while he remitted 800,000 livres to buy off the army of M.
de Turenne, and obliged the deputies at Ruel to sign a peace against the
orders of the Parliament that sent them. The President de Mesmes assured
me several times since that this peace was purely the result of a
conversation he had with the Cardinal on the 8th of March at night, when
his Eminence told him he saw plainly that M. de Bouillon would not treat
till he had the Spaniards and M. de Turenne at the gates of Paris; that
is, till he saw himself in the position to seize one-half of the kingdom.
The President made him this answer:

"There is no hope of any security but in making the Coadjutor a
cardinal."

To which Mazarin answered: "He is worse than the other, who at least
seemed once inclined to treat, but he is still for a general peace, or
for none at all."

President de Mesmes replied: "If things are come to this pass we must be
the victims to save the State from perishing--we must sign the peace. For
after what the Parliament has done to-day there is no remedy, and perhaps
tomorrow we shall be recalled; if we are disowned in what we do we are
ruined, the gates of Paris will be shut against us, and we shall be
prosecuted and treated as prevaricators and traitors. It is our business
and concern to procure such conditions as will give us good ground to
justify our proceedings, and if the terms are but reasonable, we know how
to improve them against the factions; but make them as you please
yourself, I will sign them all, and will go this moment to acquaint the
First President that this is the only expedient to save the State. If it
takes effect we have peace, if we are disowned by the Parliament we still
weaken the faction, and the danger will fall upon none but ourselves."
He added that with much difficulty he had persuaded the First President.

The peace was signed by Cardinal Mazarin, as well as by the other
deputies, on the part of the King. The substance of the articles was
that Parliament should just go to Saint Germain to proclaim the peace,
and then return to Paris, but hold no assembly that year; that all their
public decrees since the 6th of January should be made void, as likewise
all ordinances of Council, declarations and 'lettres de cachet'; that as
soon as the King had withdrawn his troops from Paris, all the forces
raised for the defence of the city should be disbanded, and the
inhabitants lay down their arms and not take them up aga