Six months later, at the end of July, the insurrection in Guienne was becoming extinguished by a series of private conventions; the king's armies were entering Bordeaux; the revolted princes received their pardon, waiting, meanwhile, for the Prince of Conti to marry, as he did next year, Mdlle.

Martinozzi, one of Mazarin's nieces; Madame de Longueville retired to Moulin's into the convent where her aunt, Madame de Montmorency, had for the last twenty years been mourning for her husband; Conde was the only rebel left, more dangerous, for France, than all the hostile armies he commanded.

Cardinal Mazarin was henceforth all-powerful; whatever may have been the nature of the ties which united him to the queen, he had proved their fidelity and strength too fully to always avoid the temptation of adopting the tone of a master; the young king's confidence in his minister, who had brought him up, equalled that of his mother; the merits as well as the faults of Mazarin were accordingly free to crop out: he was neither vindictive nor cruel towards even his most inveterate enemies, whom he could not manage, as Richelieu did, to confound with those of the state; the excesses of the factions had sufficed to destroy them.

"Time is an able fellow," the cardinal would frequently say; if people often complained of being badly compensated for their services, Mazarin could excuse himself on the ground of the deplorable, condition of the finances.

He nevertheless feathered his own nest inordinately, taking care, however, not to rob the people, it was said.