The Nieces of Mazarin

II.

OF Hortense Mancini, Duchesse de Mazarin, who was considered to be the most beautiful woman of her time in Europe, and whose lovers were innumerable, Sainte-Beuve thus speaks : “In spite of all that might have degraded her, she knew how always to maintain her dignity, and to win for herself what must be called (I know no other word) respect [la considération]. She owed it, undoubtedly, in part to the memory of her uncle, to her wealth, to her great connections, but also to her own character and attitude.” This is so true that

At the time of her marriage, when she was but eighteen, she already possessed an air of blended languor, dignity, and gayety that was universally fascinating. Two years previously, Charles II. of England, twenty years older than herself, immediately before his accession to power, had proposed to marry her, but Cardinal Mazarin seems to have eschewed kings for nephews-in-law. He said to la grande Mademoiselle, in urging on her an alliance with Charles : “ It shall never be imputed to me to prefer my own interests to those of my master and of all who have the honor to belong to him, and I know well the difference there is between his family and mine. The King of England has proposed to me to marry my niece Hortense, but as long as there are cousinsgerman of the king to marry, it is not for him to think of my nieces ; and he would have reason to repent if he made such a mistake, and I if I should let him make it.” As Mademoiselle says, “ Il se faisoit assez justice en toutes choses.”

The brother of the King of Portugal and the Duke of Savoy had also been suitors to the beautiful Hortense. The cardinal had still rejected these proposals, from one motive and another, and had alternately entertained and thrown aside other matrimonial connections of his own devising. It is not clear why he finally selected M. de la Meilleraye ; all the less that the father, a man of high virtue, an intimate friend of the cardinal, dreaded for his son, already the possessor of great wealth, the immense mass of riches of all sorts which the cardinal bestowed on him, and by which, in fact, he was overwhelmed.

Saint - Simon, without knowing him personally, has painted a brilliant portrait of the singular character of the duke. It is too long to give in full here, though it loses in quality from the necessary omissions. “ I have heard it said by his contemporaries that no one could have more intelligence or of a more agreeable kind ; that he was the best company, and very well educated, magnificent, tasteful in all things, brave. . . . [But] piety, so adapted to strengthen good talents, poisoned, from the eccentricity of his mind, all those that he derived from nature and from fortune. He caused his wife to gad about the world in the most scandalous manner; he became ridiculous to society, insupportable to the king from the extravagant things he said to him regarding the life he led with his mistresses.¹ He withdrew to his estates, where he became the prey of monks and the sanctimonious, who profited by his weaknesses and drained away his millions. He mutilated the most beautiful statues, defaced the rarest pictures [the works of art left him by the cardinal], arranged his domestics by lottery, so that the cook became his steward and the scrubber his secretary. In his eyes, chance pointed out the will of God. The castle of Mazarin, while he was living there, caught fire : every one else rushed to extinguish the flames; he rushed to drive away these rascals who were attempting to oppose the good pleasure of God. His greatest joy was when lawsuits were brought against him ; for, if he lost, he ceased to possess something that did not belong to him ; if he won, his conscience was at ease in retaining what had been demanded of him. He annoyed to the utmost the officials on his estates by the detail into which he entered and the absurdities that he wished them to execute.”

The unhappy fortunes of this man, at once so estimable and so despicable, are well depicted by Saint-Evremond (the devoted friend, as an old man, of his wife) : “ If it were not for his marriage, so hateful for both parties, he would lead a happy life at La Trappe, or in some other holy and secluded society. Worldly interests have caused him to fall into the hands of the falsely devout of this day; of those spiritual hypocrites who lay secret snares for the kindness of simple and innocent souls, — souls that, in the spirit of a holy usury, ruin themselves in lending to people who promise a hundred per cent. interest in the other world.” It is not to be wondered at that quarrels quickly arose between such a man and the brilliant Hortense ; and the duchess was soon imprisoned, by royal authority, in first one convent and then another, partly in punishment of what were at least follies on her part, partly to protect her against her husband. When any attempt was made to reconcile her to him, her gay answer was always, Madame de Sévigné says, the cry of the civil war, “ Point de Mazarin, point de Mazarin ! ” Their relations together became a matter for legal decision in 1666, and it was while this decree was pending that the duchess made a first escape to Italy (1668), leaving Paris in man’s attire, in a coach with six horses. Her husband, as soon as he learned her absence, rushed in misery to the king, whom he woke at three o’clock in the morning, to ask him to send in pursuit of Madame de Mazarin. Some humorous verses of the day depict the conversation as follows : —

After a tour from Milan through Venice and Siena, Hortense reached Rome, and there again became a denizen of convents. After a time she returned to Paris to attend to her affairs, and then back to Rome again ; whence, again departing, in company with her sister, la connétable, she went with her, as we have seen, to Provence; but, separating from her there, she took up her abode in the dominions of her former prétendant, the Duke of Savoy, who, it is said, was soon again at her feet. She divided the seasons between Turin and Chambéry, between literary and social pleasures, everywhere creating for herself all kinds of enjoyments. But on the death of the duke (in 1675) the widowed duchess made her longer stay impossible, and she took her way (under pretext of seeking her cousin’s daughter, the Duchess of York), through Germany and Holland, to England, where the rest of her life (some twenty-five years) was passed.

The characteristic gayety that she displayed on this journey is vividly described in one of the letters of Madame de Courcelles, — a woman whose destinies had had some connection with those of Madame de Mazarin, and who, scarcely less beautiful and brilliant, had many a time and often shared the wild frolics of Hortense in convents and in the world. " It is a great misfortune,” she says, " to be thus expelled from one place after another, but what is extraordinary is that this woman triumphs over all that is disgraceful to her by such an extreme recklessness as never was equaled, and having met with this mortification she is but the more joyous. When she passed through here [Geneva] she was on horseback, with feathers and wig on her head, twenty gentlemen in her suite, talking only of hunting parties and dances and everything else that is pleasurable.”

The arrival of the duchess in England was welcomed by the political party opposed to the French influence exerted by the Duchess of Portsmouth (Mademoiselle de Kéroualles, believed to be in the pay of Louis XIV.). It was hoped that the charms of Hortense might be made use of in like manner, but with antagonistic consequences ; and, for a time the chances seemed to be in favor of her becoming a royal favorite, of her being the king’s mistress when she might have been his queen. But, apparently, within a few months of her coming to England, a private love-affair of her own with the young and ardent Prince of Monaco displeased the king, and, in consequence, her political influence, whether then or later, amounted to nothing. But her social influence must have been great; her life in London was extremely brilliant. There is an entry in Evelyn’s Diary of September 6. 1676 (the first year of her residence there) : “ Supped at the Lord Chamberlain’s, where also supped the famous beauty and errant lady the Duchess of Mazarine (all the world knows her story), the Duke of Monmouth, Countesse of Sussex [ both natural children of the king], and the Countesse of Derby, a virtuous lady, daughter to my best friend the Earle of Ossorie.” “ Virtuous ” ladies and virtuous men continued always to be in the society of “ the famous beauty and errant lady.” And she collected also about her a large circle of men of letters and learning. Some of their names are found in some humorous verses by Saint-Evremond addressed to the duchess to beseech her to turn from the attractions of Bassette (the game of cards then in fashion, and at which she was wont to play high). He asks her where are the days when the sensible converse of philosophy, shared the pleasures of her delightful life, and laments that now the rising and the setting sun sees her always with cards in her hand. No more opera, no more music of any kind, no more interest in morals nor in politics ; while her pet dog, treacherous little Chop, snaps at the learned men who come to visit her, and drives away the Dutch ambassador and the famous Vossius, bringing in his hand a treatise on the Chinese, in which his prepossessions raise this nation to the skies. There is the French Justel, too, full of scholarly criticism, and a master in Old Testament learning, who comes to gain the duchess’s protection for the printing of some new work of the “ too wise,” the too well known Père Simon, whose critical history of the Old Testament was suppressed at Paris, but, by Madame de Mazarin’s aid, printed in Holland. And Gregorio Leti, the distinguished Italian historian, presents to the duchess his History of Pope Sextus, declaring himself ready to labor for her own glory. But (Saint-Evremond continues) what avails their illustriousness to these famous men ? They now can scarcely win a mere courtesy from their gambling hostess ; and the poor savants, bewildered and embarrassed, stare at “ Mazarin,” who no longer recognizes them. The books of Bassette have taken the place of all other books; Plutarch is laid aside, Don Quixote forgotten; Montaigne is out of credit; Racine is displeasing, Patru untimely, and old La Fontaine has no better fortune ; and concluding as he began, he asks once more, “ Where are the delightful days,

The same impression of varied and valuable social relations is given by a little casual note from Saint-Evremond to the duchess, of some years’ later date than the verses just quoted. He writes : “We hope that you will come to-morrow to mylord Montaigu’s. Mylord Godolphin is expected there; but, what is more important still, Mr. Hampden will be there, having sworn that he would not enter the world except with you. [He remained a great deal in seclusion in the country.] You are to him what the Maréchal de Clerembaut and the Maréchal de Crequi have been to me, all the world.”

This Mr. Hampden was a grandson of the famous Hampden. Evelyn, dining with him at Lord Mulgrave’s, two years previously, calls him “ a scholar and fine gentleman ; ” and Bishop Burnet speaks of him as “ a young man of great parts ; one of the learnedest gentlemen I have ever known ; ... he had once great principles of religion, but he was much corrupted by Père Simon’s conversation at Paris ” (the same Père Simon whom Madame de Mazarin befriended, as we have just seen).1 “ Mylord Godolphin,” the husband of Evelyn’s dear and honored friend, himself on intimate terms with Evelyn, held, a little later, the great office of Lord High Treasurer. Their host, mylord Montaigu, was at this time the Earl of Montaigu (afterward duke), and had been ambassador to France from 1668 to 1672, — in whose wooing (while in France) of the charming Countess of Northumberland (the sister of Lady Rachel Russell, and the patroness of Locke) Madame de la Fayette (as appears by her letters to Madame de Sévigné) was much interested. This was good company ; and to such names as these may be added that of Waller, the poet, much admired by Saint-Evremond.

But at the head of all the friends of the duchess must always stand SaintEvremond himself, than whom none was so faithful, so ardent, so clear-sighted, and so generous. Thirty years older than Hortense, he was past sixty when they first met in England; he was eighty-five when she died, and during those twenty-five years his unflagging admiration for her, his intimate, affectionate interest in all that concerned her, was the greatest, most vivid pleasure of his old age, and is the clearest testimony that exists to the personal charm that hid, with its lovely light, the follies that were more than follies, and that her old friend, when he was not in her enchanting presence, could not but deplore. His feeling toward her was always

To become familiar with the life of Hortense is, in truth, to be continually reminded of the woman made known to us by Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and to mourn that

The character of Saint-Evremond’s relations with Madame de Mazarin is an admirable illustration of his own nature. He was, as Sainte-Beuve has said, “ a charming wise man ” (un sage aimable). Ninon writes to him: “Your friends delight to see you so healthy in body and mind, so wise,—si sage; for I consider sages those who know how to make themselves happy.” He exemplified her admirable saying — “ La joie de l’esprit en marque la force” — that a man’s strength of mind may be measured by his cheerfulness. Saint-Evremond’s mind was of the best quality as regards good sense, and was excellent in all that is graceful. “He is characterized,” says Sainte-Beuve, “by an effortless superiority. I know not how better to define him than as a less vigorous Montaigne. His mind is distinguished at once by firmness and by delicacy.”

It is certain, therefore, that to have charmed Saint-Evremond is a title to renown; and the Duchesse de Mazarin charmed him uninterruptedly for twenty-five years. The five volumes of his Works contain countless pages of her praises sung by him in prose and verse, — praises all the more flattering and all the more trustworthy because of the gay, affectionate fault-finding that often is the very root of them. He asked nothing from her but her presence, in return for his constant care about her. He gave her his affection, his thoughts, his money even, and was content with a word and a smile, and pleased with a scolding. He says to her, in the early days of their intercourse : “ If the desert of my feelings may win from you a regret that I am old, and a wish that I were young, I shall be content. The favor of a wish is a little thing; do not refuse it me.” He continues : “ Montaigne says that one sacrifices one’s repose, one’s liberty, one’s fortune, but not one’s reputation. I renounce our Montaigne on this point, and would not refuse to be ridiculous for your sake. But it is impossible to make a sacrifice of such kind to you; there can be nothing ridiculous in loving you ; . . . and after having consulted my judgment as much as my heart, I say, without fearing ridicule, I love you.” There is no indication that he awakened in her any answering tenderness. Old and ugly, careless of his person, it was his esprit only that made him welcome to her. But she had much esteem and respect for him, and the society she collected about her did him inestimable service in affording him a milieu in which his social and literary faculties had free play, and in giving new material for the fire of his gayety, which age did not extinguish. At her house there was conversation on all sorts of subjects; there was disputing often, Saint-Evremond says, “ but with more enlightenment than heat; less to contradict persons than to elucidate subjects ; more to animate the talk than to sharpen the intelligence.” There were discussions of philosophy, history, religion, and of social customs, of the laws of honor and of reason; talk on all literary subjects, about ancient as well as modern authors, the theatre, conditions of language ; and conversations of this nature suggested to M. de Saint-Evremond many more or less interesting pieces of writing, whose chief value for the reader of the present day is in their authentic reflection and expression of the tone of thought prevailing in his circle, — the circle of Madame de Mazarin. There was to be found, it is clear, in persons of that society, a great perfection of good sense and good feeling, charming gayety, admirable sincerity of mind, and equal delicacy and keenness in the perception and enjoyment of material and social pleasures. Yet a flitting melancholy betrays the lack of hope as of faith ; they dwelt on the hard, dry earth, knowing its hollowness and unvisited by any spiritual imaginings.

In 1684 Madame de Mazarin had a serious illness, on recovering from which she jestingly expressed the wish that she could know what would be said of her after her death. M. de Saint-Evremond immediately composed for her an Oraison Funèbre, in which occurs this noteworthy passage : “ Madame de Mazarin no sooner established herself anywhere than she opened a house which caused all others to be forsaken. There was found there the greatest freedom in the world and equal discretion. Every one was more at his ease than in his own home, and bore himself more respectfully than at court.” It is here, as SainteBeuve has remarked, that lies the principal merit of Hortense; “ the art in living and in reigning that has immortalized her and vindicated her fame. She showed, when all is said, justice and economy even in the prodigality of her own endowments and of her gifts; she was not satisfied with being brilliant herself, she liked brilliancy in others; she sought for enlightenment, and to do so was something new in those days ; and she knew how to surround herself everywhere with a circle of distinguished men; in fine, she lived and died as a great lady.”

She died in 1699, and M. de Mazarin, separated from her for so long a time, had her body brought to him, and carried it about with him for nearly a year from one to another of his estates. “ He deposited it for a time,” SaintSimon says, “at Notre Dame de Liesse [the name Our Lady of Joyousness was singularly appropriate], and the pious peasants of the neighborhood prayed to her as a saint, and consecrated their rosaries by touching them to her coffin.”

The little Italian girl, the great lady, the French saint, — the strangeness of the career is completed by this last elevation.

About midway of the stay of the Duchesse de Mazarin in England, — it was in 1687, — there came there, on a visit to her, her equally brilliant but not so beautiful sister, the Duchesse de Bouillon, Marie-Anne, the youngest of all. Though the youngest, her cleverness and precocity as a child had led to her being treated by her uncle, it is said, almost as if she were the eldest. She was his special favorite, and of the queen also, and consequently of the whole court. She was married at the age of sixteen, about the same time as Marie and Hortense ; after her uncle’s death, but by his command. Her husband, “ le meilleur parti de France,” the Abbé de Choisy thought, was a nephew of the great Turenne, by whom the marriage was arranged with the cardinal, and the duchess found herself connected, on all sides, with persons of distinguished position. It was not unnatural, therefore, that, as Saint-Simon says, “ she carried pride to audacity, and her pride entered into all her concerns ; but as she had much intelligence, and wit, and delicacy of perception, she recognized proportions, and had the judgment never to exceed them, and to conceal her assumptions by much civility toward persons whom it was desirable not to offend, and by an air of familiarity with others which veiled as with kindness her tone of authority. In whatever place she was, she led, and appeared the mistress. It was dangerous to displease her ; she denied herself few things, and when she did so it was from consideration for herself ; elsewise, a very faithful friend, and very trustworthy in intercourse.”

“ Never was there a woman,” he continues. “ who occupied herself less with her toilet; and there are few faces as beautiful and as peculiar as hers that have so little need of aid, and to which everything is so becoming; still she was always much dressed and with beautiful jewels. She was well informed, talked well, was fond of discussions [like Hortense], and sometimes said biting things.”

This characterization of her comes from one who knew her in her later years, but must be true of her in great measure during her most splendid season, the twelve or fifteen years following her marriage.

In the course of the very first year after her marriage, she made the acquaintance and became in her degree the patroness of La Fontaine, whose praises of her have added to her renown as that of Hortense has been increased by Saint-Evremond. He was past forty when they met, and his reputation not yet made, and her appreciation of him seems to have given a needed stimulus to his indolent genius ; so that, in some measure, we owe La Fontaine to Madame de Bouillon. She and her kindred obtained for him places and gave him pensions, and thus aided him materially.

Unfortunately, she aided others also who reflect less credit upon her. Almost a stain is on her memory — a literary stain — from her share in the circumstances attending the first representations of Racine’s Phèdre.

Before 1677, the year of the production of this masterpiece, the imperious young duchess had gained for herself the position of a bestower of literary fame. But her decrees were not always equitable. Though Molière as well as La Fontaine had been counted among her guests, she was none the less influenced by inferior men of letters, and by them she was inspired with a prejudice against Racine, which was shared by her odd and brilliant brother, the Due de Nevers, and by her young but influential nephews, the princes of Vendôme. These were the powerful leaders of a league that was formed against Phèdre, with the intention of stifling it as soon as it should appear.

For this purpose, they brought forward a rival to Racine in the person of the pseudo-poet Pradon, whose name, to his misfortune, became, in consequence, later, caught, like a fly in amber, in the satiric verse of Despréaux. They induced him to write a tragedy on the same subject, which was acted two nights after the first performance of the Phèdre of Racine. Madame de Bouillon engaged the front boxes for the first six representations of both pieces, to secure hisses for the one and applause for the other, an honorable trick that cost her fifteen thousand livres. There was a moment when the battle seemed doubtful, and when Racine’s disheartenment was extreme ; he saw his great work almost the victim of his enemies. But when the power of the duchess’s purse was broken, the forces of Racine soon took glorious possession of the field.

There followed immediately, however, a scattered combat of violent epigrams. M. de Nevers opened fire with a sonnet, of which the first line —

and the rhymes throughout were echoed by an answering sonnet, supposed then, erroneously, to be written by Racine and Despréaux, but really composed by some young nobles, their partisans, which began, —

and in which the most insulting allusion is made to

who wanders through the world ; that is, to Madame de Mazarin (the “ errant lady ” of Evelyn), — an insult which Saint-Evremond tried to blunt the point of by writing to her on her birthday : —

The angry duke replied with another sonnet, —

and threatened a more vigorous vengeance. But Racine and Despréaux were taken under the protection of the great house of Condé, and the barks of the cabal died away ; “ le bruit passager de leurs cris impuissants,” as Boileau begged his friend to consider them.

But Racine, wounded and discouraged, for twelve years afterward wrote no more ; and only ventured back to the stage under the inspiration (in a double sense) of Esther, of Madame de Maintenon. The only gain to literature to counterbalance such loss is to be found in the admirable seventh Epistle of Boileau, occasioned by the attack on Racine.

The companions of Madame de Bouillon in this adventure were her familiar associates at all times : her brother ; her brother-in-law, the Duc d’Albret, who at twenty-six years of age became the eulogized and condemned Cardinal de Bouillon ; and her nephews, the famous and infamous Vendôme and his fraternal brother. Nothing could be more disreputable (in the moral sense) than this circle ; but no society could be more brilliant than theirs, not only in the magnificence of its luxury, but in the keenness of its wits and its powers of intellectual appreciation.

La Fontaine, in a letter to Madame de Bouillon, after a passage of light and easy reference to the Cartesian philosophy, continues : “ Those who are not sufficiently aware of what your Highness knows, and what you desire to know without taking any greater trouble than hearing it talked of at table, would not think me very judicious to entertain you thus with philosophy; but I could tell them that all sorts of subjects are welcome to you, and also all sorts of books, provided they are good of their kind ; ” and he adds in verse : —

Writing to Saint-Evremond, La Fontaine says of Madame de Bouillon : “ It is a pleasure to see her disputing, scolding, jesting, and talking of everything with so much wit that one cannot imagine more. If she had lived in pagan days, a fourth Grace would have been deified for her sake.”

Unfortunately, Madame de Bouillon, like her sisters, found herself obliged at one time to withdraw behind convent bars, from whence she issued gayer and more charming than ever, and able to cope with the highest powers. This she was forced to do on the occasion of the La Voisin affair, in which she, like her sister Olympe, was involved, but not to the same extent; Madame de Bouillon was simply “ interrogated,” There is in Madame de Sévigné’s letters a not-tobe-rivaled account of the scene, which took place in January, 1680 : —

“ Mesdames de Bouillon et de Tingry [a sister of Madame de Luxembourg] were interrogated yesterday at the chamber of the Arsenal. Their noble families accompanied them to the door. It would seem, at present, that there is nothing black in the follies attributed to them ; not even dark gray. If nothing more is discovered, the thing is a great scandal that might have been spared persons of such position. The Maréchal de Villeroi [the same whom we have heard thirty years and more before speaking of the Mancini] says that these gentlemen and ladies do not believe in God, and do believe in the devil.” Then she mentions an absurd accusation against Madame de Bouillon, of wishing the death of her husband, and continues, “ When a Mancini commits only such a folly as that, it ’s permitted; and these sorceresses [La Voisin, etc.] tell of it seriously, and fill all Europe with horror about a trifle.” Then the narrative begins : “ Madame de Bouillon entered the chamber like a little queen ; she sat down in a chair that had been arranged for her ; but, instead of answering the first question, she demanded to have written down what she wished to say, which was ‘ that she came there only from respect for the king’s order, and not at all from respect for the chamber, which she did not recognize, not choosing to derogate from the privilege of dukes.’ She did not say a word till that was written ; then she took off her glove, showing a very beautiful hand. She answered honestly, even about her age. ‘ Do you know La Vigoureux ? ’ ‘ No.’ ‘ Do you know La Voisin? ’ ‘Yes.’ ‘ Why do you wish to get rid of your husband ? ’ ‘I, to get rid of him! You may ask him if he thinks so ; he accompanied me to that door.’ ‘ But why did you go so often to this Voisin ? ’ ‘ Because I wanted to see the Sibyls whom she had promised me ; one would go far to meet such company.’ ‘ Have you not shown this woman a bag of money ? ’ She said she had not, and for more than one reason, and all this with a laughing and scornful manner. ‘ Well, gentlemen ! is this all that you have to say to me ?’ ‘ Yes, madame.’ She rose, and as she went out she said audibly, ‘ Really, I never should have believed that sensible men could ask such foolish questions.’ She was received by her relations and her friends of both sexes with adoration, she was so pretty, and simple, and natural, and daring, and with such an excellent manner and such a quiet mind.”

Her daringness is confirmed by a story Voltaire reports, to the effect that one of the counselors of the chamber was unwise enough to ask her if she had seen the devil; to which she answered that she saw him at that moment; that he was very ugly and very disagreeable, and was disguised as a counselor of state. The interrogation, Voltaire says, was not continued.

A fortnight later, Madame de Sévigné writes: “ Madame de Bouillon has boasted so much of the replies she made the judges that she has drawn down on herself a lettre de cachet to go to Nérac, near the Pyrenees; she went yesterday in much trouble. . . . All her family accompanied her half a day’s journey. . . . Think of the four sisters, what a wandering star rules them!—one in Spain, one in England, one in Flanders, one in the depths of Guienne.”

This affair was seven years before the visit of the Duchesse de Bouillon to England, — a visit which, it is believed, took the place of another seclusion in a convent. During her absence she received a charming letter from La Fontaine, written in the mingled prose and verse that was a fashion of the day. He talks of coming to England himself, as he had been urged to do, and flatters himself that “ Anacreon and those like him, such as Waller, Saint-Evremond, and I, will never have the door shut against them. Who would not admit Anacreon ? Who would banish Waller and La Fontaine? Both are old ; SaintEvremond is so also: but will you see on the banks of the fountain Hippocrene people less wrinkled in their verses than these ? The trouble is that there are wished for here severer moralists. Anacreon is silenced by the Jansenists, although their teachings seem to me a little dismal; but you, I dare say, value these writers, full of wit and keen disputants ; and you know how to enjoy them in more ways than one. The Sophocles of the day and the illustrious Molière always furnish you with an occasion to discuss something or other. What is there that you do not dispute ? ”

In the original this is all in lively and varied verse. The letter closes by La Fontaine saying after a passage about the king: “ Je reviens à mes moutons. And these ‘ moutons,’ madame, are your Highness and Madame Mazarin. This would be the place to compose a eulogy of her and to write it with yours ; but after profound reflection, as eulogies of this kind are rather a delicate matter, I think it better I should abstain from them.” Then, breaking into verse: “ You love each other with sisterly affection ; nevertheless, I have reason to avoid a comparison. Gold, but not praise, may be divided. The best skilled orator, were he an angel, would not content in such an attempt, — two beauties, two heroes, two authors, nor two saints.”

A month later, writing to Saint-Evremond, he says : “ What do you think of a design that has entered my mind ? Since you wish the fame of Madame Mazarin to fill the universe, and I desire that of Madame de Bouillon to extend yet farther, let us not rest till we have accomplished so noble an enterprise. Let us make ourselves Knights of the Round Table ; all the more, since this chivalry began in England. . . . We will await the return of the leaves and that of my health ; otherwise I should have to go in a litter in search of adventures. I should be called the Knight of Rheumatism.”

In the midst of these gayeties of private life the political storm darkened and broke that swept James II. and his Martinozzi wife from the throne and drove them as fugitives to France. The position of the Mancini sisters in England was rendered very insecure. But William treated them with more than courtesy. He continued to Hortense the pension given her by Charles and James, and gave Marie-Anne the use of his private yacht to return to France.

She was not permitted to return to Paris. Dangeau writes under date of the 12th September, 1688 : “ Madame de Bouillon, who is in England, has asked of the king, through M. de Seignelay, permission to go to Venice ; the king has replied that she may go where she will, except to court and to Paris.”

She went to Italy and to Rome, and there met her sons, whose affairs now became for some years the great interest and occupation of her life. When she was permitted (in 1690) to return to Paris, she established herself there in a prouder position than ever, and the picture Saint-Simon paints of her at the time of her death, in 1714, is a representation of triumphant success : —

“ She had a freedom of demeanor that was not merely daring, but audacious, and, spite of her past conduct, she was not the less a personage in Paris, and a tribunal which could not be overlooked. I say in Paris, where she was a sort of queen ; at court she never remained but for a few hours, and went there only on occasion, once or twice a year at most.

“ The king personally had never liked her. Her freedoms startled him. She had been often exiled, and sometimes for a long while. Notwithstanding this, she entered the king’s apartments carrying her head high, and her voice could be heard two rooms off. This loud talking was very often not hushed even at the king’s supper, where she would attack Monseigneur and the other princes and princesses who were at table (behind whom she was placed), as well as the ladies sitting near her.

“ She treated her children, and often, also, her friends and associates, with authority ; she usurped it over the brothers and nephews of her husband and her own, over M. le Prince de Conti and over M. le Due himself, violent as he was, and when at Paris they were always with her. She treated M. de Bouillon with contempt, and every one was less than grass before her. . . . Her wit and beauty supported her, and her world became accustomed to being ruled by her. Taken for all in all, she was a loss to her friends, especially to her family, and even to Paris. . . . Her house was open all day: great tables standing ready night and morning ; great gaming, and of all kinds at once ; and the largest, the most illustrious, and often the best society of men.”

With her death came to a conclusion the fortunes of these seven remarkable women, who each one of them, except perhaps the Comtesse de Soissons, it is evident, possessed a natural strength, the manifestations of which must have had a considerable though untraceable influence on the social conditions of their day.

Hope Notnor.