The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz [113]
my honour was not concerned, but that I should be a double-dealer if I promised to contribute to his reestablishment. Then she said, "Go! you are a very devil. See Madame Palatine, and let me hear from you the night before you go to the Parliament."
I do not think I was in the wrong to refuse her offer. We must never jest with proffered service; for if it be real, we can never embrace it too much; but if false, we can never keep at too great a distance. I lamented to the public the sad condition of our affairs, which had obliged me to leave my dear retirement, where, after so much disturbance and confusion, I hoped to enjoy comfortable rest; that we were falling into a worse condition than we were in before, because the State suffered more by the daily negotiations carried on with Mazarin than it had done by his administrations; and that the Queen was still buoyed up with hopes of his reestablishment.
The Prince de Conde having inflamed the Parliament, to make himself more formidable to the Queen and Court, some new scenes were opened every day. At one time they sent to the provinces to inform against the Cardinal; at another time they made search after his effects at Paris.
I went one day with four hundred men in my company to the Parliament House, where the Prince de Conde inveighed against the exportation of money out of the kingdom by the Cardinal's banker. But afterwards I absented myself for awhile from Parliament, which made me suspected of being less an enemy to the Cardinal, and I was pelted with a dozen or fifteen libels in the space of a fortnight, by a fellow whose nose had been slit for writing a lampoon against a lady of quality. I composed a short but general answer to all, entitled "An Apology for the Ancient and True Fronde." There was a strong paper war between the old and new Fronde for three or four months, but afterwards they united in the attack on Mazarin. There were about sixty volumes of tracts written during the civil war, but I am sure that there are not a hundred sheets worth reading.
I was sent for again to another private conference with the Queen, who, dreading an arrangement with the Prince de Conde, was for his being arrested, and advised me to consider how it might be done. It seems that M. Hoquincourt had offered to kill him in the street, as the shortest way to be rid of him, for she desired me to confer about it with Hoquincourt, "who will," said she, "show you a much surer way." The Queen, nevertheless, would not own she had ever such a thought, though she was heard to say, "The Coadjutor is not a man of so much courage as I took him for."
The next day I was informed that the Queen could endure the Prince no longer, and that she had advices that he had formed a design to seize the King; that he had despatched orders to Flanders to treat with the Spaniards, and that either he or she must be ruined; that she was not for shedding blood, and that what Hoquincourt proposed was far from it, because he promised to secure the Prince without striking a blow if I would answer for the people.
The Parliament continued to prosecute Mazarin, who was convicted of embezzling some nine millions of the public money. The Prince assembled the Chambers, and persuaded them to issue a new decree against all those of the Court party who held correspondence with the said Cardinal.
The Prince de Conde, being uneasy at seeing Mazarin's creatures still at Court, retired to Saint Maur on the 6th of July, 1651. On the 7th the Prince de Conti acquainted the Parliament with the reasons for his departure, and talked in general of the warnings he had received from different hands of a design the Court had formed against his life, adding that his brother could not be safe at Court as long as Tellier, Servien, and Lionne were not removed. There was a very hot debate in the ensuing session between the Prince de Conti and the First President. The latter talked very warmly against his retreat to Saint Maur, and called it a melancholy prelude to a civil war. He hinted also that the said Prince
I do not think I was in the wrong to refuse her offer. We must never jest with proffered service; for if it be real, we can never embrace it too much; but if false, we can never keep at too great a distance. I lamented to the public the sad condition of our affairs, which had obliged me to leave my dear retirement, where, after so much disturbance and confusion, I hoped to enjoy comfortable rest; that we were falling into a worse condition than we were in before, because the State suffered more by the daily negotiations carried on with Mazarin than it had done by his administrations; and that the Queen was still buoyed up with hopes of his reestablishment.
The Prince de Conde having inflamed the Parliament, to make himself more formidable to the Queen and Court, some new scenes were opened every day. At one time they sent to the provinces to inform against the Cardinal; at another time they made search after his effects at Paris.
I went one day with four hundred men in my company to the Parliament House, where the Prince de Conde inveighed against the exportation of money out of the kingdom by the Cardinal's banker. But afterwards I absented myself for awhile from Parliament, which made me suspected of being less an enemy to the Cardinal, and I was pelted with a dozen or fifteen libels in the space of a fortnight, by a fellow whose nose had been slit for writing a lampoon against a lady of quality. I composed a short but general answer to all, entitled "An Apology for the Ancient and True Fronde." There was a strong paper war between the old and new Fronde for three or four months, but afterwards they united in the attack on Mazarin. There were about sixty volumes of tracts written during the civil war, but I am sure that there are not a hundred sheets worth reading.
I was sent for again to another private conference with the Queen, who, dreading an arrangement with the Prince de Conde, was for his being arrested, and advised me to consider how it might be done. It seems that M. Hoquincourt had offered to kill him in the street, as the shortest way to be rid of him, for she desired me to confer about it with Hoquincourt, "who will," said she, "show you a much surer way." The Queen, nevertheless, would not own she had ever such a thought, though she was heard to say, "The Coadjutor is not a man of so much courage as I took him for."
The next day I was informed that the Queen could endure the Prince no longer, and that she had advices that he had formed a design to seize the King; that he had despatched orders to Flanders to treat with the Spaniards, and that either he or she must be ruined; that she was not for shedding blood, and that what Hoquincourt proposed was far from it, because he promised to secure the Prince without striking a blow if I would answer for the people.
The Parliament continued to prosecute Mazarin, who was convicted of embezzling some nine millions of the public money. The Prince assembled the Chambers, and persuaded them to issue a new decree against all those of the Court party who held correspondence with the said Cardinal.
The Prince de Conde, being uneasy at seeing Mazarin's creatures still at Court, retired to Saint Maur on the 6th of July, 1651. On the 7th the Prince de Conti acquainted the Parliament with the reasons for his departure, and talked in general of the warnings he had received from different hands of a design the Court had formed against his life, adding that his brother could not be safe at Court as long as Tellier, Servien, and Lionne were not removed. There was a very hot debate in the ensuing session between the Prince de Conti and the First President. The latter talked very warmly against his retreat to Saint Maur, and called it a melancholy prelude to a civil war. He hinted also that the said Prince