292, 293], "but could not, and I am so beside myself at the mortal wound I have just received, that I am not sure whether anything I could say to you would have rhyme or reason.

The king and the queen, by an authentic deed, have declared me a traitor, a public robber, an incapable, and an enemy to the repose of Christendom, after I had served them with so many signs of my devotion to the advancement of peace: it is no longer a question of property, repose, or whatever else there may be of the sort.

I demand the honor which has been taken from me, and that I be let alone, renouncing very heartily the cardinalate and the benefices, whereof I send in my resignation joyfully, consenting willingly to have given up to France twenty-three years of the best of my life, all my pains and my little of wealth, and merely to withdraw with the honor which I had when I began to serve her." The persistent hopes of the adroit Italian appeared once more in the postscript of the letter: "I had forgotten to tell you that it was not the way to set me right in the eyes of the people to impress upon their mind that I am the cause of all the evils they suffer, and of all the disorders of the realm, in such sort that my ministry will be held in horror forever." Conde did not permit himself to be caught by the queen's declarations: of all the princes he alone was missing at the ceremony of the bed of justice whereat the youthful Louis XIV., when entering his fourteenth year, announced, on the 7th of September, to his people that, according the laws of his realm, he "intended himself to assume the government, hoping of God's goodness that it would be with piety and justice." The prince had retired to Chantilly, on the pretext that the new minister, the president of the council, Chateauneuf, and the keeper of the seals, Matthew Mole, were not friends of his.

The Duchess of Longueville at last carried the day; Conde was resolved upon civil war.

"You would have it," he said to his sister on repelling the envoy, who had followed him to Bourges, from the queen and the Duke of Orleans; "remember that I draw the sword in spite of myself, but I will be the last to sheathe it." And he kept his word.
A great disappointment awaited the rebels; they had counted upon the Duke of Bouillon and M.de Turenne, but neither of them would join the faction.