Time passed; the royal garments were unfit for wear and the Queen, reduced to extremities, begged Mademoiselle to smuggle for her. Mademoiselle granted her request with joy. She recorded the event exultantly: "One has enough of it,--when one is in condition to render services to such people, and when one sees that one is of importance!" The Parisians had given their favourite a convincing token of their love, and she regarded it as a proof that she was the one best fitted to share the throne of France. As the Parisians slept well on the night of the Queen's second flight, they were not conscious of their separation from royalty until the morning of the 6th January. The first emotion felt was consternation. Parliament made overtures to the Queen; the Queen rudely repulsed the overtures, and Parliament issued an edict of expulsion against Mazarin. Mazarin expelled, Parliament raised money, and set about recruiting an army. The Council of the Hôtel de Ville, representing Parisian commerce, sent a delegation to the King. Arrived in the royal presence, the deputies fell at the King's feet. They portrayed the horrors of civil war, they explained to the child that to be driven to attack Paris would be abominable. In the midst of his supplications the chief speaker, choked by sobs, cut short his plea. His emotion was more effective than any argument; his tears proved the solemnity of the hour. The King wept bitterly, and, in fact, every one wept but the Queen and Condé, who surveyed the general distress dry-eyed. When calm was restored Anne of Austria refused to yield. The die was cast; civil war was inevitable. After long deliberation the Hôtel de Ville declared for resistance. The masses of the people were defiant; they accused the royal family of treason; they demanded vengeance.[135] At that moment, when the nation stood alone, without a king, when a mob, driven mad by despair, clamoured for justice from the nobles, Mme. de Longueville entered the political field. Nature had not intended Mme. la Duchesse de Longueville for a business career; she was the impersonation of the soft graces of elegant leisure; and even in her grave she charmed men, as she will always charm them while there exists a portrait of her pale hair and angelic eyes, or an historian to recount "the delights of her calm mind illumined by the reflection of celestial light."[136] The fashionable education of the day had been her ruin; the little court of the Hôtel de Condé, long sojourns at Chantilly, where people lived as the heroes and heroines lived in _Astrée_,[137] excessive novel-reading and frequent and subtle discussions of "love" had made Mme. de Longueville a finished sentimentalist; and in her path she had found waiting for her a man well disposed and well fitted to exploit her sentimentalism, and bold enough to avow the part played by him in her career.