an undying hatred for Mazarin, and a supreme conviction of its own importance. It was the only force in France still opposed to the court, and Mazarin found himself in consequence the only obstacle to peace. By a voluntary retirement to Sedan in August 1652, he built a bridge by which the Parisians could return to their allegiance to the king without compromising their opposition to the minister. They eagerly availed themselves of it. Condé, finding himself deserted on all sides, openly joined the enemies of France, and carried on for eight years more a foreign war against his country as the leader of the armies of Spain. [Sidenote: =Flight of Condé, and the end of the Fronde, 1652.=] On the 21st of October Louis entered Paris at the head of his army and the _Fronde_ was at an end. From that moment the royal authority shone out pre-eminent over all the forces of the country until the Revolution. Constitutionalism as well as privilege, local feeling as well as legal right lay helpless before the all-mastering Crown. The leaders of the _Fronde_ were exiled, many of its supporters put to death on various pretexts, none of them admitted even to the shadow of political power. The Parlement were forbidden to deal either directly or indirectly with the affairs of state. For a century it became but the registration office of the royal edicts and the channel of the royal justice, while the nobles, deprived of all political power and sadly weakened in local influence, accepted the service of a splendid court in willing exchange for the precarious dignity of half-independent feudatories. [Sidenote: =Return of Mazarin to power.=]