Page:Memoirs of Madame de Motteville on Anne of Austria and her court.djvu/49

1611-1630] swelling the party of the Prince de Condé, while disorder reigned in Paris, where the populace pillaged the house of the Maréchal d'Ancre, against whom they made loud outcries as the author of the violent manner of the queen's governing, and the bad employment, robbery, and squandering of the treasure amassed by Henri IV. Eiots became daily more frequent, and no one having the force or the desire to quell them, the populace at last attacked the marshal as he was leaving the Louvre, April 24, 1617, the bravi who everywhere accompanied him, giving him no succour, nor the guards either (who were not far off when he drew his sword intending to defend himself), for they thought that the Marquis de Vitry, their captain, who appeared at that moment, was coming to his rescue. Instead of that, he came to arrest him, so that it remained doubtful whether his death was due to the fury of the people, or to his own resistance to the king's orders.

Since his majority the king had manifested on so many occasions his intention of taking cognizance of public matters that, the queen having now retired to Blois, he was not long in recalling the chancellor, de Sillery, and in setting the Prince de Condé at liberty. This was not enough to really pacificate the kingdom which all these changes had disturbed. But as I have not undertaken to describe the life of that unhappy princess, I shall not speak of the war undertaken by those who took her side. My purpose is only to note what may concern Queen Anne of Austria, who began to be spoken of during the subsequent negotiations for a general peace which her marriage was to give to all Europe.

I shall therefore merely say here that the Grand-duke of Tuscany, being naturally obliged to act towards maintaining Queen Marie de' Medici's former influence with the king