ce.

The King's councillors returned with a report how kindly they had been
received at Saint Germain. They said the Queen highly approved of the
reasons offered by the Parliament for refusing entrance to the herald,
and that she had assured them that, though she could not side with the
Parliament in the present state of affairs, yet she received with joy the
assurances they had given her of their respect and submission, and that
she would distinguish them in general and in particular by special marks
of her good-will. Talon, Attorney-General, who always spoke with dignity
and force, embellished this answer of the Queen with all the ornaments he
could give it, assuring the Parliament in very pathetic terms that, if
they should be pleased to send a deputation to Saint Germain, it would be
very kindly received, and might, perhaps, be a great step towards a
peace.

When I saw that we were besieged, that the Cardinal had sent a person
into Flanders to treat with the Spaniards, and that our party was now so
well formed that there was no danger that I alone should be charged with
courting the alliance of the enemies of the State, I hesitated no longer,
but judged that, as affairs stood, I might with honour hear what
proposals the Spaniards would make to me for the relief of Paris; but I
took care not to have my name mentioned, and that the first overtures
should be made to M. d'Elbeuf, who was the fittest person, because during
the ministry of Cardinal de Richelieu he was twelve or fifteen years in
Flanders a pensioner of Spain. Accordingly Arnolfi, a Bernardin friar,
was sent from the Archduke Leopold, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands
for the King of Spain, to the Duc d'Elbeuf, who, upon sight of his
credentials, thought himself the most considerable man of the party,
invited most of us to dinner, and told us he had a very important matter
to lay before us, but that such was his tenderness for the French name
that he could not open so much as a small letter from a suspected
quarter, which, after some scrupulous and mysterious circumlocutions, he
ventured to name, and we agreed one and all not to refuse the succours
from Spain, but the great difficulty was, which way to get them.
Fuensaldagne, the general, was inclined to join us if he could have been
sure that we would engage with him; but as there was no possibility of
the Parliaments treating with him, nor any dependence to be placed upon
the generals, some of whom