etween the disputants; Conde yielded to their
entreaties, and begged the Duke of La Rochefoucauld to go and tell his
friends to withdraw. The coadjutor went out to make the same request to
his friends. "When he would have returned into the usher's little
court," writes Mdlle. de Montpensier, "he met at the door the Duke of La
Rochefoucauld, who shut it in his face, just keeping it ajar to see who
accompanied the coadjutor; he, seeing the door ajar, gave it a good push,
but he could not pass quite through, and remained as it were jammed
between the two folds, unable to get in or out. The Duke of La
Rochefoucauld had fastened the door with an iron catch, keeping it so to
prevent its opening any wider. The coadjutor was 'in an ugly position,
for he could not help fearing lest a dagger should pop out and take his
life from behind. A complaint was made to the grand chamber, and
Champlatreux, son of the premier president, went out, and, by his
authority, had the door opened, in spite of the Duke of La
Rochefoucauld." The coadjutor protested, and the Duke of Brissac, his
relative, threatened the Duke of La Rochefoucauld; whereupon the latter
said that, if he had them outside, he would strangle them both; to which
the coadjutor replied, "My dear La Franchise (the duke's nickname), do
not act the bully; you are a poltroon and I am a priest; we shall not do
one another much harm." There was no fighting, and the Parliament,
supported by the Duke of Orleans, obtained from the queen a declaration
of the innocence of the Prince of Conde, and at the same time a formal
disavowal of Mazarin's policy, and a promise never to recall him. Anne
of Austria yielded everything; the king's majority was approaching, and
she flattered herself that under cover of his name she would be able to
withdraw the concessions which she felt obliged to make as regent. Her
declaration, nevertheless, deeply wounded Mazarin, who was still taking
refuge at Bruhl, whence he wrote incessantly to the queen, who did not
neglect his counsels. "Ten times I have taken up my pen to write to
you," he said on the 26th of September, 1651 [_Lettres du Cardinal
Mazarin a la Reine,_ pp. 292, 293], "but could not, and I am so beside
myself at the mortal wound I have just received, that I am not sure
whether anything I could say to you would have rhyme or reason. The king
and the queen, by an authentic deed, have declared me a traitor, a public
robber, an incapable, an