d an enemy to the repose of Christendom, after I
had served them with so many signs of my devotion to the advancement of
peace: it is no longer a question of property, repose, or whatever else
there may be of the sort. I demand the honor which has been taken from
me, and that I be let alone, renouncing very heartily the cardinalate and
the benefices, whereof I send in my resignation joyfully, consenting
willingly to have given up to France twenty-three years of the best of my
life, all my pains and my little of wealth, and merely to withdraw with
the honor which I had when I began to serve her." The persistent hopes
of the adroit Italian appeared once more in the postscript of the letter:
"I had forgotten to tell you that it was not the way to set me right in
the eyes of the people to impress upon their mind that I am the cause of
all the evils they suffer, and of all the disorders of the realm, in such
sort that my ministry will be held in horror forever."

Conde did not permit himself to be caught by the queen's declarations:
of all the princes he alone was missing at the ceremony of the bed of
justice whereat the youthful Louis XIV., when entering his fourteenth
year, announced, on the 7th of September, to his people that, according
the laws of his realm, he "intended himself to assume the government,
hoping of God's goodness that it would be with piety and justice." The
prince had retired to Chantilly, on the pretext that the new minister,
the president of the council, Chateauneuf, and the keeper of the seals,
Matthew Mole, were not friends of his. The Duchess of Longueville at
last carried the day; Conde was resolved upon civil war. "You would have
it," he said to his sister on repelling the envoy, who had followed him
to Bourges, from the queen and the Duke of Orleans; "remember that I draw
the sword in spite of myself, but I will be the last to sheathe it." And
he kept his word.

A great disappointment awaited the rebels; they had counted upon the Duke
of Bouillon and M. de Turenne, but neither of them would join the
faction. The relations between the two great generals had not been
without rubs; Turenne had, moreover, felt some remorse because he, being
a general in the king's army, had but lately declared against the court,
"doing thereby a deed at which Le Balafro and Admiral de Coligny would
have hesitated," says Cardinal de Retz. The two brothers went, before
long, and offered their services to the q