THE DUKE DE NEMOURS SLAIN IN A DUEL BY HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW, BEAUFORT.

Some few days after the fierce fight of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, CondÉ had an interview with the Duke d’Orleans, “who embraced him with an air as gay as though he had failed him in nothing.”[1] CondÉ uttered no word of reproach out of respect to his daughter. He did not behave exactly in the same way towards Madame de ChÂtillon. She had addressed a note to him begging him to visit her. She showed this effusion to Mademoiselle, saying, “He will at least see from that the uneasiness which is felt for him.” But CondÉ’s mind was disabused, and when he met her who had been his ruin, “he cast upon her, we are told, the most terrible glances conceivable, showing by the expression of his countenance how much he despised her.”[2] Well would it have been if soon afterwards the grand-nephew of Henry IV. had not lent anew his ear to the song of the syren and resumed the slavery of her dishonouring fetters!

It is not to our purpose to retrace the melancholy scenes of which, after the combat of Saint Antoine, and during the remainder of the month of July, 1652, Paris was the theatre. It would be only to dwell upon the sad spectacle of the agony and supreme convulsions of a beaten party, struggling in vain to escape its fate, and seeking safety in excesses which only served to precipitate its destruction.

CondÉ left no violent extreme untried to determine Paris to make further sacrifices for his cause. Dissatisfied with the deliberations of the HÔtel de Ville, he caused it to be carried by assault by the populace, who killed several of the Échevins. The Fronde, however, was approaching its last agony. Divided amongst themselves by selfish interests, and outwearied with endless intrigues, the majority of the Frondeurs only awaited a fitting opportunity of treating with Mazarin. An amnesty soon made its appearance, and the Cardinal took the step of quitting France once more in order to facilitate a reconciliation. But CondÉ, on his side, was very little disposed thereto, for he had gone very far indeed to retrace his steps. Furious at having failed to reach the object which he had thought to attain, exasperated by the abandonment of his partisans, by the sarcasms of pamphleteers, he demanded securities and large indemnifications; and proposed such hard conditions that all accord with him became impossible. Thereupon he collected some troops around his standard, a tolerably large number of gentlemen, and rejoined the Duke de Lorraine, who was advancing upon Paris. Their united forces amounted to eighty squadrons and eight thousand infantry. Turenne had scarcely half that strength; but he manoeuvred so skilfully round Paris, that they failed to get any advantage over him. CondÉ withdrew; and when the King, on his return to the Louvre, published a second amnesty (October, 1652), the Prince had crossed the frontier, after having taken several strongholds in his line of march. Shortly afterwards, he became generalissimo of the Spanish armies, whilst a decree of the parliament declared him guilty of high treason and a traitor to the State.

Previous to CondÉ’s departure from Paris, intense indignation had been excited in every well-balanced mind by a shocking event—the Duke de Nemours having been slain by the hand of his brother-in-law, the Duke de Beaufort, in an abominable duel. From De Nemours the provocation had come, and all the wrong was on his part; but as the victim, he was deplored by all those who were ignorant of what had contributed to bring about the affair, and for some time the new governor of Paris (Beaufort) could not show himself in public.

In the Dukes de Nemours and La Rochefoucauld, CondÉ had lost his two pacific advisers. In vain had he offered to La Rochefoucauld the post of Nemours, the command under him, and thus to be the second authority in his army. La Rochefoucauld had excused himself on account of his wound, and CondÉ gave the vacant command to the Prince de Tarente. Henceforward, Madame de ChÂtillon quite alone was unable to counterbalance the counsels and influence of Madame de Longueville, and CondÉ plunged deeper than ever into the Spanish alliance and the war waged by that nation against France.

Whilst all these events were happening, Bordeaux had become the theatre of continued troubles. Madame de Longueville no longer agreed with her younger brother; the inhabitants of the city, who had only entered half-heartedly and been almost forced into rebellion, became impatient to extricate themselves from the constrained position in which they were held. As the sequel to negotiations which the city carried on with the Duke de VendÔme, who blockaded it, there was a general amnesty.

When CondÉ retired to the Netherlands, it was not long before it became known, to the national humiliation, that the best soldier of France, a prince of the blood and protector of the people, had followed the recent example of his conqueror, and sold his services to Spain. The young King made his triumphal entry into Paris, accompanied by his mother and Turenne. He convoked the Courts, and received them into favour, “provided they returned within the limits of their duties, and abstained from interfering with the government.” Gaston was sent into honourable exile, to his castle in the beautiful town of Blois, and the Cardinal-Archbishop, the evil spirit of the Fronde, was received with apparent cordiality, and began to entertain hopes of supplanting his rival; but when he had fallen into disrepute with the citizens, he was quietly carried off to Vincennes, and left to meditate on his plots and schemings within the bars of his solitary apartment. The Parisians were now so changed from what they had been, that they received their old enemy, the Cardinal Mazarin, with demonstrations of delight, when he made his solemn entry into the repentant city with young Louis as an attendant at his side.