Mademoiselle spoke to Condé of the battle. They agreed upon a plan for ending it, and Condé returned to the field to lead the retreat. Mademoiselle went to the window to watch the men take out the baggage and make ready for the march. She could see the guns. The people of the faubourgs carried drink to the men in the ranks and tried to help the wounded; and she who had been taught to ignore the emotions and the actions of inferiors wept when she saw the famished people of the lower orders depriving themselves to comfort the men who had laid waste the suburbs; Condé and his troops were well known to them all.
Disgust for the prevailing disorder had turned the thoughts of the bourgeois toward Mazarin, whose earlier rule had given the nation a taste of peace. Mademoiselle, who knew nothing of the bourgeois, was aghast at their indifference to the sufferings of the wounded. The men of peace looked with curiosity upon the battle; some laughed aloud; others stood upon the ramparts and fired upon the retreating Frondeurs. Mademoiselle left her window but once; then she ran through the rue Saint Antoine to the Bastille, and, climbing to the summit of the tower, looked through the glass. The battle was raging; she saw the order given to cut off Condé, and, commanding the gunners to train their guns on the King's army, she returned to her post, veiled by smoke and choked by powder, to enjoy her glory; and it was glory enough. Twice in the same day she had saved M. le Prince. As one man the retreating army of the Fronde turned to salute her, and all cried: "You have delivered us!" Condé was so grateful that his voice failed him.
That evening at the Luxembourg, and the evening following, at the Tuileries, after a night robbed of sleep by thoughts of the dead and the wounded of her army, Mademoiselle heard praise which called her back to the demands of life.
Her father did not address her, and his manner repelled her advances. Toward evening, when he supposed that all danger had passed, he went to congratulate Condé. His bearing was gay and pleasant and his face was roguish and smiling. In the evening his expression changed, and Mademoiselle noted the change and explained it to his credit; she said: "I attributed that change to his repentance. He was thinking that he had let me do what he ought to have done." We know that Gaston was not given to repentance; all that he regretted was that he had permitted his daughter to take an important place among the active agents of the Fronde; he was envious and spiteful; but neither envy nor spite could have been called his ruling failing; his prevailing emotion was fear.
The 4th July the bourgeois of Paris met in the Hôtel de Ville to decide upon future action. The city was without a government. The princes, Monsieur, and Condé attended the meeting; they supposed that the Assembly would appoint them Directors of Public Affairs. The supposition was natural enough. However, the Assembly ignored them and discussed plans for a reconciliation with the Regency, and they, the princes, retired from the meeting furiously angry. When they went out the Grève was full of people; in the crowd were officers of the army, soldiers, and priests.[161]
DUC D'ORLÉANS
Several historians have said that the princes, or their following, incited the people to punish the bourgeois for the slight offered by them to their natural directors. No one knew how it began. As Monsieur and Condé left the Grève and crossed the river, shots were fired behind them. They went their way without looking back. Mademoiselle was awaiting them at the Luxembourg. Her account of the night's work follows:
As it was very warm, Monsieur entered his room to change his shirt. The rest of the company were talking quietly when a bourgeois came in all out of breath; he could hardly speak, he had come so fast and in such fear. He said to us: "The Hôtel de Ville is burning and they are firing guns; they are killing each other." Condé went to call Monsieur, and Monsieur, forgetting the disorder in which he was, came into the room in his shirt, before all the ladies. Monsieur said to Condé: "Cousin, do you go over to the Hôtel de Ville." But Condé refused to go, and when he would not go to quiet the disturbance people had reason to say that he had planned the whole affair and paid the assassins.