reflection, with what has been said, may serve to confute
those who pretend that a faction without a head is never to be feared. It
grows up sometimes in a night. The commotion I have been speaking of,
which was so violent and lasting, did not appear to have any leader for a
whole year; but at last there rose up in one moment a much greater number
than was necessary for the party.

The morning after the barricades were removed, the Queen sent for me,
treated me with all the marks of kindness and confidence, said that if
she had hearkened to me she would not have experienced the late
disquietness; that the Cardinal was not to blame for it, but that
Chavigni had been the sole cause of her misfortunes, to whose pernicious
counsels she had paid more deference than to the Cardinal. "But; good
God!" she suddenly exclaimed, "will you not get that rogue Beautru
soundly thrashed, who has paid so little respect to your character? The
poor Cardinal was very near having it done the other night." I received
all this with more respect than credulity. She commanded me to go to the
poor Cardinal, to comfort him, and to advise him as to the best means of
quieting the populace.

I went without any scruple. He embraced me with a tenderness I am not
able to express, said there was not an honest man in France but myself,
and that all the rest were infamous flatterers, who had misled the Queen
in spite of all his and my good counsels. He protested that he would do
nothing for the future without my advice, showed me the foreign
despatches, and, in short, was so affable, that honest Broussel, who was
likewise present upon his invitation, for all his harmless simplicity,
laughed heartily as we were going out, and said that it was all mere
buffoonery.

There being a report that the King was to be removed by the Court from
Paris, the Queen assured the 'prevot des marchands' that it was false,
and yet the very next day carried him to Ruel. From there I doubted not
that she designed to surprise the city, which seemed really astonished at
the King's departure, and I found the hottest members of the Parliament
in great consternation, and the more so because news arrived at the same
time that General Erlac--[He was Governor of Brisac, and commanded the
forces of the Duke of Weimar after the Duke's death]--had passed the
Somme with 4,000 Germans. Now, as in general disturbances one piece of
bad news seldom comes singly, five or six stories