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THE political importance of the Princess Palatine dates from 1650, when the arrest of Cond?, Conti, and the Duke de Longueville urged her, as we have seen, to take part in the struggles of the Fronde. The Duchesses de Chevreuse, De Montbazon, De Gu?m?n?, and other famous feminine factionists of that time, became, in the hands of Anne de Gonzagua, as so many wires with which she moved at her will the men whom these women governed; for the Princess exercised alike over all those men and women that superiority which disinterestedness, good faith, and firmness of decision confer. De Retz, when he discovered her characteristics, was immediately struck with the above-named qualities, especially the two latter. "To have stability of purpose," said he, when speaking of his first interview with Anne, "is a rare quality, which indicates an enlightened mind far above the ordinary class." And further on, "I do not think," he remarks, "that Queen Elizabeth had more capacity to govern a state." Mazarin, too, somewhat later, in alluding to the dread in which he held the famous trio of political women for their capacity to work mischief, remarked to Don Louis de Haro:--"The most turbulent of the male politicians do not give us half so much trouble to keep them within bounds as the intrigues of a Duchess de Chevreuse or a Princess Palatine."

Anne de Gonzagua, the Princess Palatine, lived long after the Fronde in the midst of all sorts of political troubles and diplomatic intrigues: conferences innumerable were held beneath her roof, and in that tortuous labyrinth she wandered and manoeuvred to her heart's delight. Sometimes she laboured to reconcile Cond? with Anne of Austria, sometimes to reunite Gaston and Cond?, or perhaps the Queen and Madame de Longueville. She often failed, it is true, in these attempts, and meanwhile Mazarin, with more address, setting in motion in his retreat beyond the frontier the most powerful machinery, and making magnificent promises, again appeared above the political horizon--winning over his enemies one after another through his secret agents; at one time it was Ch?teauneuf, at another Gondi, whom he made for good and all a cardinal; at another it was Madame de Chevreuse. He had passed his word to the Princess Palatine that he would some day give her the post of superintendent of the young Queen's household: he did so, in fact, but on condition that she should relinquish it two months later to the Countess de Soissons, which she did in all good faith. Then she withdrew from court, somewhat undeceived no doubt touching men and things therein, if it really were the case that she ever had indulged in great illusions concerning court life.

Such a sight must have moved the least susceptible--to have beheld the Palatine thus redeem her past errors. She was anxious to write with her own hand the account of her conversion, and addressed it to the celebrated Ranc?, the Abb? of La Trappe. It was from that narrative that Bossuet drew the source of his own. Some few years previously, with that polished and elegant vein which intercourse with so many superior minds tends to create, she had written, as though she had foreseen that she would not despair of her spiritual future, a short but charming panegyric upon Hope. Bussy-Rabutin has preserved this relic in one of his letters. "I have never in my life," he says, with no doubt a little too much enthusiasm, "seen anything better or more delicately written." There is to be found in it, it is true, a happy inspiration and a passage capable of pleasing minds struggling with difficulties. "It is permitted to us," she says, "to measure our hope by our courage, it is noble to sustain it amidst trials; but it is not less glorious to suffer the entire ruin of it with the same high-heartedness which had dared to conceive it." Those are noble sentiments, and revealing a vigorous mental power. The end of the Princess Palatine showed clearly that she had not, for the mere pleasure of expressing herself elegantly, vaunted the delights of a saint-like hope. "Ready to render up her soul," says Bossuet, "she was heard to utter in dying accents, 'I am about to see how God will treat me, but I hope for His mercy.'" Such was the close of that life, the piety of which illuminated its latter years; such was the death of that Princess who, after having been remarkable among the women of her time for her beauty, her errors, and, at last, by her penitence, had the rare good fortune to be praised by the most illustrious of historians, priests, and authors of the great century.

Our notice of this celebrated woman would be incomplete without a passing glance at the singular fortunes of Henri de Guise, subsequent to his desertion of his first love, Anne de Gonzagua.

MADAME DE MONTBAZON.

AMONGST the celebrated women of the first half of the seventeenth century, many were, says Bussy Rabutin, "pitiable," whilst some were "brazen." We must assert unhesitatingly that Madame de Montbazon belonged to the latter class. She was "one of those personages, however, who made the most noise" at the courts of Louis the Thirteenth and Anne of Austria, as we are told by Madame de Motteville, and as we have already seen by the prominent political part she played in the factions of the Importants and the Fronde. In summing up her character, we shall be silent upon the subject of many of her faults, though it is not our wish to excuse one of them.

"She was not wanting in wit," remarks Tallemant; "for she had been acquainted with so many witty people!" There is a spice of flattery in this, for we must agree with Madame de Motteville and M. Cousin that the wit of the dazzling rival of Madame de Longueville was far from being as delicate and attractive as was her handsome person, though we cannot at the same time look upon Tallemant's phrase as a calumny. Both space and courage would alike fail us, should we attempt to produce a list of all the lovers, titled and untitled, who had peculiar opportunities of sharpening the wit of Madame de Montbazon.

But, passing rapidly over the errors of her youth, it is the close of Madame de Montbazon's political career with which we are now concerned. The influence which the gay and gallant Duchess long exercised over the Duke de Beaufort had sometimes proved useful to the interests of the Court, and during the early troubles of the Fronde the Queen and Mazarin took care to keep her favourably disposed towards them. But the importance which Beaufort's infatuated passion gave or seemed to give her, speedily made the Duchess one of the heroines of the Fronde--though, it must be owned, one of the secondary heroines. Her allies were careful not to allow her to take upon herself a part she was unable to sustain. Violent, unreflecting, accessible to the most contradictory suggestions, ready for any turn, and the sport of every caprice, she was wanting in all the better qualities of a political woman. Her indiscretion became formidable on all occasions when secresy was necessary, and more than once the Duke de Beaufort was obliged to be excluded from the assemblages at which the chiefs of the Fronde took counsel together. It was well known that he dare not keep anything from his mistress, and it might chance that a royalist might turn to account the confidence which she wormed out of her lover, for conformity in political sentiments was not one of the conditions which she imposed upon the adorers whose homage she welcomed. Her correspondence with Marshal d'Albret exposed her moreover to be subject to, without being aware of it, the influences of the Court, and her intimacy with Vineuil tended to make her an ally, in spite of herself, of the Prince de Cond?. Hence it is easy to explain the mistrust with which she inspired the Coadjutor of Paris, the future Cardinal de Retz. She herself did not fail to perceive the surveillance which he exercised around her; and she was irritated to see with what facility he modified in his own fashion the line of conduct which she had just previously dictated to the Duke de Beaufort. She was forced to confess that his authority prevailed over her own. One evening, disheartened by the incapacity of the grandson of the great Henry, and terrified by the dangers to which their imprudence exposed the Frondeurs, and esteeming the political talent of Gondi to be more truly worthy of her own, she opened her heart to him, and proposed that they should enter into a treaty of alliance. The gallant Coadjutor would only consent to accept one portion of the treaty, and, happily for the Duke de Beaufort, who was busily occupied with a game at chess during that strange conversation, he stipulated to eliminate from the proposed association everything that related to politics. But the Duchess would not consent to those terms.

In love, Madame de Montbazon was very mercenary; we say it once for all, and beg to be excused from citing proof of the assertion. In politics, she also surrendered herself very willingly to any representation the eloquence of which was aided by crowns or pistoles. It was thus that in the month of August, 1649, she promised that the Duke de Beaufort should not oppose the return of the Court, at the same moment that she opened her hand to receive a considerable sum. It was thus that, the same year, she accepted two thousand pistoles from the Spanish envoys, who, desirous of rendering her favourable, promised besides that the sum of twenty thousand crowns and a pension of six thousand livres if she would secure to them the concurrence of the Duke de Beaufort. But she did not always meet with debtors so honest as Mazarin and the Spanish ambassadors. In 1650, whilst the treaty was preparing which sought to unite the Frondeurs with the Princes, then prisoners at Havre, a negotiation was entered into with Madame de Montbazon in which the Prince de Conti was offered to her as a husband for her daughter. The proposition was not accepted. The proposers were not discouraged, and a sum of a hundred thousand crowns was offered to her. This time the Duchess could not resist, and the treaty was signed in all due form. Unfortunately, when the Princes were liberated, she was imprudent enough to confide her voucher to the Princess Palatine, who, with perfidious haste, had promised to take care of her interests. She never saw the precious contract again, and the Prince de Cond? only answered her demands by cruel and cutting jeers. In that adventure, it was not Madame de Montbazon who played the shabbiest part.

The aid which the Duchess had often lent the Court amidst intrigues the most contradictory, did not preserve her from exile when the King made his entry into Paris, on its definite pacification in October, 1652. She did not return thither till 1657. "She was still beautiful, and as much carried away by vanity as though she had been only in her twenty-fifth year," says Madame de Motteville, when noting her reappearance. "She relied all the same upon her charms," she adds with a somewhat malicious finesse, "for she returned with the same desire of pleasing; and those who saw her assured me that the mourning garb which she wore as a widow, and to which she added everything in the shape of ornament that self-love could suggest, rendered her so charming, that in her case it might be said that the course of nature was changed, since so many years and so much beauty could meet together." Thus, by dint of care and art, did Madame de Montbazon succeed in preserving her beauty much longer than she could have hoped for, since, in the pride of her eighteen summers, she declared that old age commenced at thirty, and requested it as a favour that she might be flung into the river and drowned so soon as she reached the dreaded period. Who would have dared to remind her of that imprudent proposal in 1640? And who could have refused her a respite even in the latter moments of her existence?

The same sentiments were thus versified by Loret, when announcing that the Duchess had obtained permission to return to Court:

"Montbazon, la belle douairi?re, Dont les appas et la lumi?re Sous de lugubres v?tements Paraissent encore plus charmants...."

Permission had scarcely been given her to appear at Court, when she was attacked by an illness which seemed nothing more than a common cold, but which turned out to be the measles. In the course of a few days the malady proved fatal. Three hours only were accorded to this earthly-minded woman to prepare for death. She made confession and received the sacrament with every indication of the most lively piety and the most sincere repentance, saying to her daughter, the Abbess of Caen, "that she regretted not having always lived in a cloister as she had, and that she looked with horror upon her past life." Up to those last three hours, she had refused to believe that there were degrees in the morality of women, and to admit that they were not all equally virtuous.

"She was little regretted by the Queen," Madame de Motteville tells us, "as she had frequently forsaken her interests to follow her own caprices. The minister heard of her death with the feeling one entertains for one's deceased enemy. Her former lovers looked upon her with contempt; and those who admired her still, were but little touched at her loss, because each, jealous of his rival, left tears and grief as the share of the Duke de Beaufort, who was at that moment the most beloved."

On that point Madame de Motteville was in error. Which of the two--M. de Beaufort or M. de Ranc?--was most beloved it would be difficult to determine. But this is so far certain, that M. de Ranc?, the future founder of La Trappe, was the lover who regretted her the most sincerely. He had hastened to her sick couch so soon as he heard of her illness; and he had arrived, not too late, and only to find himself the spectator of a most horrible sight, as has frequently been related with much romantic and dramatic detail, but soon enough to pass within her chamber the last hours left to her of life. "Already balancing and wrestling between heaven and this world," says Saint Simon, who was in his confidence, "the sight of that so sudden death achieved in him the determination of withdrawing from the world which he had for some time meditated."

Among the different versions of this catastrophe, Laroque asserts that, after an absence on a long journey, on De Ranc?'s return, he called at the H?tel Montbazon, and then learned, for the first time, the death of the Duchess; that he was shown into her room, where, to his horror, the headless body lay in its coffin. The head had been cut off, either because the lead coffin was not made long enough or for the purpose of an anatomical study. Some assert that De Ranc? took the head, and that the skull of the woman he loved so well was found in his cell at La Trappe. History, however, will not accept this romantic incident.

MADEMOISELLE DE MONTPENSIER.

The daughter of Gaston d'Orl?ans and the charming Marie de Bourbon, she was born in 1627, the same year as Bossuet and Mad. de S?vign?. Her mother died five days after her birth.

Heroic or frivolous, Mademoiselle expiated her pranks by an exile of four years in her manor of Saint-Fargeau. The rupture with her father, who drove her out of doors, and denied her permission to take refuge under any other roof he owned, her consequent wanderings, at times not a little affecting, and at others comical, when directing her steps towards her place of banishment, her arrival at the ruinous ch?teau which has neither doors nor windows, and which is haunted by ghosts, and the attempts to embellish the tumble-down place, and people it with gaiety, animation, and life, are so many scenes to which the piquant style of Mademoiselle gives singular attractiveness. Whilst avenues were being planted and a theatre built, matrimonial negotiations went on as briskly as ever, and pretenders to her hand abounded--the Elector of Bavaria, the Duke of Savoy, the nephew of the Duke of Lorraine, the Duke de Neuborg. The reception of M. de Neuborg's envoy, an honest Jesuit, who draws out of his pocket victoriously two portraits of his good lord, ogles Mademoiselle as long as he could, and talks "goguette" to her for a whole hour, is one of the most amusing farces anywhere to be met with. Unluckily, the farce was not worth the candle in the opinion of certain judges, and all the diversions of Saint-Fargeau did not prevent our princess from regretting with all her heart that pompous Court of Versailles in which the young Louis was giving such graceful ballets, brilliant carousals, and piquant masquerades. The masquerades of 1657 carried the day over the political aims of 1652, and the fair exile experienced a vivid longing to be once more received into favour at the court of her royal cousin.

To take up sword or pen and fall foul of the government was almost always an easy thing to do in France; the difficulty lay in proposing peace after the war, to hit upon profitable reconciliations or lucrative treaties. Mademoiselle did her best; and at length, in that same year of 1657, she made her appearance in the royal camp near Sedan, having at her carriage-door the silly and complaisant Mazarin, who believed all she wished him to believe, and who presented the princess with a little Boulogne bitch, in token of good friendship; she made her excuses to the King for having been naughty, and promised to be wise in future. Louis behaved more graciously towards the fair rebel than did his mother, and said that everything should be buried in oblivion; but he did not forget the cannonade of the Bastille. After five years' seclusion, she again looked forward to resume her position at Court, to keep one of her own, to enthrone herself at the Luxembourg, and doubtless contract some sovereign alliance. Vain illusions! Conflicts of the heart were about to succeed to those political storms from whose effects she had just recovered. The most vainglorious of the daughters of France was destined to extinguish with the wet blanket of vile prose the brilliancy of a long and romantic career.

Two things, however, were necessary to accomplish this: firstly, that M. de Lauzun should thoroughly understand that he was beloved, and that he would deign to espouse Mademoiselle's twenty-two millions; and next that King Louis should consent to a marriage, the strangest certainly ever resolved upon. Strange, indeed, that she, the grand-daughter of Henry the Great, Mademoiselle d'Eu, Mademoiselle de Dombes, Mademoiselle d'Orl?ans, Mademoiselle the King's first cousin, the Mademoiselle destined to the throne, should ask the King's permission to marry a Gascon cadet. Louis, as the sequel to an overture made to him by several nobles collectively, friends of Lauzun, with M. de Montausier at their head, granted his permission. But when the question arose, thanks to the blind vanity of Lauzun, of their union being celebrated at the Louvre and in the face of all France, like an alliance "of crown to crown;" when a feeling which was shared by every member of the royal house was on the point of communicating itself to all the sovereign families of Europe, Louis, with great reason, began to take account of the political interests which this whim of the Princess brought into play, and retracted, as King, the authority which he had given as head of a family. Contemporary writers seem never tired of dwelling upon the manifestations of Mademoiselle's grief, at times as laughable as at others it was touching; receiving the condolence of all the Court as though she had been a lone widow, Madame de S?vign? tells us, and exclaiming excitedly in her despair to every fresh visitor, as she pointed to the vacant place in her bed, "He should be there! he should be there!"

This took place on the 18th of December, 1670. On the 25th of November, 1671, M. de Lauzun was arrested, thrown into the Bastille, and taken thence to Pignerol, where he was subjected to a captivity of ten years. What passed in that interval has proved a great subject of controversy amongst ingenious writers. The most probable explanation seems to be that, notwithstanding the King's refusal, the marriage between Lauzun and Mademoiselle had been accomplished. The evidence of twenty different persons might be cited in support of the fact, but one may suffice. An historian of the last century, M. Anquetil, relates that at the Ch?teau d'Eu, in 1774, an apartment was still pointed out which had been occupied by Lauzun, situated above that of the princess, and communicating by a secret staircase with her alcove. At the same period, Anquetil saw at Treport a tall person resembling Mademoiselle not only in her figure, but strikingly like her portraits. She seemed to be about seventy or seventy-five. She was called, throughout that part of the country, the Princess's daughter. She seemed to believe so herself, and was in receipt of a pension of fifteen hundred francs paid punctually, without knowing from what quarter they came. She occupied a handsome house for which she paid no rent, although for it she held no proprietary deed. All this, coupled with the age of the lady, who stated that she was born in 1671, would seem decisive as to the clandestine marriage which probably occasioned the arrest of Lauzun.

Ten years of anguish and poignant regrets passed over poor Mademoiselle's head--ten years employed in imploring and bargaining for the restoration of her dearly beloved captive. "Consider what you have it in your power to do to please the King, in order that he may grant you that which you have so much at heart," was the artful suggestion daily repeated in her ear by Madame de Montespan. And to render the discovery more easy, she took care to bring with her, and to send to her very frequently, that charming little Duke du Maine to whom the county of Eu, the duchy of Aumale, and the principality of Dombes would have been a fitting appanage. To despoil herself for the deliverance of the man she loved with such an infatuated affection, the Princess would not have hesitated a moment. The difficulty was to despoil the man himself, already in possession of a portion of what was required, and very keen-witted indeed to keep what he had acquired. The negotiation, for a long while brought to a dead-lock by the resistance of Lauzun, was at length concluded. M. de Lauzun, emerged from Pignerol, but restricted at first to a residence in Touraine or Anjou, received at length permission to revisit Paris and behold once more the benefactress who could still secure to him the enjoyment of an income of forty thousand livres. "I did not know him," exclaimed the woebegone Princess, shortly after his release, "and my sole consolation is that the King, who is more clear-sighted than I am, did not know him either." Tardy clear-sightedness! M. de Lauzun had then made himself known unmistakably--by beating her. But, if the truth must be told, she had first scratched his face.

THE WIFE OF THE GREAT COND?.

AMONG so many heroines of beauty, glory, and gallantry, who achieved celebrity at this stirring epoch of French history, there is one whose name ought not to be effaced from, nor placed lowest on the list, although a humble--we were going to say, a humiliated, disdained, and sacrificed wife; a martyr to conjugal faith, but who, perhaps, can scarcely be called a "political" woman.

Mademoiselle de Br?z?, as already intimated, had entered into the Cond? family through the detestable influence of authority and politics. The Duke d'Enghien, therefore, unhappily held his wife in aversion; her mother-in-law, Charlotte de Montmorency, despised her; Madame de Longueville, her sister-in-law, did not esteem her; Mademoiselle de Montpensier declares that "she felt pity for her," and that was the gentlest phrase she could find to apply to a person who had so signally crossed her views and inclination.

Did the young Duchess personally merit that aversion and contempt? Mademoiselle has told us, indeed, that she was awkward, and that, "on the score of wit and beauty, she had nothing above the common run." But Madame de Motteville, less passionate and more disinterested in her judgments, recognises certain advantages possessed by her. "She was not plain," she tells us, "but had fine eyes, a good complexion, and a pretty figure. She spoke well when she was in the humour to talk." The discerning court lady adds that, "if Madame de Cond? did not always display a talent for pleasing in the ball-room or in conversation, the fidelity with which she clung to her husband during adversity, and the zeal she showed for his interests and for those of her son during the Guienne campaign, ought to compensate for the misfortune of not having been able to merit, by more eminent virtues, a more brilliant and widely celebrated reputation."

Whatever might have been the personal merit of the wife of the great Cond?, did the little she had justify the wretchedness of her destiny? No: some beauty, wit, virtue, courage, a timid disposition perhaps, an unpretending virtue, a courage even mediocre, easily overthrown, and which needed the pressure of circumstances and danger for its development,--in all this there was nothing to invoke the ire of the implacable sisters.

In contemplating her truly deplorable existence, afflicted from its beginning to its end by every kind of grief and humiliation, one can scarcely resist the idea of the ascendency of an invincible fatality, making her a victim of the irresistible force of events and destiny. The woes of Claire de Br?z? commenced in her earliest childhood. At the time of her marriage to the Duke d'Enghien she had lost her mother some six years, that parent having died in 1635. What befell her infancy, abandoned to the neglect of a fantastic and libertine father, ruled even before his widowhood by a mistress, the wife of one of his lacqueys, whom he killed one day during a hunting match in order to get him out of the way; of a father who, Tallemant tells us, carelessly remarked, when his daughter's marriage was agreed upon--as though she belonged to some one else--"They are going to make a princess of that little girl!"

Lenet.

We have already seen the result of that three months' resistance--the peace concluded at Bordeaux, the amnesty accorded to all those who had taken up arms in Guienne, in a word, all the conditions proposed by the Princess and the Dukes conceded, with the exception of one only--the principal, that which had been the prime cause of all that insurrection--the deliverance of the Prince de Cond?, whom Mazarin persisted in retaining prisoner, whilst at the same time promising to do everything towards abridging his captivity.

But later, when the campaign at Bordeaux had ended, the Prince still a prisoner at Havre, forwarding a communication in cypher to Lenet, added thereto a short note for the Princess, couched in terms so tender that Lenet, fearing lest in the exuberance of her delight the Princess might betray the secret of that correspondence, hesitated for some moments to communicate it to her. That note, the first and sole recompense of her devotion, courage, and constancy, we must here transcribe, as the tardy and begrudging compensation for such long-continued ingratitude, such long-continued disdain, for so many cruel and unmerited outrages.

"Il me tard, Madame, que je sois en ?tat de vous embrasser mil fois pour toute l'amiti? que vous m'avez temoign?, qui m'est d'autant plus sensible que ma conduite envers vous l'avoit peu m?rit?e; mais je s?auray si bien vivre avec vous ? l'advenir, que vous ne vous repentir?s pas de tout ce que vous av?s faict to me pour moy, qui fera que je seray toute ma vie tout ? vous et de tout mon coeur."

Poor Cl?mence de Maill?! how, at that first testimony of an affection which she had despaired of ever gaining, did her heart, so long pent up, burst forth with ecstatic delight! And how must Lenet, on witnessing that touching effusion of irrepressible rapture, have congratulated himself at not having persevered in his diplomatic prudence! She took the letter, shed tears over it, kissed it, read it over and over again, and tried to get it by heart--for she might lose it. Then she selected from her toilette her finest ribbon , and sewed that precious missive to it, in order to carry it always upon her person, beneath her dress--upon her chemise, Lenet bluntly tells us, and who adds that that gush of delirious delight lasted until the morrow.

At length a tragic event, the consequences of which exhibit in a sinister light the perseverance of ill-feeling that had always been shown towards her in the family of which she had become a member, came to add itself to that almost unbroken chain of tribulations, outrages, and troubles amid which no sort of calamity seemed wanting. Two officers of her household took it into their heads to quarrel and draw swords upon each other. The Princess placed herself between the angry combatants with the intention of separating them, and by so doing received a stab in her side. The individual who inflicted the wound was brought to trial. As for her,

M?moires of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, 4th part.

Was it the hereditary avarice of the house of Cond? which thus revealed itself in the odious sentiment of that unworthy son? Poor woman! Her only crime was that of being too liberal. She had, it is true, foolishly placed her diamonds in pledge at Bordeaux to support the cost of the war. But had she not, as a set-off to her prodigality, brought to the Duke d'Enghien and his father her share of Richelieu's wealth? That prudent advice of the excellent son was followed: the Princess was still a prisoner at Ch?teauroux, when the Prince her husband died, in 1686; and by way of a precaution--which cannot be thought of without a shudder, giving as it does the measure of an implacable hatred--he recommended that she should be so kept after his decease. This once, Mademoiselle did find a word of pity for the persecuted wife and mother. "I could have wished," says she, when speaking of the last moments of the Prince, "that he had not prayed the King to let his wife always be kept at Ch?teauroux, and I was very sorry for it...."

And it was there, doubtless, that she died in 1694, at the age of sixty-six. The collections of funeral orations and sermons of celebrated preachers of that day will be searched in vain for any funeral tribute to her memory. And a feeling of disappointment arises that Bossuet, in his panegyric of the hero, could not find a word of praise, of consolation, or even of pity for the ill-fated shadow he left sorrowful and abandoned by all, to bear his name in pitiless obscurity to the grave.

Mysterious destiny! strange fatality! which neither personal demerits, wrongs, nor faults justified, which neither love, devotedness, nor unfailing virtue, approved and respected even by the calumnious, could avert.

THE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH.

VERY little is known for certain concerning the antecedents of Louise Querouaille before she figured at the Court of France as one of the maids of honour to the unfortunate Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, sister of Charles the Second of England. The contemporaries of the merry monarch, witnesses and censors of his political errors, in tracing them to their source, have attributed them primarily to the foreign favourite, who was, more than any other of the many mistresses of that Prince, odious in the eyes of the English people.

At the commencement of 1670, the splendour and corruption of the French Court had reached their acme. The seraglio of the great King recalled to mind that of Solomon, whilst his brother, enslaved by effeminacy and debauchery, had only to hold up his finger and the most important personages of the state were suitably provided with mistresses to such an extent that at length it became necessary to transfer occasionally to foreign courts those attractive creatures who, by antiphrasis doubtless, were always called "maids of honour." It was in the household of his sister-in-law, Henrietta of England, that Louis had first met the two mistresses of his predilection; and when he wished to assure himself by a new tie of his royal vassal on the other side of the channel, it was still the domestic circle of the Duchess of Orleans which supplied him with the diplomatist in petticoats he wanted.

The conquest or the ruin of Holland had long been one of the favourite projects of Louis the Fourteenth. The Dutch, however, resisted his overgrown power, as their ancestors had formerly defied that of Philip the Second of Spain. In order to carry his plans into execution, Louis found it necessary to detach England from the interests of Holland. This was matter of some difficulty, for an alliance with France against Holland was so odious to all parties in England, so contrary to the national prejudices and interests, that though Louis did not despair of cajoling or bribing Charles into such a treaty, the utmost caution and secresy were necessary in conducting it.

The only person who was at first trusted with this negotiation was the Duchess of Orleans. She was at this time about five-and-twenty, "a singular mixture of discretion, or rather dissimulation, with rashness and petulance; of exceeding haughtiness, with a winning sweetness of manner and disposition which gained all hearts." She was not, however, exactly pretty or well made, but had the dazzlingly fair complexion of an Englishwoman, "un teint de rose et de jasmin," a profusion of light hair, with eyes blue and bright as those of Pallas. She had inherited some of the nobler qualities of her grandfather, Henri Quatre, and all the graces and intriguing spirit of her mother, Henrietta Maria. Early banished from England by the misfortunes of her family, she regarded the country of her birth with indifference, if not abhorrence, and was a Frenchwoman in education, manners, mind, and heart. She possessed unbounded power over the mind of Charles the Second, whose affection for her was said to exceed that of a brother for a sister; he had never been known to refuse her anything she had asked for herself or others, and Louis trusted that her fascinations would gain from the king of England what reason and principle and patriotism would have denied.

On reaching Dunkirk, the Duchess of Orleans embarked for England with her maid-of-honour and a small but chosen retinue, and met Charles at Dover, where this secret negotiation was initiated. The result anticipated came to pass, and proved that Louis had not miscalculated the power of his sister-in-law over her easy-going and unscrupulous brother. Charles fell into the snare laid for him, and Henrietta carried most of the points of that disgraceful treaty, which rendered the King of England the pensioned tool of France, and his reign the most abject in the annals of her native country.

Aiming rather to stimulate than gratify the languid desires of her brother for fresh feminine novelty, the Duchess of Orleans, with finished finesse, appeared not to perceive the attention which the piquant charms and almost childish grace of her young maid-of-honour won from the captivated King. Nor did she, at her departure, leave Louise in England, as some historians have erroneously supposed. In order to render the impression which her fair attendant had made upon Charles more deep and lasting, it was sought by her absence to incite the desire felt by her royal brother to retain her in his Court. The secret negotiation with which Louis had entrusted his sister-in-law had not been, in fact, yet completed. To conduct it to a prosperous termination, to preserve perfect harmony between France and England, it was still needful to make use of another kind of female influence. It was necessary, moreover, that such influence should become permanent--a thing hitherto very difficult at courts wherein the fair sex disputed strenuously and shamelessly for the royal favour. But thus much seemed certain--that the key to the will of the sovereign of Great Britain had been found in Mademoiselle Louise Querouaille.

The secret negotiation of the treaty, however, went on between the two kings. Louis had submitted to exorbitant conditions on the score of money, and to another, moreover, sufficiently weighty. It was that Charles, converted to the Romish faith, should share with him in the conquest of Holland, should send a considerable military force thither, and should keep for himself the Dutch islands opposite to England--an advantage so enormous to the latter power that it would have rendered national the odious alliance, and glorified the treason.

Such was the sad, disgraceful, deplorable negotiation imposed by the great King upon his sister-in-law. She had always obeyed him , and she obeyed him in this matter, rendering her brother doubly a traitor by his abandonment of the latter condition, which lessened his treason.

Everybody had envied the Duchess her visit to England, none knew the bitterness it entailed. The King confided in her, and yet distrusted her. Otherwise he would not have had her accompanied by the pretty doll, with her baby face, whose office it was to ensnare the licentious Charles. Henrietta was compelled to take her over to England, and, in fact, to chaperone her. For such self-abasement the King had handsomely rewarded the compliant maid-of-honour, promising to give her an estate, and so much per head for each bastard she might have by Charles of England.

Henrietta endured all this shameful bargaining, hoping that her royal brother would obtain from the Pope the dissolution of her marriage with the worthless, stupid, profligate Duke of Orleans, on whom her wit and charms were equally thrown away. She might then remain at his court and be the virtual Queen of England, by governing him through female influence. Her brilliant hopes, however, were destined to be speedily dissipated, and her career cut short by a painful and treacherous death.

On her return from England, two surprises awaited her: not only did she find the Duke, her husband, exasperated against her, but what she had least of all expected, the King very cold in his demeanour towards her. Louis had got from her all he desired. His changed attitude emboldened a cabal in her own household to effect her destruction. Those who formed it were creatures of her husband's detestable favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine, whom they believed had been banished by the King through her entreaties. The poor Duchess wept bitterly on finding that she had now no support from any one about her. The Duke, in the exercise of his marital authority, took her from Court, not permitting her any longer to visit Versailles. The King might have insisted upon her attendance there but did not. In tears, she suffered herself to be carried off to St. Cloud. There she felt herself alone, with every hand against her.

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