The 30th, letters of congratulation arrived from Paris. Monsieur wrote: "My daughter, you have saved my appanage, you have assured the peace of Paris; this is the cause of public rejoicing. You are in the mouths of the people. All say that your act did justice to the Granddaughter of Henry the Great." This, from her father, was praise. Condé supplemented it: "It was your work and due to you alone, and it was a move of the utmost importance."
Mademoiselle's officers assured her that she had "the eye of a general," and she accepted as truth all that they told her and considered it all her due. About that time she wrote to some one at Court a letter which she intended for the eyes of the Queen, and in the letter she said in plain words that she intended to espouse the King of France, and that any one—no matter who it might be—would be unwise to attempt to thwart her wishes, because she, Mademoiselle, held it in her power to put affairs in such a state that people would be compelled to beg favours of her on their knees.[158] Anne of Austria read the letter and scoffed at it.
Despite her brilliant débuts, Mademoiselle was tired of life. The authorities of Orleans considered her a girl, and no one in the city government honoured her orders. Her account of those days is a record of paroxysms: "I was angry!... I flew into a passion.... I was in a rage.... I berated them furiously.... I was so angry that I wept!"
Yes, Mademoiselle, whose will had been law to the people of Paris, could not make the people of Orleans obey her. In answer to her commands the town authorities sent her sweetmeats, bonbons, and fair words. When Mademoiselle commanded them, they answered: "Just what Mademoiselle pleases we shall do!" and having given their answer, they acted to please themselves. The general commanding the army of the Fronde was ill-at-ease, sick for Paris, tired of Orleans. She begged to be permitted to leave Orleans, but her father commanded her to remain. He enjoyed her absence. She had tried in vain to persuade him to relieve her of her command; human nature could endure no more; forgetting her first duty as a soldier, she disobeyed orders and joined the army of the Fronde at Étampes (May 2d). The weather was perfect; she had escaped from Orleans, she was on her horse, surrounded by her ladies. All the generals and "a quantity of officers" had gone on before, and she could see them, as in a vision, in the golden dust raised by the feet of their horses; the cannon of the fortified towns thundered, the drums of her own army rolled; she was in her element; she was a soldier! Condé once told her, when speaking of a march which she had ordered, that Gustavus Adolphus could not have done better.
The morning after her arrival at Étampes she went to Mass on foot, preceded by a military band.[159] After Mass she presided at a council of war, mounted. After the council she rode down the line and her troops implored her to lead them to battle.
The review over, she turned her horse toward Paris, not knowing that Turenne had planned to circumvent the army of the Fronde. Turenne knew that the presence of the Amazons distracted the young generals, and he considered the moment favourable to his advance. Near Bourg la Reine Condé appeared, followed by his staff. Immediately after his return from the South he had set out for Étampes to salute the General-in-Chief of the army of the Fronde.
The people had missed their Princess. In her absence they had rehearsed the sorrows of her life, and she had become doubly dear to them; they had magnified her trials and idealised her virtues; they had gloried in her exploits. Relaying one another along the road beyond the city's gates, they had waited for her coming. At last, after many days, the outposts of the canaille descried the upright grey figure followed by the glittering general staff and guarded by the staff of Condé.
The beloved of the people, insulted by the Queen, despoiled by the Queen's lover of the right of woman to a husband, imprisoned and forsaken by her father in her hour of need, had risen above humanity! She had been a heroine, she had forgiven all her enemies, had captured Orleans, had assured the safety of her own city,—and now she had come home! They laid their cheeks to the flanks of her horse; they clasped the folds of her habit; and a cry arose from their wasted throats that scared the wild doves in the blighted woods along the highway. Mademoiselle had come home! "Vive Anne-Marie-Louise, la petite-fille de la France!"