in in one week. May not the Court to-morrow put
an end to the civil war by the expulsion of Mazarin and by raising the
siege of Paris? The provinces are not yet sufficiently inflamed, and
therefore we must double our application to make the most of Paris.
Besides the necessity of treating with Spain and managing the people,
there is another expedient come into my head capable of rendering us as
considerable in Parliament as our affairs require.

"We have an army in Paris which will be looked upon as the people so long
as it continues within its walls. Every councillor of inquest is
inclined to believe his authority among the soldiers to be equal to that
of the generals. But the leaders of the people are not believed to be
very powerful until they make their power known by its execution. Pray
do but consider the conduct of the Court upon this occasion. Was there
any minister or courtier but ridiculed all that could be said of the
disposition of the people in favour of the Parliament even to the day of
the barricades? And yet it is as true that every man at Court saw
infallible marks of the revolution beforehand. One would have thought
that the barricades should have convinced them; but have they been
convinced? Have they been hindered from besieging Paris on the slight
supposition that, though the caprice of the people might run them into a
mutiny, yet it would not break out into a civil war? What we are now
doing might undeceive them effectually; but are they yet cured of their
infatuation? Is not the Queen told every day that none are for the
Parliament but hired mobs, and that all the wealthy burghers are in her
Majesty's interests?

"The Parliament is now as much infatuated as the Court was then. This
present disturbance among the people carries in it all the marks of power
which, in a little time, they will feel the effects of, and which, as
they cannot but foresee, they ought to prevent in time, because of the
murmurs of the people against them and their redoubled affection for M.
de Beaufort and me. But far from it, the Parliament will never open its
eyes until all its authority is quashed by a sudden blow. If they see we
have a design against them they will, perhaps, have so inconsiderable an
opinion of it that they will take courage, and if we should but flinch,
they will bear harder still upon us, till we shall be forced to crush
them; but this would not turn to our account; on the contrary, it is