the narrow circle of individual interests, and completed their degradation by no longer recognizing any other motive for their conduct than that of sordid selfishness. All care for the public weal became extinct; men’s hearts were insensible to all generous sympathy; their minds dead to every elevating impulse—like to those aromatics which, after diffusing both glow and perfume from their ardent brazier, lose by combustion all power of further rekindling, and present nothing else than vile ashes, without heat, light, or odour.
The peace concluded between the Minister and the Fronde was destined to be of short duration. It was, properly speaking, nothing but a suspension of arms, and in no degree a suspension of intrigues and cabals. That suspension of arms, however, had been accompanied by an amnesty, including all persons except the Coadjutor. The other chief personages who had played a part in the insurrection of Paris, and who now proceeded to visit the Court, were by no means warmly received by the Queen, though Mazarin himself displayed nothing but mildness and humility. The Duke d’Orleans and the Prince de Condé visited the city; and the first was received with much enthusiasm by the populace, who attributed to his counsels the truce of which all parties had stood so much in need. The Prince de Condé, whose warlike spirit had not only aided in stirring up the strife at first, but would have protracted it still further had his advice been listened to, was not looked upon with the same favour by the Parisians; but the Parliament sent deputations to them both on their arrival in the city, to compliment them on their efforts for the restoration of peace.
During Condé’s visit to Paris, a reconciliation took place between him and his fair sister, the Duchess de Longueville. The violent language he had used to her on various occasions, the imputations he had cast upon her character, and the harsh nature of the advice which he had given to her husband concerning her, were all forgotten, and she resumed her ascendancy over his mind so completely as in a very short time to detach him entirely from the side of Mazarin, and to lead him, before he quitted Paris, to speak publicly of the Minister in the scornful and contemptuous manner in which he was usually treated by the leaders of the Fronde.