The youth of Madame de Longueville, or new revelations of court and convent in the seventeenth century

We find Mademoiselle de Bourbon married then on the 2d of June, 1642. “For her it was a cruel destiny; M. de Longueville was old, she was young and beautiful as an angel.” Thus, in relation to this marriage, speaks Mademoiselle, the faithful interpreter of the opinions of that period.⁠[213]

Henri II., Duke de Longueville, descended from that famous Count de Dunois whose name is connected with that of Jeanne d’Arc, in the great wars of the independence under Charles VII. He was the son of Henri d’Orleans, first of the name, sovereign prince of Neufchâtel and Valengin, a warrior worthy of his ancestors, and who gave the League a mortal blow by the victory of Senlis. His mother was Catherine de Gonzague, sister of the Duke de Nevers, who was father of the two celebrated princesses, Marie, Queen of Poland, and Anne, the Palatine. Born in 1595, Henri II. had first married Louise de Bourbon, daughter of the Count de Soissons, high steward of France, who died in 1637, and by whom he had Marie d’Orleans, Mademoiselle de Longueville, who, in 1650, played a conspicuous part in the Fronde, and at length married the Duke de Nemours, brother of him who was slain by the Duke de Beaufort. Thus, when the Duke de Longueville took a second wife in 1642, he was forty-seven years of age, and to this wife he brought a daughter-in-law nearly as old, but of a very different character,—beautiful, intellectual, but deprived of all sensibility, who soon became the censor of her mother-in-law and her enemy in the family circle, and even with posterity by means of the memoirs which she has left of the Fronde.

The Duke de Longueville was truly a great lord He was gallant and brave,⁠[214] liberal even to magnificence, of a noble and generous character, but feeble; willing to engage in an enterprise, and ready to abandon it; without passion, and without ambition; and possessing all that was necessary to make him shine in the second rank, but incapable of holding the first. He began by making some opposition to Richelieu, but he yielded soon enough; afterwards he engaged in the Fronde; he shared the captivity of his two brothers-in-law, but scarcely did he leave the prison, than he made peace with the court. Nature had fitted him to follow the path which his fathers had traced for him, and to serve the crown in great military and civil offices, which he would have worthily filled. The misfortune of his life was to be continually engaged, through his own fault and through that of others, in enterprises and adventures for which he was unfitted, and in which his good qualities were less prominent than his defects.

Let us add that M. de Longueville, whose morals were not the best, had, in early youth, by Jacqueline d’Illiers, afterwards abbess of Saint-Avit, a natural daughter, Catherine Angélique d’Orleans, who was successively a nun in several religious houses, and who died abbess of Maubuisson, in 1664, at the age of forty-seven years. Already in the decline of life, he became smitten with the Duchess de Montbazon, who rejoiced at this useful conquest, and maintained it, as is said, even after the second marriage of M. de Longueville, notwithstanding the displeasure of Madame the Princess, and the very bitter reproaches which she cast upon her son-in-law.

It must be confessed that there was little in such a person to captivate the heart and the imagination of a young woman such as we have described Mademoiselle de Bourbon. With her instincts of pride and heroism, her refinements of spirit and heart, her principles and habits as a précieuse, she could not admire M. de Longueville, and, formed as she was, admiration was for her the road to love. She was destined, with all her advantages, to be wounded by a rival; and what made this wound more painful was, that this rival, so little worthy of being compared with her in character, was the greatest beauty of the day, so that the apparent infidelity of M. de Longueville seemed an offensive preference for this rival’s charms; and, as we have said, Mademoiselle de Bourbon was not only tender, she was vain-glorious, and somewhat coquettish. However, as she did not love her husband, her gentleness, easily sustained by her indifference, saved her from irritation. She considered herself at liberty to be admired, and she continued to live at the hôtel de Longueville, as she had done at the hôtel de Condé, with the same court of young and agreeable female friends, of young and brilliant cavaliers.⁠[215]

The marriage fêtes had hardly ended when Madame de Longueville was seized with sickness. The small-pox, then so dreaded, which had driven her away from Chantilly, and against which she had made, at Liancourt, such bad verses, caught her in the autumn of 1642, and placed her charming face in peril. All Rambouillet was moved. The Marchioness de Sablé, too faithful to this fear of contagion, which was the ridicule of her life, could not persuade herself, notwithstanding the most sincere tenderness, to take care of the interesting sufferer; but Mademoiselle de Rambouillet did not abandon her,⁠[216] and there was a sort of public rejoicing when it was known that Madame de Longueville had been spared, and that, if she had lost the first freshness of her beauty, she had preserved all its brilliancy. These are the very words of Retz,⁠[217] and the gallant Bishop de Grasse, Godeau, confirms them by compliments which, in a sermon-like manner, he addresses to Madame de Longueville.⁠[218]

During this sickness, M. de Longueville did not come near his wife. The Cardinal de Richelieu had just sent for him to take command of the army of Italy in the place of the Duke de Bouillon, the elder brother of Turenne, who, compromised in the affair of Cinq-Mars, had been arrested, by order of the cardinal, at the head of his army, conducted from Cazal to Lyons, to the Château de Pièrre-Encise, and who was fortunate enough to be able to purchase his life by abandoning his stronghold of Sedan.

The winter of 1643 passed away for Madame de Longueville in the agreeable occupations which had delighted her youth. She was constantly at the Louvre, at the hôtel de Condé, at the Place-Royale, or at the hôtel de Rambouillet, whose éclat was every day increasing. It was about the time of the Guirlande de Julie. Tallemant had proposed to add to the collection of poems, by Voiture, many other productions of the hôtel de Rambouillet. In truth, we might furnish it by aid of the manuscripts of Conrart, who was also one of the inmates of the illustrious hôtel. We might draw continually from these inexhaustible manuscripts, and we should only be embarrassed as to choice. But if all these verses describe admirably the society of the seventeenth century—fond of wit as well as of bravery, intoxicated with heroism and gallantry—they would charm, perhaps moderately, the society of the present day, and we have already put our readers to a test which we should not dare to repeat. Let us simply say that Madame de Longueville was still more surrounded than Mademoiselle de Bourbon with that poetic incense, somewhat tiresome it is true, but which has rarely been displeasing to beauties the most spirituelle. We have before us poems of every kind, and from every hand, which describe her sometimes at the balls of the Louvre and of the Luxembourg, sometimes at court with her two beautiful friends, Mesdemoiselles Du Vigean, sometimes following her husband into his government of Normandy, and called back by the hôtel de Rambouillet, everywhere pursued with assiduous cares and homages, and displaying everywhere a gentleness full of charm, with a carelessness which seldom abandoned her when her heart was not occupied. And it was not yet occupied, or, if at all, only at the surface. She did not love, but she had distinguished, in the crowd of her adorers, Maurice, Count de Coligny, elder brother of Dandelot, son of Marshal de Châtillon, who had sighed for her before her marriage, and had not yet yielded to a husband of forty-seven years, but little jealous, and even still in the chains of another.

“I do not know,” says Lenet,⁠[219] “whether Coligny was attached to Mademoiselle de Bourbon by reason of her beauty, her wit, or the respect which he owed her; but I know well, that although he saw her only in the midst of company, in presence of the princess or of the duke, it was said in the end that he had sentiments of love for her.” In addition to this, there is not a word in regard to Coligny, his character, his mind, or his person. All that we know is, that he was one of the particular friends of La Rochefoucauld, and especially of the Duke d’Enghien,⁠[220] who employed him in more than one delicate negotiation. We confess that such silence is but little in his favor; but let us bear in mind that Coligny was young, that he had not had time to make himself known, and that he was naturally eclipsed by his younger brother, Dandelot, who inherited his title and took his place near Condé. In the absence of every other document, a manuscript of the National Library, to which we have already had recourse, furnishes us some other details, the correctness of which we do not guaranty, but which, for want of better, we are not permitted to neglect. This manuscript represents Coligny to us as very well made, without, however, a very elegant form; intellectual and ambitious, but in merit below his ambition. The author, taking appearance for reality, supposes also that Madame de Longueville shared the sentiments of Coligny, because she did not repress them; and he paints, in a very romantic manner, the beginning of their pretended loves. We give the entire passage, leaving it to the judgment of the reader.⁠[221]

“Anne de Bourbon, Duchess de Longueville, was then one of the most pleasing persons in the world, as well on account of the charms of her mind, as on account of those of her beauty. Coligny, eldest son of the Marshal de Châtillon, loved her passionately, and it is said that he was beloved by her. He was a young man of very fine form, but he looked more like a German than a Frenchman. He had infinite spirits and great thoughts, but it was believed that his valor⁠[222] did not equal his ambition. Even before the marriage of this princess, he was on the best terms with her. It is said that he adopted a very excellent and very singular plan for declaring to her his passion. The romance of Polexandre⁠[223] was very fashionable and much in vogue, but especially at the hôtel de Condé, which was then regarded as the temple of gallantry and of wit. The Duke d’Enghien read this book continually, and, finding in it a tender and passionate letter, he showed it to Coligny, from whom he had nothing to conceal. The latter saw how he might profit by so favorable an occasion, and proposed to the Duke d’Enghien to make a copy, and place it adroitly in the pocket of the duchess. Scarcely a day passed that some fête did not occur at the hôtel de Condé, and there was dancing almost every evening. The proposition was accepted, and Coligny, having volunteered to copy this letter, gave it to the Duke d’Enghien. Upon this day every one was in the gayest attire, and the duchess shone with a thousand rays. The ball began early, and the duke, having taken the hand of his sister, executed easily their design. I know no more of the affair, but apparently the letter was read without giving any offence to the duchess.”

Whilst the young people thus gave themselves up to the pleasures of gallantry, grave events were changing the face of the court and of France.

Richelieu had died on the 2d of December, 1642, after having seen Cinq-Mars ascend the scaffold, the Count de Soissons buried in his victory of Marfée, and the Duke de Bouillon compelled to surrender the principality of Sedan to the royal power. Scarcely had he closed his eyes than his enemies renewed their designs and their hopes. Faithful to his minister even after his death, Louis XIII. kept them within bounds for some time; He employed Mazarin, whom the cardinal had given to him, and continued his policy by softening it; but it did not survive him even for a single year. The 14th of May, 1643, he went to join him, leaving a king four years of age, the regency in the hands of a woman, our northern frontier menaced, factions chafing, and, to sustain the burden of affairs, the Duke d’Orleans and the Prince de Condé fortunately united in the council of the regency, Mazarin at the head of the cabinet, and the Duke d’Enghien at the head of the army. This was all that was needed for the safety of France.

The Duke d’Enghien received in Flanders, publicly, by the hands of a courier extraordinary, the news of the king’s death. He feared that this news might increase the courage of the Spaniards, and diminish that of the French; he determined to conceal it, and to hasten the inevitable battle which was to decide the destiny of his country. Lost, it would introduce the enemy into the heart of the kingdom; but, gained, it would impress upon Spain and all Europe a terror necessary to the beginning of a new reign; it would strengthen the regency of Anne of Austria; it would place royalty above all factions, without taking into consideration the high elevation which it would give to the house of Condé. The Duke d’Enghien submitted the affair to the council of generals, but only for form’s sake, declaring that he took upon himself the event; and the next day, May 19th, whilst the body of Louis XIII. was on its way to Saint-Denis, he hazarded the battle of Rocroy. It continued a whole day. Compromised for a short time by the Marshal de l’Hôpital, who had been intrusted with conducting it, it was gained by Condé himself, not yet twenty-two years of age—thanks to a manœuvre which first revealed the great captain, and inaugurated a new school of warfare.⁠[224] Condé, with Gassion, was charged with the command of the right wing. He had confided his left to La Ferté-Seneterre, as well as to the Marshal de l’Hôpital, who represented the old school. He had placed Espenan in the centre with the infantry, and the reserve in the hands of Sirot,⁠[225] an officer of tried bravery, like Gassion. Directed by Condé in person, the right French wing overthrew every thing that opposed it, and pushed the enemy vigorously. During this time the left wing, under La Ferté-Seneterre and Marshal de l’Hôpital, was very badly treated, and its two commanders placed hors de combat; in giving way it threatened to draw with it the centre, where Espenan was maintaining a firm ground, but earnestly calling for reinforcements. Any other than Condé would doubtless have turned upon his steps and retraced, in an equivocal attitude, the space gloriously run over, and, thus affording aid to his left and his centre, contrive, by means of his reserve, to achieve the victory, or cover and repair the defeat. Condé took a very different course: instead of giving way, he advanced still more; then, having arrived at the extreme of the enemy’s lines, where the Italian infantry were located, he turned to the left, threw himself upon this infantry, passed it furiously, and went thundering down upon the rear of the victorious wing, after telling Sirot to march, with all his reserve, to the help of Espenan and of l’Hôpital. Thus caught between two fires, the enemy yielded on the left as well as on the right, and the day was won. But it was not enough to have delivered France from present danger, it was necessary at the same time to secure the future by removing the terror connected with the name of Spanish arms—the name of that old Spanish infantry which formed the reserve, and, according to the rules of ancient strategy and the policy of the court of Madrid, had been carefully preserved, that is, had remained useless. Nothing remained but to destroy this infantry. Condé assailed it on all sides with his victorious squadrons, with all that he could pick up of his own infantry, especially with his artillery, and, after a memorable resistance, he succeeded in demolishing it, root and branch:⁠[226] it perished almost to a man at Rocroy.

At the report of this battle, in which every thing was wonderful—the youth of the general, the boldness and the novelty of the manœuvres, and the grandeur of the results—the court and all Paris went into transports of enthusiasm. The greatest disasters had been anticipated, but the army was safe, it was victorious, and the future seemed crowded with similar achievements. From the time of Henri IV., France had doubtless had excellent generals, who were well acquainted with their profession, and who had met with great success in Germany and in Italy; but here was a general, of twenty-two years, who eclipsed them all, and who created a new mode of warfare, wherein boldness was at the service of calculation, just as Descartes and Corneille—pardon me the comparison—had created a new philosophy and a new poesy, to serve as a solid foundation or brilliant interpreter to sublime sentiments and thoughts. Rocroy answers to the Cid, to Cinna, and to Polyeucte, so also to the Discours de La Méthode in the history of French greatness: incomparable epoch, which no other has ever equalled, and which not even that of the Consulate, after Marengo, approaches, because, amid all its splendors, it had neither a Descartes nor a Corneille!

We may easily imagine the intoxication of the hôtel de Condé, when La Moussaye, one of the companions of the Duke d’Enghien in the amusements of Chantilly and Liancourt, and who had served him faithfully during the eventful day, brought the triumphant news. All the muses of Rambouillet, great and small, sang the exploits of their brilliant pupil. The Spanish flags taken at Rocroy were displayed for several days in the great halls of the hôtel de Condé, before being transported to Nôtre-Dame. The people hastened to behold them. While all hearts were beating with patriotic pride, all eyes were also moved to tears when it was known that the young captain, as humane and pious as he was brave, had, before all his army, knelt upon the battle-field in thanksgiving to God; that he had immediately taken care of the wounded, conquerors and conquered, as if they had been of his own household, consoling them, encouraging them, distributing every thing abundantly among them without ever humiliating them; that he had asked for his lieutenants every recompense, wishing, like the Cid, Polexandre, and Cyrus, those heroes of tragedy and romance, glory alone. In a short time it was known, that after a few days devoted to religion and to humanity, the Duke d’Enghien had resumed the pursuit of the enemy, and that he was already under the walls of Thionville.

The house of Condé needed the éclat and the strength which it received from the victory of Rocroy in order to face its own enemies, and to obtain satisfaction of the insult which it had just received in the person of Madame de Longueville.

It is necessary to have a just idea of the situation of affairs, as well as of the situation of the parties who disputed the government, in order to see the importance of an adventure which in itself seems to be of little consequence.

Soon after the death of Richelieu, there sprang up a powerful faction, composed of all those whom the imperious cardinal had sacrificed to his designs, whom he had had exiled from the court or from France, and who; their terrible adversary being dead, burned to take possession of his spoils. They expected the support of Queen Anne, for she also had been oppressed, and it was in her service that they had incurred persecution. The favor of the regent appeared to them a debt, and they claimed it in a manner which, little by little, wounded the queen and turned her against them. In proportion as they lost ground with her, Mazarin gained it. He was still young, handsome, mild, insinuating, faithful to the policy of Richelieu, his master, but practising it differently; of a mind less elevated, less extensive—not uniting, like his incomparable predecessor, the genius of administration in all its branches to that of politics in general; especially a diplomatist, but a diplomatist of the first order, with his name attached to two of the greatest treaties of the seventeenth century, the treaty of Westphalia and that of the Pyrenees; inexhaustible in resources and in expedients; always preferring artifice to violence; managing every one, treating with all parties, choosing rather to corrupt than to exterminate them; aiming, especially in 1643, to penetrate into the heart of the queen, as had been attempted by Richelieu, but possessing many other means for succeeding in his design. The handsome cardinal⁠[227] then gained his end. Once master of the heart,⁠[228] he directed easily the mind of the queen, and taught her the difficult art of pursuing steadily the same aim, the supremacy of royal authority, by means of the most contrary conduct, according to the change of circumstances. In the beginning, all his efforts were used in supporting himself and in avoiding the Importants. Such was the name applied to the chiefs of the malcontents, on account of the air of importance which they assumed, blaming inconsiderately every measure of government, affecting a sort of melancholy, of profundity, and of refined sublimity, which separated them from other men. They ruled in the salons, and they exercised considerable authority at court and throughout all the kingdom, because they had at their head the two great houses of Vendôme and of Lorraine.

The Duke de Beaufort, second son of the Duke César de Vendôme, bore proudly the name of grandson of Henry IV.: he was possessed of bravery and of honor. During the evil times, he had shown a chivalrous fidelity to the queen, who, before having appreciated Mazarin, was much inclined to his side; and he would have perhaps succeeded, if he had not spoiled his affairs by excessive pretensions and by a haughtiness of little efficacy with a Spanish woman, who must be a long time flattered before she can be governed. He had, moreover, no genius, and he would have made a miserable figure in the highest rank: he was made only for the part which he afterwards played, that of a theatrical hero.

The exhausted house of Guise did not possess at this time a single superior man. Long exiled, it had, in 1640, lost in Italy its chief, Charles de Lorraine, and, in 1639, the Prince de Joinville, to whom Mademoiselle de Bourbon had once been destined. The brother who followed this prince was that Henri de Guise, at first archbishop of Rheims, then Duke de Guise, so celebrated for his adventures, his bravery, and his fickleness; who had all kinds of ambition, formed all sorts of enterprises, and succeeded in nothing, not even in being a hero of romance, whatever may be said of him. See, I pray, if this is the life of a chevalier, of an ancient paladin, as Madame de Motteville calls him;⁠[229] and if, according to the pretensions of Mademoiselle,⁠[230] he made love after the manner of romances. After the death of his father and of his elder brother, he made his peace with Richelieu, and returned to the court: a year had scarcely passed by, when he conspired against Richelieu with the Count de Soissons, and was compelled to quit France. Whilst archbishop of Rheims, he was smitten with the beautiful Anne de Gonzague, afterwards Princess Palatine; he was engaged to her by an explicit promise of marriage, and when Anne de Gonzague, relying upon his word, commits the folly of going, under the name of Madame de Guise, to rejoin him at Brussels, she finds him married to the Countess de Bossu, of whom he soon grows weary and abandons, in order to return to Paris, when Richelieu and Louis XIII. are no more. There he pays a very easy court to Madame de Montbazon. A little while after he falls madly in love with Mademoiselle de Pons, one of the maids of honor of Queen Anne, very pretty and very coquettish: he wishes to marry her; he goes to Rome to solicit the dissolution of his first marriage, and by the way, in order to conquer a crown for his new mistress, he places himself at the head of the insurrection of Naples. He arrives through a thousand hazards, displays the most brilliant valor, without any political or military talent, is made prisoner by the Spaniards, begs Condé, unfortunately then all-powerful in Spain, to obtain his deliverance, promising to him eternal devotion; and after recovering his liberty, thanks to the intervention of Condé, instead of serving him as he had publicly sworn, he abandons him, passes over to Mazarin, takes part in every thing opposed to his liberator, commences a lawsuit against this same Mademoiselle de Pons, whom he wished to make queen of Naples, for the recovery of the furniture and jewels which he had given her, becomes high chamberlain, and is fit only to parade in fêtes and tourneys of the court, and to call forth the speech, when seen in the company of Condé: “There goes the hero of fable by the side of the hero of history:” carrying with him to the tomb, in 1664, that illustrious house of Guise which merited a very different end. In 1643, on his arrival in Paris, he fell into the party of the Importants, and he was marvellously formed for one of the chiefs of this party, for he was vain, brilliant, and incapable.

The women occupied a prominent place in this anticipated Fronde of the beginning of the regency. Queen Anne had formerly had for her friends the celebrated Duchess de Chevreuse and Mademoiselle d’Hautefort, afterwards Duchess de Schomberg. These ladies shared equally great beauty, ambition, and a courageously supported disgrace. Marie d’Hautefort⁠[231] was, with Madame de Sablé, one of the models of a true précieuse, whose conduct equalled her maxims. Maid of honor to the queen, Louis XIII. had entertained for her that Platonic love, then in fashion, which he also showed for Mademoiselle de La Fayette. Richelieu, after having vainly endeavored to obtain her, had embroiled her with her royal lover, and exiled her from the court. Queen Anne had loved her almost as much as the king; and, as soon as she was free and mistress of herself, she wrote to her with her own hand: “Come, my dear friend, I am dying with impatience to embrace you.” Mademoiselle d’Hautefort eagerly obeyed the summons; but when she wished to speak of Mazarin as she formerly did of Richelieu, she found a less favorable audience, and, not knowing how to accommodate herself to the new situation, her stately tenderness became wearisome. Madame de Chevreuse had possessed the beauty⁠[232] of Mademoiselle d’Hautefort, but not her virtues. Marie de Rohan Montbazon, daughter of the Duke Hercule de Montbazon by a former marriage, was first married to the High Constable de Luynes, early became a widow, and then entered the house of Lorraine by marrying the Duke de Chevreuse. A victim of her fidelity to the queen, banished by Richelieu, she had long wandered in Europe, and returned to France with the pretensions of an emigrant. Occupied with gallantry, devoted to the lover of the moment, she moved heaven and earth to overturn Mazarin and to put in his place Châteauneuf, the old keeper of the seals, who, in the party, passed for a man of superior capacity, and in the State for being the most important minister. She exacted also a high situation for La Rochefoucauld, who had been more or less tenderly attached to her, and who still possessed that romantic sentimentality, in the fashion of the Duke de Guise, whose foundation is almost always a vanity, shameful in itself, and whose climax must, in this case, be the book of maxims.

Mazarin defended himself, as we have said, by gaining, little by little, the heart of the queen; and to the attacks of the houses of Vendôme and of Lorraine he opposed the weight of the old partisans of Richelieu, still numerous and influential, especially the house of Condé, with its alliances and its friendships, the Montmorencys, the Longuevilles, the Brézés, the Ventadours, the Châtillons. Mazarin would have been undone in these difficult beginnings, if the Prince de Condé had not remained firmly attached to royal authority. He supported the uncertain Duke d’Orleans, who, after having engaged in more than one intrigue against Richelieu, and saved himself by betraying his friends, had attempted again to lay his snares. The prince was too good a politician not to understand that it was better for him to be the powerful protector, rather than the unequal adversary of royalty; that in this case it was necessary to defend it with energy, and that his rank would always raise him above a minister, when this minister was not Richelieu; and if no one contested the capacity of Mazarin, no one would suspect all his power. As chief of the council and governor of Paris, M. the Prince applied himself, in concert with M. the Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, to baffle all the designs of the Importants, and in this way he made bitter enemies.

Their hatred for the house of Condé, hardly fell upon Madame de Longueville. Her gentleness in every thing in which her heart was not seriously engaged, her perfect indifference in regard to politics at this period of her life, with the graces of her mind and of her person, rendered her pleasing to every one, and protected her against the injustice of parties. But aside from the affairs of State, she had an enemy, and a fearful enemy, in the Duchess de Montbazon. We have said that Madame de Montbazon had been the mistress of M. de Longueville; it is necessary that she should be a little better known, for she is one of the principal personages of the drama which we are about to relate.

Marie de Bretagne, who was born about 1612, and who died in 1657, at the age of forty-five, was the eldest daughter of that famous Countess de Vertus, whose father was La Varenne Fouquet, chief of the household, and very obliging servant of Henry IV. The Count de Vertus, of the illustrious house of Bretagne, had married Mademoiselle de La Varenne on account of her extreme beauty, and he had hastened to withdraw her from Paris, and to take her to his own house. He gained nothing by this, and Tallemant⁠[233] has told us, concerning the beautiful and foolish countess, a story of the most tragic nature. In beauty the daughter was worthy of the mother, but in vices she left her far behind. Married, in 1628, to the old Duke de Montbazon, father of Madame de Chevreuse, she soon placed herself at ease. Her mind was not her most brilliant side, and the little that she had was turned to intrigue and perfidy. “Her mind,” says the indulgent Madame de Motteville,⁠[234] “was not so fine as her person; her brilliancy was limited to her eyes, which commanded love. She claimed universal admiration.” In regard to her character, all are unanimous. Retz, who knew her well, speaks of her in these terms;⁠[235] “Madame de Montbazon was a very great beauty. Modesty was wanting in her air. Her jargon might, in a dull time, have supplied the defects of her mind. She showed but little faith in gallantry, none in business. She loved her own pleasure alone, and above her pleasure her interest. I never saw a person who, in vice, preserved so little respect for virtue.” Supremely vain and passionately fond of money, it was by aid of her beauty that she sought influence and fortune. She therefore took infinite care of it, as of her idol, as of her resources, her treasure. She kept it in repair, heightened it by all kinds of artifices, and preserved it almost uninjured till her death. Madame de Motteville asserts that, during the latter part of her life, she was as full of vanity as if she were but twenty-five years of age;⁠[236] that she had the same desire to please, and that she wore her mourning garb in so charming a manner, that “the order of nature seemed changed, since years and beauty could be found united.” Ten years before, in 1647, at the age of thirty-five, when Mazarin gave a comedy in the Italian style, that is, an opera, there was in the evening a great ball, and the Duchess de Montbazon was present, adorned with pearls, with a red feather on her head, and so dazzling in her appearance that the whole company was completely ravished. We can imagine what she was in 1643, at the age of thirty-one years.

Of the two conditions of perfect beauty, strength and grace,⁠[237] Madame de Montbazon possessed the first in the highest degree; but this quality being almost alone, or entirely dominant, left something to be desired—that precisely which makes the charm of beauty. She was tall and majestic, to such a point indeed that Tallemant, who always exaggerates, and seldom lies, says: “She was a Colossus.”⁠[238] She possessed all the charms of embonpoint. Her throat reminded one of the fulness, in this particular, of the antique statues, exceeding them perhaps somewhat. What struck the beholder most were her eyes and hair of intense blackness, upon a groundwork of the most dazzling white. Her defect was a nose somewhat too prominent, with a mouth so large as to give her face an appearance of severity.⁠[239] It was plain enough that she was the very opposite of Madame de Longueville. The latter was tall, but not to excess. The richness of her form did not diminish its delicacy. A moderate embonpoint exhibited, in full and exquisite measure, the beauty of the female form. Her eyes were of the softest blue; her hair of the most beautiful blonde. She had the most majestic air, and yet her peculiar characteristic was grace. To these add the great difference of manners and tone. Madame de Longueville was, in her deportment, dignity, politeness, modesty, sweetness itself, with a languor and a nonchalance which formed not her least charm. Her words were few, as well as her gestures; the inflexions of her voice were a perfect music.⁠[240] The excess, into which she never fell, might have been a sort of fastidiousness. Every thing in her was wit, sentiment, charm. Madame de Montbazon, on the contrary, was free of speech, bold and easy in her tone, full of stateliness and pride.

She was nevertheless a very attractive creature, when she wished to be so, and she had a great number of adorers, and of happy adorers, from Gaston, Duke of Orleans, and the Count de Soissons, slain at Marfée, to Rancé, the young and gallant editor of Anacreon, and the future founder of La Trappe. M. de Longueville had been for some time her lover by title, and he afforded her considerable advantages. When he married Mademoiselle de Bourbon, Madame the Princess exacted, without however being very faithfully obeyed, the discontinuance of all intercourse with his old mistress. Hence, in that interested soul, an irritation, which wounded vanity redoubled, when she saw this young woman, with her great name, her marvellous mind, her undefinable charms, advance into the world of gallantry, without the least effort draw after her all hearts, and take possession of, or at least share that empire of beauty of which she was so proud, and which was to her so precious. On the other hand, the Duke de Beaufort had not been able to restrain a passionate admiration for Madame de Longueville, which had been very coldly received. He was wounded by it, and his wound bled for a long time, as his friend, La Châtre, informs us,⁠[241] even after he had transferred his homage to Madame de Montbazon. The latter, as may be easily imagined, was again exasperated. Finally, the Duke de Guise, recently from Paris, placed himself in the party of the Importants, and at the service of Madame de Montbazon, who received him very well, at the same time that she was striving to keep or to recall M. de Longueville, and that she was ruling Beaufort, whose office near her was that, somewhat, of an attending cavalier. Thus we see that Madame de Montbazon disposed, through Beaufort and through Guise, as also through her daughter-in-law, Madame de Chevreuse, of the house of Vendôme, and of the house of Lorraine, and she employed all this credit to the profit of her hatred against Madame de Longueville. She burned to injure her; she found an opportunity to do it.

One day when a large company was assembled at her house, some person picked up two letters, having no signatures, but in the handwriting of a female, and of a somewhat equivocal style. They were read; a thousand jokes were perpetrated concerning them, and some effort made to discover the author. Madame de Montbazon pretended that they had fallen from the pocket of Maurice de Coligny, who had just gone out, and that they were in the handwriting of Madame de Longueville. The word of command thus once given, all the echoes of the party of the Importants spread it, and this adventure became the entertainment of the court. The following are the two letters, found at the house of Madame de Montbazon: a frivolous curiosity has preserved them very faithfully:⁠[242]

I.

“I should much more regret the change in your conduct if I thought myself less worthy of a continuation of your affection. I confess to you that so long as I believed it to be true and warm, mine gave you all the advantages which you could desire. Now, hope nothing more from me than the esteem which I owe to your discretion. I have too much pride to share the passion which you have so often sworn to me, and I desire to punish your negligence in seeing me, in no other way than by depriving you entirely of my society. I request that you will visit me no more, since I have no more the power of commanding your presence.”

II.

“To what conclusion have you come after so long a silence? Do you not know that the same pride which rendered me sensible to your past affection forbids me to endure the false appearances of its continuation! You say that my suspicions and my inequalities render you the most unhappy person in the world: I assure you that I believe no such thing, although I cannot deny that you have perfectly loved me, as you must confess that my esteem has worthily recompensed you. So far we have done each other justice, and I am determined not to have in the end less goodness, if your conduct responds to my intentions. You would find them less unreasonable if you had more passion, and the difficulties of seeing me would only augment instead of diminishing it. I suffer for not loving enough, and you for loving too much.⁠[243] If I must believe you, let us exchange humors: I shall find repose in doing my duty, and you in doing yours must fail, in order to obtain liberty. I do not perceive that I forget the manner in which I passed the winter with you, and that I speak to you as frankly as I have heretofore done. I hope that you will make as good use of it, and that I shall not regret being overcome in the resolution which I have made to return to it no more. I shall remain in my lodgings three or four days in succession, and will be seen only in the evening: you know the reason.”

These letters were not forged. They had been really written by Madame de Fouquerolles to the handsome and elegant Marquis de Maulevrier,⁠[244] who had been foolish enough to drop them in the salon of Madame de Montbazon. Maulevrier, trembling at being discovered, and at having compromised Madame de Fouquerolles, ran to one of the chiefs of the Importants, La Rochefoucauld, who was his friend, confided to him his secret, and begged him to undertake to hush up the affair. La Rochefoucauld made Madame de Montbazon understand that it was for her interest to be generous on this occasion, for the error or fraud would be easily recognized as soon as the writing should be compared with that of Madame de Longueville. Madame de Montbazon placed the original letters in the hands of La Rochefoucauld, who showed them to M. the Prince, and to Madame the Princess, to Madame de Rambouillet, and to Madame Sablé, particular friends of Madame de Longueville, and, the truth being well established, burned them in the presence of the queen, delivering Maulevrier and Madame de Fouquerolles from the terrible uneasiness into which they had been for some time thrown.⁠[245]

It had perhaps been wise to have dropped the matter here. This was the somewhat interested opinion of the weak and prudent M. de Longueville, who wished to manage Madame de Montbazon, and who did not believe that the honor of his wife would gain much by farther disclosures. Madame de Longueville was not very much irritated; but Madame the Princess, impelled by her high spirit, and still intoxicated by the success of her son, exacted a reparation equal to the offence, and declared loudly that, if the queen and the government did not defend the honor of her house, she and all her family would withdraw from the court. She was indignant at the mere idea of placing her daughter in the scales with the granddaughter of a cook, as she called La Varenne, father of the Countess de Vertus, who had been chief of the hôtel of Henri IV. In vain did the whole party of the Importants, with Beaufort and Guise at their head, agitate and threaten; in vain did Madame de Chevreuse, who had not yet lost all her credit with the queen, strive earnestly in behalf of her mother-in-law. Mazarin was too wise to take two enemies upon his arms at once, and to become embroiled with the Condés, without any hope of gaining or disarming the Lorraines and the Vendômes. He inclined the queen without difficulty to the side of Madame the Princess. Madame de Longueville had gone to pass the first moments of this disagreeable adventure at La Barre, with her dear friends, Mesdemoiselles Du Vigean. The queen herself went to see her there, and promised her protection. It was decided that the Duchess de Montbazon should repair to Madame the Princess at the hôtel de Condé, and make to her a public reparation. Madame de Motteville tells, in a very pleasant way, how much diplomacy was necessary in order to arrange the speech of Madame de Montbazon and the reply of Madame the Princess. The queen was in her cabinet, and Madame the Princess, terribly excited, was with her, endeavoring to make the affair one of high-treason. Madame de Chevreuse, engaged for a thousand reasons in the quarrel of her mother-in-law, was with Cardinal Mazarin, composing the speech necessary to be made upon the occasion. Every word of it occasioned an hour’s discussion. The cardinal, greatly embarrassed, went from one side to the other to accommodate their differences, as if this peace was necessary to the happiness of France, and to his own in particular. It was concluded that the criminal should go, the next day, to Madame the Princess, and say that the expressions used in regard to the letters were false, invented by evil-disposed persons, and that she herself had never entertained them, knowing too well the virtue of Madame de Longueville and the respect that was due to her. This harangue was written upon a small piece of paper and attached to her fan, in order that she might repeat it word for word to Madame the Princess. She did it in the most haughty manner possible, putting on an air which seemed to say: I jest in every word I utter.

Mademoiselle⁠[246] gives us the two speeches made upon the occasion: “Madame, I come here to protest to you that I am innocent of the wickedness of which I have been accused: no person of honor can utter a calumny like this. If I had committed a fault like this, I should have submitted to any punishment which it might have pleased the queen to inflict upon me; I should have never shown myself in the world, and would have asked your pardon. I beg you to believe that I shall never fail in the respect which I owe to you and in the opinion which I have of the virtue and of the merit of Madame de Longueville.” Madame the Princess replied: “Madame, I receive very willingly the assurance which you give me that you have had no part in the wicked things that have been circulated; I have too much respect for the commands of the queen.”

We find in the manuscript journal of Olivier d’Ormesson some details which add to the piquancy of this comical scene. It took place on the 8th of August. The Cardinal Mazarin was present, as a witness on the part of the queen. Madame de Montbazon having begun her speech without saying Madame, the princess complained, and she was obliged to recommence with the respectful addition. Such a reconciliation amounted to nothing, and a few days after war recommenced.

Besides the satisfaction which she had just received, Madame the Princess had asked and had been permitted the privilege of never associating with the Duchess de Montbazon. Some time after, Madame de Chevreuse invited the queen to a collation in the garden of Renard. This garden was the rendezvous of the best society. It was at the termination of the Tuileries, near the Porte de la Conférence, which conducted to the Cours-la-Reine; that is, at the left angle of the Place Louis XV., upon the ground since occupied by two of those ditches which even to this day have spoiled that magnificent place which might so easily be rendered the most beautiful in Europe. In the summer, on returning from the Cours, which was the promenade of the nobility, and the spot where the beauties of the day exercised their powers, it was customary to stop at the garden Renard, for the purpose of taking refreshments, and to listen to the serenades performed after the Spanish fashion. The queen took great pleasure in visiting this place during the fine summer evenings. She desired Madame the Princess to partake with her the collation offered by Madame de Chevreuse, assuring her at the same time that Madame de Montbazon would not be present; but the latter person was really there, and even pretended to do the honors of the collation as mother-in-law of the lady who gave it. Madame the Princess wished to withdraw, in order that the entertainment might not be disturbed: the queen had no right whatever to detain her. She therefore begged Madame de Montbazon to pretend sickness, and by leaving the company, to relieve her from embarrassment. The haughty duchess would not consent to fly before her enemy, and kept her place. The queen, offended, refused the collation, and quitted the promenade. On the morrow, an order from the king enjoined upon Madame de Montbazon to leave Paris. This disgrace irritated the Importants. They thought themselves humiliated and enfeebled, and there were no violent or extreme measures which they did not contemplate. The Duke de Beaufort, smitten at once in his credit and in his love, raised loud cries, and it was reported that a plot had been formed against the life of Mazarin.⁠[247] In this conjuncture the cardinal showed himself the worthy heir of Richelieu. Although he may have lacked his patience, his cunning, and his intrigue, he was not deprived of courage, and he knew how to take his part. He was already on very good terms with the queen, and began to seem necessary, or at least very useful to her. He represented to her mildly, but forcibly, what she owed to the State and to the royal authority now menaced; that it was necessary to prefer the interests of her son and of his crown to friendships which were perhaps at one time well enough, but which were now becoming dangerous. He won her, and the ruin of the Importants was decided. On the 2d of September, the Duke de Beaufort was arrested within the very walls of the Louvre, and he was conducted to Vincennes. The command of the Swiss was taken from his friend, La Châtre. The Bishop de Beauvais, who for a short time enjoyed the favor of the queen, and was thought of as the successor of Richelieu, was sent to his church; the Duke de Vendôme, as well as the Duke de Mercœur, his eldest son, were exiled, and Madame de Chevreuse banished to Tours. These measures, seasonably executed, broke up the party of the Importants. The intestine disorders which menaced the new reign were destined to await more favorable days. Mazarin, soon without a rival with the queen, continued at home and especially abroad the policy of his predecessor, and royalty, as well as France, anticipated a succession of glorious years, thanks to the union of the princes of the blood with the crown, to the skilful management of the prime minister, to the prudence of Condé, and to the military genius of the Duke d’Enghien.

The latter had returned to Paris at the close of the campaign, after having taken Thionville and several other places, and brought his victorious army over the Rhine. The queen had received him as the deliverer of France. Mazarin, who thought more of the reality than of the appearance of power, told him that his greatest ambition was to be his chaplain and his business man with the queen. At a distance the Duke d’Enghien had applauded all that had been done, and he returned still burning for Mademoiselle Du Vigean, and furious on account of the insult which had been offered to his sister. He adored his sister, and he loved Coligny. He was acquainted with, and he had favored his passion. Burning himself with a love as ardent as it was chaste, he knew that his sister could not have been insensible to the passion of Maurice; but he revolted at the thought of attributing to her the letters of one Madame de Fouquerolles, and he took it in a manner which intimidated the most insolent.

Among the friends of the Duke de Beaufort and of Madame de Montbazon, was the Duke de Guise, afterwards chief of the house of Lorraine in France. He had been secured, as well as all his family, on account of Gaston, Duke of Orleans, who had taken, as a second wife, a princess of this house, the beautiful Marguerite.⁠[248] The Duke de Guise was such as we have described him. He had committed more than one folly, but he had not yet shamefully failed in all his enterprises; his incapacity was not declared. He had all the prestige of his name, of youth, of beauty, and of a bravery bordering upon temerity. The avowed servant of Madame de Montbazon, he had espoused her quarrel, without entering into the violence of Beaufort, and he stood boldly up before the victorious Condés.

Coligny had been prudent enough to withdraw during the storm, for fear of still more compromising Madame de Longueville by becoming openly her defender; but some months having passed, he thought that he might show himself, and, as we are informed by the unpublished work upon the regency, which we have several times quoted,⁠[249] “the prison of the Duke de Beaufort not affording him an opportunity to draw his sword, he addressed himself to the Duke de Guise.” La Rochefoucauld states it thus:⁠[250] “The Duke d’Enghien, not being able to testify to the Duke de Beaufort, who was in prison, the resentment which he felt on account of what had happened between Madame de Longueville and Madame de Montbazon, suffered Coligny to fight with the Duke de Guise, who had taken part in this affair.” The Duke d’Enghien knew, then, and approved what Coligny did. As for Madame de Longueville, it is absurd to suppose that she, wishing to be avenged, drove on Coligny, for every one attributes to her a conduct very moderate compared with that of Madame the Princess. Far from encouraging the quarrel, she sought to appease it, and Madame de Motteville herself refutes the report which she relates by saying: “Her jealousy of the Duchess de Montbazon, being proportioned to her love for her husband, did not carry her away so far as to prevent her from finding her advantage in dissembling this outrage.”

La Rochefoucauld gives us a piece of information which explains what follows: Coligny had just risen from a long sickness; he was still feeble, and he was not very skilful in fencing.⁠[251] It was in this condition that he attacked the Duke de Guise, who, like all fancy heroes, possessed great skill in this kind of exercise.

Let us say a few words in regard to the seconds whom they chose; they are in all respects worthy of the trouble. The seconds were then witnesses who fought. Coligny took for his second and for the bearer of his challenge, Godefroi, Count d’Estrades, a man of cool and well-tried courage. D’Estrades had served in Holland, under Maurice de Nassau. He had distinguished himself in several such encounters. One day, as Tallemant relates, fighting with a bully who placed himself on the border of a little ditch, saying to Estrades: “I will not pass over this ditch.” “And I,” said Estrades, making a mark behind him with his sword, “I will not pass over this mark.” They fought; Estrades slew him. He was employed, by turns and with equal success, in war and in diplomacy, and became Marshal of France in 1675. The second of the Duke de Guise was the Marquis de Bridieu, a gentleman of Limosin, a brave officer, and friend of the house of Lorraine, who, in 1650, made an admirable defence of an important stronghold on the frontiers of Flanders, against the Spanish army and against Turenne, for which he was created lieutenant-general.⁠[252]

It was agreed that the affair should take place at the Place-Royale—the usual theatre of these combats, and which they had a thousand times stained with the best blood. The Place-Royale was also the residence of the greatest ladies, the flower of gallantry, Marguerite de Rohan, Madame de Guimenée, Madame de Chaulnes, Madame de Saint-Géran, Madame de Sablé, the Countess de Maure, and many others, under whose eyes these thoughtless and valiant gentlemen delighted to cross their swords. Many had there breathed their last. In the first quarter of the seventeenth century, duelling was a custom at once useful and disastrous; it encouraged the warlike spirit of the nobility, but it was almost as destructive as war, and for more frivolous causes. To draw the sword for a trifle had become a part of genteel manners, and, as gallantry had its elegancies, so the duel had its refinements. During the period of a few short years, nine hundred gentlemen had perished in private combats. To arrest this scourge, Richelieu procured the terrible decree which punished the surviving combatant with death, and sent the abettors from the Place-Royale to the Place de Grève. Richelieu was inflexible, and the example of Montmorency-Boutteville—decapitated, with his second, the Count Deschapelles, for having provoked Beuvron, and for fighting with him on the Place-Royale in full day—impressed a salutary terror, and rendered infractions of the edict rare enough. Coligny braved every thing; he challenged Guise, and, upon the appointed day, the two noble adversaries, assisted by their seconds, d’Estrades and Bridieu, met upon the Place-Royale.

We have it in our power to give the most minute details of the combat, thanks to different contemporary memoirs, and especially to two new documents, the manuscript already quoted in regard to the Regency, and the unpublished journal of Olivier d’Ormesson.

It was on the morning of the 12th of December⁠[253] that d’Estrades carried to the Duke de Guise the challenge of Coligny. The meeting was fixed for the same day, at the Place-Royale, at three⁠[254] o’clock. The two adversaries exhibited nothing unusual during the whole morning, and at three o’clock they were at the rendezvous. A speech⁠[255] is attributed to the Duke de Guise, which gives to this scene an unexpected grandeur, which exhibits upon the Place-Royale and places in hostility for the last time the two most illustrious combatants of the wars of the League in the persons of their descendants. On receiving his sword, Guise said to Coligny: “We are now going to decide the ancient quarrels of our two houses, and the world shall soon see what difference there is between the blood of the Guise and that of Coligny.” Coligny aimed at his adversary a prodigious thrust, says the journal of d’Ormesson,⁠[256] but, still weak on account of his recent sickness, his foot failed him, and he fell upon his knee. Guise, closing with him, placed his foot upon the sword of the fallen man. Coligny, though thus disarmed, would not ask his life. Guise said to him:⁠[257] “I will not kill you, but treat you as you deserve, for having addressed, without any provocation, a prince of my birth;” and thereupon he struck him with the flat of his sword.⁠[258] Coligny, indignant, summoned all his strength, threw himself backwards, disengaged his sword, and renewed the struggle.⁠[259] In this second encounter, Guise was slightly wounded in the shoulder,⁠[260] and Coligny in the hand; but Guise, closing with Coligny a second time, seized his sword, by which he cut his hand somewhat, and, taking it away, disabled him by a terrible cut upon the arm. At the same time d’Estrades and Bridieu were sorely wounded.⁠[261]

Such was the issue of this duel, the last, I believe, of the celebrated duels of the Place-Royale. It was referred to Parliament, agreeably to the edict of Richelieu; but the course of justice was stayed by the influence of Condé, and especially by the deplorable condition⁠[262] into which Coligny, the most guilty party, had been thrown. The proof that an understanding existed between Condé and Coligny is based upon the fact that the latter found an asylum in his house of Saint-Maur. There he languished some time,⁠[263] and died of the mortification occasioned by his poor defence of the cause of his own house and of that of Madame de Longueville.

This affair, with its dramatic circumstances and its tragic dénouement, caused an extraordinary and painful sensation throughout Paris and all France. It renewed, for a moment, the differences of parties, and suspended the diversions and fêtes of the winter of 1644;⁠[264] it did not occupy the families interested and the court alone—it touched every individual of the higher ranks, and continued for some time to be the subject of conversation for the salons. We easily imagine that, as the story spread, it was gradually lengthened by imaginary incidents. At first, it was supposed that Madame de Longueville loved Coligny. Then, that the tale might not lack interest, it was asserted that she did. Hence the other invention, that she herself had placed the sword in the hand of Coligny, and that d’Estrades, commissioned to challenge the Duke de Guise, having told Coligny that the duke would disavow the injurious words that had been attributed to him, and thus satisfy honor, Coligny had replied to him: “This has nothing to do with the matter; I have promised Madame de Longueville to fight him at the Place-Royale, and I cannot fail to do it.”⁠[265] It would not do to spoil so fine a tale, and Madame de Longueville would not have been the sister of the conqueror of Rocroy, a heroine worthy of being compared with those of Spain, who saw their lovers dying at their feet in tourneys, if she had not been present at the combat of Guise and Coligny. We are assured then that on the 12th of December she was in a hôtel of the Place-Royale, at the Duchess de Rohan’s, and that there, concealed by a window-curtain, she witnessed the terrible encounter.

Then, as at the present day, it was poetry, that is, song, which placed the seal upon the popularity of an event. When the event was sad, the song was a complaint full of burlesque pathos, and always ridiculous. Such was that which, upon this occasion, ran through every circle, and was really sung, for we find it in the Collection of noted Songs of the Arsenal:⁠[266]