the
establishment of Anne of Austria's regency; in 1645 the triumph at
Nordlingen had enabled Mazarin to suppress the rising opposition of the
Parliament of Paris; and in 1646 the capture of Mardyke, Dunkirk,
Piombino, and Porto Longone had effaced the recollection of the failure
at Orbitello. But in 1648 the situation at home was more critical and
political passions ran high. Mazarin's neglect of the internal
administration had led to the revival of the cabals suppressed in 1643,
while the Parliament of Paris found in the general misery and
misgovernment of the country some justification for its opposition to
the court and the minister. Turenne's victory of Zusmarshausen in May,
1648, passed almost unnoticed in Paris, which was then seething with
discontent. Mazarin, however, hoped that a victory won by the popular
Conde in Flanders would at any rate arrest attention, strike the
imagination of the Parisians, and enable the Court to deal a telling
blow at its opponents.

That the opposition had any real ground of complaint Mazarin never seems
to have acknowledged, and he certainly at this time failed to grasp the
gravity of the situation. The leaders of the Parliamentary Fronde were
to a great extent men who "represented the highest type of citizen life"
and who had the welfare of France at heart. In attacking a wasteful
administration and a ruinous system of taxation, the Fronde movement is
deserving of respect. There was much to urge against the frauds of
contractors, unjust imprisonments, and the creation of new offices, and
many of the suggested reforms of the chamber of St. Louis were
excellent. On May 15, 1648, delegates from the four sovereign
courts--the parliament, the grand conseil, the chambre des comptes, the
cour des aides--had met in the chamber of St. Louis "to reform the
abuses which had crept into the state." The thirty-two delegates who sat
in that chamber formulated their demands, and practically claimed a
share in the legislative authority. Their principal demands were:

(1) That no tax should be levied unless previously voted by the
Parliament of Paris; (2) that no one should be kept in prison for more
than twenty-four hours without being tried; (3) that an investigation
into the extortions of the farmers of the taxes should be made; (4) that
a quarter of the _taille_ should be remitted, and that money gained from
that source should be strictly appropriated to the wars; (5) that the
intendants sh