The door was nearly burst in, but it was on the other side of the moat.  The water was very low, so two boats were dragged up to serve as a bridge, but they were so much below the top of the ditch that a ladder was put down into one, up which Mademoiselle dauntlessly mounted, unheeding that one step was broken, and I came after her.  This was our escalade of Orleans.

She ordered her guards to return to the place where the carriages had been left, that she might show how fearless she was.  The boatmen managed at last to cut out two boards from the lower part of the door.  There were two great iron bars above them, but the hole was just big enough to squeeze through, and Mademoiselle was dragged between the splinters by M. de Grammont and a footman.  As soon as her head appeared inside the gate the drums beat, there were loud vivats, a wooden arm-chair was brought, and Mademoiselle was hoisted on the men’s shoulders in it and carried along the street; but she soon had enough of this, caused herself to be set down, and we all joined her, very dirty, rather frightened, and very merry.  Drums beat before us, and we arrived at the Hotel de Ville, where the police bows and the embarrassed faces of the Governor and the magistrates were a sight worth seeing.

However, Mademoiselle took the command, and they all made their excuses and applied themselves to entertaining her and her suit, as carriages were not admitted, for we were in a manner besieged by the Keeper of the Seals; and in the early morning, at seven o’clock, Mademoiselle had to rise and go through the streets encouraging the magistrates to keep him out.

She was a sort of queen at Orleans, and we formed a little Court.  I really think this was the happiest time in her life, while she had a correspondence with the Prince of Conde on the one hand, and her father on the other; and assisted at councils of war outside the gates, as she kept her promise, and admitted none of the leaders of the belligerent parties into the city.

They were stormy councils.  At one of these the Duke of Beaufort and Nemours had a dispute, drew their swords, and were going to attack one another, when Mademoiselle, by entreaties and commands, forced them to lay down their arms.

All this time I had no news from my family.  We were in a strange condition.  Here was I following Mademoiselle, who represented her father and the neutral party, but was really devoted to the Prince; my son was in attendance on the King, whom we were keeping out of his own city; my mother, brother, and sister were in Paris, which held for the Parliament.  My half-brother, Solivet, had repaired to M. de Turenne’s army, which was fighting for the King, and my brother-in-law, d’Aubepine, was on the staff of the Prince.

There was scarcely any family that was not divided and broken up in the same way, and it was hard to say why there was all this war and misery, except that there was irreconcilable hatred between the Prince and the Cardinal, and the Queen was determined to cling to the latter.