whereof he alone, with the city of Paris, must bear the heavy load; that
it would be equally scandalous and dangerous for his Royal Highness
either to leave the Princes in chains, after having treated with them,
or, by his dilatory proceedings, suffer Mazarin to have all the honour of
setting them at liberty, and that he ought by all means to go to the
Parliament House.

The Duchess, too, seconded us, and upon his Highness saying that if he
went to the House to declare against the Court the Cardinal would be sure
to take his Majesty out of Paris, the Duchess replied, "What, monsieur,
are you not Lieutenant-General of France? Do not you command the army?
Are you not master of the people? I myself will undertake that the King
shall not go out of Paris." The Duke nevertheless remained inflexible,
and all we could get out of him was that he would consent to my telling
the Parliament, in his name, what we desired he should say himself. In a
word, he would have me make the experiment, the success of which he
looked upon to be very uncertain, because he thought the Parliament would
have nothing to say against the Queen's answer, and that if I succeeded
he should reap the honour of the proposition. I readily accepted the
commission, because all was at stake, and if I had not executed it the
next morning I am sure the Cardinal would have eluded setting the Princes
at liberty a great while longer, and the affair have ended in a
negotiation with them against the Duke.

The Duchess, who saw that I exposed myself for the public good, pitied me
very much. She did all she could to persuade the Duke to command me to
mention to the Parliament what the Cardinal had told the King with
relation to Cromwell, Fairfax and the English Parliament, which, if
declared in the Duke's name, she thought would excite the House the more
against Mazarin; and she was certainly in the right. But he forbade me