in the realm--that is
to say, a thousand projects as pernicious to the King and to the state
as they were advantageous to our most mortal enemies,--such were the
great objects of the deliberations of these new counsellors." [64]

Be this as it may, it is certain that as regarded the Prince de Conde,
the Queen was better served by accident than she would have been by the
dangerous advice of her friends. The wise precaution which she had taken
of arming the citizens of Paris, and of placing them under the command
of individuals chosen by herself, and who had taken an oath of fidelity
to her service in the Hotel de Ville, secured the loyalty of the
populace; while the jealousy of the Guises, who, even while professing
the most ardent attachment to M. de Conde, were gradually becoming
cooler in his cause and quarrelling among themselves, gave no
encouragement to an attempt at revolt on his part, even should he have
been inclined to hazard it.

The Duc de Bouillon alone laboured incessantly to undermine the power of
the Regent; and he at length suggested to the Prince that in order to
counterbalance the authority of the Court, and to maintain his own
rightful dignity, he would do well to return to his original religion,
and to place himself at the head of the Protestants, who would form a
very important and powerful party. M. de Conde, however, declined to
follow this advice, protesting that he had no desire to involve the
kingdom in intestine commotion, and was content to await the progress of
events.[65] It is probable that he was the more readily induced to exert
this forbearance from the extreme generosity of the Queen, who,
remembering the abruptness with which he had been deprived, on the
occasion of his marriage, of the many lucrative appointments bestowed
upon him, hastened to present him with a pension of two hundred thousand
livres; to which she added the Hotel de Conti in the Faubourg St.
Germain, which she purchased for that purpose at a similar sum, the
county of Clermont, and other munificent donations.[66]

Nor was M. de Conde the only recipient of her uncalculating generosity,
as may be gathered from the following document from the pen of
Richelieu:

"The good management of the savings fund of the late King left us, when
he was taken away, five millions in the Bastille; and in the hands of
the treasurer of the fund from seven to eight millions more, with which
he had intended to pay the army that he had r