Part 33

"There is revolt in imagining there can be revolt," she sternly replied. "These are the ridiculous stories of those who favor trouble; the king's authority will soon restore order."

M. de Guitant, an old courtier, who entered as she was speaking, declared that the coadjutor had barely represented the facts, and said that he did not see how anybody could sleep with things in such a state.

"Well, M. de Guitant, and what is your advice?" asked De Retz.

"My advice is to give up that old rascal of a Broussel, dead or alive."

"To give him up dead," said the coadjutor, "would not accord with either the piety or the prudence of the queen; to yield him alive might quiet the people."

The queen turned to him a face hot with anger, and exclaimed,--

"I understand you, Mr. Coadjutor; you would have me set Broussel at liberty. I would strangle him with these hands first!" As she finished these words she put her hands close to the coadjutor's face, and added, in a threatening tone, "And those who--" Her voice ceased; he was left to infer the rest.

Yet, despite this infatuation of the queen, it was evident that something must be done, if Paris was to be saved. The people grew more tumultuous. Fresh tidings continued to come in, each more threatening than the last. The queen at length yielded so far as to promise that Broussel should be set free if the people would first disperse and cease their tumultuous behavior.

The coadjutor was bidden to proclaim this in the streets. He asked for an order to sustain him, but the queen refused to give it, and withdrew "to her little gray room," angry at herself for yielding so far as she had.

De Retz did not find the situation a very pleasant one for himself. Mazarin pushed him gently towards the door, saying, "Restore the peace of the realm." Marshal Meilleraie drew him onward. He went into the street, wearing his robe of office, and bestowing benedictions right and left, though while doing so his mind was busy in considering how he was going to get out of the difficulty which lay before him.

It grew worse instead of better. Marshal Meilleraie, losing his head through excitement, advanced waving his sword in the air, and shouting at the top of his voice,--

"Hurrah for the king! Liberation for Broussel!"

This did very well for those within hearing; but his sword provoked far more than his voice quieted; those at a distance looked on his action as a menace, and their fury was augmented. On all sides there was a rush for arms. Stones were flung by the rioters, one of which struck De Retz and felled him to the earth. As he picked himself up an excited youth rushed at him and put a musket to his head. Only the wit and readiness of the coadjutor saved him from imminent peril.

"Though I did not know him a bit," says De Retz, in his "Memoirs," "I thought it would not be well to let him suppose so at such a moment; on the contrary, I said to him, 'Ah, wretch, if thy father saw thee!' He thought I was the best friend of his father, on whom, however, I had never set eyes."

The fellow withdrew, ashamed of his violence, and before any further attack could be made upon De Retz he was recognized by the people and dragged to the market-place, constantly crying out as he went, "The queen has promised to restore Broussel."

The good news by this time had spread through the multitude, whose cries of anger were giving place to shouts of joy. Their arms were hastily disposed of, and a great throng, thirty or forty thousand in number, followed the coadjutor to the Palais-Royal. When he entered, Marshal Meilleraie turned to the queen and said,--

"Madame, here is he to whom I owe my life, and your Majesty the safety of the Palais-Royal."

The queen's answer was an incredulous smile. On seeing it, the hasty temper of the marshal broke out in an oath.

"Madame," he said, hotly, "no proper man can venture to flatter you in the state in which things are; and if you do not this very day set Broussel at liberty, to-morrow there will not be left one stone upon another in Paris."

Anne of Austria, carried away by her pride and superciliousness, could not be brought to believe that the populace would dare attempt an actual revolt against the king. De Retz would have spoken in support of the marshal's words, but she cut him short, saying in a tone of mockery,--

"Go and rest yourself, sir; you have worked very hard."

He left the palace in a rage. It was increased when word was brought to him that he had been ridiculed at the supper-table of the queen. She had gone so far as to blame him for increasing the tumult, and threatened to make an example of him and to interdict the Parliament. In short, the exercise of power had made the woman mad. De Retz reflected. If the queen designed to punish him, she should have something to punish him for. He was not the man to be made a cat's-paw of.

"We are not in such bad case as you suppose, gentlemen," he said to his friends. "There is an intention of crushing the public; it is for me to defend it from oppression; to-morrow before mid-day I shall be master of Paris."

Anne of Austria had made an enemy of one who had been her strong friend, a bold and restless man, capable of great deeds. He had long taken pains to make himself popular in Paris. During that night he and his emissaries worked in secret upon the people. Early the next day the mob was out again, arms in hand, and ripe for mischief. The chancellor, on his way to the Palace of Justice, suddenly found his carriage surrounded by these rioters. He hastily sought refuge in the Hotel de Luynes. The mob followed him, pillaging as they went, destroying the furniture, seeking the fugitive. He had taken refuge in a small chamber, where, thinking that his last hour had come, he knelt in confession before his brother, the Bishop of Meaux. Fortunately for him the rioters failed to discover him, and were led away by another fancy.

"It was like a sudden and violent conflagration lighted up from the Pont Neuf over the whole city," says De Retz. "Everybody without exception took up arms. Children of five and six years of age were seen dagger in hand, and the mothers themselves carried them. In less than two hours there were in Paris more than two hundred barricades, bordered with flags and all the arms that the League had left entire. Everybody cried 'Hurrah, for the king!' but echo answered, 'None of your Mazarin!'"

It was an incipient revolution, but it was the minister and the regent, not the king, against whom the people had risen, its object being the support of the Parliament of Paris, not the States General of the kingdom. France was not yet ready for the radical work reserved for a later day. The turbulent Parisians were in the street, arms in hand, but they had not yet lost the sentiment of loyalty to the king. A century and a half more of misrule were needed to complete this transformation in the national idea.

While all this was going on, the coadjutor, the soul of the outbreak, kept at home, vowing that he was powerless to control the people. At an early hour the Parliament assembled at the Palace of Justice, but its deliberations were interrupted by shouts of "Broussel! Broussel!" from the immense multitude which filled every adjoining avenue. Only the release of the arrested members could appease the mob. The Parliament determined to go in a body and demand this of the queen.

Their journey was an eventful one. Paris was in insurrection. Everywhere they found the people in arms, while barricades were thrown up at every hundred paces. Through the shouting and howling mob they made their way to the queen's palace, the ushers in front, with their square caps, the members following in their robes, at their head M. Mole, their premier president.