I made my two defenders understand that they were Mademoiselle’s garments, and when this was repeated there was a general shout:  ’Vive la bonne dame!  Vive Mademoiselle!  Vive Monsieur!  Vive la Fronde!’

Jean Marie, who had worked in a furniture shop, would have rolled up the bed in a trice much better than before, but M. Darpent observed that as we were not yet out of Paris is might bring us into trouble, and, inconvenient as it was, he advised us to keep it open till we were beyond the gates.  He asked permission to accompany me to prevent any further annoyance, and Jean Marie, to the extreme disgust of the servants, mounted the box, to serve as an additional guard.

No one could be kinder than M. Darpent.  He was very sad about this flight of the Court.  He said he feared it was the beginning of a civil war, and that he had thought better of the blood royal and noblesse of France than to suppose they would assist a Spanish woman and an Italian priest to trample down and starve their fellow-countrymen in the name of a minor king.  He expected that there would be a siege, for he was sure that the temper of the people was averse to yielding, and the bourgeois put their trust in the archers.

I asked if he thought there would be any danger, thinking that I would either join my mother and sister or endeavour to fetch them away; but he assured me that they would be safe.  Was not the Queen of England left, as I assured him, and the Duchess of Longueville?  M. le Prince would allow no harm to touch the place where lived the sister he so passionately loved.  I might be secure that the Hotel de Nid de Merle was perfectly safe, and he would himself watch to see that they were not annoyed or terrified.  He gave me the means of writing a billet to my mother from his little Advocate’s portfolio, and he promised himself to convey it to her and assure her of our safety, a message which I thought would make him welcome even to her.  He was most kind in every way, and when we came near the gate bethought him that the two little boys looked pale and hungry, as well they might.  He stopped the carriage near a baker’s shop, which was already open, and going in himself, returned with not only bread, but a jug and cup of milk.  I think we never enjoyed anything so much; and in the meantime the excellent Jean Marie rolled up our mattress so close that, as Gaspard said, it could hardly have been supposed to contain in puppy dog.

They saw us safely through the barriers.  M. Darpent gave his word for us, and out we went into the country while scarcely the dawn was yet seen.  At a turn in the road we saw only the morning star hanging like a great lamp in the east, and I showed it to the little boys, and told them of the three kings led by the Star to the Cradle.  I heard afterwards that the little Chevalier thought we saw the real Star in the East sent to guide us to St. Germain, forgetting that it was the wrong direction; but he had been very little taught, and this was the first he had ever heard of the Gospel, which was familiar to my boy.  They both fell asleep presently on the cushions, and I think I did so likewise, for I was surprised to find myself at St. Germain in broad daylight.  Everybody was gone to mass for the festival, and we crept in after them.