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The queen turned to him a face hot with anger, and exclaimed,–

“I understand you, Mr. Coadjutor; you would have me set Broussel at liberty. I would strangle him with these hands first!” As she finished these words she put her hands close to the coadjutor’s face, and added, in a threatening tone, “And those who–” Her voice ceased; he was left to infer the rest.

Yet, despite this infatuation of the queen, it was evident that something must be done, if Paris was to be saved. The people grew more tumultuous. Fresh tidings continued to come in, each more threatening than the last. The queen at length yielded so far as to promise that Broussel should be set free if the people would first disperse and cease their tumultuous behavior.

The coadjutor was bidden to proclaim this in the streets. He asked for an order to sustain him, but the queen refused to give it, and withdrew “to her little gray room,” angry at herself for yielding so far as she had.

De Retz did not find the situation a very pleasant one for himself. Mazarin pushed him gently towards the door, saying, “Restore the peace of the realm.” Marshal Meilleraie drew him onward. He went into the street, wearing his robe of office, and bestowing benedictions right and left, though while doing so his mind was busy in considering how he was going to get out of the difficulty which lay before him.

It grew worse instead of better. Marshal Meilleraie, losing his head through excitement, advanced waving his sword in the air, and shouting at the top of his voice,–

“Hurrah for the king! Liberation for Broussel!”

This did very well for those within hearing; but his sword provoked far more than his voice quieted; those at a distance looked on his action as a menace, and their fury was augmented. On all sides there was a rush for arms. Stones were flung by the rioters, one of which struck De Retz and felled him to the earth. As he picked himself up an excited youth rushed at him and put a musket to his head. Only the wit and readiness of the coadjutor saved him from imminent peril.

“Though I did not know him a bit,” says De Retz, in his “Memoirs,” “I thought it would not be well to let him suppose so at such a moment; on the contrary, I said to him, ‘Ah, wretch, if thy father saw thee!’ He thought I was the best friend of his father, on whom, however, I had never set eyes.”

The fellow withdrew, ashamed of his violence, and before any further attack could be made upon De Retz he was recognized by the people and dragged to the market-place, constantly crying out as he went, “The queen has promised to restore Broussel.”

The good news by this time had spread through the multitude, whose cries of anger were giving place to shouts of joy. Their arms were hastily disposed of, and a great throng, thirty or forty thousand in number, followed the coadjutor to the Palais-Royal. When he entered, Marshal Meilleraie turned to the queen and said,–

“Madame, here is he to whom I owe my life, and your Majesty the safety of the Palais-Royal.”

The queen’s answer was an incredulous smile. On seeing it, the hasty temper of the marshal broke out in an oath.

“Madame,” he said, hotly, “no proper man can venture to flatter you in the state in which things are; and if you do not this very day set Broussel at liberty, to-morrow there will not be left one stone upon another in Paris.”

Anne of Austria, carried away by her pride and superciliousness, could not be brought to believe that the populace would dare attempt an actual revolt against the king. De Retz would have spoken in support of the marshal’s words, but she cut him short, saying in a tone of mockery,–

“Go and rest yourself, sir; you have worked very hard.”