Meanwhile Turenne, with a Spanish force, had made a vain attempt to rescue the captive princes, and Mazarin had removed them to Havre, where the government was devoted to him.  There was now such general dread and hatred of the cardinal, that people were willing to unite with those whom they had considered their mortal enemies in order to secure his ruin.  In the early days of 1651 I was summoned to Paris by the Princess Palatine, who united a taste for gallantry with a remarkable talent for intrigue, and remained for some time hidden in her house, where I was witness to many consultations for the removal of Mazarin from power.  I even made a last attempt to persuade the cardinal himself to release the princes; in four nocturnal interviews I tried to show him how all parties were uniting to compass his ruin, but was unable to convince him without betraying secrets which were not my own.  Mazarin gave me no hope of their liberation.

Then arose a general storm against the minister, and he made his escape on the night of February 7.  The queen would have followed him with her son, but the Frondeurs and the partisans of the princes kept her prisoner in her palace.  Without any hope of assistance, and daunted day and night by an infuriated populate, she sent for me and gave me an order to the governor of Havre to release the princes immediately.  I warned the leaders of the Fronde that her sincerity was not above suspicion, and that all depended upon her close imprisonment, and so set out along the northern road upon my mission.  But the cardinal had been beforehand with me, the princes were at liberty, and on February 16 they entered Paris in triumph.

Mazarin, who had fled to Cologne, whence he continued to direct the queen’s cabinet, returned to France at the head of a small army in January, 1652, and arrived at Poitiers without meeting any resistance.  The party opposed to him was rent by faction and strife, but the Prince of Conde united it, and fought an indecisive engagement with the royal troops on April 8.  On the 11th the prince and I were well received in Paris, but it was evident that the citizens were weary of all these troubles, desired nothing so much as the king’s return, and detested the ambition of the leaders of faction.  Indeed, the magistrates were negotiating with Mazarin, and declared the city neutral.  On July 2 the Prince of Conde was marching his force from Saint-Cloud to Charenton when he was attacked by Turenne; and in the sanguinary combat which followed, and in which I was fighting beside the prince, I received a wound in the head which prevented my taking any further part in these disturbances.

Shortly afterwards, the Prince of Conde, his popularity wholly gone, took service under the King of Spain; King Louis XIV., amid general acclamations, returned to Paris on October 21; and Cardinal Mazarin, having overcome all his enemies, entered the capital in a veritable triumph, in February, 1653.