Chapter IV: Introduction (2)

2. Thus engaged in the Fronde, Madame de Longueville appeared to become entirely reckless. She delivered the Prince de Conti into the hands of La Rochefoucauld; she conspired to lead away M. de Longueville; she deceived her mother by refusing to accompany her to court, under pretence of sickness; she went so far as to commit herself, notwithstanding her approaching confinement, to the hands of the people at the Hôtel de Ville. She did more: for the sake of La Rochefoucauld, she became embroiled with her brother Condé, for whom she entertained the greatest affection; she strove to draw him into the Fronde; he became angry with her; hence that rupture so astonishing after such tender friendship, and those outbursts of wrath now so easily accounted for. “The Prince de Conti ... was weak and fickle; he depended entirely upon Madame de Longueville, and she left to me the care of guiding him.[47] The Duke de Longueville possessed mind and experience; he entered easily into the parties opposed to the court, and left them still more easily.... He was continually raising obstacles, and repenting of his engagements in it. I was afraid that he might do more, and discover to the prince what he knew of the enterprise. With this apprehension, I sent Gourville to Paris to notify Madame de Longueville and the deputy of the suspicion which there was reason for entertaining of the Duke de Longueville.... The Marquis de Noirmontiers and myself were constrained to tell him that we were going to carry away the Prince de Conti, and that we would declare to the world that he alone had shown a want of fidelity to his friends, after engaging them in an undertaking which he abandoned. He could not bear these reproaches, and suffered himself to be led as we desired.... The king, followed by the queen, the Duke d’Orleans, and the prince, set out secretly from Paris at midnight, near the close of the year 1649, and went to Saint-Germain. All the court followed in great disorder. The princess wished to carry along Madame de Longueville, who was on the point of being confined; but she feigned illness, and remained at Paris.... The Prince de Conti and Madame de Longueville, in order to give more confidence, lodged in the Hôtel de Ville, and committed themselves entirely into the hands of the people.” ... In another place he says:[48] “Madame de Longueville was again obliged to reside at the Hôtel de Ville as a pledge of the fidelity of her brother and husband to the people, who are naturally suspicious of the great, because they are ordinarily the victims of their evil doings.... The Prince de Condé[49] ... had taken measures with the court. The connection which I had with the Prince de Conti and Madame de Longueville was not agreeable to him.... The cardinal was preparing to quit the kingdom; but the prince soon reassured him; and the bitterness which he exhibited towards the Prince de Conti, towards Madame de Longueville and myself, was so great, that the cardinal could not doubt that it was genuine.”

3. At the end of this first Parisian war, in 1649, the Prince de Condé became reconciled with his family, and even with La Rochefoucauld. The latter was included in the treaty which was consummated; he obtained for his house “the same advantages of rank that had been accorded to those of Rohan, of Foix, and of Luxembourg.” Such is the declaration of La Rochefoucauld;[50] but the truth is, that it was Madame de Longueville who claimed for him these advantages, and who labored energetically in his interests. So Madame de Mottville asserts: “Madame de Longueville[51] omitted nothing in her efforts to secure the favor of the court for the Prince de Marcillac.... To satisfy[52] her fully it was necessary to promote the Prince de Marcillac, and in this conjuncture she procured for his wife the right of sitting in the royal presence, and of entering the Louvre in her carriage. These advantages placed him above dukes, and upon an equality with princes, though he was neither the one nor the other: he was not a member of the royal family.” Madame de Nemours goes still farther:[53] “Madame de Longueville interfered in this settlement, and it is even pretended that M. de Marcillac received some money.” What a part in all this affair was that of La Rochefoucauld! Madame de Longueville is at least disinterested. She at the same time suffers herself to be eclipsed and to be compromised, anxious only to serve and to please.

4. In 1650, Mazarin thinking that he ought to revoke the favors which Madame de Longueville had obtained for La Rochefoucauld, all minds became exasperated: troubles recommenced; the princes were put in prison; the arrest of Madame de Longueville was contemplated, and an order was issued directing her to appear before the Queen at the Palais-Royal. “Instead[54] of obeying, she resolved, by the advice of the Prince de Marcillac, to set out at once, with all speed, for Normandy, for the purpose of engaging that province, and the parliament of Rouen, on the side of the princes, and of securing in her friendship the fortresses of the Duke de Longueville and of Havre-de-Grace..... The Prince de Marcillac accompanied her in this journey.” I ask, which of the two drew the other into this second war, much more serious than the first? But I hasten to say that on this occasion both conducted themselves equally well. While Madame de Longueville was pledging her jewels in Holland for her defence at Sténay, La Rochefoucauld was also exposing his fortunes in Guyenne. It was the saddest and the most touching moment in the history of their loves and their adventures. They were separated from one another, but still they loved; they served with ardor the same cause; they struggled and they suffered together.

5. In 1651, after the deliverance of the princes, La Rochefoucauld grew weary of war, into which he seems to have engaged only to please Madame de Longueville. “The Duke de La Rochefoucauld[55] could not testify so openly his repugnance to this war; he was obliged to consult the feelings of Madame de Longueville, and all that he could then do was to try to make her desire peace.” What then were the feelings of Madame de Longueville? Did she wish to continue the war for the sake of playing a conspicuous part, and with a view to gratify that ambition of glory with which she has been so often reproached? By no means. Her thoughts were much more humble. Still attached to La Rochefoucauld, she contemplated with pain a peace which threatened to separate them. Madame de Longueville[56] knew that the deputy had embroiled her irrevocably with her husband, and that after the impressions made upon him as to her conduct, she could not return to him in Normandy without at least hazarding her liberty. The Duke de Longueville, however, wished to keep her near him, and she had no pretext for avoiding this dangerous journey, except the desire of instigating her brother to carry on a civil war. At the same time La Rochefoucauld informs us that he persuaded her to avoid such a responsibility, to retire to Montrond with the Princess de Condé, and to allow matters to unravel themselves. He[57] showed Madame de Longueville that her removal from Paris alone could satisfy her husband, and prevent him from making the journey which she dreaded; that the prince might easily grow weary of the protection which he had until then afforded her, having a pretext so specious as that of reconciling a woman with her husband, and especially if he thought that he might thereby attach to himself the Duke de Longueville; besides, that she alone would be accused of fomenting disorder; that she would be, in various ways, held responsible both to her brother and to the world, for kindling in the kingdom a war whose results might be grievous to her house and to the State.... In fine, to avoid so many difficulties, he advised her to ask the prince to permit the princess, the Duke d’Enghien, and herself to retire to Montrond, in order that he might not be embarrassed in a precipitate march if he found himself obliged to depart, and in order that he might have no scruple in deciding either to fire the kingdom by a civil war, or to risk his life, his liberty, and his fortune, upon the doubtful faith of Cardinal Mazarin. This advice met the approbation of Madame de Longueville, and the prince soon after consented to have it followed.

Madame de Longueville, in this instance, as in all the others, did not then lead away La Rochefoucauld; she permitted herself to be guided by him; she obeyed his counsels, which to her were laws.

Here again is the true and perfect unity of her conduct: Madame de Longueville pursues the course marked out for her by another, with an indefatigable constancy, amid all intrigues and dangers, and, as it were, with her eyes shut to the motives which actuate La Rochefoucauld.

Her blindness is for a long time complete; but, as she united great shrewdness to great passion, after they had been long separated, and when she was no longer under the charm or under the yoke of his presence, her eyes became partly opened; and in the voyage from Guyenne, having encountered the Duke de Nemours, who showed every appearance of perfect chivalry, and who was then said to be very attentive to Madame de Châtillon, absence, the void already in her heart, the innate love of pleasing, the desire of showing the power of her charms, and of troubling somewhat a rival who wished at the same time to retain both Nemours and Condé, in short, the feeling of liberty inspired by a voyage rendered her more open than she should have been to the addresses of the young and handsome cavalier. There is no proof that she was beyond temptation.[58] Scarcely had he returned to Paris when M. de Nemours forgot her, submitted to the chains of Madame de Châtillon, who triumphed, with her accustomed perfidy, over the sacrifice which had been made to her. Justly wounded, La Rochefoucauld falls out with her forever. It is said[59] that he seized with joy this occasion for separating himself from her, as he had long desired it. Let this be so; he might have stopped there; it was unnecessary to calumniate her in the mind of Condé, to impute to her the base design of having wished to ruin the party and betray her brother in order to serve the interests of the Duke de Nemours,[60] an absurd accusation, and one which her whole conduct falsifies, and to paint her as a vulgar creature, capable of going to the same extremities for another, if that other so desired; it was unnecessary, as Madame de Motteville so well says,[61] “from a lover to become an enemy, from an enemy an ingrate,” and to suffer himself through revenge to commit offences which went, as Madame de Motteville again says, “beyond what a Christian owes to God, and a man of honor to a lady.”

Is it possible, in fact, that resentment, of which wounded self-love was the occasion (for then La Rochefoucauld loved Madame de Longueville very feebly, if ever he loved[62] her truly), could have degraded a man of honor like him so far as to make him engage in the shameful plots of Madame de Châtillon? Madame de Motteville exhibits, as if with regret, the conduct of La Rochefoucauld in this affair:[63] “Madame de Châtillon made use of the Duke de La Rochefoucauld and of his passions.... M. de La Rochefoucauld told me that jealousy and revenge made him act carefully, and that he did all that she desired.” Now, what Madame de Châtillon desired, was to humiliate Madame de Longueville, to keep Nemours for her pleasures, and Condé for her fortune. La Rochefoucauld has in so small a degree the sentiment of the good and the bad, of the honest and the dishonest, that he relates what he has done with a sort of satisfaction; he appears to triumph in an intrigue so skilfully planned. “Madame de Châtillon[64] brought about a desire for peace by very agreeable means. She believed that so great a good ought to be the work of her beauty, and mingling ambition with the design of making a new conquest, she wished at the same time to triumph over the heart of the prince, and to draw from the court all the advantages of the negotiation. These were not her only reasons for entertaining such thoughts: a desire to gratify vanity and revenge actuated her as much as any thing else. The emulation which beauty and gallantry often produce among ladies, had caused an extreme bitterness between Madame de Longueville and Madame de Châtillon; they had long concealed their feelings, but they finally made a full exhibition of them; and Madame de Châtillon did not content herself with compelling M. de Nemours to break off all commerce with Madame de Longueville; she wished, besides, to obtain the sole disposal of the conduct and interests of the prince. The Duke de Nemours, who had a perfect understanding with her, approved this design; he thought that, being able to regulate the conduct of Madame de Châtillon towards the prince, she would inspire him with such sentiments as he could wish to give him, and that thus he would be able to dispose of the prince by the power which he possessed over Madame de Châtillon. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld was much deeper than any one in the confidence of the prince, and was, at the same time, very closely connected with the Duke de Nemours and Madame de Châtillon.... He induced the prince to engage with her and to give her, in her own right, the lands of Merlou; he disposed her also to humor the prince and M. de Nemours, so that she might preserve them both, and made M. de Nemours approve this connection, and even appear not to suspect it, since he was to make his account in it and make use of it for obtaining the principal part in affairs. This machine being conducted and regulated by the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, gave him almost the entire disposition of all that composed it, and thus these four persons therein equally finding their advantage, it would have doubtless had the success which they contemplated, had not fortune opposed it.” Let us finish this picture by a stroke which La Rochefoucauld has forgotten, and which Mademoiselle furnishes: “Madame de Châtillon,[65] MM. de Nemours and de La Rochefoucauld, who expected great advantages by a treaty, the first a hundred thousand crowns, the other a government, and the last a similar sum, thought only of making peace for the prince.”

Thus, in the end as well as in the midst and at the beginning of his connection with Madame de Longueville, the only motives of La Rochefoucauld were interest and self-love. One day in his _Maximes_ he will thereunto reduce all human nature, inclosing it within the precincts of his own person, and giving as limits to the moral world those of his very small experience as a frondeur and a courtier.[66]

Truly we may smile to hear the author of the _Mémoires_ and the _Maximes_ say in the portrait which he has left us of himself: “Ambition does not move me ... I have virtuous sentiments ... I can keep a secret, and I have less difficulty than others in keeping to myself what has been told me in confidence.... I love my friends, and my love is of such a nature that I would not hesitate to sacrifice my interests to theirs.” Segrais was hard to suit with eulogy, or he had not read the above passages, when he said that La Rochefoucauld never praised himself.[67] Madame de Longueville would have recognized La Rochefoucauld by the following traits: “I am not incapable of avenging myself if I have been offended, and when it concerns my honor to resent an injury committed against me; on the contrary, I should be sure that duty would perform so well in me the office of hatred, that I would pursue my revenge with greater vigor than another.” The true portrait of La Rochefoucauld is that which has been drawn by Retz.[68] “There has always been something indescribable in M. de La Rochefoucauld: he took pleasure in intrigues at an early age, and at a time when he did not trouble himself with little things, never a weakness with him, and at a time, too, when he was unacquainted with great ones, which were not his forte; he never had much capacity for business ... his views were not sufficiently extended ... he always had an habitual irresolution ... he was never a warrior, though a very good soldier; he was never of himself a good courtier, although he had the best intention to be one; he was never a good party man, though all his life a partisan.... All these things, together with his _Maximes_, which do not exhibit much faith in virtue, and his policy which has always been to withdraw from business with as much impatience as he engaged in it, makes me conclude that he would have done much better to have known himself, and to have passed, as he might have done, for the most polished courtier, and for the most civil man in common life which his century produced.”

As to Madame de Longueville, she is certainly far from being perfect, and perhaps she would have been less loved had she been so; but amid the follies into which passion plunged her, we feel at least that interest is nothing to her. The defect of which she continually accuses herself, is the desire of pleasing and of appearing. The only injury which she committed against La Rochefoucauld was that momentary display of giddiness and coquetry during the journey from Guyenne. This was her real stain. All the rest of her conduct in the Fronde is explained and easily defended when viewed as we have indicated.

Besides, no one’s conduct in the Fronde should be regarded in too serious a light, for the Fronde was not a serious affair;[69] it was a series of intrigues, in which no one had any other object than interest, vanity, love of importance, with gallantry, and pleasure. Princes thought only of themselves, of increasing their authority and their fortune; and to this end, they went by turns from one party to another according to events and to the daily changes around them. Condé, the prominent person in the drama, and the only one who with his rival Mazarin merits a place in history, despised at bottom all parties; but in the end he fixed his mind upon a place incompatible with royal grandeur. His natural inclination was to the side of the Court: the Fronde, properly speaking, and the parliament were odious to him, and he never served them except with great disrelish. His chief spring of action was war, for which he had a genius; and this it was which, after much deliberation and hesitation, finally carried him away. The parliament, forgetting its part and its duties, was agitated by young lords—burlesque tribunes. The people of Paris were set in commotion: they were excited against the Court; but as soon as serious reforms and a convocation of the States-General were talked of, the parliament took alarm, and receded as well as the opposing party.[70] The only use of the Fronde, in the admirable economy of our history, has been to strengthen the royal power, to make every one sensible of its absolute necessity, and to promote, perhaps to excess, the work of Louis XI., of Henri IV., and of Richelieu. Under the League, two great opinions, two great causes, were in hostility. The League also produced minds, stamped characters, was a school of politics and of war, and formed the strong men of the first half of the seventeenth century. The Fronde is in our annals an episode without grandeur; it formed no one, either a warrior or a statesman; the nation took very little part in it, because it felt that in it no great interest was at stake; it was a pastime for gentlemen, for wits, and belles. To the ladies especially the Fronde belonged: they were at once its motive power and its instruments, its most interested actors; and among them Madame de Longueville played the most conspicuous part.

IV.

We should be tempted to be more severe towards the faults of more than one kind into which she was drawn by her sad connection with La Rochefoucauld if she herself had felt less remorse, if her repentance had not been so long and so severe. Her errors began at the close of 1647, or during the first months of 1648—they did not extend beyond 1652; her remorse ceased only with her life in 1679. Madame de Longueville was roused to reflection in 1653: she became converted in the middle of the year 1654. At this period she was thirty-five years of age, and in all the splendor of her beauty. For a long time yet she might have enjoyed the pleasures of life and of the world. She renounced them to devote herself unreservedly and forever to God. During twenty-five years, in Normandy, among the Carmelites, and at Port-Royal, she lived only for duty and repentance, seeking to become dead to every thing that had formerly occupied her life—the cares of her beauty, the tendernesses of the heart, the graceful employments of the mind. But in the dress of hair-cloth as well as in fashionable attire, among the Carmelites and at Port-Royal as well as at the hôtel de Rambouillet and in the Fronde, she preserved what she could never lose—an angelic face, a mind charming in the most extreme negligence, with a certain loftiness of soul and character. This third and last epoch of the life of Madame de Longueville, will here be presented as fully as the subject demands: therein we shall see, in all its truth, a devotion continually increasing, and more and more scrupulous, sometimes reducing her to the most pitiful condition, sometimes elevating her to an admirable grandeur; as, for example, in her struggles, after the death of her husband, with her brother Condé, in regard to her two sons, and in the defence which she undertook of persecuted Port-Royal.

We do not think that we debase Mademoiselle de Lavallière by comparing with her Madame de Longueville. It is true that the loves of Mademoiselle de Lavallière move us in a very different manner from those which we shall have to relate. In setting aside the circumstance of royalty, which in this case forms the disagreeable side, and which is always somewhat injurious to true and disinterested love, Louis XIV. was much better calculated to please than La Rochefoucauld; he was much younger and much more handsome; he was, or appeared to be, a great man and a hero. He adored Mademoiselle de Lavallière at once with an impetuous ardor and with the most delicate tenderness, and his passion continued for a long time. Mademoiselle de Lavallière loved the king as she would have loved a simple gentleman. It is this which gives her a separate place among the favorites of Louis XIV., and places her far above Madame de Montespan, and especially above Madame de Maintenon. It cannot be denied that Madame de Longueville loved with the same disinterestedness and the same abandonment; but her affection was ill bestowed, but she mingled with it wit and vanity, but she became giddy and coquettish. Thus far the comparison is entirely against her. But, besides, she was far superior to Mademoiselle de Lavallière. She was incomparably more beautiful and more intellectual. Her soul was also more proud. At the least suspicion of change in the affection of Louis XIV., she would have fled from the court; while Mademoiselle de Lavallière remained in it some time, in the presence of her proud, triumphing rival, thinking that by force of humility, of patience, and of devotion, she would reconquer the heart that she had lost. And then, what better could she do than to enter a cloister? Would she not have rendered herself contemptible by remaining in the world, by giving to society the spectacle of a favorite of the king consoling herself, like Madame de Soubise, for the inconstancy of her royal lover, in the enjoyment of a fortune sadly acquired and shamefully preserved! In entering the convent of the Carmelites, Mademoiselle de Lavallière did no more than she was compelled to do. There is in the conversion and retirement of Madame de Longueville something more free and more unusual, and to glorify her penitence, nothing is wanting but the voice of Bossuet. If the incomparable orator who had consecrated to God Louise de La Miséricorde, and who, at a later period, had made his words equal in greatness to the actions of Condé, if his voice had been heard at the celebration of the obsequies of Anne de Bourbon, Christian letters would have counted another masterpiece, of which the funeral oration of the Princess Palatine may give us some idea, and the name of Madame de Longueville would be surrounded with an immortal halo.

THE YOUTH OF MADAME DE LONGUEVILLE.