Servien said one day that there was a design to assassinate me at his table by the Abbe Fouquet; and M. de Vendome, who had just come from his table, pressed me to be gone, saying that there were wicked designs hatching against me.

I returned to Paris, having accomplished everything I wanted, for I had removed the suspicion of the Court that the Frondeurs were against the King’s return.  I threw upon the Cardinal all the odium attending his Majesty’s delay.  I braved Mazarin, as it were, upon his throne, and secured to myself the chief honour of the King’s return.

The Court was received at Paris as kings always were and ever will be, namely, with acclamations, which only please such as like to be flattered.  A group of old women were posted at the entrance of the suburbs to cry out, “God save his Eminence!” who sat in the King’s coach and thought himself Lord of Paris; but at the end of three or four days he found himself much mistaken.  Ballads and libels still flew about.  The Frondeurs appeared bolder than ever.  M. de Beaufort and I rode sometimes alone, with one lackey only behind our coach, and at other times we went with a retinue of fifty men in livery and a hundred gentlemen.  We diversified the scene as we thought it would be most acceptable to the spectators.  The Court party, who blamed us from morning to night, nevertheless imitated us in their way.  Everybody took an advantage of the Ministry from our continual pelting of his Eminence.  The Prince, who always made too much or too little of the Cardinal, continued to treat him with contempt; and, being disgusted at being refused the post of Superintendent of the Seas, the Cardinal endeavoured to soothe him with the vain hopes of other advantages.

The Prince, being one day at Court, and seeing the Cardinal give himself extraordinary airs, said, as he was going out of the Queen’s cabinet, “Adieu, Mars.”  This was told all over the city in a quarter of an hour.  I and Noirmoutier went by appointment to his house at four o’clock in the morning, when he seemed to be greatly troubled.  He said that he could not determine to begin a civil war, which, though the only means to separate the Queen from the Cardinal, to whom she was so strongly attached, yet it was both against his conscience and honour.  He added that he should never forget his obligations to us, and that if he should come to any terms with the Court, he would, if we thought proper, settle our affairs also, and that if we had not a mind to be reconciled to the Court, he would, in case it did attack us, publicly undertake our protection.  We answered that we had no other design in our proposals than the honour of being his humble servants, and that we should be very sorry if he had retarded his reconciliation with the Queen upon our account, praying that we might be permitted to continue in the same disposition towards the Cardinal as we were then, which we declared should not hinder us from paying all the respect and duty which we professed for his Highness.