"How?" cried the more practical De Retz; "why, by shutting the gates of Paris, to begin with. The king must not go."
Within an hour the emissaries of the ready coadjutor were rousing up the people right and left with the tidings of the projected flight of the queen with her son. Soon the city swarmed again with armed and angry men, the gates were seized, mounted guards patrolled the streets, the crowd surged towards the Palais-Royal.
Within the palace all was alarm and confusion. Anne of Austria had indeed been on the point of flight. Her son was in his travelling-dress. But the people were at the door, clamoring to see the king, threatening dire consequences if the doors were not opened to them. They could not long be kept out; some immediate action must be taken. The boy's travelling-attire was quickly replaced by his night dress, and he was laid in bed, his mother cautioning him to lie quiet and feign sleep.
"The king! we must see the king!" came the vociferous cry from the street. "Open! the people demand to see their king."
The doors were forced; the mob was in the palace; clamor and tumult reigned below the royal chambers. The queen sent word to the people that the king was asleep in his bed. They might enter and see him if they would promise to tread softly and keep strict silence. This message at once stopped the tumult; the noise subsided; the people began to file into the room, stepping as noiselessly as though shod with down, gazing with awed eyes on the seemingly sleeping face of the boy king.
The queen stood at the pillow of her son, a graceful and beautiful woman, her outstretched arm holding back the heavy folds of the drapery, her face schooled to quiet repose. Louis lay with closed eyes and regular breathing, playing his part well. For hours a stream of the men and women of Paris flowed through the chamber, moving in reverential silence, gazing on the boy's face as on a sacred treasure of their own. Till three o'clock in the morning the movement continued, the queen standing all this time like a beautiful statue, her son still feigning slumber. It was a scene of remarkable and picturesque character.
That night of strain and excitement passed. The king was with them still, of that the people were assured; he must remain with them, there must be an end of midnight flights. The patrol was kept up, the gates watched, the king was a prisoner in the hands of the Parisians.
"The king, our master, is a captive," said M. Molé, voicing to the Parliament the queen's complaint.
"He was a captive, in the hands of Mazarin," replied the Duke of Orleans; "but, thank God, he is so no longer."
The people had won. Mazarin was beaten. He hastened to La Havre, where the princes were then confined, and set them at liberty himself. His power in France, for the time, was at an end. He made his way to the frontier, which he crossed on the 12th of March. He was just in time: the Parliament of Paris had issued orders for his arrest, wherever found in France.