Conde had named the Prince de Conti his lieutenant-general—a prince of the blood giving lustre to authority, dominating all rivalries, an appointment calculated to render obedience more easy. He was aware of Conti's levity, but he knew also that he was wanting neither in intelligence nor courage. He believed in the ascendency which Madame de Longueville had always exercised over her brother, and he hoped she would guide him still. He had confidence in that high-souled sister whom formerly he had so warmly loved; and although intrigues and a sinister influence, to which we shall shortly further allude, had diminished the high admiration he had had for her, and to which he later returned, he reckoned upon her intelligence, upon her pride, upon that lofty courage of which she had given so many proofs at Stenay. At his sister's side he left his wife Claire Clemence de Maille-Breze, who had behaved so admirably in the first Guienne war. He left her enceinte with their second child, and with her he gave to Bordeaux and placed as it were in pledge in its hands, to hold the place of himself, the Duke d'Enghien, the hope and stay of his house, the peculiar object of his tenderness. So that there, he left behind him a government, he thought, which would look well alike in the eyes of France and of Europe.

In reality, to what did Conde aspire? To constitute himself the head of the nobility against the Court? The nobles thought it harsh to be so treated. To commence another Fronde? To do that, it was necessary to have the parliaments under his thumb; and he had already been compelled to threaten the deputies of that of Aix with the bastinado. Did he look forward to an independent principality, as he later on desired to obtain from the Spaniards? Or rather did he think of snatching from the Duke d'Orleans the lieutenant-generalship? It is difficult to divine what may have passed through his capricious brain. He was constant in nothing. It was seen later still that he would very willingly have changed his religion, offering himself on the one side to Cromwell, and to become a protestant in order to have an English army; on the other to the Pope, if he would help to get him elected King of Poland.

The income of the Condes in 1609 amounted to ten thousand livres, and in 1649, besides the Montmorency estates, they held an enormous portion of France. First, by the Great Conde, they had Burgundy, Berri, the marshes of Lorraine, a dominant fortress in the Bourbonnais that held in check four provinces. Secondly, by Conti, Champagne. Thirdly, by Longueville, their sister's husband, Normandy. Fourthly, the Admiralty, and Saumur, the chief fortress of Anjou, were in the hands of the brother of Conde's wife; they fell in through his death, and were sold again by them as though they were a family birthright. Later still, they negotiated for the possession of Guienne and Provence.

Amidst the cares of administration and of war, Conde carried on an assiduous correspondence with Chavigny, then fallen into disgrace, who kept him well informed of the state of affairs at Court and in Paris. They had assumed quite a new face during the last few months. Mazarin in his exile had not learned without inquietude the ever-increasing success of Chateauneuf. He saw him active and determined, accepted as a chief by all colleagues, skilfully seconded by the keeper of the seals, Mole, and by Marshal de Villeroi, the king's governor, an ambiguous personage, very ambitious at bottom, and jealous of the Cardinal's favour with the Queen. Chateauneuf, it is true, had only entered the Cabinet under the agreement of shortly recalling Mazarin; but he incessantly asked for fresh delay; he tried to make the Queen comprehend the danger of a precipitate return,—the Fronde ready to arouse itself anew, the Duke d'Orleans and the Coadjutor resuming their ancient opposition, and royalty finding itself once more without any solid support. Anne of Austria gradually acquiescing in these wise counsels, Mazarin, who at first had with difficulty restrained the impatient disposition of the Queen, finding her grown less eager, became alarmed: he saw that he was lost should he allow such a rival to establish himself.[1] Therefore, passing suddenly from an apparent resignation to an extraordinary audacity, he had, towards the end of November 1651, broken his ban, quitted his retreat at Dinan, and had resolutely entered France with a small force collected together by his two faithful friends, the Marquis de Navailles and the Count de Broglie, and led by Marshal Hocquincourt. He had by main strength surmounted every obstacle, braved the decrees and the deputies of the parliament, reached Poitiers where the Queen and young Louis the Fourteenth had eagerly welcomed him; and there, in January 1652, after speedily ridding himself of Chateauneuf, too proud and too able to be resigned to hold the second rank, he had again taken in hand the reins of government.

[1] Mad. de Motteville, tom. v. p. 96.

This bold conduct, which probably saved Mazarin, came also to the succour of Conde. The second and irreparable disgrace of the minister of the old Fronde had exasperated him as well as had the umbrage given him by the Duke d'Orleans. He thought himself tricked by the Queen, and had loudly complained of it. Conde's friends had not failed to seize that occasion to reconcile him with the Duke, and to negotiate a fresh alliance between them; and as previously the Fronde and the Queen had been united against Conde, so also at the end of January 1652, that Prince and the Fronde in almost its entirety were united against Mazarin.

Madame de Chevreuse alone, with her most intimate friends, remained faithful to her hatred and the Queen, dreading far less Mazarin than Conde, and choosing between them both for once and for all with her well-known firmness and resolution. De Retz trimmed, followed the Duke d'Orleans, using tact with the Queen, so that he might not lose the hat, and without engaging himself personally with Conde.

If Burnet is to be believed, it was at this conjunction that Conde made an offer to Cromwell to turn Huguenot, and embrace the faith of his ancestors, in order to secure the aid of the English Puritans.

However that might be, it was not illusory to think that with such a government and the continual assistance of Spain, Bordeaux might hold out for at least a year, and give Conde time to strike some decisive blows. The resolution that he took was therefore as rational as it was great. It would have been a sovereign imprudence to remain in Guienne merely to engage Harcourt in a series of trifling skirmishes, and after much time and trouble take a few little paltry towns, when in the heart of the kingdom a treason or a defeat might irreparably involve the loss of everything, and condemn Bordeaux to share the common fate, after a more or less prolonged existence. Taking one thing with another, Guienne was doubtless a considerable accessory; but the grand struggle was not to be made there; it was at Paris and upon the banks of the Loire that the destiny of the Fronde and that of Conde too must be decided; it was thither, therefore, that he must hasten. Every day brought him tidings that jealousies, divisions, quarrels were increasing in the army, and he trembled to receive, some morning, news that Turenne and Hocquincourt had beaten Nemours and Beaufort, and were marching on Paris. Desirous of preventing at any price a disaster so irreparable, he resolved to rush to the point where the danger was supreme, where his unexpected presence would strike terror into the souls of his enemies, revive the courage of his partisans and turn fortune to his side. When Caesar, on arriving in Greece, learned that the fleet which was following him with his army on board, had been dispersed and destroyed by that of Pompey, he flung himself alone into a fisherman's bark under cover of night to cross the sea into Asia to seek for the legions of Antony, and return with them to gain the battle of Pharsalia. When Napoleon learned in Egypt the state of France, from the shameful doings of the Directory, the agitation of parties, and that already more than one general was meditating another 18th of Brumaire, he did not hesitate, and however rash it might appear to attempt to pass through the English fleet in a small craft, at the risk of being taken, or sent to the bottom, he dared every peril, and by dint of address and audacity succeeded in gaining the shores of France. Conde did the same, and at the end of March 1652, he undertook to make his way from the banks of the Gironde to the banks of the Loire, without other escort than that of a small number of intrepid friends, and sustained solely by the vivid consciousness of the necessity of that bold step, his familiarity with and secret liking for danger, his incomparable presence of mind and his customary gaiety.

On Palm Sunday, 1652, Conde set forth upon his adventurous expedition. He was accompanied by six persons, La Rochefoucauld and his youthful son, the Prince de Marcillac, the Count de Guitaut, the Count de Chavagnac, a valet named Rochefort, and the indefatigable Gourville, under whose directions all the arrangements of the journey seem to have been contrived. The whole party were disguised as common troopers, and each took a false name, even amongst themselves. For some time they followed the Bordeaux road, and using many precautions proceeded until they reached Cahusac, where they encountered some troops belonging to La Rochefoucauld; but being anxious almost as much to avoid their own partizans as the enemy, Conde and his companions hid themselves in a barn, while Gourville went out to forage. He succeeded in procuring some scanty fare; and they rode on till some hours had passed after nightfall, when they reached a little wayside inn, where Conde volunteered to cook an omelet for the whole party. The hand, however, which could wield a truncheon with such effect, proved somewhat too violent for the frying-pan, and in the attempt to turn the omelet, he threw the whole hissing mass into the fire.

The little band having reached a certain spot, quitted the main road, and began to traverse the enemy's lines. For eight days they encountered many perilous incidents and underwent incredible fatigue, riding throughout the same horses, never stopping more than two hours to eat or sleep, avoiding towns and crossing rivers as they best could; threading at first the gorges of the Auvergne mountains, then descending by the Bec d'Allier, and making their way to the Loire. The memoirs of La Rochefoucauld and Gourville must be consulted for the details of that extraordinary journey, and all the dangers it presented. No less than ten times did they escape being taken and slain. Their wearied horses at last could carry them no longer. La Rochefoucauld was tormented by the gout, and his son was so worn out with fatigue that he fell asleep as he went. Conde, whose iron frame resisted to the last, was alone indefatigable, sleeping and working at will, and always cheerful and good humoured.

Upon approaching Gien, at which place the Court then was, Conde had twice very nearly fallen into the hands of parties sent out to take him alive or dead. Having escaped almost by a miracle, on the last occasion, soon after reaching Chatillon, he gained information that the army of Beaufort and Nemours lay at about eight leagues from that place, and hastened with all speed to join it. At length, to his great joy, he saw the advanced guard before him, and several of the troopers came galloping up with a loud "Qui vive!" Some of them, however, almost instantly recognised Conde, and shouts of joy and surprise soon made known through the whole army what had occurred.

He found the forces of the Fronde as divided as were its chiefs. He took the command of it immediately; thus doing away with the principal cause of the jealousy existing between Nemours and Beaufort. He reviewed and reunited it, gave it one day's rest, seized, without striking a blow, on Montargis and Chateau-Renard, and threw himself with the utmost rapidity on the royal army. It was scattered in quarters distant from each other for the convenience of foraging, and on account of the little dread with which Beaufort and Nemours had inspired it. Marshal d'Hocquincourt was encamped at Bleneau, and Turenne a little farther off, at Briare; the two Marshals were to unite their forces on the morrow. Conde did not give them time for that: that same evening, and during the nights of the 6th and 7th of April, 1652, he fell upon the head-quarters of Hocquincourt, overwhelmed them, and succeeded in routing the rest, thanks to one of those charges in flank which he in person ever led so energetically. Hocquincourt, after fighting like a gallant soldier, was forced to fall back for some leagues in the direction of Auxerre, having lost all his baggage and three thousand horse. No sooner did Turenne hear of the fact, than he sprang into the saddle, and marched with some infantry both to the assistance of his brother officer and to the defence of the King, who, resting secure at Gien, might have fallen into the hands of the rebels. As he advanced through the darkness of the night, the Marshal saw the quarters of Hocquincourt in one blaze of fire, and exclaiming, with the appreciation which genius has of genius, "The Prince de Conde is arrived!" he hurried on with the utmost speed. Having neither cavalry nor artillery, and having sent word to Hocquincourt to rally to him as soon as possible, he marched on in good order throughout that long and dark night to join the bulk of his troops which Navailles and Palluan were bringing up. For an instant he halted in a plain where there stood a rather dense wood on his left, with a marsh on his right. Those around Conde thought it an advantageous post; Conde judged very differently. "If M. de Turenne makes a stand there," said he, "I shall soon cut him to pieces; but he will take good care not to do so."[2] He had not left off speaking when he saw that Turenne was already retiring, too skilful to await Conde in the plain and expose himself to the Prince's formidable manoeuvres. A little further off, he found a position much more favourable; there he firmly posted his force, determined to give battle. In vain did his officers urge him not to hazard an action, not to risk the last army which remained to the monarchy, and to confine himself to covering Gien whilst awaiting the coming of Hocquincourt. "No," replied he, "we must conquer or perish here."

[2] It is Tavannes who has preserved the details of this interesting incident.

Turenne, it is true, was very inferior in cavalry to Conde, but he had a powerful and well-served artillery. Having encouraged his troops to do their duty, he posted himself upon an eminence which he covered with infantry and artillery, drew up his cavalry below in a plain too narrow to permit of Conde deploying his own, and which could only be reached by traversing a thick wood and a causeway intersected by ditches and boggy ground. From such strong position, Conde could, in his turn, recognise his illustrious disciple. No great manoeuvres were then practicable, and as time did not permit of an attempt to turn Turenne, it was necessary to crush him out of hand, if that were possible, before he could effect a junction with Hocquincourt. The defile was the key of the position; and both sides fought therein with equal fierceness. Turenne defended himself sword in hand, and upon the six squadrons which Conde hurled against him he opened a battery, as they passed, with terrible execution, showing a courage equal to that of his heroic adversary. Conde, judging from what he now saw, believed the position in the hands of Turenne to be impregnable; and it being too late to execute any other manoeuvres with success during that day, he continued to cannonade the royalist army till the evening, without any other attempt to bring it to a battle.

Napoleon has not spared Conde in this affair any more than other critics. He sums all their opinions up in one piquant phrase, which it appears he was unable to resist, and which made him smile in uttering it. "Conde," said he, "for that once, was wanting in boldness." The dictum is both brief and incisive, but there was no foundation for it, in a military point of view. There was, in truth, no want of boldness on Conde's part throughout that campaign: far from it, his whole line of conduct was a succession of audacious actions and combinations. What could be bolder than that forced journey of nearly ten days for more than one hundred and fifty miles with half-a-dozen followers to go and take the command of an army? What bolder than the resolution taken out of hand to throw himself between Turenne and Hocquincourt, to cut in two the royal army and to disperse one half of it before attacking the other? Did Conde lose a moment in marching against Turenne and pursuing him sword in hand? Was it his fault that he had to cope with a great captain, who knew how to select an excellent position, and to maintain himself in it with immovable firmness? In the attack of that position, did Napoleon mean to reproach Conde with want of boldness? Turenne, it is true, covered himself with glory, for he successfully resisted Conde; but Conde, in not having been victorious, was not in the slightest degree beaten. The strategy, therefore, on that occasion was irreproachable. As will be seen, it was in his policy only that he failed. Conde quitted the army at a very ill-timed moment, in our opinion, but that step was taken through considerations which had nothing to do with the science of war.

To revert for a moment to this much-criticised action of Bleneau. Towards night, Hocquincourt appeared upon the field, having rallied a considerable part of his cavalry. Conde then retired, finding that his attempt was frustrated, and took the way to Montargis; while Turenne rejoined the Court, and was received by the Queen with all the gratitude which such great services merited. Her first words went to thank him for having placed the crown a second time upon her son's head.

The terror and confusion which had reigned in Gien during the whole of the preceding night and that day may very well be conceived when it is remembered that the safety of the King himself, as well as the Queen, was at stake, and that the life of the favourite Minister might at any moment be placed at the mercy of his bitterest enemy, justified in putting him to death immediately by the highest legal authority in the realm. Neither were the ill-disciplined and irregular forces of Conde at all desirable neighbours to the troop of ladies who had followed the Court; and, as soon as it was known that Conde had fallen upon Hocquincourt, the whole of the little town was one scene of dismay and confusion.

The royal army and that of Conde now both marched towards Paris, nearly upon two parallel lines. But the great distress which the Court suffered from want of money caused almost as much insubordination to be apparent amongst the troops of the King as amongst those of the rebels. Little respect was shown to Mazarin himself; and the young King was often treated with but scanty ceremony, and provided for but barely.

After quitting the neighbourhood of Gien, Conde, urged by the desire of directing in person the negotiations and intrigues which were going on in Paris, left his army under the command of the celebrated Tavannes, and hastened to the capital. The Count de Tavannes, whom he had selected to fill his own place, was without doubt an excellent officer, one of the valiant Petits-maitres[3] who, upon the field of battle, served as wings to the great soldier's thoughts, carried his orders everywhere, executed the most dangerous manoeuvres, sometimes charging with an irresistible impetuosity, at others sustaining the most terrible onsets with a firmness and solidity beyond all proof. But though the intrepid Tavannes was quite capable of leading the division of a great army, he was not able enough to be its commander-in-chief, and he had not authority over the foreign troops which the Duke de Nemours had brought from Flanders, and which he made over, on accompanying Conde to Paris, to the command of the Count de Clinchamp. The army, thus divided, was capable of nothing great. Conde alone could finish what he had begun. Once engaged in the formidable enterprise that he had undertaken against the Queen and Mazarin, there was no safety for him but in carrying it out even to the end. He ought, therefore, to have waged war to the knife, if the expression be allowable, against Turenne, conquered or perished, and to have constrained Mazarin to flee for good and all to Germany or Italy, and the Queen to place in his hands the young King. To do that, Conde should have had a definite ambition, an object clearly determined; he ought to have plainly proposed to himself to assume the Regency, or at least the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom in the place of Gaston, by will or by force, in order to concentrate all power in his own hands; that he might become, in short, a Cromwell or a William III.: and Conde was neither the one or the other. His mind had been perturbed by sinister dreams; but, as has been remarked, he had at heart an invincible fund of loyalty. Ambition was rather hovering round him than within himself. But whatsoever it was he desired, and in every hypothesis—for his secret has remained between Heaven and himself—he did wrong in abandoning the Loire and leaving Turenne in force there. That was the true error he committed, and not in wanting audacity, as Napoleon supposed. It was not a military but a political error—immense and irreparable. He might have crushed Turenne, and ought to have attempted it, but he let him slip from his grasp. The opportunity once lost did not return. Turenne until then was only second in rank; by a glorious resistance he acquired from that moment, and it was forced upon him to maintain, the importance of a rival of Conde. Mazarin grew from day to day more emboldened; royalty, which had been on the very brink of ruin, again rose erect, and the Court drew towards Paris; whilst, prompted by his evil genius, quitting the field of battle wherein lay his veritable strength, Conde went away to waste his precious time in a labyrinth of intrigues for which he was not fitted, and in which he lost himself and the Fronde.

[3] Upon the Petits Maitres, see Mad. de Sable, chap. i. p. 44.



CHAPTER II.

POLITICAL AND GALLANT INTRIGUES—THE DUCHESS DE CHATILLON'S SWAY OVER CONDE—SHAMEFUL CONSPIRACY AGAINST MADAME DE LONGUEVILLE.

CONDE arrived in Paris on the 11th of April, and found everything in the utmost confusion. It would be impossible to follow all the petty intrigues, or even make allusion to all the events which affected the relative situations of the parties in the capital; but it may be observed that the tendency of both parties was to hold themselves in the neighbourhood of Paris. The chiefs of the Fronde hurried into the city, to receive the congratulations due to their exploits from the fair politicians who had won them to their cause. The Queen also established her head-quarters near the capital, to be ready for any turn of popular sentiment in her favour, and to hear the reports of her spies on the proceedings of her enemies. She knew what dances were to be given, and who were to attend the assemblies of the duchesses of the Fronde. On one occasion when Turenne knew that half the officers of Conde's army were engaged to a brilliant fete at the Duchess de Montbazon's, he made an attack on the enemy's camp, and was only repulsed by the steadiness of some old soldiers, who gave time for reinforcements to arrive. But the crisis was at hand; for each party began to be suspicious of the other gaining over its supporters—Mazarin lavishing promises of place and money, and the Duchess de Chatillon, invested with full powers by Conde, appearing in the opposite camp as the most irresistible ambassadress that ever was seen.

Thus matters stood in the early summer of 1652, and "all that was most subtle and serious in politics," La Rochefoucauld tells us, "was brought under the attention of Conde to induce him to take one of two courses—to make peace or to continue the war; when Madame de Chatillon imbued him with a design for peace by means the most agreeable. She thought that so great a boon might be the work of her beauty, and mingling ambition with the design of making a new conquest, she desired at the same time to triumph over the Prince de Conde's heart and to derive pecuniary advantages from her political negotiations."

We have already cursorily mentioned the Duchess de Chatillon: it is now indispensable, in order to thoroughly understand what is about to follow, to know something more of that celebrated personage.

Isabella Angelique de Montmorency was one of the two daughters of that brave and unfortunate Count de Montmorency Bouteville, who, the victim of a false point of honour and of an outrageous passion for duelling, was decapitated on the Place de Greve, on the 21st of June, 1627. She was sister of Francois de Montmorency, Count de Bouteville, better known as the illustrious Marshal de Luxembourg. Born in 1626, she had been married in 1645 to the last of the Colignys, the Duke de Chatillon, one of the heroes of Lens, killed in the action of Charenton in 1649. Left a widow at twenty-three, her rare loveliness won for her a thousand adorers. She was one of the queens of politics and gallantry during the Fronde; and even, after manifold amours, at thirty-eight could boast of captivating the Duke de Mecklenbourg, who espoused her in 1664. To beauty, Madame de Chatillon added great intelligence, but an intelligence wholly devoted to intrigue. She was vain and ambitious, and at the same time profoundly selfish, moderately scrupulous, and somewhat of the school of Madame de Montbazon. While both were young, she had smitten Conde; but he had thought no more of her after becoming absorbed with his love for Mademoiselle de Vigean. After that elevated passion, so sorrowfully terminated,[1] and after the fugitive emotion with which the lovely and virtuous Mademoiselle de Toussy could still inspire him, Conde stifled his chevalaresque instincts and bade adieu to the haute galanterie of his youth and of the Hotel de Rambouillet. A few insignificant and commonplace attachments, of which no record has survived, alone excepted, Madame de Chatillon only is known to have captivated his heart for the last time; and that liaison exercised upon Conde and his affairs, at the epoch at which we have arrived, an influence sufficiently great for history to occupy itself therewith, if it would not be content with retracing consequences and as it were the outline of events which pass across the stage of the world without being understood, without penetrating to the true causes which are to be discovered in the characters and passions of mankind. And, of all passions, there is none at once more energetic and wide-grasping than love. It occupies an immense place in human life, and in the loftiest as well as the lowliest conditions. In our own times, we have seen it make and mar kings. In an earlier epoch, by detaining Antony too long in Cleopatra's arms at Alexandria, the formidable tempest gathered above his head which nearly overwhelmed him at Munda. It played a great part in the war which Henry IV. was about to undertake, when a sudden death arrested him. One can scarcely resist a smile on seeing historians for the most part taking no account of it, as a thing too frivolous, and consigning it altogether to private life, as though that which agitates the soul so powerfully were not the principle of that which blazes forth exteriorly! No, the empire of beauty knows no limitation, and in no instance did it show itself more potent than over those great hearts of which Alexander the Great, Caesar, Charlemagne, and Henry IV. of France were the owners. We may well place Conde amongst such illustrious company.

[1] Mademoiselle de Vigean took the veil on the prince being forced to marry the niece of Cardinal Richelieu.

One graceful memento of Madame de Chatillon's power over Conde has descended to our own day. At Chatillon-sur-Loing, in what remains of the ancient chateau of the Colignys, which Isabelle de Montmorency derived from her husband and left to her brother, in that salon of the noble heir of the Luxembourgs, as precious for history as for art, wherein may be seen collected together, by the side of the sword of the Constable Anne, the likeness of Luxembourg on horseback, with his proud and piercing glance, as well as the full-length portrait of Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, Princess de Conde, in widow's weeds, there is also a large and magnificent picture, representing a young woman of ravishing beauty, with perfectly regular features, with the loveliest bright chestnut hair, grey eyes of the softest expression, a swan-like neck, of a slight and graceful figure, painted with a natural grandeur, and embellished with all the attractions of youth, enhanced by an exquisite air of coquetry. She is seated in an easy attitude. One of her hands, carelessly extended, holds a bouquet of flowers; the other rests upon the mane of a lion, whose head is drawn full-face, and whose flaming eyes are unmistakably the terrible eyes of Conde when seen with his sword drawn. Here we behold the beautiful Duchess de Chatillon at twenty-five or twenty-six, and very nearly such as she has taken care to describe herself in the Divers Portraits of Mademoiselle de Montpensier. The head stands out wonderfully. It would be impossible to instance a more charming countenance, but it is somewhat deficient in character and grandeur, and quite different from that of Madame de Longueville. The latter's face was not so regularly symmetrical, but it wore a far loftier expression, and an air of supreme distinction characterised her entire person.

Madame de Chatillon and Madame de Longueville had been brought up together, and very much attached during the whole of their early youth. By degrees there sprung up a rivalry of beauty between them, and they quarrelled thoroughly when Madame de Longueville perceived after the death of Chatillon, that the young and beautiful widow, at the same time that she was welcoming very decidedly the homage of the Duke de Nemours, had also evident designs upon Conde. Madame de Longueville had her own reasons for not being then very severe upon others, but she knew the self-seeking heart of the fair Duchess, and she was alarmed for her brother's sake. She feared lest Madame de Chatillon, having great need of Court favour, might retain Conde in the engagements which he had with Mazarin, while she herself was forced to drag him into the Fronde. The quarrel was renewed in 1651, as we have seen, and it was in full force in 1652. Madame de Chatillon and Madame de Longueville were then disputing for Conde's heart: the one drew him towards the Court, fully hoping that the Court would not be ungrateful to her; the other urged him more and more upon the path of war. We have related how Madame de Longueville, well knowing the strength of Conde's friendship for the Duke de Nemours, who was in the chains of the Duchess, very inopportunely mingled politics and coquetry in Berri, and tried the power of her charms upon Nemours, in order to carry him off from Madame de Chatillon and from the party of peace. No one ever knew how far Madame de Longueville committed herself on that occasion; but, as we have remarked, the slightest appearance was enough for La Rochefoucauld. As he had only sought his own advantage in the Fronde, not finding it therein, he began to grow tired, and asked for nothing better than to put an end to the wandering and adventurous life he had been for some years leading by a favourable reconciliation. Madame de Longueville's conduct in cutting him to the quick in what remained of his tender feelings for her, and especially in the most sensitive portion of his heart—its vanity and self-love—gave him an opportunity or a pretext, which he seized upon with eagerness, to break off a liaison become contrary to his interests. Thus, in April, 1652, when he returned to Paris with Conde, and there found Madame de Chatillon, he entered at once into all her prejudices and all her designs, as he afterwards owned to Madame de Motteville:[2] he placed at her service all that was in him of skill and ability, and descended to the indulgence of a revenge against Madame de Longueville wholly unworthy of an honourable man, and which after the lapse of two centuries is as revolting to every right-minded person as it was to his contemporaries.

[2] Mad. de Motteville, tom. v. p. 132. "M. de la Rochefoucauld m'a dit que la jalousie et la vengeance le firent agir soigneusement, et qu'il fit tout ce que Mad. de Chatillon voulut."

Madame de Chatillon was not contented with carrying off the giddy and inconstant Duke de Nemours from his new love, then absent; she exacted at his hands the public and outrageous sacrifice of her rival. The reprisals of feminine vanity did not stop there: the ambitious and intriguing Duchess went further, she undertook to ruin Madame de Longueville in her brother's estimation. With that object she set herself, with the assistance of La Rochefoucauld, to decry her in every way to him, and sought even to persuade him that his sister was not attached to him as she made it appear, and that she had promised the Duke de Nemours to serve him at his expense; whilst Madame de Longueville had never dreamed in any way of separating Nemours from Conde, but only from her, Madame de Chatillon, purposely to engage him more deeply in Conde's interests, in the light that she understood them.

Madame de Longueville's policy was very simple, and it was the true one, the Fronde once admitted. Assuredly, it would have been better alike for Madame de Longueville, for Conde, and for France not to have entered upon that fatal path by which the national greatness was for ten years arrested, and through which the house of Conde very nearly perished; but, after having embraced that sinister step, no other alternative remained to a firm and logical mind than to resolutely pursue its triumph. And that triumph, in Madame de Longueville's eyes, was the overthrow of Mazarin, a necessary condition of the domination of Conde. Such was the end pointed out to her by La Rochefoucauld when engaging her in the Fronde at the beginning of 1648, and she had never lost sight of it. It was to attain it that she had flung herself into the Civil War, and that she had ended by dragging therein her brother; that, worsted at Paris in 1649, she had striven in 1650 to raise Normandy; that she had risked her life, braved exile, made alliance with a foreign enemy, and unfurled at Stenay the banner of the Princes. In 1651, she had advised the resumption of arms, and now she maintained the impossibility of laying them down, and that, instead of losing himself in useless negotiations with the subtle and skilful Cardinal, it was upon his sword alone that Conde should rely. She thought him incapable of extricating himself advantageously from the intrigues by which he was surrounded, and therefore urged him towards the field of battle. She had always exercised a great sway over him, because he knew that her heart was of like temper to his own; and if passion had not blinded him, he would have rejected with disdain the odious accusations they had dared to raise against her, as he had done in 1643, in the affair of the letters attributed to her by Madame de Montbazon: he would have easily recognised that Madame de Chatillon, Nemours, and La Rochefoucauld would not have joined to blacken her in his eyes, as a vulgar creature ever ready to betray him for the latest lover, save in the manifest design of embroiling them both, of securing him, and of making him subserve their particular views. Nemours alone knew what had taken place during that journey from Montrond to Bordeaux, and the man who is base enough to constitute himself the denouncer of a woman to whom he has paid the warmest homage, is not very worthy of being believed on his word. Besides Nemours has not himself spoken, but Madame de Chatillon and Rochefoucauld, who have attributed to him certain sentiments, and we know with what motive.

It would be difficult to imagine a conspiracy more disgraceful than that formed at this juncture against Madame de Longueville; and that feature in it the more shameful perhaps was that La Rochefoucauld himself boasts of having invented and worked this machinery, as he terms it. The three conspirators were dumb, but through different but equally despicable reasons. Madame de Chatillon desired singly to govern Conde, and alone to represent him at Court, in order to reap the profits of the negotiation. Nemours was desirous of pleasing Madame de Chatillon, and looked forward also to have his share in the great advantages promised him; and, lastly, La Rochefoucauld was actuated by a pitiless spirit of revenge, and in the hope of a reconciliation necessary to his own immediate fortunes.

But here arose a delicate point, if we may speak of delicacy in such a matter: in the whole cabal, the least odious was, after all, the Duke de Nemours, more frivolous than perfidious, and who was deeply smitten with Madame de Chatillon. He loved her, and was beloved. The return of the Prince de Conde, with his well-declared pretensions, caused him cruel suffering, and his rage threatened to upset the well-concerted scheme. The lovely lady herself could not sometimes help being embarrassed between an imperious prince and a jealous lover. Happily the future author of the Maxims was at hand. La Rochefoucauld took upon himself to arrange everything in the best way possible. It was not very difficult for him to direct Madame de Chatillon how to manage Conde and Nemours both at once, and to contrive in such a way that she might secure them both. He made the moody Nemours comprehend that, in truth, he had no reason to complain of an inevitable liaison, "qui ne lui devoit pas etre suspecte, puisqu'on voulait lui en rendre compte, et ne s'en servir que pour lui donner la principale part aux affaires." At the same time, "he urged M. le Prince to occupy himself with Madame de Chatillon, and to give her in freehold the estate of Merlon." In such a fashion, thanks to the honest intervention of La Rochefoucauld, a good understanding was kept up, and the conspiracy went quietly forwards. Conde had no mistrust whatever. A veil had been cast over his eyes; his martial disposition lulled asleep in the lap of pleasure and in a labyrinth of negotiations, and cradled in the hope of an approaching peace.



INDEX.

AIGUILLON, Duchess d', her resentment against Conde for forcing her young nephew Richelieu into a clandestine marriage, i. 174.

ANCRE, Marshal d', assassinated, i. 17.

ANET, Chateau d', a haunt of conspirators against Mazarin, i. 105.

ANNE OF AUSTRIA, Queen of Louis XIII. of France, her reception of Mad. de Chevreuse on her return from exile, i. 39; her dread of adventures and enterprises, 39; Mazarin's entire ascendancy over her, 47; hesitates to take a decided attitude between Mazarin and his enemies, 65; evidence of her love for Mazarin, 100; her Regency opens under most brilliant auspices, 101; the conspiracy to take Mazarin's life determines her to adopt his policy, 102; orders the arrest of Beaufort, 104; her lively displeasure at the duel between Guise and Coligny, 116; her jealous feeling against Madame de Longueville, 122; retires before the Fronde to St. Germain, 155; her endeavour to mortify the ladies of the Fronde by giving a day-light ball, 170; her delight at seeing Conde and the Frondeurs at daggers drawn, 174; secretly confers with De Retz relative to the arrest of Conde, Conti and Longueville; gives the fatal order for that coup d'etat,176; orders the arrest of the Duchesses de Longueville and de Bouillon, 178; quits Paris for Rouen to confront Madame de Longueville, 180; the affirmation of the Duchess d'Orleans that the Queen had secretly married Mazarin, 201; evidence of such marriage, 202; finds herself in some sort a prisoner on the proscription of Mazarin, 216; seriously prepares to make head against Conde, 257; her fervour, constancy, and marvellous skill manifested towards weakening Conde, 258; the great danger of herself, the King, and Mazarin at Gien, 287.

ANNE-GENEVIEVE DE BOURBON-CONDE, Duchess de Longueville, her birth and parentage, i. 1; her desire for conventual seclusion, 5; her great personal beauty, 7; her character, 10; suitors for her hand, 12; married to the Duke de Longueville, 13; her conduct towards a crowd of adorers, 14; has a formidable enemy in the Duchess of Montbazon, 66; the quarrel between the rival Duchesses in the affair of the dropped letter, 71; public apology made her by Madame de Montbazon, 74; unoccupied with politics at this juncture, 79; error of the Importants in not conciliating her, 79; scandalised by Coligny's championship of her in the duel with Guise, 117; said to have witnessed the duel from behind a window-curtain, 118; verses on the occasion, 118; Miossens (afterwards Marshal d'Albret) tries in vain to win her heart, 121; her two individualities of opposite natures, 122; her defective education, 122; character of her epistolary style, 123; the different kind of education given by Menage to Madame de Sevigne and Madame de la Fayette, 124; the conquest of her heart and mind by La Rochefoucauld, 125; resume of her life (up to 1648), 131; queen of the Congress of Munster, 133; acquires a taste for political discussions and speculations, 134; Madame de Motteville's portrait of her at this period (1647), 135; she sacrifices everything for La Rochefoucauld, 140; exercises a somewhat ridiculous empire over her brother Conti, 142; fatal influence of her passion for La Rochefoucauld, 149; throws herself into the first Fronde, 149; ultimately involves in it every member of her family, 150; arrayed against her brother Conde in civil war, 154; she shares all the fatigues of the siege of Paris, 157; her energy and intrepidity, 158; is given up as a hostage to the Parliament by her husband, 159; gives birth to Charles de Paris, the Child of the Fronde, in the Hotel de Ville, 159; is reconciled to Conde, resumes her ascendancy over him, and detaches him from Mazarin, 162; her embarrassment on reappearing at Court, 163; the perilous path she is led into by her infatuation for La Rochefoucauld, 166; undertakes to mislead Conde and give him over to Spain, 167; the Queen orders her to be arrested; she escapes to Normandy with La Rochefoucauld, 179; her adventures in Normandy. She raises the standard of revolt at Dieppe, 180; pursued by the Queen, she assumes male attire and reaches Rotterdam and Stenay, 181; becomes the motive power of "the Women's War" or Second Fronde, 182; the message from her dying mother, 183; her gracious reception by their Majesties on her return from Stenay, 222; the most brilliant period of her career, 223; the idol of Spain, the terror of the Court, and one of the grandeurs of her family, 223; her motives for opposing the marriage of her brother with Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, 228; urges Conde to cut the knot, and make war upon the Crown, 246; her conduct, feelings and motives examined at this juncture, 247; was she the cause of the rupture of Conti's projected marriage, 248; peremptorily commanded to join her husband in Normandy, 253; she perceives a change in La Rochefoucauld's feelings, 254; follows the Princess de Conde into Berri, 254; the Duke de Nemours pays court to her, 262; certain obscure relations between them drives La Rochefoucauld to a violent rupture, 264; a rivalry of beauty leads her to humiliate Madame de Chatillon, 265; how Madame de Longueville fell into "the scandalous chronicle," 266; her grave cause of complaint against La Rochefoucauld, 266; Madame de Chatillon attempts to ruin her in Conde's estimation, 296; her fatal policy in the Fronde arrests the national greatness for ten years, and nearly ruins the House of Conde, 296; the disgraceful conspiracy formed against her, 298.

ARISTOCRACY in France, its constitution in the reign of Louis XIV., i. 217.

BEAUFORT, Francis de Vendome, Duke de (called the "King of the Markets"), a suitor for the hand of Anne de Bourbon, 12; a leader of the Importants, 15; a rival of Mazarin in the Queen's good graces, 52; his character as sketched by La Rochefoucauld, 52; becomes the led-captain of Madame de Montbazon, and the bitterest enemy of Mazarin, 53; his spite against Madame de Longueville, 71; his conduct in the affair of the dropped letters, 73; insinuates that they were from Coligny, 71; irritated at the banishment of Madame de Montbazon, he enters into a plot against Mazarin, 76; the ungovernable impetuosity of his vengeance against Madame de Longueville strongly stigmatised, 80; prepares an ambuscade to slay Mazarin, 95; the plot fails, 99; is arrested and imprisoned at Vincennes, 105; released by the Fronde and becomes master of Paris, 154; Madame de Montbazon exercises plenary power over him, 208; becomes one of the most conspicuous leaders of the Fronde, 215.

BEAUPUIS, Count de, detected plotting against Mazarin, escapes to Rome, 86; his denunciation of the evils of Richelieu's inordinate authority, 91.

BEAUTY IN WOMAN, true definition of, 8.

BOUILLON, de la Tour d'Auvergne, Duke de, conspires against Richelieu, 25; one of the party of the Malcontents, 109; joins Conde at Saint-Maur, 245.

BOUILLON, Duchess de, given up as a hostage to the Fronde, 159; quite as ardent in politics as Madame de Longueville, 206; arrested by the Queen's order at her daughter's bedside, and thrown into the Bastille, 206.

BRIDIEU, Marquis de, acts as second to Guise in duel with Coligny, 113.

BUCKINGHAM, George Villiers, Duke of, his political correspondence with Madame de Chevreuse, 19.

BURNET, Bishop, his assertion of Conde's offer to Cromwell to turn Protestant, 280.

BUSSY-RABUTIN, Count de, value of his satire of Madame de Longueville, 265.

CAMPION, Alexandre de, his mission to Madame de Chevreuse, 28; his censure of Madame de Montbazon's conduct, 80.

CAMPION, Henri de, attributes the conception of the plot to destroy Mazarin to Madame de Chevreuse in concert with Madame de Montbazon, 89; he stipulates with Beaufort that he should not strike Mazarin, 92; sought for by Mazarin, he takes refuge at Anet, and afterwards at Rome, 97.

CANTECROIX, Beatrice de Cusance, Princess de, Charles, Duke de Lorraine madly enamoured of, 147.

CAUMARTIN, Madame de, a portrait of Madame de Chevreuse sketched by De Retz to please the malignant curiosity of, 21.

CHATEAUNEUF, Charles de l'Aubepine, Marquis de, released from an imprisonment of ten years, 34; why detested by the Princess de Conde, 40; restored to office through Madame de Chevreuse, 57; banished to Touraine, 106; bides his time for displacing Mazarin, and holds the seals on the Cardinal going into exile, 107; deprived of them by the Queen, 230; restored to office to serve Mazarin in secret, 257; nobly inaugurates his ministry by marching with the Queen and young King into Berri, 263; Mazarin learns with inquietude his ever-increasing success, 278; again displaced by Mazarin, 279.

CHATILLON, Isabelle Angelique de Montmorency, Duchess de (sister of the illustrious Marshal de Luxembourg), the Great Conde's passion for her, 259; she urges Conde to an understanding with the Court, 259; manages her lofty lover with infinite tact, 259; is deeply enamoured of the young Duke de Nemours, 259; invested with full powers as an ambassadress by Conde, 291; her desire to triumph over Conde's heart, 291; her antecedents and character, 292; the important consequences of her liaison with Conde, 292; a portrait of her at twenty-five described, 293; causes of her quarrel with Madame de Longueville, 294; she exacts from Nemours the public and outrageous sacrifice of her rival, 296; attempts to ruin Madame de Longueville in Conde's estimation, 296; her embarrassment between an imperious Prince and a jealous lover, 298.

CHAVIGNY, Count de, his career, 231.

CHEVREUSE, Marie de Rohan, Duchess de, her illustrious lineage, 17; marries, first, Charles de Luynes, and afterwards Claude de Chevreuse, 17; as great favourite of Anne of Austria her extensive influence over the politics of Europe, 18; her personal characteristics, 18; summary of her character by Cardinal de Retz, 19; cause of her failure as a great politician, 20; her adventures in exile, 22; her great ascendancy over the cabinet of Madrid, 22; seeks refuge in England, 22; Richelieu's designs to effect her destruction, 23; acts as the connecting link between England, Spain and Lorraine during the Civil War in England, 24; negotiates with Olivarez for the destruction of Richelieu, 26; was she a stranger to the conspiracy of 1642? 26; abandoned by the Queen on its discovery, 30; her frightful position, 31; her perpetual exile decreed by the will of Louis XIII., 32; is dreaded by Mazarin, 33; her triumphant return to Court, 34; her position and political influence, 36; the new relations between her and the Queen, 39; she attacks Richelieu's system as adopted by Mazarin, 48; procures the return of Chateauneuf to office, 49; pleads for the Vendome princes, 50; manoeuvres to secure the governorship of Havre for La Rochefoucauld, 53; the skill, sagacity, and address of her counter-intrigues, 55; tries the power of her charms on Mazarin, 55; devotes her whole existence to political intrigue and conspiracy, 56; want of precaution in her attacks upon Mazarin, 58; her curious struggle for supremacy with the Prime Minister, 58; the head and mainspring of the Importants, 58; her tactics to displace Mazarin in favour of Chateauneuf, 59; she organises a coup-de-main to destroy Mazarin, 62; arranges with the Cardinal the composition of Madame de Montbazon's apology, 74; her politic purpose of a fete to the Queen foiled by the insane pride of Madame de Montbazon, 76; her efforts to deprive Mazarin of supporters, 80; her share in Beaufort's plot, 82; Madame de Montbazon only an instrument in her hands, 89; her behaviour on the failure of the plot, 106; recommended by the Queen to withdraw from Court, 107; carries on a vast correspondence under the mantle of the English embassy with Lord Goring, Croft, Vendome, and Bouillon, and the rest of the Malcontents, 109; her irritation at being prohibited from visiting the Queen of England, 143; Mazarin watches her every movement, 144; ordered to retire to Angouleme, she goes for a third time into exile, 144; her bark is captured by the English Parliamentarians and she is carried into the Isle of Wight, 146; Mazarin has Montresor arrested in hopes of possessing himself of her costly jewels, 146; applies herself to maintain an alliance between Spain, Austria and Lorraine—the last basis of her own political reputation, 147; preserves her sway over the Duke de Lorraine, 148; frustrates Mazarin's projects to win over the Duke, 148; becomes once more the soul of every intrigue planned against the government, 148; constitutes herself the mediatress between the Queen and the Frondeurs, 206; partially restored to the Queen's confidence, 210; assisted in her political intrigues by the Marquis de Laigues, 210; a splendid supper given to her by Madame de Sevigne, 211; forms a plan with the Princess Palatine of a grand aristocratic league against Mazarin, 224; the Fronde in 1651 was Madame de Chevreuse, 225; she procures Conde's release from prison, 225; her resentment at the rupture of her daughter's marriage, 232; she raises the entire Fronde against Conde, 242; opposes the schemes to assassinate Conde, 243; Chateauneuf, her friend and instrument, is made Prime Minister, 257; remains staunch to the Queen and Mazarin through the last Fronde, 280.

CHEVREUSE, Charlotte Marie de Lorraine, Mademoiselle de, her projected marriage with the Prince de Conti, 224; supreme importance of such marriage, 225; disastrous results of its rupture, 232; impetuously proposes to turn the key upon Conde, Conti and Beaufort at the Palais d'Orleans, 233; her suspected and almost public liaison with De Retz, 249; dies suddenly of a fever, unmarried, 224.

CINQ MARS, Henri de, undermines Richelieu with Louis XIII., 25; his death-warrant, 29.

COLIGNY, Count Maurice de (grandson of the famous Admiral de Coligny), an adorer of Madame de Longueville, 14; the dropped letters falsely attributed to him, 71; as champion of Madame de Longueville, he challenges the Duke de Guise, 113; fatal result of the duel, 117; dies of his wounds and of despair, 117; scandalous verses on the occasion, 118.

COETQUEN, Marquis de, hospitably receives Madame de Chevreuse when exiled, 146.

CONDE, Louis de Bourbon, Prince de, arbiter of the political situation after Rocroy, 80; his furious anger at Madame de Montbazon's insult to his sister, 111; hailed by the Queen as the liberator of France, 111; receives into his house Coligny wounded in duel with Guise, 116; the state in which he found Paris after his victory of Lens: he offers his sword to the Queen, 154; applies himself to giving the new Importants a harsh lesson, 155; marches upon Paris and places it under siege, 156; the climax of his fame and fortune as defender and saviour of the throne, 164; he tyrannises over the Court and government, 168; he insults Mazarin and embarrasses the Queen, 169; his want of capacity for business, 172; his train of petits-maitres, 172; on the murder of one of his servants he tries to crush the Fronde leaders, 173; forces the young Duke de Richelieu to marry clandestinely Mademoiselle de Pons, 174; wounds the Queen's pride by compelling her to receive Jarze whom she had banished for fatuously believing that she had loved him, 175; arrested on the authority of his own signature and imprisoned at Vincennes, 177; what constituted the strength of the Princes' party in the Second Fronde, 188; the majority of the women who meddled with politics were, through sympathy, of his party, 203; his aged mother supplicates in vain for his release, and returns home to die, 204; his liberation effected by no other power than that of female influence, 206; he treats Mazarin with contempt at Havre, and on his release becomes master of the situation, 215; is courted by both the Fronde and Queen's party, 215; eight hundred princes and nobles partisans of Conde, 217; his sole error not having a fixed and unalterable object, 230; applies himself to form a new Fronde, 234; resumes the imperious tone which had previously embroiled him with the Queen and Mazarin, 237; Hocquincourt proposes to assassinate Conde, 243; he retreats to St. Maur and holds a Court there, 245; reappears in Parliament, 245; Chateauneuf and Mazarin labour to destroy him, 257; he narrowly escapes an ambuscade at Pontoise, 258; motives which rendered him averse to civil war, 259; his final determination to unsheath the sword, 260; raises the standard of revolt in Guienne, 262; his adventurous expedition, 275; to what did Conde aspire? 277; his inconstancy—offers himself to Cromwell and to become Protestant to have an English army, 278-280; the income and possessions of his family, 278; he escapes for the tenth time being taken and slain, 282; takes command of the Fronde forces and throws himself upon the royal army, 283; routs Hocquincourt and attacks Turenne unsuccessfully, 285; unjust accusation of Napoleon I. that Conde wanted boldness at Bleneau, 286; he leaves the army and hastens to Paris, 287; in abandoning the Loire he commits an immense and irreparable error, 289; invests Madame de Chatillon with full powers as an ambassadress, 291; imbued by her with a design for peace by means the most agreeable, 291; a graceful memento of her power over him still existing in the ancient Chateau of the Colignys, 293; Madame de Chatillon and Madame de Longueville dispute for Conde's heart, 294; the overthrow of Mazarin a necessary condition of the domination of Conde, 296; is advised by his sister to rely upon his sword alone, 297.

CONDE, Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, Princess de Bourbon (mother of the Great Conde and Madame de Longueville), her influence with Anne of Austria, 39; her detestation of Madame de Chevreuse, 40; tries to destroy her hold upon the Queen, 40; her lively resentment at the insult to her daughter in the affair of the dropped letters, 73; demands a public reparation from Madame de Montbazon, 74; her demeanour during the "mummeries" of the apology, 74; obtains the privilege of never associating with Madame de Montbazon, 75; supplicates in vain for Conde's release, and returns home to die, 204.

CONDE, Claire Clemence de Maille, Princess de Bourbon (daughter of the Duke de Breze, and wife of the Great Conde), shut up in Bordeaux with the Dukes de Bouillon and de Rochefoucauld during "the Women's War," 200, 204; only maintains herself in Bordeaux through the aid of the rabble va-nu-pieds, 205; forced to take refuge hastily in the citadel of Montrond, 263.

CONTI, Armand de Bourbon, Prince de (brother of the Great Conde), his extravagant adoration of his sister, Madame de Longueville, 141; marries Anne Marie Martinozzi, niece of Mazarin, 142; declared generalissimo of the army of the king, 159; the problem as to who was the author of the rupture of his marriage with Madame de Chevreuse, 227; his ardent passion for her, 231; is made lieutenant-general in Guienne by Conde, 276; finishes, where he begun life, with theology, 142.

CORNEILLE, Pierre, his Emilie painted as a perfect heroine, 82.

FIESQUE, Gillona d'Harcourt, Countess de, 195.

FOUQUEROLLES, Madame de, her terrible anxiety lest she should be compromised by the dropped letters, 73; confides the secret to La Rochefoucauld, 73; the letters are burnt in the Queen's presence, 73.

FRONDE, the, what gave it birth and sustained it, 149; Day of the Barricades, 153; the royal power attacked by three parties simultaneously, 153; the adherents of the Fronde, 156; initiation of the Civil War, 159; sordid selfishness of the Frondeurs, 161; carries everything before it in 1651, 223; brief retrospect of the two Fronde wars, 267; one of the most interesting as well as diverting periods in French history, 269; contrast between its main features and the contemporary civil war in England, 270; the wide-spread misery it entailed on France, 270.

GUISE, Henri, Duke de Guise (grandson of the Balafre), espouses the cause of Madame de Montbazon in the affair of the dropped letters, 73; confronts and defies the victorious Condes, 112; fights a duel with Coligny, the champion of Madame de Longueville, 115; his insulting words on unsheathing his sword, 115; result of the duel on party feeling in France, 117; his liaison with Anne de Gonzagua, 193; becomes unfaithful to her and elopes with the Countess de Bossuet, 194.

GUYMENE, Anne de Rohan, Princess de (sister-in-law of Madame de Chevreuse, and daughter-in-law of Madame Montbazon), her numerous crowd of old and young adorers, 37; her flirtation with Mazarin, 56; furious at having been abandoned by De Retz, offers the Queen to get him confined in a cellar, 209.

HACQUEVILLE, Monsieur de, refuses to be a go-between of De Retz and Madame de Chevreuse, 211.

HAUTEFORT, Marie de (afterwards Duchess de Schomberg), influence of her piety and virtue, 37; witnesses the arrest of Beaufort, 105.

HENRIETTA MARIA, Queen of Charles I. of England, her warm reception of Madame de Chevreuse, 22; seeks an Asylum in France from the Parliamentarians, 143; asserted to have secretly married her equerry, Jermyn, 202.

HOCQUINCOURT, Charles de Monchy, Marshal d', proclaims Madame de Montbazon "la belle des belles," 70; is beaten by Conde at Bleneau, 284.

HOLLAND, Henry Rich, Earl of, his political correspondence with Madame de Chevreuse, 19; encourages the faction of Vendome, Vieuville, and La Valette, 23.

IMPORTANTS, the—Rochefoucauld's account of that faction, 77; irritated by the banishment of their fascinating lady-leader, Madame de Montbazon, they plot to murder Mazarin, 78; their ruin decided upon by the Queen and Mazarin, 79; their error in not conciliating Madame de Longueville, 79; was the plot real or imaginary—a point of the highest historical importance, 83; failure of the plot and ruin of the faction, 104.

JOINVILLE, Prince de (son of Charles de Lorraine), suitor for the hand of Anne de Bourbon, 12.

LAIGUES, Marquis de, declares himself a lover of Madame de Chevreuse to gain political importance, 210.

LONGUEVILLE, Duchess de, see ANNE DE BOURBON.

LONGUEVILLE, Marie d'Orleans, see Duchess de NEMOURS.

LONGUEVILLE, Henry de Bourbon, Duke de, marries Anne de Bourbon, 13; titular lover of Madame de Montbazon, 70; plenipotentiary at the Congress of Munster in 1645, 132; gives up the Duchess as a hostage to the Fronde, 159; raises Normandy against Mazarin, 158; he imperatively commands the Duchess to join him in Normandy, 253.

LORET, his rhyming description of the supper given by Madame de Sevigne to Madame to Chevreuse, 212.

LORRAINE, Charles IV., Duke of, involved in the conspiracy of Soissons through Madame de Chevreuse, 26; prefers amusing himself with civil war to the quiet enjoyment of his throne, 271.

LOUIS the Just (XIII. of France), signs the death warrant of his favourite, Cinq Mars, 29; his decree of exile against Madame de Chevreuse, 33.

LOUIS XIV., his majority declared, 256.

LUYNES, Charles de, Favourite of Louis XIII., marries Marie de Rohan (afterwards Duchess de Chevreuse), 17

LUYNES, the (late) Duke de, aided the Pope against the Garibaldians, 18.

MAULEVRIER, the Marquis de, writer of the dropped letters addressed to Madame de Fouquerolles, 13.

MAZARIN, Jules, Cardinal, succeeds Richelieu as Prime Minister, 32; his origin, 44; is hated by the nobles, parliament, and middle classes, 44; installed in office, 45; his first service to Anne of Austria, 45; his striking personal resemblance to Buckingham, 46; how he obtained entire sway over the Queen-Regent, 47; applies himself to gain her heart, 47; finds a formidable opponent to his policy in Madame de Chevreuse, 48, 54; is terrified by her matrimonial projects, 54; flirts with Madame de Chevreuse, 55; his attentions to Madame de Guymene, 56; his difficulty to make the Queen comprehend his policy towards Spain, 60; declares that Madame de Chevreuse would ruin France, 61; forewarned of a conspiracy to destroy him, 62; the great families opposed to him, 63; his anxieties and perplexities, 64; the relations between him and the Queen, 64; his intervention in the quarrel of the rival Duchesses, 74; his resolution in confronting the plot of the Importants, 79; did Mazarin owe all his great career to a falsehood cunningly invented and audaciously sustained? 83; the plan of the attack upon him, 92; escapes assassination from Beaufort's nocturnal ambuscade, 99; compels the Queen to choose her part by addressing himself to her heart, 102; becomes absolute master of the Queen's heart, 102; banishes the conspirators and arrests Beaufort, 106; his tactics and political sagacity, 111; first introduces Italian Opera at the French Court, 135; concludes a peace with the Fronde parliament, 161; insulted by Conde, 169; what constitutes the strength of his party in the Second Fronde, 187; goes into Guienne with the royal army, 205; banished by the Fronde, 215; treated with contempt by Conde at Havre, 215; with difficulty finds a refuge at Bruhl, 216; in his exile governs the Queen as absolutely as ever, 217; his immense blunder (in 1650), 225; rebanished and his possessions confiscated, 234; governs France from Bruhl, 236; foments quarrels between Conde and the Fronde, 236; composes with the Queen a political comedy of which De Retz became the dupe and Conde very nearly the victim, 238; the draught of his treaty with the Fronde, the masterpiece of his political skill, falls into Conde's hands, 256; alarmed at the success of Chateauneuf, he breaks his ban, and returns to France, 279; Conde and the Fronde united against him, 280; to gain supporters lavishly promises place and money, 290.

MEDICI, Marie de (Queen of Henry IV. and mother of Louis XIII.), her imprisonment of Charlotte de Montmorency, 2; conspires against Richelieu, 28.

MIOSSENS, Count de (afterwards Marshal d'Albret), tries unsuccessfully to win the heart of Madame de Longueville, 122; gives place to La Rochefoucauld, 130.

MONTAGU, Lord, the intimate adviser of Queen Henrietta Maria, and slave of Madame de Chevreuse, 24; Anne of Austria's confidence in him, 37; his mission to Madame de Chevreuse, 38; becomes a bigot and a devotee, 38.

MONTBAZON, Hercule de Rohan, Duke de (father of Madame de Chevreuse and the Prince de Guymene), marries at sixty-one Marie d'Avangour aged sixteen, 67; recommends the example of Marie de Medici to his young wife and takes her to Court, 67.

MONTBAZON, Marie d'Avangour, Duchess de, called by d'Hocquincourt "la belle des belles," the youthful stepmother of Madame de Chevreuse, her parentage and antecedents, 67; married at sixteen to a husband of sixty-one, 67; her personal and mental characteristics, 68; contrast in manners between her and Madame de Longueville, 69; her numerous adorers; the Duke de Beaufort her titular lover, 70; her malignant hatred of Madame de Longueville, 71; employs her influence over the houses of Vendome and Lorraine to the injury of her rival, 71; the affair of the dropped letters, 71; the party of the Importants espouse her cause, 73; she is compelled to make a public apology before the Queen and Court, 74; the pretended reconciliation only a fresh declaration of war, 75; her conduct at the collation given the Queen by Madame de Chevreuse, 76; is banished by the King's order, 76; she inveigles Beaufort into a plot to destroy Mazarin, 89.

MONTESPAN, Francoise-Athenais de Rochechouart Mortemart, Duchess de, her fame as a beauty, 9; relations to her of the Dukes de Longueville and Beaufort, 14.

MONTPENSIER, Anne Marie Louise d'Orleans (known as La Grande Mademoiselle), daughter of Gaston, Duke d'Orleans and cousin of Louis XIV., preserves the text of the dropped letters, 72; gives the two speeches made on the occasion of Madame de Montbazon's reparation, 74.

MOTTEVILLE, Frances Bertaut, Madame de, her amusing recital of the "mummeries" in the affair of the dropped letters, 74; her account of the Queen's reception of the news of the abortive attempt to kill Mazarin, 103; her portrait of Madame de Longueville, 135; the principal motive which urged La Rochefoucauld to woo the Duchess, 140.

NEMOURS, Marie d'Orleans, Duchess de (daughter of Henri, Duke de Longueville), her harsh censure of the pride and impracticability of the Condes, 165; quits Madame de Longueville to take refuge in a convent, 180; moves heaven and earth for the release of Conde that he might keep watch over the Duchess de Chatillon, 208; her character, 212; the enemy of the Fronde and the Condes, 227; her detestation of Madame de Longueville, 252.

NEMOURS, Charles Amadeus, of Savoy, Duke de, prompted by the Duchess de Chatillon, his mistress, embraces the cause of Conde, 208; pays court to Madame de Longueville instead of making active war in Berri, 262; the obscure relations between them at this juncture, drives La Rochefoucauld to a violent rupture with Madame de Longueville, 264.

ORLEANS, Gaston, Duke d' (brother of Louis XIII.), conspires against Richelieu, 25; his incapacity to govern, 171; his jealousy of the influence of Conde and of Mazarin, 171; makes De Retz his confidant, who obtains his assent to the arrest of the Princes, 176; becomes the head of a fifth party in the Second Fronde, 200; consents to the liberation of the Princes on promise that his daughter should marry Conde's son, 207; governed by De Retz and Madame de Chevreuse, 258.

PETITS-MAITRES, the train of Conde called, their character, 288.

PALATINE, Anne de Gonzagua, Princess (widow of Edward Prince Palatine), peculiarities of her epistolary style, 124; her large intelligence, solidity, refinement and ingenuity of thought, 124; becomes the head and mainspring of the Princes' party, or Second Fronde, 179; the formidable political opponent of Mazarin, 179; her extraordinary political and diplomatical ability, 189; her antecedents, 190; her liaison with Henri de Guise under a promise of marriage, 193; disguised in male attire she joins her lover at Besancon, 193; abandoned by the volatile de Guise, who elopes with the Countess de Bossuet, she returns to Paris, 194; is married to Prince Edward, Count Palatine of the Rhine, 194; by her conciliatory tact she obtains the esteem of all parties in the Fronde, 196; De Retz's eulogium and Madame de Motteville's opinion of her, 196; she operates on behalf of the imprisoned Princes, and negotiates four different treaties for their deliverance, 198; an alliance with the two camps concluded by her with De Retz, 224; she conducts with consummate skill the negotiation between Madame de Chevreuse and Madame de Longueville, 227.

PHALZBOURG, Princess de (sister of Charles IV. of Lorraine), acts as a spy over Madame de Chevreuse in the interest of Mazarin, 147.

POLITICAL INTRIGUE, an affair of fashion among the ladies of Anne of Austria's Court, 56.

RAMBOUILLET, Hotel de, 9.

RETZ, John Francis Paul Gondi, Cardinal de, the evil genius of the Fronde, 151; his influence over the Parisians as Coadjutor, 151; his character—ladies of gallantry his chief political agents, 152; his conspicuous merits and faults, 172; his master-stroke of address, 201; his best concerted measures abortive through his inclination for the fair sex, 208; fails to acquire the confidence of anyone—is threatened with assassination, 209; lends an ear to Cromwell and contracts a close friendship with Montrose, 209; has the same interests with Madame de Chevreuse in securing the union of her daughter with Conti, 210; an analysis of his character, antecedents, and aspirations, 293; admitted unwillingly into the secret councils of the Queen, 240; his midnight interview with Anne of Austria, 241; holds the key of Paris, 275; he trims and follows the Duke d'Orleans, 280.

RICHELIEU, Cardinal de, his government through terror, 24; conspiracy to destroy him, 26-30; result of his efforts to consolidate the regal power, 32.

RICHELIEU, Duke de, engaged to Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, but forced by Conde to marry clandestinely when under age, Mademoiselle de Pons, 174.

ROCHEFOUCAULD, Francis, second Duke de la—his career as Prince de Marsillac, 127; his character of the Duchess de Longueville, 10; his advice to Madame de Chevreuse, 39; Madame de Fouquerolles confides to him the secret of the dropped letters, 73; he delivers her and her lover from their terrible anxiety, 73; seeks to hush up and terminate the quarrel of the rival Duchesses, 80; constitutes himself the champion of Madame de Chevreuse's innocence of Beaufort's plot, 83; allies himself with that illustrious political adventuress, 128; desirous of securing to his party the master-mind of Conde to avenge himself of the Queen and Mazarin, 128; makes persistent love to Madame de Longueville and wins her heart, 129; his cynical maxim on the love of certain women, 129; his personal and mental characteristics, 137; the way in which he superseded Miossens as the lover of Madame de Longueville, 139; his sordid motive as her wooer, 140; his restless spirit and ever discontented vanity, 167; effects the escape from Paris of Madame de Longueville, 178; gives proof of a rare fidelity through the whole of "the Women's War," 183; his ancestral chateau of Verteuil razed to the ground by Mazarin's orders, 183; his conduct at this time contradicts the assertion that he never loved the woman he seduced and dragged into the vortex of politics, 184; his version of the true cause of the rupture of the marriage between Mademoiselle de Chevreuse and Conti, 229: grows weary of a wandering and adventurous life, 255; the report of certain obscure relations existing between Nemours and Madame de Longueville drives him to a violent rupture with the Duchess, 264; his accusation more absurd than odious, 264; to indulge his revenge against Madame de Longueville, he enters into all Madame de Chatillon's designs, 295; directs her how to manage Conde and Nemours both at once, 298.

SCUDERY, Mademoiselle de, and the prudes of the Hotel de Rambouillet protest strongly against the marriage of Conti with Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, 249.

SEGUIER, Pierre, Keeper of the Seals, his character, 49.

SEVIGNE, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de, gives a splendid supper to the Duchess de Chevreuse, 211.

SOISSONS, Count de, his conspiracy to destroy Cardinal de Richelieu, 25.

ST. MAURE, Countess of, the polish and precision of her epistolary style, 123.

TAVANNES, Count de, a valiant petit-maitre to whom Conde gives command of the army after Bleneau, 257.

TURENNE, Marshal de, raises the standard of revolt in behalf of the Fronde, 156; is won over to make a treaty with Spain by Madame de Longueville, 182; thanked by the Queen after Bleneau, for having placed the crown a second time on her son's head, 287; achieves the importance of being a rival of Conde, 289; attacks the enemy's camp when half the officers of Conde's army were at Madame de Montbazon's fete, 290.

VIGEAN, Mademoiselle de, Conde's love for, 292.

VENDOME, Duke Caesar de, the faction of, with La Vieuville and La Valette, when emigrants in England, 23; his pretensions and agitated life, 51; decides to exile himself in Italy and await the fall of Mazarin, 106.

VITRY, Marshal de, prepares with Count de Cramail a coup-de-main against Richelieu, 25.



END OF VOL. I.



BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.



Transcriber's Note The following changes were made to the original text [correction in brackets]: Page 16: (afterwards Duke de Rochefoucald [Rochefoucauld]) Page 33: Angoulesme [Angouleme], until after the peace be Page 43: French language: ["]La reine est si bonne!" Page 79: royal authority now seriously theatened [threatened]. Page 85: oppose testimony more distinterested [disinterested], Page 85: confidental [confidential] letters furnish us. Page 146: varures [parures], valued at two hundred thousand Page 157: troops, at the parades of the citizen soldiery.[,] Page 165: exposed to one of those coups d'etat [d'etat], Page 179: the Secretary of State, La Veilliere [Vrilliere], Page 184: firmness,["] says Lenet, "that he seemed as though Page 202: Footnote 6: Leomeni[Lomenie] de Brienne, Memoirs, 1828. Page 231: to look upon her with horror. "[removed]He even blamed Page 232: From that moment means of of[removed] breaking off Page 232: and obscurities resting upon this deli- [delicate] Page 234: missing anchor for Footnote 4 Page 269: La Rouchefoucauld [Rochefoucauld], getting Gondy Page 269: Rouchefoucauld [Rochefoucauld], he determined to set Page 279: his ban, quitted his retreat at Dinan, and and[removed] Page 282: went out to forage. He suceeded[succeeded] in procuring Page 303: her personal characteristics, 18:[;] Page 310: attack's[attacks] the enemy's camp when half

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