“There is no hope of any security but in making the Coadjutor a cardinal.”

To which Mazarin answered:  “He is worse than the other, who at least seemed once inclined to treat, but he is still for a general peace, or for none at all.”

President de Mesmes replied:  “If things are come to this pass we must be the victims to save the State from perishing—­we must sign the peace.  For after what the Parliament has done to-day there is no remedy, and perhaps tomorrow we shall be recalled; if we are disowned in what we do we are ruined, the gates of Paris will be shut against us, and we shall be prosecuted and treated as prevaricators and traitors.  It is our business and concern to procure such conditions as will give us good ground to justify our proceedings, and if the terms are but reasonable, we know how to improve them against the factions; but make them as you please yourself, I will sign them all, and will go this moment to acquaint the First President that this is the only expedient to save the State.  If it takes effect we have peace, if we are disowned by the Parliament we still weaken the faction, and the danger will fall upon none but ourselves.”  He added that with much difficulty he had persuaded the First President.

The peace was signed by Cardinal Mazarin, as well as by the other deputies, on the part of the King.  The substance of the articles was that Parliament should just go to Saint Germain to proclaim the peace, and then return to Paris, but hold no assembly that year; that all their public decrees since the 6th of January should be made void, as likewise all ordinances of Council, declarations and ‘lettres de cachet’; that as soon as the King had withdrawn his troops from Paris, all the forces raised for the defence of the city should be disbanded, and the inhabitants lay down their arms and not take them up again without the King’s order; that the Archduke’s deputy should be dismissed without an answer, that there should be a general amnesty, and that the King should also give a general discharge for all the public money made use of, as also for the movables sold and for all the arms and ammunition taken out of the arsenal and elsewhere.

M. and Madame de Bouillon were extremely surprised when they heard that the peace was signed.  I did not expect the Parliament would make it so soon, but I said frequently that it would be a very shameful one if we should let them alone to make it.  M. de Bouillon owned that I had foretold it often enough.  “I confess,” said he, “that we are entirely to blame,” which expression made me respect him more than ever, for I think it a greater virtue for a man to confess a fault than not to commit one.  The Prince de Conti, mm. d’Elbeuf, de Beaufort, and de La Mothe were very much surprised, too, at the signing of the peace, especially because their agent at Saint Germain had assured them that the Court was fully persuaded that the Parliament was but a cipher, and that the generals were the men with whom they must negotiate.  I confess that Cardinal Mazarin acted a very wily part in this juncture, and he is the more to be commended because he was obliged to defend himself, not only against the monstrous impertinences of La Riviere, but against the violent passion of the Prince de Conde.