onger. M. de Bouillon, since his brother's declaration,
seemed more inclined than before to come to an arrangement with the
Court, but his pretentions ran very high, and both the brothers were in
such a situation that a little assistance would not suffice, and as to
the offers made to myself by Madame de Lesdiguieres, I returned such an
answer as convinced the Court that I was not so easily to be moved.

In short, Cardinal Mazarin found all the avenues to a negotiation either
shut or impassable. This despair of success in the Court was eventually
more to the advantage of the Court than the most refined politics, for it
did not hinder them from negotiating, the Cardinal's natural temper not
permitting him to do otherwise; but, however, he could not trust to the
carrying out of negotiations, and therefore beguiled our generals with
fair promises, while he remitted 800,000 livres to buy off the army of M.
de Turenne, and obliged the deputies at Ruel to sign a peace against the
orders of the Parliament that sent them. The President de Mesmes assured
me several times since that this peace was purely the result of a
conversation he had with the Cardinal on the 8th of March at night, when
his Eminence told him he saw plainly that M. de Bouillon would not treat
till he had the Spaniards and M. de Turenne at the gates of Paris; that
is, till he saw himself in the position to seize one-half of the kingdom.
The President made him this answer:

"There is no hope of any security but in making the Coadjutor a
cardinal."

To which Mazarin answered: "He is worse than the other, who at least
seemed once inclined to treat, but he is still for a general peace, or
for none at all."

President de Mesmes replied: "If things are come to this pass we must be
the victims to save the State from perishing--we must sign the peace. For
after what the Parliament has done to-day there is no remedy, and perhaps
tomorrow we shall be recalled; if we are disowned in what we do we are
ruined, the gates of Paris will be shut against us, and we shall be
prosecuted and treated as prevaricators and traitors. It is our business
and concern to procure such conditions as will give us good ground to
justify our proceedings, and if the terms are but reasonable, we know how
to improve them against the factions; but make them as you please
yourself, I will sign them all, and will go this moment to acquaint the
First President that this is the only expedient to sa