[63] Loret, Muse Historique, liv. i., p. 28, Letter 10.
CHAPTER III.
STATE OF PARTIES ON THE LIBERATION OF THE PRINCES—THE CARDS AGAIN SHUFFLED, AND THE FACE OF THE SITUATION CHANGED.
At the commencement of 1651 all France clamoured for Condé’s liberation. During the autumn Mazarin had led the Queen and the young King against Bordeaux, then held by the Princess de Condé, carrying—as usual when forced to use both means—a sword in one hand and a roll of parchment in the other. Failing to carry the place with the first, the Cardinal began to negotiate a treaty of peace, the principal item of which was full pardon to the citizens, and by others an agreement that the Princess and her son should retire to Montrond: on these terms the city yielded to its sovereign. The Cardinal also obtained a victory in the field against Turenne, who had entered the service of Spain and fired upon the fleur-de-lis. But with this momentary success of Mazarin’s cause rose his pretensions and demands; and the Fronde, alarmed at his recovered authority, changed its tactics as its Protean genius De Retz frequently did his clothes—his cassock for a plumed hat and military cloak. It demanded the trial or liberation of the prisoners it had helped to send to Vincennes, without delay, and Mazarin removed them for safe custody to Havre. It then pronounced sentence of banishment on the obnoxious minister, and ordered him to quit the kingdom within fifteen days. The town militia kept watch and ward over the Queen, by the command of the Coadjutor, and hindered her flight to join the favourite. She could offer no further resistance to those who now called themselves the friends of Condé, but who were the very same persons who had fought him in the field a few months before. Orders were given to set the captives at liberty. Mazarin himself went to Havre to communicate the news of their freedom, and was received by them with the contempt that he might have expected. Condé took leave of the Cardinal with a ringing peal of laughter, and with joyous acclamations, and bonfires, and firing of guns, made his triumphal entry into Paris.
Condé was now master of the situation. He found himself equally courted by the two other chief parties into which the State was divided—the Queen’s, supported by the Duke de Bouillon, and the now repentant and pardoned Turenne—and the Fronde, which had fallen into the guidance of the Duke d’Orleans, the Coadjutor, and the Duchess de Chevreuse. His own was called “the Prince’s,” and comprised Rochefoucauld and other personal friends and military admirers. The Duke d’Orleans had gone on before to meet Condé as far as the plain of St. Denis, accompanied by the two most conspicuous representatives of the Fronde, the Duke de Beaufort and Retz, with the Coadjutor of Paris, and there they all warmly embraced. The Duke, having taken the Prince into his carriage, brought him in great pomp to the Palais Royal to salute the Queen Regent and the young King, and thence to the Palais d’Orleans, where he was feasted magnificently. Some days afterwards (February 25th) a royal ordonnance recognised the innocence of the Princes Condé, Conti, and the Duke de Longueville, and reinstated them in all their posts and governments. On the 27th this ordonnance was confirmed in Parliament amidst loud cheers. Condé thus found himself at the highest degree of power to which a subject could reach. Misfortune had enhanced his military glory; a long captivity, endured with an unalterable serenity and high-hearted gaiety, had carried his popularity to the highest pitch. He was the victor, and, as it were, the designated heir, of Mazarin, who had fled before him, and with difficulty found a refuge without the kingdom, on the banks of the Rhine.
Thus, Anne of Austria in some sort a prisoner, and Mazarin proscribed, the nobility showed itself entirely devoted to the young hero whom it recognized as its chief. Some among them at once proposed that the Queen Mother should be confined in the Val-de-Grace, and that the Prince should himself assume the Regency, others talked even of raising him to the throne, but Condé did not fail to perceive that his newly acquired power was not so solid as it was sought to make him believe.
Meanwhile, Mazarin having quitted Havre, and the inhabitants of Abbeville refusing him passage through their town, he found an asylum for a few days at Dourlens; but he was soon driven thence by the proceedings of the Parliament against him. He then retired to Sedan, where he took counsel with his friend Fabert, whom he had appointed Commandant there. He next proceeded to Cologne, being treated with the utmost distinction and hospitality in all the foreign towns through which he passed.
Even in banishment, however, the old influence began to work. The Cardinal from his place of retirement governed the Queen with as absolute a sway as ever, and recommended her, as a keen stroke of policy which would neutralize all parties, to take the young King to a Bed of Justice, and cause him to declare his majority. Couriers were going daily between Paris and Cologne; treaties between the Fronde and Mazarin were intercepted or forged, and published in the capital; the post of Prime Minister remained unfilled, and the Duke de Mercœur, notwithstanding all the thunders of Parliament, set out for Bruhl, with the purpose of marrying Mazarin’s niece. Everything announced that the exile of that hated minister was but temporary, and Condé, perceiving the object of all these moves, prepared for war, and silently took his measures accordingly.