de Conti and M. de Longueville, which cast the Court, then at
Saint Germain, into such a despair that the Cardinal was upon the point
of retiring. I was abused there without mercy, as appeared by a letter
sent to Madame de Longueville from the Princess, her mother, in which I
read this sentence: "They rail here plentifully against the Coadjutor,
whom yet I cannot forbear thanking for what he has done for the poor
Queen of England." This circumstance is very curious. You must know
that a few days before the King left Paris I visited the Queen of
England, whom I found in the apartment of her daughter, since Madame
d'Orleans. "You see, monsieur," said the Queen, "I come here to keep
Henriette company; the poor child has lain in bed all day for want of a
fire." The truth is, the Cardinal having stopped the Queen's pension six
months, tradesmen were unwilling to give her credit, and there was not a
chip of wood in the house. You may be sure I took care that a Princess
of Great Britain should not be confined to her bed next day, for want of
a fagot; and a few days after I exaggerated the scandal of this
desertion, and the Parliament sent the Queen a present of 40,000 livres.
Posterity will hardly believe that the Queen of England, granddaughter of
Henri the Great, wanted a fagot to light a fire in the month of January,
in the Louvre, and at the Court of France.

There are many passages in history less monstrous than this which make us
shudder, and this mean action of the Court made so little impression upon
the minds of the generality of the people at that time that I have
reflected a thousand times since that we are far more moved at the
hearing of old stories than of those of the present time; we are not
shocked at what we see with our own eyes, and I question whether our
surprise would be as great as we imagine at the story of Caligula's
promoting his horse to the dignity of a consul were he and his horse now
living.

To return to the war. A cornet of my regiment being taken prisoner and
carried to Saint Germain, the Queen immediately ordered his head to be
cut off, but I sent a trumpeter to acquaint the Court that I would make
reprisals upon my prisoners, so that my cornet was exchanged and a cartel
settled.

As soon as Paris declared itself, all the kingdom was in a quandary, for
the Parliament of Paris sent circular letters to all the Parliaments and
cities in the kingdom exhorting them to join against the comm