The Prince—­Heaven forgive him—­and the Duke of Beaufort hoped to terrify the magistracy into subservience by raising the populace against them.  Foolish people! as if their magistrates were not guarding them from horrible miseries.  In fact, however, the mobs who raved up and down the streets, yelling round the Hotel de Ville, hunting the magistrates like a pack of wolves, shouting and dancing round Monsieur’s carriage, or Beaufort’s horse—­these wretches were not the peaceable work-people, but bandits, ruffians, disbanded soldiers, criminals, excited by distributions of wine and money in the cabarets that they might terrify all who upheld law and order.  If the hotels of the nobles and magistrates had not been constructed like little fortresses, no doubt these wretches would have carried their violence further.  It seems to me, when I look back at that time, that even in the Louvre or the Luxembourg, one’s ears were never free from the sound of howls and yells, more or less distant.

Clement Darpent, who had been separated from his work by his injury, and had not resumed it, so far as I could learn, was doing his best as a deputy at the Hotel de Ville to work on those whom he could influence to stand firm to their purpose of not admitting the King’s enemies, but, on the other hand, of not opening their gates to the royal arm itself till the summons to the States-General should be actually issued, and the right of Parliament to refuse registration acknowledged.  His friends among the younger advocates and the better educated of the bourgeois had rallier round him, and in the general anarchy made it their business to protect the persons whom the mob placed in danger.  My mother, in these days of terror, had recurred to her former reliance on him, and admitted him once more.  I heard there had been no formal reconciliation with Annora, but they had met as if nothing had happened; and it was an understood thing that he should follow her to the Hague so soon as there should be an interval of peace; but he had a deep affection for his country and his city, and could not hear of quitting them, even for Annora’s sake, in this crisis of fate, while he had still some vision of being of use, and at any rate could often save lives.  Whenever any part of the mob was composed of real poor, who had experienced his mother’s charities, he could deal with them; and when they were the mere savage bandits of the partisans, he and his friends scrupled not to use force.  For instance, this I saw myself.  The Duke of Orleans had summoned the Prevot des Marchands and two of the echevins to the Luxembourg, to consult about supplies.  The mob followed them all the way down the street, reviling them as men sold to Mazarin, and insisting that they should open the gates to the Prince.  When they were admitted the wretches stood outside yelling at them like wolves waiting for their prey.  I could not help appealing to Mademoiselle’s kindness of heart, and asking if they could not be