The Maréchal du Plessis Praslin, an experienced officer, but one certainly inferior to Turenne in every respect, was sent against the only formidable opponent of the Court that now remained, and, after various man[oe]uvres on both parts, completely defeated Turenne, who fled to Bar-le-Duc, accompanied only by five hundred horse. This success increased the pride of Mazarin, and taught him vainly to imagine that he could at length put down the faction which had so long either ruled or disorganized the state; and although the parties of the Court and the Fronde had, for a time, unnaturally united for the ruin of Condé and his family, they now found that the moment was come when the struggle between themselves was to be renewed. Each determined upon the liberation of the Princes; but Mazarin sought to obtain more from the prisoners than the Fronde were inclined to demand; and he consequently temporised too long, while De Retz and Beaufort stirred up the people and the Parliament; and the cry for the liberation of Condé became as general amongst the Parisians as the rejoicings for his imprisonment had been about a year before. The Duke of Orleans, also, Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, always weak and always false, abandoned once more the cause of the minister. The cry for the liberation of the Princes was succeeded by a clamour for the exile of Mazarin. After many ineffectual struggles, the Queen Regent was obliged to yield her favourite to popular turbulence, and the minister fled from the Court, happy to escape with life. The very next morning, the Parliament of Paris, which not long before had condemned a man to death for publishing a libel against the Cardinal, now found reasons for declaring him a _disturber of the public peace_, and for passing sentence of outlawry against him; and the people and the Parliament prepared to liberate with joy the Princes who had so lately been the objects of their execrations. Mazarin, however, outstripped them in that very design; and wishing to take the credit of the act to himself, no sooner had he quitted the capital, than, proceeding to Havre, whither Condé and his companions had been removed, he threw open their prison doors, and himself announced their liberation. The Princes treated him with the contempt he merited, and the disgraced minister, finding himself without resource, fled from a country to which he was destined to return, after a very short lapse of time, more powerful than ever.