is it, then, that you will do?"

"Madame," said I, "I will oblige the Prince, before a week is at an end,
to leave Paris; and I will detach the Duke from his interest to-morrow."

The Queen, overjoyed, held out her hand and said, "Give me yours, and I
promise you that you shall be cardinal the next day, and the second man
in my friendship." She desired also that Mazarin and I might be good
friends; but I answered that the least touch upon that string would put
me out of tune and render me incapable of doing her any service;
therefore I conjured her to let me still enjoy the character of being his
enemy.

"Was anything," said the Queen, "ever so strange and unaccountable? Can
you not possibly serve me without being the enemy of him in whom I most
confide?"

I told her it must needs be so. "Madame," I said, "I humbly beseech your
Majesty to let me tell you that, as long as the place of Prime Minister
is not filled up, the Prince will increase in power on pretence that it
is kept vacant to receive the Cardinal by a speedy restoration."

"You see," said her Majesty, "how the Prince treats me; he has insulted
me ever since I disowned my two traitors,--Servien and Lionne." I took
the opportunity while she was flushed with anger to make my court to her
by saying that before two days were at an end the Prince should affront
her no longer. But the tenderness she had for her beloved Cardinal made
her unwilling to consent that I should continue to exclaim against his
Eminence in Parliament, where one was obliged to handle him very roughly
almost every quarter of an hour. She bade me remember that it was the
Cardinal who had solicited my nomination. I answered that I was highly
obliged to his Eminence upon that score, and that I was ready to give him
proofs of my acknowledgment in anything wherein my honour was not
concerned, but that I should be a double-dealer if I promised to
contribute to his reestablishment. Then she said, "Go! you are a very
devil. See Madame Palatine, and let me hear from you the night before
you go to the Parliament."

I do not think I was in the wrong to refuse her offer. We must never
jest with proffered service; for if it be real, we can never embrace it
too much; but if false, we can never keep at too great a distance. I
lamented to the public the sad condition of our affairs, which had
obliged me to leave my dear retirement, where, after so much disturbance
and confusion, I hoped to enjoy comfor