e Jews in Europe.

At this very time I was sent for, by a civil letter under the Queen's own
hand, to repair to Saint Germain, the messenger telling me the King was
just gone thither and that the army was commanded to advance. I made him
believe I would obey the summons, but I did not intend to do so.

I was pestered for five hours with a parcel of idle rumours of ruin and
destruction, which rather diverted than alarmed me, for though the Prince
de Conde, distrusting his brother the Prince de Conti, had surprised him
in bed and carried him off with him to Saint Germain, yet I did not
question but that, as long as Madame de Longueville stayed in Paris, we
should see him again, the rather because his brother neither feared nor
valued him sufficiently to put him under arrest, and I was assured that
M. de Longueville would be in Paris that evening by having received a
letter from himself.

The King was no sooner gone than the Parliament met, frightened out of
their senses, and I know not what they could have done if we had not
found a way to change their fears into a resolution to make a bold stand.
I have observed a thousand times that there are some kinds of fear only
to be removed by higher degrees of terror. I caused it to be signified
to the Parliament that there was in the Hotel de Ville a letter from his
Majesty to the magistrates, containing the reasons that had obliged him
to leave his good city of Paris, which were in effect that some of the
officers of the House held a correspondence with the enemies of the
Government, and had conspired to seize his person.

The Parliament, considering this letter and that the President le Feron,
'prevot des marchands', was a creature of the Court, ordered the citizens
to arms, the gates to be secured, and the 'prevot des marchands' and the
'lieutenant de police' to keep open the necessary passages for
provisions.

Having thought it good policy that the first public step of resistance
should be taken by the Parliament to justify the disobedience of private
persons, I then invented this stratagem to render me the more excusable
to the Queen for not going to Saint Germain. Having taken leave of all
friends and rejected all their entreaties for my stay in Paris, I took
coach as if I were driving to Court, but, by good luck, met with an
eminent timber-merchant, a very good friend of mine, at the end of
Notre-Dame Street, who was very much out of humour, set upon my
postilion,