frequently vowed I had no private interest to serve in this affair, and I will keep my vow to the end.  Your circumstances are different from mine; you aim at Sedan, and you are in the right.  M. de Beaufort wants to be admiral, and I cannot blame him.  M. de Longueville has other demands—­with all my heart.  The Prince de Conti and Madame de Longueville would be, for the future, independent of the Prince de Conde; that independence they shall have.

“Now, in order to attain to these ends, the only means is to look another way, to turn all our thoughts to bring about a general peace, and to sign to-morrow the most solemn and positive engagement with the enemy, and, the better to please the public, to insert in the articles the expulsion of Cardinal Mazarin as their mortal enemy, to cause the Spanish forces to come up immediately to Pont-a-Verre, and those of M. de Turenne to advance into Champagne, and to go without any loss of time to propose to the Parliament what Don Josh d’Illescas has offered them already in relation to a general peace, to dispose them to vote as we would have them, which they will not fail to do considering the circumstances we are now in, and to send orders to our deputies at Ruel either to get the Queen to nominate a place to confer about a general peace or to return the next day to their seats in Parliament.  I am willing to think that the Court, seeing to what an extremity they are reduced, will comply, than which what can be more for our honour?

“And if the Court should refuse this proposition at present, will they not be of another mind before two months are at an end?  Will not the provinces, which are already hesitating, then declare in our favour?  And is the army of the Prince de Conde in a condition to engage that of Spain and ours in conjunction with that of M. de Turenne?  These two last, when joined, will put us above all the apprehensions from foreign forces which have hitherto made us uneasy; they will depend much more on us than we on them; we shall continue masters of Paris by our own strength, and the more securely because the intervening authority of Parliament will the more firmly unite us to the people.  The declaration of M. de Turenne is the only means to unite Spain with the Parliament for our defence, which we could not have as much as hoped for otherwise; it gives us an opportunity to engage with Parliament, in concert with whom we cannot act amiss, and this is the only moment when such an engagement is both possible and profitable.  The First President and De Mesmes are now out of the way, and it will be much easier for us to obtain what we want in Parliament than if they were present, and if what is commanded in the Parliamentary decree is faithfully executed, we shall gain our point, and unite the Chambers for that great work of a general peace.  If the Court still rejects our proposals, and those of the deputies who are for the Court refuse to follow our motion or to share in our fortune, we shall gain as much in another respect; we shall keep ourselves still attached to the body of the Parliament, from which they will be deemed deserters, and we shall have much greater weight in the House than now.