In this order we reached St. Germains, when again uncertainty seized upon all our movements; and for three days I do not think any one had the slightest idea whether the next day would see us on our road forward to Paris or back to Mantes. The bolder counsels of Turenne, however, prevailed; and on the fourth day we once more began our march, with the addition of a great number of the inhabitants of St. Germains on foot, who swelled the cortege without increasing its splendour; for, to say the truth, such was the poverty of the Court and all about it, such was the difficulty which every nobleman experienced in procuring remittances from his estates, however near or however distant, and such was the battered and travel-soiled equipage of all the officers and military followers, that it was very difficult to say which was the shabbiest in appearance, the rabble of carriages, of horsemen, or of pedestrians. We wound on, however, towards the capital, contrary to the opinion of many who were obliged to form part of the cavalcade, till we arrived within a few miles of Paris; but, in the midst of the _Bois de Boulogne_, we were met by a party of cavaliers from the city, who came up at full gallop, and calling to the front horsemen to stop, approached respectfully to the side of the Queen's carriage. They now besought her Majesty and the ministers to think well what they were doing before they brought the young King into the capital; they represented in strong terms the troubled state of the city, and they assured their hearers that the Duke of Orleans, who had been declared by the Parliament Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, was actually arranging a plan for seizing upon the monarch's person, and causing a general revolt in the metropolis. Of course such tidings spread terror and dismay amongst the greater part of those who formed the royal procession; but upon examination it was found, that the messengers who bore this threatening intelligence--several of whom were known--might be reasonably suspected, as belonging generally to the party of the Fronde, which had everything to apprehend from the reception of the Court in Paris. Nevertheless, the risk was certainly great.