There was a general amnesty; and the Parliament preserved all its rights. “The king will have the honor of it, and we the profit,” said Guy-Patin. The great lords reappeared one after another at St. Germain. “It is the way of our nation to return to their duty with the same airiness with which they depart from it, and to pass in a single instant from rebellion to obedience.” [La Rochefoucauld.] The return to rebellion was not to be long delayed. The queen had gone back to Paris, and the Prince of Conde with her; he, proud of having beaten the parliamentary Fronde, affected the conqueror’s airs, and the throng of his courtiers, the “petits maitres,” as they were called, spoke very slightingly of the cardinal. Conde, reconciled with the Duchess of Longueville, his sister, and his brother, the Prince of Conti, assumed to have the lion’s share in the government, and claimed all the favors for himself or his friends; the Fondeurs made skilful use of the ill-humor which this conduct excited in Cardinal Mazarin; the minister responded to their advances; the coadjutor was secretly summoned to the Louvre; the dowager Princess of Conde felt some apprehensions; but, “What have I to fear?” her son said to her; “the cardinal is my friend.” “I doubt it,” she answered. “You are wrong; I rely upon him as much as upon you.” “Please God you may not be mistaken!” replied the princess, who was setting out for the Palais-Royal to see the queen, said to be indisposed that day.
Anne of Austria was upon her bed; word was brought to her that the council was waiting; this was the moment agreed upon; she dismissed the princess, shut herself up in her oratory with the little king, to whom she gave an account of what was going to be done for his service; then, making him kneel down, she joined him in praying to God for the success of this great enterprise. As the Prince of Conde arrived in the grand gallery, he saw Guitaut, captain of the guards, coming towards him; at the same instant, through a door at the bottom, out went the cardinal, taking with him Abbe de la Riviere, who was the usual confidant of the Duke of Orleans, but from whom his master had concealed the great secret. The prince suppposed that Guitaut was coming to ask him some favor; the captain of the guards said in his ear, “My lord, what I want to say is, that I have orders to arrest you, you, the Prince of Conti your brother, and M. de Longueville.” “Me, M. Guitaut, arrest me?” Then, reflecting for a moment, “In God’s name,” he said, “go back to the queen and tell her that I entreat her to let me have speech of her!” Guitaut went to her, whilst the prince, returning to those who were waiting for him, said, “Gentlemen, the queen orders my arrest, and yours too, brother, and yours too, M. de Longueville; I confess that I am astonished, I who have always served the king so well, and believed myself secure of the cardinal’s friendship.” The chancellor, who was not in the secret, declared that it was Guitaut’s pleasantry. “Go and seek the queen then,” said the prince, “and tell her of the pleasantry that is going on; as for me, I hold it to be very certain that I am arrested.” The chancellor went out, and did not return. M. Servien, who had gone to speak to the cardinal, likewise did not appear again. M. de Guitaut entered alone. “The queen cannot see you, my lord,” he said. “Very well; I am content; let us obey,” answered the prince: “but whither are you going to take us? I pray you let it be to a warm place.” “We are going to the wood of Vincennes, my lord,” said Guitaut. The prince turned to the company and took his leave without uneasiness and with the calmest countenance: as he was embracing M. de Brienne, secretary of state, he said to him, “Sir, as I have often received from you marks of your friendship and generosity, I flatter myself that you will some day tell the king the services I have rendered him.” The princes went out; and, as they descended the staircase, Conde leaned towards Comminges, who commanded the detachment of guards, saying, “Comminges, you are a man of honor and a gentleman; have I anything to fear?” Comminges assured him he had not, and that the orders were merely to escort him to the wood of Vincennes. The carriage upset on the way; as soon as it was righted, Comminges ordered the driver to urge on his horses. The prince burst out laughing. “Don’t be afraid, Comminges,” he said; “there is nobody to come to my assistance; I swear to you that I had not taken any precautions against this trip.” On arriving at the castle of Vincennes, there were no beds to be found, and the three princes passed the night playing at cards; the Princess of Conde and the dowager princess received orders to retire to their estates; the Duchess of Longueville, fearing with good cause that she would be arrested, had taken with all speed the road to Normandy, whither she went and took refuge at Dieppe, in her husband’s government.
The state-stroke had succeeded; Mazarin’s skill and prudence once more check-mated all the intrigues concocted against him; when the news was told to Chavigny, in spite of all his reasons for bearing malice against the cardinal, who had driven him from the council and kept him for some time in prison, he exclaimed, “That is a great misfortune for the prince and his friends; but the truth must be told: the cardinal has done quite right; without it he would have been ruined.” The contest was begun between Mazarin and the great Conde, and it was not with the prince that the victory was to remain.
Already hostilities were commencing; Mazarin had done everything for the Frondeurs who remained faithful to him, but the house of Conde was rallying all its partisans; the Dukes of Bouillon and La Rochefoucauld had thrown themselves into Bordeaux, which was in revolt against the royal authority, represented by the Duke of Epernon. The Princess of Conde and her young son left Chantilly to join them; Madame de Longueville occupied Stenay, a strong place belonging to the Prince of Conde: she had there found Turenne; on the other hand, the queen had just been through Normandy; all the towns had opened their gates to her; it was just the same in Burgundy; the Princess of Conde’s able agent, Lenet, could not obtain a declaration from the Parliament of Dijon in her favor. Bordeaux was the focus of the insurrection; the people, passionately devoted to “the dukes,” as the saying was, were forcing the hand of the Parliament; riots were frequent in the town; the little king, with the queen and the cardinal, marched in person upon Bordeaux; one of the faubourgs was attacked, the dukes negotiated and obtained a general amnesty, but no mention was made of the princes’ release.
The Parliament of Paris took the matter up. The premier president spoke in so bitter a tone of the unhappy policy of the minister, that the little king, feeling hurt, told his mother that, if he had thought it would not displease her, he would have made the premier president hold his tongue, and would have dismissed him. On the 30th of January, Anne of Austria sent word to the Parliament that she would consent to grant the release of the princes, “provided that the armaments of Stenay and of M. de Turenne might be discontinued.” But it was too late; the Duke of Orleans had made a treaty with the princes. England served as pretext. Mazarin compared the Parliament to the House of Commons, and the coadjutor to Cromwell. Monsieur took the matter up for his friends, and was angry. He openly declared that he would not set foot again in the Palais-Royal as long as he was liable to meet the cardinal there, and joined the Parliament in demanding the removal of Mazarin. The queen replied that nobody had a right to interfere in the choice of ministers. By way of answer, the Parliament laid injunctions upon all the officers of the crown to obey none but the Duke of Orleans, lieutenant general of the kingdom. A meeting of the noblesse, at a tumultuous assembly in the house of the Duke of Nemours, expressed themselves in the same sense. It was the 6th of February, 1651: during the night, Cardinal Mazarin set out for St. Germain; a rumor spread in Paris that the queen was preparing to follow him with the king; a rush was made to the Palais-Royal: the king was in his bed. Next day, Anne of Austria complained to the Parliament. “The prince is at liberty,” said the premier president, “and the king, the king our master, is a prisoner.” “Monsieur, who felt no fear,” says Retz, “because he had been more cheered in the streets and the hall of the palace than he had ever been,” answered with vivacity, “The king was a prisoner in the hands of Mazarin; but, thank God, he is not any longer.” The premier president was right; the king was a prisoner to the Parisians; patrols of burgesses were moving incessantly round the Palais-Royal; one night the queen was obliged to let the people into her chamber; the king was asleep; and two officers of the town-guard watched for some hours at his pillow. The yoke of Richelieu and the omnipotence of Mazarin were less hard for royalty to bear than the capricious and jealous tyranny of the populace.
The cardinal saw that he was beaten; he made up his mind, and, anticipating the queen’s officers, he hurried to Le Havre to release the prisoners himself; he entered the castle alone, the governor having refused entrance to the guards who attended him. “The prince told me,” says Mdlle. de Montpensier, “that, when they were dining together, Cardinal Mazarin was not so much in the humor to laugh as he himself was, and that he was very much embarrassed. Liberty to be gone had more charms for the prince than the cardinal’s company. He said that he felt marvellous delight at finding himself outside Le Havre, with his sword at his side; and he might well be pleased to wear it; he is a pretty good hand at using it. As he went out he turned to the cardinal and said, ‘Farewell, Cardinal Mazarin,’ who kissed ‘the tip of sleeve’ to him.”
The cardinal had slowly taken the road to exile, summoning to him his nieces, Mdlles. Mancini and Martinozzi, whom he had, a short time since, sent for to court; he crossed from Normandy into Picardy, made some stay at Doullens, and, impelled by his enemies’ hatred, he finally crossed the frontier on the 12th of March. The Parliament had just issued orders for his arrest in any part of France. On the 6th of April, he fixed his quarters at Bruhl, a little town belonging to the electorate of Cologne, in the same territory which had but lately sheltered the last days of Mary de’ Medici.
The Frondeurs, old and new, had gained the day; but even now there was disorder in their camp. Conde had returned to the court “like a raging lion, seeking to devour everybody, and, in revenge for his imprisonment, to set fire to the four corners of the realm.” [Memoires de Montglat.] After a moment’s reconciliation with the queen, be began to show himself more and more haughty towards her in his demands every day; he required the dismissal of the ministers Le Tellier, Servien, and Lionne, all three creatures of the cardinal and in correspondence with him at Bruhl; as Anne of Austria refused, the prince retired to St. Maur; he was already in negotiation with Spain, being inveigled into treason by the influence of his sister, Madame de Longueville, who would not leave the Duke of La Rochefoucauld or return into Normandy to her husband. Fatal results of a guilty passion which enlisted against his country the arms of the hero of Rocroi! When he returned to Paris, the queen had, in fact, dismissed her ministers, but she had formed a fresh alliance with the coadjutor, and, on the 17th of August, in the presence of an assembly convoked for that purpose at the Palais-Royal, she openly denounced the intrigues of the prince with Spain, accusing him of being in correspondence with the archduke. Next day Conde brought the matter before the Parliament. The coadjutor quite expected the struggle, and had brought supporters; the queen had sent some soldiers; the prince arrived with a numerous attendance. On entering, he said to the company, that he could not sufficiently express his astonishment at the condition in which he found the palace, which seemed to him more like a camp than a temple of justice, and that it was not merely that there could be found in the kingdom people insolent enough to presume to dispute (superiority) the pavement (disputer le pave) with him. “I made him a deep obeisance,” says Retz, “and said that, I very humbly begged his Highness to pardon me if I told him that I did not believe that there was anybody in the kingdom insolent enough to dispute the wall (le haut du pave) with him, but I was persuaded that there were some who could not and ought not, for their dignity’s sake, to yield the pavement (quitter le pave) to any but the king. The prince replied that he would make me yield it. I said that that would not be easy.” The dispute grew warm; the presidents flung themselves between the disputants; Conde yielded to their entreaties, and begged the Duke of La Rochefoucauld to go and tell his friends to withdraw. The coadjutor went out to make the same request to his friends. “When he would have returned into the usher’s little court,” writes Mdlle. de Montpensier, “he met at the door the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, who shut it in his face, just keeping it ajar to see who accompanied the coadjutor; he, seeing the door ajar, gave it a good push, but he could not pass quite through, and remained as it were jammed between the two folds, unable to get in or out. The Duke of La Rochefoucauld had fastened the door with an iron catch, keeping it so to prevent its opening any wider. The coadjutor was ‘in an ugly position, for he could not help fearing lest a dagger should pop out and take his life from behind. A complaint was made to the grand chamber, and Champlatreux, son of the premier president, went out, and, by his authority, had the door opened, in spite of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld.” The coadjutor protested, and the Duke of Brissac, his relative, threatened the Duke of La Rochefoucauld; whereupon the latter said that, if he had them outside, he would strangle them both; to which the coadjutor replied, “My dear La Franchise (the duke’s nickname), do not act the bully; you are a poltroon and I am a priest; we shall not do one another much harm.” There was no fighting, and the Parliament, supported by the Duke of Orleans, obtained from the queen a declaration of the innocence of the Prince of Conde, and at the same time a formal disavowal of Mazarin’s policy, and a promise never to recall him. Anne of Austria yielded everything; the king’s majority was approaching, and she flattered herself that under cover of his name she would be able to withdraw the concessions which she felt obliged to make as regent. Her declaration, nevertheless, deeply wounded Mazarin, who was still taking refuge at Bruhl, whence he wrote incessantly to the queen, who did not neglect his counsels. “Ten times I have taken up my pen to write to you,” he said on the 26th of September, 1651 [Lettres du Cardinal Mazarin a la Reine, pp. 292, 293], “but could not, and I am so beside myself at the mortal wound I have just received, that I am not sure whether anything I could say to you would have rhyme or reason. The king and the queen, by an authentic deed, have declared me a traitor, a public robber, an incapable, and an enemy to the repose of Christendom, after I had served them with so many signs of my devotion to the advancement of peace: it is no longer a question of property, repose, or whatever else there may be of the sort. I demand the honor which has been taken from me, and that I be let alone, renouncing very heartily the cardinalate and the benefices, whereof I send in my resignation joyfully, consenting willingly to have given up to France twenty-three years of the best of my life, all my pains and my little of wealth, and merely to withdraw with the honor which I had when I began to serve her.” The persistent hopes of the adroit Italian appeared once more in the postscript of the letter: “I had forgotten to tell you that it was not the way to set me right in the eyes of the people to impress upon their mind that I am the cause of all the evils they suffer, and of all the disorders of the realm, in such sort that my ministry will be held in horror forever.”
Conde did not permit himself to be caught by the queen’s declarations: of all the princes he alone was missing at the ceremony of the bed of justice whereat the youthful Louis XIV., when entering his fourteenth year, announced, on the 7th of September, to his people that, according the laws of his realm, he “intended himself to assume the government, hoping of God’s goodness that it would be with piety and justice.” The prince had retired to Chantilly, on the pretext that the new minister, the president of the council, Chateauneuf, and the keeper of the seals, Matthew Mole, were not friends of his. The Duchess of Longueville at last carried the day; Conde was resolved upon civil war. “You would have it,” he said to his sister on repelling the envoy, who had followed him to Bourges, from the queen and the Duke of Orleans; “remember that I draw the sword in spite of myself, but I will be the last to sheathe it.” And he kept his word.
A great disappointment awaited the rebels; they had counted upon the Duke of Bouillon and M. de Turenne, but neither of them would join the faction. The relations between the two great generals had not been without rubs; Turenne had, moreover, felt some remorse because he, being a general in the king’s army, had but lately declared against the court, “doing thereby a deed at which Le Balafro and Admiral de Coligny would have hesitated,” says Cardinal de Retz. The two brothers went, before long, and offered their services to the queen.