was
lost should he allow such a rival to establish himself.[1] Therefore,
passing suddenly from an apparent resignation to an extraordinary
audacity, he had, towards the end of November 1651, broken his ban,
quitted his retreat at Dinan, and had resolutely entered France with a
small force collected together by his two faithful friends, the Marquis
de Navailles and the Count de Broglie, and led by Marshal Hocquincourt.
He had by main strength surmounted every obstacle, braved the decrees
and the deputies of the parliament, reached Poitiers where the Queen and
young Louis the Fourteenth had eagerly welcomed him; and there, in
January 1652, after speedily ridding himself of Chateauneuf, too proud
and too able to be resigned to hold the second rank, he had again taken
in hand the reins of government.

[1] Mad. de Motteville, tom. v. p. 96.

This bold conduct, which probably saved Mazarin, came also to the
succour of Conde. The second and irreparable disgrace of the minister of
the old Fronde had exasperated him as well as had the umbrage given him
by the Duke d'Orleans. He thought himself tricked by the Queen, and had
loudly complained of it. Conde's friends had not failed to seize that
occasion to reconcile him with the Duke, and to negotiate a fresh
alliance between them; and as previously the Fronde and the Queen had
been united against Conde, so also at the end of January 1652, that
Prince and the Fronde in almost its entirety were united against
Mazarin.

Madame de Chevreuse alone, with her most intimate friends, remained
faithful to her hatred and the Queen, dreading far less Mazarin than
Conde, and choosing between them both for once and for all with her
well-known firmness and resolution. De Retz trimmed, followed the Duke
d'Orleans, using tact with the Queen, so that he might not lose the hat,
and without engaging himself personally with Conde.

If Burnet is to be believed, it was at this conjunction that Conde made
an offer to Cromwell to turn Huguenot, and embrace the faith of his
ancestors, in order to secure the aid of the English Puritans.

However that might be, it was not illusory to think that with such a
government and the continual assistance of Spain, Bordeaux might hold
out for at least a year, and give Conde time to strike some decisive
blows. The resolution that he took was therefore as rational as it was
great. It would have been a sovereign imprudence to remain in Guienne
merely to engag