第82章 BOOK III(19)

On the 20th the declaration demanded of the King against the Cardinal, being brought to be registered in Parliament, was sent back with indignation because the reason of his removal was coloured over with so many encomiums that it was a perfect panegyric. Honest Broussel, who always went greater lengths than anybody, was for excluding all cardinals from the Ministry, as well as foreigners in general, because they swear allegiance to the Pope. The First President, thinking to mortify me, lauded Broussel for a man of admirable good sense, and espoused his opinion; and the Prince de Conde, too, seemed to be overjoyed, saying, "It is a charming echo." Indeed, I might well be troubled to think that the very day after a treaty wherein the Duc d'Orleans declared that he was resolved to make me a cardinal, the Prince should second a proposition so derogatory to that dignity. But the truth is, the Prince had no hand in it, for it came naturally, and was supported for no other reason but because nothing that was brought as an argument against Mazarin could then fail of being approved at the same time. I had some reason to think that the motion was concerted beforehand by my enemies, to keep me out of the Ministry. Nevertheless, I was not offended with the Parliament, the bulk of whom I knew to be my friends, whose sole aim was to effectually demolish Mazarin, and I acquiesced in the solid satisfaction which I had in being considered in the world as the expeller of Mazarin, whom everybody hated, and the deliverer of the Princes, who were as much their darlings.

The continual chicanery of the Court provoked the Parliament of Paris to write to all the Parliaments of France to issue decrees against Cardinal Mazarin, which they did accordingly. The Parliament obliged the Court to issue a declaration setting forth the innocence of the Princes, and another for the exclusion of cardinals--French as well as foreigners--from the King's Council, and the Parliament had no rest till the Cardinal retired from Sedan to Breule, a house belonging to the Elector of Cologne.

I had advice sent me from the Duchesse d'Orleans to be upon my guard, and that she was on the point of dying with fear lest the Duke should be forced by the daily menaces of the Court to abandon me. I thereupon waited on the Duke, and told him that, having had the honour and satisfaction of serving his Royal Highness in the two affairs which he had most at heart,--namely, the expelling of Mazarin and the releasing of the Princes his cousins,--I found myself now obliged to reassume the functions of my profession; that the present opportunity seemed both to favour and invite my retreat, and if I neglected it I should be the most imprudent man living, because my presence for the future would not only be useless but even prejudicial to his Royal Highness, whom I knew to be daily importuned and irritated by the Court party merely upon my account;and therefore I conjured him to make himself easy, and give me leave to retire to my cloister. The Duke spared no kind words to retain me in his service, promised never to forsake me, confessed that he had been urged to it by the Queen, and that, though his reunion with her Majesty and the Princes obliged him to put on the mask of friendship, yet he could never forget the great affronts and injuries which he had received from the Court. But all this could not dissuade me, and the Duke at last gave his approbation, with repeated assurances to allow me a place next his heart and to correspond with me in secret.

Having taken my leave of the Princes, I retired accordingly to my cloister of Notre-Dame, where I did not trust Providence so far as to omit the use of human means for defending myself against the insults of my enemies.

Except the visits which I paid in the night-time to the Hotel de Chevreuse, I conversed with none but canons and cures. I was the object of raillery both at Court and at the Palace of Conde; and because I had set up a bird-cage at a window, it became a common jest that "the Coadjutor whistled to the linnets." The disposition of Paris, however, made amends for the raillery of the Court. I found myself very secure, while other people were very uneasy. The cures, parish priests, and even the mendicants, informed themselves with diligence of the negotiations of the Prince de Conde. I gave M. de Beaufort a thrust now and then, which he knew not how to parry with all his cunning, and the Duc d'Orleans, who in his heart was enraged against the Court, continued his correspondence with me very faithfully.

Soon after, the Marechal du Plessis came to me at midnight and embraced me, saying, "I greet you as our Prime Minister." When he saw that Ismiled, he added, "I do not jest; you may be so if you please. The Queen has ordered me to tell you that she puts the King and Crown into your hands." He showed me a letter written in the Cardinal's own hand to the Queen, which concluded thus:

"You know, madame, that the greatest enemy I have in the world is the Coadjutor. Make use of him rather than treat with the Prince upon those conditions he demands. Make him a cardinal, give him my place, and lodge him in my apartments. Perhaps he will be still more attached to the Duc d'Orleans than to your Majesty; but the Duke is not for the ruin of the State. His intentions in the main are not bad. In a word, madame, do anything rather than grant the Prince his demand to have the government of Provence added to that of Guienne."I told the Marshal that I could not but be highly obliged to his Eminence, and that I was under infinite obligations to the Queen; and to show my gratitude, I humbly begged her Majesty to permit me to serve her without any private interest of my own; said that I was very incapable for the place of Prime Minister upon many accounts, and that it was not consistent with her Majesty's dignity to raise a man to that high post who was still reeking, as it were, with the fumes of faction.