Fouquet; and M. de Vendome, who had just come from his
table, pressed me to be gone, saying that there were wicked designs
hatching against me.

I returned to Paris, having accomplished everything I wanted, for I had
removed the suspicion of the Court that the Frondeurs were against the
King's return. I threw upon the Cardinal all the odium attending his
Majesty's delay. I braved Mazarin, as it were, upon his throne, and
secured to myself the chief honour of the King's return.

The Court was received at Paris as kings always were and ever will be,
namely, with acclamations, which only please such as like to be
flattered. A group of old women were posted at the entrance of the
suburbs to cry out, "God save his Eminence!" who sat in the King's coach
and thought himself Lord of Paris; but at the end of three or four days
he found himself much mistaken. Ballads and libels still flew about. The
Frondeurs appeared bolder than ever. M. de Beaufort and I rode sometimes
alone, with one lackey only behind our coach, and at other times we went
with a retinue of fifty men in livery and a hundred gentlemen. We
diversified the scene as we thought it would be most acceptable to the
spectators. The Court party, who blamed us from morning to night,
nevertheless imitated us in their way. Everybody took an advantage of
the Ministry from our continual pelting of his Eminence. The Prince, who
always made too much or too little of the Cardinal, continued to treat
him with contempt; and, being disgusted at being refused the post of
Superintendent of the Seas, the Cardinal endeavoured to soothe him with
the vain hopes of other advantages.

The Prince, being one day at Court, and seeing the Cardinal give himself
extraordinary airs, said, as he was going out of the Queen's cabinet,
"Adieu, Mars." This was told all over the city in a quarter of an hour.
I and Noirmoutier went by appointment to his house at four o'clock in the
morning, when he seemed to be greatly troubled. He said that he could
not determine to begin a civil war, which, though the only means to
separate the Queen from the Cardinal, to whom she was so strongly
attached, yet it was both against his conscience and honour. He added
that he should never forget his obligations to us, and that if he should
come to any terms with the Court, he would, if we thought proper, settle
our affairs also, and that if we had not a mind to be reconciled to the
Court, he would, in case it did atta