e Harcourt in a series of trifling skirmishes, and after
much time and trouble take a few little paltry towns, when in the heart
of the kingdom a treason or a defeat might irreparably involve the loss
of everything, and condemn Bordeaux to share the common fate, after a
more or less prolonged existence. Taking one thing with another, Guienne
was doubtless a considerable accessory; but the grand struggle was not
to be made there; it was at Paris and upon the banks of the Loire that
the destiny of the Fronde and that of Conde too must be decided; it was
thither, therefore, that he must hasten. Every day brought him tidings
that jealousies, divisions, quarrels were increasing in the army, and he
trembled to receive, some morning, news that Turenne and Hocquincourt
had beaten Nemours and Beaufort, and were marching on Paris. Desirous of
preventing at any price a disaster so irreparable, he resolved to rush
to the point where the danger was supreme, where his unexpected presence
would strike terror into the souls of his enemies, revive the courage of
his partisans and turn fortune to his side. When Caesar, on arriving in
Greece, learned that the fleet which was following him with his army on
board, had been dispersed and destroyed by that of Pompey, he flung
himself alone into a fisherman's bark under cover of night to cross the
sea into Asia to seek for the legions of Antony, and return with them to
gain the battle of Pharsalia. When Napoleon learned in Egypt the state
of France, from the shameful doings of the Directory, the agitation of
parties, and that already more than one general was meditating another
18th of Brumaire, he did not hesitate, and however rash it might appear
to attempt to pass through the English fleet in a small craft, at the
risk of being taken, or sent to the bottom, he dared every peril, and by
dint of address and audacity succeeded in gaining the shores of France.
Conde did the same, and at the end of March 1652, he undertook to make
his way from the banks of the Gironde to the banks of the Loire, without
other escort than that of a small number of intrepid friends, and
sustained solely by the vivid consciousness of the necessity of that
bold step, his familiarity with and secret liking for danger, his
incomparable presence of mind and his customary gaiety.

On Palm Sunday, 1652, Conde set forth upon his adventurous expedition.
He was accompanied by six persons, La Rochefoucauld and his youthful
son