-Intervention of Mazarin-England and France allied against Spain - Battle of the Downs - Peace of the -- Changes in the political and social condition of France- THE GREAT CONDÉ AND THE PERIOD OF THE FRONDE. CHAPTER I. AMIDST the majestic solitudes and the sylvan pleasures of her delightful retreat, Anne of Austria found grateful repose from the fierce strife in which the preceding twelve months of her Regency had been passed. The Court was joyous and brilliant; the beauty, accomplishments, and modest graces of Mazarin's eldest nieces, Laura Mancini and the Countess Martinozzi, who appeared for the first time as members of the Queen's circle, brightened it with charms which owed nothing of their lustre to meretricious art. The amnesty stipulated in the treaty of Ruel, by re-opening France to illustrious exiles of the high VOL. II. B nobility, gave additional splendour to the royal retinue. The Duke of Vendôme, returning from his long sojourn in Italy, repaired to Compeigne with his eldest son, the Duke of Mercœur; and even Madame de Chevreuse, notwithstanding her recent treason at Brussels, ventured back to her beloved Paris. Anne of Austria, incensed by a step which she regarded as a new act of defiance, ordered the Duchess to quit the kingdom. But the mandate was almost immediately revoked in deference to the remonstrances of the First President Molé; and the Regent, softened by a penitent letter of submission, allowed her old friend to reappear at Court, and even to resume some of the privileges of a favourite. The tranquillity of Compeigne, however, was soon disturbed by the breaking out of dissensions between Condé and the Cardinal. The Prince had naturally expected that his birth, his genius, and the great services he had rendered the Crown, would entitle him to the lead in the Council of State. But he found, to his indignation and disgust, that, peace being re-established, he was reduced to play a part subordinate to that of the Minister. The popular sarcasm, which designated him Mazarin's Captain of the Guard, cut him to the quick, and an event occurred which blew up into a fierce blaze the smouldering fire of his jealous resentment. The Duke of Vendôme, a cowardly and incapable Prince, pining for the sunshine of Court favour, from which he had been so long banished, proposed a marriage between his eldest son and Laura Mancini. Mazarin eagerly grasped at an illustrious alliance which had long been floating in his ambitious dreams. Mercœur fell captive to the charms of the beautiful Italian. The Regent warmly promoted the match; and the Cardinal's dower to his niece, the post of High Admiral of France for Vendôme, with succession to his son, and an enormous sum of money, was not unworthy the rank of her intended husband. But the House of Vendôme, the fruit of Henry IV.'s amour with Gabrielle d'Estrées, and exalted by the prodigal favour of its progenitor to an equal footing with the legitimate Princes of the Blood, had always been regarded by these, and especially by the Condé family, with scorn and hatred. The great dignity which the Regent was now about to confer on its inglorious chief, out of complaisance for her Minister, she had frequently refused to the brilliant services of the Prince; and he thought he discerned a perfidious design, on the part of the Court, to depress his power, and to restore, at the expense of his just claims, the fallen greatness of a rival family. The Dowager Princess, after the peace of Ruel, had reconciled her children. Madame de Longueville had recovered her hold upon the affections of her fiery brother. Smarting under the cutting disdain with which the Regent had received her at St. Germain, the Duchess now worked so artfully upon Condé's passions, that, giving free rein to his wrath, he publicly denounced the marriage, and all who were in any way parties to it, in outrageous terms of menace and insult. And although the alarmed Minister pretended to abandon the project of alliance with Vendôme, his haughty protector quitted Compeigne in high dudgeon, and retired to his Government of Burgundy. Condé's departure left in the mind of the Regent a sense of inexpressible relief, but the position of public affairs made his support indispensable to the Government. The state of the Capital was far from satisfactory. The well-disposed inhabitants mourned the depression of trade, and the desolate aspect of deserted palaces and mansions; the evil-disposed saw with regret that the Regent and her Minister were beyond their reach. De Retz, Beaufort, and their partizans fomented the general discontent. The Cardinal was again freely assailed in the Chambers, and in |