in qualifying my sincere advice as opposition. Your majesty
has none but submissive and respectful subjects. It is not
the queen with whom the people are displeased; they ask for
Broussel and are only too happy, if you release him to them,
to live under your government."
Mazarin, who at the words, "It is not the queen with whom
the people are displeased," had pricked up his ears,
thinking that the coadjutor was about to speak of the cries,
"Down with Mazarin," and pleased with Gondy's suppression of
this fact, he said with his sweetest voice and his most
gracious expression:
"Madame, credit the coadjutor, who is one of the most able
politicians we have; the first available cardinal's hat
seems to belong already to his noble brow."
"Ah! how much you have need of me, cunning rogue!" thought
Gondy.
("And what will he promise us?" said D'Artagnan. "Peste, if
he is giving away hats like that, Porthos, let us look out
and both demand a regiment to-morrow. Corbleu! let the civil
war last but one year and I will have a constable's sword
gilt for me."
"And for me?" put in Porthos.
"For you? I will give you the baton of the Marechal de la
Meilleraie, who does not seem to be much in favor just
now.")
"And so, sir," said the queen, "you are seriously afraid of
a public tumult."
"Seriously," said Gondy, astonished at not having further
advanced; "I fear that when the torrent has broken its
embankment it will cause fearful destruction."
"And I," said the queen, "think that in such a case other
embankments should be raised to oppose it. Go; I will
reflect."
Gondy looked at Mazarin, astonished, and Mazarin approached
the queen to speak to her, but at this moment a frightful
tumult arose from the square of the Palais Royal.
Gondy smiled, the queen's color rose and Mazarin grew even
paler.
"What is that again?" he asked.
At this moment Comminges rushed into the room.
"Pardon, your majesty," he cried, "but the people have
dashed the sentinels against the gates and they are now
forcing the doors; what are your commands?"
"Listen, madame," said Gondy.
The moaning of waves, the noise of thunder, the roaring of a
volcano, cannot be compared with the tempest of cries heard
at that moment.
"What are my commands?" said the queen.
"Yes, for time presses."
"How many men have you about the Palais Royal?"
"Six hundred."
"Place a hundred around the king and with the remainder
sweep away this mob for me."
"Madame," cried Mazarin, "what are you about?"
"Go!" said the queen.
Comminges went out with a soldier's passive obedience.
At this moment a monstrous battering was heard. One of the
gates began to yield.
"Oh! madame," cried Mazarin, "you have ruined us all -- the
king, yourself and me."
At this cry from the soul of the frightened cardinal, Anne
became alarmed in her turn and would have recalled
Comminges.
"It is too late," said Mazarin, tearing his hair, "too
late!"
The gale had given way. Hoarse shouts were heard from the
excited mob. D'Artagnan put his hand to his sword, motioning
to Porthos to follow his example.
"Save the queen!" cried Mazarin to the coadjutor.
Gondy sprang to the window and threw it open; he recognized
Louvieres at the head of a troop of about three or four
thousand men.
"Not a step further," he shouted, "the queen is signing!"
"What are you saying?" asked the queen.
"The truth, madame," said Mazarin, placing a pen and a paper
before her, "you must;" then he added: "Sign, Anne, I
implore you -- I command you."
The queen fell into a chair, took the pen and signed.
The people, kept back by Louvieres, had not made another
step forward; but the awful murmuring, which indicates an
angry people, continued.
The queen had written, "The keeper of the prison at Saint
Germain will set Councillor Broussel at liberty;" and she
had signed it.
The coadjutor, whose eyes devoured her slightest movements,
seized the paper immediately the signature had been affixed
to it, returned to the window and waved it in his hand.
"This is the order," he said.
All Paris seemed to shout with joy, and then the air
resounded with the cries of "Long live Broussel!" "Long live
the coadjutor!"
"Long live the queen!" cried De Gondy; but the cries which
replied to his were poor and few, and perhaps he had but
uttered it to make Anne of Austria sensible of her weakness.
"And now that you have obtained what you want, go," said
she, "Monsieur de Gondy."
"Whenever her majesty has need of me," replied the
coadjutor, bowing, "her majesty knows I am at her command."
"Ah, cursed priest!" cried Anne, when he had retired,
stretching out her arm to the scarcely closed door, "one day
I will make you drink the dregs of the atrocious gall you
have poured out on me to-day."
Mazarin wished to approach her. "Leave me!" she exclaimed;
"you are not a man!" and she went out of the room.
"It is you who are not a woman," muttered Mazarin.
Then, after a moment of reverie, he remembered where he had
left D'Artagnan and Porthos and that they must have
overheard everything. He knit his brows and went direct to
the tapestry, which he pushed aside. The closet was empty.
At the queen's last word, D'Artagnan had dragged Porthos
into the gallery. Thither Mazarin went in his turn and found
the two friends walking up and down.
"Why did you leave the closet, Monsieur d'Artagnan?" asked
the cardinal.
"Because," replied D'Artagnan, "the queen desired every one
to leave and I thought that this command was intended for us
as well as for the rest."
"And you have been here since ---- "
"About a quarter of an hour," said D'Artagnan, motioning to
Porthos not to contradict him.
Mazarin saw the sign and remained convinced that D'Artagnan
had seen and heard everything; but he was pleased with his
falsehood.
"Decidedly, Monsieur d'Artagnan, you are the man I have been
seeking. You may reckon upon me and so may your friend."
Then bowing to the two musketeers with his most gracious
smile, he re-entered his closet more calmly, for on the
departure of De Gondy the uproar had ceased as though by
enchantment.
49
Misfortune refreshes the Memory.
Anne of Austria returned to her oratory, furious.
"What!" she cried, wringing her beautiful hands, "What! the
people have seen Monsieur de Conde, a prince of the blood
royal, arrested by my mother-in-law, Maria de Medicis; they
saw my mother-in-law, their former regent, expelled by the
cardinal; they saw Monsieur de Vendome, that is to say, the
son of Henry IV., a prisoner at Vincennes; and whilst these
great personages were imprisoned, insulted and threatened,
they said nothing; and now for a Broussel -- good God! what,
then, is to become of royalty?"
The queen unconsciously touched here upon the exciting
question. The people had made no demonstration for the
princes, but they had risen for Broussel; they were taking
the part of a plebeian and in defending Broussel they
instinctively felt they were defending themselves.
During this time Mazarin walked up and down the study,
glancing from time to time at his beautiful Venetian mirror,
starred in every direction. "Ah!" he said, "it is sad, I
know well, to be forced to yield thus; but, pshaw! we shall
have our revenge. What matters it about Broussel -- it is a
name, not a thing."
Mazarin, clever politician as he was, was for once mistaken;
Broussel was a thing, not a name.
The next morning, therefore, when Broussel made his entrance
into Paris in a large carriage, having his son Louvieres at
his side and Friquet behind the vehicle, the people threw
themselves in his way and cries of "Long live Broussel!"
"Long live our father!" resounded from all parts and was
death to Mazarin's ears; and the cardinal's spies brought
bad news from every direction, which greatly agitated the
minister, but was calmly received by the queen. The latter
seemed to be maturing in her mind some great stroke, a fact
which increased the uneasiness of the cardinal, who knew the
proud princess and dreaded much the determination of Anne of
Austria.
The coadjutor returned to parliament more a monarch than
king, queen, and cardinal, all three together. By his advice
a decree from parliament summoned the citizens to lay down
their arms and demolish the barricades. They now knew that
it required but one hour to take up arms again and one night
to reconstruct the barricades.
Rochefort had returned to the Chevalier d'Humieres his fifty
horsemen, less two, missing at roll call. But the chevalier
was himself at heart a Frondist and would hear nothing said
of compensation.
The mendicant had gone to his old place on the steps of
Saint Eustache and was again distributing holy water with
one hand and asking alms with the other. No one could
suspect that those two hands had been engaged with others in
drawing out from the social edifice the keystone of royalty.
Louvieres was proud and satisfied; he had taken revenge on
Mazarin and had aided in his father's deliverance from
prison. His name had been mentioned as a name of terror at
the Palais Royal. Laughingly he said to the councillor,
restored to his family:
"Do you think, father, that if now I should ask for a
company the queen would give it to me?"
D'Artagnan profited by this interval of calm to send away
Raoul, whom he had great difficulty in keeping shut up
during the riot, and who wished positively to strike a blow
for one party or the other. Raoul had offered some
opposition at first; but D'Artagnan made use of the Comte de
la Fere's name, and after paying a visit to Madame de
Chevreuse, Raoul started to rejoin the army.
Rochefort alone was dissatisfied with the termination of
affairs. He had written to the Duc de Beaufort to come and
the duke was about to arrive, and he world find Paris
tranquil. He went to the coadjutor to consult with him
whether it would not be better to send word to the duke to
stop on the road, but Gondy reflected for a moment, and then
said:
"Let him continue his journey."
"All is not then over?" asked Rochefort.
"My dear count, we have only just begun."
"What induces you to think so?"
"The knowledge that I have of the queen's heart; she will
not rest contented beaten."
"Is she, then, preparing for a stroke?"
"I hope so."
"Come, let us see what you know."
"I know that she has written to the prince to return in
haste from the army."
"Ah! ha!" said Rochefort, "you are right. We must let
Monsieur de Beaufort come."
In fact, the evening after this conversation the report was
circulated that the Prince de Conde had arrived. It was a
very simple, natural circumstance and yet it created a
profound sensation. It was said that Madame de Longueville,
for whom the prince had more than a brother's affection and
in whom he had confided, had been indiscreet. His confidence
had unveiled the sinister project of the queen.
Even on the night of the prince's return, some citizens,
bolder than the rest, such as the sheriffs, captains and the
quartermaster, went from house to house among their friends,
saying:
"Why do we not take the king and place him in the Hotel de
Ville? It is a shame to leave him to be educated by our
enemies, who will give him evil counsel; whereas, brought up
by the coadjutor, for instance, he would imbibe national
principles and love his people."
That night the question was secretly agitated and on the
morrow the gray and black cloaks, the patrols of armed
shop-people, and the bands of mendicants reappeared.
The queen had passed the night in lonely conference with the
prince, who had entered the oratory at midnight and did not
leave till five o'clock in the morning.
At five o'clock Anne went to the cardinal's room. If she had
not yet taken any repose, he at least was already up. Six
days had already passed out of the ten he had asked from
Mordaunt; he was therefore occupied in revising his reply to
Cromwell, when some one knocked gently at the door of
communication with the queen's apartments. Anne of Austria
alone was permitted to enter by that door. The cardinal
therefore rose to open it.
The queen was in a morning gown, but it became her still;
for, like Diana of Poictiers and Ninon, Anne of Austria
enjoyed the privilege of remaining ever beautiful;
nevertheless, this morning she looked handsomer than usual,
for her eyes had all the sparkle inward satisfaction adds to
expression.
"What is the matter, madame?" said Mazarin, uneasily. "You
seem secretly elated."
"Yes, Giulio," she said, "proud and happy; for I have found
the means of strangling this hydra."
"You are a great politician, my queen," said Mazarin; "let
us hear the means." And he hid what he had written by
sliding the letter under a folio of blank paper.
"You know," said the queen, "that they want to take the king
away from me?"
"Alas! yes, and to hang me."
"They shall not have the king."
"Nor hang me."
"Listen. I want to carry off my son from them, with
