oppose a clique of young nobles, full of arrogance and
self-conceit, but scions of the greatest families. They hoped to
recover the ancient ascendency of their houses. The chief of these
were the Dukes of Beaufort, Epernon, and Guise. They made use, as
their tool, of Madame Chevreuse, the confidential friend of the queen
regent. And she demanded of the minister that posts of honor and power
should be given to her friends, which would secure that independence
which Richelieu had spent his life in restraining. Mazarin tried to
amuse her, but, she being inexorable, he was obliged to break with
her, and a conspiracy was the result, which, however, was easily
suppressed.

[Sidenote: Cardinal de Retz.]

But a more formidable enemy appeared in the person of De Retz,
coadjutor archbishop of Paris, and afterwards cardinal, a man of
boundless intrigue, unconquerable ambition, and restless discontent.
To detail his plots and intrigues, would be to describe a labyrinth.
He succeeded, however, in keeping the country in perpetual turmoil,
now inflaming the minds of the people, then exciting insurrections
among the nobles, and then, again, encouraging the parliaments in
resistance. He never appeared as an actor, but every movement was
directed by his genius. He did not escape suspicion, but committed no
overt acts by which he could be punished. He and the celebrated
Duchess de Longueville, a woman who had as great a talent for intrigue
as himself, were the life and soul of the Fronde--a civil war which
ended only in the reestablishment of the monarchy on a firmer
foundation. As the Fronde had been commenced by a troop of urchins,
who, at the same time, amused themselves with slings, the wits of the
court called the insurgents _frondeurs_, or slingers, insinuating that
their force was trifling, and their aim mischief.

[Sidenote: Prince of Conde.]

Nevertheless, the Frondeurs kept France in a state of anarchy for six
years, and they were headed by some of the most powerful nobles, and
even supported by the Parliament of Paris. The people, too, were on
the side of the rebels, since they were ground down by taxation, and
hoped to gain a relief from their troubles. But the rebels took the
side of the oppressed only for their private advantage, and the
parliament itself lacked the perseverance and intrepidity necessary to
secure its liberty. The civil war of the Fronde, though headed by
discontented nobles, and animated by the intrigu