ling him that all the foreign officers
took mighty umbrage at it, he pulled him up very sharply, and said, "Go
to the devil, you and your foreign officers. If they were as good
Frondeurs as Cardinal de Retz, they would be at their posts, and not
tippling in the taverns of Paris." There was such a strong faction in
the city of Orleans for the Court that his presence there was very
necessary; but as it was much more so at Paris, the Duke was prevailed
upon by his Duchess to let her go thither. M. Patru was pleased to say
that as the gates of Jericho fell at the sound of trumpets, those of
Orleans would open at the sound of fiddles, of which M. de Rohan was a
very great admirer. But, in fact, though the King was just at hand with
the troops, and though M. Mold, Keeper of the Seals, was at the gate
demanding entrance for the King, the Duchess crossed the river in a
barge, made the watermen break down a little postern, which had been
walled up for a long time, and marched, with the acclamations of
multitudes of the people, directly to the Hotel de Ville, where the
magistrates were assembled to consider if they should admit the Keeper of
the Seals. By this means she turned the scale, and MM. de Beaufort and
de Nemours joined her.
The Prince de Conde arriving at Paris from Guienne on the 11th of April,
the magistrates had a meeting in the Hotel de Ville, in which they
resolved that the Governor should wait on his Royal Highness, and tell
him that the company thought it contrary to order to receive him into the
city before he had cleared himself from the King's declaration, which had
been verified in Parliament against him.
The Duc d'Orleans, who was overjoyed at this speech, said that the Prince
had only come to discourse with him about private affairs, and that he
would stay but twenty-four hours at Paris. M. de Chavigni informed the
Duke that the Prince was able to stand his ground as long as he pleased,
without being obliged to anybody; and he gathered together a mob of
scoundrels upon the Pont-Neuf, whose fingers itched to be plundering the
house of M. du Plessis Guenegaut, and by whom the Duke was frightened to
a great degree.
The reflections I had leisure to make upon my new dignity obliged me to
take great care of my hat, whose dazzling flame of colour turns the heads
of many that are honoured with it. The most palpable of those delusions
is the claiming precedence of Princes of the blood, who may become our
maste
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