> his opposition to the court party, and at once the city was ablaze; for

the first time in the history of France had the people risen in support

of their representatives.



It was by no means the first time that royalty had ended its disputes

with the Parliament in this summary manner. Four years previously, Anne

of Austria, the queen-regent, had done the same thing, and scarce a

voice had been raised in protest. But in the ensuing four years public

opinion had changed. The king, Louis XIV., was but ten years old; his

mother, aided by her favorite minister, Cardinal Mazarin, ruled the

kingdom,--misruled it, as the people thought; the country was crushed

under its weight of taxes; the finances were in utter disorder; France

was successful abroad, but her successes had been dearly bought, and the

people groaned under the burden of their victories. Parliament made

itself the mouth-piece of the public discontent. It no longer felt upon

it the iron hand of Richelieu. Mazarin was able, but he was not a

master, and the Parliament began once more to claim that authority in

affairs of state from which it had been deposed by the great cardinal. A

conflict arose between the members and the court which soon led to acts

of open hostility.



An edict laying a tax upon all provisions which entered Paris irritated

the citizens, and the Parliament refused to register it. Other steps

towards independence were taken by the members. Gradually they resumed

their old rights, and the court party was forced to yield. But courage

returned to the queen-regent with the news that the army of France had

gained a great victory. No sooner had the tidings reached Paris than the

city was electrified by hearing that President Brancmesnil and

Councillor Broussel had been arrested.



It was the arrest of Broussel that stirred the popular heart. Mazarin

and the queen had made the dangerous mistake of not taking into account

the state of the public mind. "There was a blaze at once, a sensation, a

rush, an outcry, and a shutting up of shops." The excitement of the

people was intense. Moment by moment the tumult grew greater. "Broussel!

Broussel!" they shouted. That perilous populace had arisen which was

afterwards to show what frightful deeds it could do under the impulse of

oppression and misgovernment.



Paul de Gondi, afterwards known as Cardinal de Retz, then coadjutor of

the Archbishop of Paris, and the leading spirit with the populace,

hurried to the palace, accompanied by Marshal de la Meilleraie.



"The city is in a frightful state," they told the queen. "The people are

furious and may soon grow unmanageable. The air is full of revolt."



Anne of Austria listened to them with set lips and angry eyes.



"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.



The conference with the queen was a passionate one. M. Mole spoke for

the Parliament, representing to the queen the extreme danger Paris was

in, the peril to all France, unless the prisoners were released and the

sedition allayed. He spoke to a woman "who feared nothing because she

knew but little," and who was just then controlled by pride and passion

instead of reason.



"I am quite aware that there is a disturbance in the city," she

answered, furiously; "but you shall answer to me for it, gentlemen of

the Parliament, you, your wives, and your children."



With further threats that the king would remember the cause of these

evils, when he reached his majority, the incensed woman flouted from the

chamber of audience, slamming the door violently behind her. To deal

with her, in her present mood, was evidently impracticable. The members

left the palace to return. They quickly found themselves surrounded by

an angry mob, furious at their non-success, disposed to hold them

responsible for the failure. On their arrival at the Rue St. Honore,

just as they were about to turn on to the Pont Neuf, a band of about two

hundred men advanced threateningly upon them, headed by a cook-shop lad,

armed with a halberd, which he thrust against M. Mole's body, crying,--



"Turn, traitor, and if thou wouldst not thyself be slain, give up to us

Broussel, or Mazarin and the chancellor as hostages."



Mole quietly put the weapon aside.



"You forget yourself," he said, with calm dignity, "and are oblivious of

the respect you owe to my office."



The mob, however, was past the point of paying respect to dignitaries.

They hustled the members, threatened the president with swords and

pistols, and several times tried to drag him into a private house. But

he resisted, and was aided by members and friends who surrounded him.

Slowly the parliamentary body made its way back to the Palais-Royal,

whither they had resolved to return, M. Mole preserving his dignity of

mien and movement, despite the "running fire of insults, threats,

execrations, and blasphemies," that arose from every side. They reached

the palace, at length, in diminished numbers, many of the members having

dropped out of the procession.



The whole court was assembled in the gallery. Mole spoke first. He was a

man of great natural eloquence, who was at his best as an orator when

surrounded by peril, and he depicted the situation so graphically that

all present, except the queen, were in terror. "Monsieur made as if he

would throw himself upon his knees before the queen, who remained

inflexible," says De Retz; "four or five princesses, who were trembling

with fear, did throw themselves at her feet; the queen of England, who

had come that day from St. Germain, represented that the troubles had

never been so serious at their commencement in England, nor the feelings

so heated or united."



Paris, in short, was on the eve of a revolution, and the queen could not

be made to see it. Cardinal Mazarin, who was present, and who had been

severely dealt with in the speeches, some of the orators telling him, in

mockery, that if he would only go as far as the Pont Neuf he would learn

for himself how things were, now joined the others in entreating Anne of

Austria to give way. She did so at length, consenting to the release of

Broussel, though "not without a deep sigh, which showed what violence

she did her feelings in the struggle."



It is an interesting spectacle to see this woman, moved by sheer pride

and obstinacy, conjoined with ignorance of the actual situation, seeking

to set her single will against that of a city in revolt, and endangering

the very existence of the monarchy by her sheer lack of reason. Her

consent, for the time being, settled the difficulty, though the passions

which had been aroused were not easily to be set at rest. Broussel was

released and took his seat again in the Parliament, and the people

returned to their homes, satisfied, for the time, with their victory

over the queen and the cardinal.



In truth, a contest had arisen which was yet to yield important

consequences. The Prince of Conde had arrived in Paris during these

events. He had the prestige of a successful general; he did not like the

cardinal, and he looked on the Parliament as imprudent and insolent.



"If I should join hands with them," he said to De Retz, "it might be

best for my interests, but my name is Louis de Bourbon, and I do not

wish to shake the throne. These devils of square-caps, are they mad

about bringing me either to commence a civil war, or to put a rope

round their own necks? I will let them see that they are not the

potentates they think themselves, and that they may easily be brought to

reason."



"The cardinal may possibly be mistaken in his measures," answered De

Retz. "He will find Paris a hard nut to crack."



"It will not be taken, like Dunkerque, by mining and assaults," retorted

the prince, angrily; "but if the bread of Gonesse were to fail them for

a week--" He left the coadjutor to imagine the consequences.



The contest continued. In January, 1649, the queen, the boy king, and

the whole court set out by night for the castle of St. Germain. It was

unfurnished, with scarcely a bundle of straw to lie upon, but the queen

could not have been more gay "had she won a battle, taken Paris, and had

all who had displeased her hanged, and nevertheless she was very far

from all that."



Far enough, indeed. Paris was in the hands of her enemies, who were as

gay as the queen. On the 8th of January the Parliament of Paris decreed

Cardinal Mazarin an enemy to the king and the state, and bade all

subjects of the king to hunt him down. War was declared against the

queen regent and her favorite, the cardinal. Had it been the

States-General in place of the Parliament, the French Revolution might

have then and there begun.



Many of the greatest lords joined the side of the people. Troops were

levied in the city, their command being offered to the Prince of Conti.

The Parliaments of Aix and Rouen voted to support that of Paris. It was

decreed that all the royal funds, in the exchequers of the kingdom,

should be seized and used for the defence of the people. All was

festivity in the city. The versatile people seemed to imagine that to

declare war was to decree victory. There was dancing everywhere within

the walls. There was the rumble of war without. The Prince of Conde, at

the head of the king's troops, had taken the post of Charentin from the

Frondeurs, as the malcontents called themselves, and had carried out his

threat of checking the flow of bread to the city. The gay Parisians were

beginning to feel the inconvenience of hunger.



What followed is too long a story to be told here, except in bare

epitome. A truce was patched up between the contending parties. Bread

flowed again into Paris. The seared and hungry people grew courageous

and violent again when their appetites were satisfied. When M. Mole and

his fellows returned to Paris with a treaty of peace which they had

signed, the populace gathered round them in fury.



"None of your peace! None of your Mazarin!" they angrily shouted. "We

must go to St. Germain to seek our good king! We must fling into the

river all the Mazarins."



One of them laid his hand threateningly on President Mole's arm. The

latter looked him in the face calmly.



"When you have killed me," he said, quietly, "I shall only need six feet

of earth."



"You can get back to your house secretly by way of the record offices,"

whispered one of his companions.



"The court never hides itself," he composedly replied. "If I were

certain to perish, I would not commit this poltroonery, which, moreover,

would but give courage to the rioters. They would seek me in my house if

they thought I shrank from 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 doors were not opened to them. They could not

long be kept out; some immediate action must be taken. The boy's

travelling-attire was quickly replaced by his night dress, and he was

laid in bed, his mother cautioning him to lie quiet and feign sleep.



"The king! we must see the king!" came the vociferous cry from the

street. "Open! the people demand to see their king."



The doors were forced; the mob was in the palace; clamor and tumult

reigned below the royal chambers. The queen sent word to the people that

the king was asleep in his bed. They might enter and see him if they

would promise to tread softly and keep strict silence. This message at

once stopped the tumult; the noise subsided; the people began to file

into the room, stepping as noiselessly as though shod with down, gazing

with awed eyes on the seemingly sleeping face of the boy king.



The queen stood at the pillow of her son, a graceful and beautiful

woman, her outstretched arm holding back the heavy folds of the drapery,

her face schooled to quiet repose. Louis lay with closed eyes and

regular breathing, playing his part well. For hours a stream of the men

and women of Paris flowed through the chamber, moving in reverential

silence, gazing on the boy's face as on a sacred treasure of their own.

Till three o'clock in the morning the movement continued, the queen

standing all this time like a beautiful statue, her son still feigning

slumber. It was a scene of remarkable and picturesque character.



That night of strain and excitement passed. The king was with them

still, of that the people were assured; he must remain with them, there

must be an end of midnight flights. The patrol was kept up, the gates

watched, the king was a prisoner in the hands of the Parisians.



"The king, our master, is a captive," said M. Mole, voicing to the

Parliament the queen's complaint.



"He was a captive, in the hands of Mazarin," replied the Duke of

Orleans; "but, thank God, he is so no longer."



The people had won. Mazarin was beaten. He hastened to La Havre, where

the princes were then confined, and set them at liberty himself. His

power in France, for the time, was at an end. He made his way to the

frontier, which he crossed on the 12th of March. He was just in time:

the Parliament of Paris had issued orders for his arrest, wherever found

in France.



We must end here, with this closing of the contest between Mazarin and

the Fronde. History goes on to tell that the contest was reopened,

Mazarin returned, there was battle in Paris, the Fronde failed, and

Mazarin died in office.



The popular outbreak here briefly chronicled is of interest from the

fact that it immediately followed the success of the insurrection in

England and the execution of Charles I. The provocation was the same in

the two nations; the result highly different. In both cases it was a

revolt against the tyranny of the court and the attempt to establish

absolutism. But the difference in results lay in the fact that England

had a single parliament, composed of politicians, while France had ten

parliaments, composed of magistrates, and unaccustomed to handle great

questions of public policy. Richelieu had taken from the civic

parliaments of France what little power they possessed, and they were

but shadowy prototypes of the English representative assembly. "Without

any unity of action or aim, and by turns excited and dismayed by the

examples that came to them from England, the Frondeurs had to guide them

no Hampden or Cromwell; they had at their backs neither people nor army;

the English had been able to accomplish a revolution; the Fronde failed

before the dexterous prudence of Mazarin and the queen's fidelity to her

minister."



There lay before France a century and a half of autocratic rule and

popular suffering; then was to come the convening of the States-General,

the rise of the people, and the final downfall of absolute royalty and

feudal privileges in the red tide of the Revolution.