any sudden and precipitate rupture.  La Riviere, who governs the Duc d’Orleans, is a most dangerous man.  Continue, then, to introduce moderate measures, and let them take their course, according to your first plan.  Is a little more or less heat in Parliamentary proceedings sufficient reason to make you alter it?  For whatever be the consequence, the worst that can happen is that the Queen may believe you not zealous enough for her interest; but are there not remedies enough for that?  Are there not excuses and appearances ready at hand, and such as cannot fail?

“And now, I pray your Highness to give me leave to add that there never was so excellent, so innocent, so sacred, and so necessary a project as this formed by your Highness, and, in my humble opinion, there never were such weak reasons as those you have now urged to hinder its execution; for I take this to be the weakest of all, which, perhaps, you think a very strong one, namely, that if Mazarin miscarries in his designs you may be ruined along with him; and if he does succeed he will destroy you by the very means which you took to raise him.”

It had not the intended effect on the Prince, who was already prepossessed, and who only answered me in general terms.  But heroes have their faults as well as other men, and so had his Highness, who had one of the finest geniuses in the world, but little or no forethought.  He did not seek to aggravate matters in order to render himself necessary at Court, or with a view to do what he afterwards did for the Cardinal, nor was he biassed by the mean interests of pension, government, and establishment.  He had most certainly great hopes of being arbiter of the Cabinet.  The glory of being restorer of the public peace was his first end in view, and being the conservator of the royal authority the second.  Those who labour under such an imperfection, though they see clearly the advantages and disadvantages of both parties, know not which to choose, because they do not weigh them in the same balance, so that the same thing appears lightest today which they will think heaviest to-morrow.  This was the case of the Prince, who, it must be owned, if he had carried on his good design with prudence, certainly would have reestablished the Government upon a lasting foundation.

He told me more than once, in an angry mood, that if the Parliament went on at the old rate he would teach them that it would be no great task to reduce them to reason.  I perceived by his talk that the Court had resumed the design of besieging Paris; and to be the more satisfied of it I told him that the Cardinal might easily be disappointed in his measures, and that he would find Paris to be a very tough morsel.

“It shall not be taken,” he said, “like Dunkirk, by mines and storming; but suppose its bread from Gonesse should be cut off for eight days only?”

I took this statement then for granted, and replied that the stopping of that passage would be attended with difficulties.