THE DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE DRAWN INTO THE VORTEX OF POLITICS AND CIVIL
WAR BY HER LOVE FOR LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
WE have glanced rapidly over the fairest period of Madame de
Longueville's youth, over those years wherein the splendour of her
success in the ranks of fashion was not obtained at the expense of her
virtue. The time approaches in which she is about to yield to the
manners of her age, and to the long-combatted wants of her heart. The
love which she inspired in others, she is, in turn, about to feel
herself, and it is to engage her, at the age of twenty-eight or
twenty-nine, in a fatal connection, which will make her unmindful of all
her conjugal duties, and turn her most brilliant qualities against
herself, against her family, and against France.
Let us now relate briefly what we know of Madame de Longueville from the
moment of our last mention of her up to the commencement of 1648. There
is nothing recorded which can authorise the supposition that before the
close of 1647 Madame de Longueville had ever passed the limits of that
noble and graceful gallantry which she saw everywhere held in honour,
the praises of which she heard celebrated at the Hotel de Rambouillet as
well as at the Hotel de Conde, in the great verse of Corneille and in
the turgid effusions of Voiture. At the time of the duel between Guise
and Coligny, in 1644, she had seen her twenty-fifth summer. Each
succeeding year seemed only to enhance the power of her charms, and that
power she delighted in exhibiting. A thousand adorers pressed around
her. Coligny was, perhaps, nearest to her heart, but had not, however,
touched it. But one cannot, with impunity, trifle with love. That tragic
adventure of the eldest of the Chatillons perishing, in the flower of
his youth, by the hand of the eldest of the Guises was quickly echoed by
song and romance through every _salon_, and cast a gloom upon the
destiny of Madame de Longueville, and gave her, at an early period, a
fame at once aristocratic and popular, which prepared her wonderfully to
play a great part in that other tragi-comedy, heroic and gallant, called
the Fronde. The glory of her brother was reflected upon her, and she
responded to it somewhat by her own success at Court and in the
_salons_. She acquired more and more the manners of the times. Coquetry
and witty talk formed her sole occupation. Her delicate condition not
permitting her to accompany M. de Longueville to Muenster, in June, 1645,
she remained in Paris. It was the place above all others in which she
delighted, and whether her heart had received some slight wound, or
whether it was still entirely whole, it is clear that she was not very
glad nor greatly charmed to find herself, after her accouchement in the
spring of 1646, under the cold, grey sky of Westphalia, again beside a
husband who was not, as Retz says, the most agreeable man to her in the
world. It is not difficult to divine the feelings with which that petted
beauty of the Hotel de Rambouillet must have left Corneille, Voiture,
and all the elegancies and refinements of life, to take up her abode at
Munster amongst a set of foreign diplomatists only speaking German or
Latin. To her it was doubly an exile, for her native soil was not
merely France--but Paris, the Court, the Hotel de Conde, Chantilly, the
Place Royale, the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre.[1] However, there was
nothing for it but to obey the marital summons, and to set off with her
step-daughter, Mademoiselle de Longueville, who was already more than
twenty years of age. The Duchess quitted Paris on the 20th of June,
1646, with a numerous escort under the command of Montigny, lieutenant
of M. de Longueville's guards. The entire journey from Paris to Munster
was a continual ovation. The Duke went as far as Wesel to meet her.
Turenne, who then commanded on the Rhine, treated her to the spectacle
of an army drawn up in order of battle, and which he manoeuvred for
her amusement. Was it on that occasion that the great captain, well
known to have been always impressionable to female beauty, received the
ardent impulse which was renewed at Stenay in 1650, and which,
graciously but prudently acknowledged by Madame de Longueville, always
remained a close and tender tie between them? On the 22nd of July she
made her triumphal entry into Munster. During the entire autumn of 1646
and the winter of 1647 she was really the Queen of the Congress. Her
beauty and grace of manner won homage equally from the grave
diplomatists as from the great commanders who were there assembled.
[1] In which the Hotel de Rambouillet was situate.
Although the Duchess dissembled her ennui with that politeness and
gentleness peculiar to herself, after the lapse of a few months she had
had enough of her brilliant exile. In the winter of 1647 there were two
reasons for her return to France. Her father, the Prince de Conde, had
died towards the close of December, 1646, to the great loss of his
family and France, the consequences of which were somewhat later vividly
felt. Moreover, Madame de Longueville had become _enceinte_, at Muenster
for the third time, and it being her mother's wish that her accouchement
should take place near her, M. de Longueville was compelled to consent
to his wife's departure for Paris.
Her return to France, at first to Chantilly, and next to Paris, in the
month of May, 1647, was quite another sort of triumph to that of her
journey to the Rhine and Holland, and her sojourn at Muenster. She found
the crowd of her adorers more numerous and attentive than ever, and in
the foremost rank her younger brother, the Prince de Conti, just fresh
from college, was taking his first lessons of life in the wider range of
the great world.
Shortly after her accouchement, the Duchess, who during her sojourn
amongst the plenipotentiaries charged with negotiating the treaty of
Westphalia, had acquired a taste, there seems little doubt, for
political discussions and speculations, first began to manifest an
inclination to mix herself up with state affairs. There was little
difficulty in her doing so. The mission which the Duke de Longueville
continued to fulfil in Germany, the continued favour enjoyed by the
Princess de Conde, the ever-increasing influence which the Duke
d'Enghien--recently through his father's death become Prince de
Conde--had acquired by his repeated victories, all these advantages,
joined to the prestige of the personal charms of Madame de Longueville,
placed this latter in a position to take the foremost part in the civil
war about to break out.
The Court and Paris were then occupied with festivals and diversions,
which all were eager to share with Madame de Longueville. To please the
Queen, Mazarin multiplied balls and operas. At a great expense he sent
to Italy for artists, singers, male and female, who represented the
opera of _Orpheus_, the machinery and decorations of which are said to
have cost more than 400,000 livres. The Queen delighted in these
spectacles. France also, as though inspired by its increasing grandeur,
took pleasure in the magnificence of its government, and seconded it by
redoubling its own luxury and magnificence. The pleasures of wit
occupied the first rank. The Hotel de Rambouillet, near its decline, was
shedding its last rays. Madame de Longueville reigned there as well as
in all the best circles of Paris; and it must be confessed, with her
good qualities she had also some of the defects of the best
_precieuses_. The following is the picture which Madame de Motteville
has traced of her person, of the turn of her mind, of her occupation, of
her reputation, and of that of the whole house of Conde, at this period,
which may be considered as the most felicitous of her life: "This
princess, who during her absence reigned in her family, and whose
approbation was sought as though she were a real sovereign, did not
fail, on her return to Paris, to appear in greater splendour than when
she left it. The friendship entertained for her by the Prince, her
brother, authorizing her actions and her manners, the greatness of her
beauty and of her mind increased so much the cabal of her family, that
she was not long at Court without almost entirely engrossing it. She
became the object of all desires: her clique was the centre of all
intrigues, and those whom she loved became also the favourites of
fortune.... Her intelligence, her wit, and the high opinion entertained
for her discernment, won for her the admiration of all good people, who
were persuaded that her esteem alone was enough to give them reputation.
If, in this way, she governed people's minds, she was not less
successful by means of her beauty; for although she had suffered from
the small-pox since the Regency, and although she had lost somewhat of
the perfection of her complexion, the splendour of her charms excited a
powerful influence upon those who saw her; and she possessed especially,
in the highest degree, what in the Spanish language is expressed by
those words, _donayre, brio, y bizarrie_ (gallant air). She had an
admirable form, and her person possessed a charm whose power extended
over our own sex. It was impossible to see her without loving her, and
without desiring to please her." Some shadows, however, slightly tone
down this otherwise brilliant portraiture. "She was then too much
engrossed with her own sentiments, which passed for infallible rules
while they were not always so, and there was too much affectation in her
manner of speaking and acting, whose greatest beauty was attributable to
delicacy of thought and correctness of reasoning. She appeared
constrained, and the keen raillery exercised by herself and her
courtiers often fell upon those who, while rendering her their homage,
felt, to their mortification, that honest sincerity, which ought to be
observed in polite society, was apparently banished from hers. The
virtues and qualities of the most excellent creatures are mingled with
things opposed to them: all men partake of this clay from which they
derive their origin, and God alone is perfect.... In short it may be
said that at this time all greatness, all glory, and all gallantry were
concentrated in the family of Bourbon, of which the Prince de Conde was
the illustrious head, and that fortune was not considered a desirable
thing if it did not emanate from their hands."
But, unhappily, frivolous pastimes, of a nature both innocent and
dangerous, now wholly engrossed Madame de Longueville. She was
surrounded by all the prosperities and all the felicities of this life.
Everything conspired in her favour, or rather against her--the triumphs
of mind as well as those of beauty, the continually increasing glory of
her paternal house, the intoxication of her vanity, the secret
promptings of her heart. The trial was too much for her, and she
succumbed to it. In the enchanted circle in which she moved, more than
one adorer attracted her attention; and one of them succeeded in winning
her affections, according to all appearances, at the close of 1647, or
at the commencement of 1648. She was then about twenty-nine.
Francois, Prince de Marsillac, without being very handsome, was well
formed and very agreeable. As De Retz says, he was not a warrior,
although he was a very good soldier. What distinguished him especially
was his wit. Of this he possessed an infinite fund, of the finest and
most delicate. His conversation was gentle, easy, insinuating; and his
manners were at once the most natural and most polished. He had a lofty
air. In him vanity supplied the place of ambition. 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_. One of his first connections, as we have seen, was
with Madame de Chevreuse, who secured him to Queen Anne. When the death
of Louis XIII. had placed the supreme authority in her hands, he
imagined that his fortune was made. He sought successively various
important offices which the Queen could not grant, whatever liking she
might have entertained for him. Having tried several schemes and failed
in all, the Queen applied herself to soothing his disappointments, by
behaviour so tender as to retain him, as would now be said, in a
moderate opposition, and keep him from taking part in the violence of
Beaufort. He was not then covered with the disgrace of the _Importants_,
though he shared it to a certain extent; and he did not cease to be, or
seem to be, very much attached, not to the government, but to the person
of the Queen. He looked continually for some great favour at her hands.
These favours not arriving, he determined to procure through
intimidation what his self-seeking fidelity had not been able to secure
for him.
It was during this state of his feelings that he met Madame de
Longueville, on her return from Munster, surrounded by the most earnest
admirers. The Count de Miossens, afterwards Marshal d'Albret--handsome,
brave, full of wit and talent, as enterprising in love as in war--was
paying her a very zealous court. La Rochefoucauld persuaded Miossens,
who was one of his friends, that, after all, if he should overcome the
resistance of Madame de Longueville, it would only be a victory
flattering to his vanity, whilst that he, La Rochefoucauld, would be
able to turn it to a very good account. This was certainly a very
convincing and heroic reason for falling in love! We, however, do no
more than transfer, with the utmost exactness, a statement made by
Rochefoucauld himself, which we will now quote word for word: "So much
unprofitable labour and so much weariness, finally gave me other
thoughts, and led me to attempt dangerous ways in order to testify my
hostility to the Queen and Cardinal Mazarin. The beauty of Madame de
Longueville, her wit, and the charms of her person, attached to her all
who could hope for her favour. Many men and women of quality strove to
please her; and besides all this, Madame de Longueville was then upon
such good terms with all her house, and so tenderly beloved by the Duke
d'Enghien, her brother, that the esteem and friendship of this prince
might be counted upon by any one who enjoyed the favour of his sister.
Many persons vainly attempted this game, mingling other sentiments with
those of ambition. Miossens, who afterwards became Marshal of France,
persisted in it longest, but with similar success. I was one of his
intimate friends, and he told me his designs. They soon fell to the
ground of themselves. He saw this, and told me several times that he was
about to renounce them; but vanity, which was the strongest of his
passions, prevented him from telling me the truth, and he professed to
entertain hopes which he had not, and which I knew that he could not
have. Some time passed in this way; and, finally, I had reason to
believe that I could make a more considerable use than Miossens of the
friendship and confidence of Madame de Longueville. I made him believe
it himself. He knew my position at Court; I told him my views, declaring
that my consideration for him would always restrain me, and that I would
not attempt to form a connection with Madame de Longueville without his
permission. I will even confess that I irritated him against her in
order to obtain it, without, however, saying anything untrue. He
delivered her over entirely to me, but he repented when he saw the
result of that connection."[2]
[2] Petitot Collection, vol. li. p. 393.
When, subdued at length by the passion shown for her by La
Rochefoucauld, Madame de Longueville had determined to respond to it,
she gave herself up to him wholly--devoting herself in everything to the
man whom she dared to love. She made it a point of honour, as doubtless
it was a secret happiness, to share his destiny and to follow him
without casting one backward glance--sacrificing to him all her private
interests, the evident interest of her family, and the strongest
sentiment of her soul, her tenderness for her brother Conde.
The truthful Madame de Motteville, after noting the principal motive
which urged La Rochefoucauld in his pursuit of Madame de Longueville,
adds: "In all that she has since done, it is clearly seen that ambition
was not the only thing that occupied her soul, and that the interests of
the Prince de Marsillac there held a prominent place. For him she became
ambitious, for him she ceased to love repose; and in order to show
herself alive to this affection, she became too insensible to her own
fame.... The declarations of the Prince de Marsillac, as I have already
said, had not been displeasing to her; and this nobleman, who was
perhaps more selfish than tender, wishing through her to promote his own
interests, believed that he should inspire her with a desire of ruling
the princes her brothers."[3]
[3] Mad. de Motteville, vol. ii. p. 17.
Such being the sordid motives of her wooer, the oft-repeated lines,
therefore, which he wrote with his own hand behind a portrait of the
Duchess must be construed with a considerable abatement of their poetic
ardour:--
"Pour meriter son coeur, pour plaire a ses beaux yeux,
J'ai fait la guerre aux rois, Je l'aurais faite aux dieux."[4]
[4] At a later period, after he had lost his sight from a
pistol-shot received at the combat of the Porte St. Antoine during
the Fronde, and had quarrelled with the Duchess, he parodied his own
distich,--
"Pour ce coeur inconstant, qu'enfin Je connais mieux,
J'ai fait la guerre au roi; J'en ai perdu les yeux."
Such a dissembler then was the coldly ambitious, egotistical, clever
Duke de la Rochefoucauld--a man capable of sacrificing everybody to his
own interests. Madame de Longueville, such as we have depicted her,
could not help being the instrument of a man of like character. M.
Cousin seems to have arrived at that conclusion, since, in designating
that princess as _the soul of the Fronde_, he acknowledges "that she
troubled the state and her own family by an extravagant passion for one
of the chiefs of the _Importants_, become one of the chiefs of the
Fronde." But M. Cousin is very nearly silent touching the Prince de
Conti, of whom the Duchess was the sole motive-power on all occasions,
and he merely says that this young prince submitted to be led by his
sister in order to stand upon an equal footing with his elder brother
whilst waiting for a cardinal's hat.
Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, born in 1629, was eighteen years of
age in 1647. He had good intellect and a not unpleasant countenance; but
a slight deformity and a certain feebleness of constitution rendering
him unfit for the army, he was early destined for the church. He had
studied among the Jesuits at the college of Clermont with Moliere, and
his father had obtained for him the richest benefices, and demanded a
cardinal's hat. While waiting for this hat dignity, Armand de Bourbon
was living at the Hotel de Conde, partly an ecclesiastic, partly a man
of the world, passing his days with wits and men of fashion, and greedy
of every species of success. The glory of his brother filled him with
emulation, and he dreamed himself of warlike exploits. When his sister
returned from Germany, he went to meet her, and, dazzled by her beauty,
her grace, and her fame, he began to love her rather as a gallant than
as a brother. He followed her blindly in all her adventures, in which
he exhibited as much courage as volatility. When he had made his peace
with the Court--thanks to his marriage with a niece of Mazarin, the
beautiful and virtuous Anne-Marie Martinozzi--he obtained the
command-in-chiefship of the army of Catalonia, in which capacity he
acquitted himself with great honour. He was much less successful in
Italy. On the whole, he was far from injuring his name, and he gave to
France, in the person of his young son, a true warrior, one of the best
pupils of Conde, one of the last eminent generals of the seventeenth
century. Constrained, through ill-health, to betake himself again to
religion, the Prince de Conti finished, where he had begun, with
theology. He composed several meritorious and learned works on various
religious subjects.
In 1647, he was entirely devoted to vanity and pleasure. He adored his
sister, and she exercised over him a somewhat ridiculous empire, which
continued during several years.