1644 to 1649.
Campaigns of Condé in Flanders and on the Rhine—Congress
and peace of Munster—Madame de Longueville at Munster—Her
portrait by Van Hull—Her return to France—Her brother, the
Prince de Conti—Sonnets of Voiture and of Benserade—La
Rochefoucauld—Commencement of his connection with Madame de
Longueville—The first Fronde—Noble conduct of Condé—Madame de
Longueville at the hôtel de Ville—Birth of Charles de Paris,
Count de Saint-Paul—Peace of 1649.
We have passed over the most truly beautiful period of the youth of
Madame de Longueville, that wherein the splendor of her success was
not 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 combated wants
of her heart. The love which she inspired in others, she is, in turn,
about to feel herself, and to engage her, at the age of twenty-eight or
twenty-nine years, in a fatal connection, which will make her forget
all her duties, and turn her most brilliant qualities against herself,
against her family, and against France.
In order to measure the fault of Madame de Longueville, it is necessary
to know to what grandeur the house of Condé had reached by its faithful
service of king and country.
In the history of France, there are no more glorious years than the
first six of the Regency of Anne of Austria and of the government
of Mazarin,—tranquil at home after the defeat of the party of the
Importants, triumphant upon every battle-field, from 1643 to 1649,
from the victory of Rocroy to that of Lens, connected by so many other
victories, and crowned by the treaty of Westphalia. It is the house
of Condé which occupies nearly the whole of this memorable epoch, or
therein, at least, plays the most conspicuous part. In the council, M.
the Prince seconds Mazarin, as he had done Richelieu, and shares with
him the government. The intrepid Brézé, opening the list of the great
admirals of the seventeenth century, holds in check or disperses, in
the Mediterranean, the fleets of Spain. M. de Longueville, charged with
the greatest embassy of the times, places in the diplomatic balance the
weight of his name, of his moderation, and of his magnificence. As to
the young Condé,—who has not read, at least in Bossuet, his campaigns in
Flanders and upon the Rhine? We have shown how valuable to France was the
victory of Rocroy, in 1643; those which followed were not less necessary.
We have for some time been permitted to speak of Condé as of a young
hero, who owed all his success to the ascendency of an irresistible
courage. Let us beware of making him a paladin of the middle age, or
a brilliant grenadier like such or such a marshal of the empire, or a
captain of the family of Alexander, of Cæsar, and of Napoleon. Like
them, Condé had doubtless a genius for war, and, as well as Alexander,
he excelled especially in execution, and fearlessly exposed his person;
but it seems that the splendor of his bravery had concealed the grandeur
and originality of his conceptions, as his extreme youth, at Rocroy, had
caused a forgetfulness of the fact that for many years he had studied
war with passion, and had already made three campaigns under the most
renowned masters. If this were the proper place, and if I dared to
encounter ridicule by setting myself up as a military man, I would like
to compare the campaigns of Condé, in Flanders and upon the Rhine, with
those of General Bonaparte in Italy. They have many things in common:
the youth of the two generals,[272] that of their principal lieutenants,
the political grandeur of the results, the novelty of the manœuvres, the
same strategy, the same calculations served by the same audacity, by the
same activity, by the same obstinacy. It is degrading the art of war to
measure military success by the number of combatants, for we should thus
make Tamerlane and Gengis-Khan the two greatest captains of the world.
The general of the army of Italy, like Condé, had little more than twenty
or twenty-five thousand men drawn up in his greatest battles.[273] I
can say to the honor of Condé, that he always had before him the best
troops and the best generals of his times, among others, Mercy, the first
captain of Germany during the seventeenth century.[274] At one time he
had under his command only an army composed of different nations, whose
jealousies, and even defections, betrayed his greatest designs. At
another time he was at the head of fatigued and discouraged troops, whose
whole strength was in himself alone. And then—which is, in my eyes, the
most certain evidence of a great man—he founded an immense school: he
left to France many great generals formed by his lessons, prepared by
his hands, and who, at a great distance from him and after him, gained
victories. To him are we, in a great measure, indebted for Turenne, who,
by seeing his actions at Fribourg and at Nortlingen, added more and more
activity and audacity to his other qualities. We are indebted to him
for Luxembourg and Conti. We are also indebted to him for many others,
who might perhaps have equalled those already mentioned, but whose
bright hopes were too suddenly extinguished, Gèvres, Laval, La Moussaye,
Châtillon. To all this add that magnanimity of a high-born man, who,
instead of attributing the honor of success to himself alone, shared
it with all those who served him well, and took pleasure in praising
Gassion and Sirot after the victory of Rocroy, Turenne after Fribourg and
Nortlingen, and Châtillon after Lens.[275]
Condé conquered at Rocroy by the very simple manœuvre which we have
pointed out.[276] The problem was, to arrive in the shortest time and
with the greatest force upon the point which was to decide the day. It
was evident that, the left wing of the enemy being dispersed, but his
right wing victorious and threatening to crush all in its way, it was
necessary, at every hazard, to arrest and destroy it. To reach this
in the speediest manner possible, from the height of the battle-field
where Condé was, the most direct road was to make a passage through the
Spanish army, by forcing his last line, and falling afterwards like a
thunderbolt upon the rear of his triumphing wing. If the infantry, whose
overthrow was sought, had been that of the Count de Fontaine, it would
have remained firm, checked Condé, and achieved his destruction; but he
knew that this infantry was a mixture of Italians, Walloons, and Germans:
he hoped, therefore, to succeed by dint of energy. For this reason he
led the charge himself, and performed prodigies of valor with the most
severe calculation. Afterwards, when he was complimented on his courage,
he replied that he had never shown any except when it was necessary. It
is true that heroes alone have audacity at will. He conducted himself
almost in the same manner during the following year, 1644, in his great
combats with Mercy, near Fribourg. Finding it impossible to separate any
of the divisions of the imperial army, which were protected by formidable
intrenchments, he attacked them himself with that French fury to which
every thing yields;[277] at the same time he sent Turenne, during the
night, to a great distance, through frightful gorges, as did Bonaparte
in the marshes of Arcola,[278] to take in flank and rear the hostile
army, which would have been destroyed, if Mercy, warned in season and
confounded by such a manœuvre, had not hastily escaped. In the second
battle of Fribourg, Condé renewed this same manœuvre, sending Turenne to
a still greater distance than before, in order to cut off all retreat for
Mercy, whilst he attacked him in front, and to crush him in his camp or
force him to capitulate. The vigilant Mercy escaped a second time; but
his retreat, admirable as it was, resembled no less a defeat, for he lost
not only the honor of his arms and of the field of battle, but all of his
artillery and a part of his troops.
In 1645, Mercy and Condé met again. Mercy had just fought with Turenne
at Mariendal. This victory had inflated the courage of the Imperialists,
and the emperor and the King of Bavaria were unwilling to make peace.
Condé, in again taking command of a defeated army, found it, as in the
preceding year, composed of 5000 Weimarians, survivors of the battle of
Mariendal, 4000 Swedes, 6000 Hessians, and 8000 Frenchmen, which he had
with him. With these 23,000 he conceived the plan of the campaign which
was afterwards partly executed by Moreau and completed by Napoleon. He
resolved to risk a great battle with Mercy, and after having routed him,
to march upon Munich and Vienna, and to dictate peace to the emperor
in his capital. This plan failed because Condé was at the head of a
combined army; because the Swedes and the Hessians refused to follow
the French general to such a distance, and because the Swedes even
withdrew. Condé could not expect any aid from France, which was exhausted
in order to send five armies into Spain, into Italy, into Lorraine,
into Flanders, and upon the Rhine. He abandoned therefore his greatest
military conception with sorrow and rage, as did Hannibal when he was
compelled to quit Italy: it was his wish to exterminate the army of
Mercy. The latter, who knew the man with whom he had to deal, had taken a
position quite as strong as that of Fribourg—a position which protected
him against the favorite manœuvres of Condé—to cut off the enemy or
surprise him at a distance in flank or rear. Turenne declared that to
attack an enemy thus intrenched was ruinous; and Napoleon, whom no one
will accuse of timidity, was of the same opinion.[279] Condé replied
as a politician rather than as a military man, that it was in vain to
undertake by any manœuvre to drive Mercy from a position wisely chosen;
that it was necessary, therefore, either to attack him or to retreat,
and that to retreat would shake the confidence of all our allies, after
the defeat of Mariendal and the defection of the Swedes. France was
in need of a victory. Condé gained that of Nortlingen, but he gained
it, thanks to two accidents upon which he had no right to count—thanks
also to the inspiration of a great character. It must be confessed that
in execution Condé was never greater. He saw at once that every thing
depended upon Mercy’s centre. He made it his own business to attack it.
He had one horse slain under him, two wounded, and twenty cuts upon his
arms and clothes. Marsin, who under him commanded the French centre,
was dangerously wounded, and the intrepid La Moussaye was disabled. The
French and the Imperialists, by turns conquerors and conquered, performed
prodigies of valor. It was a frightful butchery. Mercy perished in it.
In the mean time, Jean de Wert, who commanded the left wing, descended
from the height which he occupied, crushed the right wing of the French,
and dispersed our reserve, notwithstanding the efforts of his two chiefs,
Chabot and Arnauld.[280] It would have been fatal to the whole army,
if, instead of amusing himself with pursuing the flying and pillaging
the baggage, Jean de Wert had thrown himself upon the rear of our
half-destroyed centre, and pressed our left wing between his victorious
squadrons and the still entire division of General Gleen. This error, and
the death of Mercy, saved Condé, because he knew how to profit by them
with incomparable promptitude. He saw that, after having lost his right
wing, his reserve, and a great part of his centre, to try to retreat
with his left wing was an operation apparently prudent, but really rash,
before an enemy which had still great masses of infantry, much artillery,
and a redoubtable cavalry; he saw that it was better to maintain the
combat, and that by exposing himself to peril, he might possibly conquer.
This rapid glance of a strong mind, which seizes and embraces the only
means of safety, however perilous it may be, is the characteristic of
the genius of Condé. All wounded as he was, harassed with fatigue, but
drawing new vigor from the grandeur of his resolution, he places himself
at the head of the left wing of Turenne, dashes, as if in the very
beginning of the battle, upon the right wing of the enemy, plunges into
its midst, and makes prisoner of its commander; then, turning to the
right, he throws himself upon the centre of the Imperialists, rescues
his own, rallies it, leads it anew to the combat, and, master of the
battle-field, prepares himself to meet Jean de Wert, who, returning from
his useless pursuit, learning the death of Mercy[281] and the capture
of Gleen, amazed at the disaster produced by his absence, dares neither
to attack nor to await Condé, but gathers together his shattered army,
and flies to Donauwerth. Condé had, in this second combat, another
horse killed under him; he also received a pistol-shot, and indeed
barely survived his victory. It was at this time that he suffered from
that severe sickness, on recovery from which he found that he had lost
with his blood and his strength all his passion for Mademoiselle Du
Vigean.[282]
Condé is one of the small number of captains who have no less excelled
in the art of besieging than in that of combating.[283] After Rocroy,
in 1643, he took Thionville, one of the first fortified places of the
times. In 1644, he took Philipsbourg, which commanded the upper Rhine. In
1646, having had the wisdom to consent to serve under the Duke d’Orleans,
in order to quiet the distrust and please the vanity of this prince;
and although placed in command of the army only at the close of the
campaign, he terminated it by a memorable siege, in which he covered
himself with glory: he took Dunkirk on the 11th of October,[284] 1646.
Accustomed to repair the errors of others, Condé went, in 1647, to
take the place of Count d’Harcourt, who had just made a failure before
Lerida. Mazarin had wished, several times, to send Condé to Catalonia;
his father, M. the Prince, had always opposed it, and all his friends
dissuaded him from accepting this command. He certainly showed great
deference for Mazarin, by quitting the ordinary theatre of his exploits
for a country where it was necessary to engage in a petty war, with
an army incapable of giving battle, and, at most, fit only to sustain
itself before the enemy. When every one was making sport of the Count
d’Harcourt, who had been unable to take Lerida, Condé had the good sense
and generosity to defend this excellent general: he thus in advance
defended himself. In fact, having arrived in his turn before Lerida, and
receiving from France neither the troops which had been promised to him,
nor the munitions and artillery, of which he was in absolute need, and
not having sufficient force to meet the Spanish army, and not being able
to think of assaulting Lerida with a handful of half-dead soldiers, he
had the courage to raise the siege and to make a good retreat, preferring
the safety of the army to his own reputation. This conduct, sustained
by his accustomed hauteur, did him the greatest honor, and proved that
he was master of himself and knew how to employ by turns prudence or
audacity according as circumstances demanded.
Thus, at Lens in 1648, finding the Archduke Léopold in a position as
formidable as that of Mercy at Nortlingen, he saw that it would be highly
imprudent to tempt fortune a second time; and, knowing that he had not
now to deal with Mercy, he undertook to draw the Archduke Léopold and
General Beck upon more favorable ground, in a plain where the principal
force of the French army, the gendarmery, commanded by Châtillon, might
have a great advantage. Numbers, abundance, and discipline were on the
side of the Spaniards; misery and audacity on that of the French. Behind
the centre of the archduke were towns and hamlets, forming natural
intrenchments. His right, composed of all that remained of the old
national bands, rested upon the city of Lens. His left wing was posted
upon an eminence, which could not be reached except through the most
narrow paths. It was necessary to manœuvre with infinite art to induce an
enemy to abandon such an impregnable position. Condé commanded a false
retreat, which explained perfectly the weakness of the French army. Beck,
deceived, detached the Lorraine cavalry to disturb, and, if possible, to
cut in pieces our rear guard, which was promptly enough broken and thrown
into confusion. Châtillon marched to their aid with his gendarmery;
he drove back the Lorraine troops, and threatened them with slaughter.
They could not be abandoned. The archduke sent all his cavalry to their
assistance. The combat began; the whole of the hostile army moved and
descended into the plain. This was precisely what Condé desired. The
very same manœuvre that had failed at Nortlingen, succeeded at Lens. The
imperial army had still the immense disadvantage of being obliged to form
as it advanced, while the French army had been since morning arranged in
good order at the extremity of the plain, upon well-chosen ground. Condé
relied especially upon the gendarmery of Châtillon; he had recalled it
soon after the first engagement, and had placed it in the second line to
give it time to refresh; afterwards, when the two contending bodies had
become closely engaged, he let it loose again with its intrepid general,
and, after being so useful at the beginning of the fight, it finally
decided it by over-throwing every thing in its way. The Spanish infantry
remained; it did not show the same obstinacy as at Rocroy, but it cried
for life. Old General Beck conducted himself like Fontaine and Mercy:
he fought like a lion, was wounded and taken, and he died of despair.
The Archduke Léopold, after conducting himself well, escaped into the
Pays-Bas with the Count de Fuensaldaigne.
The victory of Lens was as important and as useful as that of Rocroy:
to it is due the recommencement of the negotiations of Munster and the
conclusion of the treaty of Westphalia. This treaty was the result of the
five great campaigns of Condé in Flanders and on the Rhine. Condé was
there an armed negotiator, as we might say; M. de Longueville was, at
Munster, a pacific negotiator.
Father Bougeant, in his estimable history of the treaty of
Westphalia,[285] supposes that Mazarin sent the Duke de Longueville to
Munster, “in order to remove from the court a prince capable of exciting
troubles in it.” But, in 1645, Mazarin had no more troubles to fear, and
the Duke de Longueville was not a man to create them: he suffered himself
to be guided at that time, as well as the rest of his family, by the
policy of its chief, M. the Prince. It is much easier to believe that it
was the latter who gave the embassy of Munster to his son-in-law. Mazarin
had not chosen him for his capacity, although he was not deficient in it,
but to aid d’Avaux and Servien, who stood in need of him, and to give
éclat to the French legation. He remained master of the negotiations,
and the Condés must have been flattered to be at the head of the most
important diplomatic affair, having already command of the fleet in the
Mediterranean, and of the army upon the Rhine.
M. de Longueville had to pursue the great object at which the French
cabinet had aimed from the time of Henry IV.,—the enfeebling of the
empire to the advantage of France. With this view it was that the
very Christian king, the Cardinal Richelieu, and the Cardinal Mazarin
united with the Protestant Gustavus Adolphus, drew him into the heart
of Germany, him and after him his lieutenants, and sustained Protestant
Holland against Catholic Spain. This struggle, which, for thirty years,
was carried on with so much éclat, continued for more than twelve years
at Osnabrück and at Munster. On the one side were Austria, Spain, and
Bavaria, with the ecclesiastical electors of Mayence and of Cologne;
on the other, the Protestant powers, Brandenburg, Saxony, Hesse, with
their allies, Holland, Sweden, and France. The Protestant party wished
to obtain the greatest concessions, and the Catholic party to make the
fewest possible. They advanced and receded according to the vicissitudes
of war. Richelieu had designated the man, who had all his confidence,
Mazarin and the Count d’Avaux, of the powerful family of Messne, to
represent France at Munster. When Mazarin succeeded Richelieu in the
ministry, he named in his own place Count Abel Servien, uncle of the
skilful and judicious Lyonne, who was to him what he had himself been to
Richelieu. He retained d’Avaux, who had wit and penetration, uprightness
and nobleness, with a degree of piety which made him acceptable to the
Catholic powers, but which carried him a little too far to make him
accommodating with them, and at the same time more anxious for the
advantage of the Church than policy demanded. Servien alone was the
depository of the thoughts of Mazarin, and Mazarin, like his predecessor,
knew but one interest, that of the greatness of France. He was desirous
of obtaining from the empire the whole of Alsace, with some strongholds
upon the Rhine, in order to complete the legitimate development of
France in that quarter. He had still another ambition, which Richelieu
had bequeathed to him, and which he bequeathed to Lyonne: it was that
of tearing from Spain the trade of Catalonia, where Richelieu and
himself had cunningly carried the war against the Low Countries, without
which France has really no northern frontier, and is exposed, after
an unfortunate battle, to the passage of a hostile army even to the
very walls of Paris. Such were the thoughts which occupied the mind of
Mazarin, and which he pursued at once, by means of negotiations and by
arms, with the mildness and constancy which characterized this great
statesman.
M. de Longueville arrived at Munster on the 30th of June, 1645, at nearly
the same time that his brother-in-law, the Duke d’Enghien, was going
to take command of the army of the Rhine, in the place of Turenne, who
had just suffered a very grave defeat at Mariendal. The victory of
Nortlingen, of the 5th of August, 1645, gave the greatest strength to M.
de Longueville; and the Duke of Bavaria, the second Catholic power of
Germany, who had broken off negotiations after the battle of Mariendal,
recommenced them eagerly after that of Nortlingen. The cession of Alsace
was then almost gained; but victorious Mazarin could with difficulty
renounce the hope which he had long entertained of acquiring the Low
Countries from Spain in exchange for Catalonia. Therein resided all the
difficulty of the negotiations, the knot which no skill could loosen, and
which the sword alone could cut. It was reserved for Louis XIV., at the
close of the seventeenth century, after having lost the three statesmen
who, for a long time, formed his strength and his glory, Mazarin,
Lyonne, and Colbert; it was reserved for him to abandon the schemes
of his predecessors, and, when it was proposed that he should receive
the Low Countries in return for his rights over Spain, to reject this
favor of fortune, which Mazarin and Richelieu would have embraced with
transports of joy; this he did for the sake of family interest, staking
his own crown for the sake of placing one upon the head of his grandson,
and jeopardizing the safety of France without giving to it, even for a
quarter of a century, the alliance of Spain. We may remark in passing,
that this incredible resolution, poorly covered with an appearance of
grandeur, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, are the two great
personal inspirations of Louis XIV.: they determine his policy, internal
and external, compared with that of Mazarin, of Richelieu, and of Henri
IV. It is impossible to recount all the efforts made by Mazarin, in
1648, to induce Spain to yield to him the Low Countries. He offered,
with all Catalonia, the young Louis XIV. for the infanta Maria-Thérissa.
At the same time he sent d’Estrades, with whom we have before become
acquainted,[286] into Holland, in order to promote the arrangement which
he so ardently desired: he went even so far as to propose Antwerp to the
commerce of Holland. It was a powerful temptation; but Holland resisted
it; she was weary of a war which must thus be prolonged; and besides,
she was beginning to be less afraid of Spain, and was hoping a great
advantage by acquiring a conquering neighbor instead of a feeble one.
Spain, on her side, saw our horizon darkened with new troubles, and, full
of hope, she broke off negotiations, made a separate treaty with Holland,
and persuaded the emperor to unite with her in a last and powerful
effort. One man alone was able to save France, menaced as it was in
1643. This man was the conqueror of Rocroy. It was then that Condé, who
was well acquainted with the position of affairs, engaged, upon the
plains of Lens, on the 20th of August, 1648, in the memorable battle
which we have described, in which he was as prudent as ever Turenne had
been, and as bold as his own genius and circumstances permitted. From
this moment negotiations were conducted with promptness. On the 24th of
October, 1648, was signed, at Munster, the Treaty of Westphalia, which
gave peace to Germany for a century, which there strengthened religious
liberty, and which acknowledged all the conquests of France over the
empire.[287]
Thanks to this treaty, Mazarin had now Spain alone in view, and he hoped
soon to bring it to that point which could give to France a frontier on
the north similar to that which it had just acquired on the south of
Germany. He dreamed of obtaining, at the close of a few more fortunate
campaigns, a treaty still more favorable than that of the Pyrenees, in
1660. He had in his hands the conqueror of Lens, whom he hoped to launch
upon the Low Countries; it was in his power to send into Spain and into
Italy, generals still superior to d’Harcourt and to Schomberg; he hoped
to maintain or re-enkindle the insurrection of Naples: a magnificent
future was before France. Who deprived her of this future? Who divided
and exhausted her strength? Who made her, with a suicidal hand, shed
her own best blood? Who sowed discord among the most illustrious of her
captains? Who arrested Condé in his course, at the age of twenty-seven
years, when he might yet have added so many victories to all those of his
youth, when he might have planted the standard of France in Brussels or
in Madrid?
The Fronde it was that committed the inexpiable crime of having stopped
the rise of Condé and of French grandeur. And, in return, did it
increase and develop our old national franchises? Far from that: by
an inevitable reaction, it disgusted France, for a long time, with an
anarchical liberty, incompatible with public order, with the force of the
government and of the nation; it took away from royalty every species of
counterpoise; it produced the despotism, at first intelligent and useful,
afterwards improvident and grievous, of Louis XIV.
And now, what gave birth to the Fronde, or what sustained it? What
raised up the old party of the _Importants_, stifled, it would seem,
under the laurels of Rocroy? What separated the princes of the blood
from the crown? What turned against the throne that illustrious house of
Condé, which, until then, had been its buckler and its sword? There were
doubtless many general causes for all this; but it is impossible for us
to conceal one, private, it is true, but which exercised a powerful and
deplorable influence—the unexpected love of Madame de Longueville for one
of the chiefs of the _Importants_, who had become one of the chiefs of
the Fronde. Yes—I say it with regret—it was Madame de Longueville, who,
joining the party of the malcontents, attracted thereto, at first, a part
of her family, then her whole family, and thus precipitated it from the
pinnacle of honor and glory to which so many services had elevated it.
Let us narrate, as rapidly as possible, what we know of Madame de
Longueville, from the moment that we left her until the commencement of
the year 1648.
No authentic documents, printed or in manuscript, authorize us to suppose
that before the close of the year 1647, Madame de Longueville had ever
passed the limits of fashionable gallantry. On the 4th of February, 1644,
soon after the adventure of the letters, and of the tragic quarrel which
followed it, she gave birth to a daughter, who received the name of her
mother and of her brother, Charlotte Louise, Mademoiselle de Dunois,
and who died on the 30th of April,[288] 1645. A year after, the 12th of
January, 1646, she had a son, Charles d’Orleans, Count de Dunois, who was
expected to succeed to the titles of his father, but who, ill-favored by
nature, attempted, without success, various careers, and finally buried
himself in the Church, at the close of the century, under the name of
the Abbé d’Orleans. In 1647, she gave birth to a second daughter, Marie
Gabrielle, who died in 1650. We shall presently speak of the last son,
who was born during the Fronde.
Madame de Longueville was twenty-five years of age at the time of the
duel between Coligny and Guise, in 1644. Each year only added to her
charms. The glory of her brother fell 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 wit formed all her
occupation. Her delicate situation not permitting her to accompany M.
de Longueville to Munster, in June, 1645, she remained in Paris; she
enjoyed it very much, and, whether her heart had already been touched,
or whether it was still entirely free, it is clear that she was not
very glad, after her confinement, in 1646, to join, under the sky of
Westphalia, a husband who was not, as Retz says, the most agreeable man
to her in the world.[289] Imagine, in fact, this spoiled child of the
hôtel de Rambouillet leaving Corneille and Voiture, all the elegances
and refinements of life, to go to Munster, to listen to the German or
Latin conversations of foreign diplomatists. It was to her a double
exile, for her country was not only France, it was Paris, it was the
court, it was the hôtel de Condé, Chantilly, the Place-Royale, the Rue
Saint-Thomas du Louvre. It was, however, necessary to obey, and to set
off with her step-daughter, Mademoiselle de Longueville, who was already
more than twenty years of age. In order to have something of Paris, she
took with her several men of letters, and among others, Claude Joly,
uncle of Guy Joly, author of the _Mémoires_, canon of Nôtre-Dame, who
remained all his life attached to the Condés, and who made himself
known by different works full of learning and of merit;[290] also the
academician and oratorian Esprit, one of the frequenters of the hôtel
de Rambouillet,[291] who had just been embroiled with the Chancellor
Séguier, for having favored the marriage of his daughter, the Marchioness
de Coislin, with the son of Madame de Sablé, the handsome and brave
Marquis de Laval, who was killed some time after, by the side of Condé,
at the siege of Dunkirk. A little before her departure for Munster,
Esprit had introduced to Madame de Longueville one of the old favorite
poets of Richelieu, Bois-Robert, who had continued to be dazzled with
the new éclat of her whom he had formerly admired amid the fêtes of
Ruel. It was in the following terms that Bois-Robert relates to Esprit
his visit, and describes to him Madame de Longueville. The verses are
mediocre, but we must be satisfied, for they hold the place of an
infinite number of other verses, which we might with propriety quote,
in regard to the same person and the same epoch, and which are still
worse:[292]
Almost conceal’d beneath the crystal wave,
She raised her naked arms her brow to lave.
My eyes the living marble haply spied;
To test its warmth my glowing bosom sigh’d.
The sprightly zephyrs in a merry mood
Her tresses bore along the silvery flood;
They kiss’d her neck, they kiss’d her cheeks, whose hues
Gay Nature when she paints but seldom woos—
A neck and cheeks that verily might claim
To put the fairest flowers of Spring to shame.
With fingers, rosy as Aurora plies,
The moisture dashing from her fretted eyes,
She now reveal’d, as ne’er reveal’d before,
Those two resplendent suns which to adore
I dropp’d my eyes, because my feeble sight
Could not endure such dazzling floods of light;
And in one living form I saw combined
All ever seen of beauty most refined:
But how her coral lips shall I extol?
Oh how express the rapture of my soul,
When to the charms which bade me most rejoice,
She added too the music of her voice? etc.
Madame de Longueville left Paris on the 20th of June, 1646, accompanied
by her step-daughter, and with a numerous escort under the command of
Montigny, lieutenant of the guards of M. de Longueville. The whole
journey from Paris to Munster was a continual ovation. Her course may
be followed day by day, and from city to city, thanks to the detailed
narrative of Claude Joly. Belgians, Hollanders, Spaniards, Imperialists,
and every one strove to show their gallantry to the beautiful
ambassadress. Governors went out to meet her at the heads of their
garrisons. The keys of the cities through which she passed were offered
to her. She had continual escorts of cavalry. The Duke de Longueville
went as far as Wesel to meet her. Turenne, who then commanded upon the
Rhine, exhibited to her his army drawn up in order of battle. Was it then
that the great captain, well known to be sensible to beauty, received
the impression which was renewed at Sténay in 1650, and which, prudently
preserved by Madame de Longueville, always formed between them a tender
and intimate connection?[293]
On the 22d of July she made a triumphal entry into Munster. Holland was
too near to her not to tempt her curiosity. She took a walk thither, if
we may thus speak.[294] During all the autumn of 1646 and the winter of
1647, she was truly the queen of the congress of Munster. Her graces
made their impression upon diplomatists as well as upon warriors. She
connected herself particularly, in the French embassy, with Claude de
Mesmes, Count d’Avaux, of whom we have already spoken, and who was the
friend and correspondent of Voiture, of Madame de Sablé, and of Madame
de Rambouillet. We have before us some manuscript letters of d’Avaux to
Voiture: they are very agreeable, but not very natural; and, amid Latin
quotations, then very fashionable among people who prided themselves upon
their erudition, they show us what an impression was made by Madame de
Longueville upon the dean of our diplomatic corps. She did not appear
very melancholy to d’Avaux; but the rival of Servien was perhaps better
fitted to discover cabinet intrigues than to read the heart of a woman.
“It is to[295] Madame de Montausier and to Madame the Marchioness de
Sablé that I am indebted for the favors which I have received from Madame
de Longueville.... You say that commerce is dangerous with a person so
well made, as if the great disproportion and the great distance between
those persons and such as myself did not shelter me. You know that the
eloquence of Balzac makes no impression upon the mind of a peasant. No,
no, I am not afraid. It would be strange enough if in a peaceful assembly
I had not sufficient public faith for my preservation, and if, with the
passports of the emperor and of the king of Spain, Munster should not
be a safe place for me.... I look however, I do not pluck out my eyes.
I see beauty greater than I have ever seen before; I see all of what is
graceful and charming that can be united, and a something which, it seems
to me, can nowhere else be found, with so much majesty:
Video igne micantes,
Sideribus similes oculos, video oscula, sed quæ
Est vidisse satis.
I admire with you that goodness, that generosity, and those amiable
qualities which we shall always vie in praising, but which we can
never praise enough. The correctness of that mind, its strength and
its extent, astonish me also, and sometimes displease me with myself;
for there is in it so much that is extraordinary and above the age and
the sex. Suppose that I was made of stuff as combustible as you,[296]
who still complain of the trials of youth, how small a spark would set
me in a blaze! A _précieuse_, who has travelled two hundred leagues
to join an old husband, who has quitted the court for Westphalia, who
is here in continual gayety, who was lately delighted to see a comedy
among the Jesuits (truly, however, in good Latin), who gives constrained
audiences, who converses pleasantly with M. Salvius, M. Vulteius, and M.
Lampadius,[297] who is not frightened if a big Hollander kisses her twice
during his regular daily visits, who receives agreeably the civility of
another ambassador counselling him to learn German for his recreation,
who with all this preserves her embonpoint and pleasant countenance....”
“... I must indeed revenge myself a little now. Some complaints are
made here of your taciturnity; but they are uttered by persons of no
very great consequence: by no one in fact but Madame de Longueville,
and she is hardly worth speaking of. She has paid you some very
great compliments; her friends have received orders to solicit your
remembrance; she has requested them several times to let her lose nothing
in the friendship which you promised her; in short, she has sent you word
that she was not proof against such continued indifference, and yet she
receives no satisfaction. This is perhaps, as you say, because commerce
is dangerous with her, and you yourself take the advice which you give
me; but the poor princess cannot be consoled.... Although you were a
perfect philosopher, and although you had lost sentiment and life, you
should at least speak when Madame de Longueville looks at you, even as
did the statue of Memnon when it was illumined by the rays of the sun.
If you continue, I doubt not that you will be set down as a mute. Give
your orders, if you please. All that I could do for you was to answer
your letter to M. the Duke d’Enghien.[298] Madame, his sister, read it
with great pleasure; and, M. Esprit entering the room a quarter of an
hour afterwards, she was very glad to have another pretext for seeing
it again, and left her seat to hear it read once more. This is not all:
she requested me to send it to her the next day, with the promise that
she would take but a single copy to place among her papers. I will not
tell you how much she thinks of it; but will content myself with simply
confessing, that it is one of the most delightful things in the world, to
see this mouth filled with your praises, and that your name is nowhere
more magnificently entertained....”
Voiture is not in arrears with his ingenious correspondent on the account
of Madame de Longueville:
“... I am very impatient to witness the return of Madame de Longueville
after the conclusion of a good peace. What you say to me of this princess
is as beautiful as she is herself, and I shall keep it for her to look
at some day.... Tell the truth, my lord: do you think it is possible
to find, I do not mean in a single person, but in every thing that is
beautiful and lovely throughout the world—do you think it is possible
to find so much wit, grace, and charm as there is in this princess? Be
on your guard. She writes to us wonderful things concerning you, and of
the friendship that exists between you. Commerce is dangerous with her.
I assure you besides, that she is as good as she is beautiful, and that
there is no soul in the world more lofty or better than hers....”
A little while after, January 9, 1647, he says:
“... Respect has hitherto prevented me from writing to Madame de
Longueville; but you make me much more afraid of her by representing her
to me as being so serious and so occupied with politics. We take great
pleasure in imagining her entertaining M. Lampadius (he is said to be
dressed ordinarily in violet satin), M. Vulteius, and M. Salvius, and
especially that big Hollander.
‘Dulcia barbarè
Lædentem oscula quæ Venus
Quinta parte sui nectaris imbuit.’
“His advice to her to study German for her amusement, has been a subject
of great mirth for Madame de Sablé and Madame de Montausier....”[299]
Among the monuments of the abode of Madame de Longueville at Munster,
we must place the portrait which was made of her by Anselme Van Hull,
and which was engraved with those of M. de Longueville, of d’Avaux,
and of Servien, in the collection of portraits of all the princes and
diplomatists assembled at Munster.[300] It is a bust. Even in the
engraving, mediocre as it is, we perceive the charming softness of the
eyes. A mass of blonde hair surrounds her face.[301] Her bosom, partly
exposed, appears in its modest beauty. A small collar of pearls adorns a
fresh and delicate neck. The following lines, written perhaps by d’Avaux
or Voiture, are placed beneath the portrait:
These heroes gather’d in Westphalia,
From France, the North, from Spain, Italia,
Finding so many charms in me,
Fancy, as my face they see,
That I the living form must be
Of Peace and Concord, hither sent,
War’s dire misfortunes to prevent.
In the mean time, all the circles of Paris mourned the absence of Madame
de Longueville. Godeau did not cease to urge her return in the name of
the hôtel de Rambouillet:
“Is it not better, madame,” wrote he to her, “that you should return
to the hôtel de Longueville, where you are still more powerful than at
Munster? Every one is wishing it this winter. My lord, your brother, has
returned covered with palms; come back yourself crowned with the myrtles
of peace, for it seems to me that it is not enough for you to carry olive
branches alone. I dare not explain myself farther, lest I should be
guilty of gallantry. This I leave to the Julies and to the Chapelains,
etc.”[302]
She had enjoyed sufficiently her brilliant exile, but, with her habitual
politeness and sweetness, she dissembled her weariness. In the winter of
1647, she had two reasons for returning to France. Her father, M. the
Prince, died at the close of December, 1646: this was an immense loss to
his family and to France, and its consequences were soon keenly felt. In
addition to this, Madame de Longueville had, for the third time, found
herself _enceinte_ at Munster. Her mother was, for this reason, anxious
to have her at home; and M. de Longueville was constrained to permit his
wife to take the road to Paris.
Her return to France—first to Chantilly, then to Paris—in the month of
May, 1647, was a very different triumph from that which characterized
her journey upon the Rhine, and into Holland, and her abode at Munster.
She found the crowd of her adorers more numerous and more eager than
ever; and in the first rank was her brother, the Prince de Conti, who,
fresh from college, was taking his first lessons in the world. Let us say
a word in regard to this new personage, who now appears for the first
time, and who will play a very conspicuous part in the life of Madame de
Longueville.
Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, who was born in 1629, was eighteen
years of age in 1647. He had a good mind, and not an unpleasant face;
but a slight deformity and a certain feebleness of body, 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 Molière,
and M. the Prince, before his death, had obtained for him the richest
benefices,[303] and demanded a cardinal’s hat. While waiting for this
hat, Armand de Bourbon was living at the hôtel de Condé, partly an
ecclesiastic, partly a man of the world, all occupied with wit, 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.[304] He followed her blindly in all her
adventures, in which he exhibited as much courage as lightness. 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-chief of the army of Catalonia, in which capacity he
acquitted himself with great honor. 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 Condé, 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.[305]
In 1647, he was entirely devoted to vanity and pleasures. He adored his
sister, and she exercised over him a somewhat ridiculous empire, which
continued during several years.
The court and Paris were then occupied with festivals and enjoyments,
which all were eager to share with Madame de Longueville. To please the
queen, Mazarin multiplied the balls and the operas. At a great expense
he sent to Italy for artists, singers, male and female, who represented
an 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 if touched with its own grandeur, took
pleasure in the magnificence of its government, and seconded it by
redoubling its own luxury and elegance. The pleasures of wit occupied
the first rank. The hôtel de Rambouillet, near its decline, was shedding
its last rays. Madame de Longueville reigned there as well as in all the
circles of Paris; and, it must be confessed, with her good qualities
she had also the defects of the best _précieuses_. The following is the
picture which Madame de Motteville has traced[306] of her person, of the
turn of her mind, of her occupations, of her credit, and of that of the
whole house of Condé, at this period, which may be considered as the
most brilliant of her life: “This princess, who, during her absence,
reigned in her family, and whose approbation was sought as if she were
a true sovereign, did not fail, on her return to Paris, to appear in
greater splendor 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
favorites 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 souls, she was not less
successful by means of her beauty; for, although she had suffered with
the small-pox since the Regency, and although she had lost somewhat of
the perfection of her complexion, the splendor of her charms exerted 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. Her beauty consisted, however, more in
the colors of her face than in the perfection of her features. Her eyes
were not large, but beautiful, soft and brilliant, and their blue was
admirable: it was like that of the turquoise. Poets could compare the
incarnation upon her face to lilies and roses only; and the light shining
hair which accompanied so many wonderful things, made her more like an
angel, such as our poor nature can imagine one, than like a woman.... 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 fine 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 praiseworthy qualities of the most excellent creatures are
mingled with things which are opposed to them: all men partake of this
clay from which they draw their origin, and God alone is perfect.... In
fine, it may be said that at this time all greatness, all glory, and all
gallantry were confined to this family of Bourbon, of which M. the Prince
was the chief, and that fortune was not considered a desirable thing, if
it did not come from their hands.”
It was about this time that the two sonnets of Voiture and of Benserade
divided the court and the city, the _salons_ and the academy. Almost all
the documents appertaining to this little literary contest have been
preserved;[307] but we have discovered some hitherto unknown, which we
cannot withhold from the reader, because they show the passion which then
existed for literary matters, the ascendency of Madame de Longueville,
and the peculiar delicacy of her taste.
Voiture had just died in 1648, and his friends had caught, as the last
sigh of his muse, the sonnet to Uranie. At the same time another sonnet
appeared, written by one of the rivals of Voiture, younger than himself,
and who had not been formed at the hôtel de Rambouillet: it was the
complaint of a lover who pretended to be more miserable than Job, because
Job could at least groan aloud on account of his misfortune, whilst the
poor lover was compelled to suffer in silence:
Job, whom a thousand torments grieve,
Shall to your eyes his torture prove;
And yet with reason shall believe
That they will not your pity move.
Regard his ills in every light,
Feel every word as he explains:
You grow accustomed to the sight
Of one who suffers and complains.
Although his anguish was extreme,
Yet human patience you will deem
To have e’en his by far outdone.
He suffer’d pangs past all belief,
Complain’d, and told them one by one,
But I have known far greater grief.[308]
All the fashionable lovers of the day, the languishing and the dying,
admired this description of their martyrdom, the height of sorrow being
to suffer without complaining; and it is certain that the close of the
sonnet of Benserade is neither without spirit nor without charm. It
created a furor. The sonnet of Voiture was of a very different character.
It possessed a finished elegance, somewhat feeble it is true, but
elevated and animated by a certain passionate accent, which is sweetly
felt throughout it. It was of a more distinguished and more rare quality,
and for this reason it had at first less success. Balzac[309] composed
upon these two pieces a formal dissertation, in which he weighs in the
balance of the most scrupulous criticism the merits and the defects of
both. Corneille, annoyed by a quarrel which turned attention a little
too much from his own works, began to make sport of the two sonnets;
afterwards, the affair acquiring more and more literary interest, he
engaged in it himself, and took sides with Job against Uranie, in a
sonnet in which he does not hesitate to say that Voiture’s is doubtless
_better conceived, better conducted, better finished, but that he would
prefer to be the author of the other_. He returns to the charge in an
epigram which terminates as follows:
The one displays more art, the other much more life;
The one is more precise, the other much more _naïf_;
The one shows labor long, the other much more sprite:
In short, the one is right well made, the other pretty, quite.
To use the fewest words I can—
The one springs from a soul polite,
The other from a gallant man.[310]
This was a very imposing judgment, and, to all appearance, there was
little hope for Voiture, when Madame de Longueville undertook his
defence. Her situation was somewhat embarrassing. Her brother, the
Prince de Conti, was at the head of the Jobelins, and Esprit, who had
accompanied her to Munster, and on whom she might have depended upon any
occasion, Esprit, who, without ceasing to be of the Church, was occupied
with the most gallant literature, as he will at a future day be occupied
with sentences and maxims, had written very warmly in favor of Benserade.
But Madame de Longueville was not the person to take the lucky side and
to abandon her old friend Voiture. Her authority soon changed the face of
the combat.
In the camp of the Jobelins was the Countess de Brégy, one of the
ladies of honor of Queen Anne, and wife of a famous ambassador, from
whom we have a collection[311] of prose and verse, and some _questions
d’amour_, to which Quinault replied by order of the young king. She was
much surprised to learn that Madame de Longueville preferred to the
universally applauded sonnet a piece of verse which had not produced a
very great effect. She hastened to write to her, asking permission to
maintain her own opinion against hers. The following is her letter, with
the diplomatic reply of the ambassadress of Munster.[312]
_Madame de Brégy to Madame de Longueville._
“Job, in ages past, was scarcely less humiliated than I now am
to find myself opposed to the opinion of Your Highness; for if
I had not enough sense to conform myself to it, my spirit of
divination ought to serve the other in this encounter, and not
permit him to endure the shame of seeing himself opposed to
sentiments which I have regarded as a rule by which one could
never fail. But, since I have taken up the cause of Job, more
unfortunate because he suffers at your hands than on account
of all his first evils, be pleased, Madame, to allow me an
opportunity on Thursday evening to defend an unhappy person,
against whom the devil has cunningly excited your persecution,
as the only means of divesting him of that patience which he
has exhibited for so many ages, and which cannot be preserved
when one is despised by you.”
_Madame de Longueville[313] to Madame de Brégy._
“Your letter has done more for the sonnet of Job than Benserade
himself; and it occasions me so much regret at not entertaining
sentiments conformed to those of the person who wrote it, that,
if it does not make me alter, it makes me at least condemn
my own, thus obtaining from me a preference for Job, which I
should have always refused so long as the sonnet had spoken for
itself. This, I think, is all that a generous person can do for
a party to which she does not belong; and I assure you that if
yours is not that of my choice, it is exalted in my esteem. I
shall be glad to see you on Thursday, and to hear you advocate
the cause of Job; but be admonished, at least, that I will hear
you argue against my past sentiments only, consenting no longer
to oppose your own, etc.”
The two ladies contended, as we see, in the most courteous manner; but
they contended warmly and for a long time. I conjecture that aside from
literature there was some secret motive in it all. Madame de Brégy was
beautiful and coquettish as well as intellectual. She could, without much
difficulty, believe that the piece of Benserade was addressed to her,
and that it was an indirect declaration of a somewhat plebeian love,
condemned to wear out secretly in suffering. Benserade had, at least,
composed for her an epistle, in which he pleads the fear of love as his
excuse for flying from her.[314] Madame de Longueville could not have
forgotten all the verses which Voiture had written in her praise while
yet quite young; and perhaps the latter, on again beholding, in 1647,
the noble beauty in all the splendor of her charms, quitting his former
familiarity for an affectionate respect, was desirous of ending as he had
begun, and dying, as was then said, in the service of her whom he called
Uranie, a celestial beauty upon whom he dares scarcely to lift his eyes.
In love with Uranie I’ll pine e’ermore;
Absence nor time to me affords a cure;
Naught can my pain the least relief procure,
Nor any thing my freedom e’er restore.
Her chains oppress me each day more and more;
But witnessing her beauty passing pure,
I willingly can any death endure,
And e’en her tyranny dare not deplore.
My reason, feebly though, sometimes essays
To urge me to revolt, its strength arrays;
But when to use it I am ever prone,
It strives in vain my shackles to remove
Then claims that worth is Uranie’s alone,
And, more than all my senses, prompts to love.
Madame de Longueville thought, moreover, that her preference was
supported by very good reason, and in this we are inclined to agree with
her. The work of Benserade possesses undoubtedly more wit, invention, and
even originality, since it is certainly something quite new to place in
the mouth of Job a declaration of love: that of Voiture, to us, possesses
a secret and melancholy gracefulness which touches the heart. With
Corneille, we find the sonnet of Job _prettier_, though _unnatural_—a
strange eulogium, and one hardly to be expected here from either party
pronouncing it; but the sonnet of Uranie seems to us to proceed more
from one in love, and this it is which decides us. Perhaps if Madame
de Longueville had conversed with Corneille, she would have converted
him in the name of their common principles; she succeeded, at least, in
overcoming her brother, the Prince de Conti, who, after having made a
sonnet to Benserade, at last took the part of Voiture and of his sister.
She launched against him Sarrazin, whose commentary in verse we still
possess—a commentary that turns into ridicule the sonnet of Benserade and
the opinion of Esprit:
Sir Esprit, of the Oratory,
In you we piety perceive,
Thus crowning, as you do with glory,
“Job, whom a thousand torments grieve.” etc.[315]
Madame de Longueville herself wrote to Esprit a letter, in which she
evinces a fine cultivated literary taste. She acknowledges, in the
sonnet of Job, a gallant air and delicacy, but nothing more. With the
exception of a few lines, all the others seem to her full of faults, and
she carries refinement and preciseness so far as to designate certain
expressions of Benserade as disgusting, meaning by this, vulgar. On
the contrary, she finds in the sonnet of Voiture, beauty and force of
expression, with thoughts which, though not new, possess the sovereign
merit of passion. She makes a thousand concessions to Esprit; she asks
pardon for her audacity in differing with him;[316] she announces, at
the same time, that she means to continue the war; she appeals to _all
Rambouillet_, and jests pleasantly upon this new kind of Fronde.
_Madame de Longueville to Monsieur Esprit.[317]_
“It is true that I am in the utmost astonishment to find
our tastes so different in this matter; and my astonishment
is the greater because it seemed to me a subject upon which
our sentiments should be the same. For, in short, with the
exception of the seventh, eighth, and last lines of the sonnet
of Job, I find it not only full of faults, but even of such
as you have never been able to endure; its expression goes so
far as to be disgusting; whereas, in the piece of Voiture (at
least in its last six lines), the most beautiful and forcible
expression in the world is united with a thought which, though
not certainly new, is so passionate that it should, it seems
to me, be more highly esteemed than the mere delicacy which
characterizes that of Job. I confess that it has as gallant
an air as any thing that I have even seen; also, although I
find reason upon my side, I think that if there is none which
authorizes the other party, there is at least the greatest
cause in the world for preferring its taste; and if one may
suffer himself to be seduced without dying of shame, I confess
that it is upon such an occasion. This is all that my natural
justice can permit me to feel for those who have not followed
my sentiments. I send you what will acquaint you with the
manner in which my brother has made known his own, that is,
his final opinion; for the first was made in prose, and more
favorable to Uranie than to Job, but with the declaration that
if he should choose to send one of the two sonnets to his
mistress, it would be that of Job. Neither party was satisfied
with this judgment, not being able to turn it fully to its own
account. A more decided one was demanded. There are some who
think that even this[318] is not so; but, for my own part,
I am contented that Voiture is therein pronounced admirable
and grand, and Benserade only gallant and pretty. He has made
another sonnet, which I send you also, together with the list
of our friends and of our enemies. They have taken sides
uninfluenced by prejudice, politics, or any other motives than
the force of reason in some cases, and the gratification of
taste and blindness of mind in others. But I am not going so
far as to use invectives, and I think that there is as little
generosity in attacking a father of the Oratoire, as there
would be in assailing an unarmed man. I close therefore for
the very reason which made me prefer Uranie to Job, and the
celestial muse to a man infected from the crown of his head to
the soles of his feet.
“I beg you to tell M. the Abbé de Croisy,[319] that I wish
him to take my part. I forgot to tell you that we are writing
circular letters, and that we expect the opinions of M. and
Madame de Montausier, of all Rambouillet, and of M. and Madame
de Liancourt. In fine, this matter will not rest here; and
if the excitement about it continues, the ministers will be
more apt to occupy themselves with it than with the assemblies
of the nobility; and the tolerance shown for our seditious
manners, is the strongest indication which we have had for
a year of the humbling of royal authority, for they are
cantonments against the fundamental laws of a well-governed
State.[320] In short, God wills it, and we have nothing to say.
“A word of reply in regard to persons of your own party and of
mine, etc.”
Madame de Longueville gained the day; all the hôtel de Rambouillet went
over to her side, and Benserade, beaten after having been triumphant,
thus complained to her who had robbed him of his glory:
You give me then the lowest place!
The vanquish’d in this contest I,
I, elevated once so high,
Must now conceal my blushing face.
This evil luck will soon apace
Through mem’ry’s fane my name decry;
And fallen, I must ever lie
O’erwhelm’d with sorrow and disgrace.
We give also this pretty quatrain of Mademoiselle de Scudéry:
’Tis but the simple truth to say,
Job’s fate most strange hath been;
Tormented ever, day by day,
First by a demon, by an angel then.
Such were the frivolous pastimes, at once innocent and dangerous, of
Madame de Longueville. All the prosperities and all the felicities of
life surrounded her. Every thing conspired in her favor, or rather
against her,—the triumphs of the mind as well as those of beauty, the
continually increasing glory of her house, the intoxication of vanity,
the secret desires of her heart. The trial was too strong; she yielded
to it. In the enchanted circle in which she moved, more than one adorer
attracted her attention; one of them succeeded in winning her, according
to all appearances, at the close of 1647 or at the commencement of 1648.
She was then about twenty-nine years of age.
François, first Prince de Marcillac, afterwards, upon the death of his
father, Duke de La Rochefoucauld, was the eldest son of François de La
Rochefoucauld, whom Louis XIII. created a duke and a peer in 1622, and
of Gabrielle de Liancourt. He was born December 15, 1613, and at an
early age married Mademoiselle de Vivonne. He served honorably in Italy
and in Flanders, and in 1646 he was wounded at the siege of Mardyck. As
Retz says, he was not a warrior, although he was a very good soldier.
Without being very handsome, he was well formed and very agreeable.
What distinguished him especially was his wit. Of this he possessed an
infinite fund, of the finest and most delicate. His conversation was
mild, 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 contrary appearances, and with those
chivalrous manners affected by the _Importants_. One of his first
connections was with Madame de Chevreuse, who gave him to Queen Anne.
He entered so earnestly into the interests of the queen and into those
of Mademoiselle d’Hautefort, that he conceived or caught the idea of
carrying them away. “I was,” says he,[321] “at an age when one loves
to perform extraordinary and brilliant things, and I thought that
nothing could be more so than to carry off the queen at once from the
king, her husband, and from Cardinal Richelieu, who was jealous of him,
and of bearing away Mademoiselle d’Hautefort from the king, who was
enamored of her.” He did not execute this fine project; but Richelieu,
who had some suspicion of all these intrigues, placed him for eight
days in the Bastile. It seems that he was not entirely a stranger to
the conspiracies of Cinq-Mars. At the death of Richelieu he hastened to
Paris, and, when that of Louis XIII. had placed the supreme authority
in the hands of Queen Anne, he imagined that his fortune was made. He
sought successively various important offices which the queen could not
grant, whatever fondness she might have entertained for him. Madame de
Chevreuse exacted for her old friend the government of Havre, which
was then of the highest consequence; but this government was in the
family of Richelieu, and Mazarin could not take it away from the Duchess
d’Aiguillon. La Rochefoucauld aspired to the command of the cavalry; he
was very brave, but he was not considered capable of such an employment.
He tried thus several schemes; the queen applied herself to soothing his
disappointments, by manners so tender, as to retain him, as would be now
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 to seem to be, very much attached, not to the government,
but to the person of the queen. He looked continually for some great
favor at her hands. These favors not arriving, he determined to procure
through intimidation what his fidelity had not been able to secure.
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 of 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 touching
and heroic reason for loving! Corneille did not think of it in the _Cid_
and in _Polyeucte_. We have, however, done no more than to transfer,
with the utmost exactness, a piece from La Rochefoucauld himself, which
we will now quote, word for word:[322] “So much unprofitable labor 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 favor. 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 in the favor
of Madame 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 restrain me always, 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 any thing untrue. He
delivered her entirely to me, but he repented when he saw the result of
this connection....”
La Rochefoucauld pleased Madame de Longueville, doubtless, by the graces
of his mind and the charms of his person, and especially by that glory
won for him by his conduct towards the queen, which was enough to dazzle
a pupil of the hôtel de Rambouillet. He paid her homage which was, to
all appearance, the most passionate in the world. In proportion as he
insinuated himself into her heart, he skilfully aroused in her that
desire of appearing and of producing an effect, so natural in woman.
Little by little, he displayed before her eyes a new object which she
had not yet perceived—an important part upon the theatre of events just
opening. He transformed her natural coquetry into political ambition, or
rather he inspired her with his own ambition.
When Madame de Longueville, touched by the passion shown for her by La
Rochefoucauld, had determined to respond to it, she gave herself up to
him entirely; she devoted herself to him whom she dared to love; she made
it a point of honor, as well doubtless as a secret happiness, to share
his destiny and to follow him without looking behind her, 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 Condé.
Oh admirable thing! do you know who it is that commits a crime against
this devotion? He precisely who makes his profit in it. La Rochefoucauld
expresses himself thus in regard to Madame de Longueville:[323] “This
princess possessed all the advantages of mind and beauty to such a degree
and with so much charm, that it seemed as if nature had taken pleasure
in forming a masterpiece.... But these fine qualities were rendered less
brilliant by a stain which was never seen upon a princess of such merit,
which found no imitations on those who entertained for her a particular
adoration; a stain which so transformed her in their sentiments, that she
did not recognize her own. At this time the Prince de Marcillac shared
her mind, and as he joined his ambition to his love, he inspired her
with a desire for business, to which she had a natural aversion.”
Let us listen to the declared enemy of Madame de Longueville, her
step-daughter, the Duchess de Nemours: “It will doubtless cause
astonishment[324] that Madame de Longueville should have been one of
the first (to join the party of malcontents), she who had nothing to
hope from that party, and who had no reason to complain of the court....
M. the Prince felt an extreme tenderness for his sister. She, on her
side, humored him, less from interest than from the particular esteem
and tender friendship which she had for him. At this time neither she
nor the whole cabal showed much wit in their designs; and although
they were all possessed of enough of it, they employed it only in gay
conversations, only in commenting and refining upon the delicacies of the
heart and of the sentiments. They made all the wit and merit of a person
to consist in making subtile distinctions and representations, sometimes
unnatural enough. Those who made the most display were, in their
opinion, the most creditable and most learned persons, and they treated
as ridiculous and coarse whatever approached to grave conversation....
It was La Rochefoucauld who gave to this princess so many hollow and
false sentiments. As he exercised a very great power over her, and as he
seldom thought of any other person than himself, he drew her into all the
intrigues in which she engaged, only to be able thereby to promote his
own ends.”
Madame de Motteville, whom we must never grow weary of studying and
citing when we wish to know and to establish the truth, after having
marked the principal motive which urged La Rochefoucauld in his pursuit
of Madame de Longueville, adds: “In[325] 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 Marcillac there held
a prominent place. For him she became ambitious, for him she ceased to
love repose; and in order to be sensible to this affection, she became
too insensible to her own glory.... The declarations of the Prince de
Marcillac, 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....”
Finally Retz, who was perfectly acquainted with all the actors and all
the actresses of the Fronde, and who, in regard to this epoch, merits
not to be believed without reserve, but to be listened to seriously,
closes the most charming eulogy upon Madame de Longueville with
these words, so often repeated, and which contain the true judgment
of posterity: “As her passion obliged her to make politics only a
secondary matter, from the heroine of a great party, she became its
adventuress.”[326]
We must either renounce all historical criticism, or from these
accumulated testimonies, which we could have much increased, we must draw
this conclusion: 1, That before her connection with La Rochefoucauld,
Madame de Longueville remained entirely unconcerned in every political
intrigue; that she was occupied only with intellectual matters and
gallantry, suffering herself to be guided absolutely in every thing else
by her father and by her brother; 2, That it was not on her account, as
has been often repeated, that La Rochefoucauld entered the Fronde; that,
far from this, it was La Rochefoucauld, and La Rochefoucauld alone, who,
little by little, engaged her in it, designedly and selfishly; 3, That
the conduct of Madame de Longueville in the Fronde must be referred to La
Rochefoucauld, who governed her, and that the only good thing in her is
the character which she exhibited when the intrigue became a tempest,
when it was necessary to risk her person; to stake her happiness, her
repose, her fortune, and her life, retaining still under the hand of
another what she could never lose—the pride of soul and brilliant energy
of the sister of the great Condé.
It is not our business here to give a history of the Fronde, to make
known its peripetics, its principal personages, the true springs of their
actions, their apparent patriotism, their real ambition, their unstable
hopes, their perpetual changes. We wish simply to describe Madame de
Longueville; it is to her, without separating her from her brother Condé,
that we would confine ourselves in this labyrinth of intrigues; here even
we will show her only in the first scenes of the Fronde.
As soon as La Rochefoucauld had entered the heart of Madame de
Longueville, he occupied it entirely. She employed in his service all the
charms of her person, the resources of her mind, the greatness of her
heart. Careless of her interests, and turning her back upon the fortunes
of her house, she attacked openly, or undermined by artifice, that
royalty which her family had supported, and which had been still more the
support of her family. Forgetful of her most just resentment, even of her
honor, she entered the ranks of those who, in 1643, had endeavored to
blast in the bud her fresh and unsullied fame. The daughter of the Condés
went over to the Vendômes and to the Lorraines, made common cause with
Beaufort and with Madame de Chevreuse, and exposed herself to the risk of
encountering in this new circle her old and implacable enemy, Madame de
Montbazon. If Guise had not then been at Naples, she would doubtless have
testified her perfect change by shaking the hand that had slain Coligny!
In the mean time La Rochefoucauld did not forget his reason for desiring
so ardently the conquest of Madame de Longueville. He had wished, as he
himself tells us, to reach the brother through the sister, and to draw
into the Fronde the house of Condé, which had hitherto been a rampart to
the queen and to Mazarin.
M. the Prince had died at the close of 1646, and with him his family
had lost its political helm. Madame the Princess remained firmly
attached to the queen; but Madame de Longueville succeeded, without much
difficulty, in numbering among the malcontents the Prince de Conti, who,
while waiting for a cardinal’s hat, was not sorry to make some noise,
play some part, and acquire an importance which might make him compare
favorably with his brother. She needed no great cunning to draw among the
malcontents her husband, who was naturally inclined towards them. But
the great difficulty was to win Condé himself.
The latter imagined that he had great cause of complaint against the
cardinal. At the death of his brother-in-law, Brézé, in 1646, he asked
to succeed him as High-Admiral of France. It was impossible to add this
office to the number already possessed by the Condés; but, through
management, the queen gave it to no one, and set it down for herself.
M. the Prince, who was still living, ambitious and greedy, had warmly
resented this refusal. The impetuous Condé had not concealed his anger.
He was also much irritated at being sent into Catalonia to replace
d’Harcourt, with the promise of every thing necessary to carry on a
campaign worthy of him; and that he had been left, without the aid
promised and earnestly claimed, between a strongly fortified place,
which he could not take by assault on account of the condition of his
troops, and a powerful army which he could neither wait for nor reach,
so that he was obliged to raise the siege of Lerida, and to retreat
in good order before the enemy. He felt that he had done well, but it
was the first time that he had given way; in spite of him, his glory
suffered by it, and he complained with bitterness of what he called the
disloyalty of the cardinal. Finally, he was sent into Flanders to take
command of a very feeble army,—not an army destitute of courage, but
entirely undisciplined. Besides, it must be confessed, the true genius
of Condé was for war. In this, again, he is the first of his age, and
equal to the greatest in antiquity and in modern times,—as ardent as
Alexander, as resolute as Cæsar, as fertile in expedients as Hannibal,
as capable of making precise and vast calculations as Napoleon, which
may be seen by the plan of the campaign by which, in 1645, he proposed
to dictate peace to the Emperor in Vienna. He possessed all the
qualifications of a warrior. He knew not only how to achieve a victory
by the boldness of his manœuvres, but he knew how to calculate upon
one, and, as Bossuet said of a very different person, he left nothing
to fortune which he could accomplish through prudence and foresight.
He was as good a military manager as he was an active and enterprising
general. He excelled in the art of encamping and of besieging, as well
as in that of fighting, and he surpassed Vauban. By turns, he exhibited
that audacity which confounded Mercy at Fribourg and at Nortlingen, and
that great prudence which led him to raise the siege of Lerida, and
which at a later period, in 1675, wearied Montecuculli. With the most
happy instincts, he united profound study. In Catalonia he marched with
a copy of Cæsar in his hand, explaining it to his lieutenants. He formed
the greatest generals, commencing with Turenne, who served under him
during two campaigns, and finishing with that Luxembourg who, if he were
rejudged, would perhaps be found not inferior to Turenne himself. Let
us add this very striking fact: Condé is the only modern captain who
never suffered defeat, and who was always victorious when he commanded
in chief. Turenne was beaten twice in regular battle—at Rethel and at
Mariendal; Frederic commenced with reverses; Napoleon terminated his
dazzling career by two frightful routes—Leipsic and Waterloo; Condé
alone was ever triumphant. He had arrayed against him the three greatest
generals of Europe—Mercy, Montecuculli, and William; not one of them was
able to deprive him of even the shadow of an advantage. We might easily
extend, without exhausting it, the eulogy of the warrior in Condé; but,
we acknowledge it, he had not the qualifications of a great politician,
because at bottom he had no true determined ambition. First prince of
the blood in a monarchy such as was that of France in the seventeenth
century, what could he desire beyond the acquisition of glory? And after
Richelieu and under Mazarin, this glory could be reached by him only on
the battle-field. It was for this and for this alone that his father
had reared him. He was also subjected, at an early age, to that severe
discipline of ambition which teaches to speak at the proper moment and
to be silent, to exhibit no humor, to keep the eye fixed upon the highest
object, never suffering it to be turned aside by secondary interests, or
by the caprices of the imagination or of the heart. Such is the ambitious
man; such were, more or less, Henri IV., Richelieu, and Mazarin; for it
is just to place Mazarin in this illustrious company. All three had a
great end to attain, which they pursued with constancy. Condé had no aim;
he formed no great design, being by birth as high as he could become—all
that he could ever dream of being, unless he acted the madman or the
traitor; and he had a mind perfectly correct, with a corresponding heart.
His conscience and his good sense told him then that he had nothing to
gain by all the intrigues in which others wished to engage him; that his
place was near the throne, in order to protect it with his sword against
its enemies, whoever they might be, whether at home or abroad. If he
had kept this place, he would have attained to a rank much higher than
even the usurpation of royalty. Let us not hesitate to look at it, that
we may the better feel the greatness of his fall: to his five years of
brilliant victories in Flanders and upon the Rhine, from 1643 to 1648,
he might, beyond all doubt, have added, during the war which continued
between France and Spain after the treaty of Westphalia, new victories,
which, in two campaigns, at most, might have forever conquered Belgium,
as the preceding had added Alsace to the French territory. He would then,
at the age of thirty, have gained as many battles as Alexander, Hannibal,
and Cæsar; and still there would have been before him twenty years of
vigor, twenty other victories, like that of Senef, for example,[327]
which he gained upon the verge of old age, before laying aside his sword,
as a monument of what he might have done from 1648 to 1675. Incomparable
would have been his destiny had he performed his part as first prince
of the blood, firm defender of the crown yet loyal interpreter of the
nation; bearing to the queen without frightening her, and to Mazarin,
while sustaining him, the legitimate complaints of the nobility, of the
parliament, and of the people.
There was, in fact, a cause for the Fronde; Mazarin, almost equal to
Richelieu as a diplomatist, had not, in the smallest degree, the genius
of his master for the administration of State affairs. Incessantly
occupied with increasing the territory and strengthening the royal
authority, he attended to little else, and suffered abuses and disorders
to creep in everywhere. The great wars which he undertook, the four
or five armies which he was obliged to support, had exhausted France,
which did not always find in glory a consolation for its misery. It had
been necessary to increase the taxes, even to sell the public offices,
in order to have means for paying the troops. The authority of the
parliament had often been eluded or disarmed. The blood of the nobility
had flowed in torrents. The people groaned under the heaviest burdens;
and if the sentiment of national grandeur abandoned them even for a
moment, the greatness of the evil caused them to utter complaints, and
drove them to revolt. I do not accuse the people: they are seldom wrong;
they move only when they suffer; they agitate only to improve their
condition, or at least to make it less unhappy. It is parties that are
culpable, when, instead of striving to afford relief to the evils of the
people, they apply themselves to rendering these evils more poignant and
more bitter, by inflammatory declamations, thus driving the people beyond
all bounds. I pity, in 1648, the people, naturally irritated by the
increase of taxes, and by the disorders of the administration; I condemn
the Fronde, which, in its chiefs, with few exceptions, was deceitful
and corrupt, violent and mad; and I am in favor of Mazarin, without
loving him or without being deceived in regard to his defects and his
faults, because, after all, he served France well, conducting with great
ability its affairs abroad, and diminishing, by the peace with Germany,
its misery at home. I admire Condé in this first Fronde, for having
resisted his own injuries, the antipathy which he felt for Mazarin, the
solicitations of his own family, and of his sister. I shall blame him in
the strongest terms when, unfaithful to his fortune and to his glory,
sacrificing the part of a principal to that of an accessory, putting
temper in the place of policy, he shall engage in the intrigues which he
had spurned, and shall allow himself at first to humor, then to serve the
Fronde.
He commenced very differently. In the beginning of the troubles, Condé,
without having enough of the statesman to crush the sedition in its bud,
preserved at least a lofty bearing towards the malcontents; he lent a
careless ear to the proposals of his sister, and having no taste for
popular agitations, and not more for the tumultuous and often ridiculous
deliberations of the parliament, occupied only with the coalition of
Spain and of the empire, he went, in the spring of 1648, to take command
of the army of Flanders, resolved to strike a blow and to repeat the
victory of Rocroy. Not being able to secure him, the malcontents wished
at least to profit by his absence. While Mazarin, for the best interests
of the country, was demanding its utmost resources, and turning every
thing into money, in order to raise additional troops, the Frondeurs,
that is, a few of the great lords, supported by a part of the nobility,
aroused the people and the parliament, who had not the least idea of
the true situation of affairs; for the parliament was not a political
assembly, and the people were simply aware that they were suffering.
Mazarin, entirely occupied with the peril of the frontier, did not give
enough attention to domestic dangers. He had kept very few troops near
him, and one fine morning it happened that the Frondeurs took possession
of Paris. The battle of the barricades followed close upon that of Lens.
On his return, Condé found royalty humiliated, the parliament triumphing
and dictating laws to the crown, the Duke de Beaufort, with whom he
once thought of measuring swords in defence of the honor of his sister,
freed from his prison of Vincennes, and master of Paris by aid of the
populace who idolized him; the fickle and vain Abbé de Retz transformed
into a tribune of the people; the Prince de Conti into a captain; M. de
Longueville under the guidance of his wife and La Rochefoucauld; and the
feeble Duke d’Orleans fancying himself almost a king, because he saw the
queen humiliated, and because the Frondeurs, cunningly flattering his
self-love, were treating him like a sovereign. Condé, at a glance, saw
the situation of affairs and his duty also; and, without any hesitation,
he offered his sword to the queen.
He had a stormy explanation with his sister.
It is pretended, that for some time their reciprocal tenderness had
suffered more than one interruption; that, in 1645, Madame de Longueville
had crossed the loves of her brother and Mademoiselle Du Vigean; that,
in 1646, Condé, seeing her too intimate with La Rochefoucauld, had
caused her to be called to Munster by her husband: but for this we have
only the authority of the Duchess de Nemours,[328] and nothing is less
probable. The passion of Condé for Mademoiselle Du Vigean extinguished
itself, as we have seen, and as all contemporaries affirm. The attentions
of La Rochefoucauld to Madame de Longueville may have preceded the
embassy of Munster, but they were not observed until 1647, and it is
at the close of this year that Madame de Motteville places them, while
attributing them especially to the desire of La Rochefoucauld to share
the credit of the sister with the brother. But it is very certain, that
as soon as the latter remarked this connection, he disapproved of it
entirely; and not succeeding in his effort to rouse his sister from the
intoxication of a first love, he passed from the most ardent affection
to a bitter discontent. In the autumn of 1648, on his return from Lens,
this connection had acquired its greatest strength, and become almost
notorious. Madame de Longueville, directed by La Rochefoucauld, did
then every thing in the world to gain her brother: she brought to bear
upon him all her allurements, all her fondlings; she put into operation
every thing which she thought might influence this passionate and fickle
heart; she failed. He did not succeed in gaining over her his accustomed
ascendency. They quarrelled and separated openly. Madame de Longueville
plunged more deeply into the Fronde, and Condé applied himself to giving
the new _Importants_ a harsh lesson.
It is not my intention to enter into details. I wish simply to show that
the brother and sister, in their opposite conduct, exhibited the same
blood and the same audacity.
The queen had retired to Saint-Germain with the young king and all the
government. Paris was under the absolute control of the Fronde. In spite
of the first president, Molé, the l’Hôpital of the seventeenth century,
it stirred up the parliament, by the aid of a few ambitious councillors
and by seditious and mischievous inquests. It disposed of a great part
of the Parisian clergy, through the coadjutor of the archbishop, Retz,
who possessed and exercised all the authority of his uncle. It had
continually at its head the two great houses of Vendôme and Lorraine,
with two princes of the blood, the Prince de Conti and the Duke de
Longueville, followed by a very great number of illustrious families. It
gave law in the _salons_, thanks to a brilliant troupe of pretty women,
who drew after them the flower of the young nobility. In short, the army
itself was divided. Turenne, with his troops, who were stationed upon
the borders of the Rhine until the perfect conclusion of the treaty of
Westphalia, obedient to the suggestions of his eldest brother, the Duke
de Bouillon, who wished to gain his principality of Sedan, had just
raised the standard of revolt, and was threatening to place the court
between his own army and that of Paris. Add that the parliament of the
capital had sent deputies to all the parliaments of the kingdom, and
that it was thus forming a sort of formidable parliamentary league in
the face of monarchy. Condé took command of all the troops that remained
faithful, and everywhere opposed the insurrection. He wrote himself
to the army of the Rhine, which knew him, and which, after the route
sustained by Turenne at Mariendal, had been led back by him to victory:
these letters, supported by the proceedings of the government, succeeded
in arresting the revolt; and Turenne, abandoned by his own soldiers, was
obliged to fly to Holland.[329] At ease upon this subject, Condé marched
upon Paris, and placed it in siege. Instead of disputing the ground, as
he might have done, foot by foot, with the sedition, he allowed it the
freest course, sure that the spectacle of licentiousness, which could
not fail to appear, would, little by little, restore to loyalty those
who had for a moment gone astray. He began by calling, in the name of
the queen and through his mother, all his family to Saint-Germain. The
Prince de Conti and M. de Longueville did not dare to disobey; but La
Rochefoucauld saw that the Fronde was in the greatest peril; he hastened
after these two princes; he brought them back to Paris, made the Prince
de Conti generalissimo, placing under him the Dukes d’Elbeuf and de
Bouillon, who shared authority with the Marshal de La Mothe Houdancourt,
governor of Paris.[330] As to Madame de Longueville, she excused herself
to the queen and to her mother on the grounds of her delicate situation,
which would not permit her to undertake the least fatigue. In fact,
Madame de Longueville was in this condition, for the last time, in 1648,
when, it must be confessed, her connection with La Rochefoucauld was
well known. It was in this condition that, willing to share the perils
of her friends, proud also of playing a part and of filling all the
trumpets of fame, she acted the warrior as well as she was able. There
is, it is said,[331] a portrait representing her as Pallas, just as, a
little later, Mademoiselle was represented; her light hair covered with
a helmet, and her soft eyes trying to wear a martial look. It is at
least certain that she shared all the fatigues of the siege, that she
was present at the reviews of the troops, at the parades of the citizen
soldiery,[332] and that all the civil and military plans were discussed
before her. The memoirs of the times are full, in regard to this, of the
most curious details. The hôtel de Longueville was continually filled
with officers and generals; nothing was seen there but plumes, helmets,
and swords.
Notwithstanding all this, the democratic spirit which had originated
the Fronde, was not satisfied: it beheld with displeasure all the forces
of Paris in the hands of the brother, of the brother-in-law, and of the
sister of him who commanded the siege. Believing very little, and with
reason, in the patriotism of the princes, the citizens demanded some
sureties from the chiefs who might at any time betray them, and make
peace, at their expense, with Saint-Germain. No one seemed to know how
to appease this multitude, without which nothing could be done. It was
then that Madame de Longueville showed that, if she had forgotten her
true duties, she had retained the energy of her race and the intrepidity
of the Condés. She took her young children, and, notwithstanding
her delicate condition, proceeded to the principal quarter of the
insurrection, the hôtel de Ville, placing herself in the hands of the
people as a hostage, with all that was most dear to her.[333] Her example
was followed by the Duchess de Bouillon.[334] “Imagine,” says Retz,
“these two beautiful persons upon the balcony of the hôtel de Ville;
more beautiful because they appeared neglected, although they were not.
Each held in her arms one of her children, who were as beautiful as
their mothers. La Grève was full of people, even to the housetops; the
men all raised cries of joy, and the women wept with tenderness.”[335]
There, on the night of the 28th of January, 1649, Madame de Longueville
gave birth to her last child, a son, who was baptized by Retz in the
church Saint-Jean-de Grève, having for its godfather the Provost, for its
godmother the Duchess de Bouillon, and who received the name of Charles
de Paris;[336] the child of the Fronde, handsome, talented, and brave,
who during his life was the troublesome hope, the melancholy joy of his
mother, and the cause of her greatest grief in 1672, when he perished, in
the passage of the Rhine, by the side of his uncle.[337]
For some time, Condé limited himself to subjecting Paris to a blockade
more and more rigorous, and to small attacks, the effect of which was not
very encouraging to the citizen troops. The gentry alone, even during
their negotiations with Mazarin, fought well. They carried on the war
in two modes, by the sword and by epigrams, songs and vaudevilles. The
party of Mazarin, as may be conceived, accomplished very little with
Madame de Longueville.[338] Condé himself, who had loved her so much, and
who, afterwards, will resume for her all his early tenderness, did not
hesitate to ridicule her with the accustomed license of his language. He
diverted himself very much at the expense of the martial spirit of his
brother, the Prince de Conti, and he lampooned his adversaries, among
others the Count de Maure,[339] the youngest of the Montemarts, with so
much spirit and in such a soldierlike way, that he abused the troops and
the citizens, when they dared to venture a few steps from the ramparts of
Paris. To enable one to judge of the Fronde, even in this first period
of its short, yet too long history, it will be sufficient to say that
it had from that moment recourse to the only remaining enemy of France;
that these great patriots, who continually reproached Mazarin with being
a stranger, applied to Spain, and that an envoy of the archduke and of
the Count de Fuensaldaigne was received, and heard in full parliament.
Is it astonishing, after this, that in the course of a few years, the
young Louis XIV. should, without attracting attention, enter this same
parliament equipped for a ride and with whip in hand! Demagoguery
produces necessarily tyranny, and, what is more sad, it therewith
produces universal applause, bruising the hearts of those alone who had
not merited it, and had simply desired a moderate liberty. When the
shameful proposition was made to receive the Spanish envoy, the President
de Mesmes, turning towards the Prince de Conti, addressed to him these
severe words:[340] “Is it possible, sir, that a prince of the blood of
France proposes to give audience upon the _fleurs de lys_ to a deputy of
the most cruel enemy of the _fleurs de lys_!”
Condé thought that it was time to bring matters to a close. He rendered
more rigorous the blockade, and multiplied the attacks. It was in one
of these attacks, at Charenton, February 9, 1649, that he lost his best
friend, the younger Coligny, the brave d’Andelot, then Duke de Châtillon,
the husband of Isabelle de Montmorency, one of the heroes of Lens, where
he served in the capacity of a lieutenant-general, from which office he
was about to be elevated to that of marshal; he was, it is true, somewhat
easy in his life and manners, but he promised to make for France a
captain of the strength of his brother-in-law, Montmorency Boutteville,
Marshal de Luxembourg. Condé flew to the spot where Châtillon had just
fallen, received him in his arms, and, bathing him with tears, caused
him to be transported to Vincennes, where he drew his last breath.[341]
All historians agree in their descriptions of the great grief into
which Condé was thrown by this death; it animated him still more against
the Fronde. At the same time, it showed the court the importance of
terminating a war which was sweeping so many brave men from both sides,
to the great joy of Spain; and by showing in this place the point of
his sword, and by speaking with firmness in that, he soon brought Paris
and the parliament to ask peace, and Mazarin to give one which was
humiliating to neither. He did not simply obtain a general amnesty; he
did more: he represented that, in order to disarm the Fronde, it was
necessary to listen to its legitimate complaints, which constituted its
strength; and that royalty once replaced above all factions, it was wise
to make it the origin of all necessary ameliorations. Hence the royal
declaration of the 12th of March, 1649,[342] which annulled all the
measures taken by the parliament during the preceding six months, which
expelled the envoy of Spain, placed all the civil and military forces
in the hands of the king, interdicted, during the remainder of the year
1649, every general assembly of the parliament, but which promised that
Paris should see the return of the king, that the parliament should
henceforth consult him in regard to extraordinary imposts, and that, if
a treaty was made with Spain, the parliament should choose one of its
officers to assist in its formation. The declaration said nothing in
regard to the nobility, for the very simple reason that there was among
them no general cause to be satisfied, and that private interests alone
demanded attention.
It is amusing to read, in Madame de Motteville,[343] a piece entitled:
“_Particular demands of Messieurs the Generals and others interested_.
They each had, at Saint-Germain, deputies who treated for them. For
example, the Duke de Beaufort was not contented with what had been
privately offered to him. He asked much, because his heart was still
swollen by the pride occasioned by the remembrance of his past favor. He
wished the ministry to reward him for his chains and his imprisonment;
he spoke proudly; he declared loudly that he would not make terms with
Mazarin; and, carrying his resentment farther than others, he rendered
the adjustment of his affairs more difficult.... Madame de Montbazon, who
was beloved by the Duke de Beaufort, gave hopes that she would at least
please him, if she could have what she desired. She obtained moneys and
abbeys; and the Duke de Beaufort, who loved her, was pleased that this
lady could profit by the inclination which he had for her.”
In short, every one was, or strove to be contented. The Prince de Conti
was the first who left Paris to salute the queen. He was presented by
Condé, who made him embrace the Cardinal Mazarin. The Prince de Conti, in
his turn, presented the Duke de Bouillon, La Rochefoucauld, the Count de
Maure, and many others. M. de Longueville, who had gone to Normandy to
arouse that province and its parliament, did not delay to return to offer
his homage, and it was quite time for the beautiful and proud duchess to
show her submission. The scene is worth relating: “I was alone,”[344]
says Madame de Motteville, “with the queen, and she did me the honor to
speak to me of the embarrassment testified by the Duke de Longueville in
saluting her. As I knew that Madame de Longueville was about to enter,
I arose, for I was on my knees beside her bed, and placed myself near
to the queen, resolved not to stir, but to discover whether this witty
princess would be more eloquent than the prince her husband. As she was
naturally timid and apt to blush, all her care could not save her from
the embarrassment which she experienced on meeting the queen. I was
sufficiently near to these two illustrious persons to know what they
said; but I heard nothing except _Madame_, and a few words which she
pronounced so low that the queen, who listened attentively to what she
would say, could not comprehend a single sentence.”
This same Madame de Motteville, so veracious notwithstanding her
benevolence, so difficult in every thing concerning the queen, her
mistress, does not hesitate to give to Condé the honor of the peace: “We
should not forget to observe here the disinterested firmness of M. the
Prince, who, without considering either his family or his friends, acted
always for the interests of the king.”[345]
It is true, for the memorable service which he had just rendered, Condé
reaped scarcely any benefit; but his noble conduct increased the splendor
of his last campaign of 1648; it added to his military titles those of
defender and saviour of the throne, of pacificator of the kingdom, of
arbiter and enlightened conciliator of parties; it gave the climax to his
credit and to his glory. Happy would it have been, if, after having thus
terminated this sad war, he had quitted the court and its intrigues, to
seek other battle-fields, and to finish another war somewhat more useful
and more glorious to France—that which still remained with Spain! Happy
also had been Madame de Longueville, if, taught by her own conscience,
in her last interview with the queen, and by the shameful dénouement of
the miserable intrigues of which she had the secret, instead of still
serving as their instrument, she had shown her courage in resisting
them; if, after all the proofs of devotion which she had just given to
La Rochefoucauld, she had strongly represented to him that, even for
his own interest, a different course was necessary; that it would be
better to look for fortune and honors by making himself esteemed, than
by trying to be feared; that ambition as well as duty showed his place
to be by the side of Condé, in the service of the State and of the king;
that it was easy for him to obtain in the army some post, where he would
have simply to march forward, trusting to his courage and his merit!
But even if she had been wise enough to speak thus to La Rochefoucauld,
she would not have succeeded in gaining his ear. This restless spirit,
this ever-discontented vanity, pursuing by turns the most dissimilar
objects, because it selected none within its reach, this _indefinable
something_, as Retz[346] says, which was in La Rochefoucauld, caused him
to abandon the great and straight roads, and led him into by-paths full
of precipices. The poor woman there follows him, and aids him in his
extravagant and guilty designs. Receiving the law instead of giving it,
she strives to promote the passion of another by devoting to his service
all her coquetry and greatness of soul, her penetration and intrepidity,
her attractive sweetness and indomitable energy. She undertakes to
mislead Condé, to take away from France the conqueror of Rocroy and of
Lens, and to give him to Spain. But let us not anticipate these unhappy
times. We have now traced the last glorious days of Condé and the first
faults of Madame de Longueville. Let us stop here; let us not enter upon
the civil wars about to follow, impious wars, in which the brother and
the sister will treasure up long remorse, in which the one will signalize
himself by exploits so deplorable, that he will some day veil himself at
Chantilly, for the sake of his own glory and of France, and in which the
other will display the most brilliant qualities of mind, only to weep for
twenty-five years among the Carmelites and at Port-Royal!
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Fourth Series of our works, _Literature_, vol. ii.
[2] It remains for us to collect from all our writings the scattered
elements of a new Theodicea, especially founded upon an exact Psychology,
fecundated by a legitimate induction, with the double purpose of
defending the great faith of the human race against the detestable
philosophy which Germany, in these last times, has sent into France,
after having borrowed it from her, and of defending also true and good
philosophy against a pusillanimous devotion, unworthy of Christianity,
and condemned by the Church, which refuses to human reason the right and
the power of elevating itself, even to God. It especially remains to us
to put the last hand to that translation of Plato, which we would make
the least perishable monument of our philosophic enterprise.
[3] See the work of Villefore: _The Life of Madame the Duchess de
Longueville_, in two parts. There are two somewhat different editions.
The first, which we shall quote, is of 1738, without indication of place;
the second of Amsterdam, 1739.
[4] Quatremère de Quincy: _Dissertation upon the Antique Statue of
Venus, discovered in the Island of Milo_, in-4ᵒ; and _Collection of
Archeological Dissertations_, 1836, in-8ᵒ, p. 143.
[5] Millengen: _Ancient Unedited Monuments_, in fol.: London, 1826, p.
15, plate viii.
[6] The only two good and complete editions are those of Renouard, 1804
and 1817, and that of the collection of Petitot. See this last vol. 51,
p. 455.
[7] This disease attacked her during the year of her marriage. Scarcely
any trace of it remained.
[8] Retz, Amsterdam, 1731, vol. i., p. 185. Ibid., vol. iv., p. 219.
[9] _Memoirs_, Amsterdam, 1750, vol. i., p. 44.
[10] Vol. ii., p. 16-17.
[11] _Memoirs_, Amsterdam, 1735, vol. i., p. 45.
[12] Library of the Arsenal, Manuscripts of Conrart, in fol., vol. viii.,
p. 145. On Mademoiselle de Vaudy, the relative and friend of Madame the
Countess de Maure, see Mademoiselle, vol. iii., p. 58, and vol. v., p.
25, as well as her portrait among the portraits of Mademoiselle. See also
Tallemant, vol. ii., p. 334.
[13] In an obscure work, entitled, _The Life of Pierre Dubose, Minister
of the Holy Gospel, enriched with Letters, Harangues_, etc., Rotterdam,
1698, in-8ᵒ, I find a speech made to Madame de Longueville, at Caen, in
June, 1648, in which the good Protestant minister speaks of her very much
like Scudéry, p. 328: “The portrait, Madame, which fame has made of you,
is known throughout the world; and it is so full of marvels that every
one supposes the original to be flattered until he has the happiness
of seeing you. Then all admit that what the public voice says of your
Highness is but a pencil-sketch of what you are.... It is impossible to
paint too well that agreeable mixture of sweetness and majesty which
tempers your countenance, and which at once gives boldness and fear to
those who have the honor to approach your person. It is impossible to
express that inimitable address which appears in all your actions, that
brilliant vivacity so admired in your words, that graceful and grand air
which causes your silence to be respected. And what pencil can represent
that mind, formed by the hand of the Graces and cultivated by that of the
Muses, which produces nothing in you but that is judicious, delicate,
brilliant, which gains for you the admiration of the age, the rapture
of the court, the applause of the provinces, which has even merited the
homage of enemies at Munster, bringing them to your feet, while they
refused peace to all Europe.”
[14] Attique du Nord, No. 2173.
[15] _Pacificatores orbis Christiani, sive icones principum, ducum et
legatorum qui Monasterii atque Osnabrugæ pacem Europæ reconciliarunt,
quosque singulos ad nativam imaginem expressit Van Hull, celissimi
principis Auriaci dum viveret pictor_, in folio, Rotterodami, 1697.
This portrait has been often reproduced, among others, in the _Europe
illustre_ and the Collection of Odieuvre.
[16] This is, in fact, the date of the first edition of the first part,
as given in the patent, printed January 7, 1649.
[17] Gallery of the first floor, No. 2195.
[18] Cabinet of Medallions, with this inscription: AN. GEN. BORBONIA, D.
LONG, S. P. NOVI CASTRI. On the other side of the medal is the portrait
of her husband.
[19] There should be at the Château d’Eu a portrait of Madame de
Longueville, 22 inches by 18, which comes from the old collection of the
Duchess de Montpensier. See vol. ii., p. 124, the work of M. Vatout,
entitled, _Historical and Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures belonging
to his Royal Highness the Duke of Orleans_. 4 vols., in-8ᵒ, 1823. It is
so long since we have seen this portrait, that we cannot say at what
period it represents Madame de Longueville, wherein it differs from or
resembles other portraits of her, or by what hand it was produced. It
is perhaps the portrait which is at Versailles. Father Lelong mentions
the following portraits of Madame de Longueville: 1, Van Hull; 2,
Poilly, in fol. (We have not found this portrait in the work of Poilly
in the Stamp-Office. See note, p. 363.) 3, Frosne; 4, Moncornet; 5, the
collection of Odieuvre.
[20] Villefore, 2d part, p. 170.
[21] Retz, vol. i., p. 219.
[22] Ibid., vol. iii., p. 59.
[23] Retz, vol. ii., p. 18.
[24] In-12ᵒ. We possess the copy of the dedication which belonged to
Mademoiselle de Bourbon, and which bears her arms.
[25] Villefore, p. 75.
[26] Vol. ii., p. 19.
[27] Ibid., p. 7.
[28] Boileau, in his letter to Perrault, places the Count de Tréville
among the nicest judges of wit. Saint-Simon undertakes to paint him,
vol. iv., p. 184, and thus finishes his portrait, vol. vi., p. 372:
He had belonged “to the great world, at one time a courtier, then a
devotee and recluse, again, by degrees, an active member of the best
society, always gallant, full of wit, and of the most refined taste.”
He had loved Madame, the amiable Henriette, and the beautiful de Ludre.
See the _Memoirs_ of Lafare and Madame de Sévigné, letter of the 13th
March, 1671. It is said that the observation, _he talks like a book_, was
first made concerning him. He is the _Arsène_ of the _charactères_ of La
Bruyère. I have seen some of his unpublished letters; the language is the
best, but for any thing else they are not remarkable.
[29] IVth Series of our works, LITTÉRATURE, vol. ii., _Jacqueline
Pascal_, p. 20.
[30] _Memoirs_, vol. i., p. 221: “I do not believe that Queen Elizabeth
of England had more capacity for State affairs.”
[31] _Oraison funèbre de la Princesse Palatine._
[32] Ægidii Menagii Pœmata, since the first edition, which is of 1652,
in-4ᵒ, Ægidii Menagii Miscellanea, until the Elzeverian edition, more
complete, of 1663. In this there are more than twenty French, Latin, and
Italian pieces to Madame de La Fayette before and after her marriage.
Madame de Sévigné does not appear so often; but, as an offset, she is
seen in the edition of 1652, both under her own name and under that of
Uranie. The study of the different editions of the poems of Ménage would
not be useless in a history of Madame de Sévigné and of Madame de La
Fayette.
[33] See the Italian Sonnet of Madame de Sévigné, published by M. de
Montmerqué.
[34] This correspondence was sold at Sens, in 1849, at the sale of
M. Tarbé. I examined it for several hours. It is composed of about
seventy-six letters, all unpublished, and runs over almost all the
life of Madame de La Fayette. We here find that Ménage felt a passion
for his beautiful pupils. Repulsed and discouraged rather quickly by
Marie de Chantil, he turned to her relative, Mademoiselle de Lavergne,
with no better fortune, but without experiencing so much neglect. The
intercourse of Ménage with Mademoiselle de Lavergne continued even after
her marriage to the Count de La Fayette, became more intimate during
her widowhood, and continued even until her death. Madame de La Fayette
coquetted evidently with her Latin and Italian master, and for some time
their relations were intimate but not tender. Finally, they became good
and perfect friends. Several letters show with what care Madame de La
Fayette had studied under Ménage the poets and good writers, both ancient
and modern. She consults him, and refers to their disputes in regard to
the use of such and such an expression. She speaks continually of their
common friend, Huet, who wrote for _Zaïdé_ a dissertation on the origin
of the romance. There are a few lines about Segrais. I do not remember
seeing the name of La Rochefoucauld once mentioned. This was perhaps
a delicate subject, upon which the beautiful lady did not consult her
learned friends. What existed between the duke and the countess did not
concern the Abbé Huet and the Abbé Ménage. It was only to the Marchioness
de Sévigné, or to the Marchioness de Sablé, that she would speak on
such a matter. Besides, in this collection, we have only the letters or
rather notes of Madame de La Fayette; not one of Ménage. Most of them are
autographs, some dictated and signed, all perfectly authentic. M. Tarbé
made a copy of this correspondence, which was sold with the autographs.
It belongs now to M. Feuillet.
[35] See the dissertation of Madame de Grignan on the _Pure Love_ of
Fénelon, in vol. x. of the works of Madame de Sévigné, p. 518, edition
Montmerqué.
[36] We shall often return in this work, for example, 1st Part, chap.
ii., to this difference between the literature of Louis XIII. and that
of Louis XIV. We have elsewhere said, Fourth Series, vol. ii., of the
illustrious women of the seventeenth century, p. 13: “Let us go on and
examine the age of Louis XIV. An end has come to the manly vigor of the
times of Richelieu; the freedom of the Fronde has ceased; Louis XIV. has
made politeness and dignity, tempered by good taste, the order of the
day. Fortunate are the minds which have been formed in the strength and
liberty of the preceding age, which receive the polish of the new epoch!
This was the privilege of Madame de Sévigné, as well as of Molière and of
Bossuet.”
[37] Part i., chap. iii.
[38] Ibid., chap. iv.
[39] No one has been duped by the disavowal which he made, for political
purposes, of the passages of these memoirs which concern Condé and his
sister; for they are the very ones which most betray his hand. They
shocked the public conscience, whose interpreter is Madame de Motteville,
vol. v., pp. 114, 115, and 132.
[40] See Part iii.
[41] _Mémoires_, edit. of Amsterdam, 1733, p. 12.
[42] _Mémoires_, vol. ii., p. 15.
[43] _Mémoires de Guy-Joly_, collection Michaud, 3d Series, vol. ii., p.
15.
[44] Petitot, vol. li., p. 896.
[45] Ibid., p. 398, 399.
[46] Petitot, vol. li., pp. 898, 899.
[47] Petitot, vol. li., p. 899, etc.
[48] Petitot, vol. li., p. 462.
[49] Ibid., p. 401.
[50] Petitot, vol. lii., p. 9.
[51] Vol. iii., p. 295.
[52] Ibid., p. 393.
[53] _Mémoires_, p. 47.
[54] Mémoires de La Rochefoucauld, Petitot, vol. lii., p. 24.
[55] Mémoires de La Rochefouc., Petitot, vol.lii., p. 72.
[56] Ibid., p. 71.
[57] Mémoires de La Rochefoucauld, Petitot, vol. lii., pp. 79, 80.
[58] See Part ii.
[59] _Mémoires de Madame de Nemours_, p. 150.
[60] La Rochefoucauld, p. 198 of the edition of 1664: “The Prince de
Condé was warned of the design which she had to ruin his party, by very
extraordinary means, for the interest of Nemours, and feared, that
similarly prejudiced in behalf of another, she might go to the same
extremities if this one should so desire it.” _Was warned_, and by whom,
if not by La Rochefoucauld, who then enjoyed the entire confidence of
Condé? La Rochefoucauld perceived so plainly the odiousness of this
passage, that he afterwards modified and softened it, as may be seen in
the editions of Renouard and Petitot.
[61] Vol. v., pp. 114, 115.
[62] Madame de Sévigné doubts it very much. Letter of October 7, 1676:
“I do not believe that he was ever in love.” He says himself in making
his own portrait: “I who know whatever is delicate and strong in the
sentiments of love, if ever I happen to love, it will certainly be in
this manner. But in one of my make, I do not believe that this knowledge
which I possess ever passes from the mind to the heart.” Segrais,
(Mémoires, Anecdotes, edit. d’Amsterdam, 1723, p. 113): “M. de la
Rochefoucauld said that he had never found love except in romances; as
for him, he had never felt it.”
[63] Vol. v., p. 132.
[64] Edit. of 1664, pp. 229-282; Petitot, pp. 156-158.
[65] _Mémoires_, vol. ii., p. 129.
[66] Some time ago I expressed the same opinion in regard to La
Rochefoucauld, and, as may be seen, I still hold it. See 1st series of my
works, vol. iv., p. 200; 4th series, vol. i., p. 51, and vol. ii., p. 8.
[67] Mémoires, Anecdotes, p. 31.
[68] Vol. i., p. 217.
[69] On the Fronde and its general causes, see Part i., chap. 4.
[70] See thereon a curious passage of Madame de Motteville, vol. iv., p.
359, etc.
[71] We borrow the translation that Villefore has given of this part of
the Italian narrative of the cardinal, Part 1st, p. 22.
[72] Part 1st, p. 44.
[73] See, in the Library of the Arsenal, Manuscripts of Conrart, in-4ᵒ,
vol. xvi., p. 642, an unpublished letter of Henri de Bourbon to his
mother, upon the assassination of Henri IV., which proves how absurd it
is to accuse him of having been concerned in that assassination. The same
volume contains different writings of the same prince against Marshal
d’Ancre.
[74] We find in regard to all this, new and curious details in a
_Journal historique et anecdote de la cour et de Paris_, t. xi., in-4ᵒ,
manuscripts of Conrart. This unpublished journal commences January 1,
1614, and goes to January 1, 1620.
M. the Prince was arrested September 1, 1616, by order of Marshal
d’Ancre, favorite of the queen regent, Marie de Médicis.
“September 11. Madame the young Princess arrives very much afflicted.
It is said that M. de Montmorency was not pleased that the queen was
unwilling to permit her to see M. le Prince.
“May 19, 1617. M. le Prince petitions the king to do a charitable deed by
delivering to him his wife, that she might remain a prisoner with him.
“May 26, 1617. Madame the Princess de Condé goes to salute the king and
supplicate him to let her enter as a prisoner in the Bastile with M.
the Prince. The king grants it to her, and permits her to take with her
only one damsel. Upon which her _petit nain_, having supplicated the
king to be pleased that he should not abandon his mistress, his majesty
also permitted him. The same day, after dinner, Madame the Princess
entered the Bastile, where she was received by M. the Prince with all the
testimonies of friendship that can be imagined; and he gave her no repose
until she had said to him that she pardoned him.” In this same journal,
there has often been a question of the bad conduct of the prince towards
his wife, in regard to which there is not one word of blame.
“August 31, 1617. The undertaking to save the prince from the Bastile
discovered.