sheltered in the palace, till the canaille grew tired of waiting.  She shrugged her shoulders, and called them miserable Mazarinites, but I think she would have permitted them to remain within if her father had not actually conducted them out, saying, ’I will not have them fallen upon in here,’ which was like throwing them to the beasts.  We ladies were full of anxiety, and all hurried up to the roof to see their fate.

Like hungry hounds the mob hunted and pelted these respectable magistrates down the Rue de Conde, their robes getting torn as they fled and stumbled along, and the officers, standing on the steps of the hotel of M. le Prince, among whom, alas! was d’Aubepine.  Waved their yellow scarves, laughed at the terror and flight of the unhappy magistrates, and hounded on the mob with ’Ha!  There!  At him!  Well thrown!’

Suddenly a darker line appeared, advancing in order; there was a moment’s flash of rapiers, a loud trumpet call of ‘Back, ye cowards!’ The row of men, mostly in black hats, with white collars, opened, took in among them the bleeding, staggering, cruelly-handled fugitives, and with a firm front turned back the vile pursuers.  I could distinguish Clement Darpent’s figure as he stood in front, and I could catch a tone of his voice, though I could not made out his words, as he reproached the populace for endeavouring to murder their best friends.  I felt that my sister’s choice had been a grand one, but my heart sank as I heard the sneer behind me:  ’Hein!  The conceited lawyers are ruffling it finely.  They shall pay for it!’

There was a really terrible fight on the steps of the Parliament House, when the mob forced the door of the great chamber, and twenty-five people were killed; but Darpent and his little party helped out a great many more of the counsellors, and the town-guard coming up, the mob was driven off.  That evening I saw the Cardinal de Retz.  He was in bad odour with Monsieur and Mademoiselle, because he was strongly against the Prince, and would fain have stirred the Duke of Orleans to interfere effectively at the head of the Parliament and city of Paris; but a man of his rank could not but appear at times at the Duke’s palace, and on this fine May evening, when all had gone out after supper into the alleys of the garden of the Luxembourg, he found me out.  How young, keen, and lively he still looked in spite of his scarlet!  How far from one’s notions of an Eminence!

‘That was a grand exploit of our legal friend, Madame,’ he said; ’but I am afraid he will burn his fingers.  One is not honest with impunity unless one can blindly hang on to a party.  Some friend should warn him to get out of the way when the crash comes, and a victim has to be sacrificed as a peace-offering.  Too obscure, did Madame say?  Ah! that is the very reason!  He has secured no protector.  He has opposed the Court and the Prince alike, and the magistrates themselves regard him as a dangerous man, with those notions a lui about venality, and his power and individuality, and therefore is factious, and when the Court demands a Frondeur there will be no one except perhaps old Mole to cry out in his defence, and Mole is himself too much overpowered.  Some friend should give him a hint to take care of himself.’