[21]Mémoires de la Regence d'Anne d'Autriche, par le duc de la Rochefoucauld.
[22]It is well known that the history of the troubles of the Fronde is recounted by a variety of eye-witnesses, no two of which agree in their account of motives—scarcely of facts. Cardinal de Retz, in his memoirs, gives a somewhat different account of the adhesion of madame de Longueville to his party. It is singular to remark how each person in his relation makes himself the prime mover. Rochefoucauld makes us to almost understand that he drew over the princess to the Fronde. The cardinal tells us that, seeing madame de Longueville one day by chance, he conceived a hope, soon realised, of bringing her over to his party. He tells us that at that time M. de la Rochefoucauld was attached to her. He was living at Poitou; but came to Paris about three weeks afterwards; and thus Rochefoucauld and De Retz were brought together. The former had been accused of deserting his party, which rendered De Retz at first disinclined to join with him; but these accusations were unfounded, and necessity brought them much together. The cardinal allows that madame de Longueville had no natural love for politics,—she was too indolent;—anger, arising from her elder brother's treatment, first led her to wish to oppose his party; gallantry led her onward; and this causing party spirit to be but the second of her motives, instead of being a heroine, she became an adventuress.
[23]Rochefoucauld's Mémoires; Mémoires de Gourville; James's Life and Times of Louis XIV.
[24]Mémoires du duc de Rochefoucauld.
[25]Cardinal de Retz relates a scene in which he spoke disparagingly of Rochefoucauld. He supposes that this was reported to the duke: "I know not whether this was the case," he says; "but I could never discover any other cause for the first hatred that M. de la Rochefoucauld conceived against me."
[26]Cardinal de Retz, in describing this scene, declares that Rochefoucauld called out to Coligny and Recousse to kill De Retz, as he held him pinned in the doorway: they refused; while a partisan of the coadjutor came to his aid, and, representing that it was a shame and a horror to commit such an assassination, Rochefoucauld allowed the door to open. Joly relates the occurrence in the same manner; and, although a little softened in expression, the duke's account does not materially differ.
[27]The couplet, written by Rochefoucauld at the bottom of a portrait of the duchess de Longueville is well known.
"Pour mériter son cœur, pour plaire à ses beaux yeux,
J'ai fait la guerre aux rois: je l'aurois faite aux dieux."
When he quarrelled with her, after his wound in the combat of the fauxbourg de St. Antoine, he parodied it.
"Pour ce cœur inconstant, qu'enfin je connois mieux,
J'ai fait la guerre aux rois; j'en ai perdu les yeux."