Darpent. The Duchess de Rambouillet and her
family had wisely retired to their estates, so that there were no
more meetings in the Salon Bleu; and after what my brother had said
to me, I durst not make the slightest demonstration towards Clement
Darpent, though I continued to give my weekly receptions to our poor
hungry cavaliers, as I had promised Eustace that I would do. It was
from one of them, Sir Andrew Macniven, a clever man who had been a
law student in Scotland and at Leyden, that we came to some
understanding of what was going on around us.
Under the great Cardinal de Richelieu, the Crown had taken more
authority then ever, and raised taxes at its will. The Parliament
was only permitted to register the edicts of the Crown, but not to
refuse them, as it claimed to do. As nobody who was noble paid taxes
the noblesse did not care, and there had hitherto seemed to be no
redress. But at this moment, when the war taxes were weighing more
heavily than ever, and the demand of a house-tax had irritated the
people of Paris, there were a very large number of the nobility much
incensed against Cardinal Mazarin, and very jealous of his favour
with the Queen-Regent. What they would endure from a French nobleman
like Richelieu they abhorred from a low-born foreigner such Mazarin
was; and it seemed to the Parliament that this was the moment to make
a stand, since they had the populace on their side, and likewise so
many of the Court party.
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