“The Queen shares with the Cardinal in the common hatred, and the Duc d’Orleans with La Riviere in the universal contempt of the people.  If, out of mere complaisance, you abet their measures, you will share in the hatred of the public.  It is true that you are above their contempt; but then their dread of you will be so great that it will grievously embitter the hatred they will then bear to you, and the contempt they have already for the others, so that what is at present only a serious wound in the State will perhaps become incurable and mortal.  I am sensible you have grounds to be diffident of the behaviour of a body consisting of above two hundred persons, who are neither capable of governing nor being governed.  I own the thought is perplexing; but such favourable circumstances seem to offer themselves at this juncture that matters are much simplified.

“Supposing that manifestoes were published, and your Highness declared General of the Parliamentary Army, would you, monseigneur, meet with greater difficulties than your grandfather and great-grandfather did, in accommodating themselves to the caprice of the ministers of Rochelle and the mayors of Nimes and Montauban?  And would your Highness find it a greater task to manage the Parliament of Paris than M. de Mayenne did in the time of the League, when there was a factious opposition made to all the measures of the Parliament?  Your birth and merit raise you as far above M. de Mayenne as the cause in hand is above that of the League; and the circumstances of both are no less different.  The head of the League declared war by an open and public alliance with Spain against the Crown, and against one of the best and bravest kings that France ever had.  And this head of the League, though descended from a foreign and suspected family, kept, notwithstanding, that same Parliament in his interest for a considerable time.

“You have consulted but two members of the whole Parliament, and them only upon their promise to disclose your intentions to no man living.  How then can your Highness think it possible that your sentiments, locked up so closely in the breasts of two members, can have any influence upon the whole body of the Parliament?  I dare answer for it, monseigneur, that if you will but declare yourself openly the protector of the public and of the sovereign companies, you might govern them—­at least, for a considerable time—­with an absolute and almost sovereign authority.  But this, it seems, is not what you have in view; you are not willing to embroil yourself with the Court.  You had rather be of the Cabinet than of a party.  Do not take it ill, then, that men who consider you only in this light do not conduct themselves as you would like.  You ought to conform your measures to theirs, because theirs are moderate; and you may safely do it, for the Cardinal can hardly stand under the heavy weight of the public hatred, and is too weak to oblige you against your will to