With further threats that the king would remember the cause of these evils, when he reached his majority, the incensed woman flouted from the chamber of audience, slamming the door violently behind her. To deal with her, in her present mood, was evidently impracticable. The members left the palace to return. They quickly found themselves surrounded by an angry mob, furious at their non-success, disposed to hold them responsible for the failure. On their arrival at the Rue St. Honoré, just as they were about to turn on to the Pont Neuf, a band of about two hundred men advanced threateningly upon them, headed by a cook-shop lad, armed with a halberd, which he thrust against M. Molé's body, crying,—
"Turn, traitor, and if thou wouldst not thyself be slain, give up to us Broussel, or Mazarin and the chancellor as hostages."
Molé quietly put the weapon aside.
"You forget yourself," he said, with calm dignity, "and are oblivious of the respect you owe to my office."
The mob, however, was past the point of paying respect to dignitaries. They hustled the members, threatened the president with swords and pistols, and several times tried to drag him into a private house. But he resisted, and was aided by members and friends who surrounded him. Slowly the parliamentary body made its way back to the Palais-Royal, whither they had resolved to return, M. Molé preserving his dignity of mien and movement, despite the "running fire of insults, threats, execrations, and blasphemies," that arose from every side. They reached the palace, at length, in diminished numbers, many of the members having dropped out of the procession.
The whole court was assembled in the gallery. Molé spoke first. He was a man of great natural eloquence, who was at his best as an orator when surrounded by peril, and he depicted the situation so graphically that all present, except the queen, were in terror. "Monsieur made as if he would throw himself upon his knees before the queen, who remained inflexible," says De Retz; "four or five princesses, who were trembling with fear, did throw themselves at her feet; the queen of England, who had come that day from St. Germain, represented that the troubles had never been so serious at their commencement in England, nor the feelings so heated or united."
Paris, in short, was on the eve of a revolution, and the queen could not be made to see it. Cardinal Mazarin, who was present, and who had been severely dealt with in the speeches, some of the orators telling him, in mockery, that if he would only go as far as the Pont Neuf he would learn for himself how things were, now joined the others in entreating Anne of Austria to give way. She did so at length, consenting to the release of Broussel, though "not without a deep sigh, which showed what violence she did her feelings in the struggle."
CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME. PARIS.