my life, and your Majesty the safety of the Palais-Royal." The queen
began to smile. "The marshal flew into a passion, and said with an oath,
'Madame, no proper man can venture to flatter you in the state in which
things are; and if you do not this very day set Broussel at liberty,
to-morrow there will not be left one stone upon another in Paris.' I
wished to speak in support of what the marshal said, but the queen cut
me short, saying, with an air of raillery, 'Go and rest yourself, sir;
you have worked very hard.'"

The coadjutor left the Palais-Royal "in what is called a rage;" and he
was in a greater one in the evening, when his friends came and told him
that he was being made fun of at the queen's supper-table; that she was
convinced that he had done all he could to increase the tumult; that he
would be the first to be made a great example of; and that the Parliament
was about to be interdicted. Paul de Gondi had not waited for their
information to think of revolt. "I did not reflect as to what I could
do," says he, "for I was quite certain of that; I reflected only as to
what I ought to do, and I was perplexed." The jests and the threats of
the court appeared to him to be sufficient justification. "What
effectually stopped my scruples was the advantage I imagined I had in
distinguishing myself from those of my profession by a state of life in
which there was something of all professions. In disorderly times,
things lead to a confusion of species, and the vices of an archbishop
may, in an infinity of conjunctures, be the virtues of a party leader."
The coadjutor recalled his friends. "We are not in such bad case as you
supposed, gentlemen," he said to them; "there is an intention of crushing
the public; it is for me to defend it from oppression; to-morrow before
midday I shall be master of Paris."

For some time past the coadjutor had been laboring to make himself
popular in Paris; the general excitement was only waiting to break out,
and when the chancellor's carriage appeared in the streets in the
morning, on the way to the Palace of Justice, the people, secretly worked
upon during the night, all at once took up arms again. The chancellor
had scarcely time to seek refuge in the Hotel de Luynes; the mob rushed
in after him, pillaging and destroying the furniture, whilst the
chancellor, flying for refuge into a small chamber, and believing his
last hour had come, was confessing to his brother, the Bishop