ot heads of a government
which would leave to others acting with them any great share of
importance, he undertook to overthrow them, the one by the other, to
carve out his way between them by them, and to raise upon their ruin the
Duke d'Orleans, under whose name he would govern. To effect this he
incessantly urged alike the Duke, the parliament, and the people, to
demand, as the first condition of any reconciliation with the Court,
the dismissal of Mazarin, and at the same time he, under a mask,
exhibited himself as a benevolent conciliator between royalty and the
Fronde, promising the Queen, the indispensable sacrifice accomplished,
to smooth all difficulties, and to bring over to her the Duke d'Orleans
by separating him from Conde. Such was the real mainspring of all De
Retz's movements--even those seemingly the most contrary: first the
cardinalate, then the premiership under the auspices of the Duke
d'Orleans, associated in some sort with royalty, without Mazarin or
Conde. He was fain to hide his secret under the guise of the public
weal, but that secret revealed itself by the very efforts he made to
conceal it, and it did not escape the penetration of La Rochefoucauld,
his accomplice at the outset of the Fronde, afterwards his adversary,
who had a perfect knowledge of his character, and who had sketched it
with a masterly hand, as De Retz also thoroughly comprehended and
admirably depicted La Rochefoucauld. De Retz was indeed the evil genius
of the Fronde. He always hindered it from progressing whether led by
Mazarin or Conde, because he merely desired to have a weak government
which he could dominate. To arrive at that end, he was capable of
anything--tortuous intrigues, anonymous pamphlets, hypocritical sermons
from the pulpit, studied orations in parliament, popular insurrections
and desperate _coups de main_. Such was the man who, towards the end of
May, 1651, was admitted, much against her will, into the secret councils
of Anne of Austria.

Anything was to be tried, however, which might deliver her from the
exactions of Conde. It was absolutely necessary that she should either
grant his demands, or find some support to enable her to resist them.
She accordingly despatched Marshal du Plessis to speak with De Retz, at
the archbishopric, towards one o'clock in the morning, at which hour he
generally returned from his nocturnal visits to Mademoiselle de
Chevreuse. De Retz was willing to seize the opportunity of av