them here."

M. Mole was a man of courage. To face a mob is at times more dangerous
than to face an army.

Paris was in disorder. The agitation was spreading all over France. But
the army was faithful to the king, and without it the Fronde was
powerless. The outbreak had ended in a treaty of peace and amnesty in
which the Parliament had in a measure won, as it had preserved all its
rights and privileges.

It was to be a short peace. Conde, elated by having beaten the Fronde,
claimed a lion's share in the government. His brother, the Prince of
Conti, and his sister, the Duchess of Longueville, joined him in these
pretensions. The affair ended in a bold step on the part of Mazarin and
the queen. The two princes and M. de Longueville were arrested and
conveyed to the castle of Vincennes, while the princesses were ordered
to retire to their estates, and the Duchess of Longueville, fearing
arrest, fled in haste to Normandy.

For the present the star of the cardinal was in the ascendant. But his
master-stroke set war on foot again. The Parliament of Paris supported
the princes. Their partisans rallied. Bordeaux broke into insurrection.
Elsewhere hot blood declared itself. The Duke of Orleans joined the
party of the prisoners. The Parliament enjoined all the officers of the
crown to obey none but the duke, the lieutenant-general of the kingdom.
On the night of February 6, 1651, Mazarin set out again for St. Germain.
Paris had become far too hot to hold him.

The tidings of his flight brought the people into the streets again. The
Duke of Orleans informed Cardinal de Retz that the queen proposed to
follow her flying minister, with the boy king.

"What is to be done?" he asked, somewhat helplessly. "It is a bad
business; but how are we to stop it?"

"How?" cried the more practical De Retz; "why, by shutting the gates of
Paris, to begin with. The king must not go."

Within an hour the emissaries of the ready coadjutor were rousing up the
people right and left with the tidings of the projected flight of the
queen with her son. Soon the city swarmed again with armed and angry
men, the gates were seized, mounted guards patrolled the streets, the
crowd surged towards the Palais-Royal.

Within the palace all was alarm and confusion. Anne of Austria had
indeed been on the point of flight. Her son was in his travelling-dress.
But the people were at the door, clamoring to see the king, threatening
dire consequences if the doo