Whoever does not put up his sword is a rascal!” This expression coming from a man of great courage and reputation, every one did as he bade them.  Nor is Argenteuil’s courage and presence of mind to be less admired.  He being near me when I was caught by the neck between the folding doors, and observing one Peche,—­[Joly calls him “The great clamourer of the Prince.”  See his Memoirs, p. 157.]—­a brawling fellow of the Prince’s party, looking for me with a dagger in his hand, screened me with his cloak, and thereby saved my life, which was in the more danger because my friends, who supposed I was gone into the Great Chamber, stayed behind to engage with the Prince de Conde’s party.  The Prince told me since that it was well I kept on the defensive, and that had the noise in the hall continued but a minute longer, he would himself have taken me by the throat and made me pay for all; but I am fully persuaded that the consequences would have been fatal to both parties, and that he himself had had a narrow escape.

As soon as I reentered the Great Chamber I told the First President that I owed my life to his son, who on that occasion did the most generous action that a man of honour was capable of, because he was passionately attached to the Prince de Conde, and was persuaded, though without a cause, that I was concerned in above twenty editions against his father during the siege of Paris.  There are few actions more heroic than this, the memory of which I shall carry to my grave.  I also added that M. de La Rochefoucault had done all he could to murder me.’

[The Duke answered, as he says himself in his Memoirs, that fear had disturbed his judgment, etc.  See in the Memoirs of M. de La Rochefoucault, the relation of what passed after the confinement of the Princes.]

He answered me these very words:  “Thou traitor, I don’t care what becomes of thee.”  I replied, “Very well, Friend Franchise” (we gave him that nickname in our party); “you are a coward” (I told a lie, for he was certainly a brave man), “and I am a priest; but dueling is not allowed us.”  M. de Brissac threatened to cudgel him, and he to kick Brissac.  The President, fearing these words would end in blows, got between us.  The First President conjured the Prince pathetically, by the blood of Saint Louis, not to defile with blood that temple which he had given for the preservation of peace and the protection of justice; and exhorted me, by my sacred character, not to contribute to the massacre of the people whom God had committed to my charge.  Both the Prince and I sent out two gentlemen to order our friends and servants to retire by different ways.  The clock struck ten, the House rose, and thus ended that morning’s work, which was likely to have ruined Paris.

You may easily guess what a commotion Paris was in all that morning.  Tradesmen worked in their shops with their muskets by them, and the women were at prayers in the churches.  Sadness sat on the brows of all who were not actually engaged in either party.  The Prince, if we may believe the Comte de Fiesque, told him that Paris narrowly escaped being burnt that day.  “What a fine bonfire this would have been for the Cardinal,” said he; “especially to see it lighted by the two greatest enemies he had!”