own private capacity.

After he had gone I had a conference with M. de Bouillon and his lady
about the present state of affairs, which I observed was very ticklish;
that if we were favoured by the general inclination of the people we
should carry all before us, but that the Parliament, which was our chief
strength in one sense, was in other respects our main weakness; that they
were very apt to go backward; that in the very last debate they were on
the point of twisting a rope for their own necks, and that the First
President would show Mazarin his true interests, and be glad to amuse us
by stipulating with the Court for our security without putting us in
possession of it, and by ending the civil war in the confirmation of our
slavery. "The Parliament," I said, "inclines to an insecure and
scandalous peace. We can make the people rise to-morrow if we please;
but ought we to attempt it? And if we divest the Parliament of its
authority, into what an abyss of disorders shall we not precipitate
Paris? But, on the other hand, if we do not raise the people, will the
Parliament ever believe we can? Will they be hindered from taking any
further step in favour of the Court, destructive indeed to their own
interest, but infallibly ruinous to us first?"

M. de Bouillon, who did not believe our affairs to be in so critical a
situation, was, together with his lady, in a state of surprise. The mild
and honourable answer which the Queen returned to the King's councillors
in relation to the herald, her protestations that she sincerely forgave
all the world, and the brilliant gloss of Talon upon her said answer, in
an instant overturned the former resolutions of the Parliament; and if
they regained sometimes their wonted vigour, either by some intervening
accidents or by the skilful management of those who took care to bring
them back to the right way, they had still an inclination to recede. M.
de Bouillon being the wisest man of the party, I told him what I thought,
and with him I concerted proper measures. To the rest, I put on a
cheerful air, and magnified every little circumstance of affairs to our
own advantage.

M. de Bouillon proposed that we should let the Parliament and the Hotel
de Ville go on in their own way, and endeavour all we could clandestinely
to make them odious to the people, and that we should take the first
opportunity to secure, by banishment or imprisonment, such persons as we
could not depend upon. He