s which lead
them two ways, and consequently press them to no choice.

I had almost forgotten to tell you what M. de Bouillon said to me in
private as we were going from the conference. "I am sure," said he,
"that you will not blame me for not exposing a wife whom I dearly love
and eight children whom she loves more than herself to the hazards which
you run, and which I could run with you were I a single man."

I was very much affected by the tender sentiments of M. de Bouillon and
the confidence he placed in me, and assured him I was so far from blaming
him that I esteemed him the more, and that his tenderness for his lady,
which he was pleased to call his weakness, was indeed what politics
condemned but ethics highly justified, because it betokened an honest
heart, which is much superior both to interest and politics. M. de
Bouillon communicated the proposal both to the Spanish envoys and to the
generals, who were easily persuaded to relish it.

Thus he made, as it were, a golden bridge for the Spaniards to withdraw
their troops with decency. I told him as soon as they were gone that he
was an excellent man to persuade people that a "quartan ague was good for
them."

The Parliamentary deputies, repairing to Saint Germain on the 17th of
March, 1649, first took care to settle the interests of the generals,
upon which every officer of the army thought he had a right to exhibit
his pretensions. M. de Vendome sent his son a formal curse if he did not
procure for him at least the post of Superintendent of the Seas, which
was created first in favour of Cardinal de Richelieu in place of that of
High Admiral, but Louis XIV. abolished it, and restored that of High
Admiral.

Upon this we held a conference, the result of which was that on the 20th
the Prince de Conti told the Parliament that himself and the other
generals entered their claims solely for the purpose of providing for
their safety in case Mazarin should continue in the Ministry, and that he
protested, both for himself and for all the gentlemen engaged in the same
party, that they would immediately renounce all pretensions whatsoever
upon the exclusion of Cardinal Mazarin.

We also prevailed on the Prince de Conti, though almost against his will,
to move the Parliament to direct their deputies to join with the Comte de
Maure for the expulsion of Cardinal Mazarin. I had almost lost all my
credit with the people, because I hindered them on the 13th of March from