Long before the messenger of Monsieur le Prince had knocked at the door of the Tuileries, the army of the Fronde, at bay against the wall of the city, had awaited the word required to open the gates of Paris. Still another hour had passed and Mademoiselle's endeavour had been vain. Years after she recorded the fact with sorrow: "I had begged an hour, and I knew that in that time all my friends might have been killed—Condé as well as the others! ... and no one cared; that seemed to me hard to bear!"
While Mademoiselle was imploring her father to help her Condé's friends arrived; they beset Gaston and commanded him to send help at once to the Faubourg Saint Antoine. Condé and his men were fighting for their lives; the people of the Faubourg had mounted the heights to see the battle.
Gaston was exasperated, and to rid himself of the importunities of his party he ordered his daughter to go to the Hôtel de Ville and tell the authorities that he commanded them to issue an order to open the gates. As Mademoiselle ran through the streets the bourgeois, who had gathered in groups to give each other countenance, begged her for passports; they were ready to leave the city.
A half-starved, ragged mob filled the Place de Grève; the canaille blocked the adjoining streets. The palace was like an abandoned barrack. The sunlight fell upon the polished locks of the old muskets of the League, and not a head dared approach the windows. Mademoiselle ran through the mob and entered the Hôtel de Ville. Let her tell her errand in her own way:
They were all there; the provost of the merchants, the aldermen, the Maréchal de l'Hôpital, the Governor ... and I cried to them: "Monsieur le Prince is in peril of death in our faubourgs! What grief, what eternal shame it would be to us were he to perish for lack of our assistance! You have it in your power to help him! Do it then, and quickly!"
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING