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MADEMOISELLE
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LA QRaNDE MADEMOISELLE
FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING
LA GRANDE
MADEMOISELLE
1627-1652
BY
ARVEDE BARINE
/•UTHORISED ENGLISH VERSION BY
HELEN E. MEYER
M/
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Ube flmicfeerbocfter press
iqo2
Copyright, 1902
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Published, November, 1902
Ube Ifctiickeibocker press, fAcvo JtJorfe
PREFACE
La Grande Mademoiselle was one of the most
original persons of her epoch, though it cannot
be said that she was ever of the first order. Hers
was but a small genius ; there was nothing extra-
ordinary in her character ; and she had too little
influence over events to have made it worth while
to devote a whole volume to her history — much
less to prepare for her a second chronicle — had
she not been an adventurous and picturesque prin-
cess, a proud, erect figure standing in the front
rank of the important personages whom Emerson
called " representative."
Mademoiselle's agitated existence was a marvel-
lous commentary on the profound transformation
accomplished in the mind of France toward the
close of the seventeenth century, — a transforma-
tion whose natural reaction changed the bein^ of
France.
I have tried to depict this change, whose traces
are often hidden by the rapid progress of historical
events, because it was neither the most salient
feature of the closing century nor the result of a
revolution.
Essential, of the spirit, it passed in the depths
of the eager souls of the people of those tormented
iii
iv Preface
days. Such changes are analogous to the changes
in the light of the earthly seasons. From day to
day, marking dates which vary with the advancing
years, the intense light of summer gives place to
the wan light of autumn. So the landscape is per-
petually renewed by the recurring influences of
natural revolution ; in like manner, the moral at-
mosphere of France was changed and recharged
with the principles of life in the new birth ; and
when the long civil labour of the Fronde was ended,
the nation's mind had received a new and oppo-
site impulsion, the casual daily event wore a new
aspect, the sons viewed things in a light unknown
to their fathers, and even to the fathers the ap-
pearance of things had changed. Their thoughts,
their feelings, their whole moral being had
changed.
It is the gradual progress of this transformation
that I have attempted to show the reader. I know
that my enterprise is ambitious ; it would have been
beyond my strength had I had nothing to refer to
but the Archives and the various collections of per-
sonal memoirs. But two great poets have been
my guides, Corneille and Racine, both faithful in-
terpreters of the thoughts and the feelings of their
contemporaries ; and they have made clear the
contrast between the two distinct social epochs —
between the old and the new bodies, so different,
yet so closely connected.
When the Christian pessimism of Racine had —
in the words of Jules Lemaitre — succeeded the
Preface v
stoical optimism of Corneille, all the conditions
evolving- their diverse lines of thought had changed.
The nature of La Grande Mademoiselle was
exemplified in the moral revolution which gave us
PJicdre thirty-four years (the space of a generation)
after the apparition of Pauline.
In the first part of her life, — the part depicted
in this volume, — Mademoiselle was as true a type
of the heroines of Corneille as any of her contem-
poraries. Not one of the great ladies of her world
had a more ungovernable thirst for grandeur ; not
one of them cherished more superb scorn for the
baser passions, among which Mademoiselle classed
the tender sentiment of love. But, like all the
others, she was forced to renounce her ideals ; and
not in her callow youth, when such a thing would
have been natural, but when she was growing old,
was she carried away by the torrent of the new
thought, whose echoes we have caught through
Racine.
The limited but intimately detailed and some-
what sentimental history of Mademoiselle is the
history of France when Louis XIII. was old, and
when young Louis — Louis XIV. — was a minor,
living the happiest years of all his life.
If I seem presumptuous, let my intention be my
excuse for so long soliciting the attention of my
reader in favour of La Grande Mademoiselle.
ERRATA.
Page 83, ninth line from top, read de Lormes for
de Lorme.
Page 272, fifth line from bottom, dele hypnotic.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
I. Gaston d'Orleans — His Marriage — His Character— II. Birth of
Mademoiselle — III. The Tuileries in 1627— The Retinue of
a Princess — IV. Contemporary Opinions of Education— The
Education of Boys — V. The Education of Girls— VI. Made-
moiselle's Childhood — Divisions of the Royal Family . 1-80
CHAPTER II
I. Anne of Austria and Richelieu — Birth of Louis XIV. — II.
EAstree and its Influence— III. Transformation of the Public
Manners — The Creation of the Salon — The Hotel de Ram-
bouillet and Men of Letters Si-153
CHAPTER III
I. The Earliest Influences of the Theatre — II. Mademoiselle and
the School of Corneille — III. Marriage Projects — IV. The
Cinq-Mars Affair— Close of the Reign .... 154-236
CHAPTER IV
I. The Regency — The Romance of Anne of Austria and Mazarin —
Gaston's Second Wife — II. Mademoiselle's New Marriage
Projects— III. Mademoiselle Would Be a Carmelite Nun— The
Catholic Renaissance under Louis XIII. and the Regency — IV.
Women Enter Politics — The Rivalry of the Two Junior
Branches of the House of France — Continuation of the Royal
Romance 237-327
vii
viii Contents
CHAPTER V
PAGE
I. The Beginning of Trouble — Paris and the Parisians in 1648 — II.
The Parliamentary Fronde — Mademoiselle Would Be Queen of
France — III. The Fronde of the Princes and the Union of
the Frondes — Projects for an Alliance with Conde — IV. La
Grande Mademoiselle's Heroic Period — The Capture of Orleans
— The Combat in the Faubourg Saint Antoine — The End of the
Fronde — Exile 328-436
ILLUSTRATIONS
La Grande Mademoiselle
From a steel engraving.
Frontispiece
Marie de Medicis .......
From a steel engraving.
The Chateau of Versailles from the Terrace .
After the painting by J. Rigaud.
The Tuileries from the Seine in the i6th Century
From a contemporary print.
Madame de Sevigne
From an engraving of the painting by Muntz.
Cardinal Richelieu .......
The Abbey of St. Germain Des-pres in the i6th
Century .......
From an old print.
Louis XIII. , King of France and of Navarre
From an old print.
CORNEILLE ........
From an engraving of the painting by Lebrun.
Racine ........
From a steel engraving.
The Hotel de Richelieu in the 17TH Century
From a contemporary print.
A Game of Chance in the 17TH Century
From an engraving by Sebastien Leclerc.
Marquis de Cinq-Mars .....
ix
PAGE
6
8
22
54
84
no
i5 2
168
182
204
210
212
Illustrations
Anne of Austria ....
View of the Louvre from the Seine in the 17TH
Century .....
From an old print.
Henriette, Duchesse d'Orleans
From a steel engraving.
St. Vincent De Paul
From a steel engraving.
Duchesse de Chevreuse
Cardinal Mazarin ....
Mademoiselle de Montpensier
From a steel engraving.
The Tower of Nesle
From a contemporary print.
Cardinal de Retz ....
Madame de la Valliere .
From a steel engraving.
VlCOMTE DE TURENNE
View of the Luxembourg (Later Called the Palais
d'Orleans) in the 17TH Century
From an old print.
La Rochefoucauld ....
From a steel engraving.
Prince de Conde ....
Due d'Orleans
PAGE
242
254
258
292
300
320
3 2 4
342
344
366
398
410
416
420
422
LA GRANDE MADEMOISELLE
THE YOUTH OF LA GRANDE
MADEMOISELLE
CHAPTER I
I. Gaston d'Orleans — His Marriage — His Character — II. Birth of
Mademoiselle — III. The Tuileries in 1627 — The Retinue of a
Princess — IV. Contemporary Opinions of Education — The Educa-
tion of Boys — V. The Education of Girls — VI. Mademoiselle's
Childhood — Divisions of the Royal Family.
IN the Chateau of Versailles there is a full-length
portrait of La Grande Mademoiselle, — so called
because of her tall stature, — daughter of Gaston
d'Orleans, and niece of Louis XIII. When the
portrait was painted, the Princess's hair was turning
grey. She was forty-five years old. Her imperious
attitude and warlike mien befit the manners of the
time of her youth, as they befit her Amazonian
exploits in the days of the Fronde.
Her lofty bearing well accords with the adven-
tures of the illustrious girl whom the customs and
the life of her day, the plays of Corneille, and the
novels of La Calprenede and of Scudery imbued with
sentiments much too pompous. The painter of the
portrait had seen Mademoiselle as we have seen
2 The Youth of
her in her own memoirs and in the memoirs of her 1
companions.
Nature had fitted her to play the part of the
goddess in exile ; and it had been her good for-
tune to find suitable employment for faculties
which would have been obstacles in an ordinary
life. To become the Minerva of Versailles,
Mademoiselle had to do nothing but yield to
circumstances and to float onward, borne by the
current of events.
In the portrait, under the tinselled trappings
the deep eyes look out gravely, earnestly ; the
thoughtful face is naively proud of its borrowed
divinity; and just as she was pictured — serious,
exalted in her assured dignity, convinced of her
own high calling — she lived her life to its end, too
proud to know that hers was the fashion of a by-
gone age, too sure of her own position to note the
smiles provoked by her appearance. She ignored
the fact that she had denied her pretensions by her
own act (her romance with Lauzun, — an episode by
far too bourgeois for the character of an Olympian
goddess). She had given the lie to her assump-
tion of divinity, but throughout the period of her
romance she bore aloft her standard, and when it
was all over she came forth unchanged, still vested
with her classic dignity. The old Princess, who
excited the ridicule of the younger generation, was,
to the few surviving companions of her early years,
the living evocation of the past. To them she
bore the ineffaceable impression of the thought, the
La Grande Mademoiselle 3
feeling, the inspiration, the soul of France, as they
had known it under Richelieu and Mazarin.
The influences that made the tall daughter of
Gaston d'Orleans a romantic sentimentalist long
before sentimental romanticism held any place in
France, ruled the destinies of French society at
large ; and because of this fact, because the same
influences that directed the illustrious daughter of
France shaped the course of the whole French
nation, the solitary figure — though it was never of
a high moral order — is worthy of attention. La
Grande Mademoiselle is the radiant point whose
light illumines the shadows of the past in which
she lived.
Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orleans, Duchess of Mont-
pensier, was the daughter of Gaston of France,
younger brother of King Louis XIII., and of a
distant cousin of the royal family, Marie of Bour-
bon, Duchess of Montpensier. It would be impos-
sible for a child to be less like her parents than was
La Grande Mademoiselle. Her mother was a beau-
tiful blond personage with the mild face of a sheep,
and with a character well fitted to her face. She
was very sweet and very tractable. Mademoi-
selle's father resembled the decadents of our own
day. He was a man of sickly nerves, vacillating,
weak of purpose, with a will like wax, who formed
day-dreams in which he figured as a gallant and
warlike knight, always on the alert, always the
4 The Youth of
omnipotent hero of singularly heroic exploits. He
deluded himself with the idea that he was a real
prince, a typical Crusader of the ancient days. In
his chaotic fancy he raised altar against altar, burn-
ing incense before his purely personal and pecul-
iar gods, taking principalities by assault, bringing
the kings and all the powers of the earth into sub-
jection, bearing down upon them with his might,
and shifting them like the puppets of a chess-board.
His efforts to attain the heights pictured by his
imagination resulted in awkward gambols through
which he lost his balance and fell, crushed by the
weight of his own folly. Thus his life was a series
of ludicrous but tragic burlesques.
In the seventeenth century, in flesh and blood, he
was the Prince whom modern writers set in prom-
inent places in romance, and whom they introduce
to the public, deluded by the thought that he is the
creature of their invention. Louis XIII. was a liv-
ing and pitiable anachronism. He had inherited all
the traditions of his rude ancestors. Yet, to meet
the requirements of his situation, nature had ac-
coutred him for active service with nothing but an
enervated and unbalanced character. One of his
most odious infamies — his first — served as a pro-
logue to the birth of "Tall Mademoiselle." In
1626, as Louis XIII. had no child, his brother
Gaston was heir-presumptive to the throne, and
he was a bachelor. They who had some interest
in the question were pushing him from all sides,
urging him not to fetter himself by the inferior
La Grande Mademoiselle 5
marriage of a younger son. They implored him to
have patience; to "wait a while" ; to see if there
would not be some unlooked-for opening for him
in the near future. His own apparent future was
promising ; there was much encouragement in the
fact that the King was sickly. What might not a
day bring forth? — "under such conditions great
changes were possible ! "
Monsieur's mind laid a tenacious grasp on the
idea that he must either marry a royal princess, or
none at all ; and he was so imbued with the thought
that he must remain free to attain supreme heights
that when Marie de Medicis proposed to him a
marriage with the richest heiress of France, Mile,
de Montpensier, he tried to evade her offer. He
encouraged Chalais's conspiracy, which was to be
the means of helping him to effect his flight from
Court ; he permitted his friends to compromise
themselves, then without a shadow of hesitation
he sold them all. When the plot had been ex-
posed, he hastily withdrew his irons from the fire
by reporting everything to Richelieu and the Queen-
mother. His friends tried to excuse him by saying
that he had lost his head ; but it was not true. His
avowals as informer are on record in the archives
of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and they
prove that he was a man who knew very well what he
was doing and why he was doing it, who worked
intelligently and systematically, planning his course
with matter-of-fact self-possession, selling his treason
at the highest market-price of such commodities.
6 The Youth of
The 1 2th July, 1626, Monsieur denounced thirty
of his friends, or servitors, whose only fault had
lain in their devotion to his interests.
Once when Marie de Medicis reproached him
for having failed to keep a certain written promise
" never to think of anything tending to separate
him from the King," Monsieur replied calmly that
he had signed that paper but that he never had said
that he would not do it, — that he " never had given
a verbal promise." They then reminded him that
he had "solemnly sworn several times." The
young Prince replied with the same serenity, that
whenever he took an oath, he did it "with a mental
reservation."
The 1 8th, Monsieur, being in a good humour,
made some strong protestations to his mother, who
was in her bed. He again took up the thread of his
denunciations to Richelieu without waiting to be
invited to give his information. The 23d, he went
to the Cardinal and told him to say that he, Mon-
sieur, was ready to marry whenever they pleased,
" if they would give him his appanage at the time
of the marriage," — after which announcement he
remarked that the late M. d'Aleiifon had had
three appanages. Monsieur sounded his seas, and
spied out his land in all directions, carefully
gathering data and making very minute investi-
gations as to the Kind's intentions. He intimated
his requirements to the Cardinal, who " sent the
President, Le Coigneux, to talk over his marriage
and his appanage."
MARIE DE MEDICIS
FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING
La Grande Mademoiselle 7
His haofsdinof and his denunciations alternated
until August 2d. Finally he obtained the duchies
of Montpensier and of Chartres, the county of
Blois, and pecuniary advantages which raised his
income to the sum of a million livres. His vanity
was allowed free play on the occasion of the signing
of the contract, but this was forgiven him because
he was only eighteen years old.
Monsieur had eighty French guards, all wearing casques,
and bandoleers of the fine velvet of his livery. Their helmets
were loaded, in front and behind, with Monsieur's initials
enriched with gold. He had, also, twenty-four Swiss guards,
who marched before him on Sundays and other fete days, with
drums beating, though the King was still in Paris. He was
fond of pomp. The lives of his friends did not weigh a
feather in the balance against a few provinces and a rolling
drum.
His guardian, Marshal d'Ornano, was a prisoner
in Versailles, where the Court was at that time.
Investigations against him were in rapid progress ;
but the face of the young bridegroom was wreathed
with smiles when he led his bride to the altar, 5th
August, 1626. As soon as he had given his con-
sent they had hastened the marriage. The cere-
mony took place as best it could. It was marriage
by the lightning process. There was no music, the
bridegroom's habit was not new. While the cortege
was on its way, two of the resplendent duchesses
quarrelled over some question of precedence. To
quote the Chronicles : " From words they came to
blows and from blows to scratches of their skins."
8 The Youth of
This event scandalised the public, but the splen-
dour of the fetes effaced the memory of the regret-
table incidents preceding them. While the fetes
were in progress, Monsieur exhibited a gayety which
astonished the people ; they were not accustomed to
the open display of such indelicacy. It was known
why young Chalais had been condemned to death ;
it was known that Monsieur had vainly demanded
that he be shown some mercy. When the 19th —
the day of execution — came, Monsieur saw fit to
be absent. The youthful Chalais was beheaded by
a second-rate executioner, who hacked at his neck
with a dull sword and with an equally dull tool used
by coopers. When the twentieth blow was struck,
Chalais was still moaning. The people assembled
to witness the execution cried out against it.
Fifteen days later Marshal d'Ornano gave proof
of his accommodating amiability by dying in his
prison. Others who had vital interests at stake
either fled or were exiled.
Judging from appearances, Monsieur had had
nothing to do with the condemned or the suspected.
His callous levity was noted and judged according
to its quality. Frequently tolerant to an extra-
ordinary degree, the morality of the times was firm
enough where the fidelity of man to master, or of
master to man, was concerned. The common idea
of decency exacted absolute devotion from the
soldier to his chief, from servant to employer, from
the gentleman to his seignior. Nor was the duty
of master to man less binding. Thouo-h his crea-
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La Grande Mademoiselle 9
tures or servants were in the wrong, though their
failures numbered seventy times seven, it was the
master's part to uphold, to defend, and to give them
courage, to stand or to fall with them, as the leader
stands with his armies. Gaston knew this ; he
knew that he dishonoured his own name in the
eyes of France when he delivered to justice the
men who had worn his colours. But he mocked at
the idea of honour, shaming it, as those among our
own sons — if they are unfortunate enough to
resemble him — mock at the higher and broader
idea of home and country, — the idea which, in our
day, takes the place of all other ideas exacting an
effort or a sacrifice.
It must not be supposed that Monsieur was an
ordinary poltroon, bowed down by the weight of his
shame, desperately feeble, a mawkish and shambling
type of the effeminate adolescent ; though a coward
in shirking consequences he was a typical " prince":
very spirited, very gay, and very brilliant ; conscious
of the meaning of all his actions ; contented in his
position, — such as he made it, — and resigned to act
the part of a coward before the world.
His vivacity was extraordinary. The people
marvelled at his unfailing lack of tact. Though
very young, he was well grown. He was no longer
a child whose nurse caught him with one hand,
forcibly buttoning his apron as he struggled to run
away ; yet he skipped and gambolled, spinning in-
cessantly on his high heels, his hand thrust into his
pocket, his cap over his ear. In one way or in
io The Youth of
another he incessantly proclaimed his presence.
His sarcastic lips were always curved over his white
teeth ; he was always whistling.
" One can see well that he is high-born," wrote
the indulgent Madame de Motteville. " His rest-
lessness and his grimaces show it." But Madame
de Motteville was not his only chronicler. Others
relished his manners less. A gentleman who had
lived in his (Monsieur's) house when Monsieur was
very young, saw him again under Mazarin, and
finding that despite his age and size he was the
same peculiar being that he had been in infancy,
the old gentleman turned and ran away. " Well,
upon my word," he cried, " if he is not the same
deuced scamp as in the days of Richelieu ! I shall
not salute him."
Monsieur's portraits are not calculated to contra-
dict the impression given by his contemporaries.
He is a handsome boy. The long oval face is deli-
cately fine. The eyes are spiritual ; and despite
its look of self-sufficiency the whole face is infinitely
charming. One of the portraits shows a certain
shade of sly keenness, but as a whole the face is
always indescribably attractive, — and yet as we
gaze upon it we are seized by an impulse to follow
the example of the old marquis, and run away with-
out saluting. In the portrait the base soul looks
out of the handsome face just as it did in life, mani-
festing its deplorable reality through its mask of
natural beauty and intelligence. No one could say
that Monsieur was a fool. Retz declared : " M. le
La Grande Mademoiselle n
Due d'Orleans had a fine and enlightened mind."
It was the general impression that his conversation
was admirable ; judged by his talk he was a being of
a superior order. His manners and his voice were
engaging. He was an artist, very fond of pictures
and rare and handsome trifles. He was skilful in
engraving on metals ; he loved literature ; he loved
to read ; he was interested in new ideas and in the
march of thought. He knew many curious sciences.
He was a cheerful companion, easy-mannered,
sprightly, easy of approach, fond of raillery, and
full of his jests, but his jests were never ill-natured.
Even his enemies were forced to own that he had
a good disposition, and that he was naturally kind ;
and this was the general opinion of the strange
being who was a Judas to so many of his most de-
voted friends.
Had Monsieur possessed but one grain of moral
consciousness, and had he been free from an almost
inconceivable degree of weakness and of cowardice,
he would have made a fine Prince Charming. But
his poltroonery and his moral debility stained the
whole fabric of his life and made him a lugubrious
example of spiritual infirmity. He engaged in all
sorts of intrigues because he was too weak to say
No, and owing to the same weakness he never
honestly fulfilled an engagement.
At times he started out intending to do his duty,
then when midway on his route he was seized by
fear, he took the bit between his teeth, and ran,
and nothing on earth could stop him. He carried
12 The Youth of
out his cowardice with impudence, and his villainy
was artful and adroit. However base his action, he
was never troubled by remorse. He was insensible
to love, and devoid of any sense of honour. Having
betrayed his associates, he abandoned them to their
fate, then thrust his hand into his pocket, pirou-
etted, cut a caper, whistled a tune, and thought no
more of it.
II
The third week in October the Duchess of Or-
leans returned to Paris. The Court was at the
Louvre. The young pair, Monsieur and his wife,
had their apartments in the palace, and the cour-
tiers were not slow in finding their way to them.
Hardly had she arrived when Madame declared
her pregnancy. As there was no direct heir to the
crown, this event was of great importance. The
people precipitated themselves toward the happy
Princess who was about to give birth to a future
King of France. Staid and modest though she
was, her own head was turned by her condition. She
paraded her hopes. It seemed to her that even
then she held in her arms the son who was to take
the place of a dauphin. Every one offered her
prayers and acclamations ; and every one hailed
Monsieur as if he had been the rising sun. 1
Monsieur asked nothing better than to play his
part ; he breathed the incense offered to his bril-
liant prospects with felicity.
1 Mimoires de Gaston.
La Grande Mademoiselle 13
Husband and wife enjoyed their importance to
the full ; they displayed their triumphant faces in
all parts of that palace that had seen so much bit-
terness of spirit.
In itself, politics apart, the Louvre was not a
very agreeable resting-place. On the side toward
Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois its aspect was rough
and gloomy. The remains of the old fortress of
Philip Augustus and of Charles V. were still in ex-
istence. Opposite the Tuileries, towards the Quai,
the exterior of the palace was elegant and cheer-
ful. There the Valois and Henry IV. had begun
to build the Louvre as we know it to-day.
A discordant combination of extreme refinement
and of extreme coarseness made the interior of the
palace one of the noisiest and dirtiest places in the
world. The entrance to the palace of the King of
France was like the entrance to a mill ; a tumultu-
ous crowd filled the palace from morning until
night ; and it was the custom of the day for indi-
viduals to be perfectly at ease in public, — no one
stood on ceremony. The ebbing and flowing tide
of courtiers, of business men, of countrymen, of
tradesmen, and all the throngs of valets and under-
lings considered the stairways, the balconies, the
corridors, and the places behind the doors, retreats
propitious for the relief of nature.
It was a system, an immemorial servitude, exist-
ing in Vincennes and Fontainebleau as at the
Louvre, — a system that was not abolished without
great difficulty. In a document dated posterior to
14 The Youth of
1670, mention is made of the thousand masses of
all uncleanness, and the thousand insupportable
stenches, "which made the Louvre a hot-bed of in-
fection, very dangerous in time of epidemic." The
great ones of earth accepted such discrepancies as
fatalities ; they contented themselves with ordering
a sweep of the broom.
Neither Gaston nor the Princess, his wife, de-
scended to the level of their critical surroundings.
They were habituated to the peculiar features of
the royal palaces ; and certainly that year, in the
intoxication of their prospects, they must have con-
sidered the palatial odours very acceptable.
It did not agree with their frame of mind to note
that the always gloomy palace was more than usually
dismal. Anne of Austria had been struck to the
heart by the pregnancy of her sister-in-law. She
had been married twelve years and she no longer
dared to cherish the hope of an heir. She felt
that she was sinking into oblivion. Her enemies
had begun to insinuate that her usefulness was at
an end and that she had no reason for clinginor to
life. The Queen of France lived so eclipsed a life
that to the world she was nothing but a pretty
woman with a complexion of milk and roses. The
people knew that she was unhappy, and they pitied
her. They never learned her true character until
she became Regent. Anne of Austria was not the
only one to drain the cup of bitterness that year.
Louis XIII. also was jealous of the maternity of
Madame. It was a part of his nature to cherish
La Grande Mademoiselle 15
evil sentiments, and his friends found some excuse
for his faults in his misfortunes. Since Richelieu
had attained power, Louis had succumbed to the
exigencies of monarchical duty. His whole per-
son betrayed his distress, exhaling constraint and
anxiety. The most mirthful jester quailed at the
sight of the long, livid face, so mournful, so expres-
sive of the mental torment of the Prince who
" knew that he was hated and who had no fondness
for himself."
Louis was timid and prudish, and, like his
brother, he had sick nerves. Herouard, who was
his doctor when he was a child, exhibits the young
Prince as a somnambulist, who slept with eyes open,
and who arose in his sleep, walking and talking in
a loud voice. Louis's doctors put an end to any
strength that he may have had originally. In one
year Bouvard bled him forty-seven times ; and dur-
ing- that one twelvemonth the child was given
twelve different kinds of medicines and two hun-
dred and fifteen enemas. Is it credible that after
such an experience the unhappy King merited the
reproach of being " obstreperous in his intercourse
with the medical faculty " ?
He had studied but little ; he took no interest in
the things that pleased the mind ; his pastimes
were purely animal. He liked to hunt, to work in
his garden, to net pouches for fish and game, to
make snares and arquebuses. He liked to make
preserves, to lard meat, and to shave. Like his
brother, he had one artistic quality : he loved music
1 6 The Youth of
and composed it. " This was the one smile, the
only smile of a natural ingrate."
Louis XIII. was of a nature dry and hard. He
detested his wife ; he loved nothing on earth but
his young favourites. He loved them ; then, in an
instant, without warning, he ceased to love them ;
and when he had ceased to love them he did not
care what became of them, — did not care whether
they lived or died. Whenever he could witness
the agony of death he did so, and turned the occa-
sion into a picnic or a pleasure trip. He enjoyed
watching the grimaces of the dying. His religious
devotion was sincere, but it was narrow and sterile.
He was jealous and suspicious, forgetful, frivolous,
incapable of applying himself to anything serious.
He had but one virtue, but that he carried to
such lengths that it sufficed to embalm his memory.
This virtue was the one which raised the family of
Hohenzollern to power and to glory. The sombre
soul of Louis XIII. was imbued with the imperi-
ous sentiment of royal duty, — the professional duty
of the man designed and appointed by Divine
Providence to give account to God for millions of
the souls of other men. He never separated either
his own advantage or his own glory from the ad-
vantage and the glory of France. He forced his
brother to marry, though he knew that the birth of
a nephew would ulcerate his own flesh. He har-
boured Richelieu with despairing resolution because
he believed that France could not maintain its ex-
istence without the hated ministry. He had the
La Grande Mademoiselle 17
essential quality, the one quality which supplies
the lack of other qualities, without which all other
qualities, great and noble though they be, are use-
less before the State.
Around these chiefs of the Court buzzed a swarm
of ambitious rivals and whispering intriguers all
animated by one purpose, to effect the discomfiture
of Richelieu. The King's health was failing. The
Cardinal knew that Louis "had not two days to live";
he was seen daily, steadily advancing toward the
grave. In Michelet's writings there is a striking
page devoted to the "great man of business wast-
ing his time and strength struggling against I do
not know how many insects which have stung him."
Marie de Medicis was the only one who united
with the King in defending Richelieu in the critical
winter of 1626. The Cardinal was the Oueen's
creature. The pair had many memories in com-
mon — and of more than one kind. Some years
previous Richelieu had taken the trouble to play
lover to the portly quadragenarian, and he had
brought to bear upon his effort all the courage
requisite for such a suit. The Court of France
had looked on while the Cardinal took lessons in
lute playing, because the Queen-mother, notwith-
standing her age and her proportions, had had a
fancy to play the lute as she had done when a little
girl. Marie de Medicis had given proof that she
was not insensible to such delicate attentions, and
she had forgotten nothing ; but the moment was
approaching when Richelieu would find that it had
1 8 The Youth of
been to no purpose that he had shouldered the
ridicule of France by sighing out his music at
the feet of the fat Queen.
That year a stranger would have said that the
Court of France had never been more gay. Fete
followed fete. In the winter there were two orand
ballets at the Louvre, danced by the flower of the
nobility, the King at their head. Louis XIII.
adored such exhibitions, though they overthrow
all modern ideas of a royal -majesty.
The previous winter he had invited the Bour-
geoisie of Paris to the Hotel-de-Ville to contem-
plate their ghastly monarch masked for the carnival,
dancing his grand pas. "It is my wish" said he,
"to confer honour upon the city by this action"
The Bourgeoisie had accepted the invitation ; man
and wife had flocked to the appointed place at the
appointed hour, and there they had waited from
four o'clock in the afternoon until five o'clock in
the morning, before the royal dancers had made
their appearance. The dance had not ended until
noon, when the honoured Bourgeoisie had returned
to their homes.
Monsieur took his full share of all official pleas-
ures, and he had also some pleasures of his own, —
and purely personal they were. Some of them
were infantine ; some of them, marked by intelli-
gence, were far in advance of the ideas of that
epoch. Contemporary customs demanded that
people of the world should relegate their serious
affairs to the tender mercies of the professional
La Grande Mademoiselle 19
keen wits, who made it their business to attend
to such questions. Gaston used to convene the
chosen of his lords and gentlemen, to argue sub-
jects of moral and political import. In discus-
sion Monsieur bore himself very gallantly. The
resources of his wit were inexhaustible, and the
justice of his judgment invariably evoked applause.
He was a sleep-walker, because awake or asleep he
was so restless that " he could not stay long in one
place." 1 But he was not always asleep when he
was met in the night groping his way through the
noisome alleys. He used to jump from his bed,
disguise himself, and run about in the night, lead-
ing a life like that of the wretched Gerard de Ner-
val, lounging on foot through the little streets of
Paris which were very dark and suspiciously dirty.
It amused him to enter strange houses and invite
himself to balls and other assemblies. His be-
haviour in such places is not recorded, but the
gentlemen who followed him (to protect him) let
it be understood that there was " nothing good
in it.
Gaston of Orleans had all the traits common to
those whom we call " degenerate." His chief char-
acteristic was an active form of bare and shameless
moral relaxation. He was the mainspring of many
and various movements.
One day when Richelieu was present, Louis XIII.
twitted the Queen with her fancies. He said that
she had "wished to prevent Monsieur from marry-
1 M /moires de Gaston.
20 The Youth of
ing so that she could marry him herself when she
became a widow."
Anne of Austria cried out : " I should not have
gained much by the change ! "
(Neither would France have "gained much by
the change," and it was fortunate for her that Louis
was permitted to retain possession of his feeble
rights.)
The child so desired by some, so envied and so
dreaded by others, entered the world May 29, 1627.
Instead of a dauphin it was a girl- — La Grande
Mademoiselle. Seven days after the child was
born the mother died.
Louis XIII. gave orders for the provision of
royal obsequies, and he himself sprinkled the bier
with the blessed water, very grateful because Provi-
dence had not endowed him with a nephew. Anne
of Austria, incognito, assisted at the funeral pomps.
This act was received with various interpretations.
The simple — the innocent-minded — said that it
was a proof of the compassion inspired by Madame's
sudden taking off ; the malicious supposed that it
was just as the King had said : " The Queen loved
Monsieur ; she rejoiced in his wife's death ; she
hoped to marry him when she became a widow."
The Queen was sincerely afflicted by Madame's
death. She cherished an open preference for her
second son, and the thought of his ambitious flight
had agreeably caressed her heart.
Richelieu pronounced a few suitable words of
regret for the Princess who had never meddled
La Grande Mademoiselle 21
with politics, and Monsieur did just what he might
have been expected to do : he wept boisterously,
immediately dried his tears, and plunged into
debauchery.
The Court executed the regulation manoeuvres,
and came to the " about face " demanded by the
circumstances. Whatever may have been the cal-
culations made by individuals relative to the posi-
tions to be taken in order to secure the best personal
results, and whatever the secret opinions may
have been (as to the advantages to be drawn from
the catastrophe), it was generally conceded that
the little Duchess had been fortunate in beine left
sole possessor of the vast fortune of the late
Madame her mother.
The latter had brought as marriage-portion the
dominion of Dombes, the principality of Roche-
sur-Yon, the duchies of Montpensier, Chateller-
ault, and Saint-Fargeau, with several other fine
tracts of territory bearing the titles of marquisates,
counties, viscounties, and baronies, with very im-
portant incomes from pensions granted by the
King and by several private individuals, — in all
amounting to three hundred thousand livres of
income. 1
The child succeeding to this immense inherit-
ance was the richest heiress in Europe. As her
mother had been before her, so Mademoiselle was
raised in all the magnificence and luxury befitting
her rank and fortune.
1 Me'moircs de Gaston.
22 The Youth of
in
They had brought her from the Louvre to the
Tuileries by the balustraded terrace along the
Seine. 1
She was lodged in the D6mc — known to the old
Parisians as the pavilion a" Horloge — and in the
two wings of the adjoining buildings. At that
time the Tuileries had not assumed the aspect of a
great barrack. They wore a look of elegance and
fantastic grace before they were remodelled and
aligned by rule. At its four corners the Dome
bore four pretty little towers ; on the side toward
the garden was a projecting portico surmounted
by a terrace enclosed by a gallery. On this ter-
race, in time, Mademoiselle and her ladies listened
to many a serenade and looked down on many
a riot.
The rest of the facade (as far as the pavilion
de Flore) formed a succession of angles, now jut-
ting forward, now receding, in conformations very
pleasing to the eye. The opposite wing and the
pavilion de Marsan had not been built. Close at
hand lay an almost unbroken country. The rear
of the palace looked out upon a parterre ; beyond
the parterre lay a chaos from which the Carrousel
was not wholly delivered until the Second Empire.
There stood the famous Hotel de Rambouillet,
close to the hotel of Madame de Chevreuse, con-
fidential friend of Anne of Austria and interested
enemy of Richelieu. There were other hotels,
1 Me'tnoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier.
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La Grande Mademoiselle 23
entangled with churches, with a hospital, a " Court
of Miracles," gardens, and wild lands overgrown
with weeds and grasses. There were shops and
stables ; and away at the far end of the settlement
stood the Louvre, closing the perspective.
The Court and the city crowded together around
the Bird House and the Swans' Pond, in the Deda-
lus and before the Echo, ogling or criticising one
another. At that time the Place de la Concorde
was a great, green field, called the Rabbit Warren.
In one part of the field stood the King's kennels. 1
The city's limits separated the Champs-Elysees
from the wild lands running down to the Seine at
the point where the Pont de la Concorde now
stands. This space, enclosed by the boundaries of
the city, assured to the Court a park-like retreat in
the green fields of the open country. The enclosure
was entered by the gate of the Conference. The
celebrated " Garden of Renard " was associated
with Mademoiselle's first memories. It had been
taken from that part of La Garenne which lay
between the gate of the Conference 3 and the
Garden of the Tuileries. Renard had been valet-
de-chambre to a noble house. He was witty,
pliable, complaisant to the wishes or the fancied
needs of his employers, amiable, and of "easy, ac-
commodating manners " 3 ; in short, he was a
1 Sauval (1620-1670), Histoire et recherches sur les antiquiUs de Paris.
2 The gate of the "Conference" was built at the time the great im-
provements were begun, in 1633. It was built after the grand plans of
Cardinal de Richelieu and according to his own instructions (Gamboust).
3 Piganiol de la Force (1673-1753), Description of the City of Paris, etc.
24 The Youth of
precursor of the Scapins and the Mascarelles of
Moliere. Mazarin found pleasure and profit in
talking with him. Renard's garden was a bower of
delights. It was the preferred trysting-place of the
lordlings of the Court, and the scene of all things
gallant in that gallant day.
The fair ladies of the Court frequented the place ;
so did the crowned queens ; and there many an
amorous knot was tied, and many a plot laid for
the fall of many a minister.
There the men of the day gave dinners, and
rolled under the table at dessert ; and in the bosky
glades of the garden the ladies offered their colla-
tions. There were balls, comedies, concerts, and
serenades in the groves, and all the gay world met
there to hear the news and to discuss it. Renard
was the man of the hour, no one could live without
him.
The Cours la Reine, created by Marie de Medicis,
was outside of Paris. It was a broad path, fifteen
hundred and forty common steps long, with a
"round square," or rond-point, in its centre. In
that sheltered path, the fine world, good and bad,
displayed its toilets and its equipages.
Mile, de Scudery has given us a description of it
at the hour when it was most frequented. Two
of her characters entered Paris by the village of
Chaillot.
Coming into the city, where Hermogene led Belesis, one
finds beside the beautiful river four great alleys, so broad, so
straight, and so shaded by the great trees which form them,
La Grande Mademoiselle 25
that one could not imagine a more agreeable promenade.
And this is the place where all the ladies come in the evening
in little open chariots, and where all the men follow them on
horseback ; so that having liberty to approach either one or
the other, or all of them, as they go up and down the paths
they all promenade and talk together ; and this is doubtless
very diverting.
Hermogene and Belesis having penetrated into
the Cours,
they saw the great alleys full of little chariots, all painted and
gilded ; sitting in the chariots were the most beautiful ladies
of Suze (Paris), and near the ladies were infinite numbers of
gentlemen of quality, admirably well mounted and magnifi-
cently dressed, going and coming, saluting as they passed.
In the summer they lingered late in the Cours la
Reine, and ended the evening at Renard's. Marie
de Medicis and Anne of Austria were rarely absent.
Close by the Champs-Elysees lay a forest, through
which the huntsman passed to hunt the wolf in the
dense woods of the Bois de Boulogne. In the dis-
tance could be seen the village of Chaillot, perched
on a height amidst fields and vines. Market gar-
dens covered the quarters of Ville l'Eveque and the
Chaussee d'Antin.
Mademoiselle was installed with royal magnifi-
cence at the Tuileries. In her own words : " They
made my house, and they gave me an equipage
much grander than any daughter of France had
ever had."
Thirty years later she was still happily sur-
rounded by the retinue provided by her far-seeing
26 The Youth of
guardians. Her servitors were of every grade, from
the lowest, who prepared a pathway for her feet, to
the highest, whose service added dignity to her
presence. By investing her with her nucleus of
domestic tributaries, her friends had established her
importance, even in her infancy, by manifestations
that could not be disputed. In that day people
were obliged to attach importance to such details.
But a short time had passed since brutal force had
been the only recognised right ; and it was the way
of the world to judge the grandeur of a prince by the
length and volume of his train. It was because La
Grande Mademoiselle had, from earliest youth,
possessed an army of squires, of courtiers, of valets,
and of serving-men and serving-women — a horde
beginning with the fine milord and ending with
the hare-faced scullion, seen now and then in
some shadowy retreat of the palace, low-browed,
down-trodden, looking out with dazzled eyes upon
the world of life and luxury, — it was because she
had been a ruler even in her swaddling bands, that
she could aspire, naturally and without overween-
ing arrogance, to the hands of the most powerful
sovereigns. " The sons of France," says a docu-
ment of 1649, " are provided with just such officials
as surround the King ; but they are less numerous.
. . . The Princes have officers in accordance with
their revenues and in accordance with the rank that
they hold in the kingdom." 1
The same document furnishes us with details of
1 Eslatde la France (Collection Danjou).
La Grande Mademoiselle 27
the installation of Anne of Austria. If, when we
estimate the equipage of Mademoiselle, we reduce
it by half of the estimate of the Queen's equipage,
we fall short of the reality. Like an army in cam-
paign, a Court ought to be sufficient unto itself,
able to meet all its requirements. The upper do-
mestic retinue of the Queen comprised more than
one hundred persons, maitres-d 'hotel or stewards,
cup-bearers, carvers, secretaries, physicians, sur-
geons, oculists, musicians, squires, almoners, nine
chaplains, "her confessor," a common confessor,
and too many other kinds of employees to be enu-
merated. Under all these officials, each one of
whom had his own especial underlings, were equal
numbers of valets and of chambermaids who assured
the service of the apartments. The Court cook-
ing kept busy one hundred and fifty-nine drilled
knife-sharpeners, soup-skimmers, roast-hasteners,
and water-handers, or people to hand water as the
cooks needed it for their mixtures. There were
other servitors whose business it was to await the
beck and call of their superiors, — call-boys, always
waiting for signals. Then came the busy world of
the stables ; then fifty merchants or shop-men, and
an indefinite number of artisans of all the orders of
all the trades. In all there were between six and
seven hundred souls, not counting the valets of the
valets or the grand "charges" the officials close to
the Oueen, the Queen's chancellor, the chevaliers
a" honneur, or gentlemen-in-waiting, the ladies-in-
waiting, and maids of honour.
28 The Youth of
The great and noble people were often very badly
served by their hordes of servants. Madame de
Motteville tells us how the ladies of the Court of
Anne of Austria were nourished in the peaceful
year 1644, when the Court coffers were yet full.
According to the law of etiquette, the Queen supped in
solitary state. Her supper ended, we ate what was left. We
ate without order or measure, in any way we could. Our only
table service was her wash-cloth and the remnants of her
bread. And, though this repast was very ill-organised, it was
not at all disagreeable, because it had the advantage of what
is called " privacy," and because of the quality and the merit
of those who sometimes met there.
The most modern Courts still retain some vestiges
of the Middle Ages. Louis XIII. had, or had had,
four dwarfs, their salary being three hundred " tour-
nois " or Tours livres. The King paid a man to
look after his dwarfs, keep them in order, and
regulate their conduct. 1
To the day of her death, despite her exile and
her misery, Marie de Medicis maintained in her
service a certain Jean Gassan, who figures in her
will as employed in " keeping the parrot."
When a child, Louis XIV. had two baladins.
Mademoiselle had a dwarf who did not retire from
her service until 1645. The registers of the Parlia-
ment (date, 10th May, 1645) contain letters patent
and duly verified, by which the King accorded to
" Ursule Matton, the dwarf of Mademoiselle, sole
daughter of the Duke of Orleans, the power and
1 Extraits des comptes et d/penses du roi pour I'ann/e 1616 (Collection
Danjou).
La Grande Mademoiselle 29
the right to establish a little market in a court be-
hind the new meat market of Saint Honore." '
Marie de Medicis completed the house and estab-
lishment of her granddaughter by giving her, for
governess, a person of much virtue, wit, and merit,
Madame de Saint Georges, who knew the Court
thoroughly. Nevertheless Mademoiselle asserted
that she had been very badly raised, thanks to the
herd of flattering hirelings who thronged the Tuile-
ries, and who no sooner surrounded her than they
became insupportable.
It is a common thing [said she] to see children who are
objects of respect, and whose high birth and great possessions
are continually the subject of conversation, acquire senti-
ments of spurious glory. I so often had at my ears people
who talked to me either about my riches or about my birth
that I had no trouble to persuade myself that what they said
was true, and I lived in a state of vanity which was very
inconvenient.
While very young she had reached a degree of
folly where it displeased her to have people speak
of her maternal grandmother, Madame de Guise.
" I used to say : l She is my distant grandmamma;
she is not Oueen.' "
It does not appear that Madame Saint Georges,
that person of so much merit, had done anything
to neutralise evil influences.
Throughout the seventeenth century, opinions
on the education of girls were very vacillating be-
cause little importance was attached to them. In
1 Mdwoires dc Mathieu Mold.
30 The Youth of
1687, after all the progress accomplished through
the double influence of Port Royal and Madame de
Maintenon, Fenelon wrote :
Nothing is more neglected than the education of girls.
Fashion and the caprices of the mothers often decide nearly
everything. The education of boys is considered of eminent
importance because of its bearing upon the public welfare;
and while as many errors are committed in the education of
boys as in the education of girls, at least it is an accepted
idea that a great deal of enlightenment is required for the
successful education of a boy.
It was supposed that contact with society would
be sufficient to form the mind and to polish the wit
of woman. In this fact lay the cause of the in-
equality then noticeable in women of the same
class. They were more or less superior from vari-
ous points of view, as they had been more or less
advantageously placed to profit by their worldly
lessons, by the spectacle of life, and by the conver-
sation of honest people.
The privileged ones were women who, like Made-
moiselle and her associates, had been accustomed
to the social circles where the history of their times
was made by the daily acts of life. Their best
teachers were the men of their own class, who in-
trigued, conspired, fought, and died before their
eyes, — often for their pleasure. The agitated and
peril-fraught lives of those men, their chimeras, and
their romanticism put into daily practice, were ad-
mirable lessons for the future heroines of the
Fronde. To understand the pupils, we must know
La Grande Mademoiselle 3 1
something of their teachers. What was the process
of formation of those professors of energy ; in
what mould was run that race of venturesome and
restless cavaliers who evoked a whole generation
of Amazons made in their own image ? The sys-
tem of the education of France of that epoch is in
question, and it is worthy of a close and detailed
examination.
IV
From their infancy, boys were prepared for the
ardent life of their times. They were raised
according to a clearly defined and fixed idea com-
mon to rich and poor, to noble and to plebeian.
The object of a boy's education was to make him a
man while he was still very young. The only dif-
ference in the opinions of the gentleman and of the
bourgeois was this :
The gentleman believed that action was the best
stimulant to action. The bourgeois thought that
the finer human sentiments, the so-called " humani-
ties," were the only sound foundations for a virile
and practical education. But whatever the method
used, in that day, a man entered upon life at the
age when our sons are but just beginning intermin-
able studies preliminary to their " examinations."
At the age of eighteen, sixteen — even fifteen years,
— the De Gassions, the La Rochefoucaulds, the
Omer Talons, and the Arnauld d'Andillys had be-
come officers, lawyers, or men of business, and in
their day affairs bore little resemblance to modern
32 The Youth of
j
affairs. In our day men do not enter active life
until they have been aged and fatigued by the
inarch of years. The time of entrance upon the
career of life ought not to be a matter of indiffer-
ence to a people. At the age of thirty years a
man no longer thinks and feels as he thought and
felt at the age of twenty. His manner of making
war is different ; and there is even more difference
in his political action. He has different ambitions.
His inclinations lead him into different adventures.
The moments of history, when the agitators of the
nation were young men, glow with the light of no
other epoch. There was then an indefinable qual-
ity in life, — an active principle, more ardent and
more vital. Under Louis XIII. there were scholars
to make the unhappy students of our own emascu-
lated times die of envy. Certain examples of our
modern school become bald before they rise from
the benches of their college.
Jean de Gassion, Marshal of France at the age of
thirty years, who " killed men " at the age of thirty-
eight years (1647), was the fourth son, but not the
last, of a President of Parliament at Navarre, who
had raised his offspring with great care (having
destined him for the career of "Letters"). The
child took such advantage of his opportunities that
before he was sixteen years old he was a con-
summate scholar. He knew several of the living
languages — German, Flemish, Italian, and Span-
ish. Thus prepared for active life, he set out from
Pau astride of his father's old horse. When he
La Grande Mademoiselle 33
had gone four or five leagues, the old horse gave
out. Jean de Gassion continued his journey on foot.
When he reached Savoy, they made war on him. He
enlisted as common soldier, and fought so well that
he was promoted cornet. When peace was declared,
he was in France. He determined to go to the King
of Sweden — Gustavus Adolphus, — who was said to
be somewhere in Germany. De Gassion had re-
solved to offer the King the service of his sword, and
to ask to be allowed to lead the Swedish armies. But
as he had no idea of presenting himself to the King
single-handed, he persuaded some fifteen or twenty
cavaliers of his own regiment to go with him, and
embarked with them on the Baltic Sea. And — so
runs the story — he just happened to land where
Gustavus Adolphus was walking along the shore.
(Such coincidences are possible only when youths
are in their teens ; after the age of twenty, no man
need hope for similar experience.) Jean saluted
the Kinor, and addressed him in excellent Latin.
He expressed his desire to be of service. The
King was amused ; he received the strange offer
amiably, and consented to put the learned stripling
to the test. And so it was that Gassion was enabled
to attain to a colonelcy when he was but twenty-two
years old. His early studies had stood him in good
stead ; had he not known his Latin, he would have
missed his career. H is Ciceronian harangue, poured
out fluently just as the occasion demanded it, at-
tracted the favour of a King who was, by his own
might, a prince of letters.
3
34 The Youth of
After the King of Sweden died, Gassion returned
to France. With Conde he won the battle of
Rocroy, and, during the siege, died of a bullet in
his head, leaving behind him the reputation of a
brilliant soldier and accomplished man of letters,
as virtuous as he was brave. He never wished to
marry. When they spoke to him of marriage, he
answered that he did not think enough of his life
to offer a share of it to any one. This was an
expression of pessimism far in advance of his
epoch.
La Rochefoucauld, who will never be accused of
having been naturally romantic, offered another ex-
ample of the miracles performed by youths. Only
once in his life did he play the part of Paladin.
He launched himself in politics before he had a
beard. When he was sixteen years old, he entered
upon his grand campaign, bearing the title of
" Master of the Camp."
The following year he was at Court, elbowing his
way among all the parties, busily engaged in op-
position to Richelieu. But his politics did not add
anything to his age ; he was still an adolescent,
far removed from the enlightened theorist of the
Maximes.
The peculiarly special savour of the springtime of
life was communicated to his soul at the hour ap-
pointed by nature. In him it was impregnated by
a faint perfume of heroism and of poetry. He
never forgot the happiness with which for a week
or more he played the fool. He was then twenty-
La Grande Mademoiselle 35
three years old. Queen Anne of Austria was in
the depths of her disgrace, maltreated and perse-
cuted by her husband and by Richelieu.
In this extremity [said Rochefoucauld], abandoned by all
the world, devoid of aid, daring to confide in no one but
Mademoiselle de Hautefort — and in me, — she proposed to me
to abduct them both and take them to Brussels. Whatever
difficulty I may have seen in such a project, I can say that it
gave me more joy than I had ever had in my life. I was at an
age when a man loves to do extraordinary things, and I could
not think of anything that would give me more satisfaction
than that : to strike the King and the Cardinal with one blow,
to take the Queen from her husband and from the jealous
Richelieu, and to snatch Mademoiselle de Hautefort from the
King who was in love with her !
In truth the adventure would not have been an
ordinary one ; La Rochefoucauld assumed its du-
ties with enthusiasm, renouncing them only when
the Queen changed her mind.
Like all his fellows, La Rochefoucauld had his
outburst of youth ; but he fell short of its folly.
Recalling his extravagant project, he said : " Youth
is a continuous intoxication ; it is the fever of
Reason."
The memoirs of Arnauld d' Andilly tell us how
the sons of the higher nobility were educated
in the year 1600 and thereabout. Arnauld d' An-
dilly began to study Greek and Latin at home,
under the supervision of a very learned father.
Toward his tenth year his family thought that the
moment had come to introduce into his little head
the meanings and the realities of speculation. The
3° The Youth of
child was destined for "civil employment." His
day was divided into two parts ; one half was
devoted to " disinterested study " ; the other half to
the study of things practical. So he served his ap-
prenticeship for business by such a system that his
themes and his versions lost none of their rights.
His mornings were consecrated to lessons and
tasks. They were long mornings ; the family rose
at four o'clock. The little student became a good
Latinist, and even a good Hellenist. He wrote
very well in French, and he was a good reader.
Ten or twelve volumes which belonged to him
are still in existence, and they attest that he knew
a great deal more than the graduates of our modern
colleges, — though he knew nothing of the things
they aim at. At eleven o'clock he closed his lexi-
cons, bade adieu to his preceptor and to the
pedagogy, bestrode his horse, and rode to Paris,
to the house of one of his uncles, who had taken it
upon himself to teach the boy everything that he
could not learn from his books. Our forefathers
carefully watched their sons' first contact with
reality. They tried not to leave to chance the
duties of so important an initiation ; and as a
general thing their supervision left ineffaceable
traces. Uncle Claude de la Mothe-Arnauld, Treas-
urer-General of France, installed his nephew in his
private cabinet and gave him various bundles of
endorsed papers to decipher. The child was
obliged to pick out their meaning and then render
a clear analysis of it in a distinct voice. When he
La Grande Mademoiselle 37
was fifteen years old another uncle, a Supervisor of
the National Finances, caused the student to " put
his fist into the dough " in his own office. At six-
teen years of age, " little Arnauld " was " M. Ar-
nauld d' Andilly " ; vested with office under the
State, received at Court, and permitted to assist
behind the chair of the King, at the Councils of
Finance, so that he might hear financial arguments,
and learn from the Nation's statesmen how to de-
cide great questions. His education was not an
exceptional one. The sons of the bourgeoisie were
raised in like manner. Attempts to educate boys
were more or less successful, according to the
natural gifts of the postulants. Omer Talon, Ad-
vocate-General of the Parliament of Paris, and one
of the great Parliamentary orators of the century,
had pursued extensive classical studies, and "as he
spoke, Latin and Greek rushed to his lips." He
had " vast attainments in law," a science much more
complicated in the sixteenth century than in our day.
But, learned though he was, he had not lingered
on the benches of his school. He was admitted
to the Bar when he was eighteen years old, and
11 immediately began to plead and to be celebrated."
Antoine Le Ma'itre, the first " Solitaire " of Port
Royal, began his career by appearing in public as
the best known and most important and influential
lawyer in Paris when he was twenty-one years old.
Generally, the nobility sacrificed learning, which
it despised, to an impatient desire to see its sons " in
active life." The nobles made pages of their sons as
38 The Youth of
soon as they were thirteen or fourteen years old,
or else sent them to the " Academy " to learn how
to make proper use of a horse, to fence, to vault,
and to dance. 1
In the eyes of people of quality books and writ-
ings were the tools of plebeians ; good enough for
professional fine wits, or lawyers' clerks, but not fit
for the nobility.
In the reign of Louis XIII., 2 M. d' Avenal wrote
thus : ;< Gentlemen are perfectly ignorant, — the
most illustrious and the most modestly insignificant
alike. In this respect, with few exceptions, there
is absolute equality between them."
The Constable, De Montmorency, had the repu-
tation of a man of sound sense, " though he had no
book learning, and hardly knew how to write his
own name." Many of the great lords knew no
more ; and this ignorance was not shameful ; on the
contrary it was desired, affected, gloried in, and
eagerly imitated by the lesser nobility.
" I never sharpen my pen with anything but my
sword," proudly declared a gentleman.
" Ah ? " answered a wit ; " then your bad writ-
ing does not astonish me ! "
The exceptions to the rule resulted from the
caprices of the fathers ; and they were sometimes
found where least expected. The famous Bassom-
pierre, arbiter of fashion and flower of courtiers,
1 Letter written by Pontis.
* Richelieu et la monarchie absolue.
La Grande Mademoiselle 39
who, at one sitting, burned more than six thousand
letters from women, who wore habits costing
fourteen thousand ecus, and could describe their
details twenty years after he had worn them, had
been very liberally educated, and according to a
method which as may be imagined, was far in
advance of the methods of his day. He had fol-
lowed the college course until the sixteenth year of
his age, he had laboured at rhetoric, logic, phy-
sics, and law, and dipped deep into Hippocrates
and Aristotle. He had also studied les cas de
Conscience. Then he had gone to Italy, where he
had attended the best riding schools, the best fenc-
ing schools, a school of fortifications, and several
princely Courts. At the age of nineteen years he
was a superb cavalier and a good musician, he
knew the world, and had made a very brilliant first
appearance at Court.
The great Conde, General-in-Chief at the age of
twenty-two years, had followed a college course at
the school of Bourges, and had been "drilled" at
the " Academy." He was tried by the fire of many
a hard school. Wherever he went he was preceded
by tart letters of instruction from his father. By
his father's orders he was always received and
treated as impartially as any of the lesser aspirants to
education ; he was severely " exercised," put on his
mettle in various ways, and compelled to start out
from first principles, no matter how well he knew
them. When seven years old he spoke Latin
fluently. When he reached the age of eleven he
4o The Youth of
was well grounded in rhetoric, law, mathematics,
and the Italian language. He could turn a verse
very prettily ; and he excelled in everything
athletic.
Louis XIII. applauded this deep and thorough
study, — perhaps because he regretted his lost op-
portunities. He told people that he should "wish
to have . . . Monsieur the Dauphin," educated
in like manner. 1
In measure as the century advanced it began to
be recognised that a nobleman could " study " with-
out detracting from his noble dignity. Louis de
Pontis, who started out as a D' Artagnan, and ended
at Port Royal, 2 wished that time could be taken to
instruct the youth of the nation. Answering some
one who had asked his advice as to the education
of two young lords of the Court, he wrote 3 :
I will begin by avowing that I do not share the sentiments
of those who wish for their children only so much science as
is " needed " — as they call it — " for a gentleman "; I do not
see things in that light. I should demand more science.
Since science teaches man how to reason and to speak
well in public, is it not necessary to men, who, by the grandeur
of their birth, their employment, and their duties, may need
it at any moment, and who make use of it in their numerous
meetings with the enlightened of the world ? There are sev-
eral personages who hold that the society of virtuous and
talented women expands and polishes the mind of a young
cavalier more than the conversation of men of letters; but I
am not of their opinion. . .
1 Afe'moires of Lenet.
5 See his Memoires.
* A few years before his death, which occurred in 1670.
La Grande Mademoiselle 4 1
Notwithstanding this declaration, Pontis desired
that great difference should be established between
the treatment of a child training for the robes and
the treatment of one training for military service.
" The first ought never to end his studies ; it is
sufficient for the second to study until his fifteenth
or sixteenth year ; after that time he ought to be
sent to the Academy.
In this opinion Pontis echoed the general im-
pression. At the time when La Grande Mademoi-
selle was born, the man of quality no longer had a
right to be "brutal," — in other words, to betray
coarseness of nature. New customs and new man-
ners exacted from the man of noble birth tact and
good breeding, not science. But it was requisite
that the nobleman's mind should be " formed " by
the influence and discourse of a man of letters, so
that he might be capable of judging witty and in-
tellectual works ("works of the mind").
Marshal Montmorency, 1 son of the Constable,
who " hardly knew how to write his own name,"
had always in his employ cultured and intellectual
people, who "made verses" for him on a multitude
of such subjects as it was befitting his high estate
that he should know ; such subjects as were calcu-
lated to give him an air of intelligence and general
information. His intellectual advisers informed
him what to think and what to say of the cur-
rent questions of the day. 2 It was good form for
great and noble houses to entertain at least one
1 Beheaded in 1632, aged thirty-seven years. a Tallemant.
42 The Youth of
autheur. As there were no public journals or re-
views, the autheur took the place of literary chron-
icles and literary criticism. He talked of the last
dramatic sketch, or of the last new novel.
It was not long before another step in advance
was taken, by which every nobleman was permitted
to entertain his own personal autheur, and to
compose "works of the mind" for himself. But
he who succumbed to the epidemic (cacoethes
scribendi), owed it to his birth and breeding to hide
his malady, or to make excuses for it.
Mile, de Scudery puts in the mouth of Sapho
(herself) in Le Grand Cyrus 1 :
Nothing is more inconvenient than to be intellectual or to
be treated as if one were so, when one has a noble heart and
a certain degree of birth ; for I hold that it is an indubitable
fact that from the moment one separates himself from the
multitude, distinguishing one's self by the enlightenment of
one's mind; when one acquires the reputation of having more
mind than another, and of writing well enough — in prose or
in verse — to be able to compose books, then, I say, one loses
one half of one's nobility — if one has any — and one is not one
half as important as another of the same house and of the
same blood, who has not meddled with writings. . . .
About the time this opinion saw the light, Talle-
mant des Reaux wrote to M. de Montausier, hus-
band of the beautiful Julie d'Angennes, and one of
the satellites of the Hotel de Rambouillet : " He
plys the trade of a man of mind too well for a man
of quality — or at least he plays the part too seri-
ously ... he has even made translations. . . ."
1 The first volume of Le Grand Cyrus appeared in 1649; tne ^ ast i n ID 53-
La Grande Mademoiselle 43
This mention is marked by one just feature : the
man who wrote, who could write, or who indulged
in writing, was supposed to have judgment enough
to keep him from attaching importance to his works.
The fine world had regained the taste for refine-
ment lost in the fracas of the civil wars ; but in the
higher classes of society was still reflected the
horror of the preceding generations for pedants
and for pedantry.
Ignorant or learned, half-grown boys were cast
forward by their hasty education into their various
careers when they had barely left the ranks of in-
fancy. They were reckless, still in the flower of
their giddy youth ; but they were enthusiastic and
generous. France received their high spirits very
kindly. Deprived of the good humour, and stripped
of the illusions furnished by the young representa-
tives of their manhood, the times would have been
too hard to be endured. The traditions of the
centuries when might was the only right still
weighed upon the soul of the people. One of those
traditions exacted that — from his infancy — a man
should be " trained to blood." A case was cited
where a man had his prisoners killed by his own
son, — a child ten years old. One exaction was
that a man should never be conscious of the suffer-
ings of a plebeian.
France had received a complete inheritance of
inhuman ideas, which protected and maintained
the remains of the savagery that ran, like a stained
thread, through the national manners, just falling
44 The Youth of
short of rendering odious the gallant cavaliers.
All that saved them from the disgust aroused by
the brutal exercise of the baser 'rights" was the
bright ray of poetry, whose dazzling light gleamed
amidst their sombre faults.
They were quarrelsome, but brave. Perchance
as wild as outlaws, but devoted, gay, and loving.
They were extraordinarily lively, because they were
— or had been but a short time before — extra-
ordinarily young, with a youth that is not now, nor
ever shall be.
They inspired the women with their boisterous
gallantry. In the higher classes the sexes led nearly
the same life. They frequented the same pleasure
resorts and revelled in the same joys. They met
in the lanes and alleys, at the theatre (Cornddie), at
balls, in their walks, on the hunt, on horseback, and
even in the camps. A woman of the higher classes
had constantly recurring opportunities to drink in
the spirit of the times. As a result the ambitious
aspired to take part in public life ; and they shaped
their course so well, and made so much of their op-
portunities, that Richelieu complained of the im-
portance of women in the State. They were seen
entering politics, and conspiring like men ; and they
urged on the men to the extremes of folly.
Some of the noblewomen had wardrobes full of
disguises ; and they ran about the streets and the
highways dressed as monks or as gentlemen.
Among them were several who wielded the sword
in duel and in war, and who rode fearlessly and
La Grande Mademoiselle 45
well. They were all handsome and courageous,
and even in the abandon of their most reckless
gambols they found means to preserve their deli-
cacy and their grace. Never were women more
womanly. Men adored them, trembling lest some-
thing should come about to alter their perfection.
Their fear was the cause of their desperate and
stubborn opposition to the idea of the education of
girls, then beginning to take shape among the elder
women.
I cannot say that the men were not in the wrong ;
but I do say that I understand and appreciate their
motives. Woman, or goddess, of the order of the
nobles of the time of Louis XIII., was a work of
art, rare and perfect ; and to tremble for her safety
was but natural !
It happened that La Grande Mademoiselle came
to the age to profit by instruction just when polite
circles were discussing the education of girls. The
governess whose duty it had been to guide her
mind was caught between two opposing forces :
the defendants of the ancient ignorance and the
first partisans of the idea of " enlightenment for all."
Les Femmes Savantes might have been written
under Richelieu. PJiilamentc had not awaited the
advent of Moliere to protest against the ignorance
and the prejudice that enslaved her sex. When
the piece appeared, more than half a century had
elapsed since people had quarrelled in the little
46 The Youth of
streets about woman's position, — what she ought to
know, and what she ought not to know. But if the
piece had been written long before its first appear-
ance, the treatment of the subject could not have
been the same. It would have been necessary to
agree as to what woman ought to be in her home
and in her social relations ; and at that time they
were just beginning to disagree on that very sub-
ject. Nearly all men thought that things ought
to be maintained in the existing - conditions. The
nobles had exquisite mistresses and incomparable
political allies ; the bourgeois had excellent house-
keepers ; and to one and all alike, noble and bour-
geois, it seemed that any instruction would be
superfluous ; that things were perfect just as they
were. The majority of the women shared the opin-
ions of the men. The minority, looking deeper into
the question, saw that there might be a more serious
and more intellectual way of living to which ignor-
ance would be an obstacle ; but at every turn they
were met by men stubbornly determined that
women should not be made to study. Such men
would not admit that there could be any difference
between a cultivated woman and " Savante" — the
term then used for " blue-stocking." It must be
confessed that there was some justice in their judg-
ment. For a reason which escapes me, when
knowledge attempted to enter the mind of a woman
it had great trouble to make conditions with nature
and simplicity. It was not so easy ! Even to-day
certain preparations are necessary, — appointment
La Grande Mademoiselle 47
of commandants, the selection of countersigns, es-
tablishment of a picket-line — not to say a dead-
line. We have pre'cieuses in our own day, and their
pretensions and their grimaces have been lions in
our path whenever we have attempted the higher
instruction of our daughters ; the truly pre'cieuses,
they who were instrumental in winning the cause
of the higher education of women — they who,
under the impulsion given by the Hotel de Ram-
bouillet, worked to purify contemporary language
and manners — were not ignorant of the baleful
affectation of their sisters, nor of the extent of
its compromising effect upon their own efforts.
Mile, de Scudery, who knew "nearly everything
that one could know " (by which was probably meant
" everything fit to be known "), and who piqued
herself upon being not less modest than she was
wise, could not be expected to share, or to take part
in, and in the mind of the public be confounded
with, the female Trissotins whose burden of ridicule
she felt so keenly. She would not allow herself to
resemble them in any way when she brought them
forth in Grand Cyrus, where the questions now called
"feminist" were discussed with great cmod sense.
Damophile, who affects to imitate Sap ho, is only
her caricature. Sap ho "does not resemble a ' Sa-
vante'"\ her conversation is natural, gallant, and
easy (commodious).
Damophile always had five or six teachers. I be-
lieve that the least learned among them taught her
astrology.
48 The Youth of
She was always writing to the men who made a
profession of science. She could not make up her
mind to have anything to say to people who did
not know anything. Fifteen or twenty books were
always to be seen on her table ; and she always
held one of them in her hand when any one en-
tered the room, or when she sat there alone ; and
I am assured that it could be said without prevari-
cation that one saw more books in her cabinet than
she had ever read, and that at Saplids house one
saw fewer books than she had read.
More than that, Damophile used only great
words, which she pronounced in a grave and im-
perious voice ; though what she said was unim-
portant ; and Sap ho, on the contrary, used only
short, common words to express admirable things.
Besides that, Damophile, believing that knowledge
did not accord with her family affairs, never had
anything to do with domestic cares ; but as to
Sapho, she took pains to inform herself of every-
thing necessary to know in order to command even
the least things pertaining to the household.
DamopJiile not only talked as if she were reading-
out of a book, but she was always talking about
books ; and, in her ordinary conversation, she spoke
as freely of unknown authors as if she were giving
public lessons in some celebrated academy.
She tries . . . with peculiar and strange carefulness,
to let it be known how much she knows, or thinks that she
knows. And that, too, the first time that a stranger sees her.
And there are so many obnoxious, disagreeable, and trouble-
La Grande Mademoiselle 49
some things about Damophile, that one must acknowledge
that if there is nothing more amiable nor more charming than
a woman who takes pains to adorn her mind with a thousand
agreeable forms of knowledge, — when she knows how to use
them, — nothing is as ridiculous and as annoying as a woman
who is "stupidly wise."
Mile, de Scudery raged when people, who had
no tact, took her for a Damophile, and, meaning
to compliment her, consulted her " on grammar,"
or " touching one of Hesiod's verses." Then the
vials of her wrath were poured out upon the
" Savantes" who gave the prejudiced reason for
condemning the education of woman, and who pro-
voked annoying and ridiculous misconception by
their insupportable pedantry ; when there were so
many young girls of the best families who did not
even learn their own language, and who could not
make themselves understood when they took their
pens in hand.
' The majority of women," said Nicanor, " seem to try to
write so that people will misunderstand them, so strange is
their writing and so little sequency is there in their words."
14 It is certain," replied Sapho, " that there are women who
speak well who write badly; and that they do write badly is
purely their own fault. . . Doubtless it comes from the
fact that they do not like to read, or that they read without
paying any attention to what they are doing, and without re-
flecting upon what they have read. So that although they
have read the same words they use when they write, thousands
and thousands of times, when they come to write they write
them all wrong. And by putting some letters where other
letters ought to be, they make a confused tangle which no one
can distinguish unless he is well used to it."
50 The Youth of
" What you say is so true," answered Erinne, " that I saw it
proved no longer ago than yesterday. I visited one of my
friends, who has returned from the country, and I carried her
all the letters she wrote to me while she was away, so that she
might read them to me and let me know what was in them."
Mademoiselle de Scudery did not exaggerate ; our
great-grandmothers did not see the utility of ap-
plying a knowledge of spelling to their letters. In
that respect each one extricated herself by the
grace of God.
The Marchioness of Sable, who was serious and
wise, and, according to the testimony of Sapho,
" the type of the perfect p7'eciezise " had peculiar
ways of her own in her spelling. She wrote,
J'kasse, notre broulerie votre hotibly. Another
" prdcieuse" Madame de Bregy, whose prose and
verse both appeared in print, wrote to Madame de
Sable, when they were both in their old age :
Je vous dire que je vieus d'aprendre que samedi, Mon-
sieur, Madame, et les poupons reviene a Paris, et que pour
aujourd'huy la Rayue et Madame de Toscane vout a Saint-
Clou don la naturelle baute sera reause de tout les musique
possible et d'un repas magnifique don je quiterois tous les
gous pour une ecuelle non pas de nantille, mes pour une de-
vostre potage ; rien n'etan si delisieus que d'an mauger en
vous ecoutan parler. (19th September, 1672.)
It is but just to add that as far as orthography
was concerned many of the men were women. The
following letter of the Duke of Gesvres, " first
gentleman of Louis XIV.," has no reason to envy
the letter of the old Marchioness.
La Grande Mademoiselle 51
(Paris, this 20th September, 1677.) Monsieur me trouvant
oblige de randre vuue bonne party de l'argan que mais enfant
out pris de peuis quil sonten campane Monsieur cela m'oblije
a vous suplier tres humblement Monsieur de me faire la
grasse de Commander Monsieur quant il vous plaira que Ton
me pay le capitenery de Movsaux monsieur vous asseurant que
vous m'oblijeres fort sansiblement Monsieur, comme ausy de
me croire avec toute sorte de respec Monsieur vastre tres
humble et tres obeissant serviteur."
Enough is as o;ood as a feast ! Thouo;h we stand
in no superstitious awe of orthography, we can but
laud Mademoiselle de Scudery for having crossed
lances in its favour. And well mig;ht she wish that
to the first elements of an education might be added
a certain amount of building material suitable for
a foundation so solid that something- more serious
than dancing steps and chiffons might at a later
date be introduced into the brains of young girls.
Seriously, [she said] is there anything stranger than the
way they act when they prepare to enter upon the ordinary
education of woman ? One does not wish women to be
coquettish or gallant, and yet they are permitted to learn
carefully everything that has anything to do with gallantry;
though they are not permitted to know anything that might
fortify their virtue or occupy their minds. All the great
scoldings given them in their first youth because they are not
proper ' — that is to say dressed in good taste, and because they
do not apply themselves to their dancing lessons and their sing-
ing lessons — do they not prove what I say? And the strangest
of all is that this should be so when a woman cannot, with any
propriety, dance more than five or six years of all the years of
her life ! And this same person who has been taught to do
1 Mademoiselle de Scudury usl^ the word propre, meaning " elegant," etc.
52 The Youth of
nothing but to dance is obliged to give proof of judgment to
the day of her death ; and though she is expected to speak
properly, even to her last sigh, nothing is done — of all that
might be done — to make her speak more agreeably, nor to
act with more care for her conduct ; and when the manner in
which these ladies pass their lives is considered, it might be
said that they seem to have been forbidden to have reason and
good sense, and that they were put in the world only that
they might sleep, be fat, be handsome, do nothing, and say
nothing but silly things. ... I know one who sleeps more
than twelve hours every day, who takes three or four hours
to dress herself, or, to speak more to the point : not to dress
herself — for more than half of the time given to dressing is
passed either in doing nothing or in doing over what has been
done. Then she employs fully two or three hours in con-
suming her divers repasts ; and all the rest of the time is
spent receiving people to whom she does not know what to
say, or in paying visits to people who do not know what to say
to her.
In spite of her strictness, Mile, de Scudery was
no advocate of the idea which makes a woman
her husband's servant, or installs her as the slave
of the stew-pan. Whenever she was urged to
"tell precisely what a woman ought to know,"
the problem was so new to her that she did not
know how to answer it. She evaded it, rejecting
its generalities. She had only two fixed ideas :
that science was necessary to women ; and that the
women who attained it must not let it be known
that they had attained it. She expressed her two
opinions clearly:
It [science] serves to show them the meaning of things ;
it makes it possible for them to listen intelligently when their
La Grande Mademoiselle 53
mental superiors are talking — even to talk to the point and
to express opinions — but they must not talk as books talk ;
they must try to speak as if their knowledge had come nat-
urally, as if their inherent common sense had given them an
understanding of the things in question.
Mademoiselle had in her mind one woman whom
she would have liked to set up as a pattern for all
other women. That one woman knew Latin, and
because of her sense and propriety, was esteemed
by Saint Augustine, and yet no one had ever
thought of callinor her a " Savante"
Mile, de Scudery was very grateful to the charm-
ing Mme. de Sevigne, because she plead the cause
of woman's education by so fine an example, and
she depicted her admirable character with visible
complaisance, under the name of Clarinte. 1
Her conversation is easy, diverting and natural. She
speaks to the point, and evinces clear judgment ; she speaks
well; she even has some spontaneous expressions, so ingenuous
and so witty that they are infinitely pleasing. . . . Clarinte
dearly loves to read ; and what is better, without playing the
wit, she is admirably quick to seize the hidden meaning of
fine ideas. She has so much judgment that, though she is
neither severe, nor shy, she has found the means to preserve
the best reputation in the world. . . . What is most mar-
vellous in this person is that, young as she is, she cares for
her household as prudently as if she had had all the experience
that time can give to a very enlightened mind; and what I ad-
mire still more, is that whenever it is necessary she can do
without the world, and without the Court; she is as happy in
the country, she can amuse herself as well there, as if she had
been born in the woods. ... I had nearly forgotten to tell
1 In CUlie.
54 The Youth of
you that she writes as she speaks; that is to say, most agree-
ably and as gallantly as possible.
The programme used for the distribution of
studies by means of which the De Sevignes were
fabricated is not revealed. Nature herself must
have furnished a portion of the plan. As far as we
can judge the part played by education was re-
stricted to the adoption of some of the suggestions
of very rich moral endowments.
Mile, de Chantal had been admirably directed
by her uncle, the Abbe de Coulanges, and, aside
from the cares of the profession which now presides
over the education of woman, it is probable that more
efficient means could not be found for the proper
formation of the character of a girl than it was
Mademoiselle de Chantal's good fortune to enjoy.
Menage and Chapelain had been her guides in
rhetoric. She had read Tacitus and Virgil in the
original all her life. She was familiar with Italian
and with Spanish, and had ancient and modern
history at her tongue's end, — also the moralists
and the religious writers.
These serious and well-grounded foundations,
which she continually strengthened and renewed
until death, did not prevent her from "adoring"
poetry, the drama, and the superior novels, — in
short, all things of enlightenment and worth
wherever she found them and under whatever
form. She was graceful in the dance; she sang
well, — her contemporaries said that her manner of
singing was " impassioned."
MADAME DE SEVIQNE
FROM AN ENGRAVING OF THE PAINTING BY MUNTZ
La Grande Mademoiselle 55
The Abbe Coulanges had raised her so carefully
that she was orderly; and, unlike the majority, she
liked to pay her debts. She was a perfect type of
woman. She even made a few mistakes in ortho-
graphy, taking one, or more, letter, or letters, for
another, or for others. In short, she made just the
number of errors sufficient to permit her to be a
writer of eenius without detracting from her air of
distinguished elegance, or from the obligations
and the quality of her birth.
There were others at Court and in the city who
confirmed their right to enlightenment, thereby just-
ifying the theses of Mademoiselle de Scudery. But
a large number of women gave the lie to her theories
by their resemblance to Damophile. Of these latter
was " the worthy Gournay," Montaigne's " daughter
by alliance," who, from the exalted heights of her
Greek and Latin, and in a loud, insistent voice,
discoursed like a doctor of medicine on the most
ticklish of subjects, — subjects far from pleasing
when rolled out of the mouth of a woman, even
when so displaced in the name of antiquity and all
that is venerable ! (For in these names "the good
Gournay " evoked them.) There was another
pedant, the Viscountess d'Auchy, who had " founded
conferences " in her own house ; the people of the
fine world flocked there to smother as they listened
while it was proved, for their edification, that the
Holy Trinity had natural reasons for its existence.
On those "foundations" the Innate Idea also was
proved by demonstrative reason by collecting and
56 The Youth of
by analysing the ideas of young children concerning
philosophy and theology. The lady who founded
the conferences had bought some manuscript Hom-
ilies on the Epistles of St. Paul, of a doctor of the-
ology. She had had them imprinted and attached
to portraits of herself. Thus accoutred for their
mission, they were circulated with great success,
and their proceeds formed the endowment fund of
the Conference Library.
" The novelty of seeing a great lady of the Court
commenting on the most obscure of the apostles
caused every one to buy the book." 1 It ended by
the Archbishop of Paris intimating to the "Order
of the Conferences" that they "would better leave
Theology to the Sorbonne."
Mile. Des Jardins declaimed her verses in the
salons with great "contortions" and with eyes rolling
as if in death ; and she was not at all pleased when
people preferred Corneille's writings to her own.
Mile. Diodee frightened her hearers so that they
took to their heels when she be^an to read her fine
thoughts on Zoroaster or on Hermes Trismegistus.
Another learned lady would speak of nothing but
solar or lunar eclipses and of comets.
The pedantry of this high order of representa-
tive woman transported the " honest man " with
horror. The higher the birth of the man the
greater his fear lest by some occult means he might
be led to slip his neck into the noose of a " Savante."
But there was one counter-irritant for this virulent
1 Tallemant.
La Grande Mademoiselle 57
form of literary eruption. The young girls of the
highest nobility were all extremely ignorant. Mile,
de Maille-Breze, niece of Cardinal de Richelieu,
had not an idea of the most limited decree of the
knowledge of books when she married the great
Conde (164 1). She knew nothing whatever. Itwas
considered that ignorance carried to such length
proved that neglect of instruction had gone too
far, and when the great Conde went on his first
campaign, friends seized the opportunity to add a
few facets to the uncut jewel. She was turned
and turned about, viewed in different lights, and
polished so that her qualities could be seen to the
best advantage. "The year after her marriage,"
says Mile, de Scudery, " she was sent to the Con-
vent of the Carmelite Nuns of Saint Denis, to be
taught to learn to read and write, during the ab-
sence of Monsieur her husband."
The Contes de Perrault — faithful mirror of the
habits of those days — teaches us what an accom-
plished princess ought to be like. All the fairies to
be found in the country had acted as godmothers
to the BeUe-au-Bois-dormant,
so that each one of them could bring her a gift . . . con-
sequently the princess had acquired every imaginable perfec-
tion. . . . The youngest fairy gave her the gift of being
the most beautiful woman in the world ; the one who came
next gave her the spirit of an angel ; the third endowed her
with power to be graceful in everything that she did ; the
fourth gave her the art of dancing like a fairy ; the fifth the
art of singing like a nightingale ; and the sixth endowed her
with the power to play all kinds of instruments to perfection.
58 The Youth of
Perrault had traced his portraits over the strongly-
defined lines of real life. La Grande Mademoiselle
was trained after the manner of th.eBelle-au-Bois-dor-
mant. Her governess had had too much experience
to burden her with a science that would have made
her redoubtable in the eyes of men ; so she had
transferred to the fairies the task of providing her
young charge with a suitable investiture. Unhap-
pily for her eternal fame, when she distributed her
powers of attorney some of the fairies were absent ;
so Mademoiselle neither sang like a nightingale,
nor displayed classic grace in all her actions. But
her resemblance to Perrault's heroines was striking.
The fairies empowered to invest her with mind and
delicacy of feeling had been present at her baptism,
and they had left indisputable proof of the origin of
her ideas. Like their predecessors, the elves of the
Contes, they had never planned for anything less than
the marriage of their orod-dauoditer to the Kind's
son. By all that she saw and heard, Mademoiselle
knew that Providence had not closed an eye at the
moment of her creation. She knew that her qual-
ity was essential. She knew that it was written on
high that she should marry the son of a great King.
Her life was a conscientious struggle to " accom-
plish the oracle " ; and the marriages that she missed
form the weft of her history.
VI
The first of the Mdmoires show us the Court of
Louis XIII. and the affairs of the day as seen by a
La Grande Mademoiselle 59
little girl. This is an aspect to which historians
have not accustomed us ; and as a natural result of
the infantine point of view the horizons are consid-
erably narrowed. The little Princess did not know
that anything important was taking place in Ger-
many. She could not be ignorant of the fact that
Richelieu was enc^ao-ed in a struggle with the high
powers of France ; she read the general distress
in the clouded faces surrounding her. But in her
mind she decided that it was nothing but one of
her father's quarrels with the Cardinal. The judg-
ments she rendered against the high personages
whose houses she frequented were dictated by pure-
ly sentimental considerations. " Some she liked ;
some she did not like"; consequently the former
gained, and the latter lost. Many contestants were
struggling before her young eyes ; Louis XIII. was
among the winners.
He was a good uncle, very affectionate to his
niece, and deeply grateful that she was nothing
worse than a girl. He could never rid himself of
the idea that his brother might have endowed him
with an heir. He had Mademoiselle brought to
the Louvre by the gallery along the river, and
allowed himself to be cheered by her turbulence
and uncurbed indiscretions.
Anne of Austria exhibited a deep tenderness for
Mademoiselle ; but no one can deceive a child. " I
think that all the love she showed me was nothing
but the effect of what she felt for Monsieur," writes
Mademoiselle ; and further on she formally declares
60 The Youth of
that the Queen, believing herself destined to a
near widowhood, had formed the " plan " of marry-
ing Monsieur. Whatever the Queen's plans may
have been, it is certain that she caressed the
daughter for love of the father. Anne of Austria
never forgave Mademoiselle for the part that she
had played before her birth, in the winter of 1626-
1627, when the Duchess of Orleans so arrogantly
promised to bring forth a Dauphin. Monsieur had
no reason to fear the scrutiny of a child. He was
a charming playfellow ; gay, complaisant, fond of
his daughter, at least for the moment, — no one
could count upon the future !
Cardinal de Richelieu could not gain anything by
thoughtful criticism. To the little Princess he was
the Croquemitaine of the Court. When we think
of his ogre face — spoil sport that he was ! as he
appeared to the millions of French people who were
incapable of understanding his policy — the silhou-
ette traced by the hand of Mademoiselle appears in
a new light, and we are forced to own that its pro-
found and simple ignorance is instructive.
Marie de Medicis had managed to disappear
from the Luxembourg and from Paris, after the
Journ^e des Dupes (11 November, 1630), and her
little granddaughter had not noticed her depart-
ure. She writes : " I was still so young that I do
not remember that I ever saw her." The case was
not the same after the departure of Monsieur. He
had continually visited the Tuileries, and when he
came no more the child knew it well enough. She
La Grande Mademoiselle 61
understood that her father had been punished, and
she was not permitted to remain ignorant of the
identity of the insolent personage who had placed
him on the penitential stool. Mademoiselle, then
less than four years old, was outraged in all her
feelings by the success of Richelieu. She made
war upon him in her own way ; and, dating from
that day, became dear to the people of Paris, who
had always loved to vex and to humble the Gov-
ernment. She wrote with a certain pride : " On
that occasion my conduct did not at all answer to
my years. I did not want to be amused in any
way ; and they could not even make me go to the
assemblies at the Louvre." As she had no better
scapegoat, her bad humour was vented on the King.
She constantly growled at him, demanding that he
should bring back her " papa." But Mademoiselle
was never able to pout to such purpose that she
could stay away from the palace long, for she was
a true courtier, firmly convinced that to be away
from Court was to be in a desert, no matter how
many servants and companions might surround
her. She soon mended her broken relations with
the assemblies and the collations of the Louvre,
and could not refrain from " entering into the
joy of her heart " when " Their Majesties " sent
word to her guardians to take her to Fontainebleau.
But she never laid down her arms where Richelieu
was concerned. She knew all the songs that were
written against him.
Meanwhile Monsieur had not taken any steps
62 The Youth of
to make himself interesting. As soon as he had
crossed the French frontier he entered upon a
pleasure debauch which rendered him unfit for
active service, for a time at least. He paid for
his high flight in Spanish money. In 1632 he
further distinguished himself by entering France
at the head of a foreign army. On that occasion
he caused the death of the Duke of Montmorency,
who was executed for " rebellion."
Immediately after the Duke's execution, it was
discovered that Monsieur had secretly married a
sister of the Duke of Lorraine. He, Monsieur,
crowned his efforts by signing a treaty with Spain
(12 May, 1634), for which act France paid by
yielding up strips of French territory.
But to his daughter Monsieur was always the
victim of an impious persecution. Speaking of the
years gorged with events so closely concerning her
own life, she says :
Many things passed in those days. I was only a child ;
I had no part in anything, and could not notice anything; All
that I can remember is that at Fontainebleau (5 May, 1663)
I saw the Ceremony of the Chevaliers of the Order. During
the ceremony they degraded from the Order Monsieur the
Duke d'Elboeuf, and the Marquis de la Vieu Ville. I saw
them tear off and break the arms belonging to their rank, — a
rank equal to all the others ; and when I asked the reason
they told me they had insulted them " because they had fol-
lowed Monsieur." Then I wept. I was so wounded by this
treatment that I would have retired from Court ; and I said
that I could not look on this action with the submission that
would become me.
La Grande Mademoiselle 63
The day after the ceremony an incident exciting
much comment added to Mademoiselle's grief.
Her enemy, the Cardinal, took part in the promo-
tion of the Cordons Bleus. On this occasion Louis
XIII. wished to exalt his Minister by giving him a
distinguishing mark of superiority. He wished to
distinguish him, and him only, by giving him a
present. His choice of a present fell upon an ob-
ject well fitted to evoke the admiration of a child.
The chevaliers of the Saint Espi'it were at a ban-
quet. At dessert they brought to Richelieu the
King's gift, an immense rock composed of various
delicate confitures. From the centre of the rock
jetted a fountain of perfumed water. Given un-
der solemn circumstances and to a prince of the
Church, it was a singular present. It attracted re-
mark, its familiarity tended to give colour to the
rumours circulating- to the effect that an alliance
then in process of incubation would eventually
unite the House of France and the family of a
very powerful Minister. The people voiced the
current rumour volubly ; they said that " Gaston's
marriage with a Lorraine " would never be recog-
nised, and that the young Prince would buy his
pardon by marrying the niece of the Cardinal.
Mademoiselle heard the rumours and her heart
swelled with anguish at the thought of her father's
dishonour.
I was not so busy with my play that I did not listen attent-
ively when they spoke of the " accommodating ways " of
Monsieur! The Cardinal de Richelieu, who was first minister
64 The Youth of
and master of affairs, had made up his mind that it should be
so, — that he should marry that one ! and he had expressed his
wishes with such shameful suggestions that I could not hear
them mentioned without despair. To make peace with the
King, Monsieur must break his marriage with Princesse Mar-
guerite d'Orleans, and marry Mile, de Combalet, niece of the
Cardinal, now Madame d'Aguillon! From the time I first
heard ©f the project I could not keep from weeping when
it was spoken of; and, in my wrath, to avenge myself, I sang
all the songs against the Cardinal and his niece that I knew.
Monsieur did not let himself be " arranged " to suit the Car-
dinal. He came back to France without the assistance of the
ridiculous condition. But how it was done I do not know. I
cannot say anything about it, because I had no knowledge of it.
If it is true that Mademoiselle did not know
the details of the quarrels in which the House of
France engaged during her childhood, she was
not inquisitive. Her knowledge in that respect
had been at the mercy of her own inclination. By
the thoughtful care of Richelieu, all the corre-
spondence and all the official reports exposing the
Court miseries were placed where all might read
who ran. Richelieu had divined the power of the
press over public opinion, although in that day
there was no press in France. There were no
journals to defend the Government. The Mercure
Franfaise 1 was not a journal ; it appeared once a
year, and contained only a brief narration of " the
most remarkable things that had come to pass " in
the " four parts of the world." Renaudot's Gazette ~
was hardly a journal, though it appeared every
1 The first number bears date 1605.
5 The first number appeared May 1, 163 1.
La Grande Mademoiselle 65
eight days, and numbered Louis XIII. among its
contributors. Louis furnished its military news.
Richelieu and " Father Joseph" furnished its poli-
tics. Neither Renaudot nor his protectors had any
idea of what we call a " premier Paris " or an
" article de fond " ; they had never seen such
things and they would not have been capable of
compassing such inventions. The Gazette was not
a sheet of official information ; it did not contain
matter enough for one page of the Journal des
Dcbats. But the necessity of saying something
to France was a crying one. It had become ab-
solutely necessary to put modern royalty in com-
munication with the nation, and to explain to the
people at large the real meaning of the policy of
the Prime Minister. The people must be taught
why wars, alliances, and scaffolds were necessary.
Something must be done to defend France against
the attacks of Marie de Medicis and the cowardly
Gaston. At that time placards and pamphlets ren-
dered the services now demanded of the journals.
By means of the placards the King could speak di-
rectly to the people and take them to witness that
he was in difficulty, and that he was trying to do
his best. In his public letters he confided to them
his family chagrins, and the motives of his conduct
toward the foreign powers. His correspondence
with his mother and his brothers was printed as
fast as it was written or received by him. Apolo-
gies for his conduct were supported by a choice of
documents. From time to time the pamphlets were
66 The Youth of
collected and put in volumes — the volumes which
were the ancestors of our " yellow books."
I have before me one of these volumes, dated
1639, without name of editor or publisher. It
bears the title : Recueil de divers pieces pour servir
a r histoire. Two thirds of its space are conse-
crated to the King's quarrels with his family. Ma-
demoiselle must have learned from it many things
which she has not the air of suspecting. Perhaps
she found it convenient or agreeable to be ignorant
of them. In the pages of this instructive volume
none of her immediate relations appear to any ad-
vantage. Louis XIII. is invariably dry and bom-
bastic, or constrained and affected ; he shows no
trace of emotion when, in his letter of 23 February,
1 63 1, he informs the people that
being placed in the extremity of choosing between our mother
and our minister we did not even hesitate, because they have
embittered the Queen our very honoured lady and mother
against our very dear and very beloved cousin, Cardinal de
Richelieu; there being no entreaty, no prayer or supplica-
tion, nor any consideration, public or private, that we have
not put forward to soften her spirit; our said cousin recog-
nising what he owes her, by reason of all sorts of considera-
tions, having done all that he could do for her satisfaction ;
the reverence that he bears her having carried him to the
point of urging us and supplicating us, divers times, to find it
good that he should retire from the management of our affairs;
a request which the utility of his past services and the inter-
ests of our authority have not permitted us to think of
granting. . . . And recognising the fact that none of the
authors of these differences continue to maintain their dispos-
ition to diverge from our royal justice, we have not found a
La Grande Mademoiselle 67
way to avoid removing certain persons from our Court, nor
even to avoid separating ourselves, though with unutterable
pain, from the Queen, our very honoured lady and mother,
during such time as may be required for the softening of her
heart. . . .
Another letter, from the King to his mother, is
revolting in its harshness. After her departure
from France, Marie de Medicis addressed to him
some very tart pages in which she accused Riche-
lieu of having had designs on her life. In the same
letter she represented herself as flying from her
son's soldiers :
I will leave you to imagine my affliction when I saw
myself in flight, pursued by the cavalry with which they had
threatened me! so that I would be frightened and run the
faster out of your kingdom; by that means constraining me to
press on thirty leagues without either eating or drinking, to
the end that I might escape from their hands. (Avesnes, 28
July, 1631.)
Instead of feeling pity for the plaints of the old
woman who realised that she had been conquered,
Louis XIII. replied :
Madame, I am the more annoyed by your resolution to retire
from my state because I know that you have no real reason for
doing so. The imaginary prison, the supposititious persecu-
tions of which you complain, and the fears that you profess to
have felt at Compiegne during your life there, were as lacking
in foundation as the pursuit that you pretend my cavalry made
when you made your retreat.
After these words, the King delivered a pompous
eulogy on the Cardinal and ended it thus :
You will permit me, an it please you, to tell you, Madame,
68 The Youth of
that the act that you have just committed, and all that has
passed during a period more or less recent, make it impossible
for me to be ignorant of your intentions in the past, and the
action that I have to expect from you in the future. The re-
spect that I owe to you hinders me from saying any more.
It is true that Marie de Medicis received nothing
that she did not deserve ; but it may be possible
that it was not for her son to speak to her with
brutality.
In their way Gaston's letters are chefs-d'oeuvre.
They do honour to the psychological sensibility of
the intelligent ndvrose". Monsieur knew both the
strength and the weakness of his brother. He
knew him to be jealous, ulcerated by the conscious-
ness of his own insignificance — an insignificance
brought into full relief by the importance of the
superior Being then hard at work making " of a
France languishing a France triumphant " ' ; and
with marvellous art he found the words best quali-
fied to irritate secret wounds.
His letters open with insinuations to the effect
that Richelieu had a personal interest in maintain-
ing the enmity between "the King and his own
brother," so that the King, "having no one to de-
fend him," could be held more closely in his, Riche-
lieu's, grasp.
I beseech . . . your Majesty ... to have the
gracious prudence to reflect upon what has passed, and to
examine more seriously the designs of those who have been
1 Recueil, etc. Discours sur plusieurs points important! de I ' e'tat present
des affaires de France.
La Grande Mademoiselle 69
the architects of these plans ; if you will graciously examine
into this matter you will see that there are interests at stake
which are not yours, — interests of a nature opposed to your
interests, and which aim at something further, and something
far in advance of anything that you have thought of up to
the present time (March 23, 163 1).
In the following; letter Monsieur addresses himself
directly to Louis XIII.'s worst sentiments and to
his kingly conscience. He feigns to be deeply
grieved by the deplorable condition of his brother,
who, as he says, is reduced, notwithstanding
" the very great enlightenment of his mind " to the plight of a
puppet . . . nothing but the shadow of a king, a being
deprived of his authority, lacking in power as in will, counted
as nothing in his own kingdom, devoid even of the external
lustre ordinarily attached to the rank of a sovereign.
Monsieur declares that Richelieu has left the Kinsf
&
" nothing but the name and the figure of a king," and that for
a time only; for as soon as he has ridded himself of you . . .
and of me ! . . . he means to take the helm and steer the
Ship of State in his own name.
Monsieur depicted the new " Mayor of the Palace "
actually reigning in overburdened, crushed, and
oppressed France,
whom he has ruined and whose blood he has sucked pitilessly
and without shame. In his own person he has consumed more
than two hundred millions since he took the rule of your
affairs . . . and he expends daily, in his own house, ten
times more than you do in yours. . . . Let me tell you
what I have seen ! In your kingdom not one third of your
subjects eat bread made of wheat flour ; another third eats
70 The Youth of
bread made of oats ; and another third not only is reduced to
beggary, but it is languishing in need so crying that some are
actually starving to death ; those who are not dying of hunger
are prolonging their lives with acorns, herbs, and like sub-
stances, like the lower animals. And they who are least to be
pitied among these last are living on bran and on blood which
they pick up in the gutters in front of the butchers' shops. I
have seen these things with my own eyes, and in different parts
of the country, since I left Paris.
In this Monsieur told the truth. The peasant
had come to that point of physical degradation.
But his sufferings could not be diminished by pro-
voking a civil war, and Richelieu did not fail to
make the fact plain in the polemics of the Recueil,
written under his supervision — when it was not
written in his own hand. He (Richelieu) defended
his policy tooth and nail, he justified his millions,
his accumulated official honours.
One of Monsieur's letters bears copious notes
made throughout its length and breadth in the
Cardinal's own hand. Without any of the scruples
of false shame, he inspired long factums to the glory
of the Prime Minister of France.
In the pages inspired by him there are passages
of peculiar inhumanity. In one place, justifying the
King for the treatment inflicted upon his mother,
he says that " the pain of the nine months that she
carried him would have been sold by her at too
high a price, had the King, because of it, been
forced to let her set fire to his kingdom." 1
1 Recueil, etc. Avertissement aux provinces sur les nouveaux mouvements
du royaume, by the Sieur de Cleonville (1631).
La Grande Mademoiselle 71
Other passages are equally heartless : " Do they
blame the Prime Minister for his riches ? — and if the
King had seen fit to give him more ? The King is
free to give or to take away. Can he not act his
pleasure ; who has the right to say him nay ? "
The Recueil shows passages teeming with cyni-
cal and pampered pride. In favour of himself
Richelieu wrote :
The production of these great geniuses is not an ordin-
ary bissextile work. Sometimes the revolution of four of
Nature's centuries are required for the formation of a mind
of such phenomenal proportions, in which are united all the
excellencies, any one of which would be enough to set far
above the ordinary character of man the being endowed with
them. I speak not only of the virtues that are in some sort
the essence of the profession made by their united representat-
ive types, — Pity, Wisdom, Prudence, Moderation, Eloquence,
Erudition, and like attributes, — I speak of other virtues, the
characteristic qualities of another and separate order, like
those composing the perfections of a chief of war . . . etc.
Among the official documents in the volume just
quoted are instruments whose publication would
have put any man but Gaston d'Orleans under
ground for the rest of his days, among other
things, his treaty of peace (1632), signed at
Beziers (20th September) after the battle of
Castelnaudary, where the Due de Montmorency
had been beaten and taken before his eyes. In
that treaty Monsieur had pledged himself to
abandon his friends, — not to take any interest in
those who had been allied with him " on these
occasions," and "not to pretend that he had any
72 The Youth of
cause for complaint when the King made them
submit to what they deserved." He promised "to
love, especially, his cousin Richelieu." In recom-
pense for this promise and the other articles of
the treaty the King re-established his brother " in
all his rights." As we know, the treaty of Beziers
ended nothing. Gaston saw all his partisans be-
headed as he recrossed the frontier. He did not
enter France to remain there until October, 1634.
Then he went home " on the faith " of the Kings
declaration, which closes the volume. By this
declaration Monsieur was again re-established in
the enjoyment of all his rights, appanages, pensions,
and appointments. For him this was the import-
ant article. As Richelieu took the trouble to
have all his monuments of egotism an d barrenness
of heart re-imprinted, it is probable that he did not
intend to let the country forget them. In that
case he attained his ends.
The public had formed its opinion, and in con-
sequence it took no further interest in the royal
family, always excepting Anne of Austria, who
had retired among the shadows.
Marie de Medicis was now free to cry aloud in
her paroxysms of fury. Gaston could henceforth
pose as a martyr, and Louis XIII., withered by
melancholy, dried remnant of his former pompous
dignity, might be blown into a corner or be borne
away by the wind like a dead leaf in autumn, and
not a soul in France would hail it by the quiver of
an eyelash. If Richelieu had hoped that profit
La Grande Mademoiselle 73
would accrue to him from the royal unpopularity
he had counted without the great French host.
Despite the fact that his importance and the terror
he inspired had increased tenfold, he also had be-
come tainted by the insignificance of the royal
family. But to all the people he seemed the ogre
dreaded by Mademoiselle in her infancy, though
indisputedly an unnatural ogre, possessing genius
far beyond the reach of the normal man. He was
universally looked upon as a leader of priceless
value to a country in its hour of crisis, and as a
companion everything but desirable. He appalled
the people. His first interviews with Gaston after
the young Prince's return to France were terri-
ble. Monsieur was defenceless ; the Cardinal was
pitiless.
" Mademoiselle had run ahead to meet her father.
In her innocence she had rejoiced to find him un-
changed." Richelieu also believed that Monsieur
had not changed, and he was all the more anxious
to get him out to his (Richelieu's) chateau at
Rueil. He pretended that there was to be a fete at
the chateau. Monsieur did not leave Rueil until
he had opened his heart to the Cardinal, just as he
had done in regard to the affair Chalais.
Turned, and re-turned, by his terrible cousin,
the unhappy wretch denounced mother and
friends, — absent or present, — those who had
plotted to overthrow the prime ministry and
those who had (according to Gaston's story)
tried to assassinate the Cardinal on such a day
74 The Youth of
and in such a place. " Not," said Richelieu in
his Memoires, — " not that Monsieur recounted these
things of his own accord. He did not do that ;
but the Cardinal asked him if it was not true that
such a person had said such and such things, and
he confessed, very ingenuously, that it was."
Truly the fete at Rueil had sinister results for
the friends of Monsieur.
Monsieur retired to Blois, but he often returned
to Paris, and whenever he returned he fulfilled his
fatherly duties in his own fashion, romping and
chattering with Mademoiselle. He amused him-
self by listening to her songs against Richelieu,
and for her pleasure he organised a corps-de-ballet
of children. All the people of the Court flocked
to the palace to witness the ballet.
On the occasion of another ballet danced at the
Louvre he displayed himself to Mademoiselle in
all his glory (18th February, 1635). The King, the
Queen, and the principal courtiers of their suite
were among the dancers.
This last solemnity left mingled memories, both
good and bad, in Mademoiselle's mind. One of
her father's most faithful companions in exile was
to have danced in the ballet. During a rehearsal,
Richelieu had him arrested and conducted to the
Wood of Vincennes, " where he died very sud-
denly." * The role in which he should have acted
was danced by one of the other courtiers, and
therefore Gaston did not appear to be affected.
1 M/moires of Mademoiselle.
La Grande Mademoiselle 75
The Gazette informed the public that the fete had
" succeeded admirably " ; that every one had carried
away from the place so teeming with marvels the
same idea that Jacob had entertained when, having
looked upon the angels all the night, he believed
that the earth touched the confines of heaven !
But, at least, there was one person for whom the
sudden disappearance of Puylaurens had spoiled
everything. Mademoiselle had " liked him and
wished him well." He had won her heart by
giving her bonbons, and she felt that the ugly
history reflected upon her father. " I leave it,"
she said, "to people better instructed and more
enlightened than I am to speak of what Monsieur
did afterward to Puylaurens' prison."
The following year she had to swallow an insult
on her own account. The lines which appeared in
one of the gazettes of July, 1636, must have
seemed insupportable to a child full of unchecked
pride.
"The 17th, Mademoiselle, aged nine years and
three months, was baptised in the Louvre, in the
Queen's chamber, by the Bishop of Auxerre, First
Almoner to the King, having for godmother and
godfather the Queen and the Cardinal Duke
{Richelieu), and was named Anne Marie."
Mention of this little event is made in Retz's
Mdmoires. " M. le Cardinal was to hold at the font
Mademoiselle, who, as you may judge, had been
baptised long before ; but the ceremonies of the
baptism had been deferred."
76 The Youth of
This godfather, who was not a prince, was a
humiliation to Mademoiselle, and to crown her
distress he thought that he ought to make himself
agreeable to his goddaughter.
By his intention to be amiable he "made her
beside herself ' because he treated her — at nine
years ! — as if she had been a little girl. " Every
time that he saw me he told me that that spiritual
alliance obliged him to take care of me, and that
he would arrange a marriage for me (a discourse
that he addressed to me, talking just as they do to
children to whom they incessantly repeat the same
thing)."
A journey through France, which she made in
1637, "put balm on the wounds of her pride."
They chanted the Te Deum, the Army Corps
saluted her, a city was illuminated, and the nobility
offered her fetes. She " swam in joy " ; for thus she
had always thought that the appearance of a per-
son of her quality should be hailed. She ended
her tour in Blois where Monsieur, the ever good
father, desired that he, in person, should be the one
to initiate his child in the morality of princes,
which virtue in those aristocratic times had nothing
in common with the bourgeois's morality. For the
moment he was possessed of an insignificant mis-
tress, a young girl of Tours called " Louison."
Monsieur took his daughter to Tours so that he
might present his mistress to her. Mademoiselle
declared herself satisfied with her fathers choice.
She thought that Louison had "a very agreeable
La Grande Mademoiselle 77
face, and a great deal of wit for a girl of that
quality who had never been to Court." But
Mine, de Saint Georges saw the new relations
with an anxious eye ; she submitted her scruples
to Monsieur :
Madame de Saint Georges . . . asked him if the girl was good,
because, otherwise, though she had been honoured by his good
graces, she should be glad if she would not come to my
house. Monsieur gave her every assurance and told her that
he would not have wished for the girl himself without that
condition. In those days I had such a horror of vice that I
said to her: " Maman (I called her thus), if Louison is not
virtuous, even though my Papa loves her I will not see her
at all; or if he wishes me to see her I will not receive her
well." She answered that she was really a very good girl, and
I was very glad of it, for she pleased me much — so I saw her
often.
Mademoiselle did not suspect that there was any-
thing comical in this passage ; had she done so she
would not have written it, because she was not one
of those who admit that it is sometimes permissible
to smile at the great.
On her return from her journey she resumed her
ordinary life.
I passed the winter in Paris as I had passed my other
winters. Twice a week I went to the assemblies given by
Mme. the Countess de Soissons at the Hotel de Brissac. At
these assemblies the usual diversions were comedies [plays]
and dancing. I was very fond of dancing and, for love of me,
they danced there very often. . .
There were also assemblies with comedies at
the Queen's, at Richelieu's, and at a number of
78 The Youth of
personages', and Mademoiselle herself received at
the Tuileries.
The night of the 23d-24th January (1636) [reports the
Gazette] Mademoiselle in her lodgings at the Tuileries, gave a
comedy and a ball to the Queen, where the Good Grace of this
princess in the dawn of her life, gave proof of what her noon-
tide is to be. The 24th February, Monsieur gave a comedy
and a collation to His Royal Highness of Parma at Mademoi-
selle his daughter's, in her apartments at the Tuileries.
Mademoiselle passed the days and the nights in
fetes. Her studies did not suffer by it because she
never studied and never knew anything of study
outside of reading and writing, making a courtesy,
and carefully observing the rules of a minute
etiquette.
It is probable that she owed the little that she
knew to several months of forced retreat in a con-
vent, when she was nine years old. She made
herself so intolerable to every one, — it is she
who tells it, — she was so vexatious, with her
" grimaces " and her " mockeries," that they put her
in a cloister to try to discipline her and to correct
her faults ; the plan succeeded : " They saw me re-
turn . . . wiser, and better than I had been."
Yes, more sober, better behaved, and a little less
ignorant, but not much less. The following letter,
bearing the date of her maturity, shows more clearly
than all the descriptions in the world, the degree of in-
structions which satisfied the seventeenth century's
ideas of the education of a princess. The letter is
addressed to Colbert (" a Choisy ce 5 Aout 1665" ):
La Grande Mademoiselle 79
Monsieur, le sieur Segrais qui est de la cademy et qui a bo-
coup travalie pour la gloire du Roy et pour le public, aiant este
oublie lannee passee dans les gratifications que le Roy a faicts
aux baus essprit ma prie de vous faire souvenir de luy set un
aussi hornme de merite et qui est araoi il ya long tarns jespere
que cela ne nuira pas a vous obliger a avoir de la considera-
tion pour luy set se que je vous demande et de une croire,
monsieur Colbert, etc.
This orthography did not hinder Mademoiselle
when, under the name of "Princess Cassandane"
she figured in the Grand Dictionnaire des Prd-
cieuses ; and according to the distinctions estab-
lished between the " true prtcieuse " and the
" Savant e " by Mademoiselle de Scudery, she had a
right to figure there, as had many of her noble con-
temporaries, who would have been the shame of
the humblest of the schools.
The " true prdcietise" she who left comets and
the Greek language to the " Sava?ites," applied her-
self to the task of penetrating the mysteries of
the heart. That was her science, and from cer-
tain points of view it was worth as much as any
other.
La Grande Mademoiselle devoted her talents
and her life to the perfection of her particular art.
Keeping well within the limits that she herself had
set, she made a special study of the hearts of prin-
cesses and of everything concerning them ; and she
professed that she had established, definitely, the
only proper methods by which persons of her qual-
ity should, bound in duty to themselves, look upon
love, and upon glory.
80 La Grande Mademoiselle
The wells from which she drew her spiritual
draughts were not exclusively her own ; she shared
their benefits with all honest people, of either sex,
engaged in completing the sentimental education
by the essential principle of life.
CHAPTER II
Anne of Austria and Richelieu — Birth of Louis XIV. — II. L'Astr/e
and its Influence — III. Transformation of the Public Manners —
The Creation of the Salon — The Hotel de Rambouillet and Men of
Letters.
BUT little information concerning the affairs of
the day previous to the last months of the
reign of Louis XIII. can be gleaned from the
Mdmoires of La Grande Mademoiselle. It is hardly
credible that a young girl raised at the Court of
France, not at all stupid, and because of her birth
so situated as to see and to hear everything, could
have gone through some of the most thrilling
catastrophes of that tragic time without seeing
or hearing anything. At a later day Mademoiselle
was the first to wonder at it ; she furnishes an
example surpassing imagination.
In 1637, before starting on her journey into
the province, she went to bid adieu to " their
Majesties," who were at Chantilly. Mademoiselle
fell upon a drama. Richelieu had just disgraced
the Queen of France, who had been declared
guilty of abusing her religious retreat at the
Convent of Val-de-Grace by holding secret cor-
respondence with Spain. Val-de-Grace had been
81
82 The Youth of
ransacked, and one of Anne of Austria's servants
had been arrested. Anne herself had been ques-
tioned like a criminal, and she had had a very bitter
ttte-a-tcte in her chamber with such a Richelieu as
she had never met before.
It was then ten years since Louis XIII., abruptly
entering his wife's private apartments, had inter-
rupted a declaration of love made by his Minister.
After Marie de Medicis, Anne of Austria ! Evi-
dently it was a system of policy in which pride of
personal power played its part. Possibly the heart
also played some small role when Anne of Austria
was young and beautiful ; but it was the heart of a
Richelieu, and unless we know what such a thing is
like it is difficult to explain the Minister's attitude
at Chantilly. Historians have not taken the trouble
to tell us, because there were things more import-
ant to them and to the history of Europe than the
exploits of so high-flying a Cardinal. Neverthe-
less, even an historian could have made an interest-
ing chapter out of the sentimental life of Richelieu.
It was a violent and cruel life ; as violent and as
pitiless as the passions that haunted his harrowed
soul. Michelet compared the Duke's life to "a
lodging that had been ransacked." In him love
was a cloak thickly lined with hatred. Mme. de
Motteville, who witnessed Richelieu's courtship
of the Queen, was astonished by his way of
making love. " The first marks of his affection,"
she writes, " were his persecutions of her. They
burst out before everybody, and we shall see that
La Grande Mademoiselle 83
this new way of loving will last as long as the
Cardinal lives."
Anne of Austria felt only his persecutions.
Richelieu was not pleasing to women. He was
the earthly All-powerful. He possessed riches and
genius, but they knew that he was cruel — even
pitiless — in anger; and he could not persuade
them to pretend to love him ; all, even Marion
de Lorme, mocked and laughed at him, and Retz
gave a reason for their conduct :
Not being a pedant in anything else, he was a thorough
pedant in gallantry, and this is the fault that women never
pardon. The Queen detested Richelieu, and she made him
feel it ; but he took his revenge at Val-de-Grace. After the
outburst — after the word treason had been spoken — it rested
with him to have mercy, or to send into shameless banishment
the barren Queen. It gave him pleasure to see her cowering
before him, frightened and deprived of all her pride. He
exulted in disdaining her with an exaggerated and insulting
affectation of respect, and fearing lest the scene should not
be known to posterity, he painted it with all the zest of the
reaction of his wounded dignity. 1 He listened complacently
while she drove the nails into her coffin, rendering more
proofs of her docility " than he should have dared to ex-
pect " ; incriminating herself, as she explained in her own
way, by palpable untruths, all her treasonable letters to her
brothers and to her friends in Spain. When she had told a
great deal more than she knew, Richelieu put a few sharp
questions, and the Queen completely lost her head.
Then [wrote Richelieu, in his chronicle] she confessed
to the Cardinal everything which is in the paper signed by
1 Relation de ce que c'est passe" en I 'affaire de la reyne an mois d'aottt,
j6j7, sui le sujet de la Porte et de VAbbesse dit Val-de-Grdce. See docu-
ment in the Bibliotheque National.
84 The Youth of
her afterwards. She confessed with much displeasure and
confusion, because she had taken oaths contrary to what she
was confessing. While she made the said confession to the
Cardinal her shame was such that she cried out several times,
" Oh, how kind you must be, Monsieur the Cardinal ! " pro-
testing that all her life she should be grateful and recog-
nise the obligation she was under to those who drew her out
of the affair. She had the honour to say to the Cardinal :
" Give me your hand," presenting her own as a mark of the
fidelity with which she should keep all her promises. Through
respect the Cardinal refused to give her his hand. From the
same motive he retired instead of approaching her.
Officially Louis XIII. pardoned the intrigue of
Val-de-Grace, but the courtiers were not deceived,
and they immediately deserted the Queen's apart-
ment. When they passed her windows they
modestly lowered their eyes. It was just at that
time that Mademoiselle arrived. It was at the
end of August. She read her welcome in every
face. Now that she had come gayety became a
duty and amusements an obligation. The feeling
of relief was eeneral. Mademoiselle wrote :
&>
I put all the Court in good humour. The King was in
great grief because of the suspicions they had awakened
against the Queen, and not long before that they had found
the strong box that had made all the trouble at Val-de-
Grace, about which too much has been said already. I found
the Queen in bed, sick. Any one would be sick after such an
affront as she had received.
Of all at Court, Anne of Austria was not the
least happy to see Mademoiselle. Now she could
pour out her sorrow. Mine, de Saint Georges,
Mademoiselle's governess, was one of her familiar
CARDINAL RICHELIEU
La Grande Mademoiselle 85
friends. The Queen told her everything. Made-
moiselle was permitted to sit with the two ladies
to avert suspicion. So the child found herself in
possession of secrets whose importance and danger
must have been known to her. It may be that she
would have liked nothing better than to recount
them in her memoirs, but she was " forced to admit
with sheepish reticence that to her grief she had
never remembered anything of it."
Some months later she was entangled in the
King's romance with Mile, de Hautefort, and "did
not notice anything " — and this is to her credit —
of all the struggles made by the Cabals to turn the
adventure to their profit. In spite of her lack of
memory she had opened wide both eyes and ears.
The schemes of lovers always interested her, as
they interest all little girls. To this instinct of her
sex we owe a very pretty picture of the trans-
formation of man by love. And the man was no
other than the annoying and annoyed Louis XIII.
Mademoiselle gives us the picture in default of
more serious proof of her observation. Hunting ■
was the King's chief pleasure.
In 1638, during the luminous springtime, he
was seen in the forests gay, at times actually
happy — thanks to two great blue eyes. When he
followed his dogs he took his niece and other
young people with him that he might have an ex-
cuse for taking Mile, de Hautefort.
We were all dressed in colours [recounts Mademoiselle].
We were on fine, ambling horses, richly caparisoned, and to
86 The Youth of
guarantee us against the sun each of us had a hat trimmed
with a quantity of plumes. They always turned the hunt so
that it should pass fine and handsome houses where grand
collations could be found, and, coming home, the King placed
himself in my coach, between Mme. de Hautefort and me.
When he was in good humour he conversed very agreeably to
us of everything. At that time he suffered us to speak freely
enough of the Cardinal de Richelieu, and the proof that it
did not displease him was that he spoke thus himself.
Immediately after the hunting party returned they went to
the Queen. I took pleasure in serving at her supper, and her
maids carried the dishes (viands). There was a regular pro-
gramme. Three times a week we had music, they of the
King's chamber sang, and the most of the airs sung by them
were composed by the King. He wrote the words, even; and
the subject was never anything but Mme. de Hautefort. The
King was in humour so gallant that at the collations that he gave
us in the country he did not sit at table at all; and he served
us nearly everything himself, though his civility had only one
object. He ate after us, and did not seem to feel more com-
plaisance for Mme. de Hautefort than for the others, so afraid
was he that some one should perceive his gallantry.
Despite these precautions, the Court and the city,
Paris, and the province were informed of the least
incidents of an affair of such importance. The
only person whom the King's passion left indif-
ferent was the Queen. Anne of Austria had never
been jealous. She did not consider Louis XIII.
worth the pains of jealousy, — and now jealousy
would have been out of place. Anne, after twenty-
three years of marriage, was enceinte. The people
who had loaded her with outrages while she was
bowed by shame now knelt at her feet, sincere
La Grande Mademoiselle &7
in their respectful demonstrations of devotion for
the wife of the King who might one day become
Queen-mother, or even Regent of France. It was
like one of the fairy plays in a theatre. Nature
had waved her wand, and the disgraced victim of
enchantment had arisen " clothed on with majesty."
It was an edifying and delightful transformation.
After all her shame, the novelty of being cared for
and treated gently was so great and so agreeable
that when she saw her royal spouse sighing be-
fore the virtuous and malignant de Hautefort —
"whose chains" were said to be heavy and hard to
bear — she looked upon it very lightly. Anne of
Austria smiled at the benumbed attitudes of the
King, at his awkward ardour, and equally awkward
prudery. The Queen learned with amusement
that when among her companions, the young girls
of the Court, Mile, de Hautefort mocked the
King, and boasted that he " dared not approach
her, though he maintained her," and that she was
" bored to death by his talk of dogs, and birds, and
the hunt." Friends repeated these criticisms.
Louis XIII. heard of them and took offence "at
the ingrate," and the Court went into mourning.
"If there should be some serious quarrel between
them," wrote Mademoiselle, "all the comedies and
the entertainments will be over. At that time, when
the King came to the Queen's apartments, he did
not speak to anybody, and nobody dared to speak
to him. He sat in a corner, and very often he
yawned and went to sleep. It was a species of
88 The Youth of
melancholy which chilled the whole world, and
during this grief he passed the. most of the time
writing what he had said to Mme. de Hautefort,
and what she had answered. It is so true that
after he died they found great bundles of papers
recounting all his differences with his mistresses — to
the praise of whom it must be said, and to his
praise also, that he had never loved any women
who were not very virtuous."
Mademoiselle never seemed to realise the politi-
cal importance of the King's favourites. That
subject, like all else serious, escaped her. She
writes :
" I listened to all that they told me — all that I
was old enough to hear."
We need not hope to learn from her what
Richelieu thought of the King's chaste affection ;
why, though he had encouraged it, he was angered
by it ; why he looked with disfavour upon Mile,
de Lafayette, and manipulated her affairs so well
that he introduced her into the cell of a convent,
and ordered the King to take medicine whenever
he suspected that Louis aspired to contemplate
her through the grating of her prison ; if Made-
moiselle had ever known such things "they had
never presented themselves to her memory."
Nor will it do us any good to search her memoirs
for reasons making it clear why Louis XIII., who
worked incessantly against Richelieu, and " did
not love him," sacrificed, for the Cardinal's pleasure,
all his friends and near relations. Throughout all
La Grande Mademoiselle 89
the reverses of 1635 and 1636, when France was
trembling under the trampling feet of the invader,
when the enemy's skirmishers lay at the gates of
Pontoise, the King was faithful to the dictator,
whose policy had drawn ruin on the nation.
Mademoiselle had never known these things. They
had been far below her horizons. The ungrateful
years had buffeted her as they passed. She had
been pretty and sprightly in early childhood. At
the aee of eleven she was a buxom o-irl, with
swollen cheeks, thick lips, and a stupid mien, — in
a word : a frankly ill-favoured creature, too absorbed
in the preoccupations of animal life (the need to
skip and jump, to be seen and heard) to listen, to
observe, or to reflect. The Queen's condition
crave her one more occasion to manifest the lengths
to which she had carried her innocence, though
she had lived in a world where innocence was not
regarded as the most important item in an outfit.
She rejoiced that there was to be a Dauphin.
Evidently she did not know that his advent would
strip her father of his rights as heir-presumptive
to the throne. In her own words, she " rejoiced
without the least reflection." Anne of Austria was
touched by a simpleness of heart to which her life
had not accustomed her. " You shall be my
daughter-in-law ! " she cried repeatedly to her
young niece. For she could not bear the thought
that the child's later reflections might awake
regret.
Mademoiselle embraced the idea only too
9o The Youth of
ardently, and to it she owed one of the bitterest
hours of her existence.
The child who was to be Louis XIV. was born at
the Chateau of Saint Germain, 5th September, 1638.
Mademoiselle made him her toy. She writes :
" The birth of Monsieur the Dauphin gave me a
new occupation. I went to see him every day and
I called him my little husband. The King was
diverted by this and he thought that I did well."
She had counted without her godfather the Cardi-
nal, who was more of a Croquemitaine, and more
of a spoil-sport than he had ever been. He con-
sidered her childish talk very indecorous. Made-
moiselle pursues :
Cardinal de Richelieu, who does not like me to accustom
myself to being there, nor to have them accustomed to seeing
me there, had me given orders to return to Paris. The Queen
and Mme. de Hautefort did all that was possible to keep me.
They could not obtain their wish, — which I regretted. It was
all tears and cries when I left there. Their Majesties gave
many proofs of friendship, especially the Queen, who made
me aware of a particular tenderness on that occasion. After
this displeasure I had still another to endure. They made me
pass through Rueil to see the Cardinal, who usually lived
there when the King was at Saint Germain. He took it so to
heart that I had called the little Dauphin my little husband
that he gave me a great reprimand: he said that I was too
large to use such terms ; that I had been ill-behaved to
do so. He spoke so seriously — just as if I had been a
person of judgment — that, without answering him, I began to
weep. To pacify me he gave me collation, but I did not
pass it over. I came away from there very angry at all he
had said to me.
La Grande Mademoiselle 9 1
Richelieu meant that his orders should be obeyed.
Mademoiselle adds : " When I was in Paris I only
went to Court once in two months ; and when I
did go there I only dined with the Queen and
then returned to Paris to sleep." It must be said
that if the Cardinal had submitted to it for a
nieht or two, she mi^ht have found it difficult to
sleep at the chateau. At that time our kings had
strange and very inconvenient arrangements for
receiving guests ; their household appointments
had brought them to such a pass that they had
suppressed their guest-chamber. When the royal
family went to Saint Germain there was a regular
house-moving ; they carried all their furniture with
them, and nothing was left in the Louvre, — not
even enough for the King to sleep on when busi-
ness called him to the capital. Henry IV., a
monarch who did not stand on ceremony, invited
himself to the house of some lord or of some rich
bourgeois, where he put himself at his ease, receiv-
ing the Parliament, and also his fair friends, and
bidding adieu to his hosts only when he was ready
to go home. He took leave of them in his own
time and at his own hour.
The timid Louis XIII. had never dared to
do such things ; he had never thought of hav-
ing two beds : one in the city, the other in the
country.
When the Court came back to Paris they
brought all their furniture ; not a mattress was left
in the palace at Saint Germain. This singular
9 2 The Youth of
custom had evolved another, which appears to us
to have lacked hospitality. When the King of
France invited distinguished guests, he never fur-
nished their rooms. He offered them the four
walls, and let them arrange themselves as best they
could. From as far back as people could remem-
ber, they had seen the great arrive at the chateau
closely followed by their beds, their curtains, and
even their cooks and their stew-pans. This was
the case with Monsieur and his daughter ; and so
it was with Mazarin, in the following reign. Made-
moiselle was not ignorant of the peculiar methods
of the royal housekeeping. She knew that the
Kind's friends could not be made comfortable for
the night, on the spur of the moment, and she
rested very well in Versailles, and thought of
nothing but her amusements.
The people saw a gratuitous malevolence in her
exile from Court ; but the Fronde proved the just-
ice of the Cardinal's action. La Grande Mademoi-
selle made civil war to constrain Mazarin to marry
her to Louis XIV., who was eleven years her
junior. Her godfather had guessed well : the
idea of being Queen had germinated rapidly in
the little head in which the influence of Astrte —
still active despite its age — was busily forming
romantic visions far in advance of its generation.
D'Urfe died in 1620; to his glory be it said that
we are obliged to go back to him and to his
work when we would explain the moral state of
the later days.
La Grande Mademoiselle 93
11
Few books in any country or in any time have
equalled the fortune of Astrde, 1 a pastoral romance
in ten volumes, in which the different effects of
honest friendship are deduced from the lives of
shepherds and others, under a long title in the
style of the century. Honore d'Urfe's work im-
mediately became the " code of polite society " and
of all who aspired to appear polite. Everything
was a r Astrde — fashions, sentiments, language, the
games of society, and the conversation of love.
The infatuation extended to classes of society who
read but little. In a comedy familiar to the lesser
bourgeoisie,' some one reproached marriageable
girls for permitting themselves to be captured by
the insipid flattery of the first coxcomb who ad-
dresses them thus:
Bien poli, bien frise
Pourvu qu' il sache un mot des livres d'Astre'e.
Success had crossed the frontiers of France. People
in foreign lands found material for their instruction
in Astrde. The work was a novel with a key ; a
1 The first part appeared in 1610, or perhaps [says M. Brunetiere], in
16 1 8. The rest followed at long intervals. The four last volumes bear
date 1627 and consequently are posthumous. The part written by d'Urfe
cannot be distinguished from the part written by Baro, who continued the
work begun by d'Urfe.
' Manuel de Vhistoire de la lillirature francaise, by M. Ferdinand Bru-
netiere. Cf . En Bourbonnais ft en Forez, by Emile Montegut, and Le roman
(XVII. Century) by Paul Morillot in V histoire de la langtuetdela littirature
francaise, published under the direction of M. Petit de Julleville. Les
vendatiges de Suresnes, by Pierre du Ryer.
94 The Youth of
story with a meaning. " Celadon " was the author ;
" Astree " was his wife (the beautiful Diane de Cha-
teaumorand, with whom he had not been happy).
The Court of le grand Enric was the Court of Henry
IV. " Galatee " was the Queen (Marguerite) and
so on. "All the stories in Astree were founded on
truth," wrote Patru, who had gathered his informa-
tion from the lips of d'Urfe. But "the author has
romanced everything — if I dare use the word."
The charm found in the scandalous reality of the
scenes and in the truth of the characters crowned
the work's success ; the book was translated in
most languages, and devoured with the same avid-
ity by all countries. In Germany there was an
Acaddmie des Vrazs Amants copied from the
"Academy" of Lignon. In Poland, in the last half
of the century, John Sobieski, who was not by any
means one of the be-musked knights of the carpet,
played at Astree and Celadon, with Marie d'Ar-
quien. " To grass with the matrimonial love which
turns to friendship at the end of three months ! .
Celadon am I, now as in the past ; the ardent
lover of those first glad days ! " * he wrote after
marriage.
When the people's infatuation had passed, the
book still remained the standard of all delicate
minds, and it continued to wield its literary influ-
ence.
Through two centuries [said Montegut] Astree lost no-
thing of its renown. The most diverse and the most opposite
1 Waliszeffski : Marysienka.
La Grande Mademoiselle 95
minds alike loved the book ; Pellisson and Huet the Bishop
of Avranches were enthusiastic admirers of its qualities. La
Fontaine and Mme. de Sevigne delighted in it. Racine, in his
own silent and discreet way, read it with fond pleasure and
profit, but did not say so.
Marivaux had read it and drawn even more benefit from it
than Racine. . . . Last of all, Jean Jacques Rousseau
admired it so much that he avowed that he had re-read it
once a year the greater part of his life. Now as Jean Jacques
exerted a dominant influence upon the destinies of our modern
inaginative literature, it follows that the success of Astre'e has
been indirectly prolonged even to our own day. Madame
George Sand, for example, derived some little benefit from
d'Urfe, though she was not too well aware of it.
Montegut had forgotten the Abbe Prevost ; but
M. Brunetiere repairs the omission, and adds: " One
may say that Astrdes success shaped the channel
for the chief current of our modern literature."
Its social influence was equal to its influence
upon literature. And yet, to-day, not one of all
the books that had their time of glory and of popu-
larity is more neglected. No one reads Astrde
now, and no one can read it ; with the best will in
the world, the most indulgent must throw the book
down, bored by its dulness. It has become impos-
sible to endure the five thousand pages of the
amorous dissertations of the shepherds of Lignon.
At the best such a debauch of subtlety would be
only tolerable, even had it emanated from a writer
of genius. And d'Urfe had no genius ; he had
nothing but talent.
D'Urfe was a little gentleman of Forez, whom his
96 The Youth of
epoch (he was born in 1568) had permitted to ex-
amine the society of the Valois. We know that no
social body was ever more corrupt ; nevertheless
those who saw it were dazzled by it ; and because
they had looked upon it they were considered —
in the time of Louis XIII. — exquisitely elegant
and polite ; they were regarded as the survivors of
a superior civilisation.
The ladies of the Court of Anne of Austria were
proud of their power to attract the notice of the
elderly noblemen "thanks to whom," in the words
of a contemporary writer, " remnants of the polite
manners brought by Catherine de Medicis from
Italy were still seen in France." The homage of
the antique gentlemen was insistent, of a kind which
refuses to be repelled. Even the Queen accepted it.
Anne of Austria, whose habitually correct attitude
was notable, felt that she was constrained to receive
the attentions of the old Due de Bellegarde,
though the Duke's character and customs were
notorious. Due de Bellegarde had been one of
the deplorable favourites of Henri III.
Anne of Austria was hypercritical in regard to
forms of conversation ; her own language was fas-
tidiously delicate ; she exacted minute attention to
the superficial details of civility ; yet the notorious de
Bellegarde sat at ease before the Court, displaying
all the peculiar gallantry of his epoch, " and," said
the Oueen's friend, Mine, de Motteville, " it was the
more noticeable and the fame of it was the more
scandalous because the Queen did not hesitate to
La Grande Mademoiselle 97
accept from him incense whose smoke might well
blacken her reputation. The Queen permitted the
Duke to treat her as he had treated the women of
his own day, a day when gallantry and women
reigned."
The civil wars swept away the splendid but rot-
ten world, but the prestige of the Valois still as-
serted its power.
In 1646, a posthumous romantic tale appeared
in Paris, entitled Orasic. It was generally attributed
to the pen of Mile, de Senterre, a maid-of-honour
of the Court of Catherine de Medicis. " This
book," said the editorial preface, " is a true history,
full of very choice events ; there is nothing fictitious
in it but the names given to its heroes and its
heroines. Orasie is a mirror reflecting the most
magnificent and the most pompous of kingly
Courts, the Court where reigned the truest civility
and the purest politeness, where false gallantry, like
base action, was unknown."
The Court thus eulogised had been the centre of
delicate mannerism and the incubating cell of the
refinement of vice. Though the civil wars had
annihilated the splendid rottenness of the Court, the
memory of the delicacy of the Valois survived.
When peace was declared, when men had leisure to
look about them, they were confronted by the rude
Court of Henry IV. They felt the need of a
re-establishment of polite society, but where could
they find the elements of such society ? Foreign
influences had enervated the national imagination,
98 The Youth of
Spanish literature with its romances of cruel chiv-
alry, its pastorals, and its theatrical dramas had
imbued the Romanticism of France with its poison,
and symptoms of moral debility were generally
evident. A period of fermentation and expectancy
follows war. When the civil wars were over, the
men of France sat waiting ; their need was pressing,
but they could form no idea of its nature. At such
a time the eager watchmen on the towers acclaim the
bearer of tidings, be they tidings of good or of evil.
Honore d'Urfe's chief merit lay in the fact that
he was the man of the hour, he came when he was
most needed, holding the mirror up to nature, and
clearly reflecting the common feeling. If I may
use the term, he presented his countrymen with
an intelligent mirror reflecting their confused and
agitated aspirations. Nature and occasion had fitted
him for his work : he had all the accessories and all
the requirements of his art ; best of all, he had the
imperious vocation which is the first and the essen-
tial qualification of authorship, without which no
man should have the hardihood to lay hold upon
an inkstand. D'Urfe knew that war demoralises
a people ; he comprehended the situation of his
country ; he had been a member of the League, and
one of the last to surrender. He knew that the
spirit of love was hovering over France, waiting to
find a resting-place. Francois de Sales and d'Urfe
were friends, and in such close communion of
thought that, to quote the words of Montegut,
" there was not a simple analogy, there was almost
La Grande Mademoiselle 99
an identity of inspiration and of talent between
Astre"e and the Introduction a la vie devote"
D'Urfe had only to remember the sestheticism
which surrounded his expanding youth to compre-
hend the general weariness caused by the lack of
intellectual symmetry and by the rusticity of the
manners of the new reign. He was a serious and
thoughtful man ; he had devoted long months, even
years, to meditation and to study before he had
touched his pen, and by repeated revisions he had
ranged in his book the greater part of the thoughts
and the aspirations of his epoch. In a word, the
obscure provincial writer who had never entered the
Louvre had composed a quasi-universal work re-
suming all the intellectual and sentimental life of an
epoch. Astre'exvas a powerful achievement; but one,
or at most but two, such books can be produced in
a century. 1 D'Urfe's laborious efforts attained a
double result. While he extricated and brought
into the light the ideal for which he had searched
years together, he excited his contemporaries to
strive to be natural and real, and the first French
novel, Astrie, was our first romance with a thesis.
The subject is commonplace : lovers whose theme
is love, and a lovers' quarrel ; in the last volume of
the book, love triumphs, the quarrel is forgotten,
and the lovers marry.
In the beginning of the work, the shepherdess
Astre'e, beside herself with causeless jealousy, over-
whelms the shepherd Celadon with reproaches and
1 Paul Morillot. loc. cit.
ioo The Youth of
Celadon, tired of life, throws himself into the Lig-
non. Standing upon the bank of the river, he
apostrophises a ring and the riband left in his hand
when his shepherdess escaped his grasp :
" Bear witness, O dear cord ! that rather than break one
knot of my affections I will renounce my life, and then,
when I am dead, and my cruel love beholds thee in my hand,
thou shalt speak for me, thou shalt say that no one could be
loved as I loved her. . . . Nor lover wronged like me ! "
Then he appeals to the ring. " And thou, emblem of eter-
nal, faithful love, be glad to be with me in death, the only-
token left me of her love ! "
Hardly has he spoken when, turning his face to-
ward Astrte, he springs with folded arms into the
water. The nymphs save him, and his romantic
adventures serve as the wire carrying the action
of the romance.
But the system is inadequate to its strain. Dead
cars bring about a constantly recurring block, and
more than an hundred personages of more or
less importance stop the way by their gallant in-
trigues. The romance mirrors the passing loves and
the fevered and passionate life of the be-ribanded
people who hung up their small arms in their pan-
oplies, twisted their lances into pruning-hooks, and
replaced the pitiless art of war by the political arts
of peace. Honore d'Urfe's heroes appear to be
more jealously careful of their fine sentiments
than of the sword-thrusts lavishly distributed by
the lords and gentlemen of their days. They are
much more zealous in their search for elegant ex-
pressions than in bestirring themselves to serious
La Grande Mademoiselle 101
action. The perfumed students of phraseology
have changed since the night of Saint Bartholo-
mew, when more than one of them fought side by
side with Henry de Guise ; but it is not difficult
to recognise the precursors of the Fronde in the
druids, shepherds, and chevaliers of Astrte, and so
thought d'Urfe's first readers.
With extreme pleasure they contemplated them-
selves in the noble puppets seen in the romance,
basking in the sun of peace. Away with care !
They had nothing worse to fight than lovers' cas-
uistries, and they lay in the shadows of the trees,
enjoying the riches of a country redeemed by their
own blood. With them were their ladies ; lover and
lass were disguised as shepherd and shepherdess,
or as mythological god and goddess. Idle and ele-
gant as they were, the happy lovers had been tor-
tured by wounds, racked by pride, stung by the fire
of battle; to sleep for ever had been the vision of
many a bivouac, and now war was over, and to lie
in a day-dream fanned by the summer winds and
watched by the eye of woman, — this was the evolu-
tion of the hope of death ! This was the restorative
desired by the provincial nobles when they stood
firm as rocks in ranks thinned and broken by
thirty years of civil and religious war. Such a
rest the jaded knights had hoped for when they
accepted their one alternative, and, by their recogni-
tion of Henry IV., acknowledged submission to a
principal superior to private interest and personal
ambition.
102 The Youth of
The high nobility had soon tired of order and
obedience. Never was it more turbulent or more
undisciplined than under Louis XIII. and in the
minority of Louis XIV., but it must be noted as
one of the signs of the times that it no longer
carried its jaunty ease of conscience into its plots
and its mutinies. Curious proofs of this fact are
still in existence ; the revolting princes and lords
stoutly denied that they had taken arms against the
King. If they had openly made war, and so pal-
pably that they could not deny it, they invariably
asserted with affirmations that they had done it "to
render themselves useful to the King's service."
Gaston d'Orleans gave the same reason for his
conduct when he deserted France for a foreign
country. All averred that they had been impelled
to act by a determination to force the King to
accept deliverance from humiliating tyranny, or
from pernicious influences. During the Fronde,
when men changed parties as freely as they changed
their gloves, the rebels protested their fidelity to
the King, and they did it because the idea of
infidelity was abhorrent to them.
No one in France would have admitted that it
could be possible to hold personal interests or
personal caprice above the interests of the State,
and in the opinion of the French cavalier this
would have been reason enough for any action ; but
there was a more practical reason ; the descendants
of the great barons were beginning to doubt their
power to maintain the assertion of their so-called
La Grande Mademoiselle 103
rights. By suggesting subjects for the meditations
of all the people of France who could read or write
Astrde had contributed a novelty in scruples. In
our day such a book as Astrde would excite no
interest ; the reiteration of the " torrents of tender-
ness " to which it owed its sentimental influence
would make it a doubtful investment for any
publisher, and even the thoughtful reader would
find its best pages difficult reading ; but when all is
said and done, it remains, and it shall remain, the
book which best divines our perpetually recurring
and eternal necessities.
It treats of but one passion, love, and yet it
gives the most subtle study in existence. In it all
the ways of loving are minutely analysed in inter-
minable conversations. All the reasons why man
should love are given, with all the reasons why he
should not love. All the joys found by the lover
in his sufferings are set forth, with all the sufferings
that his joys reserve for him. All the reasons for
fidelity and all the reasons for inconstancy are openly
dissected. A complete list is given of all the in-
tellectual sensations of love (and of some sensations
which are not intellectual). In short, Astrde is a
diagnosis of the spiritual, mental, and moral con-
dition of the love-sick. It contains all the " cases
of conscience " which may or might arise, under
the same or different circumstances, in the lives of
people who live to love, and who, thus loving, see
but one reason for existence — people who severally
or individually, each in his own way and according
104 The Youth of
to his own light, exercise this faculty to love,
— still loving and loving even then, now, and
always.
D'Urfe's conception was of the antique type.
He regarded love as a fatality against which it
were vain to struofSfle. Toward the middle of
the book the sorrowful Celadon, crushed by
the wrath of Astrde, is hidden in a cavern where
he " sustains life by eating grasses." The druid
Adamas knows that Celadon is perishing by inches,
and he essays to bring the lover to reason. Cela-
don answers him :
" If, as you say, God gave me full possession of power over
myself, why does He ask me to give an account of myself ? — for
just as He gave me into my own hands and just as He gave me
to myself, so have I given myself to her to whom I am consigned
for ever. First of all ! If He would have account of
Celadon, let Him apply to her of whom I am! Enough for
me if I offend not her nor violate my sacred gift to her. God
willed my life, for by my destiny I love ; and God knows it,
and has always known it, for since I first began to have a will
I gave myself to her, and still am hers. In brief, I should not
have been blest by love as I have been in all these years had
God not willed it. 1 If He has willed it would it be just to
punish me because I still remain as He ordained that I should
be ? No! for I have not power to change my fate. So be it,
if my parents and my friends condemn me! They all should
be content and glad, when for my acts, I give my reason; that
I love her."
"But," answered Adamas, " do you count on living long in
such a way ? "
" Election," answered Celadon, " depends not on him who
has neither will nor understanding. "
■&•
1 In the Dedication of Place Royale.
La Grande Mademoiselle 105
La Grande Mademoiselle and most of her con-
temporaries escaped Astrccs influence in this re-
spect ; they did not admit that man has " neither
will nor understanding" where his passions are
concerned ; or that his feelings depend on " des-
tiny." Corneille, who had confronted the question,
set forth the principle that the heart should defer
to the will. " The love of an honest man," he wrote
in 1634, 1 — " The love of an honest man should
always be voluntary. One ought never to love to
the point where he cannot help loving, and if he
carries love so far, he is the slave of a tyranny
whose yoke he should shake off."
In her youth Mademoiselle de Montpensier was
one of the truest of the Corneliennes of her genera-
tion ; she practised what others were contented to
restrict to preaching. Love's tyranny appeared to
her a shameful thing-, and she was so convinced
that it rested with the lover whether he should
be a slave or free himself " by shaking off the
yoke," that even the most honest attacks of moral
faintness were, in her eyes, occasions for judgment
without mercy. One day — she tells it herself —
she turned a young femme de chambre out of her
service simply " because the girl had married for
love." The shame then attendant upon love in-
creased in proportion to the " condition " of the
slaves of the questionable passion. The lower
orders were insignificant, and their loves and their
antipathies, like their sufferings, were beneath the
1 In the Dedication of Place Roy ale.
106 The Youth of
consideration of reason, but when men were of a
certain rank, sentiment was debarred from the
conditions of marriage. Mademoiselle followed all
the precepts of high quality, and throughout the
first half of her life her line of action lay parallel
with the noble principles introduced by Corneille.
Jansenism, which, like Corneille, raised the veil of
life for many of the humbler human hearts, made
no impression upon " tall Mademoiselle." Lauzun
was needed to break her pride.
Concerning moral questions, public sentiment
was calm ; the only serious difference raised by
d'Urfe's work during a period of half a century was
the conflict of opinions 1 on human liberty; on all
other subjects, notably the things of taste, d'Urfe
was in harmony with public feeling ; at times Astrde
exceeded public feeling, but it seldom conflicted
with it. The sentiments of the book were far in
advance of the epoch.
But the nature with which d'Urfe communed
and which he loved was the nature viewed by
Louis XIII., and fashioned according to the royal
taste, improved, repaired, decorated with artifi-
cial ornaments, and confined within circumscribed
landscapes composed of complicated horticultural
figures ; a composite nature in which verdure was
nothing but a feature. The fashion of landscape-
gardening — an invention of the Renaissance —
had arrived in France from Italy. In the land
of its birth very amusing specimens of the pictur-
1 M. Lemaitre's address, delivered at Port Royal. (Racine's Centennial.)
La Grande Mademoiselle 107
esque were maintained by intelligent property-
owners.
There are fountains, [said M. Eugene Muntz,] ' groves,
verdant bowers, trellises, vine-wreathed arbours, flowers cher-
ished for their beauty, and plants cultivated for their medicinal
properties ; and under ground there are caves and grottoes.
There are bird-houses, hydraulic organs, single statues, groups
of statues, obelisks, vases, pavilions, covered walks, and bath-
houses ; everything is brought together within a limited space
to charm the eye and to favour the imagination."
The landscape-gardening of France offered the
same spectacle, and the cultivated parks bore close
resemblance to the shops of the venders of bric-a-
brac. "In those rare gardens," said an enthusiastic
historian, " he who promenades may pass from one
surprise to another, losing himself at every step in
all sorts of labyrinths." (" Dedalus " was the name
in use, for in those days much was borrowed from
mythology and from other ancient sources.) The
labyrinths were complicated by ingenious devices
intended to deceive the vision. yEstheticism of style
demanded such delusions. The most renowned
landscape-gardens were the royal parks, on which
money had been freely lavished to perfect and to
elaborate nature. Among the " rarities " in the
gardens of the Gondis and at Saint Cloud were
fountains whose waters played invisible instru-
ments. At the Duke de Bellegarde's (rue de
Grenelle Saint Honore) the most marvellous thing
in the garden was an illuminated grotto of arcades,
1 Ilistoire de Fart, pendant la renaissance.
108 The Youth of
ornamented with grotesques and with marine col-
umns, and covered with a vaulting encrusted with
shells and with a quantity of rock-work ; and more
than that, so full of water-spouts, canals, water-jets,
and invisible faucets ' that even the Kino- had no
greater number on his terraces at Saint Germain —
nor had Cardinal de Richelieu a greater number in
his o-ardens at Rueil, though the first artificial cas-
cades ever seen in France 3 had been built in his
garden. 2 At the Chateau of Usson, the home of
Queen Marguerite, who appears in Astree under
the name of Galatec, the garden was provided with
all the rarities the place would hold. Nothing that
artifice could add to it had been forgotten. The
woods were embellished with divers grottoes so
well counterfeiting nature that the eye often de-
ceived the judgment. 3 The most remarkable grotto
was
the cave of old Mandragora, a place so full of witcheries
that surprise followed surprise, and hour by hour, something
continually occurred to delight the vision. The vaulting of
the entrance was sustained by two sculptured figures very in-
dustriously arrayed with minute stones of divers colours ; the
hair, the eyebrows, and the beards of the statues, and the two
sculptured horns of the god Pan were composed of sea shells
so neatly and so properly set in that the cement could not be
seen. The outer coping of the door was formed like a rustic
arch, and garlands of shells, fastened at the four corners,
ended close to the heads of the two statues. The inside of
the arch tapered to a rocky point, which, in several places,
seemed to drip saltpetre. The retaining walls of the arch were
1 Sauval, Les antiquites de Paris.
i Dulaure, Environs de Paris. z Astre'e.
La Grande Mademoiselle 109
set back in niches to form fountains, and all of the fountains
depicted some of the various effects of the power of love. In
the grotto arose a tomb-like monument ornamented with
images representing divers objects, all formed of coloured
marble, and trimmed with pictures ; wherever such an effect
was possible, the trees were pruned to take the appearance of
some other object or objects.
Thus the laborious and unrestrained intervention
of man evoked a factitious type of nature as far
from precious as the false Prccieuses. By the un-
reserved admiration of its florid descriptions Astrde
had consecrated the artificial mode. Nature de-
manded Lenotre to strip her gardens of their ridic-
ulous decorations, and to redeem them by simplicity,
but when Lenotre accomplished the work of regen-
eration the public taste was wounded ; the people
had become accustomed to the sight of parks
decorated like the stage of the theatre, and the
simplicity of nature shocked them. La Grande
Mademoiselle considered Chenonceaux incom-
plete ; she complained that it "looked unfinished";
her artificially nourished taste missed something,
because the owners of Chenonceaux had respected
the work of God, and left their park just as they
had received it from the hand of its Creator ; she
wondered why Provence was called beautiful — to
her it seemed " ugly enough." She lived at the
gate of the Pyrenees thirty days and never entered
the country, yet she delighted in the pretentious
trinkets with which the landscape-gardeners of the
Italian school decorated French woods and gardens.
Honore d'Urfe was responsible for her ignorance.
no The Youth of
Many of d'Urfe's tastes 1 were noble, and Astrde was
a work of excellent purpose — almost a great work ;
but it lacked the one thing demanded by true art, —
love of nature in its simplicity.
D'Urfe's artificial taste was more regrettable
because his successors, they who continued his
work, accentuated his faults, as, generally speaking,
the disciples of all innovators accentuate the faults
of their masters. Few among the Prdcieuses knew
how to sift the chaff from the wheat when the time
came to take or to leave the varied gifts of their
inheritance. The true Prdcieuses precipitated the
revolution of which d'Urfe had been the prophet;
they alone consummated the moral transformation
which, according to his light, he had prepared.
During the changing years of half a century the
Prdcieuses " kept the school " of manners and fine
language, laying on the ferule whenever they
found pupils as recalcitrant as the damsel whose
story I am attempting to relate. They did not
try — far from it ! — to train the public taste, to cor-
rect it, or to guide it aright ; they urged France
into the tortuous by-paths of false ethics and su-
perficial art ; but, taken all in all, their influence
was good. La Grande Mademoiselle, the abrupt
cavalier-maiden, proved its virtue. To the Hotel
de Rambouillet she owed it that she did not end as
she began — a dragoon in petticoats, and she recog-
nised the fact, and was grateful for the benefits
that she had received.
1 Montegut, loc. cit.
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La Grande Mademoiselle 1 1 1
It has been asked : Was the Society of the
Prdcieuses a result of the influence of Astrde?
With the exception noted, it is probable that
d'Urfe made no attempt to form new intellectual
or sentimental currents ; he confined himself to the
observation of the thoughts and the feelings at
work in the depths of human souls within his
own view ; he was a close student of character, his
book was a study, and his influence reformed opin-
ions and manners ; but as the Society of the
Prdcieuses was in process of incubation before
Astree appeared, it must have taken shape had
d'Urfe never written his book. The world of fash-
ion had long deemed it witty to ridicule the
Prdcieuses ; from too much handling, jests upon
that subject had lost their effervescence, and in
time it was considered more ong-inal to find virtue
in the delicate mannerisms of the refined ladies
than to adhere to the old fashion of mocking
them. Their exaggerations were numerous and
pronounced, but their civility was in pleasant con-
trast with the abrupt indelicacies of the Bearnais ;
and even now, looking back to them across the
separating centuries, we can find few causes for
reproach. They subjected their literature to the
yoke of the Spanish and Italian schools, but they
could hardly have done less at a time when the
Court was Italian, and when Spanish influences
were entering by all the frontiers. Aside from
their submission to foreign influences, the Prdcieuses
were sturdy champions of the right, and unless we
ii2 The Youth of
are prepared to falsify more than thirty years of
our history of morals, and of literature, we must
admit that they rendered us services which cannot
be forgotten or misunderstood.
They were women of the world, important after
the fashion of their day, and by the power of their
worldly influence they freed literature from the
pedantry with which Ronsard — and Montaigne,
also, to a certain extent — had entangled it. They
forced the writers to brush the dust from their
bookshelves ; they imposed upon them some of the
exigencies of their own sex, and by the bare fact
of their influence literature which had been almost
wholly erudite acquired a quality assimilating it
to the usages of the world, and an air of decency
and of civility which it had always lacked. The
Prdcieuses compelled men to grant them the respect
due to all women under civilisation, and to count
them as members of the body politic ; they ex-
acted concessions to their modesty ; they purified
language ; they obliged " all honest men " to select
their topics of conversation ; they habituated people
to discern the delicate shades of thought and to
dissect ideas and find the hidden meanings of
words ; they made demands for concessions to the
rights of precocity, and, as a result, propriety of
verbal expression and closely attentive analyses
entered conversation hand in hand. Many and
eminent were the services rendered unto France
by the amiable band of worldly reformers ; theirs
was a mighty enterprise ; we cannot measure the
La Grande Mademoiselle 113
transformation wrought by the influence of women
in the indecent manners of that day unless we
make a minute examination of the subject. Before
the advent of the Prdcteuses, exterior elegance and
a graceful bearing had been a cloak covering the
words and the conduct of barbarians. Proofs of
this fact abound in the records of that day. La
Grande Mademoiselle was of the second generation
of the Prdcieuscs ; her wit, her love of wit, and her
intellect, gave her rank in the Livrt d'Or x ; but the
habits of youth are difficult to overcome, and when
she first visited the Hotel de Rambouillet she used
the words and the gestures of a pandour, her
squared shoulders and out-thrust chest bore evi-
dences of the natural investiture of the Cossack.
Speaking of that epoch, her most impartial critic
tells us that she " voiced a thousand imprecations." 2
In one of her attacks of indignation she threatened
the Marechal de l'Hopital : " I will tear your beard
out with my own hands ! " she cried fiercely, and
the marshal took fright and ran away.
Several ladies of Mademoiselle's society were
known to possess brisk and heavy hands, and feet
of the same alert and virile character. Their
people and their lovers knew something of their
" manuals and pedals," and bore visible tokens of
the efficacy of those phenomenal members on their
own persons, — and in all the colours of the rain-
bow. Madame de Vervins, who assisted with La
Grande Mademoiselle at the fetes given in honour
' Somaize's Dictionnaire dcs Pr/cieuses. * MJmoires, Conrart.
8
ii4 The Youth of
of Mademoiselle de Hautefort, "basted her lack-
eys and other servants at will," and she did it with
no slack hand. One of the subjects on whom she
plied her dexterity died under the operation, and
the people of Paris avenged his death by sacking
her palace. 1 Following is the record :
On brisa vitre, on rompit porte, . . .
Bref: si fort s' aecrut le tumulte
Que de peur de plus grande insulte,
Cette dame s 'enfuit expres,
Et se sauva par le marais.
But if the ladies were not lambs, the gentlemen
were not sheep. They were no laggards in war.
When they turned the flank of the enemy they did
not mince matters, and upon occasion they drew
the first blood. Once upon a time, at a dance,
Comte de Bregis, having received a slap from his
partner, turned upon her and pulled her hair down
in the midst of the banquet. At a supper, in the
presence of a great and joyous company, the Mar-
quis de la Case snatched a leg of mutton from a
trencher and buffeted his neighbour in her face,
smearing her with gravy. As she was a lady of an
even temper, she laughed heartily, 2 and the incident
was closed. Malherbe confessed to Madame de
Rambouillet that he had " cuffed the ears of the
Viscountess d'Auchy until she had cried for aid."
As he was a jealous man, his action was not with-
out cause, and in that day to flog a woman was a
thing that any gentleman felt free to do.
1 Gazette de Loret. (Letter bearing date August 13, 165 1.) 3 Tallemant.
La Grande Mademoiselle 115
The regenerating Prdcieiises had not arrived too
soon. Ignoble jests and obscenities too foul to
recount were accepted as conversation by both
sexes. The father of the great Conde, who was
president of a "social" club whose rules compelled
members to imitate every movement made by their
leader, ate, and forced his fellow members (includ-
ing the ladies) to eat — I dare not say what ; do
not try to guess — you could never do it !
The modest and timid Louis XIII. could — when
he set about it — give his Court very unappetising
examples. In a book of Edification, bearing date
1658, we read that "the late King, seeing a young
woman among the crowds admitted to his palace
so that they might see the King eat, said nothing,
and gave no immediate evidence that he had seen
her ; but, as he raised his glass for the last sup, be-
fore rising from the table, he filled his mouth with
wine, and having held it thus sanctuaried for an in-
stant, launched it forth into the uncovered chest of
the watchful lady," who had been too eager to wit-
ness the mastications of royalty.
Aristocratic traditions exacted that the nobles
should flog their inferiors, and the nobles con-
formed to the traditional exactions freely. Men
and women were flogged for " failures " of the least
importance, and knowing those antique customs as
we do, we may be permitted to wonder that we
have so few records of the music of that eventful
day.
Richelieu " drubbed his people," he drubbed his
n6 The Youth of
officers, he drubbed (so it was said) his ministers.
The celebrated Duke d'Epernon, the last of the
great Seigniors after Saint Simon, was " as mild-
mannered a man as ever cut a throat or scuttled a
ship " ; one day when he was discussing some offi-
cial question with his Eminence, the Archbishop
of Bordeaux, he gave the exalted prelate " three
clips of his fist full in the archiepiscopal face
and breast, supplementing them by several cuts
of the end of his cane in the pit of the stom-
ach." We are not told how the priest received his
medicine, but history records that " this done,
Monsieur the Duke bore witness to his Lordship
(the Archbishop) that had it not been for the re-
spect due to his character, he (the Duke) should
have tipped him over on the pavement." One day
when the feelings of the Marechal de Mauny were
outraged because a farmer had kept the de Mauny
servitors waiting for their butter and eggs, he (the
Marechal) rushed from his palace like a madman,
fell upon the first peasants who crossed his path, and
with sword-thrusts and with pistol-shots wounded
two of the " aggressors " mortally. This last event
occurred in Burgundy ; it was merely an incident.
In Anjou, Comte de Montsoreau maintained a pri-
vate money-coining establishment in the wood
near, or on, his property, halted the travellers on
the highways, obliged them to pay their ransom,
and, at the head of a band of twenty men, all being
brigands of his own species, swept over the country,
pillaging in all directions. The daily occurring duels
La Grande Mademoiselle 117
accustomed men to look lightly upon death, and
contempt for human life prevailed. When the
Chevalier d'Andrieux was thirty years old, he had
killed seventy-two men. In such cases edicts were
worthless ; the national need demanded a radical
change of morals. Nine years after the death of
Louis XIII., Marechal de Grammont said in
one of his letters : " Since the beginning of the
Regency, according to the estimate made, nine
hundred and forty gentlemen have been killed in
duels." That was an official estimate, and it did
not include the deaths which, though they were
attributed to other causes, were » the direct and
immediate results of honourable encounters ; the
dead thus enumerated having been killed on the
spot. 1
At that time the duel was not attended by cere-
monies ; it was a hand-to-hand encounter between
barbarians. The contestants fought with any wea-
pons that came to hand, and in the way most con-
venient to their needs. All means were considered
proper for the killing of men, though it was gen-
erally conceded that for killing well the different
means were, or might be made, more or less
courteous. This being the case, the duel was in
more or less good or bad taste, according to the
means used in its execution, and according to the
regularity, or the lack of regularity, employed in
their use.
In 161 2, Balagny and Puymorin alighted from
1 AMmoires, de Richelieu.
n8 The Youth of
their horses and drew swords in the rue des Petits
Champs. While they were fighting, a valet took a
pitchfork and planted it in Balagny from the back.
Balagny died of the wound inflicted by the valet,
and Puymorin also died ; he had been wounded
when the valet interfered. Still another lackey
killed Villepreau in the duel between Beaupre and
Villepreau. That duel also was fought in the street
(rue Saint Honore.) When young Louvigny 1
fought with d'Hocquincourt, he said : " Let us take
our swords ! " As the other bent to comply with
the suggestion, Louvigny gave a great sword-
thrust, which, running his adversary through and
through, put him to death. Tallemant des Reaux
qualified the act as "appalling," but it bore no
consequences for Louvigny.
Marechal de Marillac (who was beheaded in
1632) killed his adversary before the latter had
time to draw his sword. We should have called
it an assassination, but our forefathers saw no
harm in such duelling. They reserved their criti-
cisms for the timidly peaceable who objected to a
fight.
The salon, with its ultra-refinement and its
delicacy, followed close upon the heels of these
remnants of barbarity. The salon gave form to
the civility which forbade a man to pierce the
fleshy part of the back of an adversary with a
pitchfork. Polite courtesy also restrained gentle-
1 Young Louvigny was killed in a duel in 1629 ; he was entering his
twenty-first year.
La Grande Mademoiselle 119
men from forcing ladies to swallow all unclean-
ness under the pretence of indulging in a merry
jest. As good manners make for morality, let us
thank the Prccieuses for the reform they accom-
plished when they moulded men for courteous
intercourse with their fellow-men ; and to Madame
de Rambouillet, among others, let thanks be given,
for she made the achievement possible by opening
the way and beginning at the beginning. Wo-
manly tact, a decorous keeping of her house, love
of order and of beauty inspired her with the
thouo-ht that the arrangements made in the old
hotels of Paris for the people of ancient days were
not fitted for the use of the enlightened age of the
Prccieuses. There were no salons in the old
hotels ; the salon was unknown ; therefore there
was no room in which to frame the society then
in formation. Tallemant tells us that the only
houses known at that time were built with a hall
upon one side, a room upon the other side, and a
staircase in the middle. The salle was a parade-
room, a place to pass through, a corridor where
no one lingered. People received visitors in the
room in which they happened to be when the
visitors arrived ; at different times they happened
to be in different rooms. Very naturally at eat-
ing-time they were in rooms where they could sit
at meat. There were no rooms devoted to the
daily meals. The table en which viands were
served was placed in any room large enough to
contain the number of persons who were to be
120 The Youth of
entertained. If there were few guests, the table was
placed in a small room ; when the guests were
numerous, they were seated in a large room, or the
table, ready served, was carried into any room
large enough to hold the company. It was all a
matter of chance. Banquets were given in the
corridor, in the salle, in the ante-room, or in the
sleeping-room, 1 because literary intuition was un-
developed. Madame de Rambouillet was the first
to realise that the spirit of conversation is too rare
and too delicate a plant to thrive under unfavour-
able conditions, and that in order to establish con-
versational groups, a place must be provided in
which they who favour conversation may talk at
ease. Every one recognises that fact now, and
every one ought to recognise it. No one — man
or woman — is justified in ignoring the influences
of the localities that he or she frequents. It should
be generally known that sympathies will not group,
that the current of thought will not flow freely
when a table is unfavourably placed for the seating
of society expected to converse.
Three hundred years ago the creator of the first
French salon discovered this fact, and her discovery
marked a date in the history of our social life.
Mme. de Rambouillet owned a dilapidated man-
sion standing between the Tuileries and the court-
yard of the Louvre, near the site of the now existing
Pavilion de Rohan. 2 She had determined to re-
1 Vicomte d'Avenel, Richelieu et la Monarchie absolue.
5 See Gamboust's map, Paris en /6j2.
La Grande Mademoiselle 121
build the house, and no one could draw a plan
suited to her ideas. Her mind was incessantly
busy with her architectural scheme, and one evening
when she had been sitting alone deep in meditation
she cried out ! " Quick ! A pencil ! paper ! I
have found a way to build my house." ' She drew
her plan at once, and the arrangement was so
superior to all known architectural designs that
houses were built according to " the plans of Mme.
de Rambouillet all over France." Tallemant says :
They learned from Mme. de Rambouillet how to place
stairways at the sides of houses 2 so that they might form
great suites of rooms, and they also learned from her how to
raise floors and to make high and broad windows, placed one
opposite another so that the air might circulate with freedom;
this is all so true that when the Queen-mother ordered the
rebuilding of the Luxembourg she sent the architects to glean
ideas from the Hotel de Rambouillet.
Until that time the interiors of houses had been
painted red or tan colour. Mme. de Rambouillet
was the first to adopt another colour and her inno-
vation gave the " Blue Room " its name. The
famous Blue Room in which the seventeenth
century acquired the even and correct tone of
conversation was disposed with a skilful and
scientific tact which has survived the rack of three
hundred years of changes, and to-day it stands as
the perfect type of a temple fully adequate to the
exigencies of intellectual intercourse.
1 Tallemant.
1 In one of the angles at the end of the courtyard (Tallemant).
122 The Youth of
In it all spaces were measured and the seats
were systematically counted and distributed to the
best advantage ; there were eighteen seats ; neither
more nor less. Screens shut off certain portions
of the room and facilitated the formation of
intimately confidential groups ; flowers perfumed
the air ; objects of art caressed the vision, and, taken
all together, so perceptible a spirit of the sanctuary
enshrining thought was present that the habitues
of the Salon de Rambouillet always spoke of it as
" the Temple." Even La Grande Mademoiselle,
the irrepressible, felt the subtle influences of that
calm retreat of the mind, and when she entered the
Blue Room she repressed her Cossack gestures and
choked back her imprecations. She knew that she
could not evade the restraining influence of the
hushed tranquillity which pervaded " the Temple,"
and she drooped her sparkling eyes, and accepted
her discipline with the universally prevalent docility.
In her own words, Mme. de Rambouillet was
" adorable."
I think [wrote Mademoiselle in 1659], that I can see her
now in that shadowy recess, — which the sun never entered,
though the place was never left in darkness, — surrounded by
great crystal vases full of beautiful spring flowers which were
made to bloom at all seasons in the gardens near her temple,
so that she might look upon the things that she loved.
Around her were the pictures of her friends, and the looks
that she gave them called down blessings on the absent.
There were many books on the tables in her grotto and, as one
may imagine, they treated of nothing common. Only two, or
at most three persons were permitted to enter that place at
La Grande Mademoiselle 123
the same time, because confusion displeased her and noise
was adverse to the goddess whose voice was loud only in
wrath. Our goddess was never angry. She was gentleness
itself.
According to the inscription on a stone preserved
in the Musee Cluny the Hotel de Rambouillet was
rebuilt in 1 6 1 8. The mistress of the house consumed
ten industriously rilled years constituting, installing,
and habituating the intellectual groups of her
salon ; but when she had perfected her arrange-
ments she maintained them in their splendour until
the Fronde put an end to all intellectual effort.
When the Hotel de Rambouillet was in its apogee
La Grande Mademoiselle was in the flush of early
youth. She was born in 1627. Mine, de Sevigne
was Mademoiselle's elder by one year.
When we consider the social and intellectual
condition of the times we must regard many fea-
tures of the enterprise of "fair Arthenice " as
wonderful, but its most characteristic feature was
the opportunity and the advancement it accorded
to men of letters. Whatever "literary" men were
elsewhere, they were received as the equals of the
nobility in the Salon de Rambouillet. Such a sight
had never been seen ! Superior minds had always
been regarded leniently. They had had their
periods of usefulness, when the quality had been
forced to recognise their existence, but the
possessors of those minds had been treated —
well, to speak clearly, they had been treated as
they had expected to be treated ; for how could the
124 The Youth of
poor fellows have hoped for anything better when
they knew that they passed two thirds of their time
with spines humbly curved and with palms out-
stretched soliciting equivocal complaisancies, or in-
viting- ecus, or stru^ling- to secure a seat at the
lower end of dinner tables by means of heart-
rending dedications ?
Alack ! how many Sarrazins and Costars there
were to one Balzac, or to one d'Urfe ! how numer-
ous were the natural parasites, piteous leeches !
whose wit went besting for a discarded bone !
oo o
How many were condemned by their vocation to
die of hunger ; — and there was no help for them !
Had their talent been ten times greater than it was
it would have been equally impossible for them to
introduce dignity into their existence. There were
no journals, no reviews where an author could
present his stuff or his stories for inspection ; no
one had ever heard of authors' rights ; and however
successful a play, the end of the dramatist was the
same ; he was allowed no literary property. How
then could he live if not by crooked ways and
doubtful means? If a certain amount of respect,
not to say honour, were due to his profession, by
what means could he acquire his share of it ? Any
yeoman — the first country squire — could, when so it
pleased him, have a play stricken from the roll ; if so
it pleased him could have the rod laid over the au-
thor's back, amidst the plaudits of the contingent
which we should call the claque. Was it any wonder
that authors were pedants to the marrow of their
La Grande Mademoiselle 125
bones when pedantry was the only paying thing in
their profession ? Writers who chanted their own
praises did good nnto themselves and enjoyed the
reputation of the erudite. They were regarded as
professors of mentality, they reflected credit upon
the men who lodged and nourished them. For that
reason, — and very logically, — when a man knew that
he was being lodged and nourished for the sake of
his bel esprit if there was any manhood in him he
entered heart and soul into his pretensions ; and
sleeping or waking, night or day, from head to foot,
and without one hour of respite, played the part of
" man of letters" ; he mouthed his words, went about
with brows knit, talked from his chest, and, in short,
did everything to prove to the world that he was
wise beyond his generation ; his every effort was
bent to manifest his ability ; and his manners, his
costumes, and his looks, all proved him to be a
student of books. And when this was proven his
master — the man who lodged and nourished him —
was able to get his full money's worth and to stand
up before the world revealed in the character of
benefactor and protector of Belles Lettres. In our
day things wear a different aspect. The author has
reached his pinnacle, and in some cases it may even
be possible that his merits are exaggerated.
Knowing this, it is difficult for us to appreciate
the conditions existing when the Salon of the Ho-
tel de Rambouillet was opened. We know that
there is nothing essentially admirable in putting
black marks on white paper, and we know that a
126 The Youth of
good shoemaker is a more useful citizen than can
be made of an inferior writer, and knowing these
facts, and others of the same sort, we can hardly
realise that only three hundred years ago there
were honest boys who entered upon the career of
Letters when they might have earned a living
selling tallow.
The Hotel de Rambouillet regulated the scale of
social values and diminished the distance between
the position accorded to science, intellect, and
genius and the position accorded to birth. For
the first time within the memory of Frenchmen
Men of Letters tasted the sweets of consideration ;
their eloquence was not forced back, nor was it
drawn out by the imperious demands of hunger ;
authors were placed on a footing with their fellow-
men ; they were still expected to discourse, but as
their wit was the result of normal conditions, it
acquired the quality of order and the flavour of
nature. In the Blue Room the weary writers were
allowed to rest. They were not called upon to give
proofs of their intellect ; they were led gently for-
ward, placed at a distance that made them appear
genial, persuaded to discard their dogmatism,
and by inferences and subtle influences taught
to be indulgent and to distribute their wisdom
with the philosophical civility which was then
called "the spirit of the Court," — and the term
was a just one ; a great gulf lay between the
incisive rushing expression of the thought of Conde,
the pupil of Mine, de Rambouillet, and the laboured
La Grande Mademoiselle 127
facitiae of Yoiture and the Academician, Jacques
Esprit, although Voiture and Esprit were far in
advance of their predecessors. Under the benefi-
cent treatment of the Hotel de Rambouillet the Men
of Letters gradually lost their stilted and pedagogic
airs. The fair reformers of " the circle " found many
a barrier in their path ; the gratitude of the pedants
was not exhilarating, the leopards' spots long
retained their colour, — Trissotin proved that, — but
by force of repeated " dippings " the dye was
eventually compelled to take and the stains that
it left upon the fingers of " fair Arthenice " were not
disfiguring-.
A glance at Racine or at Boileau shows us the
long road traversed after the Salon de Rambouillet
instituted the recognition of merit regardless of
rank and fortune. Love of intellectual pleasures,
courage, and ambitious determination had ordered
a march resumed after forced halts ; and at last,
when the ardent innovators reached the port from
which they were to launch their endeavour, recogni-
tion of merit had become a custom, and the first
phase of democratic evolution was an accomplished
fact. Our own day shows further progress ; the
same evolution in its untrammelled freedom tends
to cast suspicion upon personal merit because it
unhinges the idea of equality.
" All Paris " of that day filed through the portals
of the Hotel de Rambouillet and passed in review
before the Blue Room. Malherbe was one of the
i28 The Youth of
most faithful attendants of the Salon whose
Laureate he remained until he died (1628). Yet
according to Tallemant and to many others he was
boorish and uncivil. He was abrupt in conversa-
tion, but he wrote excellent poetry and never
said a word that did not reach its mark. When
he visited the Salon he was very amiable ; and his
grey beard made him a creditable dean for the
circle of literary companions. He wrote pretty
verses in honour of Arthenice, he was diverting and
instructive — in a word, he made himself necessary
to the Salon. But he was too old to change either
his character or his appearance, and his attempts
to conform to the fashions of the hour made him
ridiculous. He was " a toothless gallant, always
spitting."
He had been in the pay of M. de Bellegarde, from
whom he had received a salary of one thousand
livres, table and lodging, and board and lodging for
one lackey and one horse. He drew an income
from a pension of five hundred ecus granted by
Marie de Medicis ; he was in possession of numer-
ous gratuities, perquisites, and " other species of
gifts " which he had secretly begged by the sweat
of his brow. Huet, Archbishop of Avranche,
wrote : " Malherbe is trying his best to increase his
fortunes, and his poetry, noble though it be, is not
always nobly employed." M. dYveteaux said that
Malherbe " demanded alms sonnet in hand." The
greedy poet had one rival at the Hotel de Rambouil-
let ; a very brilliant Italian addicted to flattery, whom
La Grande Mademoiselle 129
all the ladies loved. Women were infatuated by
him, as they are always infatuated by any foreign
author — be he good or bad ! Marini — in Paris they
called him "Marin" — conversed in long sentences
joined by antitheses. In his hours of relaxation
when his thoughts were supposed to be in literary un-
dress, he called the rose " the eye of the springtide." *
At the time of which I now speak he was labouring
upon a poem of forty-five thousand verses, entitled
Adonis. Every word written or uttered by him
was calculated to produce its effect. " The Circle,"
to the disgust of Malherbe, lay at the feet of the
Italian pedant, swooning with ecstasy. " Marin's"
influence over the first Salon of France was deplor-
able, and a contemporary chronicler recorded his
progress with evident dejection 2 ; "In time he re-
lieved the country of his presence ; but he had
remained in it long enough to deposit in fruitful
soil the germs of his factitious preciosity."
Chapelain was of other metal. He began active
life as a teacher. M. de Longueville, who was the
first to appreciate his merits, granted him his first
pension (two thousand livres). Chapelain was
fond of his work, a natural writer, industrious, and
frugal. He went into retirement, lived upon his
little pension, and brought forth La Pucclle. De
Longueville was delighted by the zeal and the talent
of his protege and he added one thousand livres to his
pension. Richelieu also granted Chapelain a pen-
sion (one thousand livres) and when Mazarin came
1 M. Bourciez loc. cit. * Ibid,
9
ISO The Youth of
to power he supplemented the gift of his predecessor
by a pension of five hundred ecus.
It was not a common thing for authors to make
favourable arrangements with a publisher, but
Chapelain had made excellent terms for that
epoch. La Pucelle had sold for three thousand livres.
He (Chapelain) was in easy circumstances, but his
unique appearance excited unique criticisms. He
was described as " one of the shabbiest, dirtiest, most
shambling, and rumpled of gallows-birds, and one
of the most affectedly literary characters from head
to heels who ever set foot in the Blue Room." It
was said he was " a complete caricature of his idea."
Though Mme. de Rambouillet was accustomed
to the aspect of Men of Letters, she was struck
dumb when Chapelain first appeared. As his mind
was not visible, she saw nothing but an ugly little
man in a pigeon-breast satin habit of antique date,
covered with different kinds of ill-assorted gimp.
His boots were not matched (each being ec-
centric in its own peculiar way). On his head
was an old wig- and over the wig hovered a
faded hat. Mme. de Rambouillet regained her
self-command and decided to close her eyes to
his exterior. His conversation pleased her, and
before he had left her presence he had impressed
her favourably. In truth Chapelain merited re-
spect and friendship. He was full of delicacy of
feeling, extremely erudite, and impassioned in his
love for things of the mind. His keen, refined,
critical instinct had made him an authority on all
La Grande Mademoiselle 13 r
subjects. His correspondence covered all the
literary and learned centres of Europe, and he
was consulted as an oracle by the savants of all
countries. He was interested in everything. His
mind was singularly broad, modest, frank, and open
to conviction ; and while his nature was essentially
French, his mental curiosity, with its innumerable
outstretching and receptive channels, made him a
representative of cosmopolitan enlightenment.
Chapelain was one of the pillars of the Salon, —
or, to speak better, he was the pendentive of the
Salon's literary architecture. After a time repeated
frequentation of the Salon amended his "exterior"
to some extent. He changed his fanciful attire for
the plain black costumes worn by Vadius and by
Trissotin, but his transformation was accomplished
invisibly, and during the transition period he did
not cease to be shabby and of a suspiciously neg-
lected aspect, even for one hour. " I believe," said
Tallemant, " that Chapelain has never had any-
thing absolutely new."
Menage, another pillar of the Salon de Ram-
bouillet, was one of the rare literary exceptions to
the rule of the solid provincial bourgeoisie. He
was the rara avis of his country, and not only a
pedant but the pedant par excellence, the finished
type of the " litterateur " who " sucks ink and bursts
with pride at his achievement." He was always
spreading his feathers and bristling like a turkey-
cock if he was not appreciated according to his
estimate of himself. From him descended some
13 2 The Youth of
of the " literary types " still in existence, who cross-
question a man in regard to what he knows of
their literary " work." No matter what people were
talking about, Menage would interrupt them with
his patronising smile and " Do you remember
what I said upon that subject ? " he would ask.
Naturally no one remembered anything that he had
written, and when they confessed that they had
forgotten he would cry out all sorts of piquancies
and coarseness. Every one knew what he was.
Moliere used him as a model for Vadius, and the
likeness was striking. He was dreaded, and people
loved literature to madness and accepted all its
excrescences before they consented to endure his
presence. " I have seen him," said Tallemant, " in
Mme. de Rambouillet's alcove cleaning the insides
of his teeth with a very dirty handkerchief, and that
was what he was doinor during the whole visit."
He considered his fine manners irresistible. He
pursued Mme. de Rambouillet, bombarding her
incessantly with declarations. A pernicious vanity
was one of his chief failings. It was his habit to
give people to understand that he was on intimate
terms with women like Mme. de Lafayette and
Mme. de Sevigne ; but Mme. de Sevigne did
not permit him to carry his boasts to Paradise.
One day after she had heard of his reports she
invited him to accompany her alone in her carriage.
She told him that she was " not afraid that any one
would gossip over it." Menage, whose feelings
were outraged by her contempt, burst into a flood
La Grande Mademoiselle 133
of reproaches. " Get into my carriage at once / " she
answered. " If you anger me I will visit you in your
own house / " '
People tolerated Menage because he was extra-
ordinarily wise, and because his sense of justice
impelled him to admirably generous deeds. The
Ministers, Mazarin and Colbert, always sent to
him for the names of the people who were worthy
of recompence, and Menage frequently nominated
the men who had most offended him. Justice was
his passion. Under the vulgar motley of the
pedant lay many excellent qualities, among them
intense devotion to friends. Throughout his life
he rendered innumerable services and was kind and
helpful to many people. Menage had a certain
amount of money, nevertheless he gave himself
into the hands of Retz, and Retz lodged and
nourished him as he lodged and nourished his own
lackey. Menage lived with Retz, berating him as
he berated every one ; and Retz cared for him,
endured his fits of anger, and listened to his scold-
ings ten years. Menage " drew handsome pecun-
iary benefits from some other source," saved money,
set out for himself, and founded a branch Blue
Room in his own house. His receptions, which
were held weekly on Wednesday, were in high
esteem. The people who had free access to good
society considered it an honour to be named as his
guests.
Quite another story was " little Voiture," a
1 Bussy-Rabutin, Histoire atnoreuse des (Joules.
134 The Youth of
delicate pigmy who had " passed forty years of
his life at death's door." He was an invalid even
in early youth. When very young he wrote to
Mme. de Rambouillet from Nancy :
Since I have not had the honour of seeing you, madame, I
have endured ills which cannot be described. As I traversed
Epernay I visited Marechal Strozzi for your sake, and his
tomb appeared so magnificent, and the place so calculated to
give repose, that as I was in such condition and so fit for
burial, I longed to be laid beside him; but as they found that
there was still some warmth in me, they made difficulties
about acceding to my wishes. Then I resolved to have my
body carried as far as Nancy, where, at last, madame, it has
arrived, so meagre and so wasted, that I do assure you that
there will be very little for them to lay in the ground.
Ten years later he drew the following sketch of
himself :
" My head is handsome enough ; I have many
grey hairs. My eyes are soft, but a little dis-
traught. . . . My expression is stupid, but to
counterbalance this discrepancy, I am the best boy
in the world." 1
Voiture was called "the dwarf king." He was
a charming conversationalist ; he was a precursor
of the Parisian of the eighteenth century, of whom
his winged wit and foaming gayety made him a
fair antetype ; he was "the life and the soul" of
the Hotel de Rambouillet, and when the pon-
derous minds had left the Salon, after he had
helped the naturally gay ladies to lift the helmet of
Minerva from their heads — and the weights from
1 Oh, no! not such a good boy as all that ! — Arvede Barine.
La Grande Mademoiselle 135
their heels — he taught them the light laughter
which sits so well on " airy nothings." But he had
his defects, defects so grave that the critics said :
" If Voiture were of our condition it would be im-
possible to endure him ! " He was a dangerous
little gossip, constantly taking liberties and forcing
people to recall him to his place. Though he was
a child in size, he was a man of mature years, and
the parents and guardians of young girls were
forced to watch him, though it is probable that his
intentions were innocent enough. One day, when
he was on a visit, he attempted to press his lips to
the arm of one of the daughters of the house.
That time he " caught it on his fingers " ; he
begged pardon for his sin ; but he did not correct
his faults ; vanity forbade him to do that, and
vanity made him very jealous and hot tempered.
Mile, de Scudery (who was not censorious) called
him " untrustworthy." His literature was like his
person and his character. Everything that he
wrote was delicate, coquettish, and very graceful,
but often puerile. His literary taste was not
keen ; when the Circle sat wrapt in admiration just
after Corneille had read them Polyeucte, Voiture
hurried to the author's side and told him that he
" would better go home and lock that drama up in
his bureau drawer."
Toward the end of his life Voiture dyed both
hair and beard, and his manner was just what
it had been in his youth ; he could not realise
that he was not a boy ; it was said that he was
136 The Youth of
" tiresome, because he did not know how to grow
old."
His irritable disposition made him a trying
companion, but to his last day he was the " spoiled
child " of Madame de Rambouillet and all the
society of the Salon ; he was gay, simple, boyish,
and natural, and the Circle loved him "because he
had none of the affected gravity and the import-
ance of the other men of letters, and because his
manners were not precise." More than thirty
years after his death Mme. de Sevigne recalled
" his free wit and his charming ways " with de-
light. (" So much the worse," she said, " for them
who do not understand such things !" *)
Voiture might have lived independently and
dispensed with the favours and the benefits which
he solicited. His father was a very successful
business man (he dealt in wines), but in those days
it was customary for literary men to depend upon
other men, and " little Voiture," thinking that it
was a part of his glory to take his share of the
general cake, profited by his social relations, and
stretched his hands out in all directions, receiving
such pensions, benefits, and " offices " as were be-
stowed upon all prominent men of letters. His
income was large, and as he was nourished and cared
for by Madame de Rambouillet, he had few expenses.
Valentin Conrart, the first perpetual Secretary of
the Academie Franfaisc, was the most useful, if not
the most brilliant member of the Salon ; he was
1 Mme. de Sevigne.
La Grande Mademoiselle 137
the common sense of the Blue Room : the wise
and discreet friend to whom the most delicate se-
crets were fearlessly confided, the unfailing referee
to whom the members of the Circle applied for de-
cisions of all kinds, from the question of a debated
signification to the pronunciation of a word ; natur-
ally he was somewhat pedagogical ; incessant correc-
tion of the works of others had impressed him with
the instincts and the manners of a teacher ; to the
younger members of the Circle he was a most
awe-inspiring wiseacre. Conrart bore the mark of
a deep-seated consciousness of Protestantism, and
whether he was speaking, walking, or engaged in his
active duties it was evident that he was absorbed
in reflections concerning his religious origin ; people
who had seen him when he was asleep affirmed that
he wore an alert air of cogitation when wrapt in slum-
ber, and when he was rhyming his little verses to
Alphise or to Lycoris his aspect was the same. His
attitude was logical : he knew that he was a Pro-
testant ; he knew that that fact was a thing that no
man could be expected to forget. In 1647 he wrote
to a fellow coreligionist * : " As the world regards it,
what a disadvantage it is to be a Huguenot!"
The Academie Francaise emanated from social
meetings held in Conrart's house and the serious as-
sociation could not have had a more suitable cradle.
It is a pleasure to think of that easy and inde-
pendent home, where guests were met with out-
stretched hands, where wisdom was dispensed
1 Valentin Conrart, Rene Kerviler and Ed. ik Barthelemy.
138 The Youth of
without thought of recompense. Conrart was gen-
erous and just, a loyal and indulgent friend who did
good for the love of goodness. The wife of Con-
rart was an excellent and worthy creature, who re-
ceived dukes and peers and the ladies of the Court
as simply as she received the friends of her youth ;
she was not a respecter of persons and she saw no
reason for embarrassment when the Marquise de
Rambouillet wished to dine with her. She took
pride in " pastelles," cordials, and other household
delicacies, which she made and offered to her hus-
band's friends with her own hands.
Vaugelas was timid and innocent ; misfortune
was his habit ; he had always been unfortunate, and
no one expected him to be anything else. He was
very poor ; he had been stripped of everything
(even to the pension given him by the King)
as punishment for following Gaston d'Orleans.
Everything that he did turned against him. One
day when he was in great need Mme. de Carignan
told him that she would hire him as tutor ; she had
two sons whom she aspired to educate according to
the methods of the Hotel de Rambouillet. Natu-
rally the impecunious Vaugelas thanked God for
his rescue. When his pupils were presented to him
he found that one of them was deaf and dumb, the
other was a phenominal stutterer, barely able to
articulate his name. Vaugelas had been so uni-
formly unfortunate that his woes had created a
nervous tension in the minds of the Circle, and
every new report of his afflictions called forth an
La Grande Mademoiselle 139
outburst of hysterical laughter from his sympa-
thisers. The Hotel de Rambouillet knew his in-
trinsic value. Fair Arthenice and her company
essayed to bring him forward, and failed ; he was
bashful, an inveterate listener, obstinately silent ; in
the Salon he sat with head drooping and with lips
half open, eagerly listening to catch the delicately
turned phrases of the quality, or to surprise some
noble error ; a grammatical lapsus stung his keen
perceptions, and he was frequently seen writh-
ing as if in agony, no one knew why. In a word
he was worthless in a salon, — and the same
must be said of Corneille. Corneille felt that
he was not brilliant, and he never attended the
Salon unless he had written something new ; he
read his plays to " the Circle " before he offered
them to the publishers. Men of genius are not
always creditable adjuncts to a salon ; Corneille
was known in the fine world as " that fellow Cor-
neille." As far as his capacity for furnishing the
amount of amusement which all men individually
owe it to their fellows to provide is concerned, it
is enough to say that he was one of the church-
wardens in his parochial district ; this fact, like the
accident of birth, may pass as a circumstance ex-
tenuating his involuntary evil. Speaking of the
Salon la Bruyere wrote : " Corneille, another one
who is seen there, is simple, timid, and — when he
talks — a bore ; he mistakes one word for another,
and considers his plays good or bad in proportion
to the money he gains by them. He does not
i-P The Youth of
know how to recite poetry, and he cannot read his
own writing."
In a club of pretty women ten Corneilles would
not have been worth one Antoine Godeau. Godeau
was as diminutive in his verse as in his person ; but
he was a fiery fellow and a dashing gallant, always
in love. When he was studying philosophy the
German students in his boarding-house so attached
themselves to his lively ways that they could not
live away from him. The gravest of the book-
worms thought that they could study better in his
presence, and his chambers presented the appear-
ance of a class-room. He sat enthroned at his
table, and the Germans sat cross-legged around
him blowing clouds from their china pipes and
roaring- with laughter at his sallies. He sang, he
rhymed, he drank ; he was always cracking his
funny jokes. He was born to love, and as he was
naturally frivolous, his dulcineas were staked out
all over the country awaiting his good pleasure.
Presented to the Circle of the Hotel de Rambouil-
let when he was very young, he paled the star of
"little Voiture." When Voiture was at a distance
from Paris Mile, de Rambouillet wrote to him :
" There is a man here now who is a head shorter
than you are, and who is, I swear to you, a thousand
times more gallant \ "
Godeau was a conqueror; he had "entrapped
all the successes." Every one was amazed when
it was discovered that he was a bishop, and they
had barely recovered from their amazement when
La Grande Mademoiselle 141
it was learned that he was not only a bishop but
a good bishop. He had other titles to distinc-
tion (of one kind or another), " and withal he still
remained " (as Sainte Beuve said) " the foppish
spark of all that world." The only passport re-
quired by the Hotel de Rambouillet was intellect.
The Circle caressed Sarrazin, despite his base-
ness, his knavery, his ignoble marriages, and his
ridiculous appearance, because he was capable of
a pleasant repartee when in general conversa-
tion. George de Scudery, a " species of captain,"
was protected by the Circle because he was an
author. Scudery was intolerable ! his brain cells
were clogged by vanity, he was humming from
morning till night with his head high in the clouds,
beating his ancestors about the ears of any one who
would listen to him, and prating of his "glory," his
tragic comedies, and his epic poem Alaric. He
was on tiptoe with delight because he had eclipsed
Corneille. The Hotel de Rambouillet smiled upon
Colletet, the clever drunkard who had taken his
three servants to wife, one after the other, and who
had not talent enough to counterbalance his gipsy
squalor. But all passed who could hold a pen.
Many a scruple and many a qualm clamoured in
vain for recognition when the fair creator of the
Circle organised the Salon. Nothing can be cre-
ated — not even a salon — without some sacrifice,
and Mine, de Rambouillet laid a firm hand upon
her predilections and made literary merit the only
title to membership in the Salon. Every one knew
142 The Youth of
the way to the Hotel de Rambouillet. Every-
one but Balzac was seen there. Balzac lived in
a distant department (la Charente), so it is prob-
able that he knew Mme. de Rambouillet only by
letter, though he is named as an attendant of
the Salon. Had the Salon existed in this day it
is possible that our moderns, who demand a finer
mortar, would have left the coarser pebbles in the
screen, but Mme. de Rambouillet closed her eyes,
put forth her hand, and as blindly as Justice drew
authors out of their obscure corners and placed
them on a footing with the fine flower of the Court
and the choice spirits of the city, with all that was
gay or witty, with all who were possessed of curi-
osity concerning the things of the mind. She forced
the frivolous to habituate themselves to serious
things, she compelled the pedants to toss their caps
to the thistles, to cast aside their pretensions and
their long-drawn-out phrases, and to stand forth as
men. No one carried the accoutrements of his
authorship into the Blue Room, no one was per-
mitted to play the part of "pedant pedantising" ;
all was light, rapid, ephemeral ; the atmosphere
was fine and clear, and to add to the tranquil aspect
of the scene, several very youthful ladies (the young
daughters of Mme. de Rambouillet and " la pucelle
Priande " among others) were permitted to pass
like butterflies among the thoughtful groups ; their
presence completed the illusion of pastoral festivity.
Before that time young girls had never mingled
freely with their elders.
La Grande Mademoiselle 143
As mixed as the gatherings were, and as radical
as was the social revolution of the Salon, the pres-
ence of innocent youth imposed the tone of careful
propriety. I am not counting "La Belle Paulet "
as an innocent young girl, though she too was of
the Salon. Paulet was called " the lioness " because
of the ardent blonde colour of her hair ; she was
young enough, and amiable even to excess, but she
had had too much experience. She was " a bit
of driftwood," one of several of her kind whom
Mine, de Rambouillet had fished from the vortex,
dried, catechised, absolved, and restored to reg-
ular conduct and consideration. Neither do I class
" the worthy Scudery " among young girls. She
could not have been called "young" at any age.
She was (to quote one of her contemporaries) " a
tall, black, meagre person, with a very long face,
prolix in discourse, with a tone of voice like a
schoolmaster, which is not at all agreeable." Al-
though Tallemant drew this picture, its lines are
not exaggerated. It is impossible to regard Mile,
de Scudery as a young girl. When I say that
there were young girls in the Salon, I have in mind
the daughters of the house, from whom emanated
excess of delicacy, precocity, and decadence, Julie
d'Angennes, for whom was created " the garland of
Julie," who became Mme. Montausier, Angeliquede
Rambouillet, — the first of de Grigiian's three wives,
— and Mile, de Bourbon, who married de Longue-
ville, and at a later day was known as the heroine
of the Hotel-de-Ville. We must not imagine that a
144 The Youth of
reception at the Hotel de Rambouillet was a convo-
cation like a seance at the Institute of France. At
such an assembly a de Sevigne, a Paulet, a La-
fayette would have been out of place, nor would
they have consented to sit like students in class dis-
cussing whether it were better to say avoine and
sarge (the pronunciation given by the Court) or
aveine and serge (the pronunciation used by the
grain-handlers in the hay-market). Neither would
it have been worth while to collect such spirits had
the sole object been a discussion of the last new
book, or the last new play ; but literary and gram-
matical questions were rocks in the seas on which
the brilliant explorer of the Blue Room had set
sail and on the rocks she had planted her buoys.
She navigated sagaciously, taking the sun, sound-
ing and shaping her course to avoid danger. " As-
saults of eloquence," however important, were cut
short before they resembled the lessons of the
schoolroom. Before the innovation of the Salon,
the critics had dealt out discipline with heavy
hands. We are confounded by the solemnity with
which Conrart informed Balzac of a "tournament"
between Voiture and Chapelain on the subject of
one of Ariosto's comedies, when "decisions" were
rendered with all the precision of legal sentences by
" the hermit of Angoumois." * So manifest a waste
of energy proved that it was time for the world's
people to interfere, to restrain the savants from tak-
ing to heart things which were not worth their pains.
1 Mme. de Kerviler and Ed. de Barthelemy, loc. cit.
La Grande Mademoiselle H5
The authors produced their plays or their poems
and carried their manuscripts to the Hotel de Ram-
bouillet, where they read them in the presence of
the company, and the circle listened, approved,
criticised, and exchanged opinions. All of Cor-
neille's masterpieces cleared that port in disguise ;
their creator presenting them as the works of a
strange author. When he read Polyeucte the Salon
supposed that the drama was the work of a person
unknown to them ; all listened intently and criticised
freely. No one suspected the real author, and
when the last word was read, Voiture made haste
to warn Corneille that he " would better lock up the
play." When the Circle first heard the Cid they
acclaimed it, and declared that it was the work of
genius. Richelieu objected to it, and the Salon
defended it against him. Books and plays were
not the only subjects of discussion ; in the Blue
Room letters from the absent were read to the
company, verses were improvised and declaimed,
plays were enacted, and delicately refined expres-
sions were sought with which to clothe the senti-
ment and the passion of love. Great progress was
made in the exercise of wit, and at times the circle,
excited by the clash of mind with mind, exhibited
the effervescent joy of children at play when fun
runs riot in the last moment of recess, before the
bell rings to recall them to the schoolroom. At
such a time the members of the Circle were mar-
shalled back to order and set down before the
savants to contemplate the " ologies." Such was
146 The Youth of
the first period of the reign of the Prtcieuses, a
period whose history La Bruyere gathered from
the recitals of the old men of that day.
Voiture and Sarrazin were born for their cen-
tury, and they appeared just at the time when they
might have been expected ; had they come for-
ward with less precipitation they would have been
too late ; it is probable that had they come in our
day they would have been just what they were at
their own epoch. When they came upon the stage
the light, sparkling conversations, the " circles " of
meditative and critical groups convened to argue
the literary and aesthetic questions of the day, had
vanished, with the finely marked differences, the
spiritual jests, the coquettish meanings hidden
amidst the overshadowing gravity of serious dis-
cussion.
The Circle no longer formed little parties admit-
ting only the men who had proved their title to
intellect ; but the fame of the first Salon de Ram-
bouillet — or, to speak better, the fame of the
ideal Salon of the world — still cluna- to its successor.
As children listen to tales told by their grand-
fathers, the delicate mind of Voiture listened to
the story of those first days ; Sarrazin the Gross
might scoff, but Voiture gloried in the thought
that it had all been true ; the lights, the music, the
merry jests, the spring flowers growing in the
autumn, the flashing lances of the spirit, the gay
letters from the absent. . . . And well might
he glory ! there had, in truth, been one supreme
La Grande Mademoiselle 147
moment in the literary life of France, a moment
as rapid, as fleeting as a smile, lost even as it came,
never to appear again until long after the pigmy
body which enshrined the winged soul that loved
to dream of it had turned to dust.
The memory of that first Salon was still so
vivid that Saint Simon wrote : " The Hotel de
Rambouillet was the trysting-place of all then ex-
istent of knowledge and of wit ; it was a redoubt-
able tribunal, where the world and the Court were
brought to judgment."
But the followers of Arthenice did not shrink
from mundane pleasures. In the gracious pres-
ence of their hostess the young people danced
from love of action, laughed from love of
laughter, and, dressed to represent the heroes and
the heroines of Astr^c, or to represent the trades-
men of Paris, went into the country on picnics,
and enacted plays for the amusement of their
guests, playing all the pranks of collegians in
vacation. One day when they were all at the
Chateau de Rambouillet the Comte de Guiche ate
a great many mushrooms. In the night one of
the gay party stole into his room and " took in "
all the seams in his orarments. In the morning it
was impossible for de Guiche to dress ; everything
was too narrow to be buttoned ; in vain he tugged
at the edges of his garments, — nothing would
come together ; the Comte was racked by anx-
iety. "Can it be," he asked anxiously, "because
148 The Youth of
I ate too many mushrooms ? Can it be possible
that I am bloated?" His friends answered that
it might well be possible. " You know," said
they, " that you ate till you were fit to burst." De
Guiche hurried to his mirror, and when he saw his
apparently swollen body and the gaps in his cloth-
ing, he trembled, and declared that he was dying ;
as he was livid and about to swoon, his friends,
thinking that the jest had gone far enough, un-
deceived him. Mine, de Rambouillet was very
fond of inventing surprises for her friends, but her
jests were of a more gallant character. One day
while they were at the Chateau de Rambouillet
she proposed to the Bishop de Lisieux, who was
one of her guests, to walk into the fields adjoin-
ing the chateau, where there was, as she said, a
circle of natural rocks set amonof o-reat trees.
The Bishop accepted her invitation, and history
tells us that "when he was so near the rocks
that he could distinguish them through the trees,
he perceived in various places, as if scattered
about — [I hardly know how to tell it] — objects
fairly white and glistening ! As he advanced it
seemed to him that he could discern figures of
women in the guise of nymphs. The Marquise
insisted that she could not see anything but trees
and rocks, but on advancing to the spot they
found — Mile, de Rambouillet and the other
young ladies of the house arrayed, and very ef-
fectively, as nymphs ; they were seated upon the
rocks, where they made the most agreeable of pic-
La Grande Mademoiselle 149
tures." The crood fellow was so charmed with the
pleasantry that thereafter he never saw " fair
Arthenice " without speaking of " the Rocks of
Rambouillet." ' The Bishop de Lisieux was an ex-
cellent priest ; decorum did not oppose such sur-
prises, even when the one surprised was a bishop.
One day when the ladies were disguised to repre-
sent shepherdesses, de Richelieu's brother, the
Archbishop of Lyons, appeared among them in
the dress of a shepherd.
One of the most agreeable of Voiture's letters
(addressed to a cardinal) ~ contains an account of
a trip that he had made into the country with the
Demoiselles de Rambouillet and de Bourbon, cha-
peroned by " Madame the Princess," mother of the
great Conde ; Mile. Paulet (the bit of driftwood)
and several others were of the party.
We departed from Paris about six o'clock in the evening,
[wrote Voiture], to go to La Barre, 3 where Mme. de Vigean
was to give collation to Madame the Princess. . . . We
arrived at La Barre and entered an audience-room in which
there was nothing but a carpet of roses and of orange blos-
soms for us to walk upon. After having admired this mag-
nificence, Madame the Princess wished to visit the promenade
halls while we were waiting for supper. The sun was setting
in a cloud of gold and azure, and there was only enough of it
left to give a soft and misty light. The wind had gone down,
it was cool and pleasant, and it seemed to us that earth and
heaven had met to favour Mme. de Vigean's wish to feast the
most beautiful Princess in the world.
1 Tallemant. 'Cardinal La Valette.
' Near Enghien.
150 The Youth of
Having passed a large parterre, and great gardens, all full
of orange trees, we arrived at a wood which the sunlight had
not entered in more than an hundred years, until it entered
there (in the person of Madame). At the foot of an avenue
so long that we could not fathom its vista with our eyes until
we had reached the end of it, we found a fountain which threw
out more water than was ever thrown by all the fountains of
Tivoli put together. Around the fountain were ranged twenty-
four violinists with their violins, and their music was hardly
able to cover the music of the fountain. When we drew near
them we discovered a niche in the palisado, and in the niche
was a Diana eleven or twelve years old, more beautiful than
any goddess of the forests of Greece or of Thessaly. She
bore her arrows in her eyes, and all the rays of the halo of her
brother surrounded her. In another niche was one of Diana's
nymphs, beautiful and sweet enough to attend Diana. They
who doubt fables said that the two visions were only Mile, de
Bourbon and la Pucelle Priande; and, to tell the truth, there
was some ground for their belief, for even we who have always
put faith in fables, we who knew that we were looking upon a
supernatural vision, recognised a close resemblance. Every
one was standing motionless and speechless, with admiration
for all the objects so astonishing both to ear and to eye, when
suddenly the goddess sprang from her niche and with grace
that cannot be described, began a dance around the fountain
which lasted some time, and in which every one joined.
(Here Voiture, who was under obligations to his
correspondent, Cardinal de La Valette, represents
himself as having wept because the Cardinal was
not there. According to Voiture's account he com-
municated his grief to all the company.)
. . . And I should have wept, and, in fact, we all should
have mourned too long, had not the violins quickly played a
saraband so gay that every one sprang up and danced as joy-
ously as if there had been no mourning; and thus, jumping,
La Grande Mademoiselle 151
dancing, whirling, pirouetting, and capering, we arrived at the
house, where we found a table dressed as delicatelv as if the
faeries had served it. And now, Monseigneur, I come to a
part of the adventure which cannot be described ! Truly,
there are no colours nor any figures of rhetoric to represent
the six kinds of luscious soups, all different, which were first
placed before us before anything else was served. And among
other things were twelve different kinds of meats, under the
most unimaginable disguises, such as no one had ever heard of,
and of which not one of us has learned the name to this day!
As we were leaving the table the music of the violins called us
quickly up the stairs, and when we reached the upper floor we
found an audience-room turned into a ball-room, so well lighted
that it seemed to us that the sun, which had entirely disap-
peared from earth, had gone around in some unknown way
and climbed up there to shine upon us and to make it as
bright as any daylight ever seen. There the dance began
anew, and even more perfectly than when we had danced
around the fountain ; and more magnificent than all else,
Monseigneur, is this, that / danced there ! Mile, de Bourbon
said that, truth to tell, I danced badly, but that doubtless I
should make an excellent swordsman, because, at the end of
every cadence, I straightened as if to fall back on guard.
The fete ended in a display of fireworks, after
which the company " took the road " for Paris by
the light of twenty flambeaux, singing with all the
strength of their lungs. When they reached the
village of La Villette they caught up with the vio-
linists, who had started for the city as soon as the
dance was ended and before the party left the cha-
teau. One of the gayest of the company insisted
that the violinists should play, and that they should
dance right there in the street of the village. It
was between two and three o'clock in the mornino-
15 2 The Youth of
and Voiture was tired out; he "blessed Heaven"
when it was discovered that the violins had been
left at La Barre.
At last [Voiture wrote to the Cardinal] we reached Paris.
. . Impenetrable darkness wrapped the city, silence and
solitude lay on every hand, the streets were deserted, and we
saw no people, but now and then small animals, frightened
by the glaring flames of our torches, fled before us, and we
saw them hiding on the shadowy corners.
We learn from this letter how the companions of
the Hotel de Rambouillet passed their evenings.
In Paris and in the distant provinces there were
many imitations of the Salon ; the germs of the
enterprise had taken root all over France with
literary results, which became the subject of serious
study. The political consequences of the literary
and social innovations claimed less attention. The
domestication of the nobility originated in the
Salon. When delicacy of manner was introduced
as obligatory, the nobleman was in full possession
of the rights of power ; he could hunt and torture
animals and inferior men, he could make war upon
his neighbours, he could live in egotistical isolation,
enjoying the luxuries bestowed by his seigniory,
while the lower orders died of hunger at his door,
because his rank was manifested by his freedom
from rules which bound classes below his quality.
The diversions introduced at the Salon de Ram-
bouillet exacted sacrifice of self to the convenience
of others. In the abstract this was an excellent
thing, but its reaction was felt by the aristocracy ;
LOUIS XIII , KING OF FRANCE AND OF NAVARRE
FROM AN OLD PRINT
La Grande Mademoiselle 153
from restraining- their selfishness the gallant cour-
tiers passed on to the self-renunciation of the
ancient Crusaders, and when Louis XIV. saw fit
(for his own reasons) to turn his nobles into peace-
ful courtiers and grand barons of the ante-cham-
ber, he found that his work had all been done ; it
was not possible to convert his warriors into cour-
tiers, for he had no warriors ; all the warriors had
turned to knights of the carpet ; their swords were
wreathed with roses, and the ringing notes which
had called men to arms had changed to the sighing
murmurs of Durandarte ; every man sat in a per-
fumed bower busily employed in making " sonnets
to his mistress's eyebrows." Louis XIV. fumed be-
cause his Court resembled a salon ; the incompara-
ble Arthenice had given the restless cavaliers a
taste for fine conversation and innocent pleasures,
and by doing so she had minced the King's spoon-
meat too fine ; the absolute monarch could only
modify a transformation accomplished independent
of his will.
We have now to determine how much of their
false exalted sentiment and their false ambition the
princes, the chevaliers of the Fronde, and all the
gallants of the quality owed to the dramatic theatre
of their day ; that estimated, we shall have gained
a fair idea of the chief elements of the social body
idealised by Corneille, — of all the elements save
one, the element of Religion ; that was a thing
apart, to be considered especially and in its own
time.
CHAPTER III
The Earliest Influences of the Theatre — II. Mademoiselle and the
School of Corneille — III. Marriage Projects — IV. The Cinq-Mars
Affair — Close of the Reign.
T A GRANDE MADEMOISELLE and her
1— ' companions cherished the still existent pas-
sion for the theatre, which is a characteristic of the
French people. The great received comedians, or
actors, in their palaces ; the palace had audience-
rooms prepared to permit of the presentation of
theatrical plays ; in the summer, when the social
world went into the country, the comedians accom-
panied or followed them to their chateaux. So-
ciety required the diversion of the play when it
journeyed either for pleasure or for duty, and play-
acting, whatever its quality and whatever the sub-
ject of its action, elicited the indulgent satisfaction
and the applause that it elicits to-day, be its subject
and its quality good or bad. At the end of the
sixteenth century, play-actors superseded the ma-
gicians who until that time had afforded public
amusement ; the people hailed the change with
enthusiasm ; and the innovation prevailed. The
courtiers loved the spectacle, and from the begin-
ning of the reign of Louis XIII. the Court and
154
La Grande Mademoiselle 155
the comedy were inseparable. Louis XIII. had
witnessed the play in early infancy. In 16 14, when
the King and the Court went upon a journey they
lingered upon the road between Paris and Nantes
six weeks, halting to witness the plays then being
given in the cities along their route, and receiving
their favourite actors in their own lodgings. The
King was less than thirteen years old, yet it
is stated in the journal kept by Herouard, the
King's physician, that the child was regaled with
theatrical plays throughout his journey. At Tours
he was taken to the Abbey of Saint Julian to wit-
ness the French comedy given by de Courtenvaut,
who lodged at the abbey. At Paris the little
King went to the palace with the Queen to see a
play given by the pupils of the Jesuit Brothers.
At Loudun the King ordered a play, and it was
given in his own house ; at La Fleche he
attended three theatrical entertainments in one
day. To quote from the doctor's (Herouard's)
journal :
The King attended mass and from mass he went to the
Jesuits' college, where he saw the collegians play and recite
a pastoral. After dinner he returned to the college of the
Jesuits, where in the great hall, the tragedy of Godcfroy
de Bouillon was represented ; then in the grand alley of the
park, at four o'clock, the comedy of Clorinde was played be-
fore the Queen.
When Gaston d'Orleans took his young wife to
Chantilly immediately after his marriage, he sent
for a troupe of comedians, who went to the chateau
15 6 The Youth of
with their band and with violins, — "thus," reports
a contemporary, " rendering the little journey very
diverting." On the occasion already mentioned,
when the same Prince conducted his daughter to
Tours so that he might present Louison Roger to
her, he did not permit the little Princess to languish
for the theatre. " Monsieur sent for the co-
medians," wrote Mademoiselle, " and we had the
comedy nearly every day." * When Monsieur re-
turned to his ch&teau in Blois his troupe followed
him. When Mademoiselle returned to the Tuileries
(November, 1637) she found a private theatre in
every house to which she was invited.
Actors worked without respite ; they had no
vacations ; they played in the French, in the
Spanish, and in the Italian languages ; and English
comedy also, played by English actors, was seen in
Paris. Richelieu's theatre in the Hotel de Riche-
lieu 2 "was provided with two audience halls, — one
large, the other small. Both were luxuriously
mounted. The decorations and the costumes of
the actors displayed such magnificence that the
audience murmured with delight."
The Gazette de France, which bestowed nothing
but an occasional casual notice upon the royal
theatre of the King's palace, dilated admiringly
upon the Theatre de Richelieu and the marvels
with which the Cardinal regaled his guests. The
Gazette reported the occasion of the presentation
1 Mademoiselle was ten years old at that time.
2 The Palais-Royal of to-day.
La Grande Mademoiselle 157
of " the excellent comedy written by Sieur Baro,"
and the ballet which followed it.
The ballet was interlaced by a double collation. One part
of the collation was composed of the rarest and most de-
licious of fruits; the other part was composed of confitures in
little baskets, which eighteen dancing pages presented to the
guests. The baskets were all trimmed with English ribands
and with golden and silvern tissue. The pages presented the
baskets to the lords and then the lords distributed them
among the ladies.
Mademoiselle was one of the company, and she
received her basket with profound satisfaction.
Three days after the first comedy of Baro was played
the Court again visited the Cardinal's theatre to
witness a second play by the same author. Baro
was a well-known literary hack. He had been
d'Urfe's secretary and had continued Astrde when
d'Urfe laid down his pen. The success of the
second representation was phenomenal.
The ornamentation of the theatre [commented the Gazette],
the pretty, ingenious tricks invented by the author, the ex-
cellences of the verse . . . the ravishing concert of the
lutes, the harpsichords, and the other instruments, the elocu-
tion, the gestures, and the costumes of the actors compromised
the honour of all the plays that have been seen either in past
centuries or in our own century.
We consider Baro's plays insipid, but they were
very successful in their day.
February 19th was a gala day at the Theatre de
Richelieu. A fete was given in honour of the Duke
of Parma. First of all they gave a very fine
158 The Youth of
comedy, with complete change of play, with inter-
ludes ; lutes, spinnets, viols, and violins were
played.
The Gazette cie France tells us that there was a
ballet, and then a supper, at which the guests saw
" the fine buffet, all of white silver," which the
Cardinal gave to the King some years later.
Though the theatre was the chief amusement in
1636, the theatrical representations and ballets,
" interlaced by collations " and by interludes, were
considered a o-ood deal of dancing and a good deal
of play-acting for a priest, even when disseminated
over a period of three weeks.
The conclusion of the report in the Gazette
proved that Richelieu was conscious of his acts,
and that he did not disdain to justify himself.
" Without flattering his Eminence," said the
Gazette, " it may be said that all which takes place
by his orders is always in conformity with reason
and with right, and that the duties which he ren-
ders to the State never conflict with those that
all Christians owe — and which he, in particular,
owes — to the Church." Mademoiselle attended
all the fdtes, and she was less than ten years old.
She, herself, gave a ball and a comedy in honour of
the Queen in the palace of the Tuileries.
In that day children in their nurses' arms were
taken to see the play. A contemporary engrav-
ing depicts the royal family at the theatre in
Richelieu's palace. The " hall " is in the form of an
immense salon much longer than it is broad ; at
La Grande Mademoiselle 159
one end is the stage, raised by five steps ; along
the walls are two ranks of galleries for the invited
guests. The women sit in the lower gallery, the
men sit above them ; seats have been brought into
the centre of the hall, and on them sit Louis XIII.
and his family. In the picture Monsieur is sitting
on the King's left hand. On Anne of Austria's
right hand, in a little arm-chair made for a child,
sits the Dauphin, who must have been three, or
possibly four, years old at that time. On the right
hand of the Queen, beyond the Dauphin, stands a
woman holding a great doll-like infant, the brother
of the Dauphin.
The playgoing infantine assiduity, the custom of
carrying children in swaddling bands to the theatre
to witness comedies of every species, good or bad,
assured the theatre of a position in public educa-
tion ; the children of the aristocracy drank in the
drama with eye and ear — if I dare express myself
thus — and at an age when reason was not present
to correct the effect of impressions. The repertory
of the theatre was one of the most dramatically
romantic and sentimental ever known to France and
the one of all others best fitted to turn a generation
from sound reality to false and fantastic visions.
The general movement of that day may be classed
as an aberration due to the fact that the drama
was a new pleasure ; the inconveniences attendant
upon its influences had not been recognised, but it
is probable that some of the condemnations uttered
by the moralists and by the preachers of the seven-
160 The Youth of
teenth century in the name of religion and of de-
cency were called forth by the presence of children
at the play ; the men who were most bitter in de-
nunciations which amaze us by the excess of their
hostility spoke from experience and had reason for
their bitterness. The Prince de Conti, the brother
of the great Conde, might have furnished unique
commentaries on the criticisms of the day, had he
cared to recall a treatise which he wrote ( The
Plays of the Theatre, and Spectacles) when he was
emerging from a youth far from edifying.
The treatise was written for the benefit of light-
minded people, who saw no harm in playgoing.
In the beginning- of his work the Prince said :
" I hope to prove that comedy in its present condi-
tion is not the innocent amusement that it is con-
sidered ; I hope to prove that a true Christian must
regard it as an evil." As his treatise progressed it
became explicit ; his arraignment was animated by
Astrde ; he declared that a play free from the
sentimentality aud the passions of love and from
the thoughts and the actions of lovers was not
acceptable to the public. Love forms the founda-
tion of the play, and therefore it must be discussed
freely from its first principles. " Now a play, how-
ever fine its dramatic composition may be, can
have no other effect than to disgust refined minds
and to ruin the reputations of its actors, unless the
love on which it is based is represented delicately,
and in a tenderly impassioned manner. And as
few actors are capable of producing a perfect
La Grande Mademoiselle 161
representation of the most subtle and many-sided of
passions, the general effect of our comedy is de-
teriorating. As its basis and its structure depend
upon one single subject, it can have but one sub-
ject of interest. Our comedies are considered com-
mendable according to their manners of discussing-
love ; the divers beauties of our dramas consist in
their various exposures of the intimate effects of
love. Love is the theme, and the mind must
either accept it and work upon it or rest unem-
ployed ; there is no choice ; no other theme is
given. When love is not the chief agent, it serves
as an irritant to draw out some other passion and
to make sensuous display not only possible but
cogent, if not imperatively necessary ; be the play
what it may, love is represented as the " passion
ruling the heart." Conti opposed to the popular
" corruption of the drama " the grave lessons offered
by the great tragedies. Segrais treated the subject
in the same way ; he said : " During more than forty
years nearly all of the subjects of our plays have been
drawn from Astrde, and, generally speaking, the dra-
matists have been satisfied with their work if they
have changed to verse the phrases which d'Urfe
put in the mouths of his characters in plain prose."
Segrais exaggerated. Astrde did not furnish
" nearly all " of the subjects of the plays ; but the
extraordinary importance of stage love and of stage
lovers was drawn from Astrde, and, despite the tem-
porary reaction due to Corneille, Astrde persuaded
the great body of French society that there was
162 The Youth of
nothing pathetic in the world but love, and neither
our dramatists nor our moralists have been able to
break away from an error which singularly circum-
scribes their art. Love is now the subject of the
romance and of the play, as it was in the early
days of La Grande Mademoiselle.
Invitations to the Louvre or to the homes of
the great were not too easy to procure, and there
were many people who never entered the private
theatres ; but there were two "paying theatres," or
theatres to which the public were admitted on pay-
ing a fixed price ; one of the two houses was the
Hotel de Bourgogne, which stood in the rue Mau-
conseil, between the rue Montmartre and the rue
Saint Denis ; the other was the Theatre du Marais,
in the Veille rue du Temple. The Marais was
then an out-of-the-way quarter, very dangerous
after nightfall. I have not spoken of this place
until now, because it was almost impossible for any
one in the polite society of which I have written to
visit it. No woman dared to enter the Marais unless
she lived there. The woman of quality could not
even think of entering it except on gala days, when
the Court of France went in a body to visit the play-
actors in their own quarter. At ordinary times the
Hotel de Bourgogne " was neither a good place
nor a safe place." In form and arrangement the
audience hall was like the hall of the Theatre de
Richelieu ; two galleries, one above the other, ran
the whole length of the walls, and in certain places
the walls were connected with the gallery to form
La Grande Mademoiselle 163
j
stalls or boxes. The parterre was a vast space in
which people watched the play standing. In that
part of the theatre there were no seats. An hour,
or perhaps two hours, before the play began the
great unclean space was filled with the most boist-
erous and ungovernable representatives of the
dregs of Paris and with all the active members
of the lesser classes * : students, pages, lackeys, arti-
sans, drunkards, the scum of the canaille, and pro-
fessional thieves ; and there, on the floor of the
parterre, they gambled, lunched, drank, and fought
each other with stones, with swords, or with any
weapon which came to hand ; and as they gratified
their appetites or abused their neighbours, all strove
in the way best known to them to protect their
purses and to keep the thieves from carrying off
their cloaks. The air resounded with shouts,
shrieks, songs, and obscene apostrophes. Contem-
porary writers regarded everything as fit for the rec-
ord, and therefore in all our researches we come
upon heartrending evidences of inenarrable deprav-
ity. The charivari of the assistants of the pit
continued throughout the performance, ending only
when the vociferous thrones were turned into the
streets so that the theatre might be locked for the
night. At their quietest the spectators of the par-
terre were noisy and obstreperous. To quote one
of their chroniclers 2 :
1 Alex. Hardy et le the'dtre francaise, Eugene Rigal.
s Sorel, Le maison des jenx. The hook was puhlished in 1642, hut M. E.
Rigal supposes that the disorders and the complaints cited in it date from a
previous epoch.
1 64 The Youth of
" In their most perfect repose they continued to
talk, to whistle, and to scream without ceasing ;
they did not care at all to hear what the comedians
were saying." We differ from the chroniclers as
to this last opinion ; it is probable that they cared
only too much ; it was to please the rabble that
abominably gross farces were played in the paying
theatres. Tragedy was relished only by the higher
classes.
An eye-witness, the Abbe d'Aubignac, 1 wrote :
" We see that tragedies are liked better than come-
dies at the Court of France ; while among the less-
er people comedies, and even farces and unclean
buffooneries are considered more amusing than
tragedies." The same D'Aubignac wrote in or
about the year 1666 : " Fifty years ago an honest
woman dared not go to the theatre." 2 Between
the universally ardent desire to enjoy the fashion-
able form of pleasure and the efforts to make the
stage less licentious the purification of the drama
was accomplished.
The increasing delicacy of the public taste de-
manded a reform, and in deference to it the moral
atmosphere of both of the popular theatres was re-
newed at the same time ; a new and decent reper-
tory was adopted, and the foul programme of the
past was cast away. Popular feeling acclaimed
the change and hastened the accomplishment of the
reformation.
1 La pratique du the'dtre.
2 Certainly the desire was not lacking. — Author.
La Grande Mademoiselle 165
At the time when the Cid 1 was played the lower
classes had ceased to rule the paying theatres ; the
masses went out of Paris for their pleasure ; to the
fairs of Saint Laurent and Saint Germain, and to
the entertainments on the Pont-Neuf or the Place
Dauphine ; they crowded around the trestled
planks, they hung about the stands of the charla-
tans, the buffoons, and the trick players. The pay-
ing theatres were filled by the upper middle classes.
Women who had not dared to go to the play in
1620 attended the theatre of the Hotel de Bour-
gogne as freely as they would have attended or as
they did attend the Luxembourg. 2 The fine world
of the quality had found its way to the theatre of
the Marais ; the Cid was in course of representa-
tion when the stage of the Marais and the court-
iers thronged to the obscure quarter to witness its
marvels. The Cid was played in the private the-
atres as well as in the Hotel de Bouro-oome. M.
Lanson tells us that the comedians were sum-
moned to the Louvre three times and twice to the
Hotel de Richelieu, but the great were too impatient
to wait for the play to come to them, they ran to
meet it ; every one longed to see it not at a future
time but on the instant, and therefore they flocked
to the Veille rue du Temple.
In 1637 (18th January) Mondory, the actor, who
played the part of Rodrigue, wrote to Balzac :
1 Le theatre an temps du Corneille, Gustave Reynier. The first represent-
ation of the Cid took place either in December, 1636, or in January, 1637.
8 See dedicatory letter accompanying a comedy played in 1632 and pub-
lished in 1636. Galanteries du due d'Ossontie. Mairet.
1 66 The Youth of
Last night they who are usually seen in the Gold Room and
on seats bearing the fleur-de-lys, were visible upon our benches
not singly but in groups. At our doors the crowd was so
great, and our place was so small, that the nooks which ordin-
arily serve as recesses for the pages, were reserved for the
Knights of the Saint Esprit ; and the whole scene was be-
dight with Chevaliers of the Order.
All women could attend the play at will ; and
they all ardently wished to attend it, not once but
always. They who saw it at Court, or at the
houses of the great, were none the less anxious to
frequent the paying theatres, where, though the
scene had been purged of many of its abuses, the
spectacle differed essentially from that presented to
the great. Many distinct peculiarities of the old
plays had been retained ; added to that was the
novelty of the place, and the lack of courtly cere-
mony, and the diversion afforded two different spec-
tacles: the play and the audience. Like the children
of the great, the wives and the daughters of the in-
ferior classes abused their privilege and visited the
theatre incessantly and the rich and the poor suf-
fered from the influences of the superficial amuse-
ment. The play tended to deceive the mind, and
to give a false impression of the aims and the needs
of life. The majority of women were ignorant ;
they had never learned anything. If they could
read they read works of fiction, and their literature
was calculated to foster illusions. Exaltedly ideal-
istic as Astrde had been, the writings of La Cal-
prenede, de Gomberville, and others of their school
were still more sentimentally romantic ; compared
La Grande Mademoiselle 167
with his successors, Honore d' Urfe was a realist.
The influence of the theatre was shown in the in-
tellectual development of woman, the imagination
of all classes was encouraged, the more useful men-
tal agents were neglected, and the minds of the
people were visibly weak and ill-balanced ; the gen-
eral impulse was to seek adventures on any road and
at any price. The thirst for unknown sensations
was a fully developed desire in their day, so we can-
not with justice class it as a " curiosity " emanating
from the inventive imaginations of the decadents.
The writer, Pierre Costar, wilfully lingered three
weeks in a tertian fever so that he might enjoy
the sickly dreams which accompanied the recurrent
paroxysms of the disease. In our day Pierre Cos-
tar would be an opium-eater, or a morphinomaniac.
II
La Grande Mademoiselle owed much of her
turn of mind to the dramatic plays that she had
watched from infancy. I doubt if she was given
any lessons in history, or that she had any lessons
of the kind before she reached her twenty-fifth
year, when she acquired a taste for reading. All
that she knew of history had been gleaned by
her from the tragedies that she had seen at the
theatre, and as she was refractory to the sentiment
of Astree, it cannot be inferred that she had
learned much from d'Urfe ; so it may be said that
Corneille was her teacher in all branches of learn-
ing, that no one of that time was in deeper debt
to the influence that he exerted over minds, and
1 68 The Youth of
that no one so plainly manifested his influence.
From the education afforded by Corneille came
good and evil mingled. As we follow the course
of Mademoiselle's life we are forced to admit that
however high and noble were the ideas sown
broadcast by Corneille, they were not always de-
void of inconveniences when they fell among people
whose experimental knowledge and practicality
were inferior to their susceptibility to impressions.
In the years which followed the advent of the
Cid Corneille was the literary head of France ; he
had discovered the French scene through the influ-
ence of d' Urfe, but his power was his own, and it was
an inherent power ; he was the creator of a tendency.
The unclean farce, which delighted the lock-
pickers and the gamblers of the Paris of those
days, has no place here, because it has no place in
literature. When "good company" invaded the
paying theatres the farce followed the canaille
and took its place upon the trestled stages of the
Pont-Neuf. The farce played a part of its own,
in a world unknown to Mademoiselle ; but the
pastoral demands our attention, not only because
it was in high favour in Mademoiselle's society, but
because Corneille exerted his influence against it.
In the pastoral, love took possession of the
stage, as it had been announced to do, in the play
which opened the way for its successors, Tasso's
Aminta} In the prologue the son of Venus ap-
1 Aminta was played in 1573, but it was not imprinted until 15S1, when
it was first known outside of Italy.
CORNEILLE
FROM AN ENGRAVING OF THE PAINTING BY LEBRUN
La Grande Mademoiselle 169
peared disguised as a shepherd, and declaimed, for
the benefit of the other shepherds, a discourse
which, little by little, became the programme of all
imaginative literature :
To-day these forests shall be heard speaking of love in a
new way. ... I will inspire gross hearts with noble
sentiments; I will subdue their language and make soft their
voices; for, wherever I may be, I still am Love; in shepherds
as in heroes. I establish, if so it please me, equality in all
conditions, no matter how unequal; and my supreme glory,
and the miracle of all my power, is to change the rustic
musettes into sounding lyres.
Modern poets and novelists do not insist that
all men are equal in passion as they are equal
in suffering and in death ; but the people of the
nineteenth century fully believed in such equality.
George Sand expresses her real feelings in La
Petite Fadette ; and Pouvillon meant all that he
said in Les Antibel. The contemporaries of
Louis XIII. looked askance upon such theories;
in their opinion the love, like the suffering, of the
inferior was below the conception of the quality, a
thing as hard for the noble mind to grasp as the
invisible movement of life in an atom; to be ignorant
of the needs, the hopes, the anguish of inferiors
was one of the first proofs of exalted nobility.
But the nobles knew that the shepherds of the dra-
matic stage were gentlemen travestied, and, there-
fore, they bestowed the interest formerly accorded
to the heroes of the heroic drama upon the woes
of the mimic Celadons of the comedy. Love
i;° The Youth of
would have become the dramatic pivot had it
not been for Corneille's plays; d'Urfe's characters
were " sighing like a furnace " when Corneille took
command and gave the posts of honour to " the
manly passions " ; but not even Corneille could
reach such a point at a bound ; he attained it by
strenuous effort. He began his literary career by
writing comedies in verse. Before he produced
the Cidy between the years 1629 and 1636, he
wrote six plays ; an inferior serio-comedy, Cli-
tandre ; or, Innocence Delivered, and a tragedy,
Medee. To quote M. Lemaitre :
We now enter a world which is superficial, because its
people have but one object in living: their only occupation,
their only pleasure, their only interest is love; all else, all the
interests of social life are eliminated. . . . To love.
. . . To be loved, . . . this is the only earthly object,
according to the teachings of the drama, and truly, in the
long run it becomes tiresome! Such a world must be impos-
sible, because it is artificial; in it hearts are the subjects of
all the quarrels; men fight for them, lose them, find them;
they are stolen, they are restored to their owners, they are
tossed like shuttlecocks through five acts of a play. As they
" chassay " to and fro before the reader he loses all sense of
their identity, and takes one for the other; in the end the
mind is wearied. Excessive handling exhausts the vitality of
the subject, and leaves an impression as of something vapid
and unsavoury. But Corneille was Cornelien even when he
wrote rhymed comedy — he could not have been anything
else — and he never would have fallen into rhyme had he not
wished to make concessions to the prevailing fashion. 1
Even when engaged in the most absorbing of
1 Pierre Corneille Petit de Julleville.
La Grande Mademoiselle 17 l
intrigues his lovers pretend that they are their
own masters, and that they feel only such senti-
ments as they have elected to feel. At that early
day — when Medee and Clitandre were written —
the culte of the will had germinated ; and time
proved that it was predestined to become the chief
director of Corneille's work. In La Place Roy ale
Alidor says of Clitandre 1 :
Je veux la liberte dans le milieu des fers,
II ne faut pas servir d'objet, qui nous possede.
II ne faut point nouirrir d'amour qui ne nous cede,
Je le hais s'il me force, et, quand j'aime, je veux
Que de ma volonte dependent tous mes voeux,
Que mon feu m'obeisse au lieu de me contraindre,
Que je puisse, a mon gre, l'enflammer ou l'eteindre,
Et toujours en etat de disposer de moi,
Donner quand il me plait et retirer ma foi.
In Corneille's plays young girls are raised to be-
lieve that they can love, or cease to love, at will ;
and their pride is interested. Ambition demands
that they remain in command of their affections.
When old Pleirante perceives that his daughter
Celidee is fond of Lysandre he lets her know that
he has divined her secret and that he approves of
her choice, but Celidee answers proudly :
" Monsieur, il est tout, vrai, Son legitime ardor
A tant gagne sur moi que j'en fais de l'estime . . .
J'aime son entretien, je cheris sa presence;
Mais cela n'est enfin qu'un peu de complaisance,
Qu'un mouvement leger qui passe en moins d'un jour,
' Vos seuls commandements produiront mon amour.' "
— Galerie du Palace.
1 Pierre Corneille, Petit tie Julleville.
172 The Youth of
Another ingenuous daughter answers, in an of-
fended tone, when her mother intimates that she
seems to be in love with Alcidon, that she
" Knows that appearances are against her ! But," she
adds, " my heart has gone only as far as I willed that it
should go. It is always free; and it holds in reserve a
sincere regard for everything that my mother prescribes
for me. . . . My wish is yours, do with me what
you will." — La Veuve.
The public approved this language. It com-
mended people who married their daughters with-
out consulting their hearts. And who shall say
that this way was not the one best fitted for their
times ? Faith added to necessity engenders mir-
acles, and miracles are what morality demands.
In the great world, the world of the great and
the noble, love was mentioned only as Corneille
regarded it in his plays. Every one was in love, —
or feigned to be in love ; on all hands were heard
twitterings as of birds in the springtime ; but the
pretty music ceased when marriage was suggested,
for no one had thought of founding a domestic
hearth on a sentiment as personal and as ephemeral
as love. It was understood that the collective body
came first, that the youth — man or maid — belonged
to the family, not to self. Contrary to our way of
looking at things, it was considered meet and right
for the individual to subject himself to a species of
public discipline in everything relating to the es-
sential actions of private life ; the demand for the
public discipline of individuals was based upon the
La Grande Mademoiselle 173
interests of the community. This law — or social
tyranny, if you will — covered marriage, and upon
occasion Parliament did police duty and enforced
it. Parliament forbade the aged Mine, de Pibrac
to marry a seventh time — although her six mar-
riages had all been accomplished under normal
conditions — because it was supposed that a seventh
marriage mi<dit entail ridicule. The reason Qriven
by Parliament when it forbade Mme. de Limoges to
permit her daughter to marry a very honourable
man of whom she was fond, and who was supposed
to be fond of her, was this : that her guardian and
tutor " did not approve of the marriage." The
history of this subject of marriage shows us that
our great grandmothers did not bear malice against
destiny ; they were truly Corneliennes in their con-
viction that a decorous control of the will con-
strained the sentiments of an high-born soul, and
they married their daughters without scruple, and
without anxiety, as freely and as carelessly as they
had married themselves. Religion was always
close at hand, waiting to staunch the wounds which
social exigencies and family selfishness made in the
hearts of the unfortunate lovers.
The understanding between Corneille and his
readers was perfect ; all that he did pleased the
playgoers, and when, as he was searching for
what we should call " the realistic," he came upon
the idea that he might tempt the public taste by
presenting a play with a Spanish setting, his critics
were well pleased. He wrote the Cid and it was
174 The Youth of
an unqualified success ; but its exotic sentiments
and the generous breadth of its morals excited
vigorous protestations ; the piece was met by re-
sistance like that which greeted the appearance of
Ibsen's Doll's House.
It is known [said Jules Lemaitre] that despite the fact
that the popular enthusiasm was prodigious the critics were
implacable. Perhaps the criticisms were not all inspired by
base envy of the author. I believe in the good faith of
the Academy, and to my mind, it seems possible that the
criticisms of the Academy were not considered either partial
or unjust by every one in France ; it may be that there were
many thinkers who shared the opinions of Cardinal de Riche-
lieu and the majority of the Academy.
These lines are truth itself ; the Cid was an im-
moral play because it was the apotheosis of pass-
ionate love, whose rights it proclaimed at the
expense of the most imperious duties. There was
enough in the Cid to shock any social body hold-
ing firmly fixed opinions adverse to the public
exhibition of intimate personal feelings ; there were
such bodies — the Academy was one of them — they
made their own conditions, and the license of the
prevailing morals was insignificant to them. The
national idea of the superior rights of the family
was well-grounded, and when the Academy re-
proached Chimene because she was " too sensible
of the feelings of the lover — too conscious of her
love . . . too unnatural a daughter" — it did no
more than echo a large number of voices.
Until he wrote the Cid Corneille was more exi-
La Grande Mademoiselle 175
geant than the Academy. The only thing required
of lovers by the Academy was that they, the lov-
ers, should govern their feelings and love, or not
love, according to the commands of their families
or their notaries. The Academy asked nothing of
them but to control their actions regardless of
their hearts ; surely that was indulgence ; beyond
that there remained but one thing more, — to sup-
press the mind.
We do not consider it essential [said Sentiments Sur le
Ctd] to condemn Chimene because she loved her father's mur-
derer ; her engagement to Rodrigue had preceded the murder,
and it is not within the power of a person to cease loving at
will. We blame her because, while she was pursuing Rod-
rigue, ostensibly to his disadvantage, she was making vows
and besieging Heaven in his favour ; this was a too evident
betrayal of her natural obligations in favour of her passion ; it
was too openly searching for a cloak to cover her wishes, and
making less of the daughter than of the daughter's power to
love her lover ; in other words, it was cheapening the natural
character of the daughter to the advantage of the lover.
The example was especially pernicious, because
the genius of the author had rendered it seductive,
and because the part which Chimene played as-
sured her of the sympathy of the audience. Cor-
neille was very sensitive to the criticisms of the
Academy, and after the Cid appeared something
more serious than synthetic form was placed under
the knives of the literary doctors ; either because
the denunciations of his friends bore fruit, or be-
cause, in the depths of his heart, he harboured the
176 The Youth of
feelings which the unbridled ardour of the Cid had
aroused in the Academy and in the other honest
people "who upbraided him, he retreated from the
field of sentimental romanticism, and turned his
talents in another direction. . . . Nature's triumph
over a social convention was never given another
occasion to display its graces or to celebrate its
truths under his auspices and the love passion
was not heard of again until it came forth in
Horace (Camille), to be very severely dealt with."
We are led to believe that had Corneille
met the subject of the Cid fifteen years later, he
would never have Granted Chimene and Rodrio-ue
a marriage license. 1 Nor is this all. Having re-
formed, he was as fanatical as the rest of the re-
formers ; having become Catholic, he was more
Catholic than the Pope. He disclaimed love, and
would have none of it ; he affirmed that it was un-
worthy of a place in tragedy. In his own words,
written some time later :
The dignity of tragedy demands for its subject some great
interest of the State, ... or some passion more manly
than love; as, for instance, ambition or vengeance. If fear is
permitted to enter such a work it should be a fear less puerile
than that inspired by the loss of a mistress. It is proper to
mingle a little love with the more important elements, because
love is always very pleasing, and it may serve as a foundation
for the other interests and passions that I have named. But
if love is permitted to enter tragedy it must be content to
take the second rank in the poem, and to leave the first places
to the capital passions.
1 Jules Lemaitre.
La Grande Mademoiselle 177
Havine chosen his bone in this high-handed
fashion, Corneille gnawed at it continually ; he
could never get enough of it. Love had tri-
umphed in the Cz'd, but that day was past ; in Hor-
ace it struggled for existence ; in Polyeucte it was
vanquished, though not before it had opposed
sturdy resistance. It was weak enough in Cinna.
After the arrival of Pompde it gave up the struggle,
though it was heard piteously murmuring at inter-
vals. When Pompie appeared the ladies disap-
peared from the drama as if by magic ; hardly a
woman worthy of the name could be found in lit-
erature : a few beings there were draped with the
time-worn title, but they were as virile as wild
Indians.
A little hardness sets so well upon great souls !
Nothing could be seen but ambition, blood, thirst
for power, and Fury, cup-bearer to the God of
Vengeance. There was no more love-passion, the
manly passions ramped upon the stage like lions,
and, with few exceptions, all, male and female, were
monsters of the Will.
Long years passed before anything but the Will
was heard of. After a long reign the " monsters "
disappeared. But they have reappeared in the lit-
erature of our century. The worship of the Will,
which originated with Corneille, was recently re-
vived by Nietzsche, whose famous " Sur-homme "
bears a very strong family resemblance to the Cor-
nelien heroes. " Life," said Nietzsche, " is that
i73 The Youth of
which ought always to surpass and to exceed it-
self." Corneille's personages kept all the springs
of their will well in hand. They intended to suc-
ceed, to surpass, and to get ahead of themselves if
the thing was to be done ; and when they were con-
vinced that to surpass themselves was impossible
their future looked very dark, and they sold their
lives at cut prices, — or threw them in for nothing —
letting them go to any one who would carry them
away. In the fifth act of the play Horace became
very anxious to die because, as he expressed it, he
feared that, after what he had done, he should be
unable to "surpass himself."
" Votre Majeste, Sire, a vu mes trois combats;
II est bien malaise qu'un pareil les seconde,
Qu'une autre occasion a celle-ci reponde,
Et que tout mon courage, apres de si grands coups,
Parvienne a des succes qui n'aillent au dessous;
Si bien que pour laisser une illustre memoire,
La mort seule aujourd'hui peut conserver ma gloire."
The analogy between the " Sur-homme " and the
Cornelien heroes does not end here ; logic would
not permit that ; nothing weakens and enslaves
the firm and exalted will as effectually as the sen-
timent of pity, and both Corneille and Nietzsche
enfranchised their ideal humanity. Corneille makes
some one assure Horace that there is no great
merit in exposing himself to death, but that con-
cession to weakness is of an early period ; the
advanced man — the man out of the common order
— is easily recognised by the fact that he does not
La Grande Mademoiselle 179
hesitate to bring the greatest sufferings upon the
beings who are dearest to him.
Combattre un ennemi pour le salut de tous,
Et contre un inconnu s'exposer seul aux coups,
D'une simple vertu c'est l'effet ordinaire . . .
Mais vouloir au public immoler ce qu' on aime,
S'attacher au combat contre un autre soi-meme . . .
Une telle vertu n'appartenait qu' a nous.
The lines which follow were written by Nietzsche,
and they seem a paraphrase of the discourse of
Horace :
To know how to suffer is nothing; feeble women, even
slaves, may be past masters in this art. But to stand firm
against the assaults of the pain of doubt, to withstand the
weakness of remorse when we inflict torment, — this is to be
a hero ; this is the height of courage ; in this lies the first
condition of all grandeur.
Corneille's contempt for pity was shared by his
contemporaries, and so were his views of marriage
as expressed in his first comedies. The seigniors
whom he met at the Hotel de Rambouillet would
have blushed to feel compassion. They left the
womanish weakness of pity to the inferior beings
of the lower orders. The great had always been
convinced that elevation in rank raised man above
the consciousness of the sufferings of beings of
an inferior order ; and in the day of Corneille
they were fully persuaded that noblemen ought
to find higher reasons for justice and for gener-
osity than the involuntary emotions which we of
this later day have learned to recognise as symp-
toms of " nervous disturbance."
i8o The Youth of
I am very little sensible of pity [wrote La Rochefoucauld],
and I would prefer not to feel it at all. Nevertheless there is
nothing that I would not do for the afflicted, and I believe
that I ought to do what I can for them — even to expressing
compassion for their woes, for the wretches are so stupid
that it does them the greatest good in the world to receive
sympathy ; but I believe that we ought to confine ourselves to
expressing pity; we ought to take great care not to feel it ;
pity is a passion which is good for nothing in a well-made
soul ; when entertained it weakens the heart, and therefore
we ought to relegate it to beings who need passions to incite
them to do things because they are incapable of acting by
reason.
The manly characters in Corneille's heroic come-
dies never lower themselves to the plane of the
common people, nor to a plane where they can
think as the people think. Corneille was " of the
Court" by all his feelings and by all his prejudices,
and he shared Mademoiselle's belief that there is
a natural difference between the man of quality
and the man below the quality, because generous
virtues are mingled with the blood which runs in
noble veins, while the blood of the man of lower
birth is mingled with lower passions. Being a
true courtier, Corneille believed that above the
two varieties of the human kind — the quality
and the lesser people — Providence set the order
of Princes who are of an essence apart, elect,
and quasi-divine.
In Don Sane ho d'Aragon Carlos did his best to
prove that he was the son of a fisherman. His
natural splendour gave the lie to his pretence.
La Grande Mademoiselle i8r
" Impossible that he could have sprung from blood
formed by Heaven of nothing but clay."
Don Lope affirms that it cannot be true.
Non, le fils d'un pecheur ne parle point ainsi . . .
Je le soutien, Carlos, vous netes point son fils,
La justice du ciel ne peut l'avoir permis,
Les tendresses du sang vous font une imposture,
Et je demens pour vous la voix de la nature.
He discovers that Carlos is the son of a Kino;
of Aragon. His extraordinary merit is explained
and consistency is satisfied. On the whole Cor-
neille did nothing but develop the maxims and
idealise the models offered to his observation on
all sides ; as much may be said of the plots of his
great plays. His subjects were suggested by the
events of the day. Had there been no Mme. de
Chevreuse and no conspiracies against Richelieu
there could have been no Cinna. And it is possi-
ble that there might not have been such a work as
Polyeucte had there been no Jansenism. 1
Corneille did not understand actuality as we un-
derstand it. His tragedy is never a report of real
occurrences, that is evident. But he was besieged,
encompassed, possessed, by the life around him,
and it left impressions in his mind which worked
out and mingled with every subject upon which
he entered. He was guided by his impressions, —
though he did not know it, — and by their influence
he was enabled to find a powerful tragedy in a few
1 Manual de I 'his toire de la litte'ratttre francaise. F. Bruneti£re.
1 82 The Youth of
indifferent lines dropped by a mediocre historian,
or by an inferior narrator of insignificant events.
His surroundings furnished him with precise rep-
resentations, made real to his mind by the vague
abstractions of history. In the forms and condi-
tions of the present he saw and felt all the past. 1
His constant contact with the world of his times
favoured the action of his mind upon the minds of
his auditors. He exhibited to them their passions,
their thoughts, their feelings, their different ways
of looking upon social duty, upon politics, and
upon the part played, or to be played, by the aris-
tocracy in the general movement. The people of
Paris loved the play because it exhibited openly, in
different, but always favourable lights, everything
in which they had any interest. In it they saw
their own life, their aims, their needs, their longing
to be great and admirable in all things. 2 They
saw depicted all that they had dreamed of being,
all that they had wished to be ; and something
more vital than love of literature animated their
transports and lighted the fond glances fixed on
the magic mirror reflecting the ideals they so
ardently caressed. The people listened to Cor-
neille's plays and trembled as they now tremble at
the sound of La Marseillaise. It has been said
that they did not understand Racine ; if they did
not, their lack of comprehension was natural.
Racine was of another generation, and he was
not in sympathy with his forerunner. Mme. de
1 Corneille, Lanson. 8 Cyrano de Bergerac, E. Rostand.
RACINE
FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING
La Grande Mademoiselle 183
Sevigne was accused of false judgment in her crit-
icism of Bcjazet^ but she also was of another school.
She had little sympathy for Racine's heroes. She
understood Corneille's heroes, and could not listen
to his verses without the tremor of the heart which
we all feel when something recalls the generous
fancies of our youth. The general impression was
that Corneille was inspired by the image of Mile.
de Montpensier when he wrote Pulcherie (1672),
an heroic comedy in which an empress stifles the
cries of her heart that she may listen to the voice
of glory.
The throne lifts the soul above all tenderness.
It it not impossible that Corneille had some such
thought in his mind. Certainly Mademoiselle was
a model close at hand. One day when her bold
poltroon of a father told her, in the course of a
sharp reproof, that she was compromising her
house for the pleasure of "playing the heroine,"
she answered haughtily and truthfully :
" I do not know what it is to be anything but a heroine! I
am of birth so high that no matter what I might do, I never
could be anything but great and noble. And they may call
it what they like, / call it following my inclination and taking
my own road. I was born to take no other! "
Given such inclinations, and living in the Louvre,
where Corneille's plays were constantly enacted by
1 " There are agreeable tilings in Bejazet, but there is nothing perfectly
beautiful in it, nothing to carry you away in spite of yourself, none of the
tirades which make you shiver when you read Corneille. My daughter,
take good care not to compare Racine to him. Distinguish the difference
between them " (16th March, 1672).
1 84 The Youth of
Queen Anne's order, Mademoiselle was accustomed
to regard certain actions as the reverse of common
and ignoble, and to consider certain other actions
" illustrious."
The justice of super-exalted sentiments was pro-
claimed by nobility, and they who were disposed
to closely imitate the examples set by the literary
leader of the day ran the risk of losing all sense of
proportions and of substance. Mademoiselle did
lose that sense, nor was she the only one to do so
among all the children of quality who were permit-
ted to abuse their right to see the play. Through
the imprudent fashion of taking young children to
the theatre, the honest Corneille, who taught the
heroism of duty, the poetry of sacrifice, the value of
strong will and self-control, was not absolutely in-
nocent of the errors in judgment and in moral sense
by which the wars of the Fronde were made possi-
ble. When he attempted to lift the soul of France
above its being, he vitiated a principle in the un-
formed national brain.
Ill
Mademoiselle had grown tall. She had lost her
awkward ways ; she was considered pretty — al-
though the Bourbon type might, at any moment,
become too pronounced. She had remained sim-
ple and insignificantly innocent and childish, in a
world where even the children discussed politics
and expressed opinions on the latest uprising. Side
by side with all her infantine pleasures were two
La Grande Mademoiselle 185
serious cares which had accompanied her from her
cradle, one : her marriage ; the other, the honour
of her house. The two cares were one, as the two
objects were one, because in that day a princess
knew her exalted duty and accepted her different
forms of servitude without a frown, and certainly
the most painful of all those forms was the marriage
in which the wife was less than nothing ; a being
helpless in her inferiority, so situated that she was
unable to claim any share of the general domestic
happiness. The noble princesses had consented
to drink their cup to the dregs because it was part
of their caste to do so, and many were they who
went to the altar as Racine's " Iphigenie " went to
the sacrifice. The idea that woman is a creature
possessing a claim upon herself, with the right to
love, to be happy, and to seat herself upon the
steps of the throne, or even upon the throne, is a
purely modern conception. The day when that
mediocre thought first germinated in the brain of
the noblewoman marked a date in the history of
royalty, and it may be that no surer sign was given
to warn the nations of contemporary Europe of the
decay of the monarchical idea.
La Grande Mademoiselle had faith in the old
traditions. She had always been used to the idea
that life would be full enough when she had ac-
complished her high destiny and perpetuated the
noble name borne by her ancestors and she was
fully satisfied with the idea that her husband should
see in her nothing but the "granddaughter of
1 86 The Youth of
France," and accept her and her princely estates as
he would accept any of the other gifts directly be-
stowed on noblemen by Divine Providence. Her
husband had been ordained her husband from all
time ; and she was prepared to yield her all to
him without a murmur. What though he should
be ugly, gouty, doddering — or a babe in arms,
"brutal," or an "honest man"? Such details
were for the lower orders, they were puerile ; un-
worthy of the attention of a great Princess. He
would be the husband of Mile, de Montpensier, niece
of Louis XIII., and that would be enough. But in
spite of herself she felt a lurking curiosity as to
who he should be. What was to be his name . . .
His Majesty, was he to be a king, "His Highness"
or simply " Monseigneur ? " there lay the root of
the whole matter.
Of what rank were the wives whose right it was to
remain seated in the King's presence, . . . and
on what did they sit, arm-chairs or armless seats ?
That was the question, the only consideration of
any importance.
We should prefer to think that Mademoiselle
mourned because she was reduced by her condition
to forget that however princely a marriage may be
it must entail a husband, but we are the slaves of
truth, we must take our history as we find it, and
be the fact pleasing or painful, — here it is : Made-
moiselle knew that she should marry the first
princely aspirant to her hand, and she was well
content to let it be so.
La Grande Mademoiselle 187
The first to arouse her imagination was one of
her mother's ancient lovers, Comte de Soissons, a
brilliant soldier, but a man of very ordinary in-
tellect. " M. le Comte " had not only aspired to the
favour of Anne-Marie's mother, but he had also
addressed her cousin Marie, Duchesse de Mont-
pensier, and so lively had been the wooing that
there had been some talk of an abduction. Then
Gaston had entered the field and carried off the
Duchess, and, gnawed by spite and jealous fury,
Soissons had quarrelled with him.
Less than a year later the unexpected death of
Madame brought about a reconciliation between
the rivals. Monsieur, wifeless, charged with an
infant daughter, who was the sole heiress to almost
incalculable wealth, clasped hands with Soissons,
under circumstances favourable to the brightest
dreams. Madame's timely death had restored in-
tact a flattering prospect. M. le Comte again and
for the third time announced pretensions to the hand
of a Montpensier, and Gaston smiled approval. He
considered it all very natural ; given a like occasion,
he would have followed a like course.
So, as far back as her youthful memory could
travel, Mile. Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orleans found
alone her route traces of the assiduous atten-
tions of the even-then ripe cousin, who had regaled
her with sugared almonds through the medium
of a gentleman named Campion, accredited and
charged with the mission of rendering his master
pleasing to Mademoiselle, the infant Princess of
1 88 The Youth of
the Tuileries. M. le Comte sent Campion to Court
with sugared almonds, because he, the Comte de
Soissons, rarely set foot in Paris at any time, and
at the time which we are now considering a private
matter of business (an assassination which he and
Gaston had planned together), had definitely re-
tired him from Court.
All this happened about the year 1636. Gaston
was living in an obscure way, not to say in hiding ;
for it would have been difficult to hide so notable
a personage, — nor would there have been any logic
in hiding him, after all that had passed, — but he
was living a sheltered, and, so to speak, a harm-
less life. He was supposed to be in Blois, but
he was constantly seen gliding about the Louvre,
tolerated by the King, who practised his dan-
cing steps with him, and treated by Richelieu
with all the contempt due to his character. The
Cardinal made free with Gaston's rights ; he
changed and dismissed his servants without con-
suiting their master ; and more than one of the
fine friends of Monsieur learned the way to the
Bastille.
At times Richelieu gave Gaston presents, hoping
to tempt the light-minded Prince to reflect upon
the advantages attending friendly relations with
the Court. Richelieu had tried in vain to force
Gaston to consent to the dissolution of his marriage
with Marguerite de Lorraine. He had never per-
mitted Gaston to present his wife at Court, but
Gaston had always hoped to obtain the permission
La Grande Mademoiselle 189
and the anxious lady had remained just outside of
France awaiting the signal to enter. She was
generally supposed to be within call of her
husband.
The time has come when justice of a new kind
must be done to Monsieur, and probably it is the
only time when a creditable fact will be recorded
in his history. He stood firm in his determination
to maintain his marriage. Try as the Cardinal
might, and by all the means familiar to him from
habitual use, he could not force Monsieur to relax
his fidelity to his consort. D'Orleans was virtuous
on this one point, but his manner of virtue was the
manner of Gaston ; there are different ways of
sustaining the marriage vows, and Monsieur's way
was not praiseworthy. His experience had passed
as a veil blown away by the wind. His passion for
intrigue still held sway, he always had at least one
plot in process of infusion, and his results were
fatal to his assistants. In the heat of his desire to
rid himself of the Cardinal, he simulated change of
heart so well that the Cardinal was deceived. Sus-
picious at first of the sincerity of Gaston's profes-
sions, after long and close observation he became
convinced that the Prince was, in truth, repentant.
It was at that epoch, when free exercise of an
undisciplined will was made possible by Richelieu's
conviction of his own security, that Monsieur laid
his plan of assassination with de Soissons ; at that
time there was but opinion in France — de Richelieu
was a tyrant, there could be no hope of pleasure
190 The Youth of
while he lived. Let him die, let France hear that
he was dead, and all the world could be happy and
free to act, not according to the dogmas of an
egotist by the grace of God, but by the rule of the
greatest good to the greatest number.
The conspirators had found a time and a place
favourable to their enterprise. It was during the
siege of Corbie. The King was there attended by
his Minister. Monsieur and the Count were there ;
so were the men whom they had engaged to kill
the Cardinal. Culpable as the two scoundrels had
always been, when the whole country was in arms
it was impossible to find a reasonable excuse for
refusing them commands, so they were at the front
with all the representative men of the country, and
they had good reason for supposing that one mur-
der — a movement calculated to relieve the nation
— might pass unnoticed in the general noise and
motion of the siege. The time was ripe ; Mon-
sieur and Soissons had put their heads together and
decided that the moment had come to strike the
blow and rid the country of the Cardinal.
Their plans were well laid. A council of war
had been called. De Richelieu was to pass a cer-
tain staircase on his way to it ; de Soissons was to
accompany Richelieu and distract his attention ;
Gaston was to be waiting at the foot of the stairs
to give the signal to the assassins. But Monsieur
had not changed since the days of Chalais, and he
could not control his nerves. He was a slave to
ungovernable panics. According to his plans the
La Grande Mademoiselle 191
part which he had to play was easy. He had
nothing- to do but to give the signal • all the accom-
plices were ready ; the assassins were awaiting the
word ; he himself was at his post ; but when the
Cardinal passed, haughty and calm, to take his
place in his carriage, terror seized Monsieur and he
turned and sprang up the stairway. As he fled
one of his accomplices, thinking to hold him back,
seized him by his cloak, and Gaston, rushing for-
ward, dragged him after him.
The affrighted Prince and his astonished follower
reached the first landing with the speed of light-
ning ; and then, carried away by emotion, Monsieur,
still dragging his companion, fled into an inner
room, where he stopped, dazed ; he did not know
where he was, nor what he was doing, and when he
tried to speak he babbled incoherent words which
died in his throat. De Soissons was waiting in the
courtyard ; he had spoken so calmly that Richelieu
had passed on unconscious of the unusual excite-
ment among the courtiers.
Though the plot had failed, there had been no
exposure ; but the fact that the accomplices held
the secret and that they had much to gain from
the Cardinal by a denunciation of their principals
made it unsafe for the conspirators to remain in
Paris ; before the Cardinal's policemen were warned
they fled, Monsieur to Blois and de Soissons to Se-
dan. Not long after their flight the story was in
the mouths of the gossips, and Mademoiselle knew
that she could not hope for the Cardinal's assist-
192 The Youth of
ance in the accomplishment of her marriage ; so
the child of the Tuileries advanced to maidenhood
while her ambitious cousin (Soissons) turned g r ey
at Sedan. When Anne-Marie-Louise reached her
fourteenth year the Comte thought that the time
had come to bring matters to a crisis. He was
not a coward, and as there was no reason for hypo-
crisy or secrecy, he boldly joined the enemies of
his country and invaded France with the armies of
de Bouillon and de Guise. Arrived in France, he
charged one of his former mistresses, Mme. de
Montbazon, to finish the work begun by Campion.
Mme. de Montbazon lent her best energies to
the work, and right heartily.
I took great interest in M. le Comte de Soissons, [wrote
Mademoiselle] ; his health was failing. The King went to
Champagne to make war upon him ; and while he was on the
journey, Mme. de Montbazon — who loved the Count dearly
and who was dearly loved by him — used to come to see me
every day, and she spoke of him with much affection; she told
me that she should feel extreme joy if I would marry him,
that they would never be lonely or bored at the Hotel de Sois-
sons were I there; that they would not think of anything but
to amuse me, that they would give balls in my honour, that we
should take fine walks, and that the Count would have un-
paralleled tenderness and respect for me. She told me every-
thing that would be done to render my condition happy, and
of all that could be done to make things pleasant for a per-
sonage of my age. I listened to her with pleasure and I felt
no aversion for the person of M. le Comte. . . . Aside
from the difference between my age and his my marriage with
him would have been feasible. He was a very honest man,
endowed with grand qualities; and although he was the
La Grande Mademoiselle 193
youngest of his house he had been accorded ' with the Queen
of England.
Having been unable to acquire the mother,
de Soissons turned his attention to the daughter.
Mademoiselle recorded :
M. le Comte sent M. le Comte de Fiesque to Monsieur
to remind him of the promise that he had made concern-
ing me, and to remind him that affairs were then in such a
condition that they might be terminated. M. le Comte de
Fiesque very humbly begged Monsieur to find it good that
de Soissons should abduct me, because in that way only could
the marriage be accomplished. Monsieur would not consent
to that expedient at all, and so the answer that M. le Comte de
Fiesque carried back touched M. le Comte very deeply.
Not long after this episode the Comte de Soissons
was killed at Marfee (6th July, 1641), and Made-
moiselle's eyes were opened to the fact that she and
M. le Comte " had not been created for each
other." She wrote of his death as follows :
" I could not keep from weeping when he died,
and when I went to see Madame his mother at Bag-
nolet, M. and Mile, de Longueville and the whole
household did nothing but manifest their grief by
their continual cries."
Mademoiselle had desired with earnest sincerity
to become the Comtesse de Soissons ; it is difficult
1 Henriette, third daughter of Henry IV., was " accorded with " or prom-
ised in betrothal to Comte de Soissons a few months after her birth; the
Comte was between five and six years old. Marie de Medicis did not con-
sider the infantile betrothal binding; when she saw fit to marry her daughter
she bestowed her hand upon Charles I., the King of England (1625).
194 The Youth of
to imagine why, — unless, perhaps, because at her age
ofirls build air-castles with all sorts of materials.
M. le Comte had been wept over and buried
and sentiment had nothing more to do with Made-
moiselle's dreams of establishment. Her fancy
hovered over Europe and swooped down upon the
princes who were bachelors or widowers, and upon
the married nobles who were in a fair way to be-
come widowers ; more than once she was seen
closely following the current reports when some
princess was taken by sickness ; and she aban-
doned or developed her projects, according to the
turn taken by the diseases of the unfortunate ladies.
The greater number of the hypothetical postulants
upon whom she successively fixed her mind were
strangers whom she had never seen, and among
them were several who had never thought of her,
and who never did think of her at any time ; but
she pursued her way with unflagging zeal, permit-
tine indiscreet advances when she did not encour-
aee them ; she considered herself more or less the
Queen or the Empress of France, of Spain, or of
Hungary, as the prospect of the speedy bereavement
of the incumbents of the different thrones bright-
ened. La Grande Mademoiselle had not entered
the world as the daughter of a degenerate with im-
punity ; there were subjects upon which she was
incapable of reasoning ; in the ardour of her faith
in the mystical virtues of the Blood she surpassed
Corneille. She believed that the designs of princes
ranked with the designs of God, and that they
La Grande Mademoiselle 195
should be regarded as the devout regard the
mysteries of religion. To quote her own words :
" The intuitions of the great are like the mysteries
of the Faith ; it is not for men to fathom them !
they ought to revere them ; they ought to know
that the thoughts of the great are given to their
possessors for the well-being and for the salvation
of the country."
Mademoiselle surpassed the Corneille of Tragedy
in her disdainful rejection of love ; Corneille was
content to station love in the rear rank, and he
placed it far below the manly passions in his classi-
fication of " the humanities." It will be remem-
bered that by his listings the "manly passions"
were Ambition, Vengeance, Pride of Blood, and
" Glory." Mademoiselle believed that love could
not exist between married people of rank ; she
considered it one of the passions of the inferior
classes.
Le trone met une ame au dessus des tendresses.
Pulcherie.
When we examine the subject we see that it was
not remarkable that Mademoiselle recognised ille-
gitimate love, although her own virtue was un-
questionable. She liked lovers, and accepted the
idea of love in the abstract ; she repudiated the
idea of love legalised because she was logical ; she
thought that married love proclaimed false ideas
and gave a bad example. If married people loved
each other and were happy together because of
their common love, young noble girls would long to
196 The Youth of
marry for love and to be happy in marriage because
of love, and the time would come when there would
be no true quality, because the nobles would have
followed their desires or their weaker sentiments
and formed haphazard unions brought about by
natural selection. Man or maid would "silence
the voice of glory in order to listen to the voice of
love," should the dignity of hierarchical customs be
brought down to the level of the lower passions.
So Mademoiselle reasoned, and from her mental
point of view her reasoning was sound. She was
strong-minded ; she realised the danger of permit-
ting the heart to interfere in the marriage of the
Elect.
The year 1641 was not ended when Mademoiselle
appeared in spiritual mourning for a suitor who
seems to us to have been nothing but a vision, the
first vision of a series. Anne of Austria had never
forgotten the Cardinal's cruel rebuke when he
found Mademoiselle playing at man and wife with
a child in long clothes. She had tried to console the
little girl, and her manner had always been motherly
and gentle. " It is true," she had said, " the Cardi-
nal told the truth ; my son is too small ; you shall
marry my brother ! " When she had spoken thus
she had referred to the Cardinal Infant, 1 who was in
Flanders acting as Captain-General of the country
and commanding the armies of the King of Spain.
The Prince was Archbishop of Toledo. He had
not received Holy Orders. In that day it was not
1 Ferdinand, third son of Philip III.
La Grande Mademoiselle 197
considered necessary to take orders before entering
the Episcopate. " They taxed revenues, they dele-
gated vicars-general for judicial action, and when
the power of the Church was needed they delegated
bishops. There were many prelates who were not
priests." Henri de Lorraine II., Due de Guise
(born in 16 14), was only fifteen years old when he
received the Archbishopric of Rheims ; he never
received Holy Orders. In priestly vestments he
presented every appearance of the most pronounced
type of the ecclesiastical hybrid ; he was an ex-
cellent Catholic, and a gallant and dashing pon-
tiff-cavalier. His life as layman was far from
religious. When he was twenty-seven years old
he met a handsome widow, Mme. de Bossut. He
married her on the spot without drum or cannon ;
and then, because some formality had been omitted,
the marriage was confirmed by the Archbishop of
Malines. The Church saw no obstacle to the mar-
riage. Nicolas-Francois de Lorraine, Bishop of
Toul, and Cardinal, was another example ; " without
beine en^a^ed in orders " he became " Due de Lor-
raine" (1634) by the abdication of his brother
Charles. He had political reasons for marrying
his cousin " Claude " without delay, but he was
stopped by an obstacle which did not emanate from
his bishopric. Claude was his own cousin, and the
prohibitions of the Church made it necessary for
him to get a dispensation from Rome.
Francois visited his cousin and made his pro-
posals. As a layman he needed a publication of
198 The Youth of
his bans, and as a Catholic, in order to marry his
cousin, he needed a dispensation from the Pope.
Therefore he re-assumed the character of Bishop
and issued a dispensation eliminating his bans,
then, in the name of the Pope, he issued a dispen
sation making it spiritually lawful for him to marry
his cousin to himself ; that accomplished, he cast
off the character of Bishop and was married by a
regularly ordained priest like an ordinary mortal.
In those days there was no abyss between the
Church and the world. At most there was only a
narrow ditch which the great lords crossed and re-
crossed at will, as caprice or interest moved them.
In their portraits this species of oscillation, which
was one of their distinguishing movements, is dis-
tinctly recorded and made evident even to the
people of this, century.
In the gallery of the Louvre we see a picture
due to the brush of the Le Nain brothers, entitled,
Procession in a Church. That part of the pro-
cession which is directly in front of the spectator
is composed of members of the clergy, vested with
all their churchly ornaments. The superb costumes
are superbly worn by men of proud and knightly
bearing. The portraits betray the true characters
of their originals. These men are courtiers, utterly
devoid of the collected and meditative tranquil-
lity found in the legions of the Church. In the
Le Nain brothers' picture the most notable figures
are two warlike priests, who stand, like Norse kings,
at the head of the procession, transfixing us with
La Grande Mademoiselle 199
their look of bold assurance. No priests in ordi-
nary, these, but natural soldiers, ready to die for a
word or an idea ! Their curled moustachios are
light as foam ; their beards are trimmed to a point,
and under the embroidered dalmatica the gallant
mien of the worldling frets as visibly as a lion in
its cage. It is impossible to doubt it : these are
soldiers ; cavaliers who have but assumed the habit ;
who will take back the doublet and the sword,
and with them the customs and the thoughts of
men of war. Whatever their rank in the Church,
hazard and birth alone have placed them there ;
and thus are they working out the sentence im-
posed by the ambition of their families ; giving the
lie to a calling for which they have neither taste
nor capacity. The will of a strong man can defeat
even pre-natal influences, and, knowing it, they
make no hypocritical attempt to hide their charac-
ter. They were not meant for priests, and every
look and every action shows it.
The Cardinal-Infant, Archbishop of Toledo, was
only a deacon, so there was nothing extraordinary
in the thought that he might marry. I cannot say
that he ever thought of marrying Mademoiselle ;
I have never found any proof that he entertained
such a thought ; the only thing absolutely certain
in the whole affair is that Mademoiselle never
doubted that he intended, or had intended, to
marry her. Here is her own account of it, some-
what abridged and notably incoherent :
The Cardinal-Infant died of a tertian fever (9th November
200 The Youth of
1641), which had not hindered his remaining in the army all
through the campaign. . . . His malady had not ap-
peared very dangerous; nevertheless he died a few days after
he came back from Brussels; which made them say that the
Spaniards had poisoned him because they were afraid that by
forming an alliance with France he would render himself
master of Flanders, 1 and, in fact, that was his design. The
Queen told me that after the King died she found in his
strong-box memoranda showing that my marriage with that
Prince had been decided upon. She told me nothing but
that . . . when this loss came upon them the King said
to the Queen . . . and he said it very rudely — "Your
brother is dead." That news, so coarsely announced, added
to her grief . . . and for my own part, when I reflected
upon my interests I was very deeply grieved; because that
would have been the most agreeable establishment in the
world for me, because of the beauty of the country, lying as
it does so near this country, and because of the way in which
they live there. As for the qualities of his person, though I
esteemed him much, that was the least that I thought of.
The disappearance of the Cardinal-Infant was
followed by events so tragic and so closely con-
nected with Mademoiselle's life that her mind was
distracted from her hunt for a husband. Despite
her extreme youth, the affair Cinq-Mars con-
strained her to judge her father, and to the child
to whom nothing was as dear as honour the revela-
tion of his treachery was crushing.
1 The Cardinal-Infant had been forced to leave his camp and go to
Brussels to recover his health. He died in Brussels soon after his arrival,
more beloved by the French people — so it was said — than was becoming to
a King of Spain. (See I'Histoire de la France sous Louis XIII. A. Bazin.)
La Grande Mademoiselle 201
IV
The death of Cinq-Mars was the denouement
of a great and tragic passion. Henry d'Emat,
Marquis de Cinq-Mars, was described as a hand-
some youth with soft, caressing eyes, marvellously
graceful in all his movements. 1
His mother was ambitious ; she knew that men had
risen to power by the friendship of kings. Riche-
lieu's schemes required a thousand complicated ac-
cessories. So it was decided by the Cardinal and by
Cinq-Mars's mother to present the child to the King
and to place him in the royal presence to minister to
the King's pleasure for an hour, as a beautiful flower
is given to be cherished for a time, then cast away.
The King was capricious and childish and, as Rich-
lieu said, "he must always have his toy" ; but el-
derly children, like very young children, soon tire of
their toys and when they tire of them they destroy
them ; Louis XIII. had broken everything that he
had played with, and his admiration inspired terror.
Cinq-Mars was determined that he would not be a
victim. Though very young, he knew the ways of
the world and he had formed plans for his future.
He was fond of the world and fond of pleasure.
He was a natural lover, always sighing at the feet
of women. He was brave and he had counted
upon a military career. The thought of imprison-
ment in the Chateau of Saint Germain with a grum-
1 Mc'moires de Michel de Marolles (Abbe de Villeloin); La Conspiration
Cinq-Man (Mile. I. 1'. Basserie).
202 The Youth of
bling invalid whose ennui no one could vanquish
was appalling ; but after two years of resistance
he yielded and entered the royal apartment as
officer nearest to the King. It has been said
that he lacked energy, but as he resisted two
whole years before he gave up the struggle, and
as the will which he opposed was the will of
Richelieu, it is difficult to believe that he was not
energetic.
History tells us that he was very nervous and
that, although his will was feeble, he was subject to
fits of anger. In 1638 he was in the King's house-
hold as Master of the Robes. He was eighteen
years old. It was his business to select and order
the King's garments, and the King was wont to re-
ject whatever the boy selected because it was " too
elegant." When Cinq-Mars was first seen in the
King's apartment he was silent and very sad ; the
King's displeasure cowed him ; the beautiful and
gentle face and the appealing glance of the soft
eyes irritated the sickly fancies of the monarch and
he never noticed or addressed Cinq-Mars when he
could avoid it. Cinq-Mars hated Saint Germain,
and, truth to tell, even to an older and graver per-
son, the lugubrious chateau would have seemed a
prison. Sick at heart, weak in mind, tortured by
fleshly ills, Louis XIII., sinking deeper into insigni-
ficance as the resplendent star of his Prime Minis-
ter rose, was but sorry company for any one.
Richelieu was the real ruler of France. Ranke,
who used his relations with ambassadors as a means
La Grande Mademoiselle 20
o
for increasing his store of personal and political
data, said :
Dating our observations from the year 1629, we see a crowd
of soldiers and other attentive people thronging Richelieu's
house and even standing in the doors of his apartments.
When he passes in his litter he is saluted respectfully ; one
kneels, another presents a petition, a third tries to kiss his
vestments ; all are happy who succeed in obtaining a glance
from him. It is as if all the business of the country were al-
ready in his hands ; he has assumed the highest responsibili-
ties ever borne by a subject.
As time went on his success augmented his
power. He lived in absolute seclusion at Rueil.
He was difficult of approach, and if an ambassador
succeeded in gaining admission to his presence it
was because he had been able to prove that he had
something to communicate to Richelieu which it
was of essential interest to the State, or to the
Cardinal personally, to know. All the national
business was in his hands. He was the centre of
all State interests, the King frequently attended his
councils. If Richelieu visited the King he was sur-
rounded by a guard ; he hired his guard himself,
selecting his men with great care and paying them
out of his own pocket, so that he might feel that
he was safe from his enemies even in the King's
presence.
The officers of his personal service were numer-
ous, young and very exalted nobles. His stables
were in keeping with his importance ; and his house
was more magnificent and his table better served
204 The Youth of
than the King's. When in Paris he lived in the
Palais Cardinal (now the Palais Royal) surrounded
by princely objects, all treasures in themselves ; his
train was the train of an emperor. The Louvre,
the King's residence, was a simple palace, but the
Cardinal's palace, called in Court language the
" Hotel de Richelieu," was the symbol of the luxury
and the art of France, toward which the eyes of the
people of France and of all other lands were turned ;
In the Hotel de Richelieu there were cabinets where
the high officials sat in secret discussion, boudoirs for
the fair ladies, ball-rooms, treasure galleries where
works of art were lavishly displayed, a chapel, and
two theatres. The basis of the Cardinal's library
was the public library of Rochelle, which had been
seized after the siege. The chapel was one of the
chief sights of Paris. Everything used in the cere-
monial of worship was of solid gold, ornamented
with great diamonds. Among the precious ob-
jects in use were two church chandeliers, 1 all of
massive gold, enamelled and enriched with two
thousand five hundred and sixteen diamonds. The
vases used in the service of the Mass were of fine,
richly enamelled gold, and in them were set two
hundred and sixty-two diamonds. The cross,
which was between twenty and twenty-one inches
high, bore a figure of Christ of massive gold and
the crown of thorns and the loin-cloth were studded
with diamonds.
The Book of Prayer used by the Cardinal was
1 Dulaure's Histoire de Paris.
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La Grande Mademoiselle 205
bound in fine morocco leather ; each side of the cover
was enwreathed with sprigs of gold. On one side
of the cover was a golden medallion, on which the
Cardinal was depicted, like an emperor, holding
the globe of the world in his hand ; from the four
corners of the cover angels were descending to
crown his head with flowers. Beneath the device
ran the Latin inscription, " Cadat." The ceiling of
the grand gallery of the palace (destroyed under
Louis XIV.) bore one of Philip de Champagne's
masterpieces — a picture representing the glorious
exploits of the Cardinal. One of the picture
galleries called the " Gallery of Illustrious Men "
contained twenty-five full-length portraits of the
great men of France, chosen according to the
Cardinal's estimate of greatness. At the foot of
each portrait was a little " key," or historical repre-
sentation of the principal acts of the original of the
portrait, arranged as Fra Angelico and Giotto
arranged the portraits of Saint Dominick and
Saint Francois d' Assisi. Richelieu, who was not
afflicted with false modesty, had placed his own
portrait among the portraits in his gallery of the
great men of France. Although he had amassed
so many monuments of pride, he had passed a
large portion of his life in relative poverty. He
had travelled from the humble Episcopate to the
steps of the throne of France on an income of
25,000 livres. When he died his income was
nearly three millions of livres per annum, — the
civil list of a powerful monarch. He was not an
206 The Youth of
expert hoarder of riches, like Mazarin ; he scat-
tered money with full hands, while his master, the
King, netted game-bags in a corner, cooked, or did
other useful work, or gave himself up to his frugal
pleasures.
Accordine to Mine, de Motteville :
The King found himself reduced to the most miserable of
earthly lives, without a suite, without a Court, without power,
and consequently without pleasure and without honour. Thus
a part of his life passed at Saint Germain, where he lived like
a private individual ; and while his enemies captured cities
and won battles, he amused himself by catching birds. That
Prince was unhappy in all manners, for he had not even the
comfort of domestic life ; he did not love the Queen at
all. ... He was jealous of the grandeur of his Minis-
ter .. . whom he began to hate as soon as he perceived
the extreme authority which the Cardinal wielded in the
kingdom . . . and as he was no happier without him
than he was with him, he could not be happy at all.
Cinq-Mars entered the King's service under the
auspices of the Cardinal. When the King saw the
new face in his apartment he retired into his dark-
est humour.
Cinq-Mars was very patient ; he was attentive and
modest, but the sound of his voice and the sight of
his face irritated the sickly monarch. Days passed
before the King addressed his new Master of the
Robes. One day he caught the long appealing
look of the gentle eyes ; he answered it with a
stare, — frowned, and looked again. That night he
could not sleep ; he longed for the morning. When
Cinq-Mars entered the bed-chamber the King drew
La Grande Mademoiselle 207
him to his side "and suddenly he loved him vio-
lently and fatally, as in former times he loved
young Baradas."
The courtiers were accustomed to the King's
fancies, but his passion for Cinq-Mars astonished
them ; it surpassed all that had preceded it.
It was an appalling and jealous love ; exacting,
suspicious, bitter, stormy, and fruitful in tears and
quarrels. Louis XIII. overwhelmed his favourite
with tokens of his tenderness ; had it been possible
he would have chained the boy to his side. When
Cinq-Mars was away from him he was miserable.
Cinq-Mars was obliged to assist him in his new
trade (he was learning to be a carpenter), to stand
at the bench holding tools and taking measure-
ments ; and to listen to long; harangues on dogs
and on bird-trainingf. The Kino- and his new
favourite were seen together constantly, driving the
foxes to their holes and running in the snowy
fields catching blackbirds in the King's sweep-net ;
they hunted with a dozen sportsmen who were said
to be "low people and very bad company."
When they returned to the palace the King
supped ; when he had finished his supper he went
to bed, and then Cinq-Mars, "fatigued to exasper-
ation by the puerile duties of the day, cared for
nothing but to escape from his gloomy prison, and
to forget the long, yellow face and the interminable
torrent of huntings stories." Stealing from the
chateau, he mounted his horse and hurried to Paris.
208 The Youth of
He passed the night as he pleased and returned to
the chateau early in the morning, worn out, hag-
gard, and with nerves unstrung. Although he left
the chateau after the King retired to his bed, and
returned from Paris early in the morning, before
the King awoke, Louis XIII. knew where he had
been and what he had been doing. Louis em-
ployed spies who watched and listened. He
was particularly jealous of Cinq-Mars's young
friends; he "made scenes" and reproached Cinq-
Mars and the tormented boy answered him hotly ;
then with cries, weeping bitterly, they quarrelled,
and the King went to Richelieu to complain of
" M. le Grand." Richelieu was State Confidant,
and to him the King entrusted the reconciliations.
In 1639 (27th November) Louis wrote to the Car-
dinal :
You will see by the certificate that I send you, in what con-
dition is the reconciliation that you effected yesterday. When
you put your hand to an affair it cannot but go well. I give
you good-day.
The certificate read as follows :
We, the undersigned, certify to all to whom these presents
may come, that we are very glad and well-satisfied with one
another, and that we have never been in such perfect unison
as at present. In faith of which we have signed the present
certificate.
(signed) Louis ; and by my order :
(signed) Effiat de Cinq-Mars.
The laboured reconciliations were not durable ;
La Grande Mademoiselle 209
the months which followed the signing of the cer-
tificate were one long tempest. The objects of the
King's bitterest jealousy were young men who
formed a society called Les messieurs du Mai'ais be-
cause they met every evening at Mine, de Rohan's
in the Palais Royal (the King then lived at the
Louvre). Louis could not be silent ; he exposed
his spite on all occasions. January 5, 1640, he
wrote to the Cardinal :
I am sorry to have to tell you again of the ill-humour of M.
le Grand. On his return from Rueil he gave me the packet
which you sent to me. I opened it and read it. Then I said
to him :
" Monsieur, the Cardinal informs me that you have mani-
fested great desire to please me in all things ; nevertheless
you evince no wish to please me in regard to that which I
begged the Cardinal to speak of : namely, your laziness." He
answered that you did speak to him of it, but that he could
not change his character, and that in that respect he should
not do any better than he had been in the habit of doing.
That discourse angered me. I said to him that a man of his
condition ought to take some steps toward rendering himself
worthy to command armies (since he had told me that it was
his intention to lead armies). I told him that laziness was
contrary to military action. He answered me brusquely that
he had never had such an intention and that he had never
pretended to have it. I answered, " Que si ! You have ! " I did
not wish to go any deeper into the discourse (you know well
what I mean). I then took up the discourse on laziness. I
told him that vice renders a man incapable of doing anything
good, and that he is good for nothing but the society of the
people of the Marais where he was nourished, — people who
have given themselves up to pleasure ! I told him that if he
wishes to continue the life that he is now living among his old
'4
2io The Youth of
friends, he may return to the place whence he came. He
answered arrogantly that he should be quite ready to do so!
I answered him : " If I were not wiser than you I know what
I should answer to that ! " . . . After that I said to him
that he ought not to speak to me in such fashion. He
answered after the manner of his usual discourse that at
present his only duty appeared to be to do good to me and
to be agreeable to me and that as to such business he could
get along very well without it ! He said that he would as will-
ingly be Cinq-Mars as to be M. le Grand ; and that as to
changing his ways and his manner of life, he could not do it !
. . . And so it went ! he pecking at me and I pecking at
him until we reached the courtyard ; when I said to him that
as he was in such a humour he would do me pleasure if he
would refrain from showing himself before me any more. He
bore witness that he would do that same right willingly! I
have not seen him since then.
Precisely as I have told you all that passed, in the pres-
ence of Gordes.
Louis.
Post-Scriptum :
I have shown Gordes this memorandum before sending it,
and he has told me that there is nothing in it but the truth,
exactly as he heard it and saw it pass.
Cinq-Mars sulked and the King sulked, and as
the quarrel promised to endure indefinitely, Riche-
lieu bestirred himself, left his quiet home in Rueil
and travelled to the house of the King to make
peace between the ill-assorted pair.
Peace restored, Louis became joyful ; he could
not refuse his favourite anything. Cinq-Mars made
the most of his opportunity. But he could not
go far ; the Cardinal barred his way. Cinq-Mars
aspired to the peerage ; he aimed to be a duke, to
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La Grande Mademoiselle 211
marry a princess, and to sit among the King's
counsellors. Richelieu checked him, gave him
rude orders, scolded him as he scolded his valet,
called him an " insolent little fellow," and threatened
to put him in a place " still lower " than the place
from which he had raised him. 1 One day, when
Richelieu was berating the favourite, he told him
that he had appointed him to his office in the
King's house so that he (Richelieu) might have a
reliable spy, and that as he had been appointed
for no other purpose, it would be advisable for him
to begin to do the work that he was expected
to do.
The revelation was a cruel blow to the proud
and sensitive boy, and in the first moment of his
anguish he conceived a ferocious hatred. It is
probable that the knowledge that the Cardinal had
placed him near the King's person against his will
and in spite of his long and determined resistance
solely to the end that he might be degraded to
an ignoble office was the first cause of the Cinq-
Mars conspiracy.
De Richelieu's ministry had never appeared
more impregnable than it appeared at that time.
Far and near its policy had been triumphant.
Speaking of the position France had taken in
Europe through the guidance of Richelieu, an
impartial foreigner said :
What a difference between the French Government as it
was when Richelieu received it from the kingdom and the
1 M/moires, Montglat.
212 The Youth of
state to which his efforts raised it! Before his day the Span-
iards were in progress on all the frontiers; no longer advancing
by impetuous attacks, but entering calmly and steadily by
systematic invasion. Richelieu changed all that, and, led
by him, France forced the Spaniards beyond the frontier.
Until the Cardinal assumed command the united
forces of the Empire, the Catholic League and the
Spanish armies, held not only the left bank of the
Rhine but all the land divided by that great cen-
tral artery of European life. By Richelieu's wise
policy France regained dominion in Alsace and in
the greater part of the Rhenish country, the armies
of France took possession of central Germany, the
Italian passes, which had been closed to the men
of France, were opened to them, and large terri-
tories in upper Italy were seized and placed under
French control ; and the changes were wrought,
not by a temporary invasion, but by orderly and
skilfully planned campaigns.
• •••••••
The Cardinal's power had been made manifest
everywhere. His rule had been to the glory of
France. Among other important results were the
triumphs of the French navies ; the fleets, having
proved their strength in the Ligurian Sea, had
menaced the ports of Spain. The Ligurian Penin-
sula had been rent asunder by the revolt of two
large provinces, one of which had arisen proclaim-
ing its independent rights as a kingdom. There
was, there had been, no end to Richelieu's diplo-
matic improvements ; his victories had carried ruin
MARQUIS DE CINQ MARS
La Grande Mademoiselle 213
o
to the enemy ; the skirmishers of France had ad-
vanced to a point within two leagues of Madrid.
The Croquemitaine of France, who held in terror
both the Court and the canaille, had assured the
Bourbons of an important place among the empires
of the world. The day of Spain was past ; the
day of France was come.
A great fete marked this period of power and
glory.
Richelieu was a man of many ambitions, and
he aspired to the admiration of all of the popu-
lation ; he had extended his protecting arms over
literature and the lettered ; he had founded the
French Academy ; but he was not content ; he
was a man of too much independence and of
too enterprising a mind to leave all the literary
honours to the doctors of the law or to his medi-
ums, Corneille and Rotrou, whose lines of work
he fixed to follow a plan outlined to suit his own
ideas. Usually, Richelieu's intellectual ambitions
were quiescent, but at times the pedant, dormant
in his hard nature, awoke and impelled him to add
a few personal touches to the work of his agents.
When under the influence of his afflatus he col-
laborated with Desmarets, the author of a dramatic
poem entitled Clovis, and by the united efforts of
the unique literary team the tragedy Mirame was
delivered to the world. Its first appearance was a
Parisian event. None of the King's armies had
been mounted with such solicitude and prodigality.
The grand audience-room of the Palais Cardinal
214 The Youth of
was built for Mir ante ; it was spaced to hold three
thousand spectators ; the stage material had been
ordered from Italy by " Sieur Mazarini," ex-Papal
Nuncio at Paris. Richelieu himself had chosen
the costumes and the decorations ; and he in per-
son directed the rehearsals, and, as he supposed,
superintended the listing of all the invitations.
The play was ready for representation early in the
year (1641).
First of all there was a general rehearsal for the
critics, who were represented by the men of letters
and the comedians. The rehearsal took place be-
fore the Court and the social world of all Paris.
The invited guests were seated by the Bishop of
Chartres and by a president of the Parliament of
France. Though too new and too fresh in its
magnificence, the Audience Hall pleased the people
exceedingly ; when the curtain rose they could
hardly repress cries of admiration. The stage was
lined on both sides by splendid palaces and in the
open space between the abodes of luxury were most
delicious gardens adorned with grottoes, statues,
fountains, and grand parterres of flowers descending
terrace upon terrace to the sea, which lifted its
waves with an agitation as natural as the move-
ments of the real tide of a real ocean ; on the broad
waters passed two great fleets ; one of them ap-
peared as if two leagues away. Both fleets moved
calmly on, passing like living things before the
spectators.
The same decorations and scenery served the
La Grande Mademoiselle 215
five acts of the play ; but the sky was changed in
each act, when the light faded, when the sun set
or rose, and when the moon and the stars ap-
peared to mark the flight of the hours. The play
was composed according to the accepted formulas
of the day, and it was neither better nor worse
than its fellows. In its course the actors fought,
poisoned each other, died, came to life, and quar-
relled over a handsome princess ; and while the
scene-shifters manipulated the somewhat crude in-
ventions of the stage scenery, and while the actors
did their utmost to develop the plot to the best ad-
vantage, the master of the palace acted as chief of
the Claque and tried by every means in his power
to arouse the enthusiasm of the audience. He
stood in the front of his box and, leaning forward
into space, manifested his pleasure by his looks ; at
times he called the attention of the people and im-
posed silence so that the finer passages might be
heard. 1
At the end of the play a curtain representing
clouds fell upon the scene, and a golden bridge
rolled like a tide to the feet of Anne of Austria.
The Queen arose, crossed the bridge, and found
herself in a magnificent ball-room ; then, with the
Prince and the Princess, she danced an impetuously
ardent and swinging figure, and when that dance
was over, the Bishop of Chartres, in Court dress,
and baton in hand, like a maitre d' hotel, led the
way to a fine collation. Later in the year the
1 Fontenelle's Vie de Pierre Corneille.
216 The Youth of
serviceable Bishop was made Archbishop of Rheims.
Politics interfered with Mirame. The play was
assailed by difficulties similar to those which met
Napoleon's Vie de Ce'sar under the Second Em-
pire. The Opposition eagerly seized the occasion
to annoy "Croquemitaine "; open protestations were
circulated to the effect that the play was not worth
playing. Some, rising above the question of liter-
ary merit, said that the piece was morally objec-
tionable because it contained allusions to Anne of
Austria's episode with Buckingham. Richelieu be-
came the scapegoat of the hour ; even the King had
something to say regarding his Minister's literary
venture. Louis was not gifted with critical dis-
crimination ; he knew it, and his timid pride and
his prudence restrained him from launching into
observations upon subjects with which he was not
fitted to cope ; but guided by the cherub detailed
to protect the mentally incompetent, he struck with
instinctive subtlety at the one vulnerable point in
the Cardinal's armour and declared that he had
nothing to say regarding the preciosity of the play,
but that he had been " shocked by the questionable
composition of the audience." It relieved the
King's consciousness of his own inferiority to "pinch
the Cardinal." He told Monsieur that he had been
"shocked" when he realised "what species of so-
ciety" he had been invited to meet. Monsieur,
seizing the occasion to strike his enemy, answered
that, to speak "frankly," he also had "been
shocked " when he perceived " little Saint Amour
La Grande Mademoiselle 217
among the Cardinal's guests/' The royal brothers
turned the subject in every light, and the more they
studied it the darker grew its aspect. They agreed
in thinking that the King's delicacy had been
grossly outraged ; they worked upon the fact until
it assumed the proportions of a personal insult.
Richelieu, visited by the indignant pair, was galvan-
ised by the double current of their wrath. He
knew that Saint Amour had not been in any
earthly locality by his will ; tact, if not religious
prejudice, would have forbidden the admission of a
personage of the doubtful savour of Saint Amour to
the presence of the King. But Monsieur and the
King had seen with their own eyes, and as no one
would have dared to enter the Palais Cardinal unin-
vited, it was an undisputable fact that some one had
tampered with the invitations. Richelieu's detec-
tives were put upon the scent and they discovered
that an Abbe who " could not refuse a woman any-
thing" had been entrusted with the invitations-
list.
Richelieu could not punish the amiable lady who
had unconsciously sealed the Abbe's doom ; but
justice was wrought, and absolute ignorance of
facts permits us to hope that it fell short of the
justice meted out to Puylaurens. It was said that
the Abbe had been sent back to his village.
Wherever he was "sent," Louis XIII. refused to
be comforted, and to the end of his days he told
the people who surrounded him that the Cardinal
had invited him to his palace to meet Saint Amour.
218 The Youth of
Richelieu's life was embittered by the incident,
and to the last he was tormented by a confused
impression of the fete which he had believed was
to be the coming glory of his career. But an
isolated detail could not alter facts, and it was uni-
versally known that his importance was "of all the
colours." Mirame had given the people an idea of
the versatility of Richelieu's grandeur and of the
composite quality of his power, and M. le Grand
knew what he might expect should he anger the
Cardinal. Cinq-Mars was always at the King's
heels, and he knew the extent of Louis's docility.
The Cinq-Mars Conspiracy took shape in the
months which immediately followed the presenta-
tion of Mirame. As the details of the conspiracy
may be found in any history, I shall say only this :
When an enterprise is based upon sentiments like
the King's passion for his Grand Equerry 1 and the
general hatred of Richelieu, it is not necessary to
search for reasonable causes.
When the first steps in the conspiracy were
taken Louis XIII., in his tenderness for Cinq-Mars
and his bitter jealousy of Richelieu, unconsciously
played the part of instigator.
It soothed the wounded pride of the monarch to
hear his tyrant ridiculed, and he incited his " dear
friend," the Marquis d'Effiat, to scoff at the Cardi-
nal. Cinq-Mars and all the others were taken red-
handed ; doubt was impossible. In the words of
Mme. de Motteville : " It was one of the most for-
1 Cinq-Mars had been promoted to the position of Grand Equerry.
La Grande Mademoiselle 219
midable, and at the same time one of the most ex-
traordinary plots found in history ; for the King
was, tacitly, the chief of the conspirators." Mon-
sieur enthusiastically entered into the plot ; he ran
to the Queen with the whole story ; he told her the
names of the conspirators, and urged her to take
part in the movement.
"It must be innocent," he insisted ; " if it were
not the KinQf would not be engfaofed in it." 1
Richelieu's peaceful days were over. He was
restless and suspicious. Suddenly, in June, 1642,
when Louis XIII. was sick in Narbonne (and
when Richelieu was sick in Tarascon) M. le Grand
was arrested and delivered to the Cardinal for the
crime of high treason. He deserved his fate.
He had led Monsieur to treat with Spain ; but the
real cause of his death — if not of his disgrace —
lay in the fact that he had lost his hold upon the
King's love.
" The King had ceased to love him," said a con-
temporary. The end came suddenly and without
a note of warning. The King, awaking as from a
dream, remembered all the services that Richelieu
had rendered unto France. He was so grateful
that he hastened to Tarascon and begged Riche-
lieu's pardon for having wished " to lose him," in
other words, for having wished to accomplish his
fall. The King was ashamed, and despite his
sickness he ordered his bearers to carry him into
Richelieu's bed-chamber where the two orentlemen
o
1 Motteville.
220 The Youth of
passed several hours together, each in his own bed,
effecting-; a reconciliation.
But their hearts were not in their words ; wrongs
like those in question between the Cardinal and the
King- cannot be forgotten. 1 The Kincr had abet-
ted a conspiracy against the Cardinal's life, and
had the Cardinal been inclined to forget it, the
King's weak self-reproach would have kept it in
the mind of his contemplated victim. Louis could
not refrain from harking back to his sin ; he humili-
ated himself, he begged the Cardinal to forgive
him ; he gave up everything, including the amiable
young criminal who, in Scriptural language, had
lain in his bosom and been to him as a daughter.
The judgment of the moralist is disarmed by the
fact that Louis was, and always had been, a phy-
sical wreck, morally handicapped by the essence
of his being. He had loved Cinq-Mars with un-
reasoning passion ; he was forced by circumstances
to sacrifice him ; but we need not pity him ; there
was much of the monster in him, and before the
head of Cinq-Mars fell, all the King's love for his
victim had passed away.
Louis XIII. was of all the sovereigns of France
the one most notably devoted to the public in-
terest ; in crises his self-sacrifice resembled the
heroism of the martyr ; but the defects of his qual-
ities were of such a character that he would have
been incomprehensible had he not been sick in
body and in mind.
1 Motteville.
La Grande Mademoiselle 221
During the crisis which followed the exposure of
Cinq-Mars's conspiracy Monsieur surpassed himself ;
he was alternately trembler, liar, sniveller, and in-
former ; his behaviour was so abject that the echoes
of his shame reverberated throughout France and,
penetrating- the walls of the Tuileries, reached the
ears of his daughter. Monsieur shocked Made-
moiselle's theological conception of Princes of the
Blood ; she could not understand how a creature
partaking of the nature of the Deity could be so
essentially contemptible ; she was crushed by the
enigma presented by her father.
The close of the reiom resembled the dramatic
tragedies in which the chief characters die in the
fifth act ; all the principal personages departed this
life within a period of a few months. Marie de
Medicis was the first to 2fo. She died at Cologne
3d July, 1642, not, as was reported, in a garret,
or in a hovel, but in a house in which Rubens
had lived. If we may judge by the names
of her legatees, she died surrounded by at least
eighty servants. It is true that she owed debts to
the tradesmen who furnished her household with
the necessaries of life, and it is true that her peo-
ple had advanced money when their living expenses
required such advances ; but the two facts prove no
more than that royal households in which there is
no order closely resemble the disorderly households
of the ordinary classes. People of respectability in
our own midst are now living regardless of system,
devoid of economy, and indebted to their tradesmen,
222 The Youth of
as the household of Marie de Medicis lived in the
seventeenth century. To the day of her death the
aged Queen retained possession of silver dishes of all
kinds, and had her situation justified the rumours of
extreme poverty which have been circulated since
then she would have pawned them or sold them.
We may be permitted to trust that Marie de Medicis
did not end her days tormented by material neces-
sities. She died just at the time when she had
begun to resort to expedients. The old and cor-
pulent sovereign had lived an agitated life ; her
chief foes were of her own temperament. She was
the victim of paroxysmal wrath and it was generally
known that she had made at least one determined
though unfruitful attempt to whip her husband, the
heroic Henry IV., Conqueror of Paris. Her life
had not been of a character to inspire the love of
the French people, and when she died no one re-
gretted her. Had not the Court been forced by the
prevailing etiquette to assume mourning according
to the barbarous and complicated rites of the ancient
monarchy, her death would have passed unperceived.
The customs of the old regimen obliged Mademoi-
selle to remain in a darkened room, surrounded by
such draperies as were considered essential to the
manifestation of royal grief. The world mourned
for the handsome boy who had been forced to enter
the King's house, and to act as the King's favourite
against his will, to die upon the scaffold. Mon-
sieur was despised for his part in Cinq-Mars's death.
Mademoiselle was shunned because she was her
La Grande Mademoiselle 223
father's daughter and her obligatory mourning was
a convenient veil. Her own record of the death
of the Queen is a frankly sorrowful statement of
her appreciation of the facts in the case, and of her
knowledge of her father's guilt :
I observed the retreat which my mourning imposed upon
me with all possible regularity and rigour. If any one had
come to see me it would not have been difficult for me to
refuse to receive them ; however, my case was the case
of all who are undergoing misfortune ; no one called for
me.
Three months after the conspiracy against de
Richelieu was exposed, Cinq-Mars was beheaded
(12th September), and the Lyonnais, who had as-
sembled in the golden mists of the season of the
vintage to see him die, cried out against his death
and said that it was " a sin against the earth to take
the light from his gentle eyes." De Thou, Cinq-
Mars's friend, was beheaded also. The victims faced
death like tried soldiers ; their attitude as they halted
upon the confines of eternity elicited the commen-
dation of the people. The fact that the people
called their manner of leaving the world "beautiful
and admirable " proves that simplicity in man's con-
duct, as in literature and in horticultural architec-
ture, was out of date.
When the condemned were passing out of the
tribunal they met the judges who had but just pro-
nounced their sentence. Both Cinq-Mars and de
Thou "embraced the judges and offered them fine
compliments."
224 The Youth of
The people of Lyons — civilians and soldiers —
were massed around the Court House and in the
neighbourhood. Cinq-Mars and de Thou bowed
low to them all, then mounted into the tumbrel,
with faces illumined by spiritual exaltation. In
the tumbrel they joyfully embraced and crying "Ail
revoir" promised to meet in Paradise. They sal-
uted the multitude like conquerors. De Thou
clapped his hands when he saw the scaffold ; Cinq-
Mars ascended first ; he turned, took one step for-
ward, and stopped short ; his eyes rested fondly
upon the people ; then with a bright smile he sal-
uted them ; after they covered his head he stood
for an instant poised as if to spring from earth to
heaven, one foot advanced, his hand upon his side.
His wide, pathetic glance embraced the multitude,
then calmly and without fear, again firmly pacing
the scaffold, he went forward to the block.
At the present time it is the fashion to die with
less ostentation, but revolutions in taste ought
not to prevent our doing justice to the victims of
the Cinq-Mars Conspiracy. They were heroically
brave to the last, and the people could not forget
them. Mademoiselle's grief was fostered by the
general sympathy for the unfortunate boy who had
paid so dearly for his familiarity with the King.
As all her feelings were recorded by her own hand,
we are in possession of her opinions on the sub-
jects which were of interest in her day. Of the
matter of Cinq-Mars and de Thou she said :
I regretted it deeply, because of my consideration for them,
La Grande Mademoiselle 225
and because, unfortunately, Monsieur was involved in the
affair through which they perished. He was so involved that
it was even believed that the single deposition made by him
was the thing which weighed most heavily upon them and
caused their death. The memory of it renews my grief so
that I cannot say any more.
Mademoiselle was artless enough to believe that
her father would be sorrowful and embarrassed
when he returned.
She did not know him.
In the winter after Cinq-Mars died, Gaston re-
turned to the Luxembourg radiant with roguish
smiles ; he was delighted to be in Paris.
He came to my house, [reported Mademoiselle,] he supped
at my house, where there were twenty-four violins. He
was as gay as if Messieurs Cinq-Mars and de Thou had not
been left by the roadside. I avow that I could not see him
without thinking of them, and that through all my joy of see-
ing him again I felt that his joy gave me grief.
Not long after she thus recorded her impressions
she found, to her cost, how little reliance she could
place upon her father, and all her filial illusions
vanished.
Richelieu was the next to disappear from the
scene. He had long been sick ; his body was para-
lysed and putrid with abscesses and with ulcers.
Master and Man, Richelieu and Louis were in-
tently watching to see which should be the first
to die. Each one of them was forming projects
for a time when, freed from the arbitration of the
other, he should be in a position to act his inde-
pendent will and to turn the remnant of his fleeting
15
226 The Youth of
life to pleasurable profit. In that, his final state,
the Cardinal offered the people of France a last
and supreme spectacle, and of all the dramas that
he had shown them, it was the most original and
the most impressive. The day after the execution
of Cinq-Mars, Richelieu, who had remained to the
last hour in Lyons, entered his portable room and
set out for Paris. His journey covered a period of
six weeks, and the people who ran to the highway
from all directions to see him pass were well re-
galed. In those last days when the Cardinal trav-
elled he was carried in procession. First of all
were heavy wains hauling the material of an in-
clined plane ; at a short distance behind the wains
followed a small army corps escorting the Cardinal's
travelling room ; the room was always transported
by twenty-four men of the Cardinal's body-guard,
who marched through sun and rain with heads un-
covered. In the portable room were three pieces
of furniture, a chair, a table, and a splendid bed —
and on the bed lay a sick man ! — better still for the
sightseers, a sick Cardinal ! The crowds pressed
close to the roadside. They who were masters of
the art of death looked on disease with curiosity ;
they knew that they could lop off the heads of the
fine lords whose grandeur embittered the lives of
the peasants and the workmen as easily as they
could beat down nuts from trees ; yet there lay the
real King of France in his doll's house, and he
could neither live nor die, — that was droll !
La Grande Mademoiselle 227
The chair in the little room stood ready for the
visitors who paid their respects to the sick man
when the travellers halted.
The table was carried for the convenience of the
secretary, who wrote upon it, sorted his papers,
dusted his ink with scented gold-powder, and
pasted great wafers over the silken floss and the
English ribands which tied his private correspond-
ence.
Richelieu, as he travelled, dictated army orders
and diplomatic despatches. When the little pro-
cession arrived at a halting-place, everything was
ready for its reception ; the house in which the
Cardinal was to lodge had been prepared, the en-
tire floor to be occupied by him had been gutted
so that no inner partitions could interfere with his
progress. The wains stopped, the inclined plane
was set in position against the side of the house,
and the heavy machine bearing the sick-room was
rolled slowly into the breach and engulfed without
a tremor.
When it was possible the room was drawn
aboard a boat and the Cardinal was transported by
water ; in that case when he reached home he was
disembarked opposite his palace near the Port au
Foin, and borne through the crowd of people, who
struggled and crushed each other so that they
might know how a Cardinal-Minister looked,
lying in his bed and entering Paris, dying, yet
triumphant, after he had vanquished all his
enemies.
228 The Youth of
Richelieu saw all that passed ; his perceptions
were as keen and his judgment was as just as in the
days of his vigorous manhood. Entering Paris in
his bed on his return from Lyons, he saw among
the prostrate courtiers of his own party a man who
had been compromised by the conspiracy, and then
and there he summoned him from his knees and
ordered him to present himself at the palace and
give an account of his actions. Richelieu's word
was law ; no one questioned it. The weeks which
followed the return from Lyons were tedious.
After the exposure of the conspiracy the Cardinal
suspected every one, the King included. His tired
eyes searched the corners of the King's bed-cham-
ber for assassins. He strove to force the King to
dismiss some of the officers of his guard, but at
that Louis revolted.
After violent discussions and long recriminative
dualopfues the Cardinal resorted to heroic means.
He shut himself up in his palace, refused to receive
the King's ambassadors, and threatened to send in
his resignation. Then the King yielded, and peace
was made.
The two moribunds were together when the pre-
cautions for the national safety were taken against
Gaston d'Orleans. In his declaration Louis told
the deputies that he had forgiven his brother five
separate and distinct times, and that he should for-
give him once more and once only. The declara-
tion made it plain that the King was firm in his
determination to protect himself against his brother.
La Grande Mademoiselle 229
Gaston was to be stripped of all power and to be
deprived of the government of Auvergne ; his
gendarmerie and his light cavalry were to be
suppressed. The King made the declaration to
Mathieu Mole, December 1, 1642. That same
day the Cardinal passed a desperate crisis, and it
was known that he must die.
He prepared for death with the firmness befit-
ting a man of his calibre. When his confessor
asked him if he had forgiven his enemies, he an-
swered that he had " no enemies save the enemies
of the state." 1 There was some truth in the an-
swer, and in that truth lay his title to glory. At
home or abroad, in France or in foreign lands,
Richelieu received the first force of every blow
aimed at France. He was the Obstacle, and all
hostility used him as a mark. He was the shield
as well as the sword of the State. His policy was
governed by two immutable ideas : 1. His own will
by the will of the King ; 2. France. His object was
to subject all individual wills to the supreme royal
will, and to develop French influence throughout
Europe. \Ye have seen the position which France
had taken under his direction ; he had accomplished
work fully as important in the State. " The idea
of monarchical power was akin to a religious dogma,"
said Ranke, " and he who rejected the idea ex-
pected to be pursued with the same rigour, and with
nearly the same formalities, with which national just-
ice pursued the heretic. The time for an absolute
1 Montglat.
230 The Youth of
monarchy was ripe. Louis XIV. might come ; he
would find his bed ready.
Richelieu gave up the ghost December 4, 1642.
The news was immediately carried to the King,
who received it with the comment, " A great poli-
tician is dead."
In France the feeling of relief was general. No
one doubted that the Cardinal's death would change
everything. The exiles expected to be recalled ;
the prisoners expected to be set free ; the Opposi-
tion looked forward to taking the reins of State,
and the great, who in spite of their greatness were
probably more or less badly fed, dreamed of an
Abbey of Theleme. The mass of Frenchmen loved
change for the sake of novelty.
The Parisians had hoped for the spectacle of a
fine funeral, and they were not disappointed. Riche-
lieu's body lay in state in its Cardinal's robes, and
so many people visited him that the procession con-
sumed one whole day and night passing his bier.
The parade lasted nearly a week. The burial took
place the thirteenth day of December. It was a
public triumph. The funeral car, drawn by six
horses, was considered remarkable. But the changes
hoped for did not arrive. La Grande Mademoiselle
was the first to recognise the fact that Louis XIII.
had given the kingdom false hopes. It had been
supposed that the Cardinal's demise would give
the King power to make the people happy. The
Cardinal was dead, and there had been no change.
Despite all that Gaston had done, Mademoiselle
La Grande Mademoiselle 231
loved him ; she could not separate him from her
idea of the glory of her house. She noted in her
memoirs the visit made to the Louvre in his behalf :
As soon as I knew that Richelieu was dead I went to the
King to beg him to show some kindness to Monsieur. I
thought that I had taken a very favourable occasion for mov-
ing him to pity, but he refused to do what I asked him, and
the next day he went to the palace to register the declaration
against Monsieur (as the subject of it is known I need not
mention it or explain it here). When he entered Parliament I
wished to throw myself at his feet; I wished to beg of him
not to go to that extremity against Monsieur; but some one
had warned him of my intention and he sent word to me for-
bidding me to appear. Nothing could make him swerve from
his injurious designs.
The 4th December, after Mademoiselle made
her unsuccessful visit, Louis XIII. summoned Maza-
rin to finish the work that Richelieu had beeun.
The 5th December Louis sent out a circular
letter announcing the death of Richelieu ; he cut
short the rumours of a political crisis by stating
that he was resolved to maintain all the establish-
ments by him decreed in Council with the late
Prime Minister, and he further stated that to ad-
vance the foreign affairs of France and also to
advance the internal interests of the State, — as he
had always advanced them, — he should maintain the
existent national policy.
The riches amassed by the Cardinal passed into
the hands of his heirs, and the King supplemented
the legacies by the distribution of a few official
appointments. Richelieu was gone from earth, but
232 The Youth of
his spirit still governed France. " All the Cardi-
nal's evils are right here ! " cried Mademoiselle ;
"when he went, they remained."
Montglat said that they " found it difficult to an-
nounce the Cardinal's death. No one was willing
to take the first step. They spoke in whispers. It
was as if they were afraid that his soul would come
back to punish them for saying that he could die."
It was said that "even the King had so respected
the Cardinal when he was alive, that he feared him
when he was dead."
Under such conditions it was difficult to make
a change of any kind ; nevertheless, after weeks
had passed — when the King had accustomed him-
self to independent action — a few changes came
about gradually and stealthily, one by one.
The thirteenth day of January, 1643, Monsieur
was given permission to call at Saint Germain
and pay his respects to the King. The 19th, Bas-
sompierre and two other lords emerged from the
Bastille.
In February the Vendomes returned from exile.
Old Mine, de Guise also took the road to Paris,
and when she arrived her granddaughter, La
Grande Mademoiselle, received her with open
arms, and gave her a ball and a comedy, and colla-
tions composed of confitures, and fruits trimmed
with English ribands ; and when the ball was over
and the guests were departing in the grey fog of
early morning, old Madame and young Mademoi-
selle laid their light heads upon the same pillow
La Grande Mademoiselle 233
00
and dreamed that Cardinals were always dying and
exiles joyfully returning to their own.
As time went on the King's clemency increased
and he issued pardons freely. The reason was too
plain to every one ; the end was at hand. Paris had
acquired a taste for her kindly sovereign. IyOuis
knew that he was nearing the tideless sea, — he
spoke constantly of his past ; he exhibited his
skeleton limbs covered with creat white scars to
his family and his familiar friends ; he told the
story of his wrongs. He told how he had been
brought to the state that he was in by his " execu-
tioners of doctors " and by " the tyranny of the
Cardinal." He said that the Cardinal had never
permitted him to do things as he had wished to do
them, and that he had compelled him to do things
which had been repugnant to him, so that at last
even he "whom Heaven had endowed with all the
endurances," had succumbed under the load that
had been heaped upon him. His friends listened
and were silent.
To the last Louis XIII. was faithful to the sac-
raments and to France. He performed all his
secular duties. When he lay upon his death-bed he
summoned his deputies so that they might hear
him read the declaration bestowing the title of
Regent upon Anne of Austria and delivering the
actual power of the Crown into the hands of a
prospective Council duly nominated.
Louis XIII. had put his house in order: he had
nothing more to do on earth. His sickness was
234 The Youth of
long and tedious, and attended by all that makes
death desirable ; by cruel pains, by distressful
nausea, and by all the torments of a death by inches.
The unhappy man was long in dying ; now rallying,
now sinking, with fluctuations which deranged the
intrigues of the Court and agitated Saint Germain.
The King lay in the new chateau (the one built
by his father) ; nothing remains of it but the " pa-
vilion Henri IV. Anne of Austria lived with the
Court in the old chateau (the one familiar to all
Parisians of the present day).
On "good days" the arrangement afforded the
sufferer relative repose ; but on " bad days," when
he approached a crisis, the etiquette of the Court
was torment. The courtiers hurried over to the
new chateau to witness the death-agony. They
crowded the sick-room and whispered with the
celebrities who travelled daily from Paris to Saint
Germain to visit the dying King. In the court-
yard of the chateau the travellers' horses neighed
and pawed the ground. Confused sounds and
tormenting light entered by the windows ; the air
of the room was stifling and Louis begged his
guests, in the name of mercy, to withdraw from his
bed and let him breathe.
The crowds assembled in the courtyard hissed
or applauded as the politicians entered or drove
away. On the highway before the chateau the idle
people stood waiting to receive the last sigh of the
King, to be in at the death, or to make merry at
the expense of celebrated men.
La Grande Mademoiselle 235
While the masters visited the dying King the
coachmen, footmen, on-hangers, and other tributa-
ries sat upon the carriage boxes, declared their
politics, and issued their manifestos, and their voices
rose above the neifdiimr of the horses and ascended
to the sick-room. When the tantalising periodi-
cally recurrent crises which kept the Court and
country on foot were past, the celebrities and men of
Parliament, with many of the courtiers, fled to Paris,
where they forgot the sights and the sounds of the
sick-room in the perfumed air of the Parisian salons.
Mademoiselle wrote of that time : " There never
were as many balls as there were that year ; and I
went to them all."
The final crisis came the thirteenth day of May.
Immediately after the King gave up the ghost, the
Queen and all the Court retired from the death-
chamber and made ready to depart from Saint
Germain early in the morning. The moving was
like breaking camp. At daybreak long files of
baggage wagons laden with furniture and with
luggage began to descend the hill of Saint Ger-
main, and soon afterward crowded chariots, drawn
by six horses, and groups of cavaliers, joined the
lumbering wains. The suppressed droning of
many voices accompanied the procession. At
eleven o'clock silence fell upon the long, writhing
line, and an army corps surrounding the royal
mourners passed, escorted by the Marshals of
France, dukes and peers, and the gentlemen of the
Court, — all mounted.
236 La Grande Mademoiselle
The last of the battalions filed by the van of the
procession, and the chariots and the wains moved
on, mingling with the servitors and men of all
trades, who in that day followed in the train of all
the great.
Saint Germain was vacant. The last errand
boy vanished, the murmur of the moving throng
died in the distance ; the shroud of silence wrapped
the new chateau, and the curtain fell upon the
fifth act of the reign of Louis XIII. There re-
mained upon the stage only a corpse, light as a
plume, watched by a lieutenant and his guard.
CHAPTER IV
I. The Regency — The Romance of Anne of Austria and Mazarin — Gas-
ton's Second Wife. — II. Mademoiselle's New Marriage Projects. —
III. Mademoiselle Would Be a Carmelite Nun — The Catholic Re-
naissance under Louis XIII. and the Regency. — IV. Women Enter
Politics. The Rivalry of the Two Junior Branches of the House of
France — Continuation of the Royal Romance.
THE day after the death of Louis XIII. Paris
was in a tumult. The people were on duty,
awaiting their young King, Louis XIV., a boy less
than five years old.
The country had been notified that the King
would enter Paris by the Chemin du Roule and
the Faubourg Saint Honore. Some of the people
had massed in the streets through which the proces-
sion was to pass ; the others were hurrying forward
toward the bridge of Neuilly. " Never did so many
coaches and so many people come out of Paris,"
said Olivier d'Ormesson, who, with his family, spent
the day at a window in the Faubourg Saint Honore,
watching to see who would follow and who would
not follow in the train of Anne of Austria.
Ormesson and his friends were close observers,
who drew conclusions from the general behaviour ;
they believed that they could read the fate; of the
237
238 The Youth of
country in the faces of the courtiers. France
hoped that the Queen would give the nation the
change of government which had been vainly
looked for when Richelieu died.
Anne of Austria was a determined, self-contained
woman, an enigma to the world. No one could
read her thoughts, but the courtiers were sure of
one thing : she would have no prime minister.
She had suffered too deeply from the tyranny of
Richelieu. She would keep her hands free ! There
was enough in that thought to assure to the Queen
the sympathy of the people, and to arouse all the
ambitious hopes of the nobility.
The Parisian flood met the royal cortege at
Nanterre and, turning, accompanied it and hin-
dered its progress. " From Nanterre to the gates
of the city the country was full of wains and
chariots," wrote Mme. de Motteville, "and nothing
was heard but plaudits and benedictions." When
the royal mourners surrounded by the multitude
entered the Chemin du Roule the first official ad-
dress was delivered by the Provost of the Mer-
chants. The Regent answered briefly that she
should instruct her son " in the benevolence which he
ought to show to his subjects." 1 The applause was
deafening. The cortege advanced so slowly that it
was six o'clock in the evening when Anne of Austria
ascended the staircase of the Louvre, saying that
she could endure no more, and that she must defer
the reception of condolences until the following day.
1 Registres de V Hotel de Ville (Collection Danjou).
La Grande Mademoiselle 239
Saturday, the 16th, was devoted to hearing ad-
dresses and to receiving manifestations of rever-
ence. The following Monday the Queen led her
son to Parliament, where, contrary to the intention
expressed in the last will and testament of Louis
XIII., she, Anne of Austria, was declared Regent
"with full, entire, and absolute authority."
The evening of that memorable day a radiant
throng filled the stifling apartments of the Louvre.
The great considered themselves masters of France.
Some of the courtiers were gossiping in a corner ;
all were happy. Suddenly a rumour, first whis-
pered, then spoken aloud, ran through the rooms,
Mazarin had been made Chief of Council ! The
Queen had appointed him immediately after she
returned to her palace from Parliament /
The courtiers exchanged significant glances.
Some were astounded, others found it difficult to
repress their smiles. The great had helped Anne
of Austria to seize authority because they had sup-
posed that she would be incapable of using it. Now
that it was too late for them to protect themselves
she had come forth with the energy and the initia-
tive of a strong woman. In reality, though possessed
of reticence, she was a weak woman, acting under
a strong influence, but that fact was not evident.
The Queen-mother was forty-one years old.
Her hair was beautiful ; her eyes were beautiful ;
she had beautiful hands, a majestic mien, and natu-
ral wit. Her education had been as summary as
Mademoiselle's ; she knew how to read and how to
240 The Youth of
write. She had never opened a book ; when she
first appeared in Council she was a miracle of igno-
rance. She had always been conversant with the
politics of France because her natural love of in-
trigue had taught her many things concerning
many people. She had learned the lessons of life
and the world from the plays presented at the
theatre, and from the witty and erudite frequenters
of the salons. She was enamoured of intellect, she
delighted in eloquence, she was a serious woman
and a devoted mother. While Louis XIII. lived
she was considered amiable and indulgent to the
■failings of "low people," because her indifference
made her appear complaisant. As soon as she as-
sumed the Regency her manner changed and her
real nature came to the surface. She astonished
her deputies by the breathless resistance which she
opposed to any hint of a suggestion adverse to her
mandates. After the royal scream first startled
Parliament there was hardly a man of the French
State who did not shrink at sight of the Regent's
fair flushed face and the determined glitter of her
eye. Anne of Austria was acting under guidance ;
the delicate hand of the woman lay under the firm
hand of a master, and her lover's will, not the judg-
ment of the deputies, was her law.
The people had received false impressions of the
character of the Queen ; some had judged her too
favourably (Mme. de Motteville considered her
beautiful) ; others — Retz among them — failed to
do her justice.
La Grande Mademoiselle 241
Anne of Austria was neither a stupid woman
nor a ^rreat Oueen, although she was called both
" great " and " foolish." She was born a Spaniard,
and in thought and in feeling she was a Spaniard to
the end of her life. Like all her race, she was
imaginative ; she indulged in dreams and erected
altars to her ideals. Her life had betrayed her
illusions, therefore she longed for vengeance ; and
as she was romantic, her vengeance took a senti-
mental form. A study of her nature, as furnished
by the histories of her early years, makes her after-
life and her administration of the Regency compre-
hensible. Despite the latitude of her morals she
exhibited piety so detailed and so persistent that
the Parisians were displeased ; one of her friends
commented upon it sharply. " She partakes of the
communion too often, she reveres the relics of the
saints, she is devoted to the Virgin, and she offers
the presents and the novenas which the devout con-
sider effectual when they are trying to obtain
favours from Heaven." This from a Parisian was
critical judgment.
As the Queen was born to rule, she could not
comprehend any form of government but absolute
monarchy. Her Parliament was shocked when
she interrupted its Councils by shrill screams of
"Taisez-vous ! " But her behaviour was consistent ;
she believed that she expressed the authority of
her son's kingship when she raised her high falsetto
and shouted to her deputies to hold their tongues.
The; new Minister, Mazarin, was of Sicilian origin,
16
242 The Youth of
and forty years of age. In Paris, where he had
officiated two years (i 634-1 636), as Papal Nuncio,
he was known by his original Italian name, Maza-
rini. When he was first seen at Court he en-
tered without ceremony and installed himself with
the natural ease of an habitue returned after a
forced absence. No one knew by what right he
made himself at home. Richelieu profited by his
versatility and made use of him in various ways.
Mazarin was gifted with artistic taste, and he
wielded a fluent pen. His appointment as repre-
sentative of the Holy See had proved his capacity
and blameless character. Paris knew that Richelieu
had written to him from his death-bed : " I give my
book into your hands with the approbation of our
good Master, so that you may conduct it to perfec-
tion."
Almost immediately after de Richelieu breathed
his last the King called Mazarin to the palace,
where he remained hard at work as long as the
King lived. He had no special duties, but he
lived close to the royal invalid, did everything that
de Richelieu had done, and made himself in every
way indispensable. To the wounds of the tired
spirit whose peace the scorching splendour of the
great Cardinal had withered the calm presence of
the lesser Cardinal was balm. Mazarin employed
his leisure as he saw fit ; how he employed it the
world knew later. He was seldom seen either in
the palace or out of it. When Louis XIII. died
and the people, little and great, thronged the
ANNE OF AUSTRIA
La Grande Mademoiselle 243
streets and the highways and flocked to Parliament
to witness the establishment of the Recent, Maz-
arin was not in evidence. When the Provost's ad-
dress and the other addresses were read, and when
the people welcomed their young King, Mazarin
was not seen, and as he was not at the funeral of
the King, and as no one had heard from him since
the King's death, it was believed that he had re-
turned to his own country.
Prominent Parisians who knew everything and
every one had formed no opinion of Mazarin's
character or of his personal appearance. He had
been Nuncio ; that was all that they knew of him.
Olivier d'Ormesson, who went everywhere, knew
every one of any importance in Paris, yet when
Mazarin had been Prime Minister six months, d'Or-
messon spoke of him as if he had seen him but
once. In d'Ormesson's Journal we read :
Saturday morning, 4 November (1643). M. le Cardinal,
Mazarin, came to the Council to-day. He was late. The
Chancellor had been waiting for him half an hour. Cardinal
Mazarin took his place as Chief of Council and was the first
to sign the resolutions ; he wrote : Cardinal Massaritii. At
first, as he knew neither the order of the Court nor the names
of the members, he was somewhat confused. Judging by
appearances he knows nothing of financial affairs. He is
tall, he carries himself well, he is handsome. His eyes are
clear and spiritual, the colour of his hair is chestnut brown ;
the expression of his face is very gentle and sweet. Monsieur
the Chancellor instructed him in the Parliamentary procedure
and then every one addressed him directly and before they
addressed any one else. . . .
244 The Youth of
The new Chief of Council was as modest as the
unobtrusive Cardinal who assumed the duties of
the great de Richelieu. Mazarin found better em-
ployment for his talents than the exhibition of his
pomp. His design was to render his position im-
pregnable, and we know what means he selected
for its achievement. In his pocket diary (which
the National Library preserves) he employed three
languages, French, Spanish, and Italian. When-
ever the Queen is mentioned the language is Span-
ish. The ingenuous frankness with which the
writer of the strange notes recorded his intentions
enables us to follow him step by step through all
the labyrinths of his relations with royalty. His
reflections make it clear that his aim was the
Queen's heart: in the record dated August, 1634,
we read : " If I could believe what they tell me —
that her Majesty is making use of me because she
needs my services, and that she has no inclination
for me, — I would not stay here three days."
Apropos of his enemies he wrote : " Well, they
are laying their heads together and planning a
thousand intrigues to lessen my chances with her
Majesty."
(The Queen's friends had warned her that her
Minister would compromise her.)
" The Abbess of the Carmelites has been talking
to her Majesty. When she talked the Queen
wept. She told the Abbess that in case the sub-
ject should be mentioned again she would not visit
the convent."
La Grande Mademoiselle 245
Mazarin's diary conveys the impression that the
man who edited it so carefully feared that he might
forget something that he wished to say to the
Queen. He made a note of everything that he
meant to advise her to do, and of all the appeals
and all the observations that he intended to make.
Following is a very simple reminder of words to
be used when next he should see the Oueen alone.
They tell me that her Majesty is forced to make excuses
for her manifestations of regard for me. . . . This is such
a delicate subject that her Majesty ought to pity me . . .
ought to take compassion on me, even if I speak of it often
. . . I have no right to doubt, since, in the excess of her
kindness, her Majesty has assured me that nothing can ever
lower me from the place in her favour which she has deigned
to give me . . . but in spite of everything because Fear
is the inseparable attendant of Love . . . etc.
The " memorandum " which follows this last note
gave proof of the speed of his wooing, and of his
progress : " The jaundice caused by an excessive
love.
That Mazarin felt that he was strong was shown
by the fact that he made suggestions to the Oueen
and offered her advice of a peculiarly intimate
character. The note which follows covers the
ground of one of the lines of argument used by him
for the subjection of his royal lady and mistress :
" Her Majesty ought to apply herself to the
winning over of all hearts to my cause; she should
do so by making me the agent from whose hand
they receive all the favours that she grants them."
246 The Youth of
After Anne of Austria qualified the Cardinal by
the exequatur of her love, Mazarin dictated the
language of the State. In his diary we find, ver-
batim, the diplomatic addresses and suggestions
which were to be delivered by the Queen.
While the Queen's lover was engaged in main-
taining his position against determined efforts to
displace him, France enjoyed a few delightful
moments. The long-continued anxiety had passed,
the tension of the nation's nerves had yielded to
the beneficent treatment of the conscientious
counsellors, and the peaceful quiet of a temporary
calm gave hope to the light-minded and strength
and courage to the far-sighted, who foresaw the
coming storm. To the majority of the people the
resplendent victory of Rocroy (19th May, 1643),
which immediately followed the death of Louis
XIII., seemed a proof that God had laid His pro-
tecting hand upon the infant King and upon his
mother.
This belief was daily strengthened. War had
been carried to a foreign country, and the testi-
mony of French supremacy had come back from
many a battle-field. In the eyes of the world we
occupied a brilliant position. Success had followed
success in our triumphant march from Rocroy
to the Westphalian treaties. Our diplomacy had
equalled our military strategy and the strength of
our arms ; and a part of our glory had been the re-
sult of the efforts of the Prime Minister who ruled
our armies and the nation. In the opinion of our
La Grande Mademoiselle 247
foreign enemies Mazarin had fully justified Riche-
lieu's confidence and the choice of Anne of Austria.
His selection of agents had shown that he was
in possession of all his senses ; he had divined the
value of the Due d' Enghien and appointed him
General-in-chief, though the boy was but twenty-
two years old ; he had sounded the character of
Turenne ; he had judiciously listed the names of
the men to be appointed for the diplomatic mis-
sions, and he had proved that he knew the strength
of France by ordering the ministers to hold their
ground, to "stand firm," and not to concern them-
selves either with the objections or the resistance
of other nations. The majority of the French
people failed to recognise Cardinal Mazarin's serv-
ices until the proper time for their recognition had
passed, but Retz distinctly stated that Mazarin was
popular in Paris during the first months of his
ministry :
France saw a gentle and benignant Being sitting on the steps
of the throne where the harsh and redoubtable Richelieu had
blasted, rather than governed men. The harassed country re-
joiced in its new leader, 1 who had no personal wishes and
whose only regret was that the dignity of his episcopal office
forbade him to humiliate himself before the world as he would
have been glad to do. He passed through the streets with
little lackeys perched behind his carriage ; his audiences were
unceremonious, access to his presence was absolutely free, and
people dined with him as if he had been a private person.
1 Me'moire du roiau pUnipotentiaircs (6th January, 1644). (" II ne faut pas
s' etonner de tout ce que disent nos ennemies ; C est a nous de tenir : il est
indubitable qu' ils se rangeront peu a peu.")
248 The Youth of
The arrest of the Due de Beaufort and the dis-
persion of the Importants astonished the people,
but did not affright them. Hope was the anchor of
the National Soul. They who had formed the party
of Marie de Medicis and the party of Anne of Aus-
tria hoped to bring about the success of their former
projects, and to enforce peace everywhere ; they
hoped to substitute a Spanish alliance for the Pro-
testant alliance. The great families hoped to regain
their authority at the expense of the authority of
the King. Parliament hoped to play a great politi-
cal part. The people hoped for peace ; they had
been told that the Queen had taken a Minister solely
for the purpose of making peace. The entire Court
from the first Prince of the Blood to the last of the
lackeys lived in hope of some grace or some favour,
and as to that they were rarely disappointed, for the
Administration "refused nothing." Honours, dig-
nities, positions, and money were freely dispensed,
not only to those who needed them, but to those
who were already provided with them. La Feuil-
lade said that there were but four words in the
French language : " The Queen is good ! '
So many cases of private and individual happi-
ness gave the impression of public and general
happiness. Paris expressed its satisfaction by en-
tering heart and soul into its amusements. It
played by day and it played by night, exhibiting
the extraordinary appetite for pleasure which has
always distinguished it.
" All, both the little and the great, are happy,"
La Grande Mademoiselle 249
said Saint Evremond ; " die very air they breathe
is charged with amusement and with love." Ma-
demoiselle preserved a grateful memory of that
period of joyous intoxication. " The first months
of the Regency," she said in her memoirs, " were
the most beautiful that one could have wished. It
was nothing but perpetual rejoicing everywhere.
Hardly a day passed that there were not serenades
at the Tuileries or in the place Royale."
The mourning; for the late Kino; hindered no
one, not even the King's widow, who passed her
evenings in Renard's garden, 1 where she frequently
supped with her friends. Though the return of
winter drove the people from the public walks, the
universal amusements went on. " They danced
everywhere," said Mademoiselle, " and especially
at my house, although it was not at all according
to decorum to hear violins in a room draped with
mou miner." We note here that at the time Made-
moiselle wrote thus she was regarded as a victim.
It was rumoured in Paris that her liberty and her
pleasures were restricted, and the indignation of
the people seethed at thought of it. Mademoiselle
had lost her indulgent friend and governess, Mine,
de Saint Georges. Her new governess, Mme. de
Fiesque, a woman of firm will who looked with
disfavour upon her pupil's untrammelled ways,
made attempts to discipline her. When Mme. de
Fiesque exerted her authority the canaille formed
groups and threatened the palace of the Tuileries.
1 The first of our casinos.
250 The Youth of
Mademoiselle was sixteen years old and the whole
world knew it. The people thought, as she thought,
that she was too old to be imprisoned like a child.
She was quick to avenge her outraged dignity ; the
governess was headstrong. Slap answered slap
and, after the combat, Mademoiselle was under
lock and key six days.
But all that was forgotten.
Mademoiselle had in mind something more
important than her childish punishment. The
death of Louis XIII. had enabled Gaston to send
for his wife. The Regency made but one con-
dition, — the married pair were to be remarried in
France. The Princess Gaston was on the way,
travelling openly, entering France with the repu-
tation of a heroine of romance. Mademoiselle
revelled in the thought of a step-mother as young
and as beautiful as an houri. They would dance
together ; they would run about like sisters !
Twelve years previous to the death of Louis
XIII., when Marguerite de Lorraine committed
the so-called "crime" which Richelieu's juriscon-
sults qualified by a name for which we shall substi-
tute the less discouraging term " abduction," events
separated the wedded pair at the church door.
The sacrament of marriage had just been adminis-
tered.
Madame fled before the minions of the law
reached Nancy and found her way cut off by the
French army. She donned the wig and garments
of a man, besmirched her face with suet, crossed
La Grande Mademoiselle 251
the French line in a cardinal's coach, covered
twenty leagues on horseback, and joined Monsieur
in Flanders. The world called her courageous,
and when she exercised her impeccancy during a
nine years' separation from her husband, conjugal
fidelity rare enough at any time, and especially
rare at that time, definitely ranged her among
spectacular examples of virtue.
Handsome, brave, free from restraint, and vir-
tuous ! Paris was curious to see her.
At Meudon (27th May, 1643) tne people made
haste to reach the spot before she alighted from
her carriage. They were eager to witness her
meeting- with the liodit-minded husband with whom
France was at last to permit her to cast her lot
and from whom she had been separated so long.
Mademoiselle wrote :
I ran on ahead of them all so that I might be at Gonesse
when she arrived. From Gonesse she proceeded to Meudon
without passing through Paris. She did not wish to stop in
Paris because she was not in a condition to salute their
Majesties. In fact, she could not salute them, because she
was not dressed in mourning. We arrived at Meudon late,
where Monsieur — having gone there to be on the spot when
she arrived — found her waiting in the courtyard. Their
first meeting took place in the presence of all who had ac-
companied them. Every one was astonished to see the cold-
ness with which they met. It seemed strange ! Monsieur
had endured so much persecution from the King, and from
Richelieu, solely on account of his marriage ; and all his suf-
fering had only seemed to confirm his constancy to Madame,
therefore coldness seemed unexpected.
Both Monsieur and Madame were much embar-
252 The Youth of
rassed ; it was a trying thing to meet after a separa-
tion of nine years.
Monsieur had not materially changed, although
he had acquired a habit of the gout which hindered
him when he attempted to pirouette. Madame
appeared faded and ill-attired, but that was but a
natural consequence of the separation ; it was to
be expected.
When their marriage had been duly regulated
and recorded in the Parish Register, the couple
established themselves in Gaston's palace, and the
Court found that it had acquired an hypochondriac.
The romantic type of constancy habitually hung
upon the gate of Death. Mme. de Motteville said :
She rarely left her home; she affirmed that the least ex-
citement brought on a swoon. Several times I saw Monsieur
mock her; he told the Queen that Madame would receive the
sacrament in bed rather than to go into her chapel, although the
chapel was close by, — and all that " though she had no ailment
of any importance."
When Madame visited the Queen, as she did
once in twenty-four months, she was carried in a
sedan chair, as other ladies of her quality were
carried, but her movements were attended by such
distress and by so much bustle that her arrival con-
veyed the impression of a miracle. Frequently,
when she had started upon a journey, or to pay a
visit to the Queen, before she had gone three yards
she declared that she had been suddenly seized by
faintness, or by some other ill ; then her bearers
were forced to make haste to return her to the
La Grande Mademoiselle 253
house. She lived in Gaston's palace in the Lux-
embourg. Mademoiselle's palace was in the Tui-
leries, and the royal family lived either in the
palace of the Louvre, in the Palais Royal, or in the
Chateau of Saint Germain.
Madame declared that her life had been one
continuous agony. She announced her evils not
singly but in clusters, and although none of them
were evident to the disinterested observer, her
diagnoses displayed so thorough a knowledge of
their essential character that to harbour a doubt of
their reality would be to confess a consciousness
of uncertainty akin to the skepticism of the
ignorant.
At the advent of Madame the spiritual atmos-
phere of the Luxembourg changed. The Princess
was a moralist, and either because of her nervous
anxiety for his welfare, or for some other reason,
she harangued her husband day and night. The
irresponsible Gaston was a signal example of mari-
tal patience ; he carried his burden bravely, listened
attentively to his wife's rebukes, sang and laughed,
whistled and cut capers, pulled his elf-locks in mock
despair, and, clumsily whirling upon his gouty heels,
" made faces " behind Madame's drooping shoul-
ders ; but he bore her plaintive polemics without a
murmur, and although he freely ridiculed her, he
never left her side. " Madame loved Monsieur
ardently," and Monsieur returned Madame's love
in the disorderly manner in which he did every-
thing. " One may say that he loved her, but that
254 The Youth of
he did not love her often," wrote Mme. de Motte-
ville. The public soon lost its interest in the spec-
tacular household ; Madame was less heroic than
her reputation. Mademoiselle despaired when
Madame urged Monsieur to be prudent ; to her
mind her father's prudence had invariably exceeded
the proportions of virtue. Generally speaking,
Madame's first relations with her step-daughter
were cordial, but they were limited to a purely con-
ventional exchange of civilities. Speaking of that
epoch, Mademoiselle said : " I did all that I possibly
could to preserve her good graces, which I should
not have lost had she not given me reason to neg-
lect them." Mademoiselle could not have loved
her step-mother, nor could she have been loved by
her ; Madame and Mademoiselle were of different
and distinct orders.
II
The routine requirements of Mademoiselle's
periods of mourning diverted her mind from her
marriage projects, but she soon resumed her ef-
forts. She had no adviser, and no one cared for
her establishment ; Gaston was too well em-
ployed in spending her money to concern him-
self with her future, and, as the duties of daily
life fatigued Madame, Mademoiselle could not hope
for assistance from her step-mother ; the Queen
was her only hope, and the Queen's executor was
jealously guarding her fine principalities and keep-
ing close watch over her person. In 1644 the King
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La Grande Mademoiselle 255
of Spain, Philippe IV., the brother of Anne of
Austria, became a widower. He was the enemy of
France, and it would have been folly to give him a
right to any portion of French territory ; but Made-
moiselle did not consider that fact ; her political
intuitions were not keen. All that she could see
was that the King had a crown, and that it was
such a crown as would adorn the title of her own
nobility. For some occult reason which, as no one
has ever located it, will probably remain enigmati-
cal, Mademoiselle imagined that Philippe IV. desired
to espouse her ; and she passed her time forming
plans and waiting for the Spanish envoy who was
to come to France to ask her father for her hand.
As it is difficult to believe that she ever could have
dreamed the story that she tells in her memoirs,
we must suppose that there was some foundation for
her hopes. Possibly the expectations upon which
she artlessly dilated sprang from the intriguing de-
signs of her subalterns. 1
The Queen bore witness to me that she passionately wished
for the marriage, and Cardinal Mazarin spoke of it in the same
way; more than that, he told me that he had received news
from Spain which had shown him that the affair was desired
in that country. Both the Queen and the Cardinal spoke of
it repeatedly, not only to me but to Monsieur. By feigned
earnestness they impressed us with the idea that they wished
for the marriage. They lured us with that honour, though
they had no intention of obliging us; and our good faith was
such that we did not perceive their lack of sincerity. As we
had full belief in them, it was easy for them to elude the obli-
1 A/i'moires of Mademoiselle.
256 The Youth of
gations incurred by them when they aroused our expectations,
and, in fact, that was just what they did; having talked freely
of it to us during a certain period, they suddenly ceased to
speak of it, and everything thereafter was as it would have
been had there been no question of the marriage.
Mademoiselle's anxieties and hopes were fed
alternately. To add to her distress, a Spaniard
was caugdit on French soil and cast into the Bastille.
Mademoiselle grieved bitterly over his fate ; she
supposed that the prisoner had been sent by the
Spanish King to negotiate the marriage ; it was her
belief that Mazarin's spies had warned him (Maza-
rin) of the arrival of the envoy, and that the
Cardinal had ordered the arrest to prevent the
envoy from delivering his despatches ; the inter-
pretation was chimerical. Our knowledge is con-
fined to the fact that nothing more was said of
Mademoiselle's marriage, and that when the King
was ready to marry he married an Austrian.
The troubles of England provided Mademoiselle
with a more serious suitor. Queen Henriette, the
daughter of Henry of Navarre, had fled to France,
and France, in the person of the Regent, had in-
stalled her in the Louvre. Before that time Anne
of Austria had moved from the Louvre to the
Palais Royal, which was a more commodious resid-
ence, well fitted to the prevailing taste. Queen
Henriette was ambitious, and she began to form
projects for an alliance with France before she
recovered from the fatigue of her journey.
Mademoiselle was a spirited Princess, very hand-
La Grande Mademoiselle 257
some, witty, and an ardent partisan. Such a wife
would be a credit to any king, and the Montpensier
estates were needed by the throne of England.
Oueen Henriette was sanguine ; she ignored the
fact that her son's future was dark and threat-
ening. She made proposals to Mademoiselle and
Mademoiselle received them coldly. Her ideas
of propriety were shocked by the thought of
such an alliance. The Oueen of England was a
refugee, dependent upon the bounty of France.
There could be no honour or profit in marriage
to her son !
Queen Henriette was the first of a series of exiled
monarchs to whom France gave hospitality, and it
must be said that her manner of opening a series
was not a happy one. The sovereigns of former
times were not familiar with revolutions, and their
ignorance made them fearless ; they despised pre-
cautions ; they were improvident, they saved nothing
for a rainy day ; they scorned foreign stocks ; they
avoided business, and looked with contempt upon
foreign bankers. If they lost their thrones they
fled to foreign countries and sought refuse in the
kingdoms of their friends, and there their comfort
and their respectability were matters of chance ;
their friends might be in easy circumstances, and
they might be on the verge of bankruptcy ; a king's
crown was not always accompanied by a full
purse.
When Queen Henriette arrived in Paris she
was received with honours and with promises.
'7
258 The Youth of
The courtiers donned their festive robes "broid-
ered with gold and with silver," : and went to
Montrouge to meet her and escort her into Paris.
Anne of Austria received her affectionately and
seated her at her right hand at banquets. Mazarin
announced that she was to draw a salary of twelve
hundred francs per diem ; in short, everything was
done to flatter the English guest. The credulous
Henriette accepted the flattery and the promises
literally and she was dazed, when, awaking to the
truth, she found that she was a beggar. Recording
the history of that epoch, Mademoiselle said :
The Queen of England had appeared everywhere in Paris
attended like a Queen, and with a Queen's equipage. With
her we had always seen her many ladies of quality, chariots,
guards, and footmen. Little by little all that disappeared and
the time came when nothing was more lacking to her dignity
than her retinue and all the pomps to which she had been
accustomed."
Queen Henriette was obliged to sell her jewels
and her silver dishes ; debts followed debts, and
the penniless sovereign had no way to meet them.
The little court of the Louvre owed the baker and
could not pay its domestic servants. Mme. de
Motteville visited the Louvre and found Queen
Henriette practically alone. She was sitting, de-
jectedly meditating, in one of the great empty
salles ; her unpaid servitors had abandoned her
and her suite had gone where they could find
nourishment.
1 Olivier d'Ormesson,
HENRIETTA, DUCHESSE D'ORLE'ANS
FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING
La Grande Mademoiselle 259
In her account of her visit Mme. de Motteville
said :
She showed us a little golden cup, from which she habit-
ually drank, and she swore to us that that was all the gold of any
kind that had been left in her possession. She said that, more
than that, all her servants had demanded their wages and said
that they would leave her service if she refused to satisfy their
demands; and she said she had not been able to pay them.
The spectacle of royal poverty and the tragical
turn taken by English affairs gave Mademoiselle
cause for serious thought. She saw that what-
ever the Prince might be in the future, he was not
a desirable suitor at the epoch existent ; and she
spoke freely :
Were I to marry that boy I should have to sell everything
that I might possess and go to war! I should not be able to
help it. I could not rest until I had staked my all on the
chance of reconquering his kingdom! But as I had always
lived in luxury, and as I had been free from care, the thought
of such an uncertain condition troubled me.
Had the Prince of Wales been a hero of the type
of the Czd, Mademoiselle would have thrown prud-
ence to the winds. Personal attraction, the mag-
netism of love, the arguments used by Lauzun would
have called her from her dreams of the pomp be-
coming her rank, and she would have confronted
poverty gaily ; her whole career proved that she
was not of a calculating; mind. The Prince of
Wales was by three years her junior ; he was awk-
ward and bashful, and so ignorant that he had no
260 The Youth of
conception of his own affairs. He lounged distract-
edly through the vast, empty Louvre, absorbed in
purposeless thought, and, goaded by his mother, he
frequented the Tuileries and besieged the heart of
his cousin, whom he amazed by the sluggish obsti-
nacy of his attentions. He paid his court with the
inconsequent air of a trained parrot ; the details of
his love-making were ordered by his mother, and
when, tormented by personal anxieties, the Queen
of England forgot to dictate his discourse, he sat
before Mademoiselle with lips closed. He talked
so little that it was said he " opened his teeth only
to devour fat meat." At one of the banquets of
the Queen of France he refused to touch the orto-
lans, and falling upon an enormous piece of beef
and upon a shoulder of mutton he " ate as if there
had been nothing else in the world, and as if he had
never eaten before."
" His taste," mused Mademoiselle, " appeared to
me to be somewhat indelicate ; I was ashamed be-
cause he was not as good in other respects as he
bore witness that he was in his feeling- for me."
After the banquet at which the Prince refused
the ortolans, the cousins were left alone, and, com-
menting upon the fact later, Anne-Marie-Louise
said : " It pleases me to believe that on that occa-
sion his silence resulted from an excess of respect
for me rather than from lack of tenderness ; but
I will avow the truth ; I would have been better
pleased had he shown less stolidity and less de-
ficiency in the transports of the love-passion." It
La Grande Mademoiselle 261
is but fair to say in behalf of the timid suitor that,
according to his feeble light, he acquitted himself
conscientiously ; he gazed steadfastly in his cousin's
pretty face, he held the candle when her hair-dresser
coiffed her hair ; but as he was only a great boy,
just at the age of dumb stupidity, he had few
thoughts which were not personal, and few words
to express even those. He was neither Che'rubin,
Fortunio, nor Rodrigue. "He had not an iota of
sweetness," declared Mademoiselle. Worse than
that, he had none of the exalted sentiments by
means of which the heroes of Corneille manifested
their identity, and to Mademoiselle that was a seri-
ous matter. As the awkward suitor became more
insistent Mademoiselle was seized by a determina-
tion to be rid of him. Her records fix the date of
her adverse inspiration. "In 1647 toward the end
of winter 1 a play followed by a ball was given at
the Palais Royal [the trago-comedy, Orpheus, in
music and Italian verse]." Anne of Austria, who
had no confidence in her niece's taste, insisted that
the young lady should be coiffed and dressed under
her own eye. Mademoiselle said :
They were engaged three whole days arranging my coiffure;
my robe was all trimmed with diamonds and with white and
black carnation tufts. I had upon me all the stones of the
Crown, and all the jewels owned by the Queen of England [at
that time she still possessed a few]. No one could have been
more magnificently bedight than I was for that occasion, and
' Mademoiselle erred as to the date ; the Gazette de France fixes it March
8 th.
262 The Youth of
I did not fail to find many people to tell me of my splendour
and to talk about my pretty figure, my graceful and agreeable
bearing, my whiteness, and the sheen of my blonde hair, which
they said adorned me more than all the riches which glittered
upon my person.
After the play a ball was given on a great, well-
lighted stage. At the end of the stage was a
throne raised three steps high and covered by a
dais ; according to Mademoiselle's account :
Neither the King nor the Prince of Wales would sit upon the
throne, and as I, alone, remained upon it, I saw the two Princes
and all the Princesses of the Court at my feet. I did not
feel awkward or ill at ease, and no one of all those who saw
me failed to tell me that i had never seemed less constrained
than then, that I was of a race to occupy the throne, and that
I should occupy my own throne still more freely and more
naturally when the time came for me to remain upon it.
Seen from the height of the throne, the Prince of
Wales seemed less of a man than he had ever
seemed before, and from that day Mademoiselle
spoke of him as " that poor fellow." She said : " I
pitied him. My heart as well as my eyes looked
down upon him, and the thought entered my mind
that I should marry an emperor." The thought of
an emperor entered her mind the previous year
when Ferdinand III. became a widower. Mon-
sieur's favourite, the Abbe Riviere, — with a view
to his own interests, and possibly with some hope
of adding to his income, — announced the welcome
tidings of the Empress's death as soon as he re-
ceived them : and Mademoiselle said :
La Grande Mademoiselle 263
" M. de la Riviere told me that I must marry
either the Emperor or his brother. I told him
that I should prefer the Emperor."
Paris heard of the project that same evening.
Mademoiselle did not receive proposals from the
Emperor at that time or at any other time, but the
idea that she was to be an Empress haunted her
mind, and as she was very frank, she told her hopes
freely. La Riviere and others like him, taking ad-
vantage of her public position and of her accessibil-
ity, told her flattering tales and suggested alliances ;
she was informed that the Court of Vienna, the
Court of Germany, and in fact all the Courts, desired
alliance with her, and she believed all that was said.
The evening of the ball, Anne of Austria declared,
by Mademoiselle's own account, that she " wished
passionately that the marriage with the Emperor
might be arranged, and that she should do all that
lay in her power to bring it about." Mademoiselle
did not believe in the Regent's promises, but she
listened to them and shaped her course by them.
Gaston told her (in one of the rare moments when
he remembered that she was his daughter) that the
Emperor was " too old," and that she would not
be happy in his country. Mademoiselle answered
that she cared more for her establishment than for
the person of her suitor. Gaston reflected upon
the statement and promised to do everything pos-
sible for the furtherance of her schemes. Made-
moiselle recorded his promise with the comment :
" So after that I thought of the marriage continually
264 The Youth of
and my dream of the Empire so filled my mind that
I considered the Prince of Wales only as an object
of pity." This folly, while it gave free play to
other and similar follies, clung to her mind with
strange tenacity, and long after the Emperor mar-
ried the Austrian Mademoiselle said archly : " The
Empress is e7iceinte ; she will die when she is deliv-
ered, and then — ." The Empress did die, either
at the moment of her deliverance or at some other
moment, and Mademoiselle took the field, deter-
mined to march on to victory. One of her gentle-
men (of the name of Saujon) whom she fancied
" because he was half crazy," secretly placed in her
hand a regularly organised correspondence treating
of her marriage. Mademoiselle received all the
letters, read them, approved of them, and ap-
pointed Saujon charge of her affairs. By her order
Saujon travelled to Germany to bring about the
marriage. No one had ever heard of a royal or a
quasi-royal alliance negotiated by a private individ-
ual, but Saujon boldly entered upon his mission.
Incidentally he revised Mademoiselle's despatches ;
adding and eliminating sentences according to his
own idea of the exigencies of the case. One of his
letters was intercepted and he was arrested and cast
into prison. It was rumoured that he had made
an attempt to abduct the Princess so that she might
marry the Archduke Leopold.
At first Mademoiselle laughed at the rumours.
She declared that people knew her too well to
think that she could do anything so ridiculous.
La Grande Mademoiselle 265
Mazarin cross-questioned Saujon, — and no one
knew better than he how to conduct an inquest, —
but turn his victim as he might the Cardinal could
not wring from Saujon anything- but the truth.
Saujon insisted that Mademoiselle had not known
anything concerning the intercepted letter.
Anne of Austria, seconded by Monsieur, feigned
to take the affair seriously, and a violent scene
ensued.
One evening (May 6, 1648, according to d'Or-
messon) the Abbe de la Riviere met Mademoiselle
in the corridor of the Palais Royal, and casually in-
formed her that the Queen and Monsieur were
angry. Almost at the same instant Monsieur
issued from the room adjoining the corridor and
ordered his daughter to enter the Oueen's room.
Then [said Mademoiselle] I went into the Queen's gallery.
Mile, de Guise, who was with me, would have followed me,
but Monsieur furiously shut the door in her face. Had not
my mind been free from all remorse I should have been
frightened, but I knew that I was innocent, and I advanced
toward the Queen, who greeted me angrily. She said to the
Cardinal: "We must wait until her father comes; he must
hear it ! " I went to the window, which was higher than the
rest of the gallery, and I listened with all the pride possible
to one who feels that her cause is just. When Monsieur ar-
rived the Queen said to me sharply : " Your father and I
know all about your dealings with Saujon. We know all your
plans ! " I answered that I did not know to what plans she
had reference, and that I was somewhat curious to know what
her Majesty meant.
Anne of Austria was angry, and her shrill falsetto
266 The Youth of
conveyed an impression of vulgarity. Mademoi-
selle, calmly contemptuous, on foot and very erect,
stood in the embrasure of the long window ;
Monsieur, who dreaded his daughter's anger, had
drawn close to the Queen ; directly behind Mon-
sieur was Mazarin, visibly amused.
Mademoiselle listened to her accusers, and an-
swered with a sneer that she had nothing to do with
it, that she was not interested in it, that such a
scheme was worthy of low people.
"This concerns my honour," she said coldly ; "it is not a
question of the head of Cinq-Mars, nor of Chalais, whom
Monsieur delivered to death. No ; nor is it an affair to be
classed with the examinations to which Richelieu subjected
your Majesty ! "
"It is a fine thing," screamed Anne of Austria, "to recom-
pense a man for his attachment to your service by putting
his head upon the block ! "
" It would not be the first head that had visited the block,
but it would be the first one that I had put there," retorted
Mademoiselle.
" Will you answer what you are asked ? " demanded the
Queen. I obeyed [said Mademoiselle]. I told her that
as I had never been questioned, I should be embarrassed to
answer. Cardinal Mazarin listened to all that I said, and
he laughed. . . . The discussion seemed long to me.
Repetitions which are not agreeable always produce that
effect. The conversation had lasted an hour and a half. It
bored me, and as I saw that it would never end if I did not
go away, I said to the Queen: "I believe that your Majesty
has nothing more to say to me." She replied that she had
not. I curtsied and went out from the combat, victorious,
but very angry. As I abandoned the field, the Abbe de la
Riviere tried to address me. I halted, and discharged my
La Grande Mademoiselle 267
anger at him; then I went to my room, where I was seized by
fever.
Before she " abandoned the field " Mademoiselle
rated Monsieur, who had imprudently attempted to
interpose a word in favour of the Queen. Mine,
de Motteville, to whom Anne of Austria told the
story, reported that Mademoiselle reproached her
father bitterly because he had not married her to
the Emperor, when he " might easily have done
so." She told him that it was shameful for a man
not to defend his daughter " when her glory ap-
peared to be attacked." The courtiers assembled
in the adjoining room, though unable to distin-
guish the words of the discussion, had listened with
curiosity. Mine, de Motteville said :
We could not hear what they were saying, but we heard the
noise of the accusations and we heard Mademoiselle's calm
defence. The Queen's Minister avoided showing that he was
interested in it in any way. Although there were but three
voices there was so great a clamour that we were anxious to
know the result and the meaning of the quarrel. Mademoi-
selle came out of the gallery looking more haughty than
ashamed, and her eyes shone with anger rather than with re-
pentance. That evening the Queen did me the honour to tell
me that had she been possessed of a daughter who had treated
her as Mademoiselle had treated Monsieur, she would have
banished her and never permitted her to return, — and that
she should have shut her up in a convent.
The day after the discussion guards were
mounted at the door of Mademoiselle's apart-
ments. The Abbe de la Riviere visited Mademoi-
selle to tell her that her father forbade her to
268 The Youth of
receive any one — no matter whom — until she
was ready to confess what she knew of the inter-
cepted letter. Mademoiselle remained firm in her
denial of any knowledge of it.
Though sick from grief, she held her ground ten
days. Murmurs were heard among the canaille,
and little groups approached the palace, looked
threateningly into the courtyard, and gazed at
Mademoiselle's closed windows. It was known
that Mademoiselle was in prison and the people
resented it. How long could she hold out ? How
would it end ? " It* was known," wrote Olivier
d'Ormesson, " that the Queen had called her ' an
insolent girl ' in the presence of her own father,
and it was known that she had indignantly repudi-
ated all knowledge of the intercepted letter ; it was
known that she had defended herself bravely."
As the hours passed the people's murmurs increased,
the aspect of the canaille became so menacing that
the terrified Gaston sought counsel of Mazarin.
Mazarin favoured clemency ; he believed that
Mademoiselle had been disciplined enough. By
the advice of the angry Queen, Monsieur waited
one day longer ; then word was sent to Mademoi-
selle that she was free and that she might receive
visits, and in an hour all the people of the under-
world of Paris were hurrying to the palace, laugh-
ing, shouting, crying to each other in broken voices.
They surged past the sentinel and entered the
courtyard ; men wept, women, holding their chil-
dren above their heads, pointed to the open window
La Grande Mademoiselle 269
where Mademoiselle, emaciated by her ten days'
trial, but still haughty and determined, looking
down into the upturned faces, smiled a welcome.
Public sympathy and the sympathy of both the
Court and the city endorsed Mademoiselle's con-
duct and condemned the conduct of Monsieur.
According to contemporary judgment Monsieur had
betrayed his own flesh and blood : he had been
given an opportunity to prove himself a man and
he had refused it. Innocent or culpable, the cus-
tom of the day commanded the father to defend his
child.
I said to the Queen [said the worthy Motteville] that
Mademoiselle was justified in refusing to avow it. I said that,
whether it were true or untrue, Monsieur had not the right to
forsake her. A girl is not to blame for thinking of her estab-
lishment, but it is not right to let it be known that she is think-
ing of it, nor is it proper to confess that she is working to
accomplish it.
All Monsieur's motives were known and they
increased the contempt of the people. When
Mademoiselle attained her majority she expressed
a wish to take possession of her inheritance. She
asked her father for an accounting and her father
accused her of indelicacy and undutiful conduct.
He continued to administer her fortune and to give
her such sums as he considered suitable for the
maintenance of her home. In justification of his
conduct he alleged that he had no money of his
own, and that it was impossible to turn her prop-
erty into funds. " Several times," said Mme. de
270 The Youth of
Motteville, " I have heard him say that he had not
a sou that his daughter did not give him. ' My
daughter possesses great wealth,' he used to ejacu-
late ; ' were it not for that I should not know where
to go for bread.' " People remembered that he
had received a million of revenue when he mar-
ried 1 and they judged his conduct severely, but
they were not astonished. " No one can hope
much from the conduct of Monsieur," wrote Olivier
d'Ormesson.
After the quarrel the first meeting between father
and daughter took place in the gallery of the Lux-
embourg. Monsieur huna- his head.
He changed colour [wrote Mademoiselle]; he appeared
abashed ; he tried to reprimand me ; he began as people be-
gin such things, but he knew that he ought to apologise to me
rather than to blame me ; and in truth that was what he did ;
he apologised, — though he did not seem to know that he was
doing it.
As they talked Monsieur's eyes filled with tears
and Mademoiselle wept freely. To all appearances
they were on the best of terms when they parted.
Having appeased her father, Mademoiselle went
to the Palais Royal hoping to pacify the Queen.
Anne of Austria greeted her with icy reserve and
Mademoiselle never could forget it. She had
looked upon Anne of Austria as children look upon
an elder sister. Thenceforth, feeling that she had
no hope of support from her own family, she bent
1 About six millions of francs.
La Grande Mademoiselle 271
everv effort to the difficult task of finding a suitable
husband and of establishing - her life on a firm and
independent basis. Mazarin's unswerving deter-
mination to prevent Mademoiselle's marriage was
classed among the most important of the causes
which contributed to the Fronde. The dangers at-
tendant upon his conduct were real and serious ;
practically he was Mademoiselle's only guardian,
and Mademoiselle was not only the favorite of the
people but the Princess of the reigning house. As
the director of a powerful nation Mazarin had
duties which no State's minister is justified in ignor-
ing. There were times when many of his other
errors were so represented as to appear pardonable,
but there never w r as a time when he was not
blamed for the humiliation of the haughty Princess
who, by no fault of her own, had been left upon
the shores of life, isolated, hopeless of establish-
ment, an object of ridicule to the unobservant who
failed to see the pathetic loneliness of her posi-
tion. The Parisians, high and low, thought that
the Queen's Minister had done Mademoiselle an
irreparable wrong, and it was thought that she
knew that he had done her a wrong. It was be-
lieved that she would be a dangerous adversary in
the day when the French people called him to
account.
Mademoiselle knew her power and talked openly
of what she could do. "I am," she said, " a very
bad enemy ; hot-tempered, strong in anger ; and
that, added to my birth, may well make my enemies
272 The Youth of
tremble." She could say it without boasting: she
was a Free Lance and the great French People
was her clan.
Ill •
Two years 1 previous to the serio-comic scene in
the Palais Royal, Emperor Ferdinand III. had
barely escaped causing a catastrophe. Had the
catastrophe been effected the victim would have
been the Princess of a reigning- house. This is a
very roundabout way of saying that Mademoiselle's
anxiety to marry the Emperor led her to prepare
for the alliance by practising religion ; and that
once engaged in the practice, she was seized by the
desire to become a nun.
The turbulent Princess who so ardently aspired
to the throne of Ferdinand III. was as free in spirit
as she was independent in action, and being hamp-
ered by no religion but the religion of culture, she
followed her fancies and adopted a line of conduct
in singular opposition to her natural behaviour and
inclinations. Lured by ambitious policy to affect
the attitude of religious devotion, she fell into her
own net and was so deceived by her feelings that
she supposed that she wished to take the veil. The
fact that at heart her wishes tended in a diametric-
ally opposite direction furnished the most striking
proof of the power of hypnotic auto-suggestion. I
am speaking now of a time previous to Saujon's
mission to Germany. In her own words :
1 Mademoiselle errs in supposing (in her memoirs) that it was but one
year. Such errors are frecpjent in her. writings.
La Grande Mademoiselle 273
The desire to be an empress followed me wherever I
journeyed, and the effects of my wishes seemed to be so close
at hand that I was led to believe that it would be well for me
to form habits best suited to the habits and to the humour of
the Emperor. I had heard it said that he was very devout,
and by following his example I became so worshipful that af-
ter I had feigned the appearance of devotion a while I longed
to be a nun. I never breathed a word of it to any one ; but
during the whole of eight days I was inspired by a desire to
become a Carmelite. I was so engrossed by this feeling that
I could neither eat nor sleep. And I was so beset by that
anxiety added to my natural anxiety, that they feared lest I
should fall ill. Every time that the Queen went into the con-
vents — which happened often — I remained in the church
alone ; and thinking of all the persons who loved me and who
would regret my retreat from the world, I wept. So that
which appeared to be a struggle with my religious desire to
break away from my worldly self was in reality a struggle
progressing in my heart between my wish to enter the convent
and my horror of leaving all whom I loved, and breaking
away from all my tenderness for them. I can say only this:
during these eight days the Empire was nothing to me. But
I must avow that I felt a certain amount of vanity because I
was to leave the world under such important circumstances.
Mademoiselle had hung out the sign-board of re-
ligion — if I may use such a term — and she multi-
plied all the symptoms of religious conversion. To
quote her own words :
I did not appear at Court. I did not wear my patches, I
did not powder my hair, — in fact, I neglected my hair until it
was so long and so dusty that it completely disguised me. I
used to wear three kerchiefs around my neck, — one over the
other, — and they muffled me so that in warm weather I nearly
smothered. As I wished to look like a woman forty years old,
18
274 The Youth of
I never wore any coloured riband. As for pleasure, I took
pleasure in nothing but in reading and re-reading the life of
Saint Theresa.
No one was astonished by religious demonstra-
tions of that kind. Custom did not oppose the
admission of the public to the spectacle of intimate
mental or spiritual crises which it is now considered
proper to conceal. The only thing astonishing
was that Mademoiselle had harboured the idea of
forsaking the world. Her friends ridiculed her,
and, stung by their raillery, she recanted. Speak-
ing of it later, she said : " I wondered at my ideas ;
I scoffed at my infatuation. I made excuses be-
cause I had ever dreamed of such a project."
Monsieur was more surprised than his neighbours,
and his surprise assumed a more virulent form ;
when his daughter begged to be permitted to enter
a convent, when she declared that she would "bet-
ter love to serve God than to wear the royal
crowns of all the world," he gave way to a violent
outburst of fury. Mademoiselle did not repeat her
petition ; she begged him to let the subject drop ;
and thus ended the comedy.
In any other quarter curiosity regarding details
would have been the only sentiment aroused by
such a project. The daughters of many noble fam-
ilies and the daughters of families beyond the
pale of the nobility entered convents. In the
spiritual slough in which France floundered toward
the close of the sixteenth and the beginning of the
seventeenth century, the nun's veil and the monk's
La Grande Mademoiselle 275
habit were the only suitable coverings for mental
distress, and in many cases the convent and the
monastery were the sole places of refuge in a
world so lamentable that Berulle ' and Vincent de
Paul contemplated it with anguish. The convent
was the only safe shelter for souls in which the
germs of religious life had resisted the inroads of
spiritual disease. In certain parts of the country,
the annihilation of the Christian principle had
resulted in the degradation of the Sacred Office
and in the increase of the number of skeptics in
the higher classes.
Saving a few exceptions, who were types of the
Temple of the Holy Ghost, the Church set the ex-
ample of every form and every degree of contempt
for its corporate body, for its individual mem-
bers, and for its consecrated accessories. I have
already spoken of the elegant cavaliers, who, in
their leisure moments, played the part of priests.
In their eyes a bishopric was a sinecure like an-
other sinecure. The office of the priesthood en-
tailed no special conduct, nor any special duty. In
general, priests were shepherds who passed their
lives at a distance from their flocks, revelling in
luxury and in pleasure. " Turning abruptly," said
an ecclesiastical writer, " from the pleasures of the
Court to the austere duties of the priesthood, with-
out any preparation save the royal ordinance, — an
ordinance, peradventure, due to secret and unavow-
able solicitations, — men assumed the office and
1 Pere de Be'rulle et T Oratoire de J/sus, M. l'Abbe Houssaye.
276 The Youth of
became bishops before they had received Holy Or-
ders. Naturally, such haphazard bishops brought
to the Episcopate minds far from ecclesiastical."
In that day cardinals and bishops were seen distrib-
uting the benefits of their dioceses among- their
lower domestic tributaries. Thus valets, cooks,
barbers, and lackeys were covered with the sacred
vestments, and called to serve the altar. 1 Being
abandoned to their own devices, the lesser clergy
— heirs to all the failings and all the weaknesses
of the lower classes of the people — grovelled in
ignorance and in disorder. The continually aug-
menting evil was aggravated by the way in which
the Church recruited the rank and file of her
legions. As a rule, the cure, or living of the cure,
was in the gift of the abbot. No one but the
abbot had a right to appoint a cure. The abbot's
power descended to his successor. That would
have been well enough, had the abbot's virtues
and good judgment — if such there had been — de-
scended to the man immediately following him in
office, but the abbot thus empowered to appoint
the cure was seldom capable of making a good
choice or even a decent choice.
The Court bestowed the abbeys on infants in
the cradle, and the titulars were generally the
illegitimate children of the princes, younger sons
of great seigniors, notably gallant soldiers, and
notoriously "gallant" women. The abbots were
laical proteges of every origin, of every profession,
1 Saint Francois de Sales, Fortunat Strovvski.
La Grande Mademoiselle 277
and of every character. Henry IV. bestowed
abbeys indiscriminately. Among other notables
who received the office of abbot at his hands were
a certain number of Protestants and an equally
certain number of women. Sully possessed four
abbeys; "the fair Corisande " possessed an abbey
(the Abbey of Chatillon-sur-Seine, where Saint
Bernard had been raised). The fantastic abbots
did not exert themselves to find suitable cures, and
even had they been disposed to do so, where could
they have gone to look for them ? There were no
clerical nursery-gardens in which to sow choice
seed and to root cuttings for the parterres of the
Church, and this was the chief cause of the prevail-
ing evil. As there were no seminaries, and as the
presbyterial schools were in decay, there were no
places where men could make serious preparation
for the Episcopate. As soon as the youth destined
for Orders had learned so much Latin that he
could explain the gospels used in the service of
the Mass, and translate his breviary well enough
to say his Office, he was considered fit for the
priesthood. It is not difficult to imagine what be-
came of the sacraments of the Church when they
fell into such hands. There were priests who
eliminated all pretence of unction from Baptism.
Others, though they had received no sacerdotal
authority, joined men and women in marriage, and
sent them away rejoicing at their escape from a
more binding formality. Some of the priests were
ignorant of the formula of Absolution, and in their
278 The Youth of
ignorance they changed, abridged, and transposed
to suit their own taste the august words of the
most redoubtable of mysteries. Dumb as cattle,
the ignoble priests deserted the pulpit, so there
were no more sermons ; there was no catechism,
and the people, deprived of all instruction, were
more benighted than their pastors. In some par-
ishes there were men and women who were ignor-
ant of the existence of God. 1
The people had no teachers, and their manners
were as neglected as their spiritual education. With
rare exceptions, the provincial priest went to the
wine-shops with his parishioners ; if he saw fit, he
went without taking off his surplice, — nor was
that the worst ; in every respect, and everywhere,
and always, he set lamentable examples for his
people. " One may say with truth and with hor-
ror," cried the austere Bourdoise, the friend of
Pere Berulle, "that of all the evil done in the
world, the part done by the ecclesiastics is the
worst." Pere Amelotte expressed his opinion with
still more energy : " The name of priest," he
cried, " has become the synonym of ignorance and
debauchery ! "
After the religious wars there were neither
churches nor presbyteries, and therefore there
were thousands of villages where there were no
priests, but it is to be doubted whether such vil-
lages were more pitiable than those in which by
their daily conduct the priests constantly provoked
1 The Abbe Houssaye, loc cit.
La Grande Mademoiselle 279
the people to despise the earthly representative of
God. The abandoned villages were not plunged
in thicker moral and religious darkness, or in
grosser or more abominable superstition, than that
into which the ignoble pastors led their flocks. In
one half of the total number of the provinces of
France, the work that the first missionaries to the
Gauls had accomplished had all to be begun again.
In the world of the aristocracy the condition of
Catholicism was little better. When Vincent de
Paul — by a mischance which was not to be the
only one in his career — was appointed Almoner
to Queen Marguerite, first wife of Henry IV., he
was overwhelmed by what he saw and heard. The
Court was two thirds pagan. 1 A loose and reckless
line of thought, a moral libertinage, was considered
a mark of elegance, and that opinion obtained
until the seventeenth century. The jeunesse doree,
the "gilded youths" of the day, imitated the
atheists and gloried in manifesting their contempt
for the "superstitions of religion." They repeated
after Vanini that " man ought to obey the natural
law," that "vice and virtue should be classed as pro-
ducts of climate, of temperament, and of alimenta-
tion," that " children born with feeble intellects are
best fitted to develop into good Christians." Among
the higher classes, piety was not entirely extinct ;
that was proven in the days of the triumphant
Renaissance, when the Catholicism of Bossuet
and of Bourdaloue flamed with all the strength
1 Saint Vincent de Paul et les Gondis, Chantelauze.
280 The Youth of
of a newly kindled fire from the dying embers of
the old religion. But the belief in God and in the
things of God was not to be avowed among peo-
ple of intellect. In a certain elegant, frivolous,
and corrupt world, impiety and wit marched hand
in hand. A man was not absolutely perfect in
tone and manners unless he seasoned his conversa-
tion with a grain of atheism. 1 Under Louis XIII.
in the immediate neighbourhood of royalty the
tone changed, because the King's bigotry kept
close watch over the appearance of religion. Men
knew that they could not air their smart affecta-
tion of skepticism with impunity when their chief
not only openly professed and practised religion,
but frowned upon those who did not. All felt
that the only way to be popular at Court was to
follow the example of the King, and all slipped
their atheism up their sleeves and bowed the knee
with grace and dexterity, pulling on long faces and
praying as visibly as Louis himself. But many
years passed before the practice of religion ex-
pressed the feelings of the heart. Richelieu 2 had
several intimate friends who were openly confessed
infidels, and proud of their infidelity. While they
were intellectual and witty and devoted to the
Cardinal's interests, they were permitted to think
as they pleased.
Long after the day of Richelieu, — in the reign
of Louis XIV., — the great Conde and Princess
1 Le Cardinal de Be'ririle et Richelieu, the Abbe Houssaye.
8 Les Liberlins en France au XVII. Siecle, F. T. Perrens.
La Grande Mademoiselle 281
Anne de Gonzague made vows to the " marvellous
victories of grace," * but while they were " waiting
for the miracle," the more miscreant of the Court
amused themselves by throwing a piece of the wood
of the true cross into the fire " to see whether it
would burn."
The current of moral libertinage, though it ap-
peared sluggish after the Fronde, had not run
dry, and it was seen in the last third of the seven-
teenth century and in the following century shal-
low, but flowing freely. 2
Whatever the general condition, the city was
always better fortified against spiritual libertinage
than the Court, because it contained stronger ele-
ments, and because it lacked the frivolity of the
social bodies devoted to pleasure. In the city
mingled with the higher bourgeoisie and the middle
bourgeoisie were nobles of excellent stock who did
not visit the Louvre or the Palais Royal because,
as they had no title or position at Court, they
could not claim the rank to which their quality
gave them right ; to cite an instance : Mme. de
Sevigne was not of the Court; she was always of
the city.
Taken altogether, the Parliamentary world, which
had one foot at Court and the other foot in the
city, had preserved a great deal of religion and
morality. Olivier d'Ormesson's journal shows us
the homes of the serious and intellectual people of
1 Oraison funibre d'Annede Gonzague, Bossuet.
' Port Royal, Sainte Beuve.
282 The Youth of
the great metropolitan centres to whom piety and
gravity had descended from their fathers.
The Parliamentary world of the provinces was
notable for its moral attitude and for its love of re-
ligion. Taken all in all the French bourgeoisie
had not felt the inroads of free thought, although
there had been a few cases of visible infiltration.
In the country districts the people practised re-
ligion more or less fervently.
Despite the few exceptions serving as luminous
points in the universal darkness, in the reign of
Louis XIII. the situation was well fitted to inspire
creatures of ardent faith and exalted mysticism
with horror. There were many such people in
Paris then, as there have been always. Discour-
aged, hopeless of finding anything better in a world
abandoned to blasphemy and vice, the naturally
pious fled to the cloisters and too often they found
within the walls of their refuges the same scandals
that had driven them from their homes. The
larger number of the monasteries were given over
to depravity * and the monks were like the people
of the world. As we have seen, a few prelates of
rare faith and devotion furnished the exceptions to
the rule, but set, as they were, wide distances apart
in the swarming mass of vociferous immorality,
they excited a pity which swallowed up all appre-
ciation of their importance.
Divers questions which were not connected either
with belief as a whole or with the principle of be-
1 Btrulle et VOratoire, the Abbe Houssaye.
La Grande Mademoiselle 28
j
lief combined to make the Protestant minority by
far more moral than the Catholic majority. Per-
haps the social disadvantage attached to Protest-
antism was the strongest reason for its superiority.
When a practically powerless minority is sur-
rounded and kept under surveillance by a power-
ful majority, unless pride and vanity have blinded
its prudence the minority keeps careful watch of its
actions. By a natural process minorities of agitat-
ors cast cowardly and selfish members out of their
ranks ; in other words, they weed out the useless,
the feeble, the derogatory elements, and the ele-
ments which, being dependent upon the favour of
the public, or susceptible to public criticism, flinch
if subjected to unfavourable judgment. The Protest-
ant minority eliminated all who, fearing the ridicule
or the animosity of the Court, shrank from stand-
incr shoulder to shoulder with the men in the figdit-
ing ranks of Protestantism. Impelled by personal
interest, the converts to the reform movement went
back to the Catholic majority. There were so
many advantages attendant upon the profession of
Catholicism that with few exceptions the great
lords declared their faith in the religion powerful
to endow them with military commands and with
governmental and other lucrative positions. The
Protestant ranks were thinned, but the few who
stood their ground were the picked men of the re-
form movement. The ranks of the Catholics were
swelled by the hypocrites and the turncoats who
had deserted from the army of the Protestants.
284 The Youth of
The Protestants gained morally by the defection
of their converts, and the Catholics lost ; the few
who sustained Protestantism were sincere; the fact
of their profession proved it.
The Protestant pastor had no selfish reason for
his profession ; he had nothing to hope for ; he was
lured by no promise of an abbey, nor could he ex-
pect to be rewarded for his open revolt against the
King's church. Looking at it in its most illusive
light, his was a bad business ; there was nothing in
it to tempt the favourites of the great ; not even a
lackey could find advantage in appointment to the
Protestant ministry, and no man entered upon the
painful life of the Protestant pastor unless forced
by an all-mastering vocation. The cause of the
Reformation was safe because it was in the hands of
men who boasted of " a judge that no king could
corrupt," and who believed that they had armed
themselves with "the panoply of God." The pas-
tors laboured with unfailing zeal, first to kindle the
spark of a faith separated from all earthly inter-
ests ; next to nourish sincere belief in God as the
vital principle of religious life. Under their influ-
ence the Protestants of the upper middle classes
and the Protestants of the lower classes — there
were still fewer of the latter than of the former —
not only practised, but lived their religion, giving
an example of good conduct and of intelligent ap-
preciation of the name and the meaning of their
profession. Their adversaries were forced to ren-
der them the homage due to their efforts and their
La Grande Mademoiselle 285
sincerity. They, the Protestants, were charitable
in the true sense of the term ; they loved the breth-
ren ; they cared for the bodies as well as for the
souls of the poor ; they proved their love for their
fellows by guarding the public welfare ; they kept
the laws and, whenever it was possible, enforced
them. The pastors knew that they must practise
what they preached, and, profiting by the examples
of the ignoble priests, they set a guard upon their
words and movements, lest their disciples should
question their sincerity. They were austere, ener-
getic, and devoted to their people and to their
cause. They were convinced that they were ward-
ers of the inheritance of the saints, and they pa-
trolled their circuit, and went about in the name of
Christ proclaiming the mercy of God and warning
men of Eternity and of The Judgment.
Let us be loyal to our convictions and give to
those early pastors the credit due to their candour
and to their efforts ; they surpassed us in many
ways. They were learned ; they were versed in
science, kind to strangers, strict in morality, broth-
erly to the poor.
Francois de Sales said of them : " The Protest-
ants were Christians ; Catholicism was not Christ-
" 1
lan.
So matters stood — the churches ruined and
abandoned, Religion mocked and the priests de-
spised" — when a little phalanx of devoted men
1 Fortunat Strowski.
5 Their uselessness, their ignorance have made us despise them. — Bossuet.
286 The Youth of
arose to rescue the wrecked body of the French
Clergy. They organised systematically, but their
plan of action was independent. Francois de Sales
was among the first who broke ground for the diffi-
cult work. He was a calm, cool man, indifferent to
abuse, firm in the conviction that his power was
from God. There were many representatives of
the Church, but few like him. One of his chroni-
clers dwelt upon his " exalted indifference to insult "
another, speaking of his "supernatural patience,"
said :
"A Du Perron could not have stopped short in an
argument with a heretic, but, on the other hand, a
Du Perron would not have converted the heretic by
the ardour of his forbearing kindness." Strowski
said of de Sales that he " saw as the wise see, and
lived among men not as a nominal Christian but as
a man of God, gifted with omniscience." By living
in the world de Sales had learned that a eerm Q f
religion was still alive in many of the abandoned
souls ; he knew that there were a few who were
truly Catholic ; he knew that those few were
cherishing their faith, but he saw that they lived
isolated lives, away from the world, and he believed
that the limitations of their spiritual hermitage
hindered their usefulness. De Sales believed in a
community of religion and Christian love. The
few who cherished their religion were a class by
themselves. They knew and respected each other,
they theorised abstractly upon the prevailing
evils, but they had no thought of bettering man's
La Grande Mademoiselle 287
condition. Their sorrows had turned their thoughts
to woful contemplation of their helplessness, and
all their hopes were straining forward toward the
peaceful cloister and the silent intimacy of mon-
achism. For them the uses of life were as a tale
that is told. They had no thought of public
service, they were timid, they abhorred sin and
shrank from sinners, their isolation had developed
their tendency to mysticism, and the best efforts
of their minds were concentrated upon hypotheses.
Pere Francois believed that they and all who
loved God could do Q-ood work in the world. He
did not believe in controversy, he did not believe
in silencing skeptics with overwhelming arguments.
He used his own means in his own way ; but his
task was hard and his progress slow, and months
passed before he was able to form a working plan.
His idea was to revive religious feeling and spirit-
ual zeal, to increase the piety of life in community,
to exemplify the love which teaches man to live at
peace with his brother, to fulfil his mission as the
son of man made in the likeness of God, and to act
his part as an intelligent member of an orderly sol-
idarity. De Sales's first work was difficult, but not
long after his mission-house was established he saw
that his success was sure, and lie then appointed
deputies and began his individual labour for the
revival of religious thought. He knew that the
people loved to reason, and he had resolved to de-
velop their intelligence and to open their minds to
Truth : the strong principle of all reform. His
288 The Youth of
doubt of the utility of controversy had been con-
firmed by the spectacle of the recluses of the
Church. Study had convinced him that theologi-
ans had taken the wrong road and exaggerated the
spiritual influence of the " power of piety." He
believed in the practical piety of Charity, and he
accepted as his appointed task the awakening of
Christian love. His impelling force was not the
bigotry which
proves religion orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks,
nor was it the contemplative faith which, by living
in convents, deprives the world of the example of
its fervour ; it was that practical manifestation of
the orace f God "which fits the citizen for civil
life and forms him for the world."
In the end Pere Francois's religion became
purely practical and he had but one aim : the awak-
ening of the soul.
His critics talked of his "dreams," his "visions,"
and his " religio-sentimental revival." His piety
was expressed in the saying : " Religious life is not
an attitude, nor can the practice of religion save a
man ; the true life of the Christian springs from a
change of heart, from the intimate and profound
transformation of his personality." We know with
what ardour Pere Francois went forward to his goal,
manifesting his ideals by his acts. By his words
and by his writings he worked a revolution in men's
souls. His success equalled the success of Honore
La Grande Mademoiselle 289
d'Urfe ; few books have reached the number of the
editions of the Introduction a la vie devote}
In Paris de Sales had often visited a young priest
named Pierre de Berulle, who also was deeply griev-
ed by the condition of Catholicism, and who was am-
bitious to work a change in the clergy and in the
Church. Pere Berulle had discussed the subject
with Vincent de Paul, de Sales, Bourdoise, and
other pious friends, and after serious reflection, he
had determined to undertake the stupendous work
of reforming the clergy. In 161 1 he founded a
mission-house called the Oratoire. " The chief
object of the mission was to put an end to the
uselessness of so many ecclesiastics." The mission-
aries began their work cautiously and humbly, but
their progress was rapid. Less than fifteen months
after the first Mass was offered upon the altar of
the new house, the Oratoire was represented by
fifty branch missions. The brothers of the com-
pany were seen among all classes ; their aim, like
the individual aim of Pere Francois, was to make
the love of God familiar to men by habituating
man to the love of his brother. They turned aside
from their path to help wherever they saw need ;
they nursed the sick, they worked among the com-
mon people, they lent their strength to the worn-
out labourer.
They were as true, as simple, and as earnest as
the men who walked with the Son of Mary by the
' Manuel de Vhistoire de la litte'rature fraticaisr, V. lirunetiere.
The first edition of /.a vie ddvote appeared in 1608, the Traitd de I'amour
de Dieti appeared in 1612.
290 The Youth of
Lake of Galilee. Bound by no tie but Christian
Charity, free to act their will, they manifested
their faith by their piety, and it was impossible to
deny the beneficence of their example. From the
mother-house they set out for all parts of France,
exhorting, imploring the dissolute to forsake their
sin, and proclaiming the love of Christ. The Pro-
testants were making a strong point of the wrath
of God ; the Oratorians talked of God's mercy.
They passed from province to province, they
searched the streets and the lanes of the cities, they
laboured with the labourers, they feasted with the
bourgeois. Dispensing brotherly sympathy, they
entered the homes of the poor as familiar friends,
confessing the adults, catechising the children, and
restoring religion to those who had lost it or for-
gotten it. They demanded hospitality in the pro-
vincial presbyteries, aroused the slothful priests to
repentant action, and, raising the standard of the
Faith before all eyes, they pointed men to Eternal
Life and lifted the fallen brethren from the mire.
Shoulder to shoulder with the three chevaliers of
the Faith, de Sales, de Berulle, and Pere Vincent,
was the stern Saint Cyran (Jean Duvergier de
Hauranne) who lent to the assistance of the Ora-
torians the powerful influence of his magnetic
fervour. The impassioned eloquence of the author
of Lettres Chrdtiennes et Spirituelles was awe-in-
spiring. The members of the famous convent
(Port Royal des Champs) were equally devoted ;
their fervour was gentler, but always grave and
La Grande Mademoiselle 291
salutary. Saint Cyran's characteristics were well
defined in Joubert's Pensde.
The Jansenists carried into their religious life more depth
of thought and more reflection ; they were more firmly bound
by religion's sacred liens ; there was an austerity in their
ideas and in their minds, and that austerity incessantly cir-
cumscribed their will by the limitations of duty.
They were pervaded, even to their mental habit,
by their uncompromising conception of divine just-
ice ; their inclinations were antipathetic to the lusts
of the flesh. The companions of the community of
Port Royal were as pure in heart as the Oratorians,
but they were childlike in their simplicity ; they de-
lio-hted in the beauties of nature and in the soci-
ety of their friends ; they indulged their humanity
whenever such indulgence accorded with their voca-
tion ; they permitted "the fetes of Christian love,"
to which we of the present look back in fancy as to
visions of the first days of the early Church. Jules
Lemaitre said in his address at Port Royal r 1
Port Royal is one of the most august of all the awe-in-
spiring refuges of the spiritual life of France. It is holy
ground; for in this vale was nourished the most ardent inner
life of the nation's Church. Here prayed and meditated
the most profound of thinkers, the souls most self-contained
most self-dependent, most absorbed by the mystery of man's
eternal destiny. None caught in the whirlpool of earthly life
ever seemed more convinced of the powerlessness of human
liberty to arrest the evolution of the inexorable Plan, and yet
none ever manifested firmer will to battle and to endure than
those first heralds of the resurrection of Catholicism.
1 The address delivered on the occasion of Racine's Centennial, 26th
April 1899.
292 The Youth of
Francois de Sales loved the convent of Port Royal;
he called it his "place of dear delight"! In its
shaded cloisters de Berulle, Pere Vincent, and Saint
Cyran laboured together to purify the Church, until
the time came when the closest friends were sepa-
rated by dogmatic differences ; and even then the
tempest that wrecked Port Royal could not sweep
away the memory of the peaceful days when the four
friends lent their united efforts to the work which gave
the decisive impulsion to the Catholic Renaissance.
Whenever the Church established religious com-
munities, men were called to direct them from all
the branches of de Berulle's Oratoire, because it
was generally known that the Oratorians inspired
the labourers of the Faith with religious ardour, and
in time the theological knowledge gained in the
Oratoire and in its branches was considered essen-
tial to the true spiritual establishment of the priest.
Men about to enter the service of the Church went
to the Oratoire to learn how to dispense the sacra-
mental lessons with proper understanding of their
meaning ; new faces were continually appearing,
then vanishing aglow with celestial fire. Once
when an Oratorian complained that too many of
their body were leaving Paris, de Berulle answered :
" I thank God for it ! This congregation was estab-
lished for nothing else ; its mission is to furnish
worthy ministers and workmen fitted for the service
of the Church."
De Berulle knew that, were he to give all the
members of his community, their number would be
ST. VI\CENT DE PAUL
FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING
La Grande Mademoiselle 293
too feeble to regenerate the vast and vitiated body
of the French clergy. He could not hope to reap
the harvest, but he counted it as glory to be per-
mitted to sow the seed.
Vincent de Paul was the third collaborator of the
company. It was said of him that he was " created
to fill men's minds with love of spiritual things and
with love for the Creator." Pere Vincent was a
simple countryman. In appearance he resembled
the disciples of Christ, as represented in ancient
pictures. His rugged features rose above a faded
and patched soutane, but his face expressed such
kindness and such sympathy that, like his heavenly
Ensample, he drew men after him. Bernard of
Cluny deplored the evil days ; but the time of Louis
XIII. was worse than the time of Bernard. The
mercy proclaimed by the Gospel had been effaced
from the minds of men, and the Charity of God had
been dishonoured even by the guides sent to make
it manifest. Mercy and Charity incarnate entered
France with Pere Vincent, and childlike fondness
and gentle patience crept back into human relations
— not rapidly — the influences against them were
too strong — but steadily and surely. Pere Vincent
was amusing ; it was said of him that he was " like
no one else "; the courtiers first watched and ridi-
culed, then imitated him. When they saw him lift
the fallen and attach importance to the sufferings
of the common people, and when they heard him
insist that criminals were men and that they had a
right to demand the treatment due to men, they
294 The Youth of
shrugged their shoulders, but they knew that
through the influence of the simple peasant-priest
something unknown and very sweet had entered
France.
Vincent de Paul was a worker. He founded
the Order of the Sisters of Charity, the Convicts'
Mission-Refuge, a refuge for the unfortunate, the
Foundling Hospital, and a great general hospital
and asylum where twenty thousand men and wo-
men were lodged and nourished. To the people
of France Pere Vincent was a man apart from all
others, the impersonation of human love and the
manifestation of God's mercy. By the force of his
example pity penetrated and pervaded a society in
which pity had been unknown, or if known, de-
spised. The people whose past life had prepared
them for anything but good works sprang with ar-
dour upon the road opened by the gentle saint who
had taught France the way of mercy. Even the
great essayed to be like Pere Vincent ; every one,
high and low, each in his own way and to the ex-
tent of his power, followed the unique example.
Saint Vincent became the national standard ; the
nobles pressed forward in his footsteps, concerning
themselves with the sick and the poor and trying
to do the work of priests. They laboured earnestly
lavishing their money and their time, and, fired by
the strength of their purpose, they came to love
their duty better than they had loved their pleas-
ure. They imitated the Oratorians as closely as
they had imitated the shepherds of Astree, and " the
La Grande Mademoiselle 295
monsters of the will," Indifference, Infidelity, and
Licence, hid their heads for a time, and Charity be-
came the fashion of the day.
Pere Vincent's religious zeal equalled his broth-
erly tenderness ; he was de Berulle's best ally. A
special community, under his direction, assisted in
the labours of the Oratoire. The chief purpose of
the mother-house and its branches was the purifi-
cation of the priesthood and the increase of religion.
When a young priest was ready to be ordained
he was sent to Pere Vincent's mission, where, by
means of systematic retreats, he received the deep
impression of the spiritual devotion and the charity
peculiar to the Oratorians.
Bossuet remembered with profound gratitude the
retreats that he made in Pere Vincent's Oratoire.
But there was one at Court to whom the piety of
Pere Vincent was a thorn in the flesh. We have
seen that de Berulle's work was the purification of
the clergy, and that Pere Vincent was de Berulle's
chief ally. Mazarin was the Queen's guardian, and
the Queen held the list of ecclesiastical appointments.
A Council called the Conseil de Conscience had been
instituted to <niide the Recent in her " Collation of
Benefices." The nominees were subject to the ap-
probation of the Council. When their names were
read the points in their favour and against them
were discussed. In this Conseil de Conscience Pere
Vincent confronted Mazarin ten years. Before
Pere Vincent appeared men were appointed abbots
regardless of their characters. Chantelauze says
296 The Youth of
in Saint Vincent de Paul et les Gondis that " Maza-
rin raised Simony to honour." The Cardinal gave
the benefices to people whom he was sure of : peo-
ple who were willing to devote themselves, body
and soul, to his purposes. Pere Vincent had
awakened the minds of many influential prelates,
and a few men and women prominent at Court
had been aroused to a sense of the condition of the
Church. These few priests and laymen were called
the " Saints' Party."
They sat in the Council convened for the
avowed purpose of purifying the Church. When
Mazarin made an ignoble appointment, Pere Vin-
cent objected, and the influential prelates and
the others of their party echoed his objections.
Through the energy of the " Saints," as they were
flippantly called by the courtiers, many scandalous
appointments were prevented, and gradually the
church positions were filled by sincere and devoted
men. The determined and earnest objections of
so many undeniably disinterested, well-known, and
unimpeachable people aroused the superstitious
scruples of the Queen, and when her scruples were
aroused, she was obstinate. Mazarin knew this.
He knew that Anne of Austria was a peculiar wo-
man, he knew that she had been a Oueen before he
had had any hold upon her, and he knew that he
had not been her first favourite. He was quick,
keen-sighted, flexible. He was cautious. He had
no intention of chano-ino- the sustained coo of his
turtle-dove for the shrill " Tais-toi! " of the Regent
La Grande Mademoiselle 297
of France. But he was not comfortable. His
little diaries contain many allusions to the distress
caused by his inability to digest the interference of
the " Saints." He looked forward to the time
when he should be so strong that it would be safe
for him to take steps to free himself from the
obsessions of the Conseil de Conscience. He was
amiable and indulgent in his intercourse with all
the cabals and with all the conflicting agitations ;
he studied motives and forestalled results ; he
brought down his own larks with the mirrors of
his enemies. He had a thousand different ways of
working out the same aims. He did nothing to
actively offend, but there was a persistence in his
gentle tenacity which exasperated men like Conde
and disheartened the frank soldiers of the Faith of
the mission of Port Royal and the Oratoire. He
foresaw a time when he could dispose of benefices
and of all else. A few years later the Conseil de
Conscience was abolished, and Pere Vincent was
ignominiously vanquished. Pere Vincent lacked
the requisites of the courtier ; he was artless, and
straightforward, and intriguers found it easy to
make him appear ridiculous in the eyes of the
Oueen. 1 Mazarin watched his moment, and when
he was sure that Anne of Austria could not refuse
him anything, he drew the table of benefices from
her hand. From that time "pick and choose " was
the order of the day. " Monsieur le Cardinal "
visited the appointments secretly, and secured the
1 Motteville.
298 The Youth of
lion's share for himself. When he had made his
choice, the men who offered him the highest bids
received what he had rejected. In later years
Mazarin was, by his own appointment, Archbishop
of Metz and the possessor of thirty fat benefices.
His revenues were considerable.
Nowhere did the Oratorians meet as determined
opposition as at Court. The courtiers had gone
to Mass because they lost the King's favour if they
did not go to Mass, but to be inclined to skepticism
was generally regarded as a token of elegance.
Men thought that they were evincing superior cul-
ture when they braved God, the Devil, and the
King, at one and the same time, by committing a
thousand blasphemies. Despite the pressure of
the new ideas, the " Saints' Party " had been diffi-
cult to organise. It was a short-lived party because
Mazarin was not a man to tolerate rivals who
were liable to develop power enough to counteract
his influence over Anne of Austria concerning
subjects even more vital than the distribution of
the benefices. The petty annoyances to which the
Prime Minister subjected the "Saints' Party" con-
vinced people that when a man was of the Court,
if he felt the indubitable touch of the finger of
Grace, the only way open to him was the road to
the cloister. It was known that wasps sting, and
that they are not meet adversaries for the sons of
God, and the wasps were there in swarms. Fran-
cois de Sales called the constantly recurring annoy-
ances, "that mass of wasps." As there was no
La Grande Mademoiselle 299
hope of relief in sight, it was generally supposed
that the most prudent and the wisest course for
labourers in the vineyard of the Lord was to enter
the hive and take their places in the cells, among
the manufacturers of honey. So when La Grande
Mademoiselle looked upon the convent as her
natural destination, she was carrying out the prev-
alent idea that retreat from the world was the na-
tural result of conversion to true religion. It was
well for her and for the convent which she had
decided to honour with her presence that just at
the moment when she laid her plans her father had
one of his rare attacks of common sense — yes,
well for her and well for the convent !
IV
Mademoiselle's crisis covered a period of six
months ; when she reappeared patches adorned
her face and powder glistened in her hair. She
said of her awakening : " I recovered my taste for
diversions, and I attended the pla)' and other amuse-
ments with pleasure, but my worldly life did not
obliterate the memory of my longings ; the exces-
sive austerity to which I had reduced myself was
modified, but I could not forget the aspirations
which I had supposed would lead me to the Car-
melites ! " Not long after she emerged from her
religious retreat politics called her from her frivol-
ity. Political life was the arena at that hour, and
it is not probable that the most radical of the femi-
nistic codes of the future will restore the power
300 The Youth of
o
which women then possessed by force of their de-
termined gallantry, their courage, their vivacity,
their beauty, and their coquetry. The women of
the future will lack such power because their rights
will be conferred by laws ; legal rights are of small
importance compared to rights conferred and con-
firmed by custom. The women of Mademoiselle's
day ordered the march of war, led armies, dictated
the terms of peace, curbed the will of statesmen,
and signed treaties with kings, not because they
had a right to do so, but because they possessed
invincible force. Richelieu, who had a species of
force of his own, and at times wielded it to their
temporary detriment, planned his moves with def-
erence to their tactics, and openly deplored their
importance. Mazarin, who dreaded women, wrote
to Don Luis del Haro: " We have three such
amazons right here in France, and they are fully
competent to rule three great kingdoms ; they are
the Duchesse de Longueville, the Princesse Pala-
tine, and the Duchesse de Chevreuse." The Duch-
esse de Chevreuse, having been born in the early
century, was the veteran of the trio. " She had a
strong mind," said Richelieu, 1 " and powerful beauty,
which, as she knew well how to use it, she never
lowered by any disgraceful concessions. Her
mind was always well balanced."
Retz completed the portrait : " She loved without
any choice of objects for the simple reason that it
was necessary for her to love some one ; and when
1 Me'moires.
DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE
La Grande Mademoiselle s° l
once the plan was laid it was not difficult to give
her a lover. But from the moment when she began
to love her lover, she loved him faithfully, — and
she loved no one else." She was witty, spirited,
and of a very vigorous mind. Some of her ideas
were so brilliant that they were like flashes of
liehtnine ; and some of them were so wise and so
profound that the wisest men known to history
might have been proud to claim them. Rare
genius and keen wits which she had trained to in-
trigue from early youth had made her one of the
most dangerous politicians in France. She had
been an intimate friend of Anne of Austria, and
the chief architect of the Chalais conspiracy. After
the exposure of the conspiracy, Richelieu sentenced
her to banishment for a term of twenty-five years,
and no old political war-horse could have taken re-
venue sterner than hers. She did not rest on her
wrongs ; her entrance upon foreign territory was
marked by the awakening of all the foreign ani-
mosities. Alone and single-handed, the unique
Duchess formed a league against France, and when
events reached a crisis she had attained such im-
portance in the minds of the allies that England,
though vanquished and suing for peace, made it a
condition of her surrender that the Duchesse tic
Chevreuse, "a woman for whom the King of Eng-
land entertained a particular esteem," should be
recalled to France. Richelieu yielded the point
instantly ; he was too wise to invest it with the im-
portance of a parley ; he recalled the woman who
302 The Youth of
had convened a foreign league against her own
people, and eliminated the banishment of powerful
women from his list of penalties. He had learned
an important political lesson ; thereafter the pre-
sence of the Duchesse de Chevreuse was considered
in high diplomatic circles the one thing needful for
the even balance of the State of France. After
the Spanish intrigue, which ended in Val de Grace,
the Cardinal, fearing another "league," made
efforts to keep the versatile Duchess under his
hand, but she slipped through his ringers and was
seen all over France actively pursuing her own
peculiar business. (1637.)
The Duchesse de Chevreuse once traversed
France on horseback, disguised as a man, and she
used to say that nothing had ever amused her as
well as that journey. She must have been a judge
of amusements, as she had tried them all. When
she ran away disguised as a man, her husband and
Richelieu both ran after her, to implore her to re-
main in France, and, in her efforts to escape her
pursuers, she was forced to hide in many strange
places, and to resort to stratagems of all kinds. In
one place where she passed the night, her hostess,
considering her a handsome boy, made her a declara-
tion of love. Her guides, deceived by her appear-
ance gave her a fair idea of the manners worn by
a certain class of men when they think that they
are among men and free from the constraint of
woman's presence. On her journeys through Eu-
rope, she slept one night or more in a barn, on a
La Grande Mademoiselle 303
O^J
pile of straw, the next night in a field, under a
hedge, or in one of the vast beds in which our fath-
ers bedded a dozen persons at once without regard
to their circumstances. Alone, or in close quarters,
the Duchesse de Chevreuse maintained her iden-
tity. Hers was a resolute spirit ; she kept her own
counsel, and she feared neither man nor devil.
Thus, in boys' clothes, in company with cavaliers
who lisped the language of the Prccieuses, or with
troopers from whose mouths rushed the fat oaths
of the Cossacks, sleeping now on straw and now
with a dozen strangers, drunk and sober, she
crossed the Pyrenees and reached Madrid, where
she turned the head of the King of Spain and
passed on to London, where she was feted as a
powerful ally, and where, incidentally, she became
the chief official assent of the enemies of Richelieu.
When Louis XIII. was dying he rallied long
enough to enjoin the Duchesse de Chevreuse from
entering France. 1 Standing upon the brink of
Eternity, he remembered the traitress whom he had
not seen in ten years. The Duchesse de Chev-
reuse was informed of his commands, and, knowing
him to be in the agonies of death, she placed her
political schemes in the hands of agents and hurried
back to France to condole with the widow and to
assume the control of the French nation as the dep-
uty of Anne of Austria. She entered the Louvre
June 14, 1643, thinking that the ten years which had
passed since she had last seen her old confidante
1 Declaration pour la RSgence (21st April, 1643).
304 The Youth of
had made as little change in the Queen as in her
own bright eyes. She found two children at play
together, — young Louis XIV. and little Monsieur,
a tall proud girl with ash-blonde hair : La Grande
Mademoiselle, and a mature and matronly Regent
who blushed when she saluted her. One month to
a day had passed since Louis XIII. had yielded up
the ghost.
The Duchesse de Chevreuse installed herself
in Paris in her old quarters and bent her energies
to the task of dethroning Mazarin.
• •••••••
The Palatine Princess, Anne de Gonzague, was
a ravishingly beautiful woman endowed with great
executive ability. " I do not think," said Retz, " that
Elizabeth of England had more capacity for con-
ducting a State." Anne de Gonzague did not begin
her career by politics. When, as a young girl, she
appeared in the world of the Court, she astonished
France by the number and by the piquancy of her
adventures. She was another of the exalted dames
who ran upon the highways disguised as cavaliers or
as monks. No one was surprised no matter when
or where he saw Anne de Gonzague, though she
was often met far beyond the limits of polite so-
ciety. Fancy alone — and their own sweet will —
ruled the fair ladies of those heroic days. During
five whole years Anne de Gonzague 1 gave the
world to understand that she was " Mme. de Guise,
wife of Henri de Guise, Archbishop of Rheims "
1 Born in 1616.
La Grande Mademoiselle 305
(the same Henri de Guise who afterward married
Mme. de Bossut).
Having passed for "Mme. de Guise" sixty
months, the Lady Anne appeared at Court under
her own name " as if nothing had happened," re-
ported Mademoiselle. Whatever may have here
" happened," Anne de Gonzague reappeared at
Court as alluring as in the flower of her first youth ;
and, as the Chronicle expressed it : " had the talent
to marry herself — between two affairs of womanly
gallantry — to the Prince Palatine, 1 one of the most
rabidly jealous of gentlemen," because, as the pious
and truthful Bossuet justly remarked, " everything
gave way before the secret charm of her conver-
sation." When nearly thirty years of age she
obeyed the instincts of her genius and engaged in
politics, with other politically inclined ladies, includ-
ing Mme. de Longueville, whose only talent lay in
her blonde hair and charming eyes.
Despite the poverty of her mental resources,
Mme. de Longueville was a natural director of men,
and she was but one of a very brilliant coterie.
The prominent and fiery amazons of the politics of
that epoch are too historically known to require
detailed mention. They were : the haughty, daz-
zlingly superb, but too vicious and too practical in
vice, Montbazon ; the Duchesse de Chatillon (the
imperious beauty who had her hand painted upon
a painted lion whose face was the face of the great
1 Edouard, Prince Palatine, a younger son of the Elector Palatine,
Frederic V.
20
306 The Youth of
Conde), and many others who to the measure of
their ability played with the honour and the lives of
men, with Universal Suffrage, and with the stability
of France, and who, like La Grande Mademoiselle,
were called from their revelries by the dangers which
threatened them.
The daughter of Gaston d' Orleans had grown up
firmly convinced that the younger branch of the
House of Paris (her own branch) could do anything.
That had been the lesson taught for more than a
century of history. From Charles VIII. to Louis
XIII. the throne had been transmitted from father
to son but three times; in all other cases it had
passed to brothers or to cousins. The collaterals
of the royal family had become accustomed to
think of themselves as very near the throne, and
at times that habit of thought had been detrimental
to the country. Before the birth of Louis XIV.
Gaston d'Orleans had touched the crown with the
tips of his fingers, and he had made use of his title
as heir-presumptive to work out some very unsavoury
ends. After the birth of his nephews he had lived
in a dream of possible results ; he had waited to see
what " his star " would bring him, and his hopes had
blazed among- their ashes at the first hint of the
possibility of a change. When Louis XIV. was
nine years old he was very sick and his doctors
expected him to die ; he had the smallpox. Mon-
sieur was jubilant : he exhibited his joy publicly,
and the courtiers drank to the health of " Gaston
I." Olivier d' Ormesson stated that the courtiers
La Grande Mademoiselle 307
distributed all the offices in the King's gift and
planned to dispose of the King's brother. Anne
of Austria, agonising in prayer for the life of the
King, was horrified to learn that a plot was on foot
to abduct little Monsieur. She was warned that
the child was to be stolen some time in the ni^ht
between Saturday and Sunday. Marechal de
Schomberg passed that night on his horse, ac-
companied by armed men who watched all the win-
dows and doors of the palace. When the King
recovered Monsieur apologised for his conduct, and
the sponge of the royal forgiveness was passed
over that episode as it had been over many others.
Under the Regency of Anne of Austria the Court
was called upon to resist the second junior branch,
whose inferiority of pretensions was more than bal-
anced by its intelligence and audacity.
The pretensions of the Condes had been the
cause of one of Mazarin's first anxieties. They
were vast pretensions, they were unquestionably
just, and they were ably sustained by the father of
the great Conde, " Monsieur le Prince," a superior
personage whose appearance belied his character.
People of his own age remembered him as a hand-
some man ; but debauchery, avarice, and self-
neglect had changed the distinguished courtier and
made him a repulsive old man, "dirty and ugly." 1
He was stoop-shouldered and wrinkled, with great,
red eyes, and long, greasy hair, which he wore
passed around his ears in " love-locks." His aspect
1 Motteville.
3o8 The Youth of
was formidable. Richelieu was obliged to warn
him that he must make a serious attempt to cleanse
his person, and that he must change his shoes be-
fore paying his visits to the King. 1 His spirit was
as sordid as his body. " Monsieur le Prince " was
of very doubtful humour ; he was dogged, snap-
pish, peevish, coarse, contrary, and thoroughly ra-
pacious. He had begun life with ten thousand livres
of income, and he had acquired a million, not count-
ing his appointments or his revenues from the gov-
ernment. 2 His friends clutched their pockets when
they saw him coming ; but their precautions were
futile; he had a way of getting all that he desired.
Everything went into his purse and nothing came
out of it ; but where his purse was not concerned
Monsieur le Prince was a different man ; there he
" loved justice and followed that which was good." 3
He was a rigorous statesman ; he defended the
national Treasury against the world. His keen
sense of equity made him a precious counsellor and
he was an eminent and upright judge. His know-
ledge of the institutions of thekino-dom made him
valuable as State's reference ; he knew the origins,
the systems, and the supposititious issues of the
secret aims of all the parties.
The laws of France were as chaotic as the situation
of the parties, and no one but a finished statesman
could find his way among them ; but to Monsieur le
Prince they were familiar ground. Considerable as
1 Due d' Aumale's Histoire des princes de Condtf.
9 Among other emoluments he had 800,000 livres.
* Me" moires of Lenet.
La Grande Mademoiselle 309
were his attainments, his children were his equals.
Mme. de Longueville, though shallow, was as keen
a diplomat as her father, and by far more dangerous ;
the Due d'Enghien was an astute and accomplished
politician. The world considered the Condes as
important as the d'Orleans', and fully able to meet
the d'Orleans' on the super-sacred footing of eti-
quette. We shall see to what the equality of the
two families conducted them. StruofSfles between
them were always imminent ; their quarrels arose
from the exigencies of symbolical details : the
manner of the laying of a carpet, the bearing of
the train of a State robe, et cetera. Such details
seem insignificant to us, but that they do so is
because we have lost the habit of monarchical tradi-
tions. When things are done according to hier-
archical custom, details are very important. At every
session of the King's Council " peckotings " passed
between Gaston d'Orleans and Monsieur le Prince
and an attentive gallery looked on and listened.
But something of sterner stuff than " peckotings "
was the order of the day when the Court met for
a ceremonious function ; material battles marked
the meetings between Mile, de Montpensier and
Mme. la Princesse de Conde ; Mme. de Longue-
ville was brave, and La Grande Mademoiselle was
not only brave, but fully determined to justify her
title and defend her honour as the Granddaughter
of France. The two princely ladies entered the
lists with the same ardour, and they were as heroic
as they were burlesque. The 5th December the
3io The Youth of
Court was scheduled to attend a solemn Mass at
Notre Dame, and by the law of precedence Made-
moiselle was to be followed by Mme. la Princesse,
de Conde. The latter summoned her physician
who bled her in order to enable her to be physi-
cally incapable of taking her place behind Made-
moiselle. Gossips told Anne-Marie-Louise of her
cousin's stratagem, and Mademoiselle resorted to
an equally efficient, though entirely different, means
of medical art calculated to make bodily motion
temporarily undesirable, if not impossible. Made-
moiselle was determined that she would not humili-
ate her quality by appearing at Mass without her
attendant satellite (Saint Simon would have ap-
plauded the sufferings of both of the heroic ladies,
for like them he had been gifted by nature with a
subtle appreciation of the duties and the privileges
of rank), but the incident was not closed. By a
strange fatality, at that instant Church came in con-
flict with State. Cardinal Mazarin, representing
the Church, inspired Queen Anne to resent her
niece's indisposition. The Queen became very
angry at Mademoiselle, and impelled by her anger,
Monsieur commanded his daughter to set out im-
mediately for Notre Dame ; he told her rudely
that if she was too sick to walk, she had plenty of
people to carry her. " You will either go or be
carried ! " he cried violently, and Mademoiselle,
much the worse for her stratagem, was forced to
yield. She deplored her fate, and wept because
she had lost her father's sympathy.
La Grande Mademoiselle 3 11
The reciprocal acidity of the junior branches
was constantly manifested by fatalities like the
event just noted, and by episodes like the affair of
"the fallen letters" (August, 1643). Although all
the writers of that day believed that the reaction
of that puerile matter was felt in the Fronde, the
quarrel, like all the other quarrels, was of so sense-
less a character that it awakened the shame of
the nation. The story is soon told : Mme. de
Montbazon picked up — no one knew where —
some love letters in which, as she said, she recog-
nised the writing of Mme. de Lonofueville. Her
story was false, and Anne of Austria, who frowned
upon the gossip and the jealousies of the Court,
condemned Mme. Montbazon to go to the Hotel
de Conde and make apologies for the wrong that
she had done the Princess. All the friends of the
House of Conde were expected to be present to
hear and to witness the vindication of Mme. la
Princesse.
Monsieur was there [wrote Mademoiselle], and for my
part I could not stay away. I had no friendship for Mme.
la Princesse, or for any of her friends, but on that occasion I
could not have taken a part contrary to hers with decorum;
to be present there was one of the duties of relationship which
one cannot neglect.
On that occasion the relatives of the family were
all in the Hotel de Conde, but their hearts were
not in their protestations, and the Condes were
not deceived. The petty scandal of the letters fed
the flame of enmity, which Mazarin watched and
3i2 The Youth of
nourished because he knew that it was to his interest
and to the interest of the State to foment the quarrel
between the rival cousins. An anonymous collec-
tion of " memoirs " says :
Seeing that he was pressed from all sides, the Cardinal
thought that the safety of his position required him to keep
the House of Orleans separate from the House of Bour-
bon, so that by balancing one by the other he could remain
firmly poised between the two and make himself equally neces-
sary to both. It was as if Heaven itself had dropped the
affair of the fallen letters into his hands, and he turned his
celestial windfall to such account that the Luxembourg and the
Hotel de Bourbon found it difficult to maintain a decent com-
posure; at heart they were at daggers' points. The Due
d'Orleans and the Due d'Enghien were regarded as the chiefs
of the two hostile parties, and the courtiers rallied to the side
of either as their interests or their inclinations led them ! l
Apparently Mazarin's position was impregnable.
The world would have been blind had it failed to
see that the arguments used by the Prime Minister
when he conferred with his sovereign were of a
character essentially differing from the arguments
generally used by politicians, but it was believed
that the Cardinal's method was well fitted to his
purpose, and that to any woman — and particularly
to a woman who had passed maturity — it would
be, by force of nature, more acceptable and more
weighty than the abstract method of a purely polit-
ical economist, and more convincing than the rea-
sons given by statesmen, — or, in fact, any reason.
1 Manuscript Me'moires published in fragments with Olivier d'Ormesson's
Journal, by M. Chervel (who appears to have been a member of the House
of Conde).
La Grande Mademoiselle 313
Anne of Austria had not been a widow four
months when Olivier d'Ormesson noted, in his jour-
nal, that the Cardinal " was recognised as the All-
Powerful." For his sake the Oueen committed
the imprudences of a love-sick schoolgirl. She
began by receiving his visits in the evening. The
doors were left open, and the Queen said that the
Cardinal visited her for the purpose of giving her
instructions regarding the business of the State.
As time went on the Cardinal's visits lengthened .
after a certain time the doors were closed, and, to
the scandal of the Court, they remained closed. At
Rueil the Oueen tried to make Mazarin sit with
her in her little garden carriage. Mazarin " had
the wisdom to resist her wish, but he had the folly
to accompany her with his hat upon his head." As
no one ever approached the Queen with head
covered, the spectacle of the behatted minister as-
tonished the public. (September, 1644.) A few
weeks later every one in Paris knew that an
apartment or suite of rooms in the Palais Royal,
was being repaired, and that it was to be connected
with the Queen's apartments by a secret passage.
The public learned gradually, detail by detail, that
Mazarin was to occupy the repaired apartment,
and that the secret passage had been prepared so
that the Prime Minister might "proceed commo-
diously " to the royal apartments to hold political
conferences with the Queen. When everything
was ready, the Gazette (19th November) pub-
lished the following announcement :
3 H The Youth of
The Queen in full Council made it plain that, considering
the indisposition of Cardinal Mazarin, and considering that
he is forced, with great difficulty, to cross the whole length of
the great garden of the Palais Royal, 1 and considering that
some new business is constantly presenting itself to him, and
demanding to be communicated to the Queen, the Queen
deems it appropriate to give the Cardinal an apartment in the
Palais Royal, so that she may confer with him more conven-
iently concerning her business. Her Majesty's intention has
been approved by Messieurs, her ministers, and with applause,
so that next Monday (21st November), his Eminence will
take possession of his new residence.
The Queen's indiscretion won the heart of the
favourite, and he longed for her presence. Twice,
once at Rueil and once at Fontainebleau, he dis-
placed La Grande Mademoiselle and installed him-
self in her room at the Queen's house. The first
time that Mazarin supplanted Mademoiselle, the
haughty Princess swallowed the affront and found
a lodging in the village, but the second time she
lost her patience. " It is rumoured in Paris," wrote
d'Ormesson, " that Mademoiselle spoke to the
Queen boldly, because the Cardinal wished to take
her room in order to be near her Majesty." (Sep-
tember, 1645.)
Some historians have inferred that the Queen
had been secretly married to her Minister. We
have no proof of any such thing, unless we accept
as proof the very ambiguous letter which the Car-
dinal wrote to the Queen when he was in exile.
In that letter he spoke of people who tried to in-
1 Mazarin lived in a palace which became the Bibliotheque Nationale.
La Grande Mademoiselle 315
jure him in the Queen's mind. " They will gain
nothing by it," wrote Mazarin ; " the heart of the
Queen and the heart of Mazarin are joined^ by
liens which cannot be broken either by time or by
any effort, — as you yourself have agreed with me
more than once." In the same letter he implores
the Queen to pity him : " for I deserve pity ! it is
so strange for this child to be married, then, at
the same time, separated from . . . and always
pursued by them to whom I am indebted for the
obstacles to my marriage." (27th October, 165 1.)
These words are of obscure meaning, and they
may as easily be interpreted figuratively as liter-
ally. They who believed that the Queen had
married Mazarin secretly must have drawn their
conclusions from the intimate fondness of her man-
ner. Anne of Austria was infatuated, and her
infatuation made it impossible for her to guard her
conduct ; her behaviour betrayed the irregularity
of the situation, and it is probable that her friends
were loth to believe that anything less than mar-
riage could induce such familiarity. However that
may have been, Mazarin's letters give no proof
of marriage, nor has it ever been proved that he
claimed that he had married the Oueen.
When judgment is rendered according to evi-
dence deduced from personal manners, changes in
time and in the differences of localities should be
1 In Mazarin's letters the words in italics are either in cipher or in
words which he had agreed upon with the Queen when arranging the
details of his absence ; in this instance we have used the translation given
by M. Kavenel in his Lettres des Cardinal Mazarin a la Heine, etc.
316 The Youth of
considered. Our consideration of the Queen's ro-
mance dates from the period of the legitimate, or
illegitimate, honeymoon. (August, 1643, or within
six weeks of that time.)
The public watched the royal romance with irri-
tation. Having greeted the Mazarin ministry with
a good grace, they (the people) were unanimously
seized by a feeling of shame and hatred for the
handsome Italian who made use of woman's favour
to attain success. The friends of the Queen re-
doubled their warnings, and retired from the royal
presence in disgrace. One of her oldest servitors,
who had given unquestionable proof of his devo-
tion, 1 dared to tell her to her face that "all the
world was talking about her and about his Emi-
nence, and in a way which ought to make her reflect
upon her position." ..." She asked me," said
La Porte, ' Who said that ? ' I answered, ' Every-
body ! it is so common that no one talks of any-
thing else.' She reddened and became angry." 2
Mme. de Brienne, wife of the Secretary of State,
who had spoken to the Queen on the same sub-
ject, told her friends that " More than once the
Queen had blushed to the whites of her eyes." 3
Every one wrote to the Queen ; she found anony-
mous letters even in her bed. When she went
through the streets she heard people humming
songs whose meaning she knew only too well.
Her piety and her maternity had endeared her
to the common people, and they, the people, had
1 La Porte. 2 Memoir -es of La Porte. 3 MJmoires of de Brienne, junior.
La Grande Mademoiselle 317
looked indulgently upon her passing weaknesses ;
but now things had come to a crisis. One day,
when the Recent was attending a service in Notre
Dame, she was surprised by a band of women of
the people, who surrounded her and fell at her feet
crying that she was dissipating the fortune of her
ward. " Queen" they cried, u you have a man in
your house who is taking everything! " 1
The fact that the young King was being despoiled
was a greater grief to the people than the abase-
ment of the Oueen. It must be avowed that Maza-
rin was the most shameless thief who ever devoured
a kingdom in the name of official duty and under
the eyes and by the favour of a sovereign. His
cry was the cry of the daughters of the horseleech.
It was understood that Mazarin would not grant a
service, or a demand of any kind, until his price
had been put down, and in some cases the com-
mission was demanded and paid twice. Bussy-Rabu-
tin received a letter commanding him to " pay over
and without delay " the sum of seven hundred
livres. The letter is still in existence. Conde
wrote it and despatched it, but it bears his per-
sonal endorsement to the effect that he had been
"ordered" to write it. Montfdat states that Anne
of Austria asked for a fat office for one of her creat-
ures, that the office was immediately granted, and
that the appointee was taxed one hundred thou-
sand ecus. Anne of Austria was piqued : she had
1 See the journal of Olivier d'Ormesson. This scene took place March
19, 1645.
318 The Youth of
supposed that her position exempted her from the
requirements of the ministerial tariff ; she expostu-
lated, but the Cardinal-Minister was firm ; he made it
clear, even to the dim perceptions of his royal lady,
that the duties of the director of the French nation
ranked the tender impulses of the lover. Patriotic
duty nerved his hand, and the Queen, recognising
the futility of resistance, trembling with excite-
ment, and watering her fevered persuasions with
her tears, opened her purse and paid Mazarin his
commission. By a closely calculated policy the
State's coffers were subjected to systematic drain-
age, the national expenses were cut, and millions,
diverted from their regular channels, found their
way into the strong box of the favourite. The
soldiers of France were dying of starvation on the
frontiers, the State's creditors were clamouring for
their money, the Court was in need of the com-
forts of life ] ; the country had been ravaged by
passing armies, pillaged by thieving politicians, har-
rowed by abuses of all kinds. The taxes were
wrung from the beggared people by armed men ;
yet "poor Monsieur, the Cardinal," as the Queen
always called him, gave insolently luxurious fetes
and expended millions upon his extravagant fan-
cies. No one cared for his foreign policy. Would
political triumphs bring back the dead, feed the
starving, rehabilitate the dishonoured wives and
daughters of the peasants, restore verdure to the
ruined farms ?
1 Motteville.
La Grande Mademoiselle 3 T 9
The Queen's anxiety to create an affection strong
enough to blind the eyes of her courtiers to her
intimacy with Mazarin had inspired her with a
desire to lavish gifts. " The Queen gives every-
thing" had become a proverb ; the courtiers knew
the value of their complaisancy, and they flocked
to the Palais Royal with petitions ; offices, benefices,
privileges, monopolies either to exploit, to concede,
or to sell were freely bestowed upon all who de-
manded them. Each courtier had some new and
unheard-of fancy to gratify, either for his own
pleasure or for the pleasure of his friends ; any-
thing that could be made visible, anything that
could be so represented as to appear visible to the
imagination, was scheduled in the minds of the
courtiers as dutiable and some one drew revenues
from it. One of the ladies of the Court obtained
from the Oueen the ricrht to tax all the Masses
said in Paris. 1 "The 13th January, 1644, tne Coun-
cil of the King employed part of its session in
refusing 'a quantity of gifts' which the Queen had
accorded, and which were all of a character to
excite laughter." The royal horn had ceased to
pour ; the Queen's strong-box was empty. The
courtiers knew that there was nothing more to
gain ; one and all they raised their voices, and the
threatening growl of the people of Paris echoed
them. The day of reckoning was at hand ; had
Anne of Austria possessed all that she had given
to buy the indulgence of her world, and had she
1 La viisere an temps de la Fronde (quoted from the records of the Council).
320 The Youth of
willed to give it all again, she could not have stilled
the tumult ; to quote Mine, de Motteville's rec-
ord : " The people's love for the Queen had dimin-
ished ; the absolute power which the Queen had
placed in the hand of Mazarin had destroyed her
own influence, and from too fondly desiring that
the Parisians should love her lover she had made
them hate him." In the beginning of the Regency
Mazarin had been popular ; after a time the people
had lost confidence in him, and the hatred which
followed their distrust was mingled with contempt.
Mazarin had emptied the treasury of France.
No better statement of his conduct was ever given
than Fenelon gave his pupil, the Due de Bour-
gogne, in his Dialogues des Moris. Mazarin and
Richelieu are the persons speaking. Each makes
known the value of his own work ; each criticises
the work of the other. Mazarin reproaches Riche-
lieu for his cruelty and thirst for blood ; Richelieu
answers :
' You did worse to the French than to spill their blood. You
corrupted the deep sources of their manners and their life.
You made probity a mask. I laid my hand upon the great
to repress their insolence; you beat them down and trampled
upon their courage. You degraded nobility. You confounded
conditions. You rendered all graces venal. You were afraid
of the influence of merit. You permitted no man to approach
you unless he could give you proof of a low, supple nature, — a
nature complaisant to the solicitations of mischievous intrigue.
You never received a true impression. You never had any
real knowledge of men. You never believed anything but
evil. You saw the worst in a man and drew your profit from it.
To your base mind honour and virtue were fables. You
'
CARDINAL MAZARIN
La Grande Mademoiselle 321
needed knaves who could deceive the dupes whom you en-
trapped in business; you needed traffickers to consummate
your schemes. So your name shall be reviled and odious."
This is a fair portrayal, as far as it goes ; but it
shows only one side (the worst side) of Mazarin's
character. The portrait is peculiarly interesting
from the fact that it was especially depicted and
set forth for the instruction of the creat-grandson
of the woman who loved Mazarin.
It is probable that stern appreciation of the
duty of the representative of Divine Justice primed
the virulence of the pious Fenelon, when he seated
himself to point out an historical moral for the
descendant of the weak Oueen who sacrificed the
prosperity of France on the altar of an insensate
passion.
La Grande Mademoiselle was one of Mazarin's
most hostile enemies, and her memoirs evince un-
bending severity. The weakness of her criticism
detracts from the importance of a work otherwise
valuable as a contemporary chronicle. She re-
garded Mazarin's " lack of intelligence " as his worst
fault. She was convinced that he possessed neither
capacity nor judgment " because he acted from the
belief that he could reject the talents of a Gaston
d'Orleans with impunity. His conduct to Princes
of the Blood proved that he lacked wisdom ; he
stinted the junior branches of their legitimate in-
fluence ; he would not yield to the pillars of the
throne the power that belonged to them by right ;
he thrust aside the heirs-presumptive, when he
322 The Youth of
might have leaned upon them ! Manifestly he was
witless, stupid, unworthy the consideration of a
prince."
Mademoiselle asserted that Mazarin deserved
the worst of fates and the scorn of the people. She
believed that many evils could have been averted
had Monsieur been consulted in regard to the gov-
ernment of the kingdom. She affirmed that it was
her conviction that all good servants of the Crown
owed it to their patriotism to arm and drive the
Cardi 
