Some days afterwards, during the night between the 5th and 6th of January, 1649, the queen, with the little king and the whole court, set out at four A.M.from Paris for the castle of St.
Germain, empty, unfurnished, as was then the custom in the king's absence, where the courtiers had great difficulty in finding a bundle of straw.

"The queen had scarcely a bed to lie upon," says Mdlle.

de Montpensier, "but never did I see any creature so gay as she was that day; had she won a battle, taken Paris, and had all who had displeased her hanged, she could not have been more so, and nevertheless she was very far from all that." Paris was left to the malcontents; everybody was singing, "A Fronde-ly wind Got up to-day, 'Gainst Mazarin It howls, they say." On the 8th of January the Parliament of Paris, all the chambers in assembly, issued a decree whereby Cardinal Mazarin was declared an enemy to the king and the state, and a disturber of the public peace, and injunctions were laid upon all subjects of the king to hunt him down; war was declared.
Scarcely had it begun, when the greatest lords came flocking to the popular side.

On the departure of the court for St.Germain, the Duchess of Longueville had remained in Paris; her husband and her brother the Prince of Conti were not slow in coming to look after her; and already the Duke of Elbeuf, of the house of Lorraine, had offered his services to the Parliament.

Levies of troops were beginning in the city, and the command of the forces was offered to the Prince of Conti; the Dukes of Bouillon and Beaufort and Marshal de la Mothe likewise embraced the party of revolt; the Duchesses of Longueville and Bouillon established themselves with their children at the Hotel de Ville as hostages given by the Fronde of princes to the Fronde of the people; the Parliaments of Aix and Rouen made common cause with that of Paris; a decree ordered the seizure, in all the exchequers of the kingdom, of the royal moneys, in order that they might be employed for the general defence.