Beaufort urge the city militia to go to the assistance of that handful of brave men on the point of succumbing: wearied with three years of discord and manipulated by Mazarin, it no longer responded to the summons of its old chief. Splendidly dressed ladies waved signals to their champions and lovers below, and the streets became alive with the shouting of armed citizens, who desired to be let out to the aid of their defenders, and could not see with cold blood the slaughter of their friends. Thousands went to the Luxembourg to beseech Gaston to open the gates of the city for the reception of the wounded and the protection of the over-matched. Long trains of wounded and dying young men began to be carried in; the groans and blood were horrible to hear and see; and the women of all ranks and ages were frantic with sympathy and grief. De Retz and terror had so chilled the Duke d’Orleans into inaction that he would have let Condé perish, had not Mademoiselle de Montpensier, who was at that time smitten with Condé, wrung indignantly from her father, by dint of tears and entreaties, an order to open the gates to the outnumbered Prince.

Mazarin, from the heights of Charonne, where he had stationed himself with the young King, might well have thought that it was all over with his worst enemy; and, when startled to hear that Mademoiselle herself had even ordered the cannon of the Bastille to be fired upon the royal army, exclaimed, “With that cannon-shot she has slain her husband,” making allusion to the ambition which the Princess d’Orleans always had to espouse the youthful Louis XIV. True, on that same day, Mademoiselle destroyed with her own hand her dearest hopes; but that trait of generosity and greatness of soul has for ever honoured her memory, and shields it from many errors and much ridicule. After having solemnly pledged itself to Condé, it would have been the height of opprobrium for the House of Orleans to let Condé fall before their eyes: better to have perished with him, and at least saved its honour.

Mademoiselle has related in what condition she found Condé, when having placed herself at the window of a little dwelling near the Bastille, in order to see the troops pass as they entered the city, the Prince hurried for a moment from the gate to speak to her. He neither thought of himself, all covered with blood as he was, nor even of his cause, very nearly hopeless: he thought only of the friends he had lost. It did not occur to him that they were those who had embarked him in negotiations the results of which had proved so fatal: he thought only that they had died for him, and his anguish grew insupportable. “He was,” says Mademoiselle, “in a most pitiable state; he was not wounded himself, yet he was covered from head to foot with dust and blood, his hair all disordered, his face flushed with exertion, his cuirass battered with blows, and having lost the scabbard of his sword in the fight, he held the blade naked in his hand.” As he entered, the memory of all those he had seen fall around him seemed to rush suddenly upon Condé, and casting himself upon a seat, he burst into tears. “Forgive me,” said the great soldier, “I have lost all my friends—the gallant young hearts that loved me.” “No, they are only wounded,” said his cousin, “and many of them not dangerously; they will recover and love you still.” Condé sprang up at the good news, and rushed back into the fight. At the head of all his effective cavalry, he made one desperate, long-continued charge, and drove the enemy backward for a mile. In the meantime, the gates were opened wide, and, file after file, the weary soldiers marched into the city; and dashing homeward after his brilliant assault, Condé and his squadron galloped in the last: but when the ponderous bars were once more drawn across the portals, it was felt that the combatants indeed were saved, but that the Fronde was destroyed.

CHAPTER IV.

THE DUKE DE NEMOURS SLAIN IN A DUEL BY HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW, BEAUFORT.

Some few days after the fierce fight of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Condé had an interview with the Duke d’Orleans, “who embraced him with an air as gay as though he had failed him in nothing.”[1] Condé uttered no word of reproach out of respect to his daughter. He did not behave exactly in the same way towards Madame de Châtillon. She had addressed a note to him begging him to visit her. She showed this effusion to Mademoiselle, saying, “He will at least see from that the uneasiness which is felt for him.” But Condé’s mind was disabused, and when he met her who had been his ruin, “he cast upon her, we are told, the most terrible glances conceivable, showing by the expression of his countenance how much he despised her.”[2] Well would it have been if soon afterwards the grand-nephew of Henry IV. had not lent anew his ear to the song of the syren and resumed the slavery of her dishonouring fetters!

It is not to our purpose to retrace the melancholy scenes of which, after the combat of Saint Antoine, and during the remainder of the month of July, 1652, Paris was the theatre. It would be only to dwell upon the sad spectacle of the agony and supreme convulsions of a beaten party, struggling in vain to escape its fate, and seeking safety in excesses which only served to precipitate its destruction.

Condé left no violent extreme untried to determine Paris to make further sacrifices for his cause. Dissatisfied with the deliberations of the Hôtel de Ville, he caused it to be carried by assault by the populace, who killed several of the échevins. The Fronde, however, was approaching its last agony. Divided amongst themselves by selfish interests, and outwearied with endless intrigues, the majority of the Frondeurs only awaited a fitting opportunity of treating with Mazarin. An amnesty soon made its appearance, and the Cardinal took the step of quitting France once more in order to facilitate a reconciliation. But Condé, on his side, was very little disposed thereto, for he had gone very far indeed to retrace his steps. Furious at having failed to reach the object which he had thought to attain, exasperated by the abandonment of his partisans, by the sarcasms of pamphleteers, he demanded securities and large indemnifications; and proposed such hard conditions that all accord with him became impossible. Thereupon he collected some troops around his standard, a tolerably large number of gentlemen, and rejoined the Duke de Lorraine, who was advancing upon Paris. Their united forces amounted to eighty squadrons and eight thousand infantry. Turenne had scarcely half that strength; but he manœuvred so skilfully round Paris, that they failed to get any advantage over him. Condé withdrew; and when the King, on his return to the Louvre, published a second amnesty (October, 1652), the Prince had crossed the frontier, after having taken several strongholds in his line of march. Shortly afterwards, he became generalissimo of the Spanish armies, whilst a decree of the parliament declared him guilty of high treason and a traitor to the State.

Previous to Condé’s departure from Paris, intense indignation had been excited in every well-balanced mind by a shocking event—the Duke de Nemours having been slain by the hand of his brother-in-law, the Duke