Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/275

Rh CONDE 247 haughtily informed the queen that his presence rendered it valid without her consent. Urged by her own passionate indignation at the prince s defiance, and by the bitter com plaints of the duchess of Aiguillon and Mile, de Chevreuse, Anne no longer hesitated to resort to force. Conde, Conti, and Lougueville were accordingly arrested. But Bouillon and Turenne, who were also to be seized, made their escape; and Prince Marsillac (the Rochefoucauld of the Maximes) carried off his mistress, Condi s sister, the duchess of Longueville. By stratagem the young princess of Conde also obtained refuge in her husband s strong castle of Montrond. Vigorous attempts for the release cf the princes began to be made. The women of the family were now its heroes. The dowager princess, though too miserly to part with her money to help her children, claimed from the Parliament the fulfilment of the reiormed law of arrest, which forbad imprisonment without trial. The duchess of Longueville entered into negotiations with Spain. And the slighted young wife, with Lenet as adviser, having gathered an army around her, obtained entrance into Bordeaux and the support of the Parliament of that town. She alone, among the nobles who took part in the folly of the Fronde, gains our respect and sympathy. Faithful to a faithless husband, she came forth from the retirement to which he had condemned her, to fight for him with tact and bravery amid the rough bustle of war and politics, and to display an unselfishness and a sense of justice of which there is no other example among those who surrounded her, with their paltry aims and worthless lives. When the Parliament of Bordeaux patriotically refused to accept the assistance from Spain which the Frondeurs wished to force upon it, and the mob was stirred up by the duke of Bouillon to constrain it by violence, she risked her life to quiet the tumult. The delivery of the princes was not, however, due to her efforts. Bordeaux was fortified, it is true, and resisted Mazarin for a tim^, but, after the defeat of Turenne by Du Plessis at Rethel, peace was made on account of the vintage. The discomfiture of Mazarin was caused by the junction of the old Fronde (the party of the Parliament and of De Retz) and fche new Fronde (the party of the Condes). An angry comparison, that had been drawn by the cardinal between the popular leaders and those who in England had two years before overthrown the monarchy and brought their king to the scaffold, was made by the skill of De Iletz to arouse in the Parliament a characteristic storm of indig nation, from which Mazarin was glad to escape by flight. The regent prepared to follow him ; but her intention became known. The night air resounded with the peals of bells from Notre Dame and all the lesser churches of Paris. The refuse of the city, mingled with respectable burghers and haughty nobles, poured into the streets. The news that the king was about to be carried away was spread everywhere by the emissaries of the coadjutor. The court of the palace was soon filled by the motley crowd. They passed up the staircase, and into the very room where the child-king lay, with precocious cunning feigning to be asleep. At the awful sight, and abashed by the queen s cool derision, the mob reverentially withdrew. But Anne was forced to order the release of the princes from their prison at Havre ; and Mazaria, humbling himself, rode down thither, and, falling at Cor.de s feet, piteously begged his protection and friendship. The regent at once employed every means to draw Conde from his alliance with the Fronde. She made him offers which, from their very extravagance, might have aroused his suspicion, he and his family were to hold some- thing like the half of the kingdom; and Conde&quot;, relying on these faithless promises, carried out his part of the bargain by breaking with De Retz, the intended marriage of whose mistress, Mile, de Chevreuse, with the duke of Conti he refused in haughty terms to permit. Meanwhile the queen had secretly gained over the coadjutor. A rumour reached Conde that he was to be assassinated or arrested ; he fortified the Hotel de Conde, and then retired from Paris, collected soldiers, and entered into negotiations with the archduke. He was consequently accused of high treason before the Parliament by order of the regent, and De Retz brought forward the charge. Cond6 appeared in person to meet it ; and the building was filled with two bands of armed soldiers in the pay of the two parties. It seemed that the very Parliament House was to be the scene of civil war. The prince and the coadjutor spoke with vehemence and passion. Conde s hand was on the hilt of his sword, and the soldiers were only waiting for the signal to commence a deadly conflict, when a solemn appeal from President Mol6 calmed the frenzied assembly, and prevailed upon the rival nobles to dismiss their troops. Condd at once retired to his fortress of Montrond, where, after con ference with his brother and sister, as well as Nemours and La Rochefoucauld, he resolved on renewing the civil war. But his party was far from being as strong as it had been in the previous rising. Two causes alienated many of his most important allies : the rebellion was no longer against a regent, for the king had just attained his majority ; and the rebel had sought and obtained aid from the foreign power of Spain. The Parliament of Paris declared him a traitor ; Longueville, Orleans, Turenne, and Bouillon went over to the court. Even the faithful city of Bordeaux became estranged, for the duchess, of Longueville encouraged the mob in acts of outrage. Mazarin now ventured to cross the frontier with an army. But at once the Parliament proscribed him ; and the lieutenant-general, followed by Nemours and Beaufort, took up arms against the court. Mademoiselle forced her way through a hole in the walls of Orleans, with one or two of her ladies, and frightened the magistrates into espousing the revolt. But Beaufort and Nemours did not agree, and their army was in danger of being destroyed by Turenne. Conde came to its help, having in disguise crossed the enemy s country and passed close by the royal troops. The very next night Hocquin- court s camp was burnt, and Conde, hurrying to Paris, formed an alliance with Turenne, and sought to win over the Parliament. But Mole stripped off the veil of patriotism with which he sought to conceal his selfishness, and pointed out that he was allied with a foreign power, and that he was actually treating with the detested cardinal. The prince retaliated by stirring up the mob, and leaving the city to its savage caprice. At length he quitted Paris to save the rebel army which was hotly pressed by Turenne, and the magistrates persuaded the facile lieutenant-general to close the gates. At the gate St Antoine, on the 2d July 1652, Turenue and Cond6 met. Cond6 fought in person with marvellous energy ; he seemed, said Turenne, to be twelve men at once ; but, pressed by numbers as he was, it was apparent that he could hope for safety only by being admitted within the walls of Paris. Fortunately he bad in the city as champion one of the most remarkable women of that strange time, Mademoiselle, the daughter of Gaston, duke of Orleans, and the author of the Mtnwires, who hoped to succeed his sickly wife, or, better still, by his means to obtain the hand of the young king. She frightened and persuaded the provost of the merchants and L Hopital, the governor of Paris, into opening the gates, and turned the cannon of the Bastille on the army of Turenne. Keeping his ground so long as daylight lasted, at nightfall Cond6 entered the city. It was given up to pillage and murder. Fire was set to the building where the magistrates had met, and the magistrates themselves narrowly escaped with their lives. Famine begau to be felt, and pestilence appeared. Deserted by