Note 53 — Chapter XIII

Four of the seven letters that constituted the whole correspondence are printed in the Mém. de Condé, iii. 213-215. Jean de Serres gives two of them in his Comment. de statu rel. et reip., ii. 38, 39. They were laid by Condé's envoy before the princes of Germany, as evidence that he had not taken up arms without the best warrant, and that he could not in any way be regarded as a rebel. They contain no allusion to any promise to lay down his arms so soon as she sent him word—the pretext with which she strove at a later time to palliate, in the eyes of the papal party at home and abroad, a rather awkward step. The curé of Mériot, while admitting the genuineness of the letters, observes: "La cautelle et malice de la dame estoit si grande, qu'elle se délectoit de mettre les princes en division et hayne les ungs contre les aultres, affin qu'elle régnast et qu'elle demeurast gouvernante seulle de son filz et du royaume." Mém. de Cl. Haton, i. 269. The queen mother's exculpatory statements may be examined in Le Laboureur, Add. aux Mém. de Castelnau, i. 763, 764.