Condé excused himself, by letter, from assisting at the proclamation of his Sovereign’s majority, on the ground that his enemies had rendered him so odious in his Majesty’s eyes that he could not be present without danger; and while the King, in the midst of a magnificent cortège, was wending his way through the cheering crowds to the Palais de Justice, the first Prince of the Blood, whose place should have been by his side, was hastening to his brother-in-law’s château of Trie in Normandy, with the object of persuading the Duc de Longueville to join him in resistance to the royal authority. He came, however, on a bootless errand, for Longueville, unlike his consort, had had enough of civil war, and declared that he was not in a position to render him any effective support.
From Trie, Condé proceeded to Chantilly, whence he sent an envoy to Louis XIV., offering to return to the capital, if the changes in the Ministry which he understood that it was his Majesty’s intention to make were deferred for three days. But the young King haughtily refused even to consider this proposition. The prince thereupon summoned a meeting of his partisans at Chantilly; but, now that he had actually come to the very verge of the abyss, he found many reasons to deter him from taking the final step: his reluctance to plunge his country into the miseries of another civil strife; the many defections in his party, for to make war on the King of France was a very different matter from resisting the will of a Spanish regent and an Italian minister; the danger of placing any reliance on the promises of help he had received from Spain; and, finally, the knowledge that war would mean an indefinite separation from Madame de Châtillon, of whom he was more than ever enamoured, and who, having been gained by the Court, had been using all her influence to bring her lover to a more pacific frame of mind.
At length, fearing that, if he remained longer at Chantilly, he might be arrested, he decided to withdraw to his government of Berry, and on 13 September arrived at Montrond. Here, two days later, a final conference was held, and the bellicose Madame de Longueville succeeded in triumphing over her brother’s last scruples. It was then that Condé uttered the prediction so often quoted, and which was to prove so true: “You compel me to draw the sword. Well, let it be so. Remember that I shall be the last to replace it in its scabbard.”
CHAPTER XVI
Condé proceeds to Bordeaux, where he is rejoined by his relatives—He opens the campaign with success, but is soon obliged to remain on the defensive—Return of Mazarin—Condé on the Loire—Battle of Bléneau—He leaves his army and proceeds to Paris—His futile negotiations—Battle of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine—Massacre of the Hôtel de Ville—The Fronde grows daily more discredited—Condé quits Paris and joins the Spaniards on the Flemish frontier—The Fronde at Bordeaux—Sanguinary affrays between the Ormée and the Chapeau Rouge—Courage and presence of mind displayed by the Princesse de Condé and Madame de Longueville in separating the combatants—Surrender of Bordeaux—The princess sails for Flanders to rejoin her husband—Her reception at Valenciennes—She is cruelly neglected by Condé—She removes from Valenciennes to Malines—Her miserable existence—Condé applies to the Spanish Court for financial assistance—Brilliant military qualities displayed by him in the service of his country’s enemies—The princess gives birth to a daughter—Peace of the Pyrenees—Return of Condé and his wife to France.
The fatal resolution once taken, Condé acted with his customary vigour and decision. He despatched Lenet to Madrid to conclude a treaty with Spain; wrote to his staunch adherent, the Comte de Marsin, who commanded in Catalonia, begging him to join him in Guienne with all the troops he could induce to follow him, and directed his brother and sister and the Duc de Nemours to proceed to Bourges and endeavour to incite that town and the whole of Berry to revolt. Then, accompanied by La Rochefoucauld, he set out for Bordeaux, which he had resolved to make his headquarters.
Condé was received at Bordeaux with transports of joy, and the town and the greater part of the province at once rose in revolt. But Madame de Longueville and Conti failed entirely in the task entrusted to them, and, on the approach of the royal army, were obliged to retire to Montrond, where Madame la Princesse and her son had remained, and subsequently to Bordeaux. A much more severe blow to the prince’s cause was the defection of Turenne, upon whose support he had confidently counted, but who, together with his brother, the Duc de Bouillon, had decided to throw in his lot with the Court. Nevertheless, he resolved to take the offensive, and for a while carried all before him in the South-West. But his forces were much inferior in number to the Royalists, and by the end of the year he was obliged to fall back to the Garonne.
The sudden reappearance of Mazarin upon the scene in the following January reanimated the hopes of the prince, and appeared to give new strength to his party. The Parlement, which, on 4 December, had issued a decree proclaiming Monsieur le Prince and his principal adherents “attainted and convicted of high treason and lèse-majesté,” now voted that this sentence should be suspended and renewed its old decrees against the Cardinal. Gaston d’Orléans, with whom the prince had been for some time past negotiating, believing that he had been the dupe of the Queen, concluded an alliance with him, and, shortly afterwards, most of the Frondeurs also declared for Condé.
Towards the end of March, Condé, having entrusted the government of Guienne to his brother, Conti, assisted by a council composed of Madame la Princesse, Madame de Longueville, Lenet, Marsin, and the Président Viole, set out to take command of the Frondeurs on the Loire. After an adventurous journey, in which he only escaped capture by a miracle, he reached the army in safety, and falling upon the division of the royal forces commanded by Hocquincourt, completely routed it. But his attack on Turenne’s position failed, and, shortly afterwards, he quitted his army and set out for Paris, with the object of inducing the capital to espouse his cause. Here, he found his beloved Madame de Châtillon, and, largely through her influence, “allowed himself to be drawn into an abyss of negotiations of which one never saw the bottom.”[201] These negotiations led to no result, and, in the absence of their chief, the Frondeur army suffered a severe reverse at Étampes, where it was suddenly attacked by Turenne. Nor did he secure the adhesion of the capital, for, though the populace espoused his cause, the better-class citizens stood aloof.
At length, at the end of June, Condé, comprehending the fatal error he had committed in leaving the field to engage in futile intrigues, and of having preferred the counsels of an avaricious mistress[202] to those of his best friends, left Paris to resume the command of his weakened and disheartened forces. It was too late. Forced back upon Paris by superior numbers, he was obliged to fight the bloody combat of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which would probably have ended in the total destruction of the rebel army, had not la Grande Mademoiselle, by dint of tears and supplications, wrested an order from her irresolute father to open the gates to the hard-pressed Frondeurs and for the cannon of the Bastille to cover their retreat (2 July).