Produced by David Widger
MEMOIRS OF JEAN FRANCOIS PAUL de GONDI,
CARDINAL DE RETZ
Written by Himself
Being Historic Court Memoirs of the Great Eventsduring the Minority of Louis XIV.and the Administration of Cardinal Mazarin.
Contents:
BOOK IV.
BOOK V.
In December, 1651, the Parliament agreed to the following resolution: Tosend a deputation to the King to inform him of the rumours of Mazarin'sreturn, and to beseech him to confirm the royal promise which he had madeto his people upon that head; to forbid all governors to give theCardinal passage; to desire the King to acquaint the Pope and otherPrinces with the reasons that had obliged him to remove the Cardinal; andto send to all the Parliaments of the kingdom to make the like decree.
Somebody making a motion that a price might be set upon the Cardinal'shead, I and the rest of the spiritual councillors retired, becauseclergymen are forbidden by the canon law to give their vote in cases oflife and death.
They agreed also to send deputies to the King to entreat him to write tothe Elector of Cologne to send the Cardinal out of his country, and toforbid the magistrates of all cities to entertain any troops sent tofavour his return or any of his kindred or domestics. A certaincouncillor who said, very judiciously, that the soldiers assembling forMazarin upon the frontiers would laugh at all the decrees of Parliamentunless they were proclaimed to them by good musketeers and pikemen, wasrun down as if he had talked nonsense, and all the clamour was that itbelonged only to the King to disband soldiers.
The Duc d'Orleans acquainted the House, on the 29th, that CardinalMazarin had arrived at Sedan; that Marechals de Hoquincourt and de laFerte were gone to join him with their army to bring him to Court; andthat it was high time to oppose his designs. Upon this it wasimmediately resolved that deputies should be despatched forthwith to theKing; that the Cardinal and all his adherents should be declared guiltyof high treason; that the common people should be commanded to treat themas such wherever they met them; that his library and all his householdgoods should be sold, and that 150,000 livres premium should be given toany man who should deliver up the said Cardinal, either dead or alive.Upon this expression all the ecclesiastics retired, for the reason abovementioned.
A new decree was passed on the 2d of January, 1652, wherein it wasdecided that all the Parliaments of France should be invited to issuetheir decrees against Mazarin, conformable to the last; that two morecouncillors should be added to the four sent to guard the rivers and toarm the common people; and that the troops of the Duc d'Orleans shouldoppose the march of Mazarin.
On the 24th the deputies who had been to Poitiers to remonstrate with theKing against the return of the Cardinal, made their report in Parliament,to the effect that his Majesty, after having consulted with the Queen andher Council, returned for answer, that without doubt, when the Parliamentissued their late decrees, they did not know that Cardinal Mazarin hadmade no levy of soldiers but by his Majesty's express orders; that it washe who commanded him to enter France with his troops, and that thereforethe King did not resent what the company had done; but that, on the otherhand, he did not doubt that when they had heard the circumstances he hadjust mentioned, and knew, moreover, that Cardinal Mazarin only desired anopportunity to justify himself, they would not