I waited on the Duke, and said, “There is but one remedy, which is, to secure the gates of Paris.”  Yet all that we could obtain of him was to send the captain of the Swiss Guards to wait on the Queen and desire her Majesty to weigh the consequences of an action of that nature.  His Duchess, perceiving that this expedient, if not supported effectually, would ruin all, and that his Royal Highness was still as irresolute as ever, called for pen and ink that lay upon the table in her cabinet, and wrote these words on a large sheet of paper: 

M. le Coadjuteur is ordered to take arms to hinder the adherents of Cardinal Mazarin, condemned by the Parliament, from carrying the King out of Paris.  Marguerite de Lorraine.

Des Touches, who found the Queen bathed in tears, was charged by her Majesty to assure the Duc d’Orleans that she never thought of carrying away the King, and that it was one of my tricks.

The Duc d’Orleans saying at the House next day that orders for the Princes’ liberty would be despatched in two hours’ time, the First President said, with a deep sigh, “The Prince de Conde is at liberty, but our King, our sovereign Lord and King, is a prisoner.”  The Duc d’Orleans, being now not near so timorous as before, because he had received more acclamations in the streets than ever, replied, “Truly the King has been Mazarin’s prisoner, but, God be praised, he is now in better hands.”

The Cardinal, who hovered about Paris till he heard the city had taken up arms, posted to Havre-de-Grace, where he fawned upon the Prince de Conde with a meanness of spirit that is hardly to be imagined; for he wept, and even fell down on his knees to the Prince, who treated him with the utmost contempt, giving him no thanks for his release.

On the 16th of February the Princes, being set at liberty, arrived in Paris, and, after waiting on the Queen, supped with M. de Beaufort and myself at the Duc d’Orleans’s house, where we drank the King’s health and “No Mazarin!”

On the 17th his Royal Highness carried them to the Parliament House, and it is remarkable that the same people who but thirteen months before made bonfires for their confinement did the same now for their release.

On the 20th the declaration demanded of the King against the Cardinal, being brought to be registered in Parliament, was sent back with indignation because the reason of his removal was coloured over with so many encomiums that it was a perfect panegyric.  Honest Broussel, who always went greater lengths than anybody, was for excluding all cardinals from the Ministry, as well as foreigners in general, because they swear allegiance to the Pope.  The First President, thinking to mortify me, lauded Broussel for a man of admirable good sense, and espoused his opinion; and the Prince de Conde, too, seemed to be overjoyed, saying, “It is a charming echo.”  Indeed, I might well be troubled to think that the