The barricades had been pushed as far as the Palais Royal. From the Rue de Bons Enfants to that of the Ferronnerie, from the Rue Saint Thomas-du-Louvre to the Pont Neuf, from the Rue Richelieu to the Porte Saint-Honoré, there were more than ten thousand armed men; those who were at the front hurled defiance at the impassive sentinels of the regiment of guards posted around the Palais Royal, the gates of which were closed behind them, a precaution which made their situation precarious. Among these thousands moved, in bands numbering from one hundred to two hundred, pale and haggard men, clothed in rags, who bore a sort of standard on which was inscribed these words: “Behold the misery of the people!” Wherever these men passed, frenzied cries were heard; and there were so many of these bands that the cries were to be heard in all directions.
The astonishment of Mazarin and of Anne of Austria was great when it was announced to them that the city, which the previous evening they had left entirely tranquil, had awakened to such feverish commotion; nor would either the one or the other believe the reports that were brought to them, declaring they would rather rely on the evidence of their own eyes and ears. Then a window was opened and when they saw and heard they were convinced.
Mazarin shrugged his shoulders and pretended to despise the populace; but he turned visibly pale and ran to his closet, trembling all over, locked up his gold and jewels in his caskets and put his finest diamonds on his fingers. As for the queen, furious, and left to her own guidance, she went for the Maréchal de la Meilleraie and desired him to take as many men as he pleased and to go and see what was the meaning of this pleasantry.
The marshal was ordinarily very adventurous and was wont to hesitate at nothing; and he had that lofty contempt for the populace which army officers usually profess. He took a hundred and fifty men and attempted to go out by the Pont du Louvre, but there he met Rochefort and his fifty horsemen, attended by more than five hundred men. The marshal made no attempt to force that barrier and returned up the quay. But at Pont Neuf he found Louvières and his bourgeois. This time the marshal charged, but he was welcomed by musket shots, while stones fell like hail from all the windows. He left there three men.
He beat a retreat toward the market, but there he met Planchet with his halberdiers; their halberds were leveled at him threateningly. He attempted to ride over those gray cloaks, but the gray cloaks held their ground, and the marshal retired toward the Rue Saint-Honoré, leaving four of his guards dead on the field of battle.
The marshal then entered the Rue Saint-Honoré, but there he was opposed by the barricades of the mendicant of Saint Eustache. They were guarded, not only by armed men, but even by women and children. Master Friquet, the owner of a pistol and of a sword which Louvières had given him, had organized a company of rogues like himself and was making a tremendous racket.
The marshal thought this barrier not so well fortified as the others and determined to break through it. He dismounted twenty men to make a breach in the barricade, whilst he and others, remaining on their horses, were to protect the assailants. The twenty men marched straight toward the barrier, but from behind the beams, from among the wagon-wheels, and from the heights of the rocks a terrible fusillade burst forth, and at the same time Planchet’s halberdiers appeared at the corner of the Cemetery of the Innocents, and Louvières’s bourgeois at the corner of the Rue de la Monnaie.
The Maréchal de la Meilleraie was caught between two fires, but he was brave and made up his mind to die where he was. He returned blow for blow and cries of pain began to be heard in the crowd. The guards, more skillful, did greater execution; but the bourgeois, more numerous, overwhelmed them with a veritable hurricane of iron. Men fell around him as they had fallen at Rocroy or at Lérida. Fontrailles, his aide-de-camp, had an arm broken; his horse had received a bullet in his neck and he had difficulty in controlling him, maddened by pain. In short, he had reached that supreme moment when the bravest feel a shudder in their veins, when suddenly, in the direction of the Rue de l’Arbre-Sec, the crowd opened, crying: “Long live the coadjutor!” and Gondy, in surplice and cloak, appeared, moving tranquilly in the midst of the fusillade and bestowing his benedictions to the right and left, as undisturbed as if he were leading a procession of the Fête Dieu.
All fell to their knees. The marshal recognized him and hastened to meet him.
“Get me out of this, in Heaven’s name!” he said, “or I shall leave my carcass here and those of all my men.”
A great tumult arose, in the midst of which even the noise of thunder could not have been heard. Gondy raised his hand and demanded silence. All were still.
“My children,” he said, “this is the Maréchal de la Meilleraie, as to whose intentions you have been deceived and who pledges himself, on returning to the Louvre, to demand of the queen, in your name, our Broussel’s release. You pledge yourself to that, marshal?” added Gondy, turning to La Meilleraie.
“Morbleu!” cried the latter, “I should say that I do pledge myself to it! I had no hope of getting off so easily.”
“He gives you his word of honor,” said Gondy.
The marshal raised his hand in token of assent.
“Long live the coadjutor!” cried the crowd. Some voices even added: “Long live the marshal!” But all took up the cry
