136 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [chap. the four courts connected with the raising and managing of the finances combined to draw up regulations for the future management of the taxes. The queen and her minister were most indignant at such unheard-of pre- sumption ; but the nobility, though hating the " men of the gown " with the senseless pride of their order, hated Mazarin so much more that many were willing to make a tool of the parliament for his overthrow. It was already true that the French government was a despotism tem- pered by epigrams ; and as speeches and lampoons were launched by persons who tried to hide after they had shot their dart, some one compared them to children with a sling [fronde), who let fly a stone and ran away. Thus La Fronde came to be the recognized title of the struggle now beginning, in which the friends of the cardinal were czXlc^di Mazarins, and his enemies Frondeurs. Mattheiu Mole, the president of the parliament, was a good and upright man, who tried in vain to keep the peace ; but factious speeches alarmed the queen, and, in the midst of the Te Deiivi for the battle of Lens, she sent the lieu- tenant of the guards to arrest three of the members. Two were taken, but one escaped, and the report spread in Paris, and the cardinal's carriage was attacked, some of his attendants killed, and the streets barricaded. The parHament came in a body to the palace to demand the release of the members, and affairs were in too critical a state for a refusal, either of this or of their other demands. This was the very day on which the peace of Miinster was signed ; the royal troops therefore began to come home, and with them Lewis of Bourbon, whom we have hitherto heard of as Duke of Enghien, but whom his father's death, in 1647, had made Prince of Conde. He hated Mazarin ; but a quarrel with the Duke of Orleans, together with his feelings as a prince of the blood, made him take part with the court. By his advice the queen carried oft" her two sons and all the Court to the empty palace of St. Germain in the middle of the night. There she accused the law officers of treason, and sent Cond^ with his troops against Paris. The parliament replied by a sentence of banishment against Mazarin, closing the gates, and levying troops. With them were Condd's sister, Anne Cenevth'e, Duchess of LongiiC7<ille, the handsome Duke of Beaufort, son of an illegitimate son of Henry IV., and such a favourite with the mob that he was called the king of the market-places ; also the clever, satirical
