As soon as I gave Madame de Longueville a hint of what part she was to act in the intended revolution, she was perfectly transported, and I took care to make M. de Longueville as great a malcontent as herself.  She had wit and beauty, though smallpox had taken away the bloom of her pretty face, in which there sat charms so powerful that they rendered her one of the most amiable persons in France.  I could have placed her in my heart between Mesdames de Gudmenee and Pommereux, and it was not the despair of succeeding that palled my passion, but the consideration that the benefice was not yet vacant, though not well served,—­M. de La Rochefoucault was in possession, yet absent in Poitou.  I sent her three or four billets-doux every day, and received as many.  I went very often to her levee to be more at liberty to talk of affairs, got extraordinary advantages by it, and I knew that it was the only way to be sure of the Prince de Conti.

Having settled a regular correspondence with Madame de Longueville, she made me better acquainted with M. de La Rochefoucault, who made the Prince de Conti believe that he spoke a good word for him to the lady, his sister, with whom he was in, love.  And the two so blinded the Prince that he did not suspect anything till four years after.

When I saw that the Court would act upon their own initiative, I resolved to declare war against them and attack Mazarin in person, because otherwise we could not escape being first attacked by him.

It is certain that he gave his enemies such an advantage over him as no other Prime Minister ever did.  Power commonly keeps above ridicule, but everybody laughed at the Cardinal because of his silly sayings and doings, which those in his position are seldom guilty of.  It was said that he had lately asked Bougeval, deputy of the Grand Council, whether he did not think himself obliged to have no buttons to the collar of his doublet, if the King should command it,—­a grave argument to convince the deputies of an important company of the obedience due to kings, for which he was severely lampooned both in prose and verse.

The Court having attempted to legalise excessive usury,—­I mean with respect to the affair of loans,—­my dignity would not permit me to tolerate so public and scandalous an evil.  Therefore I held an assembly of the clergy, where, without so much as mentioning the Cardinal’s name in the conferences, in which I rather affected to spare him, yet in a week’s time I made him pass for one of the most obstinate Jews in Europe.

At this very time I was sent for, by a civil letter under the Queen’s own hand, to repair to Saint Germain, the messenger telling me the King was just gone thither and that the army was commanded to advance.  I made him believe I would obey the summons, but I did not intend to do so.