o if it were for persons that had but
the sense to appreciate it!"

The Parliament did not continue long in that calm. They passed a decree
to interrogate the State prisoners in the Bastille, broke out sometimes
like a whirlwind, with thunder and lightning, against Cardinal Mazarin;
at other times they complained of the misapplication of the public funds.
We had much ado to ward off the blows, and should not have been able to
hold out long against the fury of the waves but for the news of the Peace
of Bordeaux, which was registered there on October the 1st, 1650, and put
the Prince de Conde's party into consternation.

One mean artifice of Cardinal Mazarin's polity was always to entertain
some men of our own party, with whom, half reconciled, he played fast and
loose before our eyes, and was eternally negotiating with them, deceiving
and being deceived in his turn. The consequence of all this was a great,
thick cloud, wherein the Frondeurs themselves were at last involved; but
which they burst with a thunderclap.

The Cardinal, being puffed up with his success in settling the troubles
of Guienne, thought of nothing else than crowning his triumph by
chastising the Frondeurs, who, he said, had made use of the King's
absence to alienate the Duc d'Orleans from his service, to encourage the
revolt at Bordeaux, and to make themselves masters of the persons of the
Princes. At the same time, he told the Princess Palatine that he
detested the cruel hatred I bore to the Prince de Conde, and that the
propositions I made daily to him on that score were altogether unworthy
of a Christian. Yet he suggested to the Duc d'Orleans that I made great
overtures to him to be reconciled to the Court, but that he could not
trust me, because I was from morning to night negotiating with the
friends of the Prince de Conde. Thus the Cardinal rewarded me for what I
did with incredible application and, I must say, uncommon sincerity for
the Queen's service during the Court's absence. I do not mention the
dangers I was in twice or thrice a day, surpassing even those of soldiers
in battles. For imagine, I beseech you, what pain and anguish I must
have been in at hearing myself called a Mazarinist, and at having to bear
all the odium annexed to that hateful appellation in a city where he made
it his business to destroy me in the opinion of a Prince whose nature it
was to be always in fear and to trust none but such as hoped to rise by
my fall.

The