I was sent for again to another private conference with the Queen, who, dreading an arrangement with the Prince de Conde, was for his being arrested, and advised me to consider how it might be done.  It seems that M. Hoquincourt had offered to kill him in the street, as the shortest way to be rid of him, for she desired me to confer about it with Hoquincourt, “who will,” said she, “show you a much surer way.”  The Queen, nevertheless, would not own she had ever such a thought, though she was heard to say, “The Coadjutor is not a man of so much courage as I took him for.”

The next day I was informed that the Queen could endure the Prince no longer, and that she had advices that he had formed a design to seize the King; that he had despatched orders to Flanders to treat with the Spaniards, and that either he or she must be ruined; that she was not for shedding blood, and that what Hoquincourt proposed was far from it, because he promised to secure the Prince without striking a blow if I would answer for the people.

The Parliament continued to prosecute Mazarin, who was convicted of embezzling some nine millions of the public money.  The Prince assembled the Chambers, and persuaded them to issue a new decree against all those of the Court party who held correspondence with the said Cardinal.

The Prince de Conde, being uneasy at seeing Mazarin’s creatures still at Court, retired to Saint Maur on the 6th of July, 1651.  On the 7th the Prince de Conti acquainted the Parliament with the reasons for his departure, and talked in general of the warnings he had received from different hands of a design the Court had formed against his life, adding that his brother could not be safe at Court as long as Tellier, Servien, and Lionne were not removed.  There was a very hot debate in the ensuing session between the Prince de Conti and the First President.  The latter talked very warmly against his retreat to Saint Maur, and called it a melancholy prelude to a civil war.  He hinted also that the said Prince was the author of the late disturbances, upon which the Prince de Conti threatened that had he been in any other place he would have taught him to observe the respect due to Princes of the blood.  The First President said that he did not fear his threats, and that he had reason to complain of his Royal Highness for presuming to interrupt him in a place where he represented the King’s person.  Both parties were now in hot blood, and the Duke, who was very glad to see it, did not interpose till he could not avoid it, and then he told them both that they should endeavour to keep their temper.

On the 14th of July a decree was passed, upon a motion made by the Duc d’Orleans, that the thanks of the Parliament should be presented to her Majesty for her gracious promise that the Cardinal should never return; that she should be most humbly entreated to send a declaration to Parliament, and likewise to give the Prince de Conde all the necessary securities for his return; and that those persons who kept up correspondence with Mazarin should be immediately prosecuted.