Autumn 1652

The chapter pursues two main narratives. It describes the near destruction of the royalist army commanded by Turenne, blockaded south of Paris by the combined forces of Condé, Lorraine, and allied Spanish troops. Turenne’s success in escaping this trap and freeing his army to disrupt Condé’s positions around Paris precipitated Condé’s October decision to move his forces eastwards to establish himself on the French frontiers. Meanwhile, the last and most extensive phase of negotiations for a settlement between Mazarin and Condé had been unfolding. The exceptionally generous concessions offered to Condé and his party during this phase were overwhelmingly driven by Mazarin’s concern that he would otherwise be consigned to permanent exile, blocked from re-entering France. The failure of the negotiations owed little to notions that Mazarin was playing a game of masterly duplicity, but reflected the outright rejection of Mazarin’s extensive concessions by the queen and many at court and government, who considered them an unacceptably high price for securing a settlement. One consequence was the missed opportunity to prevent Condé’s move into Spanish military service. The other was the erosion of Mazarin’s standing—he was still trapped on the frontiers when Louis XIV and the court moved back into Paris to receive the allegiance of the city and its institutions and to bring the civil war to an end. The price of the failure to secure a settlement was to be paid by both Condé and Mazarin throughout the 1650s.