"I should be afraid," she said to Madame de Motteville, "that, if I were to let him fall, the same thing would happen to me that happened to the King of England (Charles I.
had just been executed), and that, after he had been driven out, my turn would come." Grain had found its way into Paris during the truce; and when, on the 13th of March, the premier president, Molt;, and the other negotiators, returned to Paris, bringing the peace which they had signed at Ruel, they were greeted with furious shouts: "None of your peace! None of your Mazarin! We must go to St.

Germain to seek our good king! We must fling into the river all the Mazarins!" A rioter had just laid his hand on the premier president's arm.

"When you have killed me," said the latter, calmly, "I shall only want six feet of earth;" and, when he was advised to get back into his house by way of the record-offices, "The court never hides itself," he said; "if I were certain to perish, I would not commit this poltroonery, which, moreover, would but serve to give courage to the rioters.

They would, of course, come after me to my house if they thought that I shrank from them here." The deputies of the Parliament were sent back to Ruel, taking a statement of the claims of the great lords: "according to their memorials, they demanded the whole of France." [_Memoires de Madame de Motteville,_ t.iii.

p.