Page:Historyoffranc00yong.djvu/162

 138 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [chap. though Gaston of Orleans was standing neuter, his daughter, Atine Marie of Montpensier, commonly called La Grande Mademoiselle, went to her father's city of Orleans, and closed the gates against the king. Condd made his way into Paris, and by a rule of terror obtained supplies of money. Turenne, now on the side of the court, blockaded the city, and there was a desperate battle in the Faubourg St. Antoine, in which Condd was worsted, and would have been cut off, had not Mademoiselle, by storming and entreating, obtained that the gate of Paris should be left open. Condd showed no gratitude, and behaved with unbearable violence, turning people more completely against him. Mazarin, seeing that his own absence would best allay the passions that had been stirred up, again left France. By this time the real cause had been forgotten in personal hatred, and, when Mazarin was gone, the queen found it easy to make tenns with Paris and the parliament. Condd, disdaining pardon, became a traitor to his country, and entered the aiTny of the King of Spain. Peace was restored in 1653. Two years later Mazarin came back, no one making any ob- jection, and in 1657, when the parliament was going to debate on some fresh taxes, the young king walked in dressed for hunting, with a whip in his hand, and said, " Gentlemen, everybody knows v.'hat troubles have been caused by meetings of parliament. I mean to prevent them henceforth. I order that there shall be no more discussion of the edicts which I send down to be regis- tered. I forbid the president to allow these meetings, and you to demand them." The lawyers submitted meekly, and so ended the last struggle in which it was sought to maintain any check on the royal power. Resistance had been begun by public-spirited men, but it had been stifled in the mere personal rivalries of courtiers and ladies. Henceforth there was no hindrance to the huge demands of the crown upon the citizens and the peasants. The whole history of the Fronde is a great contrast to the civil war in England, a few years before. It is remarkable for the lightness, selfishness, and pettiness of the chief actors, none of wliom, except a few of the law officers, who soon passed out of notice, cared for anything but court intrigue and personal loves and hates. 12. The Battle of Dunkirk. 1658.— The English royal family were exiles in France during the ^Thole war of the Fronde, and until, in 1657, Cromwell entered into an