st
Count de Dognon's fleet, sailing from the islands of Re and Oleron to
join it, might easily surround and even beat the royal fleet, then
forming at Brouage under the Duke de Vendome. In 1650, during the
imprisonment of the princes, Bordeaux had defended itself for more than
six months against a considerable army with the young king at its head,
and which was directed by Mazarin in person. Conde, and all his family
were adored there, by reason of the hatred felt for his predecessor, the
imperious Duke d'Epernon. The Bordeaux parliament was also equally
involved in the Fronde as was that of Paris, with which it had allied
itself by a solemn declaration. Under the parliament was a brave and
ardent people, which furnished a numerous militia.

Conde had named the Prince de Conti his lieutenant-general--a prince of
the blood giving lustre to authority, dominating all rivalries, an
appointment calculated to render obedience more easy. He was aware of
Conti's levity, but he knew also that he was wanting neither in
intelligence nor courage. He believed in the ascendency which Madame de
Longueville had always exercised over her brother, and he hoped she
would guide him still. He had confidence in that high-souled sister whom
formerly he had so warmly loved; and although intrigues and a sinister
influence, to which we shall shortly further allude, had diminished the
high admiration he had had for her, and to which he later returned, he
reckoned upon her intelligence, upon her pride, upon that lofty courage
of which she had given so many proofs at Stenay. At his sister's side he
left his wife Claire Clemence de Maille-Breze, who had behaved so
admirably in the first Guienne war. He left her _enceinte_ with their
second child, and with her he gave to Bordeaux and placed as it were in
pledge in its hands, to hold the place of himself, the Duke d'Enghien,
the hope and stay of his house, the peculiar object of his tenderness.
So that there, he left behind him a government, he thought, which would
look well alike in the eyes of France and of Europe.

In reality, to what did Conde aspire? To constitute himself the head of
the nobility against the Court? The nobles thought it harsh to be so
treated. To commence another Fronde? To do that, it was necessary to
have the parliaments under his thumb; and he had already been compelled
to threaten the deputies of that of Aix with the bastinado. Did he look
forward to an independent principal