But the confusion in the Great Chamber was still worse.  There were daily assemblies, wherein the Cardinal was severely attacked, and the Prince’s party had the pleasure of exposing us as his accomplices.  What is very strange is that at the same time the Cardinal and his friends accused us of corresponding with the Parliament of Bordeaux, because we maintained, in case the Court did not adjust affairs there, we would infallibly bring the Parliament of Paris into the interest of the Prince.  If I were at the point of death I should have no need to be confessed on account of my behaviour on this occasion.  I acted with as much sincerity in this juncture as if I had been the Cardinal’s nephew, though really it was not out of any love to him, but because I thought myself obliged in prudence to oppose the progress of the Prince’s faction, owing to the foolish conduct of his enemies; and to this end I was obliged to oppose the flattery of the Cardinal’s tools as much as the efforts made by those who were in the service of the Prince.

On the 3d of September President Bailleul returned with the other deputies, and made a report in Parliament of his journey to Court; it was, in brief, that the Queen thanked the Parliament for their good intentions, and had commanded them to assure the Parliament in her name that she was ready to restore peace to Guienne, and that it would have been done before now had not M. de Bouillon, who had treated with the Spaniards, made himself master of Bordeaux, and thereby cut off the effects of his Majesty’s goodness.

The Duc d’Orleans informed the House that he had received a letter from the Archduke, signifying that the King of Spain having sent him full powers to treat for a general peace, he desired earnestly to negotiate it with him.  But his Royal Highness added that he did not think it proper to return him any answer till he had the opinion of the Parliament.  The trumpeter who brought the letter gathered a party at Tiroir cross, and spoke very seditious words to the people.  The next day they found libels posted up and down the city in the name of M. de Turenne, setting forth that the Archduke was coming with no other disposition than to make peace, and in one of them were these words:  “It is your business, Parisians, to solicit your false tribunes, who have turned at last pensioners and protectors of Mazarin, who have for so long a time sported with your fortunes and repose, and spurred you on, kept you back, and made you hot or cold, according to the caprices and different progress of their ambition.”

You see the state and condition the Frondeurs were in at this juncture, when they could not move one step but to their own disadvantage.  The Duc d’Orleans spoke to me that night with a, great deal of bitterness against the Cardinal, which he had never done before, and said he had been tricked by him twice, and that he was ruining himself, the State, and all of us, and would, by so doing, place the Prince de Conde upon the throne.  In short, Monsieur owned that it was not yet time to humble the Cardinal.  “Therefore,” said M. Bellievre, “let us be upon our guard; this man can give us the slip any moment.”