BOOK V.
CHAPTER I.
CONDÉ’S ADVENTUROUS EXPEDITION.
Condé passed several months in Guienne, occupied with strengthening and extending the insurrection at the head of which he had placed himself, and in repulsing as far as possible in the south the royal army, commanded by the skilful and experienced Count d’Harcourt. Amidst very varied successes, he learned from different quarters the bad turn which the Fronde’s affairs was taking in the heart of the kingdom, the intrigues of De Retz who held the key of Paris, and the deplorable state of the army on the banks of the Loire.
On receiving these tidings at Bordeaux in the month of March, 1652, Condé saw clearly the double danger which menaced him, and immediately faced it in his wonted manner. Instead of awaiting events which were on the eve of taking place at a distance, he determined on anticipating them, and formed an extraordinary resolution, of a character very much resembling his great military manœuvres, which at first sight appears extravagant, but which the gravest reason justifies, and the temerity of which even is only another form of high prudence. He formed the design of slipping out of Bordeaux, traversing the lines of Count d’Harcourt, to get over in the best way he might the hundred and fifty leagues which separated him from the Loire and Paris, to appear there suddenly, and to place himself at the head of his affairs.