active 1840-1883 Sutherland Menzies

“ As has been already said, Madame de Longueville did not love her husband. Not only was he greatly her senior, but there was nothing about him that responded to the ideal which that illustrious disciple of the Hôtel de Rambouillet had formed for herself, and which she pursued in vain through guilty illusions, until that which she sought and found at its very source—no longer in the school of Corneille and of Mademoiselle de Scuderi, but in that of her Saviour, in the Carmelite convent and at Port Royal. Never was woman less prone to gallantry by nature than Anne de Bourbon ”

“ He made the Queen believe that Madame de Chevreuse sought to rule her with a rod of iron; that she had changed her mask, but not her character; that she was ever the same impulsive and restless person, who, with all her talent and devotedness, had never worked aught but mischief around her, and was only instrumental in ruining others as well as herself. By degrees, underhand and hidden as it might be, war between the Duchess and the Cardinal declared itself unmistakably. The commencement and progress of this curious struggle for supremacy has been admirably depicted by La Rochefoucauld ”

“ One can scarcely resist a smile on seeing historians for the most part taking no account of it, as a thing too frivolous, and consigning it altogether to private life, as though that which agitates the soul so powerfully were not the principle of that which blazes forth exteriorly! No, the empire of beauty knows no limitation, and in no instance did it show itself more potent than over those great hearts of which Alexander the Great, Cæsar, Charlemagne, and Henry IV. of France were the owners. We may well place Condé amongst such illustrious company. ”

“ The young Duchess found herself speedily surrounded by a swarm of courtiers, attracted by her sprightly and refined intelligence, her majestic beauty, her nonchalant and languishing grace. What more adorable mistress could an audacious aspirant dream of? Bold adventurers for such a lady’s love there was no lack of; and would not many be encouraged with the thought that such a prize could only be defended by a husband already verging towards the decline of life, and whose heart, moreover, was believed to be in the keeping of another? ”

“ In a woman’s heart every other species of resentment yields to that of wounded pride. A few lines addressed to the Coadjutor in the Queen’s own handwriting, and carried by Madame de Chevreuse, brought to her side that wily priest and formidable tribune, disguised en cavalier. Certain negotiations, however, which had preceded this interview, had reached the ears of Condé, who went to Mazarin to denounce the treachery. The Cardinal, glowing with a hatred which would have stopped at nothing for its gratification, laughed and jested, or flattered and soothed the object of his concealed wrath. ”

“ On declaring itself of the party of Mazarin, the house of Condé had drawn down the hatred of the Importants, though their hostility scarcely fell upon Madame de Longueville. Her gentleness in everything in which her heart was not seriously engaged, her entire indifference to politics at this period of her life, with the graces of her mind and person, rendered her pleasing to every one, and shielded her from party spite. But apart from affairs of State, she had an enemy, and a formidable enemy, in the Duchess de Montbazon. ”

“ His individual inclination was to come to an understanding with the Queen and even with Mazarin, as he had very clearly shown. He had continually returned to it; but after so many lying words and odious plots, the execution of which alone was wanting, he thought he would be in a better position to treat solidly with the Court at the head of a powerful and victorious army, than in the midst of wretched intrigues, unworthy of his character, in which he momentarily staked his honour and his life. He never permitted the idea of raising himself above royalty to enter into his mind ”

“ Court, the dismissal of Mazarin, and at the same time he, under a mask, exhibited himself as a benevolent conciliator between royalty and the Fronde, promising the Queen, the indispensable sacrifice accomplished, to smooth all difficulties, and to bring over to her the Duke d’Orleans by separating him from Condé. Such was the real mainspring of all De Retz’s movements—even those seemingly the most contrary: first the cardinalate, then the premiership under the auspices of the Duke d’Orleans, associated in some sort with royalty, without Mazarin or Condé. ”

“ At the same time that she strove to extricate from disgrace the man upon whom rested all her political hopes, Madame de Chevreuse, not daring to attack Mazarin overtly, insensibly undermined the ground beneath his feet, and step by step prepared his ruin. Her experienced eye enabled her promptly to perceive the most favourable point of attack whence to assail the Queen, and the watchword she passed was to fan and keep alive to the utmost the general feeling of reprobation which all the proscribed, on returning to France, had aroused and disseminated against the memory of Richelieu. ”

“ One can readily imagine what must have been, not in the first Fronde, all parliamentary as it was, but in the second, entirely aristocratic, in the Fronde of the Princes, the influence of a woman’s mind at once so subtle and brilliant. It was then that Madame de Chevreuse, Madame de Montbazon, Madame de Longueville, and Mademoiselle de Montpensier, displayed upon the political stage the resources of their finesse, their dissimulation, or their courage. The Palatine did not fall below the level of those adventurous heroines. ”

“ Such was the policy of the Queen’s old friends. It was at least specious, and reckoned numerous partisans among men the most intelligent and attached to the interests of their country. Mazarin, the disciple and successor of Richelieu, had higher views, but which it was not easy at first to make Anne of Austria comprehend. By degrees, however, he succeeded, thanks to his judicious efforts, renewed incessantly and with infinite art; thanks especially to the victories of the Duke d’Enghien—for in all worldly affairs success is a very eloquent and right persuasive advocate. ”

“ But one cannot, with impunity, trifle with love. That tragic adventure of the eldest of the Châtillons perishing, in the flower of his youth, by the hand of the eldest of the Guises was quickly echoed by song and romance through every salon, and cast a gloom upon the destiny of Madame de Longueville, and gave her, at an early period, a fame at once aristocratic and popular, which prepared her wonderfully to play a great part in that other tragi-comedy, heroic and gallant, called the Fronde. ”

“ In the stirring careers of certain among these remarkable personages, it will be seen that the mainspring of their political zeal was either the fierce excitement of an overmastering passion, an irresistible proclivity to gallantry, or an absorbing ambition, rather than any patriotic motive. This may go far to explain the singular sagacity, finesse, and energy displayed in their devotion to what otherwise appears alike mischievous and chimerical by those three high-born and splendidly-gifted women who figured so conspicuously in the civil war of the Fronde ”

“ She regarded this, therefore, as a first and most important service on the part of Mazarin towards her, and for which she felt proportionately grateful. Such was the Cardinal’s first stepping-stone to the good graces of Anne of Austria, and his twofold talent both as a laborious and indefatigable statesman and a consummate courtier, speedily [46] helped to secure for him her entire confidence. The singular personal resemblance he bore to that desperate enamorado of her early womanhood, the brilliant Buckingham, may probably also have served him as a favourable prestige. ”

“ Their exasperation was increased to the highest degree, therefore, when they beheld her give her entire confidence to a foreigner, to a Cardinal, to a creature of Richelieu. By that triple title Mazarin was equally hateful to the great nobles, the members of parliament, and the middle class. The tyranny of Richelieu had in the end attained to something noble by the high-handed heedlessness of all his acts. If the people were to be trampled on, it was a species of consolation that their oppressor was feared by others as well as themselves. ”

“ As for the higher nobility, they were not bound by any political principle; they were very indifferent to the grandeur of France; very ignorant of its pretensions in foreign affairs, or to what it had been pledged with other nations. They loved war in the first place for its dangers, and in the second for the honours and wealth they got by fighting; but even in the army, far from making fidelity and obedience a rule of conduct, they cherished a spirit of independence and resistance to the Crown, and would only allow themselves to be influenced by their chivalric usages. ”

“ How thoroughly did the banished woman then realise the woes of exile—how hard it is to climb and descend the stranger’s stair, experience the hollowness of his promise, and the arrogance of his commiseration. And, finally, as though fated to drain her cup of bitterness to the last drop, to learn that she, her long-loved bosom friend and royal mistress, who owed her, at the very least, a silent fidelity, had openly ranged herself on the side of fortune and Richelieu! ”

“ Through such perilous ways we shall see the infatuated woman following and aiding 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 as well as greatness of soul, her penetration and intrepidity, her attractive sweetness and indomitable energy. She undertakes to mislead Condé, to rob France of the conqueror of Rocroy and of Lens, and to give him to Spain. ”

“ Mazarin judged after himself a man who resembled him in many respects, but not in all. Moreover, he feared lest he might seek to win the Queen’s affection from him; and that fear was not groundless. De Retz saw himself the object of the suspicions and afterwards of the machinations of a power which laboured at his destruction, whilst for that power he was compromising his influence and his popularity. To reacquire it, he hastened, therefore, to throw himself with all his adherents on the side of the Princes, and saw no safety but in their deliverance. ”

“ When every member of the Council was opposed to the siege of Thionville, and when Turenne himself, on being consulted, did not venture to declare his opinion on the subject, it was Mazarin who had insisted with an unflinching persistence that the victory of Rocroy should be profited by, and that France should extend her frontier to the Rhine. That proposition, doubtless, emanated from the youthful conqueror, but Mazarin had the merit of comprehending, sustaining, and causing it to triumph. ”

“ She is the strongest example, perhaps, in the history of the world—certainly in the history of this empire—of the abuse of female favouritism, and the most flagrant instance of household familiarity on the destinies of mankind. Sarah Jennings, the political heroine of her age, and Viceroy, as she was called, in England, had, however, for contemporaries two other remarkable women, who touched the springs of political machinery quite as powerfully as—if not more powerfully than, save herself, any to be found within the limits of Europe—Madame de Maintenon and the Princess des Ursins. ”

“ Henri had accompanied the Duke in his flight to England after the conspiracy of Cinq Mars, and he had returned with him; he possessed his entire confidence, and he relates nothing in which he himself had not taken a considerable part. Henri’s character was very different to that of his brother Alexandre. He was a well-educated man, full of honour and courage, not in the least given to boasting, averse to all intrigue, and born to make his way through life by the straightest paths in the career of arms. ”

“ The beauty and intelligence of the Duchess de Longueville formed certainly, at the commencement, a large share in the calculating lover’s determination to seek a liaison with the Duke d’Enghien’s sister. The crowd of admirers was great around her, and that spectacle of itself served to inflame the ambition of M. de Marsillac: subsequent reflection, doubtless, must have redoubled his ardour to achieve the twofold conquest, in love and party. The Count de Miossens was then paying the most assiduous court to Madame de Longueville ”

“ In selecting the careers of certain celebrated women who have flung themselves with ardour into the vortex of politics, the author’s choice has not been so much an arbitrary one as it might seem, but rather guided by instances in which the adventurous game has not been restricted to the commonplace contentions of the public platform, or the private salon, but played on the grandest scale and on the most conspicuous arena; when Peace and War, crowns and dynasties, have trembled in the balance, and even the fate of a nation has been at stake. ”

“ Human malice, of course, took care that the Queen’s motive should be communicated to all the higher circles of Paris; and as vanity is not only a more pugnacious passion, but a much more pertinacious adversary than any other, the words of Anne of Austria rendered many opponents irreconcilable, who might otherwise have been gained to her cause: the family of the Prince de Condé naturally being among the number. ”

“ La Rochefoucauld, the historian of that party, has made us tolerably familiar with the men who composed it. They were a band of eccentric and mischievous spirits, bold of heart, ready of hand, and of boundless fidelity to one another. Professing to hold the most outrageous maxims, incessantly invoking Brutus and old Rome, and intermingling gallant with political intrigues, they suffered themselves to be hurried beyond the bounds of reason through a Quixotic idea of always pleasing the ladies. ”