Stray Pearls | Page 3

directed by him in everything. Distrust and dissension soon broke out, Conde and the Coadjutor quarrelled violently, and the royal promises made to both Princes and Parliament were eluded by the King, at fourteen, being declared to have attained his majority, and thus that all engagements made in his name became void.
Conde went of to Guienne and raised an army; Mazirin returned to the Queen; Paris shut its gates and declared Mazarin an outlaw. The Coadjutor (now become Cardinal de Retz) vainly tried to stir up the Duke of Orleans to take a manly part and mediate between the parties; but being much afraid of his own appanage, the city of Orleans, being occupied by either army, Gaston sent his daughter to take the charge of it, as she effectually did--but she was far from neutrality, being deluded by a hope that Conde would divorce his poor faithful wife to marry her. Turenne, on his brother's release, had made his peace with the Court, and commanded the royal army. War and havoc raged outside Paris; within the partisans of the Princes stirred the populace to endeavour to intimidate the Parliament and municipality into taking their part. Their chief leader throughout was the Duke of Beaufort, a younger son of the Duke of Vendome, the child of Gabrille d'Estrees. He inherited his grandmother's beauty and his grandfather's charm of manner; he was the darling of the populace of Paris, and led them, in an aimless sort of way, whether there was mischief to be done; and the violence and tumult of this latter Fronde was far worse than those of the first.
A terrible battle in the Faubourg St. Antoine broke Conde's force, and the remnant was only saved by Mademoiselle's insisting on their being allowed to pass through Paris. After one ungrateful attempt to terrify the magistrates into espousing his cause and standing a siege on his behalf, Conde quitted Paris, and soon after fell ill of a violent fever.
His party melted away. Mazarin saw that tranquillity might be restored if he quitted France for a time. The King proclaimed an amnesty, but with considerable exceptions and no relaxation of his power; and these terms the Parliament, weary of anarchy, and finding the nobles had cared merely for their personal hatreds, not for the public good, were forced to accept.
Conde, on his recovery, left France, and for a time fought against his country in the ranks of the Spaniards. Beaufort died bravely fighting against the Turks at Cyprus. Cardinal de Retz was imprisoned, and Mademoiselle had to retire from Court, while other less distinguished persons had to undergo the punishment for their resistance, though, to the credit of the Court party be it spoken, there were no executions, only imprisonments; and in after years the Fronde was treated as a brief frenzy, and forgotten.
Perhaps it may be well to explain that Mademoiselle was Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, daughter of Gaston, Duke of Orleans, by his first wife, the heiress of the old Bourbon branch of Montpensier. She was the greatest heiress in France, and an exceedingly vain and eccentric person, aged twenty-three at the beginning of the Fronde.
It only remains to say that I have no definite authority for introducing such a character as that of Clement Darpent, but it is well known that there was a strong under-current of upright, honest, and highly-cultivated men among the bourgeoisie and magistrates, and that it seemed to me quite possible that in the first Fronde, when the Parliament were endeavouring to make a stand for a just right, and hoping to obtain further hopes and schemes, and, acting on higher and purer principles than those around him, be universally misunderstood and suspected.
C. M. YONGE.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
. WHITEHALL BEFORE THE COBWEBS
CHAPTER II
. A LITTLE MUTUAL AVERSION
CHAPTER III
. CELADON AND CHLOE
CHAPTER IV
. THE SALON BLEU
CHAPTER V
. IN GARRISON
CHAPTER VI
. VICTORY DEARLY BOUGHT
CHAPTER VII
. WIDOW AND WIFE
CHAPTER VIII
. MARGUERITE TO THE RESCUE
CHAPTER IX
. THE FIREBAND OF THE BOCAGE
CHAPTER X
. OLD THREADS TAKEN UP
CHAPTER XI
. THE TWO QUEENS
CHAPTER XII
. CAVALIERS IN EXILE
CHAPTER XIII
. MADEMOISELLE'S TOILETTE
CHAPTER XIV
. COURT APPOINTMENTS
CHAPTER XV
. A STRANGE THANKGIVING DAY
CHAPTER XVI
. THE BARRICADES
CHAPTER XVII
. A PATIENT GRISEL
CHAPTER XVIII
. TWELFTH NIGHT, OR WHAT YOU WILL
CHAPTER XIX
. INSIDE PARIS (Annora's Narrative)
CHAPTER XX
. CONDOLENCE (By Margaret)
CHAPTER XXI
. ST. MARGARET AND THE DRAGON
CHAPTER XXII
. ST. MARGARET AND THE DRAGON (By Annora)
CHAPTER XXIII
. THE LION AND THE MOUSE
CHAPTER XXIV
. FAMILY HONOUR
CHAPTER XXV
. THE HAGUE
CHAPTER XXVI
. HUNKERSLUST
CHAPTER XXVII
. THE EXPEDIENT (Annora's Narrative)
CHAPTER XXVIII
. THE BOEUF GRAS (Annora's Narrative)
CHAPTER XXIX
. MADAME'S OPPORTUNITY (Annora's Narrative)
CHAPTER XXX
. THE NEW MAID OF ORLEAN (Margaret's Narrative)
CHAPTER XXXI
. PORTE ST. ANTOINE (Margaret's Narrative)
CHAPTER XXXII
. ESCAPE (Annora's Narrative)
CHAPTER XXXIII
. BRIDAL PEARLS
CHAPTER XXXIV
. ANNORA'S HOME

STRAY PEARLS
MEMOIRS OF MARGARET DE RIBAUMONT
VISCOUNTESS OF BELLAISE

CHAPTER I
.
WHITEHALL BEFORE THE COBWEBS.

I have long promised you, my dear grandchildren, to arrange my recollections of the