Meanwhile Condé blockaded the metropolis; and the volunteers of Paris, composed of its citizens, poured out to resist the blockade. The warfare was of the most ridiculous kind: the people of Paris made a jest of their own soldiery, which excelled only in the talent of running away. These troops went to the field by thousands, dressed out in feathers and ribands: they fled if they encountered but 200 of the royal troops: when they returned, flying, they were received with laughter and shouts of ridicule. Couplets and epigrams were multiplied and showered upon them and their leaders; the populace were diverted, while the most frightful licence prevailed; blasphemy was added to licentiousness, and the bands of society were loosened, its core poisoned. At length the middling classes, most active at first in the work of sedition and lawlessness, got tired of the wickedness they saw exhibited round them, and of the dangers to which they were perpetually exposed. Blood was spilt, and they scarcely knew for what they fought: each side began to sigh for peace. De Retz failed in gaining the assistance of Turenne, for, corrupted by an emissary of Mazarin, the army of Turenne deserted him. The same arts were used to gain over the partisans of De Retz. The prince de Marsillac was suffering from a severe wound. He had headed a squadron sent out with other troops for the purpose of escorting some convoys of provisions. The party was attacked, and fled on the instant, with the exception of the party led by Marsillac, (who, de Retz observes, had more valour than experience) that kept the ground till the prince had a horse killed under him, and was seriously wounded himself, when he returned to Paris. This circumstance led him, probably, to listen more readily to the representations of Mazarin's emissaries. [Sidenote: 1649. Ætat. 36.] He became an entire convert to the desire for peace, and by degrees, though with difficulty, the prince of Conti and the duchess de Longueville were brought to acquiesce in its necessity.