France -- History -- Louis XIV, 1643-1715 -- Fiction
The queen unconsciously touched here upon the exciting question. The
people had made no demonstration for the princes, but they had risen
for Broussel; they were taking the part of a plebeian and in defending
Broussel they instinctively felt they were defending themselves.
During this time Mazarin walked up and down the study, glancing from
time to time at his beautiful Venetian mirror, starred in every
direction. “Ah!” he said, “it is sad, I know well, to be forced to
yield thus; but, pshaw! we shall have our revenge. What matters it
about Broussel—it is a name, not a thing.”
Mazarin, clever politician as he was, was for once mistaken; Broussel
was a thing, not a name.
The next morning, therefore, when Broussel made his entrance into Paris
in a large carriage, having his son Louvières at his side and Friquet
behind the vehicle, the people threw themselves in his way and cries of
“Long live Broussel!” “Long live our father!” resounded from all parts
and was death to Mazarin’s ears; and the cardinal’s spies brought bad
news from every direction, which greatly agitated the minister, but was
calmly received by the queen. The latter seemed to be maturing in her
mind some great stroke, a fact which increased the uneasiness of the
cardinal, who knew the proud princess and dreaded much the
determination of Anne of Austria.
The coadjutor returned to parliament more a monarch than king, queen,
and cardinal, all three together. By his advice a decree from
parliament summoned the citizens to lay down their arms and demolish
the barricades. They now knew that it required but one hour to take up
arms again and one night to reconstruct the barricades.
Rochefort had returned to the Chevalier d’Humières his fifty horsemen,
less two, missing at roll call. But the chevalier was himself at heart
a Frondist and would hear nothing said of compensation.
The mendicant had gone to his old place on the steps of Saint Eustache
and was again distributing holy water with one hand and asking alms
with the other. No one could suspect that those two hands had been
engaged with others in drawing out from the social edifice the keystone
of royalty.
Louvières was proud and satisfied; he had taken revenge on Mazarin and
had aided in his father’s deliverance from prison. His name had been
mentioned as a name of terror at the Palais Royal. Laughingly he said
to the councillor, restored to his family:
“Do you think, father, that if now I should ask for a company the queen
would give it to me?”
D’Artagnan profited by this interval of calm to send away Raoul, whom
he had great difficulty in keeping shut up during the riot, and who
wished positively to strike a blow for one party or the other. Raoul
had offered some opposition at first; but D’Artagnan made use of the
Comte de la Fère’s name, and after paying a visit to Madame de
Chevreuse, Raoul started to rejoin the army.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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