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76 But that hope is the most enduring of mortal feelings, what profound discouragement would it throw on the noblest and most promising efforts of humanity, to think that men so intellectual and so upright could be swayed, in the long run, by the thirst of dominion; and, carried away from all sober sense by the wildest and most fanatic enthusiasm, that a spirit of fierce and narrow religious persecution should be one of the chief legacies which they bequeathed to posterity!

But neither with the just sense of right with which our struggle was commenced, nor with the mad fanaticism with which it continued, had the division of the Fronde anything in common. The parliament refused to register the royal edict because the tax was a present grievance, a hardship immediately felt. But they had not that only material for resistance—a strong and rising middle class—a class whose prosperity must ever grow out of commerce. Their opposition became armed rebellion, because upheld and stimulated by those to whom they gave all they wanted—a sanction and a name.

The wars of La Fronde were in reality the struggle of Cardinal de Retz for the post of Cardinal Mazarin. The Coadjutor—for so he was then entitled—was the extraordinary man of his