ame desire on the part of the country to take an active
part in its own government, which had inspired the opposition of the
Parliament of England to the despotism of Charles I., and the opposition
of the French Parliaments to Richelieu as well as to Mazarin. It was
England's good fortune to have but one Parliament of politicians, instead
of ten Parliaments of magistrates, the latter more fit for the theory
than the practice of public affairs; and the Reformation had, beforehand,
accustomed its people to discussion as well as to liberty. Its great
lords and its gentlemen placed themselves from the first at the head of
the national movement, demanding nothing and expecting nothing for
themselves from the advantages they claimed for their country. The
remnant of the feudal system had succumbed with the Duke of Montmorency
under Richelieu; France knew not the way to profit by the elements of
courage, disinterestedness, and patriotism offered her by her magistracy;
she had the misfortune to be delivered over to noisy factions of princes
and great lords, ambitious or envious, greedy of honors and riches, as
ready to fight the court as to be on terms with it, and thinking far more
of their own personal interests than of the public service. Without any
unity of action or aim, and by turns excited and dismayed by the examples
that came to them from England, the Frondeurs had to guide them no
Hampden or Cromwell; they had at their backs neither people nor army; the
English had been able to accomplish a revolution; the Fronde failed
before the dexterous prudence of Mazarin and the queen's fidelity to her
minister. In vain did the coadjutor aspire to take his place; Anne of
Austria had not forgotten the Earl of Strafford.--Cardinal de Retz
learned before long the hollowness of his hopes. On the 19th of
December, 1652, as he was repairing to the Louvre, he was arrested by M.
de Villequier, captain of the guards on duty, and taken the same evening
to the Bois de Vincennes; there was a great display of force in the
street and around the carriage; but nobody moved, whether it were," says
Retz, "that the dejection of the people was too great, or that those who
were well-inclined towards me lost courage on seeing nobody at their
head." People were tired of raising barricades and hounding down the
king's soldiers.

"I was taken into a large room where there were neither hangings nor bed;
that which was brought in about eleven o'cl