“Why do you not disclose yourself to your friends? They would come into your measures. I see very well you know more of the matter than the person who thinks himself your informant.” I vow I was terribly ashamed of my indiscretion. I squeezed him by the hand and winked at MM. de Beaufort and de La Mothe. At length two other Presidents came over to my opinion, being thoroughly convinced that succours from Spain at this time were a remedy absolutely necessary to our disease, but a dangerous and empirical medicine, and infallibly mortal to particular persons if it did not pass first through the Parliament’s alembic.
The Bernardin, being tutored by us beforehand what to say when he came before the Parliament, behaved like a man of good sense.
When he desired audience, or rather when the Prince de Conti desired it for him, the President de Mesmes, a man of great capacity, but by fear and ambition most slavishly attached to the Court, made an eloquent and pathetic harangue, preferable to anything I ever met with of the kind in all the monuments of antiquity, and, turning about to the Prince de Conti, “Is it possible, monsieur,” said he, “that a Prince of the blood of France should propose to let a person deputed from the most bitter enemy of the fleurs-de-lis have a seat upon those flowers?” Then turning to me, he said, “What, monsieur, will you refuse entrance to your sovereign’s herald upon the most trifling pretexts?” I knew what was coming, and therefore I endeavoured to stop his mouth by this answer: “Monsieur, you will excuse me from calling those reasons frivolous which have had the sanction of a decree.” The bulk of the Parliament was provoked at the President’s unguarded expression, baited him very fiercely, and then I made some pretence to go out, leaving Quatresous, a young man of the warmest temper, in the House to skirmish with him in my stead, as having experienced more than once that the only way to get anything of moment passed in Parliamentary or other assemblies is to exasperate the young men against the old ones.
In short, after many debates, it was carried that the envoy should be admitted to audience. Being accordingly admitted, and bidden to be covered and sit down, he presented the Archduke’s credentials, and then made a speech, which was in substance that his master had ordered him to acquaint the company with a proposal made him by Cardinal Mazarin since the blockade of Paris, which his Catholic Majesty did not think consistent with his safety or honour to accept, when he saw that, on the one hand, it was made with a view to oppress the Parliament, which was held in veneration by all the kingdoms in the world, and, on the other, that all treaties made with a condemned minister would be null and void, forasmuch as they were made without the concurrence of the Parliament, to whom only it belonged to register and verify treaties of peace in order to make them authoritative; that the Catholic King, who proposed to take no advantage from the present state of affairs, had ordered the Archduke to assure the Parliament, whom he knew to be in the true interest of the most Christian King, that he heartily acknowledged them to be the arbiters of peace, that he submitted to their judgment, and that if they thought proper to be judges, he left it to their choice to send a deputation out of their own body to what place they pleased. Paris itself not excepted, and that his Catholic Majesty would also, without delay, send his deputies thither to meet and treat with them; that, meanwhile, he had ordered 18,000 men to march towards their frontiers to relieve them in case of need, with orders nevertheless to commit no hostilities upon the towns, etc., of the most Christian King, though they were for the most part abandoned; and it being his resolution at this juncture to show his sincere inclination for peace, he gave them his word of honour that his armies should not stir during the treaty; but that in case his troops might be serviceable to the Parliament, they were at their disposal, to be commanded by French officers; and that to obviate all the reasonable jealousies generally, attending the conduct of foreigners, they, were at liberty to take all other precautions they should think proper.
Before his admission the Prdsident de Mesmes had loaded me with invectives, for secretly corresponding with the enemies of the State, for favouring his admission, and for opposing that of my sovereign’s herald.
I had observed that when the objections against a man are capable of making greater impression than his answers, it is his best course to say but little, and that he may talk as much as he pleases when he thinks his answers of greater force than the objections. I kept strictly to this rule, for though the said President artfully pointed his satire at me, I sat unconcerned till I found the Parliament was charmed with what the envoy had said, and then, in my turn, I was even with the President by telling him in short that my respect for the Parliament had obliged me to put up with his sarcasms, which I had hitherto endured; and that I did not suppose he meant that his sentiments should always be a law to the Parliament; that nobody there had a greater esteem for him, with which I hoped that the innocent freedom I had taken to speak my mind was not inconsistent; that as to the non-admission of the herald, had it not been for the motion made by M. Broussel, I should have fallen into the snare through overcredulity, and have given my vote for that which might perhaps have ended in the destruction of the city, and involved myself in what has since fully proved to be a crime by the Queen’s late solemn approbation of the contrary conduct; and that, as to the envoy, I was silent till I saw most of them were for giving him audience, when I thought it better to vote the same way than vainly to contest it.
This modest and submissive answer of mine to all the scurrilities heaped upon me for a fortnight together by the First President and the President de Mesmes had an excellent effect upon the members, and obliterated for a long time the suspicion that I aimed to govern them by my cabals. The President de Mesmes would have replied, but his words were drowned in the general clamour. The clock struck five; none had dined, and many had not broken their fast, which the Presidents had, and therefore had the advantage in disputation.
The decree ordering the admission of the Spanish envoy to audience directed that a copy of what he said in Parliament, signed with his own hand, should be demanded of him, to the end that it might be registered, and that, by a solemn deputation, it should be sent to the Queen, with an assurance of the fidelity of the Parliament, beseeching her at the same time to withdraw her troops from the neighbourhood of Paris and restore peace to her people. It being now very late, and the members very hungry,—circumstances that have greater influence than can be imagined in debates, they were upon the point of letting this clause pass for want of due attention. The President Le Coigneux was the first that discovered the grand mistake, and, addressing himself to a great many councillors, who were rising up, said, “Gentlemen, pray take your places again, for I have something to offer to the House which is of the highest importance to all Europe.” When they had taken their places he spoke as follows:
“The King of Spain takes us for arbiters of the general peace; it may be he is not in earnest, but yet it is a compliment to tell us so. He offers us troops to march to our relief, and it is certain he does not deceive us in this respect, but highly obliges us. We have heard his envoy, and considering the circumstances we are in, we think it right so to do. We have resolved to give an account of this matter to the King, which is but reasonable; some imagine that we propose to send the original decree, but here lies the snake in the grass. I protest, monsieur,” added he, turning to the First President, “that the members did not understand it so, but that the copy only should be carried to Court, and the original be kept in the register. I could wish there had been no occasion for explanation, because there are some occasions when it is not prudent to speak all that one thinks, but since I am forced to it, I must say it without further hesitation, that in case we deliver up the original the Spaniards will conclude that we expose their proposals for a general peace and our own safety to the caprice of Cardinal Mazarin; whereas, by delivering only a copy, accompanied with humble entreaties for a general peace, as the Parliament has wisely ordered, all Europe will see that we maintain ourselves in a condition capable of doing real service both to our King and country, if the Cardinal is so blind as not to take a right advantage of this opportunity.”
This discourse was received with the approbation of all the members, who cried out from all corners of the House that this was the meaning of the House. The gentlemen of the Court of Inquests did not spare the Presidents. M. Martineau said publicly that the tenor of this decree was that the envoy of Spain should be made much of till they received an answer from Saint Germain, which would prove to be another taunt of the Cardinal’s. Pontcarre said he was not so much afraid of a Spaniard as of a Mazarin. In short, the generals had the satisfaction to see that the Parliament would not be sorry for any advances they should make towards an alliance with Spain.