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Updated: July 1, 2025
The word of command thus once given, the Duke de Beaufort was amongst the first to spread the insinuation which was a calumny, all the echoes of the party of the Importants took it up, and Madame de Montbazon herself found pleasure in repeating it during several following days, so that the incident became the entertainment of the Court.
But if Mazarin had taken care to win over successively those chiefs of the Importants and the Frondeurs in whom his experienced eye had recognised as sincerely disposed to a loyal submission, he had this time taken care not to allow himself to be betrayed by false appearances, and did not fail to strike at, or at least banish from Paris, those whom he despaired of acquiring.
"En ce calme trompeur J'arrivai dans la Grece Et Je trouvois d'abord ces princes rassemblès, Qu'un peril assez grand sembloit avoir troublès. J'y courus. Je pensai que la guerre et la gloire De soins plus importants remplissoit ma memoire Que mes sens reprenant leur premiere vigueur L'amour acheveroit de sortir de mon cœur.
This exciting contest continued with the keenest activity, but no change had occurred up to the end of July, and even the first days of August, 1643, though this critical state of affairs had become greatly aggravated. The violence of the Importants increased daily; the Queen defended her minister, but she also showed consideration for his enemies.
That bold and dangerous woman having by her fascinations enslaved Beaufort, the quondam admirer of Madame de Longueville, the young Duke through her intrigues became a favourite chief of the Importants.
They had all been more or less fellow-sufferers with Anne of Austria during the period of her affliction and persecution by Richelieu, and from the commencement of her Regency, these returning exiles and liberated prisoners had been gathering round her until at last, formed into a faction, they gave themselves out as the Queen's party, and by adopting a high-flown, turgid, and mysterious style of phraseology, and assuming bombastic and braggart airs of authority, coupled with an affectation of capacity and profundity, obtained for themselves from the wits of the Court and city the nickname of The Importants, under which they figured until absorbed a few years later in the more general and popular designation of Frondeurs.
He brought before her eyes most indubitable proofs of a conspiracy to take his life, and entreated her to choose between his enemies and himself. Anne of Austria did not hesitate, and the ruin of the Importants was decided upon. More dangerous ground could scarcely have been found whereon to post the Importants.
The dissimulation even with which she acted in that affair marks the deliberative firmness of her resolution. The 2nd of September, 1643, was truly a memorable day in the career of Mazarin, and we may say, in the annals of France; for it witnessed the confirming of the royal power, shaken to its base by the deaths of Richelieu and Louis XIII., and the ruin of the party of the Importants.
The flight of the Duke de Vendôme, shortly about to be followed by that of the Duke de Bouillon, left the Importants without any chief of note. The Duchess had found Mazarin to be quite as skilful and formidable an enemy as Richelieu. Victory seemed to have entered into a compact with him.
At an early age he showed a fondness for distinction and for intrigues. Profoundly selfish, and having succeeded in acquiring a knowledge of himself, and in reducing to theory his nature, his character, and his tastes, he set out with very contrary appearances, and those chivalrous manners affected by the Importants.
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