In short, Cardinal Mazarin found all the avenues to a negotiation either shut or impassable. This despair of success in the Court was eventually more to the advantage of the Court than the most refined politics, for it did not hinder them from negotiating, the Cardinal's natural temper not permitting him to do otherwise; but, however, he could not trust to the carrying out of negotiations, and therefore beguiled our generals with fair promises, while he remitted 800,000 livres to buy off the army of M. de Turenne, and obliged the deputies at Ruel to sign a peace against the orders of the Parliament that sent them. The President de Mesmes assured me several times since that this peace was purely the result of a conversation he had with the Cardinal on the 8th of March at night, when his Eminence told him he saw plainly that M. de Bouillon would not treat till he had the Spaniards and M. de Turenne at the gates of Paris; that is, till he saw himself in the position to seize one-half of the kingdom. The President made him this answer: "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.