Madame de Longueville

“ So the prestige of beauty and the charms of mind traverse centuries to win unceasingly posthumous admiration! These are the qualities which give a more undying interest to the career of Madame de Longueville even than the grandeur of her soul; for that is an incontestable feature which all must recognise, whether partisans or adversaries:—in spite of her errors and deviations, she certainly possessed greatness of soul. ”

“ Left in Guienne, without any great or engrossing occupation, with a vacant mind, discontented both with others and herself, Madame de Longueville was no longer the brilliant Bellona of Stenay, but her pride and dignity, which she could not lose, never failed to sustain her. She therefore resolved to remain even unto the end faithful to that brother whose heart was sought to be steeled against her by the whispers of calumny: to remain in Bordeaux as long as possible, without recoiling from any means which necessity might prescribe. ”

“ Let us beware of hastily applying to Madame de Longueville that maxim of her cynical lover: “Women often think they still love him whom they no longer really love. The opportunity of an intrigue, the mental emotion to which gallantry gives birth, natural inclination to the pleasure of being beloved, and the pain of refusing the lover, together persuade them that they cherish a genuine passion when it is nothing more than mere coquetry.” ”

“ Madame de Longueville’s piety had been generally subordinated to the vicissitudes of a very agitated existence. Her primitive tendency to devotion was rekindled on every occasion that she experienced a trouble, a disenchantment, or any failure of courage. In 1651, when she had been somewhat compromised by the homage of the Duke de Nemours, she had retired to the Carmelite convent at Bourges; then towards the end of her sojourn in Guienne she had sought refuge among the Benedictines at Bordeaux. ”

“ We have already shown that before her liaison with La Rochefoucauld, Madame de Longueville had been a stranger to politics. Occupied solely with innocent gallantry and the homage of the most refined society of the day, she allowed herself in all else to be led by her father and her elder brother. But no sooner was La Rochefoucauld master of her heart, than she gave herself wholly up to him, and became a mere instrument in his hands. Having been by him inspired with ambition, she made it a point of honour, and doubtless a secret happiness, to share his destiny. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yes, indeed, that's the right thing. The Prince de Marsillac -- my old friend -- will recommend our young friend to Madame de Longueville, who will give him a letter to her brother, the prince, who loves her too tenderly not to do what she wishes immediately."
"Well, that will do charmingly," said the count; "but may I beg that the greatest haste may be made, for I have reasons for wishing the vicomte not to sleep longer than to-morrow night in Paris!" ”

“ We do not propose to enter into the labyrinth of intrigues which preceded the outbreak of the Fronde, but confine ourselves to an endeavour to trace the motives which led Madame de Longueville to throw herself into the centre of the malcontents and to figure as the chief heroine in the varied scenes of that tragi-comedy of civil war. ”

“ There was much of the Hôtel de Rambouillet in such a mind as hers.
“The mind in the majority of women serves rather to confirm their folly than their reason.” So says the author of the “Maxims;” and Madame de Longueville, with all her metamorphoses, was undoubtedly present before him when he penned the sentence. For she, the most feminine of her sex, would offer to him the completest epitome of all the rest. ”

“ Madame de Longueville retired to Moulin’s into the convent where her aunt, Madame de Montmorency, had for the last twenty years been mourning for her husband; Conde was the only rebel left, more dangerous, for France, than all the hostile armies he commanded. Cardinal Mazarin was henceforth all-powerful; whatever may have been the nature of the ties which united him to the queen, he had proved their fidelity and strength too fully to always avoid the temptation of adopting the tone of a master; the young king’s confidence in his minister, who had brought him up, equalled that of his mother ”

“ Marechal de La Mothe told me twenty times that he would do everything to the letter that M. de Longueville would have him do for or against the Court. M. de Bouillon quarrelled with me for confiding in men who acted so contrary to the repeated assurances I had given him of their good behaviour. And besides all this, Madame de Longueville protested to me that she had received no news from M. de La Rochefoucault, who went soon after the King, with a design to fortify the Prince de Conti in his resolution and to bring him back to Paris. ”

“ Such a dissembler then was the coldly ambitious, egotistical, clever Duke de la Rochefoucauld—a man capable of sacrificing everybody to his own interests. Madame de Longueville, such as we have depicted her, could not help being the instrument of a man of like character. M. Cousin seems to have arrived at that conclusion, since, in designating that princess as the soul of the Fronde, he acknowledges “that she troubled the state and her own family by an extravagant passion for one of the chiefs of the Importants, become one of the chiefs of the Fronde.” ”

“ At length Madame de Longueville found herself once more in Havre, and having won over the captain of an English ship to whom she introduced herself—like Madame de Chevreuse—in male attire, as a nobleman who had just been engaged in a duel, and was obliged to leave France, she succeeded in obtaining a passage to Rotterdam. Thence, passing through Flanders, she reached the stronghold of Stenay, [55] where the Viscomte de Turenne, already compromised with the Court for having openly espoused the Condé party, had shortly before the Duchess’s arrival also taken refuge. ”

“ Anne of Austria loved her but little, partly through a jealous feeling created by her singular beauty, partly from her great reputation for wit, and also from her perpetual wranglings for precedence with other princesses of the blood. In fact, in order to lose no tittle of the prerogatives derived from her birth, Madame de Longueville had obtained a royal brevet from the king which maintained her in the rank which she would have otherwise lost by her marriage. A pride so exacting does not appear to agree with the peculiar nonchalance that was one of her striking characteristics ”

“ Persecution had already attacked Port-Royal, and M. Singlin, in order not to be recognised, went to the Hôtel de Longueville disguised as a doctor, his features being concealed by an ample wig. M. Singlin strove to fix limits to the ardour by which Madame de Longueville was carried away, he counselled her to remain in the outer world, to which her husband and children bound her, and in which her salvation, he said, might be as surely accomplished by exacting more vigilance than it would be found necessary to exercise in the retirement of the cloister. ”

“ It was during that rapid journey and their very brief sojourn in Berri that certain obscure relations, it would appear, were formed between the Duke de Nemours and Madame de Longueville, the report of which reaching Bordeaux, exaggerated probably by interested and malevo [264] lent underlings, wounded La Rochefoucauld and drove him to a violent rupture. A loyal and confiding explanation might have sufficed to disperse a cloud, such as at times will obscure the most settled friendships. ”

“ M. Cousin is especially enamored of the women of the seventeenth century, and relieves himself from his labors in philosophy by making researches into the original documents which throw light upon their lives. Last year he gave us some results of these researches in a volume on the youth of the Duchess de Longueville; and he has just followed it up with a second volume, in which he further illustrates her career by tracing it in connection with that of her friend, Madame de Sablé. ”

“ It was the truth, since André had heard Madame Aubry and one or two others commend Monsieur Laflamme for his wisdom. Some man would marry Mademoiselle de Longueville in a year or two. But it was an unfortunate way of putting her on guard. And it stings a girl with mortification to hear a man belittled who has paid her the compliment of a marriage proposal. ”

“ Prominent among the fair faces that look out upon us at every turn, from court and salon, is that of the Duchesse de Longueville, sister of the Grand Conde, and heroine of the Fronde. Her lovely blue eyes, with their dreamy languor and "luminous awakenings," turn the heads alike of men and women, of poet and critic, of statesman and priest. We trace her brief career through her pure and ardent youth, her loveless marriage, her fatal passion for La Rochefoucauld, the final shattering of all her illusions ”

“ But Henry showed her that it could not be for long; Louis had been ill for years now (grisly reasoning for a girl of eighteen) , and once a widow she would be free to marry whom she would, if she would only do his pleasure this once. Longueville painted the delights of the French Court, the centre of all light and fashion, and the honour of being queen of it, while her pride, wounded by the Flemish treatment, was glad to be able to return so speedy a Roland for their Oliver. ”

“ Then quietly reaching out her hand she grasped the necklace and deliberately dashed it in poor old de Longueville's face.
"There is my answer, sir! Go home and tell your imbecile old master I scorn his suit and hate him—hate him—hate him!" Then with the tears falling unheeded down her cheeks, "Master Wolsey, you butcher's cur! This trick was of your conception; the others had not brains enough to think of it. Are you not proud to have outwitted one poor heart-broken girl? But beware, sir; I tell you now I will be quits with you yet, or my name is not Mary." ”

“ When calm was restored Anne of Austria refused to yield. The die was cast; civil war was inevitable. After long deliberation the Hôtel de Ville declared for resistance. The masses of the people were defiant; they accused the royal family of treason; they demanded vengeance. [135]
At that moment, when the nation stood alone, without a king, when a mob, driven mad by despair, clamoured for justice from the nobles, Mme. de Longueville entered the political field. Nature had not intended Mme. la Duchesse de Longueville for a business career ”

“ The Cardinal acted the part of one who thought himself secure, but was much less confident than he appeared. The Queen affected to be good-humoured, and yet was never more ill-tempered. M. de Longueville put on the marks of sorrow and sadness while his heart leaped for joy, for no man living took a greater pleasure than he to promote all broils. The Duc d'Orleans personated hurry and, passion in speaking to the Queen, yet would whistle half an hour together with the utmost indolence. ”

“ The fires of his nature seem to have burned out with the passions of his youth, if they had ever burned with great intensity. "I have seen love nowhere except in romances," he says, and even his devotion to Mme. de Longueville savors more of the ambitious courtier than of the lover. His nature was one that recoiled from all violent commotions of the soul. The cold philosophy of the Maxims marked perhaps the reaction of his intellect against the disenchanting experiences of his life. In the tranquil atmosphere of Mme. ”

“ But still in hall, and park, and parsonage throughout the country the new Lady Longueville was looked for with almost enthusiasm. People were honestly glad that the old house was not to die out. Whatever advances democratical feeling may have made, this pleasure in the continuance of a family is, I believe, universal in England. It gave an almost personal gratification to people who had no connexion whatever with the Longuevilles—such a gratification as bystanders have in seeing an apparently failing cause or combatant pick up strength, and gain at the very end an unhoped-for triumph. ”

“ LONGUEVILLE, the name of a French family which originated with Jean, count of Dunois, the “Bastard of Orleans,” to whom Charles VII. gave the countship of Longueville in Normandy in 1443. François of Orleans, count of Longueville, was created duke in 1505. The marriage of his brother Louis with Jeanne, daughter and heiress of Philip, count of Baden-Hochberg-Sausenberg (d. 1503) , added considerable estates to the house of Longueville. Henry, duc de Longueville (d. 1663) , took an important part in the Fronde, and for a long time held the royal troops in check in Normandy. ”

“ But when they tried to find out whether he were a professional singer, he baffled them so pleasantly that he did not afford these women, practised as they were in the art of reading feelings, the least chance of discovering to what social sphere he belonged. However boldly the old uncle cast the boarding-hooks over the vessel, Longueville slipped away cleverly, so as to preserve the charm of mystery; and it was easy to him to remain the "handsome Stranger" at the Villa, because curiosity never overstepped the bounds of good breeding. ”