"To Vincennes! And by the Queen's order! Ventre de ma vie! she is a traitress after all!"
VINCENNES—OLD PRINT.
Prosp. du Chasteau de Vincennes.
CHAPTER X.
MIDNIGHT VISITORS.
THE Queen could no longer appear in the streets without insult. The mob laughed in her face, and called her Madame Anne. They saluted Mazarin with howls, as her bon ami; some said amant. The words sound much alike when shouted by a mob, and are not indeed always different in point of fact. Gondi, in the parliament, uttered thrilling words about la belle France going to perdition between a Spanish regent and an Italian minister. No president was found to rebuke him. Indeed when he demanded that the law respecting aliens holding office of state, passed against Concini (Maréchal d'Ancre) in the regency of Marie de' Medici, should be amended to suit the present crisis, his words were received with such a fury of applause that the roof was very nearly brought down about his head. Yet if any single member of that noisy parliament had been asked what national misfortune he dreaded, what unpunished crime, what neglect, or what personal hardship he desired to redress, he would have found it difficult to answer. It was the fashion for every one to be discontented and to rebel. If citizens, to call themselves Frondeurs; if nobles, Importants. To object to everything; to harass the Government, refuse to pay taxes and subsidies; and to threaten to call in Spain on the most trivial pretences. And this because two duchesses had quarrelled, and certain hungry princes had lost the sinecures they craved for. Thus began the civil war of the Fronde, which lasted during the whole of the minority of Louis XIV.
Mazarin, when he heard that the parliament, lashed on by Gondi, the Coadjutor, seriously proposed to revive an obsolete law, which would connect his name with that of Concini, who had been shot down like a dog within the precincts of the Louvre, was alarmed. Not being a soldier like Richelieu, nor a patriot like De Retz, but only a soft-spoken Italian, with a slight frame,—no unnecessary bones or muscles,—long thin hands, and a sallow, womanish face, he applied to the all-powerful Condé for help. Condé effected a compromise with Gondi. So no more was heard of the obnoxious law at that particular time. But the parliament had, like a young lion, tasted blood in the way of power, liked it, and was not to be appeased. Spite of Condé, seditious edicts and offensive measures, all suggested by the Coadjutor, continued to be passed; and Mazarin shut himself up within four walls, fearing for his very life.