The reflections I had leisure to make upon my new dignity obliged me to take great care of my hat, whose dazzling flame of colour turns the heads of many that are honoured with it.  The most palpable of those delusions is the claiming precedence of Princes of the blood, who may become our masters the next moment, and who at the same time are generally the masters of all our kindred.  I have a veneration for the cardinals of my family, who made me suck in humility after their example with my mother’s milk, and I found a very happy opportunity to practise it on the very day that I received the news of my promotion.  Chateaubriant said to me, before a vast number of people at my levee, “Now we will pay our respects no more to the best of them,” which he said because, though I was upon ill terms with the Prince de Conde, and though I always went well attended, I yet saluted him wherever I met him with all the respect due to him on the score of so many titles.  I said to him: 

“Pray pardon me, monsieur; we shall pay our respects to the great men with greater complaisance than ever.  God forbid that the red hat should turn my head to that degree as to make me dispute precedence with the Princes of the blood.  It is honour enough for a gentleman to walk side by side with them.”  This expression, I verily believe, afterwards secured the rank of precedence to the hat in the kingdom of France, by the courtesy of the Prince de Conde, and his friendship for me.

Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, the most fantastical lady upon earth, suspecting that I held a secret correspondence with the Queen, could not forbear murmuring and threatening what she would do.  She said I had declared to her a thousand times that I could not imagine how it was possible for anybody to be in love with that Swiss woman.  In short, she said this so often that the Queen had a notion from somebody or other that I had called her by that name.  She never forgave me for it, as you will perceive in the sequel.  You may easily conceive that this circumstance, which gave me no encouragement to hope for a very gracious reception at Court for the time to come, did not weaken those resolutions which I had already taken to retire from public business.  The place of my retreat was agreeable enough:  the shadow of the towers of Notre-Dame was a refreshment to it; and, moreover, the Cardinal’s hat sheltered it from bad weather.  I had fine ideas of the sweetness of such a retirement, and I would gladly have laid hold of it, but my stars would not have it so.  I return to my narrative.

On the 12th of April the Duc d’Orleans took the Prince de Conde with him to the Parliament, assuring them that he had not, nor ever would have, any other intention than to serve his King and country; that he would always follow the sentiments of the Parliament; and that he was willing to lay down his arms as soon as the decrees against Cardinal Mazarin were put into execution.