know that at this day your friends are under great apprehension if they
see you in the streets without arms. Do you count it a slight thing to
put an end to all these miseries? And will you neglect the only
opportunity Providence puts a into your hands to obtain the honour of it?
Take your clergy with you to Compiegne, thank the King for removing
Mazarin, and beg his Majesty to return to Paris. Keep up a good
correspondence with those bodies who have no other design but the common
good, who are already almost all your particular friends, and who look
upon you as their head by reason of your dignity. And if the King
actually returns to the city, the people of Paris will be obliged to you
for it; if you meet with a refusal, you will have still their
acknowledgments for your good intention. If you can get the Duc
d'Orleans to join with you, you will save the realm; for I am persuaded
that if he knew how to act his part in this juncture it would be in his
power to bring the King back to Paris and to prevent Mazarin ever
returning again. You are a cardinal; you are Archbishop of Paris; you
have the good-will of the public, and are but thirty-seven years old:
Save the city, save the kingdom."

In short, the Duc d'Orleans approved of my scheme, and ordered me to
convene a general assembly of the ecclesiastical communities, and to get
deputies chosen out of them all, and go with them to Court, there to
present the deputation, which should request the King to give peace to
his people and return to his good city of Paris. I was also to endeavour
by the aid of my friends to induce the other corporate bodies of the city
to do likewise. I was to tell the Queen that she could not but be
sensible that the Duke was in good earnest for peace, which the public
engagements he was under to oppose Mazarin had not suffered him to
conclude, or even to propose, while the Cardinal continued at Court; that
he renounced all private views and interests with relation to himself or