weakness I observed in his
managing State affairs. I left him an answer in writing, in substance as
follows:

"I confess the scheme is very feasible, but attended with pernicious
consequences both to the public and to private persons, for the same
people whom you employ to humble the magistracy will refuse you obedience
when you demand from them the same homage they paid to the magistrates.
This people adored the Parliament till the beginning of the war; they are
still for continuing the war, and yet abate their friendship for the
Parliament. The Parliament imagines that this applies only to some
particular members who are Mazarined, but they are deceived, for their
prejudice extends to the whole company, and their hatred towards
Mazarin's party supports and screens their indifference towards all the
rest. We cheer up their spirits by pasquinades and ballads and the
martial sound of trumpets and kettle-drums, but, after all, do they pay
their taxes as punctually as they did the first few weeks? Are there
many that have done as you and I, monsieur, who sent our plate to the
mint? Do you not observe that they who would be thought zealous for the
common cause plead in favour of some acts committed by those men who are,
in short, its enemies? If the people are so tired already, what will
they be long before they come to their journey's end?

"After we have established our own authority upon the ruin of the
Parliament's, we shall certainly fall into the same inconveniences and be
obliged to act just as they do now. We shall impose taxes, raise moneys,
and differ from the Parliament only in this, that the hatred and envy
they have contracted by various ways from one-third part of the
people,--I mean the wealthy citizens,--in the space of six weeks will
devolve upon us, with that of the other two-thirds of the inhabitants,
and will complete our ruin in one week. May not the Court to-morrow put
an end to the civil war by the expulsion of Mazarin and by raising the
siege of Paris? The provinces are not yet sufficiently inflamed, and
therefore we must double our application to make the most of Paris.
Besides the necessity of treating with Spain and managing the people,
there is another expedient come into my head capable of rendering us as
considerable in Parliament as our affairs require.

"We have an army in Paris which will be looked upon as the people so long
as it continues within its walls. Every councillor of inquest is