Two days later, a ferocious mob, among which are said to have been many of Condé’s soldiers, disguised as artisans, attacked the Hôtel de Ville, where some three hundred delegates from the clergy, magistracy, and the various parishes were assembled in conclave, murdered several of them, and set the building on fire. This atrocious act, worthy of the worst days of the League, had the effect of terrifying the city into submission to Condé, but, at the same time, proved the death-blow of the Fronde, since all save the refuse of the people were filled with horror and loathing for a party which sought to compass its ends by such means. Every day saw the prince’s followers falling away from him and the desire for peace growing stronger; and the skilful effacement of Mazarin, who, on 19 August, left Pontoise and retired into a second and voluntary exile at Bouillon, and afterwards at Sedan, removed the only pretext for continuing the war. Condé attempted to negotiate, but was informed that no proposal from him would be considered until he had laid down his arms, disbanded his troops, and renounced his alliance with Spain; and, at length, on 13 October, disdaining to accept the general amnesty which had been proclaimed, but finding his position in the capital no longer tenable, he left Paris with the few troops which still remained faithful to him and joined the Spaniards on the Flemish frontier. A week later, Louis XIV. and Anne of Austria made their entry into the city amid general rejoicings, and in the following February Mazarin returned in triumph, to remain until the hour of his death the absolute ruler of France.
The Fronde of Bordeaux survived the Fronde in Paris by nearly ten months. Its chief feature was the bitter struggle between the advanced and moderate parties among the citizens. The former, recruited from the lower middle-class and the populace, desired to carry on the war à outrance, and was quite ready for an alliance with Spain, England, or half Europe for that matter. Its most violent spirits held republican views, which had been fostered by recent events in England, and, imitating the League or anticipating the Jacobins, formed themselves into a regular society, called, from its favourite place of assembly—a little terrace bordered by elms in the environs of the town—the Ormée, and persecuted with the utmost virulence all whom they suspected of hostility to the popular cause. The latter, which comprised the great majority of the better-class citizens, though hostile in general to the Court and Mazarin, were desirous of keeping the insurrectionary movement within bounds, and looked with marked disapproval on Condé’s negotiations with Spain. To resist the tyranny of the Ormée, they organized themselves into a kind of aristocratic league, which was called, from the fashionable quarter of the town, the Chapeau Rouge. Sanguinary encounters between the two factions were of frequent occurrence, and, but for the courage and presence of mind of the Princesse de Condé and Madame de Longueville, who, at great personal risk, repeatedly intervened to separate the infuriated combatants, Bordeaux would have become a shambles.
On one occasion, we read that Madame la Princesse, “fort allumée de colère,” vowed that the next time there was a breach of the peace, she would, notwithstanding that she was with child,[203] place herself at the head of those who obeyed her, and cause the offenders to be cut to pieces.[204] Scarcely, however, had she and Madame de Longueville withdrawn, than the Ormistes, undismayed by this terrible threat, stormed the Hôtel de Ville and held it throughout the night. In the morning, flushed with success, they marched in great force upon the Quartier du Chapeau Rouge, and attacked the house of a certain M. Pichon, a president of the Parlement, who appears to have been the object of their peculiar animosity. Unhappily for them, M. Pichon had received warning of their intentions, and had taken the precaution to convert his residence into a kind of fortress, from which a withering fire of musketry was opened on the besiegers. Exasperated by their losses, the Ormistes proceeded to storm and set fire to the neighbouring houses; reinforcements came up rapidly on both sides, and it seemed as though the whole town would be delivered up to fire and blood. So fierce was the fighting that it appeared hopeless for the princesses to intervene; but, at length, they bethought themselves of a happy expedient. Hastening to the curé of the Church of Saint-Messan, they ordered him to accompany them to the scene of the fray, bearing the Holy Sacrament, preceded by the cross and candles. The cortège advanced into the very midst of the combatants, who desisted, vanquished by the courage and presence of mind of these young women.
On 23 July, 1653, Bordeaux surrendered on honourable terms, the troops which Marsin had brought from Catalonia being permitted to join Condé, and a full pardon being granted to the inhabitants, with the exception of the leaders of the Ormée, one of whom was executed.
The most generous offers were made by Mazarin to Madame la Princesse, on condition that she should remain in France and separate her interests from those of her husband. But, ever constant to her duty, Claire-Clémence declined them, and announced her intention of rejoining Condé. On 3 August, accompanied by the Duc d’Enghien and the faithful Lenet, she sailed for Flanders on board a Spanish ship-of-war. Her health had been so much affected by the trials and anxieties of the last few months that her physicians assured her that she would not survive the voyage; but, happily, these gloomy prognostications were not realized, and on 26 August she landed safely at Dunkerque. Thence she journeyed slowly, by way of Nieuport, Bruges, Ghent, and Oudenarde, to Valenciennes, where, by her husband’s orders, she took up her residence.
By order of the Viceroy of the Netherlands, she was received everywhere with royal honours and the most splendid hospitality. At Valenciennes, the governor, the municipal authorities, and all the nobility of the surrounding country, came to pay her homage, and to compliment her on her heroic Odyssey from Bordeaux. The Viceroy did everything in his power to amuse her, and sent from Brussels a company of actors, who gave before the illustrious exile a series of performances, in a theatre constructed specially for the occasion.
The consideration and sympathy with which strangers were so eager to surround the princess presented a striking contrast to the coldness and indifference of her husband. After all that she had done and suffered for his sake, she might well have expected to receive from him some proof of affection, or at least, of respect. But for eight months after her arrival he never once condescended to visit her, and, to add to the mortification which she must have felt, he deprived her of her son, who had never yet left her, whom he sent to the Jesuit College at Namur. At last, at the end of June, 1654, he sent orders to her to meet him at Mons. They passed one night together at an inn in the town, and on the morrow separated again, the husband proceeding to Brussels and the army, the wife returning to Valenciennes.
At the beginning of September, the approach of the French obliged Madame la Princesse to quit Valenciennes and seek another asylum. She chose Malines, where she installed herself at the Hôtel Hoogstratin. In spite of the fine promises which had been made by the Viceroy, she did not receive any assistance from the Government and soon found herself in terrible straits. The meagre sums sent her at rare intervals by Condé, who was himself in scarcely better case, were quite insufficient to defray the expenses of her Household, and she was obliged to dismiss the greater number of her attendants and to dispose successively of the few jewels she had kept, less for their value than for the associations connected with them, of her horses and carriages, and, finally, of part of her wardrobe. Sometimes she and her servants were even in need of food, for her maître d’hôtel had the greatest difficulty in obtaining credit from the humble tradesmen of the town.
The princess continued this wretched existence for several years. She rarely saw her son, but received occasional visits from her husband, an honour for which she seems to have been indebted to the fact that Condé was no longer able to spend his leisure at Brussels, where he was in debt to every one. “I am in such disrepute with the tradesmen,” he writes, under date 28 October, 1655, to the Comte de Fiesque, his envoy at Madrid, “that they look upon me as a bankrupt. I borrow in every direction, and I pay no one back.” And, a month later: “I doubt if I shall dare to return to Brussels, on account of the multitude of creditors of all kinds whom I have there.... My wife and my son are accustoming themselves to live on air.”
When, on 2 January, 1656, Condé arrived at Malines, he found his unfortunate wife without a fire in her room, and learned that the exasperated landlady of the inn had just caused the princess’s maître d’hôtel to be thrown into prison. Moved with pity, despite his egoism, by the wretched condition to which his conduct had reduced this courageous and devoted woman, he humbled his pride sufficiently to write to Don Luis de Haro, Prime Minister of Spain, to demand assistance. “Finally, Monsieur,” he writes, “I beg your Excellency to consider that without prompt pecuniary assistance it will be impossible for me to continue my services to the King with honour and usefulness.... I beg you to inform me what his Catholic Majesty wishes me to become; for, so long as I have no money, as my troops are without recruits and without remounts, as my general-officers are without a sol, as my fortresses are dismantled, as all my friends are in poverty, as I myself, my wife, and my son are in a continual beggary, I cannot be capable of rendering service to his Majesty in such a condition.”[205]