have had the sanction of a decree." The bulk of the Parliament was
provoked at the President's unguarded expression, baited him very
fiercely, and then I made some pretence to go out, leaving Quatresous, a
young man of the warmest temper, in the House to skirmish with him in my
stead, as having experienced more than once that the only way to get
anything of moment passed in Parliamentary or other assemblies is to
exasperate the young men against the old ones.

In short, after many debates, it was carried that the envoy should be
admitted to audience. Being accordingly admitted, and bidden to be
covered and sit down, he presented the Archduke's credentials, and then
made a speech, which was in substance that his master had ordered him to
acquaint the company with a proposal made him by Cardinal Mazarin since
the blockade of Paris, which his Catholic Majesty did not think
consistent with his safety or honour to accept, when he saw that, on the
one hand, it was made with a view to oppress the Parliament, which was
held in veneration by all the kingdoms in the world, and, on the other,
that all treaties made with a condemned minister would be null and void,
forasmuch as they were made without the concurrence of the Parliament, to
whom only it belonged to register and verify treaties of peace in order
to make them authoritative; that the Catholic King, who proposed to take
no advantage from the present state of affairs, had ordered the Archduke
to assure the Parliament, whom he knew to be in the true interest of the
most Christian King, that he heartily acknowledged them to be the
arbiters of peace, that he submitted to their judgment, and that if they
thought proper to be judges, he left it to their choice to send a
deputation out of their own body to what place they pleased. Paris itself
not excepted, and that his Catholic Majesty would also, without delay,
send his deputies thither to meet and treat with them; that, meanwhile,
he had ordered 18,000 men to march towards their frontiers to relieve
them in case of need, with orders nevertheless to commit no hostilities
upon the towns, etc., of the most Christian King, though they were for
the most part abandoned; and it being his resolution at this juncture to
show his sincere inclination for peace, he gave them his word of honour
that his armies should not stir during the treaty; but that in case his
troops might be serviceable to the Parliament, they were at their
dispo