neral of France? Do not you command the army?
Are you not master of the people? I myself will undertake that the King
shall not go out of Paris." The Duke nevertheless remained inflexible,
and all we could get out of him was that he would consent to my telling
the Parliament, in his name, what we desired he should say himself. In a
word, he would have me make the experiment, the success of which he
looked upon to be very uncertain, because he thought the Parliament would
have nothing to say against the Queen's answer, and that if I succeeded
he should reap the honour of the proposition. I readily accepted the
commission, because all was at stake, and if I had not executed it the
next morning I am sure the Cardinal would have eluded setting the Princes
at liberty a great while longer, and the affair have ended in a
negotiation with them against the Duke.

The Duchess, who saw that I exposed myself for the public good, pitied me
very much. She did all she could to persuade the Duke to command me to
mention to the Parliament what the Cardinal had told the King with
relation to Cromwell, Fairfax and the English Parliament, which, if
declared in the Duke's name, she thought would excite the House the more
against Mazarin; and she was certainly in the right. But he forbade me
expressly.

I ran about all night to incite the members at their first meeting to
murmur at the Queen's answer, which in the main was very plausible,
importing that, though this affair did not fall within the cognisance of
Parliament, the Queen would, however, out of her abundant goodness, have
regard to their supplications and restore the Princes to liberty.
Besides, it promised a general amnesty to all who had borne arms in their
favour, on condition only that M. de Turenne should lay down his arms,
that Madame de Longueville should renounce her treaty with Spain, and
that Stenai and Murzon should be evacuated.

At first the Parliament seemed to be dazzled with it, but next day, the
1st of February, the whole House was undeceived, and wondered how it had
been so deluded. The Court of Inquests began to murmur; Viole stood up
and said that the Queen's answer was but a snare laid for the Parliament
to beguile them; that the 12th of March, the time fixed for the King's
coronation, was just at hand; and that as soon as the Court was out of
Paris they, would laugh at the Parliament. At this discourse the old and
new Fronde stood up, and when I saw they, we