Mademoiselle has related in what condition she found Conde, when having placed herself at the window of a little dwelling near the Bastille, in order to see the troops pass as they entered the city, the Prince hurried for a moment from the gate to speak to her. He neither thought of himself, all covered with blood as he was, nor even of his cause, very nearly hopeless: he thought only of the friends he had lost. It did not occur to him that they were those who had embarked him in negotiations the results of which had proved so fatal: he thought only that they had died for him, and his anguish grew insupportable. "He was," says Mademoiselle, "in a most pitiable state; he was not wounded himself, yet he was covered from head to foot with dust and blood, his hair all disordered, his face flushed with exertion, his cuirass battered with blows, and having lost the scabbard of his sword in the fight, he held the blade naked in his hand." As he entered, the memory of all those he had seen fall around him seemed to rush suddenly upon Conde, and casting himself upon a seat, he burst into tears. "Forgive me," said the great soldier, "I have lost all my friends--the gallant young hearts that loved me." "No, they are only wounded," said his cousin, "and many of them not dangerously; they will recover and love you still." Conde sprang up at the good news, and rushed back into the fight. At the head of all his effective cavalry, he made one desperate, long-continued charge, and drove the enemy backward for a mile. In the meantime, the gates were opened wide, and, file after file, the weary soldiers marched into the city; and dashing homeward after his brilliant assault, Conde and his squadron galloped in the last: but when the ponderous bars were once more drawn across the portals, it was felt that the combatants indeed were saved, but that the Fronde was destroyed. CHAPTER IV. THE DUKE DE NEMOURS SLAIN IN A DUEL BY HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW, BEAUFORT. SOME few days after the fierce fight of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Conde had an interview with the Duke d'Orleans, "who embraced him with an air as gay as though he had failed him in nothing."[1] Conde uttered no word of reproach out of respect to his daughter. He did not behave exactly in the same way towards Madame de Chatillon. She had addressed a note to him begging him to visit her. She showed this effusion to Mademoiselle, saying, "He will at least see from that the uneasiness which is felt for him." But Conde's mind was disabused, and when he met her who had been his ruin, "he cast upon her, we are told, the most terrible glances conceivable, showing by the expression of his countenance how much he despised her."[2] Well would it have been if soon afterwards the grand-nephew of Henry IV. had not lent anew his ear to the song of the syren and resumed the slavery of her dishonouring fetters! [1] Mademoiselle de Montpensier, tom. ii. p. 148. [2] The same.