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 Louvieres 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 Honore, leaving four of
his guards dead on the field of battle.
The marshal then entered the Rue Saint Honore, but there he
was opposed by the barricades of the mendicant of Saint
Eustache. They were guarded, not only by armed men, but even
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by women and children. Master Friquet, the owner of a pistol
and of a sword which Louvieres 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 Louvieres’s bourgeois at the corner of the
Rue de la Monnaie.
The Marechal 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 Lerida. 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 Fete 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 Marechal 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 in
chorus: “Down with Mazarin!”
The crowd gave place, the barricade was opened, and the