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There was some official display of rigour in investigation by the Procureur; there was much play with some mysterious papers found a good time after the first discovery half-burned in the fireplace of the Prince's bedroom; there was a lot put forward to support the idea of suicide; but the blunt truth of the affair is that the Prince de Conde was murdered, and that the murder was hushed up as much as possible.
Among these pictures the best known are: "Molière Breakfasting with Louis XIV.," illustrating the story of the king's rebuke to his courtiers who affected to despise the man of genius; "Père Joseph," the priest who under the guise of humility and self-abnegation reduces the greatest nobles to the state of lackeys; "Louis XIV. Receiving the Great Condé," and "Collaboration," two poets of Louis XIV.'s time working together over a play.
"My lord," replied the boy, with proud, grave mien, "I told you that, I gave my word to M. de Jarjayes to divulge nothing till you should tell me that the right time had arrived. I could therefore confess nothing to Charette, and told him that he had fallen into a great error, and that I have and can lay claim to no other honor than of being the nephew of the Prince de Conde."
The place, however, was taken by storm, and he was made a prisoner of war. Having become the real leader of the Calvinists, under the Prince de Condé, he displayed the most undaunted courage and extraordinary fertility of resource; neither his merit nor his military skill was ever called in question; and yet he was uniformly unsuccessful in every one of his enterprises.
Though poor in early life, he cared but little about money. The king gave him a pension of two thousand francs, which at that time was a good income. He was generous and died utterly poor. One evening when age had bowed his form he entered a Paris theater. The great Conde was present, and prince and people as one man rose in honor of the great dramatist.
"Therefore," said M. Bellievre, "let us be upon our guard; this man can give us the slip any moment." Next day a letter was sent from the Prince de Conde, by the Baron de Verderonne, to the Archduke, desiring him to name the time, place and persons for a treaty.
The man who had been a laborer before he put on uniform was possessed by the same awe as the one who had been favored by birth and education. A black-robed priest passing with his soft tread could not have differed much to the eye from one who was there when the Black Prince was fighting in France or the soldiers of Joan or of Condé came to look at the nave.
Chance had a share in urging Condé to take a further and almost decisive step in the dangerous path that was opening before him. One evening, just as he had lain down on his bed and was chatting with Vineuil, one of his trusty friends, the latter received a note which directed him to warn the Prince that two companies of guards were advancing on the side of the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
"Therefore it seems to me but natural that, for many reasons, you should desire at your age to take part in the fighting; as an Englishman, because Englishmen fought six years ago under the banner of Conde; as a Protestant, on behalf of our persecuted brethren; as a Frenchman by your mother's side, because you have kinsfolk engaged, and because it is the Pope and Philip of Spain, as well as the Guises, who are, in fact, battling to stamp out French liberty.
That which was practicable the night before was rendered impossible and even ruinous the next day, and this same Duc d'Elbeuf, whom I thought to have driven out of Paris on the 9th, was in a fair way to have compelled me to leave on the 10th if he had played his game well, so suspected was the name of Conde by the people.
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