I returned to the Palace de Chevreuse, where I was made very welcome, and found the lovely Mademoiselle de Chevreuse.  I got a very intimate acquaintance with Madame de Rhodes, natural daughter of Cardinal de Guise, who was her great confidant.  I entirely demolished the good opinion she had of the Duke of Brunswick-Zell, with whom she had almost struck a bargain.  De Laigues hindered me at first, but the forwardness of the daughter and the good-nature of the mother soon removed all obstacles.  I saw her every day at her own house and very often at Madame de Rhodes’s, who allowed us all the liberty we could wish for, and we did not fail to make good use of our time.  I did love her, or rather I thought I loved her, for I still had to do with Madame de Pommereux.

Fronde (sling) being the name given to the faction, I will give you the etymology of it, which I omitted in the first book.

When Parliament met upon State affairs, the Duc d’Orleans and the Prince de Conde came very frequently, and tempered the heat of the contending parties; but the coolness was not lasting, for every other day their fury returned upon them.

Bachoumont once said, in jest, that the Parliament acted like the schoolboys in the Paris ditches, who fling stones, and run away when they see the constable, but meet again as soon as he turns his back.  This was thought a very pretty comparison.  It came to be a subject for ballads, and, upon the peace between the King and Parliament, it was revived and applied to those who were not agreed with the Court; and we studied to give it all possible currency, because we observed that it excited the wrath of the people.  We therefore resolved that night to wear hatbands made in the form of a sling, and had a great number of them made ready to be distributed among a parcel of rough fellows, and we wore them ourselves last of all, for it would have looked much like affectation and have spoilt all had we been the first in the mode.

It is inexpressible what influence this trifle had upon the people; their bread, hats, gloves, handkerchiefs, fans, ornaments were all ’a la mode de la Fronde’, and we ourselves were more in the fashion by this trifle than in reality.  And the truth is we had need of all our shifts to support us against the whole royal family.  For although I had spoken to the Prince de Conde at Madame de Longueville’s, I could not suppose myself thoroughly reconciled.  He treated me, indeed, civilly, but with an air of coldness, and I know that he was fully persuaded that I had complained of his breach of a promise which he made by me to some members of Parliament; but, as I had complained to nobody upon this head, I began to suspect that some persona studied to set us at variance.  I imagined it came from the Prince de Conti, who was naturally very malicious, and hated me, he knew not why.  Madame de Longueville loved me no better.  I always suspected Madame de Montbazon, who had not nearly so much influence over M. de Beaufort as I had, yet was very artful in robbing him of all his secrets.  She did not love me either, because I deprived her of what might have made her a most considerable person at Court.