great staircase of the palace.

All the people and the authorities of Narbonne viewed this royal
departure with amazement.

The Cardinal entered alone a spacious square litter, in which he was to
travel to Perpignan, his infirmities not permitting him to go in a coach,
or to perform the journey on horseback. This kind of moving chamber
contained a bed, a table, and a small chair for the page who wrote or
read for him. This machine, covered with purple damask, was carried by
eighteen men, who were relieved at intervals of a league; they were
selected among his guards, and always performed this service of honor
with uncovered heads, however hot or wet the weather might be. The Duc
d'Angouleme, the Marechals de Schomberg and d'Estrees, Fabert, and other
dignitaries were on horseback beside the litter; after them, among the
most prominent were the Cardinal de la Vallette and Mazarin, with
Chavigny, and the Marechal de Vitry, anxious to avoid the Bastille, with
which it was said he was threatened.

Two coaches followed for the Cardinal's secretaries, physicians, and
confessor; then eight others, each with four horses, for his gentlemen,
and twenty-four mules for his luggage. Two hundred musketeers on foot
marched close behind him, and his company of men-at-arms of the guard and
his light-horse, all gentlemen, rode before and behind him on splendid
horses.

Such was the equipage in which the prime minister proceeded to Perpignan;
the size of the litter often made it necessary to enlarge the roads, and
knock down the walls of some of the towns and villages on the way, into
which it could not otherwise enter, "so that," say the authors and