real motive covering his weariness and long-felt disgust, he did not, like Persan, Bouteville, and Vauban, join the Prince in Flanders. On the other hand, he had not objected to the amnesty, and therefore could not be included in the royal declaration issued on the 13th of November against Condé, Conti, Madame de Longueville, and their chief adherents. But Mazarin took good care not to pursue him, and La Rochefoucauld, after allowing the first outburst of the storm to pass over, retired to his estates to bury himself in obscurity for a few years, and to taste that repose of which he had so great need. Then he quitted his retreat and reappeared at Paris. It must have been necessary for him to go very far in conciliation to be received again into favour. He succeeded in it, however, by saving appearances, to use a modern phrase, and in skilfully managing the transition. He made his peace with the politic and gracious Cardinal, rode in his carriage, saying with as much reason as wit, “Everything happens in France!” He managed to get his son into intimacy with the young King, and, wonderful to relate, he obtained from Mazarin, in indemnification for the losses he had experienced in carrying on war against him, a thumping pension of eight thousand livres.

If space permitted us thus to run over successively the list of all the great nobles who had previously had a hand in the Fronde, it would be easy to show that on the 3rd of February, 1653, the most ardent and the most illustrious of those we have cited, and many others, such as the Duke d’Elbeuf and Marshal Houdancourt, both generals of the Fronde at Paris in 1648 and 1649, the Duke de Guise, so strongly bound to Condé, almost all, in short, were ranged round Mazarin, and fought with him and for him, and that for one sole but very sufficient reason—which was that the clever Cardinal knew how to make them understand wherein lay their true interests.

Self-interest, self-interest, such was, with very few exceptions, the unique mainspring of the aristocracy in the Fronde, and La Rochefoucauld has only erected into a maxim and even generalised into excess the principle which he had seen practised everywhere around him.

It may thus be judged whether, as some writers have asserted without the slightest knowledge of the facts, the Fronde was a great and generous cause which failed of obtaining success. On the contrary, it was simply a powerful coalition of individual interests, and if considered under the aspect of an abortive anticipation of the French revolution, and some general design sought for therein in one way or another, it would be rather that of stifling in its cradle the principles of that revolution.

Is it true that the Fronde, as has been asserted, was a counterpart, a sort of miserable imitation, of the revolution which was then convulsing England? Not the least in the world. That other error, still stranger than the preceding, rests upon a false and deceitful analogy—that common shoal of historical considerations and comparisons. At bottom, the earlier part of the English revolution was almost entirely of a religious character, whilst in the Fronde the religious element did not intervene at all, thanks to the enlightened protection enjoyed by the Protestants. It seemed, indeed, like a demoniacal caricature of our British troubles at that moment. No sternness, no reality; love-letters and witty verses supplying the place of the Biblical language and awful earnestness of the words and deeds of the Covenanters and Independents; the gentlemen of France utterly debased and frivolised; religion ridiculed; nothing left of the old landmarks; and no Cromwell possible. All sense of honour disappears when conduct is regulated by the shifting motives of party politics. The dissensions of the Fronde accordingly produced no champion to whom either side could look with unmingled respect. The great Condé and the famous Turenne showed military talent of the highest order, but a want of principle and a flighty frivolity of character counterbalanced all their virtues. The scenes of those five or six years are like a series of dissolving views, or the changing combinations of a kaleidoscope; Condé and Turenne always on opposite sides—for each changed his party as often as the other; battles prepared for by masquerades and theatricals, and celebrated on both sides with epigrams and songs; the wildest excesses of debauchery and vice practised by both sexes and all ranks in the State; archbishops fighting like gladiators, and intriguing like the vulgarest conspirators; princes imprisoned with a jest, and executions attended with cheers and laughter; the highest in the land caballing, cheating, and lying, but keeping a firm grasp of power:—no country was ever so split into faction, or so denuded of great men.

But, while all these elements of confusion were heaving and tumbling in what seemed an inextricable chaos, the monarchical principle, strange to say, still burned brightly in the hearts of all the French. Even in their fights and quarrelings there was a deep reverence entertained for the ideal of the throne. The King’s name was a tower of strength; and when the nation, in the course of the miserable years from 1610 to 1661, saw the extinction of nobility, religion, law, and almost of civilised society, it caught the first sound that told it it still had a King, as an echo from the past assuring it of its future. It forgot Louis the Thirteenth, the Regency, and the Fronde, and only remembered that its monarch was the grandson of Henry the Fourth, when it witnessed in his reign the culmination of the French monarchy, and the splendid intellectual development with which it was simultaneous.

And that brilliant day of Mazarin’s triumph was shadowed by no eclipse. It was not one of those lucky freaks of fate often followed by long disgrace: no, that Minister’s triumph rested on solid foundations. Not only he saw at his feet, in the Louvre, all his former enemies vanquished, but not one of them able to rise again in enmity, for all their strength was exhausted. The wearied citizens wanted repose, and placed all their hopes in royalty. The parliaments, ashamed of having allowed their ancient loyalty to be surprised by the deceitful caresses of the discontented nobles, returned voluntarily within the prudent limits of their institution, satisfied with having seen the government recognise all their legitimate complaints, and bind itself to respect their just and necessary independence. The aristocracy thought itself still more fortunate at having thus been extricated from this last defeat. It left, it is true, upon the field of battle some few of its feudal pretensions, but in exchange, titles, honours, and wealth were lavished upon it, and its vanity could at any rate console its ambition. The good fortune of Mazarin opened the eyes of everyone to his merit. No one could refrain from applauding his firmness and his capacity. Had he proved unsuccessful, he would only have been looked upon as a second Concini; victorious, he was another Richelieu to whom it was necessary to succumb, but who might be served without loss of honour, because, after having shown that he was as firm in his principle of government as his imperious predecessor, he did not play the tyrant; and, far from making the weight of his power felt, he forced himself rather to disguise it under flattering words, did not show the least resentment for former injuries, extended a hand to everyone who came to him, listened to every complaint that had anything legitimate in it, entertained every pretension that was at all reasonable, and seemed disposed to base his government upon skilful concessions and not upon useless rigour. His star was believed in, his moderation inspired confidence, and people grew eager to participate in his triumph. Already at