Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber’s Note: Two pages of adverts have been moved to the end of the book.

THE YOUTH
OF
MADAME DE LONGUEVILLE,
OR
NEW REVELATIONS
OF
COURT AND CONVENT IN THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY.

FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR COUSIN.

BY F. W. RICORD.

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON & CO., 346 & 348 BROADWAY,
AND 16 LITTLE BRITAIN, LONDON.
M DCCC LIV.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854,
BY D. APPLETON & COMPANY,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York.

TO

ABRAM COLES, M. D.,

OF NEWARK, N. J.,

AS A TRIBUTE TO HIS MANY VIRTUES,

AND AS A SMALL RETURN FOR HIS MANY KINDNESSES,

This Volume

IS RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

BY HIS FRIEND,

THE TRANSLATOR.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

The person of Madame de Longueville—Description
of contemporaries—Authentic portraits—Her wit and
style—Her character—Explanation of her conduct in the
Fronde—Mademoiselle de La Vallière and Madame de Longueville 15

CHAPTER I.
1619 to 1635.

Mademoiselle de Bourbon in her family—Her mother, Charlotte de
Montmorency—Her father, M. the Prince—Her brother, the Duke
d’Enghien—Her religious education—The convent of the Carmelites
of the Rue Saint-Jacques—The four great prioresses—Mademoiselle
d’Epernon—Mademoiselle de Bourbon at the ball of the Louvre,
February 18, 1635—Her portrait at the age of fifteen years 79

CHAPTER II.
1635 to 1642.

Mademoiselle de Bourbon at the hôtel de Rambouillet—The Genre
Précieux—Madame de Sablé, type of the true précieuse—Corneille
and Voiture—Mademoiselle de Bourbon at Chantilly—At Ruel—At
Liancourt—Her young friends—Mademoiselle Du Vigean and
Condé—Marriage of Mademoiselle de Bourbon 150

CHAPTER III.
1642 to 1644.

Poetry and gallantry—State of affairs in 1643—Battle of
Rocroy—Mazarin and the _Importants_—Madame de Montbazon—Letter
attributed to Madame de Longueville—Duel between Coligny and De
Guise—An unpublished novel of the seventeenth century 241

CHAPTER IV.
1644 to 1649.

Campaigns of Condé in Flanders and on the Rhine—Congress
and peace of Munster—Madame de Longueville at Munster—Her
portrait by Van Hull—Her return to France—Her brother, the
Prince de Conti—Sonnets of Voiture and of Benserade—La
Rochefoucauld—Commencement of his connection with Madame de
Longueville—The first Fronde—Noble conduct of Condé—Madame de
Longueville at the hôtel de Ville—Birth of Charles de Paris,
Count de Saint-Paul—Peace of 1649 309