[81] Mad. de Motteville, tom. v. p. 96.
[82] It is Tavannes who has preserved the details of this interesting incident.
[83] Upon the Petits Maîtres, see Mad. de Sablé, chap. i. p. 44.
CHAPTER II.
POLITICAL AND GALLANT INTRIGUES—THE DUCHESS DE CHÂTILLON’S SWAY OVER CONDÉ—SHAMEFUL CONSPIRACY AGAINST MADAME DE LONGUEVILLE.
Condé arrived in Paris on the 11th of April, and found everything in the utmost confusion. It would be impossible to follow all the petty intrigues, or even make allusion to all the events which affected the relative situations of the parties in the capital; but it may be observed that the tendency of both parties was to hold themselves in the neighbourhood of Paris. The chiefs of the Fronde hurried into the city, to receive the congratulations due to their exploits from the fair politicians who had won them to their cause. The Queen also established her head-quarters near the capital, to be ready for any turn of popular sentiment in her favour, and to hear the reports of her spies on the proceedings of her enemies. She knew what dances were to be given, and who were to attend the assemblies of the duchesses of the Fronde. On one occasion when Turenne knew that half the officers of Condé’s army were engaged to a brilliant fête at the Duchess de Montbazon’s, he made an attack on the enemy’s camp, and was only repulsed by the steadiness of some old soldiers, who gave time for reinforcements to arrive. But the crisis was at hand; for each party began to be suspicious of the other gaining over its supporters—Mazarin lavishing promises of place and money, and the Duchess de Châtillon, invested with full powers by Condé, appearing in the opposite camp as the most irresistible ambassadress that ever was seen.
Thus matters stood in the early summer of 1652, and “all that was most subtle and serious in politics,” La Rochefoucauld tells us, “was brought under the attention of Condé to induce him to take one of two courses—to make peace or to continue the war; when Madame de Châtillon imbued him with a design for peace by means the most agreeable. She thought that so great a boon might be the work of her beauty, and mingling ambition with the design of making a new conquest, she desired at the same time to triumph over the Prince de Condé’s heart and to derive pecuniary advantages from her political negotiations.”
We have already cursorily mentioned the Duchess de Châtillon: it is now indispensable, in order to thoroughly understand what is about to follow, to know something more of that celebrated personage.