What could be more diverting? The Duke de Lorraine—that restless knight-errant who preferred amusing himself with civil war to the quiet enjoyment of his throne—amused the noble ladies of his acquaintance with a recital of these pleasant incidents; his gallant army, he said, was quite a providence for the old women....
After further pursuing his appalling statistics of the misery and horrors inflicted by the Fronde at a later date, M. Feillet remarks:—“And yet, notwithstanding all this suffering, which we have only cursorily sketched, at Court nothing else was thought of but fêtes and diversions; for the young and brilliant bevy of Mazarin’s nieces had come to increase the circle of beauties whom the youthful King and his gay courtiers vied with each other in paying homage to, and entertaining. The warm attachment of Louis for more than one of his Minister’s nieces, and especially Marie de Mancini, is well known. In imitation of their Sovereign, the youthful nobility and a large portion of the city gallants plunged into unrestrained dissipation—intervals of licentiousness ever succeeding like periods of turbulence and anarchy. Such heartless indifference to the sufferings of the people on the part of the King and his Court evoked the following couplet, which was put into the mouth of Louis by a contemporary pamphleteer:—
“Si la France est en deuil, qu’elle pleure et soupire;
Pour moi, je veux chasser, galantiser et rire.”
But we are somewhat anticipating events, and therefore return to them in the order of time.
FOOTNOTES:
[77] “La Rochefoucauld, depuis assez longtemps ayant envie de la quitter, prit cette occasion avec joie.”—Mad. de Nemours, p. 150.
[78] La Rochefoucauld, edition 1662, p. 198.
[79] Mad. de Nemours, pp. 149, 150.
[80] La Misère dans la Fronde.