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.