The Life of Louis, Prince of Cond ; Surnamed the Great

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 Excerpt: ... 1648. COMMENCEMENT OF THE FRONDE. 51 CHAPTER III. Dissensions between the Court and the Parliament of Paris--Arrest of Blancmesnil and Broussel--Insurrection of the People--The Queen Regent yields--Corde arrives from Flanders--His Conferences with the Coadjutor, afterwards Cardinal de Retz--The Queen Regent removes Louis XIV. from Paris--The War of the Fronde--Conduct of Conde' in the Blockade of Paris--Defection of Turenne--Peace signed at Ruel. Tiv.l now we have seen Conde the brave defender of his country, the faithful subject of his King. The scene is now about to change: to foreign hostilities will now be added civil wars, and we shall often have occasion to represent our hero misled by his impetuosity, and the victim of his own passions rather than of his enemies. Let us show the justice of his first motives, and acknowledge the force of the circumstances to which at last he yielded; but do not let us attempt, like the crowd of panegyrists, to question eternal principles, in the hope of veiling the errors of a single man. For some time irritation had been growing between the Court of the Palais Royal and the Parliament of Paris. It may be said that reason was almost entirely on the side of the latter. The taxes rendered necessary by war, and sometimes by prodigality, had been raised by the Royal Intendants in the provinces with all kinds of fraud, which doubled their weight, and with a harshness which caused them to be felt more severely. The rights of the magistracy were ill understood and little respected by a Spanish Queen and an Italian Minister. On the other hand, the example of revolt which England was then giving had fermented in everybody's head. The young men especially, and the common people, asked only to go forward--no matter where, no ma...