Women of Modern France

by Hugo P. Thieme

France at this time, 1648, was in a position to gain for herself a peace with the world at her own terms, and her future seemed to be without a cloud. It was the Fronde that checked her growth and glory, and the cause of this was the estrangement of the house of Condé through the action of Mme. de Longueville in passing with her husband over to the party of the Importants, she being the first of her family to forsake the government. Under the leadership of La Rochefoucauld, she cast her lot with the opposing party, allowing herself to be identified with the interests of those who had endeavored to tarnish her early reputation. Becoming a leader with Mme. de Chevreuse and Mme. de Montbazon (her rival), she easily won over her young brother, the Prince de Conti. After the imprisonment of her husband and her two brothers, she began her real career as a woman of tactics, politics, and generalship.

With the connivance of Mme. de Chevreuse and the Princess Palatine, a general plan had been formed to create a new government by the union of the aristocracy. The marriage, already spoken of, between the Duke of Enghien and one of the daughters of the Duke of Orléans and that arranged between the Prince of Conti and the daughter of Mme. de Chevreuse were to have united the Fronde with the house of Condé. The alliances, however, were declared off, and Mme. de Chevreuse went over to the cardinal and the queen; Condé's fall and Mazarin's success followed, being the result, mainly, of the determination of Mme. de Chevreuse to avenge herself upon Condé for having consented to the breaking of the marriage contracts.

Mme. de Longueville did all in her power to continue the conflict that Condé had undertaken, but, exhausted by continual excitement and ill success, she was compelled to retire. After this, her life, spent in Normandy, at the Carmelites' convent and at Port Royal, became a long penance, which increased in austerity until she died in 1679. Thus, her career was at first one of unblemished brilliancy, then a period of elegant and intellectual debauch, and finally one of expiation.

"Her politics," says Sainte-Beuve, "considered in the ensemble, are nothing more than a desire to please, to shine—a capricious love. Her character lacked consistency and self-will, her mind was keen, ready, subtle, ingenious, but not reasonable."

In her convent life, her crowning virtue was humility. Her enemies did not cease to attack her, but she received all their affronts with the noblest resignation. The following testimonies are taken from a Jansenist manuscript of 1685:

"She never said anything to her own advantage. She made use of as many occasions as she could find for humiliating herself without any affectation. What she said, she said so well that it could not be better said. She listened much, never interrupted, and never showed any eagerness to speak. She spoke sensibly, modestly, charitably, and without passion. To court her was to speak with equity and without passion of everyone and to esteem the good in all. Her whole exterior, her voice, her face, her gestures, were a perfect music; and her mind and body served her so well in expressing what she wished to make heard, that she appeared the most perfect actress in the world."

Her love for La Rochefoucauld was the secret of her failure in life. When she experienced the disappointments of her married life and discovered that her dream of being loved by her husband could not be realized, she looked to other sources for diversion. She was not an intriguing woman like Mme. de Chevreuse, but one of ambitions which were incited by her love for and interest in the objects of her affection. Although she carried on flirtations with Coligny and the Duke of Nemours, she really loved no one but La Rochefoucauld, to whom she sacrificed her reputation and tranquillity, her duties and interests. For him she took up the cause of the Fronde; for him she was a mere slave, her entire existence being given up to his love, his whims, his service; when he failed her, she was lost, exhausted, and retired to a convent at the age of thirty-five and in the full bloom of her beauty. Her professed lover simply used her as a means to an end, seeking only his own interests in the Fronde, while she sought his; and this is the explanation of her seeming inconsistency of conduct. In her religious life she was happy and contented; surrounded by her friends, she lived peacefully for over twenty years.

Thus, Marie de' Medici, a foreigner, Mme. de Chevreuse, and Mme. de Longueville represent the political women of the first half of the seventeenth century; Anne of Austria, who was of foreign extraction, was a mere tool in the hands of Mazarin, and exerted little influence in general.

One of the principal differences between the conspicuous political women of the sixteenth and those of the seventeenth centuries lies in the possession by the latter of less personal force than that wielded by the former, who allowed nothing to thwart their plans. The women of both periods were beautiful, but those of the earlier one were of a magnetic and sensual type, "inspiring insensate passions and exciting a feverish unrest," thus ruling man through his lower instincts. The lack of refinement, sympathy, and charity reflected in their actions is in glaring contrast to the dignity, repose, reserve, and womanly modesty and grace displayed by their less masterful successors of the seventeenth century.