This was while shouts of ‘Broussel!  Broussel!’ were echoing through the palace, and in a few moments came the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Guards to say that the populace were threatening to overpower the soldiers at the gates; and next came the Chancellor, nearly frightened out of his wits, saying that he had seen the people howling like a pack of wolves, carrying all sorts of strange weapons, and ready to force their way in.  Then old Monsieur Guitauet, the Colonel of the Guards, declared ’that the old rogue Broussel must be surrendered, dead or alive.’

’The former step would not be accordant with the Queen’s piety nor her justice,’ broke in the Coadjutor; ’the second might stop the tumult.’

‘I understand you, M. le Coadjuteur,’ broke out the Queen.  ’You want me to set Broussel at liberty.  I would rather strangle him with my own hands, and those who—–­’

And she held those plump white hands of hers almost close to the Archbishop’s face, as if she were ready to do it, but Cardinal Mazarin whispered something in her ear which made her less violent, and the next moment the lieutenant of police came in, with such a terrific account of the fury of the mob and their numbers, that there was no more incredulity; it was plain that there was really a most frightful uproar, and both the Regent and the Cardinal entreated the Coadjutor to go down and pacify the people by promises.  He tried to obtain from the Queen some written promise.

‘He was right,’ said Eustace.

‘Right!’ cried my mother.  ’What! to seek to bind Her Majesty down by written words, like a base mechanical bourgeois?  I am ashamed of you, my son!  No, indeed, we all cried out upon him, Archbishop though he were, and told him that Her Majesty’s word was worth ten thousand bonds.’

‘May it be so proved!’ muttered Eustace, while my mother went on to describe how the Coadjutor was pressed, pushed, and almost dragged down the great stair-case to speak to the infuriated people who were yelling and shrieking outside the court.  Monsieur de Meilleraye went before him, backed by all the light horse drawn up in the court, and mounting his horse, drew his sword crying, ’Vive le Roi!  Liberty for Broussel!’ he was met by a cry of ‘To arms, to arms!’ and there was a rush against him, some trying to pull him off his horse, and one attacking him with a rusty old sword.  The Marshal fired at him and he fell, severely wounded, just as the Coadjutor came down, and seeing him lying in the gutter like one dead, knelt down by him, heard his confession, and absolved him.

(It was afterwards said that the man was a pick-lock, but we always suspected that the Coadjutor had made the worst of him by way of enhancing a good story.)

Just as the absolution was finished, some more of the mob came up, and one threw a stone which hit the Archbishop on the cheek, and another pointed a musket at him.  ‘Unhappy man,’ he cried, ’if your father saw you!’ This seemed to touch the man; he cried:  ’Vive le Coadjuteur!’ And so easily were the people swayed, that they all began to applaud him to the skies, and he led them off to the market-place.