BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
THE DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE AND THE DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
That Madame de Longueville witnessed the duel on the Place Royale seems to rest on no reliable authority. Such a trait is so utterly at variance with her character that its attribution would impute to her the manners of a semi-Italianised princess of the Valois race. There are besides no sufficient grounds for believing that her affections had for a moment been given to Coligny, though doubtless her innate tenderness must have been touched by his chivalrous love and devotion. Miossens, afterwards better known as Marshal d’Albret, next tried in vain to win a heart which had hitherto appeared insensible to the master-passion, but after an obstinate persistence was ultimately constrained to relinquish all hope. When, in 1645, M. de Longueville went as minister-plenipotentiary to the Congress of Münster, the young Duchess remained in Paris, her element being still the social sphere of the Court solely—a taste for political life not having yet been developed through the impulse of her affections. Let us here add that, notwithstanding the almost unanimous assertion of contemporaries at this period that even women could not behold Madame de Longueville without admiration, the heart of this preeminently gifted creature seems amidst the universal homage to have been proof against all and every repeated assault. Anne of Austria loved her but little, partly through a jealous feeling created by her singular beauty, partly from her great reputation for wit, and also from her perpetual wranglings for precedence with other princesses of the blood. In fact, in order to lose no tittle of the prerogatives derived from her birth, Madame de Longueville had obtained a royal brevet from the king which maintained her in the rank which she would have otherwise lost by her marriage. A pride so exacting does not appear to agree with the peculiar nonchalance that was one of her striking characteristics; but, later in life, when she had become devout and penitent, she took care to explain that seeming contradiction. “I have been defined,” said she, “as having, as it were, two individualities of opposite nature in me, and that I could interchange them at any moment; but that arose from the different situations in which I was placed, for I was dead, like unto the dead, to aught which slightly affected me, and keenly alive to the smallest things which interested me.” Reading and study were never among the things which stirred her into animation. Entirely occupied with her fascinations and individual sentiments, at no period of her life did she ever think of repairing the early neglect of her education. In this respect she was inferior, on the authority even of her apologists, to many ladies of the Court and city. Intoxicated as she had been by the fumes of the incense which flattery had wafted around her in the circle of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, she probably had no perception of her failings on that essential point. The spontaneity of her wit, her natural aptitude to comprehend and decide upon all sorts of questions, made up for her deficiency in that kind of information which is acquired from books and other modes of study, and often stood her in good stead, both on the part of her detractors and of her partisans, of the lofty characteristics of “great genius.” M. Cousin, who is by no means severe as regards the errors or demerits of the Duchess, says that “she did not know how to write.” Mademoiselle de Montpensier and Madame de Motteville, however, both express the very opposite opinion. The first remarks, speaking of the Countess de Maure:—“The precision and the polish of her style would be incomparable if Madame de Longueville had never written.” The second declares that “this lady has ever written as well as any one living.” The fact is, so far as may be judged from those of her letters which have come down to us, that Madame de Longueville’s style bore the reflex of her conversation: there are some passages very remarkable in their force, some phrases altogether trite and insignificant. This opinion is quite beside the consideration of her diction in a grammatical point of view. In her written as in her spoken language, she seems to have been impassive or to have kindled into animation according as her thoughts were “dead or living,” to use her own phrase. Speaking and writing, however, are two very different things, both requiring an especial cultivation; and as Madame de Longueville was defective in anything like what is termed “regular education“ or “sound instruction,” that fact became apparent so soon as she took her pen in hand. Her great natural endowments shone on paper with difficulty, through faults of every kind which escaped her notice. It is really no small gift to be able to express one’s sentiments and ideas in their natural order, and with all their true and various shades, in terms neither too homely nor far-fetched, or which neither enfeeble nor exaggerate them. It is by no means rare to meet with men in society remarkable for intelligence, nerve, and grace when they speak, but who become unintelligible when they commit their thoughts to writing. The fact is, that writing is an art—a very difficult art, and one which must be carefully learned. Madame de Longueville was ignorant of this, as were some of the most eminent women of her time. There exists unquestionable evidence to prove that the Princess Palatine was a person of large intelligence, who was able to hold her own with men of the greatest capacity. De Retz and Bossuet tell us so. Some letters of the Palatine, however, are extant in which, whilst there is no lack of solidity, refinement, and ingenuity of thought, it will be seen that they often abound with errors, obscure phraseology, and not unfrequently outrageously violate even the commonest rules of orthography. It must not, however, by any means be inferred from this that the Palatine had not a mind of the first order, but only that she had not been trained to render clearly and fittingly her ideas and sentiments in writing. Madame de Longueville had been no better taught. Therefore all that has been said about her on this score must be restricted, alike as to the defects of her education and the brilliancy of her genius. With those Frenchwomen who have written at once largely and loosely, it is pleasant to contrast their contemporaries, Madame de Sévigné and Madame la Fayette, both of whom always wrote well.
In the first place, these two admirable ladies had received quite another sort of education to that of Madame de Longueville. They had had the advantage of being instructed by men of letters skilled in the art of teaching. Ménage was the chief instructor both of Mademoiselle de Rabutin and Mademoiselle de Lavergne—to call those accomplished letter-writers by their maiden names. Ménage trained them carefully in composition, correcting rigidly their themes, pointing out their errors, cultivating their happy instincts, and modelling and polishing their vein and style. That talented tutor appears also to have been their platonic adorer—more platonic indeed than he desired. In his verses he celebrated by turns la formosissima Laverna and la bellissima Marchesa di Sevigni, and his lessons were doubtless given con amore.
Nature had been lavish indeed in all her gifts to the latter, giving her a precision and solidity allied to an inexhaustible playfulness and sparkling vivacity. Art, in her, wedded to genius, resulted in that incomparable epistolary style which left Balzac and Voiture far away behind her, and which Voltaire himself even has not surpassed.
We must now speak of him who was destined to bias, sway, and finally determine the future course of Madame de Longueville’s life through the conquest of her heart and mind—La Rochefoucauld—the man who induced her to embark with him on the stormy sea of politics, whose irresistible tide swept her past the landmarks of loyalty and reputability to make shipwreck, amongst the rocks and shoals of civil war, of fame, fortune, and domestic happiness.