In the meantime, Condé had lost no time, but was making such progress in Guyenne, that the whole country began to take alarm at his success. The Count de Harcourt, however, soon after checked his advance on the side of Cogniac; and the Maréchal de Gramont, marching with a considerable body of troops towards Langon, threatened to turn the flank of the Prince's army. Each of the royal generals commanded more men, and better disciplined forces, than those which followed Condé, and the Prince found himself obliged to choose between fighting under disadvantages which must have proved fatal, or temporising with the Court, in order to give time for a diversion to be effected in his favour. He accordingly, with consummate policy, made overtures to the Queen for permitting the return of Mazarin. The Queen, whose partiality for her minister did not permit her to see what Condé, as I have before said, had at once perceived, that the recal of the Cardinal would immediately throw the whole party of the Fronde, together with the Parliament and a great body of the people, entirely into the hands of the rebellious Prince, caught eagerly at the idea of the minister's return. Not only did she give Condé both time and repose by negotiating, at a moment when her generals might have pushed their advantage to his complete overthrow, but, blindly running before the negotiation, she despatched courier after courier to Mazarin, without at all requiring that the Prince should commit himself with the Fronde by joining in the recal of the obnoxious Italian. Mazarin lost no time, but, at the head of a body of troops which he had raised in Germany, he entered France, and being immediately joined by the royal army in Champagne, he advanced at once across the country towards Poitiers. All that Condé had foreseen now took place: the Fronde, the Parliament, the people, were astonished and indignant at the unexpected return of the hated minister. The Duke of Orleans obtained a decree from the Parliament of Paris, commanding all governors of towns to arrest him in his progress; a reward of fifty thousand crowns was offered for his head; an army was raised by the Duc de Beaufort, who effected his junction with the Duke de Nemours, the strongest partisan of the Prince de Condé, and their united forces were joined by a large body of Spaniards, which had been promised some time before. At the same time the Duke de Rohan, governor of Anjou, declared for Condé, with the whole province that he commanded, and every part of the empire seemed rising at once against the authority of the Court.