with myself, is to contribute to the
before-mentioned blessings in such manner that we may be esteemed the
authors of them; all other advantages are necessarily attached to this,
and the only way to acquire them is to show that we do not value them.
You know that I have frequently vowed I had no private interest to serve
in this affair, and I will keep my vow to the end. Your circumstances
are different from mine; you aim at Sedan, and you are in the right. M.
de Beaufort wants to be admiral, and I cannot blame him. M. de
Longueville has other demands--with all my heart. The Prince de Conti
and Madame de Longueville would be, for the future, independent of the
Prince de Conde; that independence they shall have.

"Now, in order to attain to these ends, the only means is to look another
way, to turn all our thoughts to bring about a general peace, and to sign
to-morrow the most solemn and positive engagement with the enemy, and,
the better to please the public, to insert in the articles the expulsion
of Cardinal Mazarin as their mortal enemy, to cause the Spanish forces to
come up immediately to Pont-a-Verre, and those of M. de Turenne to
advance into Champagne, and to go without any loss of time to propose to
the Parliament what Don Josh d'Illescas has offered them already in
relation to a general peace, to dispose them to vote as we would have
them, which they will not fail to do considering the circumstances we are
now in, and to send orders to our deputies at Ruel either to get the
Queen to nominate a place to confer about a general peace or to return
the next day to their seats in Parliament. I am willing to think that
the Court, seeing to what an extremity they are reduced, will comply,
than which what can be more for our honour?

"And if the Court should refuse this proposition at present, will they
not be of another mind before two months are at an end? Will not the
provinces, which are already hesitating, then declare in our favour? And
is the army of the Prince de Conde in a condition to engage that of Spain
and ours in conjunction with that of M. de Turenne? These two last, when
joined, will put us above all the apprehensions from foreign forces which
have hitherto made us uneasy; they will depend much more on us than we on
them; we shall continue masters of Paris by our own strength, and the
more securely because the intervening authority of Parliament will the
more firmly unite us to the people. The declarati