ke de Vendome, who blockaded it, there was a general amnesty.

When Conde retired to the Netherlands, it was not long before it became
known, to the national humiliation, that the best soldier of France, a
prince of the blood and protector of the people, had followed the recent
example of his conqueror, and sold his services to Spain. The young King
made his triumphal entry into Paris, accompanied by his mother and
Turenne. He convoked the Courts, and received them into favour,
"provided they returned within the limits of their duties, and abstained
from interfering with the government." Gaston was sent into honourable
exile, to his castle in the beautiful town of Blois, and the
Cardinal-Archbishop, the evil spirit of the Fronde, was received with
apparent cordiality, and began to entertain hopes of supplanting his
rival; but when he had fallen into disrepute with the citizens, he was
quietly carried off to Vincennes, and left to meditate on his plots and
schemings within the bars of his solitary apartment. The Parisians were
now so changed from what they had been, that they received their old
enemy, the Cardinal Mazarin, with demonstrations of delight, when he
made his solemn entry into the repentant city with young Louis as an
attendant at his side.

CHAPTER V.

THE TRIUMPH OF MAZARIN.

MAZARIN might well have claimed the right of accompanying to Paris, on
the 21st October, 1652, Louis the Fourteenth and Anne of Austria, and to
share the joy of their victory over the Fronde, for he was the true
achiever of it. It was he who, by retiring so opportunely, by leaving
the Fronde to itself, had allowed it to exhibit at its entire ease its
fury and impotence; it was he who, from the depth of his exile,
disquieted by the success of Chateauneuf, had collected troops, rallied
round him experienced generals, raised the banner of the monarchy, and
from one vantage ground to another had carried it forwards even to
Paris. But by reappearing there prematurely, Mazarin might have risked
the rekindling of animosities scarcely yet extinguished. It was his own
advice he followed--to second the effect of the amnesty, by a momentary
absence, in order to leave no pretext to those who had so often promised
to yield if he quitted the kingdom. Sure of the young King, surer still
of his mother, leaving with them his instructions and approved advisers,
Mazarin had disappeared, withdrawing at first to Bouillon, across the
frontier;