Prince told me since that it was well I kept on the defensive, and that
had the noise in the hall continued but a minute longer, he would himself
have taken me by the throat and made me pay for all; but I am fully
persuaded that the consequences would have been fatal to both parties,
and that he himself had had a narrow escape.

As soon as I reentered the Great Chamber I told the First President that
I owed my life to his son, who on that occasion did the most generous
action that a man of honour was capable of, because he was passionately
attached to the Prince de Conde, and was persuaded, though without a
cause, that I was concerned in above twenty editions against his father
during the siege of Paris. There are few actions more heroic than this,
the memory of which I shall carry to my grave. I also added that M. de
La Rochefoucault had done all he could to murder me.'

[The Duke answered, as he says himself in his Memoirs, that fear had
disturbed his judgment, etc. See in the Memoirs of M. de La
Rochefoucault, the relation of what passed after the confinement of the
Princes.]

He answered me these very words: "Thou traitor, I don't care what becomes
of thee." I replied, "Very well, Friend Franchise" (we gave him that
nickname in our party); "you are a coward" (I told a lie, for he was
certainly a brave man), "and I am a priest; but dueling is not allowed
us." M. de Brissac threatened to cudgel him, and he to kick Brissac. The
President, fearing these words would end in blows, got between us. The
First President conjured the Prince pathetically, by the blood of Saint
Louis, not to defile with blood that temple which he had given for the
preservation of peace and the protection of justice; and exhorted me, by
my sacred character, not to contribute to the massacre of the people whom